The Woman Rebel "No Gods, No Masters"

Friday Night Fun and Culture: The Wailin' Jennys

2012-01-27T20:21:00.000-06:00

2012-01-27T17:36:00.002-06:00

Nazi (GOP) Tennessee State Senator Stacey Campfield Blood Libels Gay Men

2012-01-27T17:35:00.000-06:00

Just when you thought it was impossible for the Nazis formerly known as Republicans to stoop much lower in their denigrating, scapegoating and abuse of LGBT/T people along comes yet another storm trooper/concentration camp guard wannabee to drag the discourse even lower.

The right wing Nazi scum have turned LGBT/T people into their Jews, second class citizens to be blamed for their own immorality and short comings.

But Muslims, Jews and people of color shouldn't rest comfortably, thinking, "Oh it's only the queers and not our concern." You see the lesson history teaches is that when the Nazis come to power it may start with the queers or another chosen targeted group but eventual it comes down to minority ethnic, racial or religious groups.

As an Anti-Fascist I do not hesitate to call a Nazi a Nazi. I don't give a shit if they don't match the German Nazis of the 30s-40s exactly. After all left wingers in this country are called communists and compared to Pol Pot for suggesting equality between the races, an end to the abuse of women, equality for LGBT/T people and a Public Health Insurance option. They should have considered that not all left wingers are sniveling pacifists who respond to right wing threats by chanting, "Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Dalai Lama."

So Nazi Boy... I'm calling you on your filthy lie. Your Blood Libel.

You are not only unfit for office. You are unfit to be an American.

Tenn. Pol: AIDS Came From Gay Guy Having Monkey Sex

From Newser: http://www.newser.com/story/138400/tenn-pol-aids-came-from-gay-guy-having-monkey-sex.html

Stacey Campfield does himself no favors while defending 'Don't Say Gay' bill

By Kate Schwartz, Newser Staff
Posted Jan 26, 2012

Newser) – The Tennessee lawmaker behind the "Don't Say Gay" bill that cleared the state Senate earlier this year is getting a lot of attention for comments he made in defense of the legislation. And it's not good attention. In a SiriusXM interview with Michelangelo Signorile published on the Huffington Post, state Sen. Stacey Campfield justified his bill by, among other things, explaining that AIDS came from "one guy screwing a monkey." The interview covers more of Campfield's thoughts on AIDS, bullying, and homosexuality, which Tennessee schools would not be able to discuss under his bill:

Complete article at: http://www.newser.com/story/138400/tenn-pol-aids-came-from-gay-guy-having-monkey-sex.html

Tennessee Rep. Says It’s ‘Virtually Impossible’ To Contract AIDS Through Heterosexual Sex

From Addicting Info: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/01/26/tennessee-rep-says-its-virtually-impossible-to-contract-aids-through-heterosexual-sex/

By Wendy Gittleson
January 26, 2012

Rarely a day goes by anymore when we don’t read a particularly bigoted comment aimed toward the LGBT community. It fills so many headlines that if it wasn’t so terrifying, especially to those who are bullied, it would almost be boring. Just today, our own Mitch Gilbert reportedthat a Tennessee Rep., John Ragan told him that:

“A person is a heterosexual because of the presence of genitalia of one sex or the other. No one except a very few with an exceedingly rare congenital deformity have both kinds of genitalia.”

Apparently, biology isn’t required study in Tennessee’s high schools, because another Tennessee GOP lawmaker, Sen. Stacey Campfield said this today (from Raw Story):

“Most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community,” he told Michelangelo Signorile, who hosts a radio program on SiriusXM OutQ. “It was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall.”

“My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex.”

Continue reading at: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/01/26/tennessee-rep-says-its-virtually-impossible-to-contract-aids-through-heterosexual-sex/

Shit San Franciscans Say

2012-01-27T00:55:00.002-06:00

Zombie banks are dragging Ireland into the ground

2012-01-27T00:53:00.000-06:00

From The Guardian UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/24/zombie-banks-ireland-debts-cancelled

Just like many African nations, Ireland's debts must be cancelled or a 'financial bomb' will go off in its most deprived communities

Nick Dearden guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 24 January 2012

Activists more accustomed to campaigning against the debts of countries like Zimbabwe, Egypt, Ecuador and Indonesia were instead outside the Irish embassy this morning. Dressed as zombies, we hoped to shed some light on the so-called "zombie banks" whose debts continue to drain resources from an Irish public sector that is being slashed to the bone.

Ireland's financial crisis has much in common with scores of countries across the developing world. The country has been brought to its knees by an enormous debt, which originated not with excessive public spending, but a footloose financial sector that gambled with the future of the country. Without so much as a vote, Ireland's people found themselves on the hook for tens of billions of euros of reckless investments.

The ultimate symbol of this form of crony capitalism in Ireland is Anglo Irish, the bank that started Ireland's slide into the abyss. Anglo Irish lent vast sums of money to fuel Ireland's property bubble, in the process making fortunes for rich speculators. Anglo is believed to have 15 customers who owe the bank more than €500m each.

When the bubble burst, the Irish government stepped in to underwrite the bank – ultimately being forced to nationalise it. This disastrous decision was not based on any assessment of the use of Anglo to the economy. Economics professor Morgan Kelly said at the time that Anglo – as well as Irish Nationwide, which was also brought into public ownership – "were purely conduits for property speculation. They fulfil no role in the Irish economy." He said it would be "better to incinerate €1.5bn than squander it on Anglo Irish Bank".

Today Anglo Irish, rebranded as the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, is a zombie bank – a bankrupt institution that exists to channel government money to a group of bondholders who the Irish people can't know anything about, and who themselves were fuelling Ireland's increasingly speculative economy.

Continue reading at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/24/zombie-banks-ireland-debts-cancelled

'There will be riots on streets of America': George Soros predicts class war in U.S. as euro triggers collapse of global economy

2012-01-27T00:49:00.002-06:00

From The Daily Mail UK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2091190/George-Soros-predicts-U-S-riots-insists-Euro-saved-global-economy-collapse.html

Billionaire New York investor warns of impending economic meltdown
Backs euro and buys Italian bonds from Jon Corzine's failed MF Global
Warns it's 'difficult to know right decisions to make' after boom years
Supports Occupy Wall Street, Democrats and Obama re-election efforts

By Mark Duell
25th January 2012

Billionaire investor George Soros has warned the global economic system could collapse and riots on the streets of America are on the way.

The 81-year-old said he’d rather survive than stay rich as the world faces an ‘evil’ period and Europe fights a ‘descent into chaos and conflict’.

He has backed the euro, bought $2billion in European bonds and insisted the economic climate is similar to the 1930s Great Depression.

‘The euro must survive because the alternative - a breakup - would cause a meltdown that Europe, the world, can’t afford,’ he told Newsweek.

‘The situation is about as serious and difficult as I’ve experienced in my career. We are facing now a general retrenchment in the developed world.’

A Ballot Push to Legalize Marijuana, With Alcohol as the Role Model

2012-01-27T00:48:00.002-06:00

From The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/us/a-ballot-push-to-legalize-marijuana-with-alcohol-as-the-role-model.html

By KIRK JOHNSON

Published: January 26, 2012

DENVER — Proponents of marijuana have argued for years that the drug is safer than alcohol, both to individuals and society. But a ballot proposal to legalize possession of marijuana in small amounts in Colorado, likely to be on the November ballot, is putting the two intoxicants back into the same sentence, urging voters to “regulate marijuana like alcohol,” as the ballot proposition’s title puts it.

Given alcohol’s long and checkered history — the tens of thousands of deaths each year, the social ravages of alcoholism — backers of the pro-marijuana measure concede there is a risk of looking as if they have cozied up too much, or are comparable, to old demon rum.

“Why add another vice, right?” said Mason Tvert, a co-director of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, which has led the ballot drive. “But we’re not adding a vice; we’re providing an alternative.”

The goal of legalization, Mr. Tvert added, is not to make access to marijuana easier, but rather, “to make our communities safer by regulating this substance, taking it out of the underground market, controlling it and better keeping it away from young people.”

The debate here and in Washington State — where members of a pro-legalization group have also submitted what they say are more than enough signatures to secure a spot on the ballot — is premised on the idea that marijuana has become, if not quite mainstream, then at least no longer alien to the average voter. Medical marijuana is already legal in both states.

Continue reading at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/us/a-ballot-push-to-legalize-marijuana-with-alcohol-as-the-role-model.html

Rick Santorum Says The Left Uses Colleges For 'Indoctrination'

2012-01-27T00:41:00.000-06:00

From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/26/rick-santorum-says-the-le_n_1233820.html?1327598453&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

01/26/2012

According to Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, America has lost not only its entertainment industry, but also its higher education system. "Higher education was the first to go, a long time ago," he said.

While speaking at the First Baptist Church in Naples, Florida on Wednesday, Santorum claimed that the Left uses universities to "indoctrinate" young people for the end purpose of maintaining power. "It's no wonder President Obama wants every kid to go to college," he said.

He also argued that colleges and universities would receive no funding if they taught Judeo-Christian principles, but by teaching radical secular ideology, these schools are given government backing. He then asserted that 62 percent of young people who enter college with a set of religious beliefs leave without one. The presidential candidate concluded his speech by urging his audience not to give their money to universities that are undermining that country by spreading left-wing ideology.

Complete article at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/26/rick-santorum-says-the-le_n_1233820.html?1327598453&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

Why Evangelicals Don't Care When Rich White Conservatives Defile Marriage

2012-01-27T00:37:00.000-06:00

From Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/sex/153893/why_evangelicals_don%27t_care_when_rich_white_conservatives_defile_marriage/

Gingrich doesn’t live by the strict sexual rules laid out by conservatives, because those rules are meant for other people: the poor, Democrats, gays, and minorities.

By Amanda Marcotte
January 25, 2012

Newt Gingrich’s win in the South Carolina primary looks like it may not be an outlier; Gingrich’s poll numbers are rising rapidly in Florida, and he has a good chance of beating Romney there as well. Gingrich is doing well in no small part because he has so much support amongst evangelical Christians; so much so that many evangelical leaders refused to go along with an attempt to unify the Christian right behind Santorum.

In South Carolina, evangelical Christians voted for Gingrich 2-to-1 over boring family man Mitt Romney. For anyone who takes seriously the notion that evangelical Christians actually care about things like family and fidelity, this support for Gingrich is baffling, since he has a history of serial adultery that he barely bothers to disavow. But a closer examination of the situation makes clear what’s going on: for the Republican base, “family values” don’t actually matter, but are just a gloss painted over what really motivates them: reactionary rage. They love Gingrich because he’s a flaming ball of rage they can wield against everyone they hate.

The sexual double standard is the most obvious way the us vs. them mentality works. There’s nothing the modern American conservative loves more than to decry our country's supposedly declining sexual morals. Once the Republicans swept state legislatures and the House of Representatives, punishing sexual freedom became their number one priority, which manifested in nearly 1,000 bills restricting reproductive rights in state legislatures and a bill attacking private insurance funding of abortion in the House. Eventually, House Republicans threatened to shut down the federal government in order to defund family planning clinics, basically because they’re in the business of providing contraception and STD prevention and treatment. All this while the base continues to push abstinence-only and reject gay marriage on the grounds that it’s not “traditional.” But when it comes to a serial adulterer like Gingrich, he gets a pass. After all, he’s one of theirs, and if you’re in the tribe, you get a lot more leeway.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the reaction to Marianne Gingrich sticking her head out, as she periodically does, to remind the world of what a terrible man her ex-husband is. This time she added the juicy detail that Newt basically demanded that he get to have both his wife and his mistress at the same time. It was a reminder that while this flagrant cheating was going on, Gingrich was repeatedly moralizing in public over President Clinton’s adultery. To this day, the GOP base still regards Clinton as some kind of perverted sex maniac. But Gingrich? Well, during the South Carolina debate when Marianne’s interview with ABC was brought up, the audience loudly booed the mere mention of her name. For the Republican base, Gingrich not only gets to cheat, he also gets to flaunt it in his wife’s face; but a Democrat like Clinton’s more secretive and brief affairs are unforgivable.

Continue reading at: http://www.alternet.org/sex/153893/why_evangelicals_don%27t_care_when_rich_white_conservatives_defile_marriage/

The Newt is a cold-blooded creature

2012-01-27T00:29:00.000-06:00

From Socialist Worker: http://socialistworker.org/2012/01/23/a-cold-blooded-creature

How many times will he be exposed as a fraud and fanatic, only to rise, zombie-like, from the political grave?

Nicole Colson and Alan Maass are afraid to guess.
January 23, 2012

NEWT GINGRICH and his toxic brew of bigotry and reaction are back in the limelight following a resounding victory in the January 21 Republican primary in South Carolina.

Despite trailing in the polls by double-digit margins less than a week before, Gingrich handily beat frontrunner Mitt Romney, with 40.4 percent of the vote to Romney's 27.8 percent. Now Romney, who hoped to sew up the nomination with a win in South Carolina, will have to continue on to Florida at the end of the month, and perhaps other primary contests as well.

So how did a man who was so universally despised in the late 1990s that he was forced to resign as Speaker of the House--and whose campaign for the Republican presidential nomination once before shot to the front of the pack, only to collapse--claw his way back one more time?

Part of the answer lies in the weakness of the other candidates for the GOP nomination. The field of contenders vying for the affections of the Republican Right has been crowded, but one after another--Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and now Rick Santorum--has scrambled into the spotlight, only to crumble after a few weeks. Ron Paul has a fanatical following among libertarians, but nothing more. That leaves Romney, who is generally despised by large numbers of conservatives for being "too liberal"--even though he is nothing of the sort, as he has sought desperately to prove.

Continue Reading at: http://socialistworker.org/2012/01/23/a-cold-blooded-creature

Gingrich: Gay Marriage a 'Perfect Example of What I Mean by the Rise of Paganism'

2012-01-27T00:26:00.000-06:00

America: Whose "Moral Enterprise?"

2012-01-27T00:25:00.000-06:00

From RH Reality Check: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/01/25/america-doesnt-want-gops-god-in-office-1

by mycultlife, My Cult Life

January 26, 2012

I'm part of a growing movement of men and women who've left Christian fundamentalism. Yes, it's possible to leave Crazy Town and we are absolutely enjoying all that life has to offer outside of a movement that controlled our lives, but most importantly controlled our minds.

Lately I've been writing about the abuse that I experienced in my fundamentalist group, which is a group my therapist labeled a"cult"(The politically correct and academic term is 'new religious group' although I feel that term doesmoreto protect the abusive and destructive groups from the government than it does to protect victims. More on that later.). Along with leaving a cult, or destructive group, comes many challenges: immersion into "normal" society, behaviors and media;ostracism from old friends and the loneliness that comes from that process; and a struggle to maintain faith in God that often comes from duty, obligation and fear. For those who depart from their faith in God, like me and many of us (perhaps because our spiritual abusers convinced us that theywereGod; perhaps because we've seen the inside of a dark temple), the road to labeling yourself atheist or agnostic is riddled with fear of judgement, secrecy and finally gaining your own footing with your new set of beliefs.

To me, it's less important whether I'm labeled an atheist or agnostic or spiritual because none of those labels accurately describe me. What is important to me is that I'm not labeled a Christian, and there's a clear distinction between my ethics and beliefs and those of modern day fundamentalism. Because I don't endorse gay bashing, homophobia, removing women's rights/voices or controlling women's bodies, I've become sort of staunchly liberal. I'm that annoying political friend on Facebook who's always sharing her liberal news articles with you. The one I'd be tempted to delete, if she were Conservative. There you have it--I'm a hypocrite but a happy one.

All joking aside, upon recent examination of the rhetoric and ideologies of the GOP candidates, I realized that they have been spouting some of the same ideology as my old abusive spiritual leaders. The other day, as I was watching Newt Gingrich accept his win in South Carolina he began bashing a judge for making a secular decision, calling him an "anti-religious bigot." Many of the candidates beliefs stem from a faith in God that's more similar to fundamentalism than to anything else. For example, Rick Santorum, who's been known to say some off-the-wall things lately,recently said:

Continue reading at: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/01/25/america-doesnt-want-gops-god-in-office-1

By Axing Parks, Politicos Are Stealing the People's Property

2012-01-27T00:24:00.000-06:00

From Creators.com: http://www.creators.com/opinion/jim-hightower/by-axing-parks-politicos-are-stealing-the-people-s-property.html

Jim Hightower

January 23, 2012

"Sorry, we're closed." In one of the saddest signs of the times, this message is popping up all across the country, as governors and legislators are cutting off funds (and shutting off access) to one of the finest, most popular assets owned by the people of our country: state parks.

More than 6,600 of these jewels draw some 700 million visitors a year to their grand vistas, historic sites, abundant wildlife, majestic forests, cascading waters, expansive beaches, nature trails, campgrounds, educational centers and lodges. Parks are a tangible expression of America's democratic ideals, literally a common ground for every man, woman and child to enjoy, learn, absorb ... or just be. Especially for the middle class and the poor — the great majority of our people who can't jet off to luxury resorts for a getaway for vacation — these spaces offer a form of real wealth, something of great value that each of us literally "owns," knitting us together as a community and nation.

Yet so many spiritually shriveled, small-minded and short-sighted state officials are snuffing out this invaluable, uniting social force. They are stupidly treating parks as nothing but a budget number or a piece of the "nanny state" to be axed in the name of ideological purity. Worse, they are sacrificing parks in order to keep the tax-dodging moneyed elites who pay for their campaigns from paying even a dime more in taxes.

The majority of states have been closing many of their parks, slashing hours and services at others or simply handing the public's asset to profiteering corporations. Idaho's governor has proposed eliminating the entire parks department; California shut the gates of a fourth of the state's parks last year; officials in Arizona and Florida intend to privatize their parks; Washington state has cut off most of its park funding; and Ohio has okayed oil drilling in its parks to replace state financing.

Continue reading at: http://www.creators.com/opinion/jim-hightower/by-axing-parks-politicos-are-stealing-the-people-s-property.html

Occupy is back -- with horns and glitter

2012-01-27T00:23:00.000-06:00

From San Francisco Bay Guardian: http://www.sfbg.com/2012/01/24/occupy-back-horns-and-glitter?page=0%2C0

An energetic day of action shows that the movement is very much alive

Yael Chanoff

01.24.12

On Jan. 20, hundreds of activists converged on the Financial District in a day that showed a reinvigorated and energized Occupy movement.

The day of action was deemed "Occupy Wall Street West." Despite pouring rain, the numbers swelled to 1,200 by early evening.

Critics have said that the Occupy movement is disorganized and lacks a clear message. Some have decried its supposed lack of unity. Others have even declared it dead.

But the broad coalition of community organizations that came together to send a message focused on the abuses of housing rights by corporations and the 1 percent sent a clear message:

The movement is very much alive.

Continue reading at: http://www.sfbg.com/2012/01/24/occupy-back-horns-and-glitter?page=0%2C0

Occupy Wall Street West shuts down banks!

2012-01-27T00:22:00.000-06:00

From Liberation: http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/occupy-wall-street-west-shuts.html

Militant protest targets capitalism

By William West

January 26, 2012

In response to the coordinated assaults on the Occupy encampments, the Bay Area Occupy movement declared Jan. 20 to be “Occupy Wall Street West”—a shutdown of San Francisco's financial district. Due to a large turnout, the San Francisco headquarters of three of the largest banks in the nation were forced to close for the day.

Despite pouring rain, protesters were already busy as early as 6 a.m. when activists, including members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, blocked the entrance to the Goldman Sachs building in downtown San Francisco. A breakfast of grilled squid was served, as the company has been described as a “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.”

Between 7 and 9 a.m., hundreds of Occupy protesters set up camps in front of the downtown headquarters of Wells Fargo, Chase and Bank of America, making it impossible for employees to enter and for the banks to open. They remained closed the entire day. At times, police attempted to break up the occupations but were met with militant resistance and driven back.

At 8 a.m., the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), of which PSL is a member, organized a shutdown of a Bank of America branch at Powell Square, one of the busiest intersections in the city.

Outside the bank, ANSWER speakers noted how the 2008 bailouts of the largest banks, overseen by both the Bush and Obama administrations, had handed over billions in taxpayer money to parasitic financial institutions, when that money could have been paid back to the workers in the form of investments in education, housing and jobs.

Continue reading at: http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/occupy-wall-street-west-shuts.html

World Economy on the Brink of Disaster?

2012-01-27T00:20:00.000-06:00

How Swedes and Norwegians broke the power of the ‘1 percent’

2012-01-27T00:15:00.002-06:00

From Waging Non-Violence: http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/01/how-swedes-and-norwegians-broke-the-power-of-the-1-percent/

by George Lakey

January 25, 2012

While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different.

Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the Swedes didn’t find oil, but that didn’t stop them from building what the latest CIA World Factbook calls “an enviable standard of living.”

Neither country is a utopia, as readers of the crime novels by Stieg Larsson, Kurt Wallender and Jo Nesbro will know. Critical left-wing authors such as these try to push Sweden and Norway to continue on the path toward more fully just societies. However, as an American activist who first encountered Norway as a student in 1959 and learned some of its language and culture, the achievements I found amazed me. I remember, for example, bicycling for hours through a small industrial city, looking in vain for substandard housing. Sometimes resisting the evidence of my eyes, I made up stories that “accounted for” the differences I saw: “small country,” “homogeneous,” “a value consensus.” I finally gave up imposing my frameworks on these countries and learned the real reason: their own histories.

Then I began to learn that the Swedes and Norwegians paid a price for their standards of living through nonviolent struggle. There was a time when Scandinavian workers didn’t expect that the electoral arena could deliver the change they believed in. They realized that, with the 1 percent in charge, electoral “democracy” was stacked against them, so nonviolent direct action was needed to exert the power for change.

Continue reading at: http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/01/how-swedes-and-norwegians-broke-the-power-of-the-1-percent/

Male Rape Victims: Men Struggle for Rape Awareness

2012-01-26T13:00:00.000-06:00

It is time to retire the practice of making jokes about men being subjected to rape in prison.

Rape is wrong and a horrible crime. It doesn't matter if the person being raped is male or female, gay, adult or child, straight, lesbian or trans. It is a monstrous violation of a person's being and should never ever be wished upon another person.

The recent rewriting of the rape laws should expand the definition of rape to include forms of rape that were previously classified as "sexual assault", a charge with a history of being treated less seriously than rape.

From The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/health/as-victims-men-struggle-for-rape-awareness.html?_r=4

By RONI CARYN RABIN

Published: January 23, 2012

Keith Smith was 14 when he was raped by a driver who picked him up after a hockey team meeting. He had hitchhiked home, which is why, for decades, he continued to blame himself for the assault.

When the driver barreled past Hartley’s Pork Pies on the outskirts of Providence, R.I., where Mr. Smith had asked to be dropped off, and then past a firehouse, he knew something was wrong.

“I tried to open the car door, but he had rigged the lock,” said Mr. Smith, of East Windsor, N.J., now 52. Still, he said, “I had no idea it was going to be a sexual assault.”

Even today, years after the disclosure of the still-unfolding child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church and the arrest of a former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach accused of sexually abusing boys, rape is widely thought of as a crime against women.

Until just a few weeks ago, when the federal government expanded its definition of rape to include a wider range of sexual assaults, national crime statistics on rape included only assaults against women and girls committed by men under a narrow set of circumstances. Now they will also include male victims.

While most experts agree women are raped far more often than men, 1.4 percent of men in a recent national survey said they had been raped at some point. The study, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that when rape was defined as oral or anal penetration, one in 71 men said they had been raped or had been the target of attempted rape, usually by a man they knew. (The study did not include men in prison.)

Continue reading at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/health/as-victims-men-struggle-for-rape-awareness.html?_r=4

Breast Cancer Behind Bars: How a Prison Sentence Can Become a Death Sentence

2012-01-26T12:45:00.001-06:00

From Truth Out: http://www.truth-out.org/breast-cancer-behind-bars-how-prison-sentence-can-become-death-sentence/1326504683

by: Victoria Law

Wednesday 25 January 2012

Imagine finding a lump in your breast. Imagine that your efforts to schedule a medical check-up are stymied and you have to wait weeks, if not months, for that initial exam. In the meantime, the lump continues to grow. Imagine that, when you finally do see a doctor, you are told that you have breast cancer. When you walk out of the office, you are locked into your prison cell with no more information or sympathy than when you walked in. This is the daily reality for women in prison.

In 2006, a Department of Justice (DOJ) study found that women in prison are at significantly greater risk for cancer than their male counterparts. Out of every 10,000 incarcerated women, 831 had cancer, compared to 108 per 10,000 men. Of those, 91 of every 10,000 women behind bars reported having had or currently having breast cancer. Given that 114,979 women were behind bars at the end of 2009, this would mean that over 1,000 women have had or currently have breast cancer.

Despite these numbers, prevention, screening, diagnosis, care, pain alleviation and rehabilitation for breast cancer remain virtually nonexistent in prisons. In 1998, a study at an unnamed Southern prison found that, although many were at high risk because of family histories, women were not provided with a clinical breast exam, information or basic education on self-examination upon admittance. Seventy percent of women who should have had mammograms under standard medical procedure had never been tested. [Williams, Roma D, Terry D. Mahoney, and R. M. Williams, Jr, "Breast Cancer Detection Among Women Prisoners in the Southern United States," Family & Community Health 21.3 (1998): 32.] Even women who enter prison already diagnosed with cancer must fight to receive lifesaving medical care.

Fifty-two-year-old Margaret DeLuca had already been diagnosed with stage 3A breast cancer and undergone a left-breast mastectomy before arriving at Clinton Correctional Facility in New Jersey. "She knew exactly what she needed, but was unable to get it," stated Bonnie Kerness, a human rights advocate and coordinator of the American Friends Service Committee's (AFSC) Prison Watch Project, who helped DeLuca fight for proper medical care. Their advocacy resulted in incremental improvements in DeLuca's medical care but did not change the prison's health care system. [Interview with Bonnie Kerness, December 28, 2011]

Continue reading at: http://www.truth-out.org/breast-cancer-behind-bars-how-prison-sentence-can-become-death-sentence/1326504683

Shit People Say In LA

2012-01-26T00:41:00.002-06:00

A Milestone Birthday for Planet Earth

2012-01-26T00:39:00.000-06:00

From Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/25-10

by Peter Bosshard

Published on Wednesday, January 25, 2012 by Common Dreams

Milestone birthdays are opportunities to take stock of our family, health and financial situation. So how is Planet Earth doing 20 years after the Earth Summit, the historic UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro? The planet’s economic output has more than doubled since 1992. Some members of the global family are doing extremely well, but the number of hungry people is increasing. And the planet’s health is steadily deteriorating, with vital ecosystems nearing the point of collapse.

We can celebrate milestone birthdays with empty rhetoric, or we can use them to change course. Twenty years ago, governments adopted resolutions that aimed to bring the global community into social, environmental and economic balance. They resolved to follow basic rules of global housekeeping such as the precautionary principle, the internalization of environmental costs, and the polluter-pays principle. They prepared a specific roadmap of global change in the Agenda 21. And most of them made binding commitments by signing the conventions on biodiversity and climate change.

Looking back, we have failed to live up to our resolutions and commitments as a global community. We can’t relive the past, but as we prepare for the Rio+20 summit in June, we have another chance to take stock and change course. Unfortunately world leaders have so far not risen to the challenge. The draft document for the Rio+20 summit, which governments are currently discussing in New York, is devoid of substance and ambition. Entitled, The Future We Want, it contains no honest analysis, few specific recommendations, and no binding commitments. Instead, it tries to hide its lack of ambition with vague concepts such as a new Green Economy.

In the water sector – the area I know best – there are indeed measures that could improve the planet’s economic and ecological health at the same time. We could start by dramatically improving the water efficiency of our existing infrastructure and agriculture. We could safeguard vital ecosystems and the services that they provide by protecting free-flowing rivers and restoring environmental flows. We could phase out public funding for unsustainable agricultural practices, polluting industries and destructive dams. And we could redirect development aid towards the decentralized, small-scale technologies that strengthen the food, water and energy security of the poorest without destroying the environment.

Continue reading at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/25-10

Earth First! and Occupy protesters blockade bridge in front of GAIM conference

2012-01-26T00:33:00.000-06:00

From Earth First: https://earthfirstnews.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/earth-first-and-occupy-protestors-blockade-bridge-in-front-of-gaim-conference/

January 24, 2012

More arrests underway as conference is disrupted by activists inside the resort as well

Palm Beach County, Florida—Protesters from the Occupy movement and Everglades Earth First! blockaded a Boca Raton bridge yesterday, snarling rush hour traffic during a cocktail party of corporate investors at the GAIM USA 2012 conference. Among them was Ana Rodriguez, an editor of the Earth First! Journal, which is also published in Palm Beach County.

Using colorful lockboxes, three activists, laid on the bridge effectively stopping rush hour traffic from 5-6:30. Special operations police teams were called to the site to remove the lockdown devices that were linking the protesters together. The blockaders were cited with three charges, including: resisting without violence; obstructing a highway and violation of a municipal ordinance banning what the Boca police called “sleeping dragons.”

Two of the three arrested, Kevin Young and Don Carter from Occupy Miami, were released on their own recognizance. Ana Rodriguez was released today on a $1,500 bond, with the state attorney alleging that she was a flight risk to Venezuela, her country of origin.

“Every day we see corporate power destroying our communities. From environmental disasters to private prisons, corporations are operating with impunity,” said Ana Rodriguez before being arrested. “While the bank leaders drink cocktails and toast to increased profits, people across the globe are being hurt by corporate greed.”

Continue reading at: https://earthfirstnews.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/earth-first-and-occupy-protestors-blockade-bridge-in-front-of-gaim-conference/

Ralph Shortey, Oklahoma State Senator, Introduces Bill Banning Aborted Fetuses In Food

2012-01-26T00:29:00.002-06:00

From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/ralph-shortley-oklahoma-aborted-fetuses-food_n_1230414.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

Laura Bassett

01/25/2012

A Republican state senator in Oklahoma has introduced a bill banning aborted human fetuses in food, despite the fact that there are no known foods or food products that actually contain aborted fetuses.

Sen. Ralph Shortey of Oklahoma City introduced on Tuesday Senate Bill 1418, which prohibits "the sale or manufacture of food or products which contain aborted human fetuses." He says he based the bill on an article he read online about an anti-abortion group boycotting companies that allegedly use embryonic stem cells to research and develop artificial sweeteners.

“People are thinking that this has to do with fetuses being chopped up and put in our burritos,” Shortey told NewsOK. "“That's not the case. It's beyond that.

“There are companies that are using embryonic stem cells to research and basically cause a chemical reaction to determine whether or not something tastes good or not,” he said. “As a pro-life advocate, it kind of disturbed me that we would use aborted embryos or aborted human fetuses to extract stem cells and use them for research to basically make things taste better.”

PepsiCo did partner with food product development company Senomyx to develop a new low-calorie sweetener, but the company denied using fetal tissue in its research in an April 2011 email to Children of God for Life.

"Unfortunately, there is some misinformation being circulated related to research techniques that have been used for decades by universities, hospitals, government agencies, and private companies around the world. These claims are meant to suggest that human fetal tissue is somehow used in our research," wrote Margaret Corsi, a spokesperson for PepsiCo. "That is both inaccurate and something we would never do or even consider. It also is inaccurate to suggest that tissue or cells somehow are being used as product ingredients. That’s dangerous, unethical and against the law. Every ingredient in every one of our products is reviewed and approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration."

Continue reading at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/ralph-shortley-oklahoma-aborted-fetuses-food_n_1230414.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

Billionaire Bill Gates Calls For Increasing Taxes On The Rich: ‘That’s Just Justice’

2012-01-26T00:28:00.000-06:00

From Think Progress: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/01/25/411283/bill-gates-taxes-justice/

By Tanya Somanader

Jan 25, 2012

Last night in his State of the Union address, President Obama once again urged Congress to pass the Buffett rule, noting that 25 percent of American millionaires pay less in taxes that millions of families in the middle-class. Republicans were quick to dismiss his request as “the politics of envy and division.” However, multi-billionaire Bill Gates called his policy something else entirely: “That’s just justice.”

In an interview with the BBC, Gates noted “taxes are going to have to go up” and thus he’d prefer that they “go up more on the rich than everyone else.” There needs to be “a sense of shared sacrifice,” he said, adding, “right now, I don’t feel like people like myself are paying as much as we should”:

GATES: Well the United States has a huge budget deficit, so taxes are going to have to go up. And I certainly agree that they should go up more on the rich than everyone else. That’s just justice.

Complete article at: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/01/25/411283/bill-gates-taxes-justice/

The Keystone Myth

2012-01-26T00:23:00.000-06:00

From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-gore/the-keystone-myth_b_1228060.html

Al Gore

Chairman, Current TV

01/24/2012

President Obama made the right call last week when he decided to reject the tar sands pipeline. The State Department, in its Congressional Report, debunked the myth that this disastrous project would benefit the US:

Regarding economic, energy security, and trade factors, the economic analysis in the final EIS indicates that, over the remainder of this decade, even if no new cross-border pipelines were constructed, there is likely to be little difference in the amount of crude oil refined at U.S. refineries, the amount of crude oil and refined products such as gasoline imported to (or exported from) the United States, the cost of crude oil or refined products in the United States, or the amount of crude oil imported from Canada. . . .

"The analysis from the final EIS, noted above, indicates that denying the permit at this time is unlikely to have a substantial impact on U.S. employment, economic activity, trade, energy security, or foreign policy over the longer term." Source: Climate Progress

Complete article at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-gore/the-keystone-myth_b_1228060.html

Gingrich’s Anti-Semitic Dog Whistle: Saul Alinsky

2012-01-26T00:18:00.000-06:00

From The Jewish Daily Forward: http://blogs.forward.com/forward-thinking/150178/

By Gal Beckerman

January 24, 2012

When Newt Gingrich is called out for using the phrase “food stamp president,” he fiercely defends the idea that he is simply pointing out the obvious: that under Obama more people signed up for food stamps. Simple as that. He is not gently plucking racist tropes for the benefit of his base, but just telling it like it is. The man has plausible deniability. He can wink and then say he was just blinking.

So I’m sure that will be the case when I bring up Gingrich’s fondness for mentioning a certain Saul Alinsky. The former speaker is just stating a fact.

And boy does he bring Alinsky up. I’ve heard Alinsky’s name mentioned by Gingrich in a handful of debates, usually by way of characterizing the president, as in Obama is a “Saul Alinsky radical” or “the centerpiece of this campaign, I believe, is American exceptionalism versus the radicalism of Saul Alinsky.” But what really struck me was the number of times Gingrich brought up Alinsky in his victory speech when he won the South Carolina primary: three.

Now if you aren’t in that subsection of the “east coast liberal elite” that is closely following every twist and turn of this primary season, you might be asking yourself at this point, “Who the hell is Saul Alinsky?”

I’m willing to bet that has been the reaction of the vast majority of Americans, even for those who have really been tuning in to this race.

Before we go into who Alinsky is, just think about what his name sounds like spit out of the mouth of Gingrich with not a small measure of disdain. It sounds like a Jewish name — and to be even more specific, like a Russian Jewish name with that “sky” at the end. Perhaps I’m being too sensitive. Perhaps Gingrich is simply drawing our attention to what he thinks Alinsky’s influence on Obama is, but I am willing to say that the effect is something like this: Obama’s ideological mentor is a Jew and somehow foreign. Even if this is working on a subconscious level and more subtle than “food stamp president,” I believe it’s there.

Will the Young Rise Up and Fight Their Indentured Servitude to the Student Loan Industry?

2012-01-26T00:15:00.000-06:00

From Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/education/153879/will_the_young_rise_up_and_fight_their_indentured_servitude_to_the_student_loan_industry/

The solution to class exploitation and abuse is always the same: Get conscious, get angry, get energized, and get organized.

By Bruce E. Levine
January 24, 2012

In October 2011, the White House announced, “Currently, more than 36 million Americans have federal student loan debt.” By the end of 2011, student loan debt had exceeded $1 trillion. Two-thirds of college seniors graduate with student loans, including over 62 percent of public university graduates. According to the Project on Student Loan Debt, they carried an average of $25,250 in debt in 2010, but many have far greater debt than that average. And nowadays, with high unemployment, even higher underemployment, the inability to pay bills, and accumulating interest and penalties, the lives of student loan debtors can quickly turn into financial nightmares.

Indentured Servitude? I’ll be paying for my student loans for the rest of my life....A large portion of my earnings goes to the Wall Street elites that have commoditized and securitized my loans....I knew at the time I signed the student loans (again and again) that I would be responsible...what I didn’t figure was the cost to my children —Jeff Vincent, AlterNet

How outlandish is it to say that the spirit of indentured servitude has been revived in the United States? What can young people and their parents do to prevent student loan debt servitude, and what can all of us do to help liberate student loan debtors who are currently doomed to decades of financial misery?

Continue reading at: http://www.alternet.org/education/153879/will_the_young_rise_up_and_fight_their_indentured_servitude_to_the_student_loan_industry/

Who is Sheldon Adelson and What Has Newt Promised Him?

2012-01-26T00:11:00.000-06:00

From Robert Reich: http://robertreich.org/post/16409529548

Robert Reich
Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino owner, is now the poster boy for what’s terribly wrong with our campaign-finance system. Adelson, you may recall, had, before the South Carolina Republican primary, donated $5 million to the pro-Gingrich Super Pac “Winning Our Future” – giving Newt a pile of money for negative advertising against Mitt Romney in South Carolina.

Adelson has done it again. He and his wife Marian have cut another $5 million check for Gingrich to go negative on Romney in Florida. The money won’t go as far as it did in South Carolina – TV ads cost a lot more in Florida – but it’s enough to give the Grinch a solid footing.

And, who knows? The Adelsons are billionaires. They might decide to put in another $5 million or perhaps $20 million into Gingrich’s Super Pac. The point is, there’s no limit.

Do you know who Sheldon and Marian Adelson are? Do you know what Gingrich has promised them, or what they think they’ll get out of a Grinch presidency? I don’t. But if Newt becomes President of the United States, they’ll be singularly responsible. And we better find out, because Newt will owe them big time.

Forget the Lincoln Bedroom. The Adelsons and their kids will have the run of the White House, including the Oval Office. Hey, they’ll take over the Old Executive Building next door and turn it into a casino.

Continue reading at: http://robertreich.org/post/16409529548

Power is cut during live broadcast from Davos, Switzerland

2012-01-26T00:07:00.002-06:00

Fidel Castro attacks 'idiocy and ignorance' of US Republican race

2012-01-26T00:06:00.002-06:00

From The Guardian UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/25/fidel-castro-idiocy-us-republicans

Retired Cuban leader says Republican primaries are 'the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been'

Associated Press

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 January 2012

Fidel Castro has lambasted the Republican presidential race as the greatest competition of "idiocy and ignorance" the world has ever seen, and also criticised the news media and foreign governments for seizing on the death of a Cuban prisoner to demand greater respect for human rights.

Castro's comments came in a long opinion piece carried by official media two days after a Republican debate in Florida presented mostly hardline stances on what to do about the Communist-run island.

Cuba has become an important issue as the candidates court Florida's influential Cuban-American community in an effort to win the biggest electoral prize so far in the primary season.

Castro said he had assumed the candidates would try to outdo each other on the issue of Cuba, but nonetheless he was appalled by the level of debate.

"The selection of a Republican candidate for the presidency of this globalised and expansive empire is – and I mean this seriously – the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been," he wrote.

Castro disputed accounts of the death of Wilman Villar Mendoza, a 31-year-old prisoner, saying he had not been a dissident and had not been on a 50-day hunger strike, as human rights and opposition groups claimed. The retired leader said Villar had been a common criminal sent to prison for domestic violence, and he had received the best medical attention possible.

Continue reading at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/25/fidel-castro-idiocy-us-republicans

Occupying Libido: Negotiating a Landscape of Hypocrisy and Hungry Ghosts

2012-01-26T00:02:00.000-06:00

From Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/25-7

by Phil Rockstroh

Published on Wednesday, January 25, 2012 by Common Dreams

When Bill Clinton and his scary, scary libido stalked the public realm, Republicans warned his presence was so anathema to all things holy that his hot breath served to salt the wings of choirs of angels.

Yet Newt Gingrich's booty calls are forgivable. Stones shall not be cast. His transgressions humanize him and the balms of forgiveness of Christian believers rising from this sin-buffeted earth cause the Baby Jesus to coo into the dawn of a coming golden age.

When Bush/Cheney sat at the helm of empire and plundered foreign lands and breached the rule of law, Democratic partisans insisted that constitutional order be reestablished by having Bush et al marched in shackles from the halls of power. To do anything short of this was to risk the foundation of the republic being crushed to rubble and silt beneath the boot of tyranny.

Yet, we critics of duopoly are accused of being impractical sorts who don't dwell in this world, the world of the possible. Although, it seems that political partisans give themselves permission to dwell, simultaneously, in two worlds: This one, as well as a Bizarro World--the parallel universe limned in comic books--where all things are done in reverse, where true is false and false is true, as well as, apparently, a realm where Newt Gingrich is a shining standard bearer of moral rectitude and a defender of faith and family and President Obama is a protector of constitutional law and a friend of the downtrodden.

According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, 77% of the citizens of the U.S. expressed the belief that the massive power imbalance in place in the nation is a direct result of the vast wealth inequity between the 1% and the 99%. In addition, according to a poll by Time Magazine, 86% of Americans held the conviction that Wall Street and its lobbyists exert undue influence over the U.S. political class.

Continue reading at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/25-7

Julian Assange to launch show on RT this March

2012-01-25T18:24:00.002-06:00

Watch President Obama Deliver the 2012 State of the Union Address

2012-01-25T01:13:00.000-06:00

Ultra-Orthodox Jews attack woman in Israeli town

2012-01-25T00:26:00.002-06:00

From Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/24/ultra-orthodox-jews-attack-woman-in-israeli-town/

By Agence France-Presse

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

JERUSALEM — A group of ultra-Orthodox men attacked a woman on Tuesday as she put up posters in an Israeli town that has become a flashpoint for tensions between religious and secular Jews, police said.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the incident occurred in Beit Shemesh, which lies 30 kilometres (18 miles) west of Jerusalem, as the woman was trying to put up posters for Israel’s national lottery.

“A woman was driving in Beit Shemesh and putting up posters for the Israeli lottery when she was surrounded by a group of ultra-Orthodox men,” Rosenfeld told AFP.

“They threw stones at her and slashed the tyres of her car. They also stole her car keys. She was slightly injured in the head. Police arrived and took her to a safe place. Three suspects were arrested.”

Continue reading at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/24/ultra-orthodox-jews-attack-woman-in-israeli-town/

Sat., Feb. 4 Day of Action: No Sanctions, No War Against Iran!

2012-01-25T00:24:00.002-06:00

From ANSWER: http://www.answercoalition.org/national/news/no-war-on-iran.html

January 23, 2012

The ANSWER Coalition is calling on everyone to join a demonstration or to organize one on the National Day of Action on Saturday, February 4, to demand: “No War on Iran, No Sanctions, No Intervention, No Assassinations.”

The U.S.-led campaign to bring about regime change is escalating. Just today, the European Union announced a complete embargo of Iranian oil. Taken together with the other economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies, this is a campaign meant to impose maximum suffering on the people of Iran by destabilizing and destroying the country’s economy. At the same time, covert action inside the country, including assassinations, sabotage and drone over flights, is intensifying. U.S. military bases surround Iran, while nuclear-armed U.S. aircraft carriers and Trident submarines sit right off its cost.

The pretext for this aggression against another country in the strategic Persian Gulf region is that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, an assertion that Iranian leaders have denied. The utter hypocrisy of this charge by the world’s leading nuclear weapons power and its nuclear-armed allies, including Israel, Britain and France, could not be clearer.

U.S. seeks to repeat history

Sixty years ago, the U.S. and British imposed a worldwide embargo on Iranian oil in response to the nationalization of the country’s petroleum resources by the Mossadegh government, the first democratically elected government in Iran’s history. The embargo weakened the government enough so that in 1953 the U.S. CIA was able to carry out a coup, and place the Shah (king) back on the throne. For the next 25 years, the Shah served a extremely brutal agent of the U.S., killing up to 100,000 Iranians in the regime’s notorious torture chambers, and turning the country’s resources over to U.S. oil companies and banks.

Twenty-one years ago the U.S. pushed the UN Security Council a total blockade of Iraq. Thirteen years of sanctions killed more than a million Iraqis and severely weakened the country, paving the way for the 2003 invasion and an occupation which killed a million more Iraqis and killed and wounded tens of thousands of U.S. and other occupying troops.

Now is the time to take action to stop the war that has already started against Iran before it escalates. We hope that you will join us in cities where demonstrations are already scheduled, or organize a protest if one is not yet planned in your city, town or campus.

Partial list of scheduled events:

If you or someone in your area is organizing an event on or around Feb. 4, please provide us with the event details by clicking here so we may publicize it on our website and future emails.

Washington, DC
Saturday, Feb. 4 at 12 noon
White House

Albuquerque, NM
Saturday, Feb. 4 at 12 noon
Assemble at UNM Bookstore
Corner of Central and Cornell

Chicago, IL
Saturday, Feb. 4 at 12 noon
Federal Plaza for march and rally
50 W Adams (Adams and Dearborn)

Los Angeles, CA
Saturday, Feb. 4 at 12 noon
Location to be announced - call ANSWER at 213-251-1025

Minneapolis, MN
Saturday, Feb. 4 at 3pm
Mayday Plaza
301 Cedar Ave. South (at 3rd Street)

Nashville, TN
Saturday, Feb. 4 at 2pm
Gather at Legislative Plaza
6th Ave. between Charlotte & Union

New York City, NY
Saturday, Feb. 4 at 1pm
Duffy Square
47th St. and 7th Ave.

Richmond, VA
Saturday, Feb. 4 at 12pm
Gather at Federal Courthouse
701 East Broad Street

San Francisco, CA
Saturday, Feb. 4 at 12 noon
Gather at Powell and Market for march and rally
(BART to Powell St. Station)

Seattle, WA
Wednesday, Feb. 1
Rally at Westlake Park at 3:30pm
March to the Federal Building at 4:30pm

Tampa, FL
Saturday, Feb. 4 at 12 noon
March on MacDill Air Force Base CENTCOM
7115 S Boundary Blvd.

If you or someone in your area is organizing an event on or around Feb. 4, please provide us with the event details by clicking here so we may publicize it on our website and future emails.

ENDORSED BY: American Iranian Friendship Committee • ANSWER Coalition • Antiwar.com • Bail Out The People Movement (BOPM) • Cindy Sheehan, National Co-ordinator of Peace of the Action • CODEPINK Women for Peace • ComeHomeAmerica.us • David Swanson, Author, “When the World Outlawed War” • Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality-Virginia • Delegation’s Journey through the Islamic Republic” • George Phillies, Editor for Liberty for America • Granny Peace Brigade • International Action Center (IAC) • Karla Hansen, Producer/Director “Silent Screams” • Malcolm X Center for Self Determination • Minnesota Peace Action Coalition • Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS) • Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) • Peace of the Action • Phil Wilayto, Author, “In Defense of Iran: Notes from a U.S. Peace • Ramsey Clark, Former US Attorney General, awarded UN Human Rights Award • Ray McGovern, Veterans for Peace • Refugee Apostolic Catholic Church • SI! Solidarity with Iran • St. Pete for Peace • Twin Cities Peace Campaign • United National Anti-War Committee (UNAC) • Veterans for Peace – NYC Chapter 034 • Waco Friends of Peace • WAMM, Women Against Military Madness • We Won’t Fly • WESPAC Foundation • Workers World Party • World Can’t Wait

Warning: This Site Contains Conspiracy Theories

2012-01-25T00:22:00.000-06:00

From Slate: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/01/anti_vaccine_activists_9_11_deniers_and_google_s_social_search_.html

Does Google have a responsibility to help stop the spread of 9/11 denialism, anti-vaccine activism, and other fringe beliefs?

By Evgeny Morozov

Posted Monday, Jan. 23, 2012

In its early days, the Web was often imagined as a global clearinghouse—a new type of library, with the sum total of human knowledge always at our fingertips. That much has happened—but with a twist: In addition to borrowing existing items from its vast collections, we, the patrons, could also deposit our own books, pamphlets and other scribbles—with no or little quality control.

Such democratization of information-gathering—when accompanied by smart institutional and technological arrangements—has been tremendously useful, giving us Wikipedia and Twitter. But it has also spawned thousands of sites that undermine scientific consensus, overturn well-established facts, and promote conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, the move toward social search may further insulate regular visitors to such sites; discovering even more links found by their equally paranoid friends will hardly enlighten them. Is it time for some kind of a quality control system?

People who deny global warming, oppose the Darwinian account of evolution, refuse to see the causal link between HIV and AIDS, and think that 9/11 was an inside job have put the Internet to great use. Initially, the Internet helped them find and recruit like-minded individuals and promote events and petitions favorable to their causes. However, as so much of our public life has shifted online, they have branched out into manipulating search engines, editing Wikipedia entries, harassing scientists who oppose whatever pet theory they happen to believe in, and amassing digitized scraps of "evidence" that they proudly present to potential recruits.

A new article in the medical journal Vaccine sheds light on the online practices of one such group—the global anti-vaccination movement, which is a loose coalition of rogue scientists, journalists, parents, and celebrities, who think that vaccines cause disorders like autism—a claim that has been thoroughly discredited by modern science.

Continue reading at: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/01/anti_vaccine_activists_9_11_deniers_and_google_s_social_search_.html

Christo-Nazi Tony Perkins: Gays won't be Happy with Marriage Equality because of an 'Emptiness within Them'

2012-01-25T00:18:00.002-06:00

From Right Wing Watch: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/perkins-gays-wont-be-happy-marriage-equality-because-emptiness-within-them

by Brian Tashman

January 24, 2012

On Today’s Issues, a despondent Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Tim Wildmon of the American Family Association discussed the likely passage of a bill in Washington that will legalize same-sex marriage. Citing the stories of “ex-gays,” Perkins argued that gays and lesbians will always have “an emptiness within them” and will never be content with having the right to marry, as “they are operating outside of nature and outside of God’s plan and design.” He went on to say that gay rights advocates ultimately want “the indoctrination of our kids.” Perkins has previously said that gay youth are more likely to commit suicide not as a result of “inacceptance” but because they intuitively know they are “abnormal” and even blamed “the homosexual movement” for suicides.

Complete Article at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/perkins-gays-wont-be-happy-marriage-equality-because-emptiness-within-them

Redefining Chutzpah: More Bad Ideas to Burden Women

2012-01-25T00:15:00.000-06:00

From On The Issues: http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/2012winter/2012winter_Schvey.php

by Aram A. Schvey

Winter 2012

What's chutzpah? Until December 2011, I would have deferred to the classic definition in Leo Rosten's The Joys of Yiddish: chutzpah is a man who kills his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court as a lonely orphan. But at the end of the year, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) introduced a bill to teach the world the real meaning of chutzpah: the "Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2011."

The bill's sanctimonious name belies its content: the bill invokes a feminist icon while attacking women's reproductive rights, and a civil-rights hero while requiring doctors to engage in racial profiling of their clients.

This bill would make it a crime for a doctor to perform an abortion which a patient seeks "based on" the sex or race of the fetus or parent. Representative Franks claims his intention is to protect women who belong to communities of color and immigrant communities. In light of Franks's voting record of consistently opposing legislation to combat sex- and race-based discrimination, that's a tough sell. But, of course, Franks isn't really interested in eliminating sex- or race-based discrimination. Rather, he is interested in eliminating abortion -- a fact that's made even more obvious by knowing that Franks has sponsored or supported every major piece of anti-choice legislation this Congress.

Franks is cynically cloaking himself in the garb of feminism and racial equality in an effort to chip away at Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that recognized a constitutional right to abortion. The bill, for the first time, would criminalize an otherwise-legal abortion simply because of a woman's motivation in seeking it -- something that is constitutionally impermissible prior to viability. A doctor who performs a safe and otherwise legal abortion on a woman could be sued by her parents or the man who impregnated her, and could even face up to five years in jail, merely because the woman's motivation was wrong in the eyes of the bill's author. The clear purpose of such a vague law is to threaten providers with prison and to even further chill the access of women, and low-income women of color in particular, to a full range of reproductive services.

Continue reading at: http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/2012winter/2012winter_Schvey.php

The invention of the heterosexual

2012-01-25T00:14:00.000-06:00

From Salon: http://www.salon.com/2012/01/22/the_invention_of_the_heterosexual/

The history of straightness is much shorter than you'd think. An expert explains its origins

By Thomas Rogers
Sunday, Jan 22, 2012

If you met Hanne Blank and her partner on the street, you might have a lot of trouble classifying them. While Blank looks like a feminine woman, her partner is extremely androgynous, with little to no facial hair and a fine smooth complexion. Hanne’s partner is neither fully male, nor fully female; he was born with an unconventional set of chromosomes, XXY, that provide him with both male genitalia and feminine characteristics. As a result, Blank’s partner has been mistaken for a gay woman, a straight man, a transman — and their relationship has been classified as gay, straight and everything in between.

Blank mentions her personal story at the beginning of her provocative new history of heterosexuality, “Straight,” as a way of illustrating just how artificial our notions of “straightness” really are. In her book, Blank, a writer and historian who has written extensively about sexuality and culture, looks at the ways in which social trends and the rise of psychiatry conspired to create this new category in the late 19th and early 20th century. Along the way, she examines the changing definition of marriage, which evolved from a businesslike agreement into a romantic union centered around love, and how social Darwinist ideas shaped the divisions between gay and straight. With her eye-opening book, Blank tactfully deconstructs a facet of modern sexuality that most of us take for granted.

Salon spoke to Blank over the phone about the origins of heterosexuality, the evolution of marriage and why the rise of the “bromance” is a very good thing.

Men and woman have been having sex for as long as there have been humans. So how can we talk about there being a “history” of heterosexuality?

We can talk about there being a history of heterosexuality in the same way that we can talk about there being a history of religions. People have been praying to God for a really long time too, and yet the ways people relate to the divine have specific histories. They come from particular places, they take particular trajectories, there are particular texts, and individuals that are important in them. There are events, names, places, dates. It’s really very similar.

Continue reading at: http://www.salon.com/2012/01/22/the_invention_of_the_heterosexual/

Occupy Albany Presents Reception for the Rest of Us.. Crowne Plaza Albany NY

2012-01-25T00:12:00.000-06:00

Faith-healing: A Modest Proposal on Religious Fundamentalism

2012-01-25T00:10:00.002-06:00

From The Women's Media Center: http://womensmediacenter.com/blog/2012/01/exclusive-faith-healing-a-modest-proposal-on-religious-fundamentalism/

By Robin Morgan

January 23, 2012

Author and WMC Co-founder Robin Morgan struggles to understand the faith-based madness that seems to surround us.

For years, I’ve been barking up the wrong steeple, confronting the misogyny that defines all religious fundamentalists: Islamists (the only ones most people bother to hate), ultra-Orthodox Jews, Christian Bible-thumpers, Hindu militants, even Buddhist and Shinto extremists. “Take back the law!” I cried, citing the UN Charter and Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which disallow any religious law being the source for or impediment to international rights. “Just feed them all!” I pleaded, when I thought economics drove the phenomenon. “It’s really cultural!” I argued, trying to be reasonable.

And back when I believed we were facing willful ignorance (because affirmed stupidity seems all the rage), I produced Fighting Words: A Tool Kit for Combating the Religious Right (Nation Books). It offers “verbal karate” for arguing, facts and Founders’ quotes like “Question with boldness even the existence of a god” (Jefferson ). Stuff like that.

Now I see this crisis is worse than willful ignorance. Religious fundamentalists are blatantly, commitment-to-the-funny-farm-ready, lunatic, cuckoo wingnuts. Serious people suffering from cognitive or emotional distress have everything to gain by getting help. But religious fundamentalists have everything to lose by becoming healthy, so they’ve embraced willful madness.

It has an epidemiological range from petty crazy (ubiquitous dating-service TV ads vowing to “find God’s match for you”) to scary psychoses (our home-grown Taliban exerting wildly disproportionate influence on our political system).

Fundamentalists have their fundaments—the Koran, the Shuras, the Pentateuch, the Bible. This last, for instance, has texts handy for justifying Inquisitions, Crusades, lynchings, apartheid, indentured servitude, racism, poverty, polygamy, war, wife battery, child marriage/abuse/murder, homophobia, and other holy terrors—plus some exquisite 17^th century English poetry in the King James Version. An important new book, Fatal Self Deception: Slaveholding Paternalism in the Old South, by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese (Cambridge University Press), exposes “family based Christian enslavement” as the cornerstone of the institution of slavery. It quotes Joseph Wilson (a 19^th century Southern Presbyterian clergyman and, incidentally, father of President Woodrow Wilson) on how his deity devised slavery as an organizing element in the family so it could serve as the model for the state, emphasizing that a household under the gospel must “contain all the grades of authority and obedience, from that of husband and wife, down through that of father and son, to that of master and servant.”

Anyway. Sorry, I digress. That’s the naïve me surfacing again. After all, however much integrity an individual’s private spirituality may have, organized religion has always been about power. And all fundamentalisms share a political agenda and method. But there’s a madness to this method.

Continue reading at: http://womensmediacenter.com/blog/2012/01/exclusive-faith-healing-a-modest-proposal-on-religious-fundamentalism/

Embody the Movement — Occupy Wall St West

2012-01-25T00:09:00.002-06:00

Tennessee Tea Party Wants Slavery Removed From School Textbooks To Make Founding Fathers Look Good

2012-01-25T00:08:00.000-06:00

From Addicting Info: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/01/22/tennessee-tea-party-wants-slavery-removed-from-school-textbooks-to-make-founding-fathers-look-good/

By Stephen D. Foster Jr.

January 22, 2012

As if the Tea Party hasn’t butchered American history enough since their creation, the Tea Party in Tennessee is demanding the immediate removal of any mention of slavery as it applies to the Founding Fathers because they want schools clean up their image and teach students “the truth about America.” Tennessee now wants to join Texas in changing American history as it is presented in textbooks and how it is taught by teachers in school.

Multiple Tea Party members, including lead spokesman Hal Rounds, say they want the state legislature to force teachers to teach history in the way they see it. In other words, they want to re-write history to exclude the fact that the Founding Fathers owned slaves, because according to The Memphis Commercial Appeal, the group wants to address “an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another.”

The group wants to change textbook selection criteria to say that “No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership.” It’s a fancy way of saying let’s take the role of minorities out of our American history textbooks so our past leaders will look good.

Complete article at: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/01/22/tennessee-tea-party-wants-slavery-removed-from-school-textbooks-to-make-founding-fathers-look-good/

Anti-democratic actions by the US Supreme Court

2012-01-25T00:06:00.000-06:00

From World Socialist Web Site: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/cour-j24.shtml

By Tom Carter

24 January 2012

Recent Supreme Court opinions regarding religion, voting rights and warrantless surveillance cast a shadow over existing democratic legal protections.

In a ruling January 11 that constitutes a major victory for the religious right, the Supreme Court unanimously held that employees of religious institutions could not assert their rights under federal employment legislation. The case involved Cheryl Perich, a teacher at an evangelical Lutheran church who was fired by the church after she was diagnosed with narcolepsy.

It seems clear that in firing Perich, the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church in Redford, Michigan was motivated chiefly by a desire to avoid having to accommodate Perich's disability, as well as to avoid any obligation to help pay for her medical care. Such treatment is prohibited by federal law, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. Under the provisions of the ADA and other civil rights laws, it is unlawful to discriminate against a worker on account of his or her disability.

In its ruling on the case, EEOC v. Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School, the Supreme Court cited “freedom of religion” and the First Amendment as justification for granting religious organizations absolute autonomy in their treatment of their employees and allowing those organizations to escape compliance with federal employment law.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the unanimous court, declared: “When a minister who has been fired sues her church alleging that her termination was discriminatory, the First Amendment has struck the balance for us. The church must be free to choose those who will guide it on its way.”

The ruling was greeted enthusiastically in right-wing and religious circles. The Wall Street Journal opined: “Hosanna-Tabor is an important reminder that the core religious freedoms guarded by the First Amendment were not to protect the public from religion, but to protect religion from government. The case is arguably among the most important religious liberty cases in a half century, and the concurrence of Justices across the ideological spectrum will be felt for years. Hallelujah.”

Continue reading at: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/cour-j24.shtml

One Picture Says It All

2012-01-24T18:14:00.000-06:00

The Last LIncoln Veteran By David Rovics

2012-01-24T00:54:00.000-06:00

Ten Steps for Radical Revolution in the US

2012-01-24T00:43:00.000-06:00

From Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/23-2

by Bill Quigley

Published on Monday, January 23, 2012 by Common Dreams

“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.” --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1967

One. Human rights must be taken absolutely seriously. Every single person is entitled to dignity and human rights. No application needed. No exclusions at all. This is our highest priority.

Two. We must radically reinvent contemporary democracy. Current systems are deeply corrupt and not responsive to the needs of people. Representatives chosen by money and influence govern by money and influence. This is unacceptable. Direct democracy by the people is now technologically possible and should be the rule. Communities must be protected whenever they advocate for self-determination, self-development and human rights. Dissent is essential to democracy; we pledge to help it flourish.

Three. Corporations are not people and are not entitled to human rights. Amend the US Constitution so it is clear corporations do not have constitutional or human rights. We the people must cut them down to size and so democracy can regulate their size, scope and actions.

Four. Leave the rest of the world alone. Cut US military spending by 75 percent and bring all troops outside the US home now. Defense of the US is a human right. Global offense and global police force by US military are not. Eliminate all nuclear and chemical and biological weapons. Stop allowing scare tactics to build up the national security forces at home. Stop the myth that the US is somehow special or exceptional and is entitled to act differently than all other nations. The US must re-join the global family of nations as a respectful partner. USA is one of many nations in the world. We must start acting like it.

Continue reading at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/23-2

For Greece default is the only option

2012-01-24T00:35:00.000-06:00

From The Guardian UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/23/greece-default-only-option-debt

The dreadful debt saga will only come to a close when Greece takes charge of its predicament

Costas Lapavitsas
guardian.co.uk, Monday 23 January 2012

Negotiations to reduce Greek debt have been suspended after no agreement could be reached last week. At some point in the near future Greece seems certain to default on its obligations. But the drama surrounding the talks in Athens, Berlin and Paris shows that there will be nothing co-operative about Greek default. It is a ruthless contest dominated by the so-called troika: the European Union, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.

At every turn the interests and rights of people across Europe have been disregarded. Negotiations have proceeded in secrecy. Greece, whose government is led by an unelected central banker, is represented by a team of politicians and technocrats who have performed lamentably during the crisis. They have hired bankers Lazard Freres and lawyers Cleary Gottlieb, renowned sovereign default specialists, although the benefits remain to be seen. Those who are owed money by Greece have been represented by the International Institute of Finance, a self-styled mouthpiece for bankers. Other lenders, including hedge funds, have no collective representative.

The troika has accepted that Greek debt must be reduced to sustainable levels; but it also wants the reduction to appear voluntary because, if the lenders were coerced, Greece would be declared in formal default, and banks and financial markets would be thrown into crisis. The troika would also like the reduction to be on terms that would allow immediate fresh loans to Greece – an urgent step if the country is not to stop repayments altogether – and wants Greek debt held by official bodies, including the ECB, to remain intact. Not surprisingly, the circle is proving hard to square.

The debt in question is €200bn. About half belongs to Greeks – banks, social security funds and others – who are first in line to bear the costs of reduction (the "haircut"). Less than a quarter belongs to international banks, and a good part of the rest to hedge funds.

Continue reading at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/23/greece-default-only-option-debt

Washington Has the Votes for Marriage Equality

2012-01-24T00:31:00.000-06:00

From The Advocate: http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2012/01/23/WASHINGTON_HAS_THE_VOTES_FOR_MARRIAGE/

By Nick Visser and Andrew Harmon

Posted on Advocate.com January 23, 2012

Washington now has enough votes to pass a marriage equality bill in the state Senate, following a state senator’s announcement of her support today after hours of public hearings regarding the measure.

Mary Margaret Haugen became the 25th member of the state senate, and the last vote needed to pass the bill, after scores of same-sex marriage supporters told their stories in the state capital for more than two hours.

The bill, first brought up by Washington governor Christine Gregoire, is expected to easily pass in the House but was one vote short of passage in the Senate until Haugen announced her support this afternoon.

Haugen, a Democrat, cited her "very strong Christian beliefs" as part of the reason she supports marriage equality.

"Only one being in this world is omniscient, and it's not me," she said in a statement. "Personally I have always said when I accepted the Lord, I became more tolerant of others. I stopped judging people and try to live by the Golden Rule. This is part of my decision. I do not believe it is my role to judge others, regardless of my personal beliefs."

Continue reading at: http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2012/01/23/WASHINGTON_HAS_THE_VOTES_FOR_MARRIAGE/

A Sharper Mind, Middle Age and Beyond

2012-01-24T00:29:00.002-06:00

From The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/education/edlife/a-sharper-mind-middle-age-and-beyond.html?_r=1

By PATRICIA COHEN

Published: January 19, 2012

IN 1905, at age 55, Sir William Osler, the most influential physician of his era, decided to retire from the medical faculty of Johns Hopkins. In a farewell speech, Osler talked about the link between age and accomplishment: The “effective, moving, vitalizing work of the world is done between the ages of 25 and 40 — these 15 golden years of plenty.”

In comparison, he noted, “men above 40 years of age” are useless. As for those over 60, there would be an “incalculable benefit” in “commercial, political and professional life, if, as a matter of course, men stopped work at this age.”

Although such views did not prevent the doctor from going on to accept a post at Oxford University, one he retained until his death at age 70, his contention that brainpower, creativity and innovation have an early expiration date was, unfortunately, widely accepted by others. Until recently, neurologists believed that brain cells died off without being replaced. Psychologists affirmed the supposition by maintaining that the ability to learn trudged steadfastly downward through the years.

Of course, certain capabilities fall off as you approach 50. Memories of where you left the keys or parked the car mysteriously vanish. Words suddenly go into hiding as you struggle to remember the guy, you know, in that movie, what was it called? And calculating the tip on your dinner check seems to take longer than it used to.

Yet it is also true that there is no preordained march toward senescence.

Continue reading at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/education/edlife/a-sharper-mind-middle-age-and-beyond.html?_r=1

Oceans have acidified more in the last 200 years 'than they did in the previous 21,000 years'

2012-01-24T00:27:00.002-06:00

From The Daily Mail UK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2090253/Oceans-acidified-200-years-did-previous-21-000-years-claims-new-climate-change-research.html

By Daily Mail Reporter

23rd January 2012

Man-made carbon emissions have acidified the world's oceans far beyond their natural levels, new research suggests.

In some regions, acidity levels rose faster in the last two centuries than it did in the previous 21,000 years, a study from the University of Hawaii has shown.

Ocean acidity makes it harder for organisms such as molluscs and coral to construct the protective layers they need to survive.

Scientists looked at changes in the saturation level of aragonite, a form of calcium carbonate used to measure ocean acidification.

As seawater acidity rises, the saturation level of aragonite falls.

Are the Koch brothers teaching you?

2012-01-24T00:26:00.002-06:00

Nearly Four Decades After Roe, Women Are Losing Independence

2012-01-24T00:25:00.002-06:00

From RH Reality Check: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/01/22/39-years-after-roe-women-are-losing-independence

by Amanda Marcotte, RH Reality Check

January 22, 2012

Yesterday was Roe v. Wade’s 39^th anniversary, and what should have been just a joyous date for feminists has instead become a time to reflect how well we’re doing against the backlash to women’s rights. Roe was about abortion, sure, but it was so much more. It was the culmination of years of feminist activism, legislation, and court decisions regarding contraception and abortion that sent a clear signal to the women of America that they were the rightful owners of their bodies. Not their fathers, not their husbands, not their ministers, not the clucking prudes down the street, and not even their doctors.

The results were dramatic. The vile practice of the “maternity home”---a place where pregnant teenagers and single young women were sent to give birth and be subject to immense pressure to give up their babies---disappeared, signaling a new era where women who decided to keep their pregnancies are exponentially more likely to keep their babies rather than give them up for adoption. There was a fairly successful movement of women demanding more knowledge about their bodies, represented by the book Our Bodies, Ourselves. Gynecologists responded by becoming more patient-friendly. (Even douches have finally lost so many sales that douche companies are beginning to explore other options.) The new women-own-themselves frame became a launching pad for anti-rape and anti-domestic violence activism. In previous eras, society mostly looked away from these crimes, because dealing with them meant pushing back against the notion that women are the property of other people. Now that we believe (formally, though much work has to be done) that women own themselves, these transgressions are harder to ignore.

The problem is that 40 years of the anti-choice movement fighting back against this notion that women own themselves is starting to damage women’s confidence that they have and deserve their full human rights.

A recent episode of the Savage Love podcast really drove this home for me. A woman called in, concerned about a young woman of her acquaintance who was dealing with an unintended pregnancy. She peppered Dan Savage with questions about parental consent laws, how to make the decision, whether or not the man who got the young woman pregnant could be in legal trouble for being so much older, etc. But one question jumped out at me: She asked Dan if it was legal for the young woman of 17 to have an abortion without getting her boyfriend’s permission first.

Continue reading at: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/01/22/39-years-after-roe-women-are-losing-independence

Arkansas Dem’s pet murdered, with ‘LIBERAL’ scrawled on corpse

2012-01-24T00:24:00.002-06:00

Some cowardly impotent inbred Republican ass licking Nazi thought he would be a big man by murdering and mutilating a Democrat's family pet.

And some liberals wonder why some of us left wingers own guns and are willing to protect our families from scum like that...

I consider our feline family members every bit as worthy of my protection as I would a human child.

From Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/23/arkansas-dems-pet-murdered-with-liberal-scrawled-on-corpse/

By Stephen C. Webster

Monday, January 23, 2012

An Arkansas Democrat has a message for whomever killed his kids’ cat: “I’ve got a gun and I know how to use it.”

According to the Blue Arkansas blog, the campaign manager to Ken Aden, who’s running for the state’s third congressional district, came home last night to discover the family pet had been murdered and left on their front porch, as if the attacker wanted it to be discovered.

The feline’s skull was bashed in, and an ominous message was carved into its side: “LIBERAL.”

“If I have to protect my kids, I’ll do it without hesitation,” Aden campaign manager Jake Burris told Blue Arkansas.

The killing comes after a weekend of positive press for Aden, a former soldier running for Congress as a Democrat in one of the most conservative areas of Arkansas.

Continue reading at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/23/arkansas-dems-pet-murdered-with-liberal-scrawled-on-corpse/

Saul Alinsky: who is he and why does Newt Gingrich keep mentioning him?

2012-01-24T00:15:00.000-06:00

Thanks to the rabid right wing for reminding us how all progressives including anarchists should read Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" and "Revelry for Radicals".

From The Guardian UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-adams-blog/2012/jan/24/republican-presidential-nomination-2012-newt-gingrich

An obscure, long-dead community organiser has been a constant presence in the GOP debates thanks to Gingrich

Posted byRichard Adams

Monday 23 January 2012

Unless you've been paying close attention to the undercurrents of right-wing US politics over the last five years, you might have missed an obscure name from the 1960s who has been hoisted into a hate figure: Saul Alinsky.

Alinsky died nearly 30 years ago but thanks to a tenuous link to Barack Obama, his name has been raised as evidence of Obama's radical roots. Newt Gingrich, the current front-runner for the Republican nomination, repeatedly denounces Obama as "a classic Saul Alinsky radical" on the campaign trail.

When Gingrich won the South Carolina primary on Saturday, his victory speech sought to distinguish what he called "American exceptionalism versus the radicalism of Saul Alinsky" of Obama.

Gingrich has merely tapped into a fulmination against Alinsky – who was what passes for a left-wing radical in American politics, agitating for better living conditions for the poor in the slums of Chicago and New York – that has been filtered through the likes of right-wing talkshow hosts such as Glenn Beck and Mark Levin.

The connection with Obama is that his career as a community organiser included work for an Alinsky-inspired group in Chicago, while a profile of Obama by Ryan Lizza in the New Republic in 2007 said Obama "taught Alinsky's concepts and methods":

Continue reading at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-adams-blog/2012/jan/24/republican-presidential-nomination-2012-newt-gingrich

The Cure For Homophobia

2012-01-24T00:11:00.002-06:00

Santorum Wins Backing of Fringe Religious Right Leaders

2012-01-24T00:10:00.000-06:00

From Right Wing Watch: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/santorum-wins-backing-fringe-religious-right-leaders

by Brian Tashman

January 20, 2012

One day before the crucial South Carolina primary, Rick Santorum is beginning to win the endorsements of not just Religious Right luminaries but also fringe activists, including some who previously backed the failed presidential campaigns of Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry. Santorum recently won the backing of Religious Right activists such as James Dobson, Gary Bauer, Richard Viguerie, Maggie Gallagher, Penny Nance and most recently, former Perry booster John Stemberger.

Today, Viguerie released the names of additional Religious Right figures that are supporting Santorum, including Paul Pressler, the Southern Baptist leader who hosted the recent Texas meeting of social conservatives.

But other Santorum endorsers are less well-known:

Cathie Adams of the Texas Eagle Forum, who has likened President Obama to Adolf Hitler, warned that scientists are cloning humans in order to give them diseases and kill them and that the United Nations is trying to “subvert our children’s faith in God by elevating its earth-centered zealotry that would grant the UN dominion over the earth.”

Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness, who has dedicated her career to fighting the rights of gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, argued that it would lead to a draft along with “forcible sodomy.”

ETC...

Continue reading at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/santorum-wins-backing-fringe-religious-right-leaders

Davos elites to seek reforms of ‘outdated’ capitalism

2012-01-24T00:08:00.000-06:00

From Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/22/davos-elites-to-seek-reforms-of-outdated-capitalism/

By Agence France-Presse

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Economic and political elites meeting this week at the Swiss resort of Davos will be asked to urgently find ways to reform a capitalist system that has been described as “outdated and crumbling.”

“We have a general morality gap, we are over-leveraged, we have neglected to invest in the future, we have undermined social coherence, and we are in danger of completely losing the confidence of future generations,” said Klaus Schwab, host and founder of the annual World Economic Forum.

“Solving problems in the context of outdated and crumbling models will only dig us deeper into the hole.

“We are in an era of profound change that urgently requires new ways of thinking instead of more business-as-usual,” the 73-year-old said, adding that “capitalism in its current form, has no place in the world around us.”

Continue reading at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/22/davos-elites-to-seek-reforms-of-outdated-capitalism/

Santorum To Rape Victims: ‘Make The Best Out Of A Bad Situation’

2012-01-24T00:07:00.000-06:00

How Douche Nozzles like Frothy Mix of Shit and Anal Lube (Santorum) think:

After all the Rapist's Baby is a Gift From a Patriarchal God Who Hates Women. Therefore it is the duty of the unworthy sperm receptacle to bear that child and raise it.

From Think Progress: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/01/23/409242/santorum-to-rape-victims-make-the-best-out-of-a-bad-situation/

By Tanya Somanader
Jan 23, 2012

Standing steadfast as the most socially right-wing candidate in the GOP presidential field, Rick Santorum has repeatedly touted his extreme anti-choice position, which dictates that abortion should be uniformly illegal, even in cases of rape or incest. He even suggested that physicians who provide abortions to such victims should be criminally charged.

Last Friday, CNN’s Piers Morgan asked Santorum to clarify his reasoning behind such a callous position. Insisting that “it’s not a matter of religious values,” Santorum explained that sexual assault victims should “accept this horribly created” pregnancy because it is “nevertheless a gift in a very broken way” and that, when it comes down to it, a victim just has “to make the best out of a bad situation“:

Complete article at: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/01/23/409242/santorum-to-rape-victims-make-the-best-out-of-a-bad-situation/

Woman Hating Anti-Choice Organization "March for Life" Gets Occupied and Mic Checked

2012-01-23T14:07:00.002-06:00

Do Gay Parents make Better Parents?

2012-01-23T14:04:00.002-06:00

Why the Christian Right Becomes More Extreme As America Grows More Tolerant

2012-01-23T00:30:00.002-06:00

From Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/story/151766/why_the_christian_right_becomes_more_extreme_as_america_grows_more_tolerant?page=entire

The political movement is “revenge”-based, rather than rooted in any particular Christian philosophy.

By Richard L. Fricker

July 25, 2011

The rigidity of Christian Right politics has been a complicating factor in governing the United States for the past several decades, stripping away flexibility needed to negotiate on issues as diverse as policies in the Middle East, abortion, health care and the federal budget.

Gone is the more practical approach of assessing government actions based on what might help the country the most – and compromising with those who have differing opinions. Everything, it seems, gets measured by some Christian fundamentalist yardstick of what’s right and wrong.

Adding to this religious style of politics has been a deep sense of victimhood among right-wing Evangelicals, as if Christians were some persecuted minority in the United States, threatened by all-powerful Muslims imposing Sharia law or secular humanists banning Christmas.

Repeated endlessly on right-wing talk radio, these paranoid messages have become real to millions of these religiously inspired voters. So, political adversaries must not only be bested, but crushed. After all, they represent strategies of the anti-Christ.

Continue reading at: http://www.alternet.org/story/151766/why_the_christian_right_becomes_more_extreme_as_america_grows_more_tolerant?page=entire

Israelis Facing a Seismic Rift Over Role of Women

2012-01-23T00:29:00.002-06:00

From The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/world/middleeast/israel-faces-crisis-over-role-of-ultra-orthodox-in-society.html?scp=2&sq=israel%20women&st=cse

By ETHAN BRONNER and ISABEL KERSHNER

Published: January 14, 2012

JERUSALEM — In the three months since the Israeli Health Ministry awarded a prize to a pediatrics professor for her book on hereditary diseases common to Jews, her experience at the awards ceremony has become a rallying cry.

The professor, Channa Maayan, knew that the acting health minister, who is ultra-Orthodox, and other religious people would be in attendance. So she wore a long-sleeve top and a long skirt. But that was hardly enough.

Not only did Dr. Maayan and her husband have to sit separately, as men and women were segregated at the event, but she was instructed that a male colleague would have to accept the award for her because women were not permitted on stage.

Though shocked that this was happening at a government ceremony, Dr. Maayan bit her tongue. But others have not, and her story is entering the pantheon of secular anger building as a battle rages in Israel for control of the public space between the strictly religious and everyone else.

At a time when there is no progress on the Palestinian dispute, Israelis are turning inward and discovering that an issue they had neglected — the place of the ultra-Orthodox Jews — has erupted into a crisis.

And it is centered on women.

Continue reading at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/world/middleeast/israel-faces-crisis-over-role-of-ultra-orthodox-in-society.html?scp=2&sq=israel%20women&st=cse

Women Barred from Addressing Gynecology Conference in Israel

From Atheism@About.com: http://atheism.about.com/b/2012/01/16/women-barred-from-addressing-gynecology-conference-in-israel.htm

By Austin Cline,

January 16, 2012

A conference on "Innovations in Gynecology/Obstetrics and Halacha [Jewish law]" was held in Jerusalem and it covered important developments in medical treatments for women. Obviously there are plenty of women who would be qualified to speak at a conference about gynecology, but they were barred from addressing it because orthodox Jews would have a temper-tantrum if women were allowed to stand up in public and talk about women's medical issues. Because that's icky, or something.

Several Israeli human rights groups have protested the men-only nature of the conference. While it is considered a private rather than a public forum, and therefore not subject to Israeli policies against discrimination, Puah receives considerable funding from the Health Ministry, these complainants point out.

Such complaints are unlikely to make much of an impression, however. The Health Minister, to whom they are addressed, is actually the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, owing to another sop to the Ultra-Orthodox.

The United Torah Judaism party refused to formally join the coalition cabinet since doing so would signal an acceptance of the Zionist state, something its beliefs preclude. So its representative was given the post of Deputy Health Minister, a non-cabinet position. It is this ultra-Orthodox man who really runs the department, while the PM represents it at the cabinet table.

Source: The Globe and Mail

Continue reading at: http://atheism.about.com/b/2012/01/16/women-barred-from-addressing-gynecology-conference-in-israel.htm

Gays "Make God Want to Vomit": Meet Santorum's Honorary Florida Chairman

2012-01-23T00:24:00.003-06:00

Whenever I hear a Black Minister ranting and raving about LGBT/T folks I think two things: !: Like Eddie Long he is on the downlow. 2. He is a whore for those right wing dollars and he's giving lip service to the right wing master for those bucks.

From Mother Jones: http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/01/rick-santorum-oneal-dozier-florida-gay

Rick Santorum's first stop in the Sunshine State is the church of a gay-bashing, Islamophobic pastor.

By Adam Weinstein

Sat Jan. 21, 2012

While the network news shows spend this Sunday marveling over Newtmentum in South Carolina, Rick Santorum will quietly make his first stop in Florida, site of the next primary on January 31. He'll be dropping in to see the honorary chairman of his state campaign—a Bush-connected Islamophobic pastor who says gays "make God want to vomit."

Santorum, the other conservative darling in the Republican presidential race, plans to speak from the pulpit at the Worldwide Christian Center in Pompano Beach on Sunday morning. It might seem a strange stop for a white Catholic Republican from the Northeast: While the ocean-facing side of Pompano is affluent and conservative, WWC literally sits on the wrong side of the tracks in the Collier City neighborhood—a poor, tight-knit African American district that swung strongly for Barack Obama in 2008. But WWC is different: It's run by the Rev. O'Neal Dozier, a firebrand social conservative who's tried to turn this depressed community red, and has been rewarded handsomely by Republican politicians for his efforts.

Dozier opened his church in 1985 and immediately began preaching a different kind of gospel. "We teach and preach on the cultural issues," he says in a recent video. "We also teach and preach on the war on terror. We teach and preach on the dangers of Islam and Islamic fascism here." He says he was heavily influenced by the work of the Rev. D. James Kennedy, a founding father of the Christian right who started the annual Reclaiming America for Christ political conference at his church complex just down the street in Fort Lauderdale.

Attending functions like Kennedy's helped Dozier build a valuable political Rolodex. As the GOP sought ways to connect with minorities, it took a shine to Dozier, and he was happy to deliver their messages at his pulpit. In 2001, Governor Jeb Bush appointed him to serve on one of Florida's key judicial nominating commissions. "I helped him pick his judges in the state of Florida," Dozier said. He also went on to visit with President George W. Bush in the White House. And when Charlie Crist campaigned to take over the governor's office from Bush, Dozier sat on the campaign's "Strengthening Florida's Families" panel. Dozier later remarked at a prayer breakfast that the Lord Jesus had told him, "Charlie Crist will be the next governor of the state of Florida."

Continue reading at: http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/01/rick-santorum-oneal-dozier-florida-gay

Poverty in America: The Subject Presidential Candidates Would Prefer to Ignore

2012-01-23T00:23:00.002-06:00

From The Black Agenda Report: http://blackagendareport.com/content/poverty-america-subject-presidential-candidates-would-prefer-ignore

Marsha Coleman-..

Tue, 01/17/2012

This week in Johannesburg, South Africa a mother was trampled to death as thousands of young people surged, desperate to register for university, because there are no jobs and studying seems a way of waiting out the recession.

No work makes people desperate. Just the week before a young friend in Boston who graduated last year with a management degree told me he was going back to college because he could not find work, so the hopes of young people there and here are similar. Indeed this recession is making young people poorer than older folk, and as we age and the burden on economies increases from so many gray hairs, they will never experience the prosperity we, their parents, did.

An hour before I read of the South African tragedy I listened to Tavis Smiley and Cornel West on NPR discussing poverty in America; one in two are now poor, 42 percent of American children don’t get adequate nutrition, 41 percent of African American youth can’t find work. Those figures now parallel poverty measures in South Africa.

A South African friend told me of meeting a trade unionist in Washington D.C. who represented the construction industry and was bemoaning how wages had barely inched up in the last two decades; they were effectively lower than 20 years ago and worker’s rights had been eroded. He talked of how companies working with asbestos regularly flouted safety provisions. He mentioned how at the mega-Homeland Security building site in D.C. African Americans who live in the area, some of them veterans, couldn’t get jobs. “The contractors are getting cheap Latino workers from Virginia and Maryland,” he claimed. Worker rights in America, he sighed, were now “third-world.”

Continue reading at: http://blackagendareport.com/content/poverty-america-subject-presidential-candidates-would-prefer-ignore

Family Values Republican Style: Hypocrisy? Ex-Wife Says Newt Gingrich Wanted Open Marriage

2012-01-23T00:22:00.002-06:00

From The Advocate: http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2012/01/19/Hypocrisy_ExWife_Says_Newt_Gingrich_Asked_for_Open_Marriage/

By Lucas Grindley

January 19, 2012

So far one LGBT rights group is calling on Newt Gingrich to quit the race for president in response to the revelation that he once asked for an open marriage, calling it "a new standard for hypocrisy in politics."

ABC's Nightline released video of an interview with Marianne Gingrich, the candidate's second wife, in which she claims the former speaker of the House had asked her for an open marriage or a divorce. In an interview with The Washington Post, she said the request came even as he was touring the country talking about family values.

“How could he ask me for a divorce on Monday and within 48 hours give a speech on family values and talk about how people treat people?” she told the Post.

In the Nightline interview, which will air tonight, Marianne Gingrich describes the way her former husband asked for the arrangement.

"I said to him we've been married a long time, and he said, yes, but you want me all to yourself," she says as she remembers learning that he was having an affair with his Callista (now his wife), who he claimed "doesn't care what I do."

Wayne Besen, executive director for Truth Wins Out, reacted with outrage to the interview, which Newt Gingrich has refused to comment on in the press, calling it inappropriate.

Continue reading at: http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2012/01/19/Hypocrisy_ExWife_Says_Newt_Gingrich_Asked_for_Open_Marriage/

Christian Right Goes To War Over Newt Gingrich's Wife

From The Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/christian-right-war-james-dobson-callista-gingrich-karen-santorum-2012-1

Grace Wyler

Jan. 18, 2012

With just days to go before South Carolina's First In South Republican primary, the war over who should be the not-Mitt Romney candidate has gone completely nuclear.

Desperate to settle on one conservative alternative, Religious Right leaders backing Rick Santorum and those backing Newt Gingrich are now resorting to vicious attacks against what have long been seen as off-limits targets in presidential campaigns — the candidates' wives.

Influential evangelical leader James Dobson set off the fireworks at this weekend's Christian Right summit, giving a speech that lavished praise on Karen Santorum and asked whether Americans really wanted Callista Gingrich — "a woman who was a man's mistress for eight years" — as their First Lady, according to sources who attended the meeting.

Sources told Business Insider that Dobson's speech was a "startling moment" that left many in the audience — particularly those who support Gingrich — floored. One source described Dobson's tone as "angry," and said it seemed like Dobson was blaming Callista Gingrich for the couples' affair, which began while the former House Speaker was still married to his second wife (this is Callista Gingrich's first marriage).

GLSEN releases first national study on homophobia, gender nonconformity in elementary schools

2012-01-23T00:21:00.002-06:00

From LGBTQ Nation: http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2012/01/glsen-releases-first-national-study-on-homophobia-gender-nonconformity-in-elementary-schools/

Most teachers unprepared to address LGBT issues

Staff Reports

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Gender non-conforming students are at particular risk for bullying, and many teachers are unprepared to address issues relating to gender expression and LGBT families, according to a groundbreaking new study of bias, bullying and homophobia in grades kindergarten through sixth grade.

The report by the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) — Playgrounds and Prejudice: Elementary School Climate in the United States — examines students’ and teachers’ experiences with biased remarks and bullying, and their attitudes about gender expression and family diversity.

“School climate and victimization can affect students’ educational outcomes and personal development at every grade level,” said GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard.

“Name-calling and bullying in elementary schools reinforce gender stereotypes and negative attitudes toward people based on their gender expression, sexual orientation, disability, race, religion or family composition,” reports Byard.

“Students and teachers report frequent use of disparaging remarks like ‘retard’ and ‘that’s so gay,’ and half of the teachers surveyed report bullying as a “serious problem” among their students.

“Students who do not conform to traditional gender norms are at higher risk for bullying, and are less likely than their peers to feel safe at school.

Key Findings from the report include:

Continue reading at: http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2012/01/glsen-releases-first-national-study-on-homophobia-gender-nonconformity-in-elementary-schools/

A copy of the complete Playgrounds and Prejudice report can be downloaded here (PDF).

DHS Pumping Money into Drones for Domestic Surveillance, Hunting Immigrants and Seizing Pot

2012-01-23T00:20:00.002-06:00

DHS Pumping Money into Drones for Domestic Surveillance, Hunting Immigrants and Seizing PotFrom Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/story/153735/dhs_pumping_money_into_drones_for_domestic_surveillance,_hunting_immigrants_and_seizing_pot?akid=8162.304909.4RcCZs&rd=1&t=5

DHS has little to show for its drone spending spree other than stacks of seized marijuana and a few thousand immigrants who crossed the border without visas.

By Tom Barry

January 16, 2012

The Department of Homeland Security says it needs a fleet of two-dozen Predator and Guardian drones to protect the homeland adequately. Designed for military use, 10 of these unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are already patrolling U.S. borders in the hunt for unauthorized immigrants and illegal drugs.

DHS is building its drone fleet at a rapid pace despite its continuing inability to demonstrate their purported cost-effectiveness. The unarmed Predator and Guardians (the maritime variant) cost about $20 million each. Yet DHS has little to show for its UAV spending spree other than stacks of seized marijuana and several thousand immigrants who crossed the border without visas.

Aside from a continuing funding bonanza for border security, to pursue its drone strategy DHS is also counting on the Federal Aviation Administration to continue authorizing the use of more domestic airspace by the unarmed drones. And FAA seems set to comply, having approved 35 of the 36 requests by the department’s Customs and Protection agency from 2005 to mid-2010. In congressional testimony in July 2010, the FAA said it was streamlining its authorization process for drones, including the hiring of 12 additional staff to process drone airspace requests.

While DHS is leading the way, national and local law enforcement agencies, as well as private entities, are demanding that FAA open the American skies to drone surveillance. Yet neither the FAA nor the Department of Transportation has been forthcoming in informing the U.S. public about the new robotic presence in the already congested American airways. The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently filed a suit against the transportation department for allegedly withholding information about drones in our skies.

Continue reading at: http://www.alternet.org/story/153735/dhs_pumping_money_into_drones_for_domestic_surveillance,_hunting_immigrants_and_seizing_pot?akid=8162.304909.4RcCZs&rd=1&t=5

The “anti-Semitism” smear campaign against CAP and Media Matters rolls on

2012-01-23T00:19:00.000-06:00

From Salon: http://www.salon.com/2012/01/19/the_smear_campaign_against_cap_and_media_matters_rolls_on/

By Glenn Greenwald

Thursday, Jan 19, 2012

Last month, my Salon colleague Justin Elliott revealed that AIPAC’s former spokesman, Josh Block, had been encouraging neoconservative journalists and pundits on a private email list to attack as “anti-Semites” various Middle East commentators employed by two of the most influential Democratic-Party-aligned organizations: the Center for American Progress (CAP) and Media Matters (MM). Block distributed a dossier containing posts by these CAP and MM writers about Israel and Iran that he claimed evince anti-Semitism, and then issued these marching orders (emphasis in original): “YOU SHOULD AMPLIFY this. And use the below [research] to attack the bad guys.” The predictable roster of neoconservative, hatemongering extremists on that email list – led by The Washington Post‘s Jennifer Rubin, who recruited the Simon Wiesenthal Center to the cause — dutifully spewed out articles echoing Block’s attacks against these mostly young, liberal writers: Matt Duss, Ali Gharib, Eli Clifton and Zaid Jilani at CAP’s ThinkProgress blog and Media Matters’ MJ Rosenberg (a former AIPAC employee).

Block’s once-secret email campaign followed a Politico article by Ben Smith which accused (or, rather, credited) these CAP and MM writers with deviations from “the bipartisan consensus on Israel” and voicing “a heretical and often critical stance on Israel heretofore confined to the political margins”; moreover, Smith wrote, “warm words for Israel can be hard to find on [CAP's] blogs.” Block was quoted in that article accusing the two progressive groups of publishing “anti-Israel” and “borderline anti-Semitic stuff”; Smith subsequently acknowledged that it was Block who had fed him files containing the supposedly anti-Semitic posts in order to enable the article to be written. As I wrote about on December 14, this seemed to be one of those very rare instances where this sort of smear campaign backfired and only the smear merchant (Block) would suffer any consequences, as Block’s own business partner, Lanny Davis, publicly repudiated Block’s smears, and the Democratic-aligned Truman National Security Project then expelled Block for using “mischaracterization or character attacks” in order to impede “the ability to debate difficult topics freely.”

But despite Block’s public humiliation, the disgusting smear campaign against these CAP and MM analysts rolls on undeterred, and the form it is taking reveals some very important points. In late December, The Jerusalem Post published an article about what it called “the anti-Israel writings of the ThinkProgress bloggers.” It quoted the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor accusing the CAP writers of “classical anti-Semitism,” and the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center accused them of “dangerous political libels resonating with historic and toxic anti-Jewish prejudices.” A cowardly “Democratic congressional staffer” anonymously called on “both parties” to repudiate the targeted writers and then added: “So long as CAP puts forth this kind of rhetoric, it will be difficult for them to be taken seriously” (because the hallmark of Seriousness is hiding behind anonymity to smear writers as anti-Semites).

Since then, the standard army of low-level smear merchants has continued attacking these CAP and MM writers as anti-Semites. Last week in Haaretz, Marty Peretz’ long-time assistant, Jamie Kirchick, ironically claimed that it was Block and other neocons who are the victims of “McCarthyism” even as Kirchick, in the same column, advanced the witch hunt to expose hidden anti-Semites in America’s think tanks and media outlets (an even greater irony is found in Kirchick’s self-anointed status as anti-bigotry crusader despite his long-term work for Peretz, probably the single most flagrant bigot and unapologetic spewer of hate speech in mainstream American discourse: but since it’s aimed at Arabs and Muslims, it’s all permissible). Earlier this week, Front Page Magazine singled out two of the targeted CAP writers with Arab-sounding names — Ali Gharib and Zaid Jilani — and accused them of being anti-American and driven by allegiance to Iran and Pakistan (that article also referred to them as “Muslim bloggers” even though Gharib, an Iranian-American, is an atheist). Yesterday, The New York Post published an Op-Ed by Commentary‘s Alana Goodman (under the headline “The White House’s Israel-bashing pals“) reporting that “three leading Jewish groups — the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the Simon Wiesenthal Center — have accused CAP and its staff of publishing ‘anti-Israel,’ ‘hateful’ and ‘toxic anti-Jewish’ material.”

Continue reading at: http://www.salon.com/2012/01/19/the_smear_campaign_against_cap_and_media_matters_rolls_on/

Alan Greenspan's ship of fools

2012-01-23T00:17:00.000-06:00

From The Guardian UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/18/alan-greenspan-ship-of-fools?INTCMP=SRCH

The Fed's FOMC is supposed to steer the US economy to prosperity. As we now see, it was completely rudderless in 2006

Dean Baker
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 January 2012

In keeping with its policy of releasing transcripts with a five-year lag, the Federal Reserve Board recently released the transcripts from its 2006 Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings. There is much there to cause pain and amusement.

In the latter category, there is probably nothing that can beat Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (then the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank) telling outgoing Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan:

"I'd like the record to show that I think you're pretty terrific, too. And thinking in terms of probabilities, I think the risk that we decide in the future that you're even better than we think is higher than the alternative."

But there is more than obsequiousness on display here. There is also profound ignorance of the economy among the nation's top economic policymakers.

Keep in mind: 2006 is the year that the $8tn housing bubble hit its peak and began to deflate. In other words, this covers the period in which the Titanic hit the iceberg and began to take on water. But no one on this sinking ship is even thinking about the lifeboats.

There is no one in the eight FOMC meetings who suggests that the economy faces any serious turbulence ahead. There is not even discussion that a mild recession could be in sight.

In fact, at the last meeting of 2006 (pdf), we hear Janet Yellen, who was then the president of the San Francisco Bank and is now vice-chair of the board of governors, comment that:

Continue reading at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/18/alan-greenspan-ship-of-fools?INTCMP=SRCH

Mayors for the Freedom to Marry

2012-01-22T00:32:00.002-06:00

Anti-Gay Groups Protest SPLC with Claims of Hate and Intolerance

2012-01-22T00:31:00.000-06:00

From Southern Poverty Law Center: http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2012/01/17/anti-gay-groups-protest-splc-with-claims-of-hate-and-intolerance/

January 17, 2012

About a dozen African American pastors joined anti-gay extremists today in condemning the Southern Poverty Law Center for using its “hate group” label to describe faith-based organizations that demonize the LGBT community, characterizing it as part of an orchestrated liberal plot.

The pastors spoke at a press conference staged outside the SPLC offices in Montgomery, Ala., by Americans for the Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), which the SPLC lists as an anti-gay hate group.

“The SPLC has moved from monitoring actual hate groups like the KKK and neo-Nazis to slandering mainstream Christian organizations with that very same hate group label,” said Matt Barber of the Liberty Counsel, affiliated with Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. “By extension, the SPLC is smearing billions of Christians and Jews worldwide as haters simply because they embrace the traditional Judeo-Christian ethics.”

Rachel Conner of Abiding Truth Ministries, also listed as a hate group, charged that “the Southern Poverty Law Center has now become a tool of the God-haters, promoting hatred in the form of vicious lies against Christianity.”

“This has nothing to do with hate and tolerance,” said Peter LaBarbera, president of AFTAH. “It has everything to do with pro-gay politicking.”

Continue reading at: http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2012/01/17/anti-gay-groups-protest-splc-with-claims-of-hate-and-intolerance/

Sugar High: The Dark History and Nasty Methods Used to Feed Our Sweet Tooth

2012-01-22T00:26:00.003-06:00

From Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/food/153831/sugar_high%3A_the_dark_history_and_nasty_methods_used_to_feed_our_sweet_tooth/

Sugar is now 20 percent of the American diet, but it's not just our health that suffers from its pervasiveness.

By Jill Richardson

January 20, 2012

Americans think an awful lot about sucrose -- table sugar -- but only in certain ways. We crave it and dream up novel ways to combine it with other ingredients to produce delectable foods; and we worry that we eat too much of it and that it is making us unhealthy or fat. But how often do Americans think about where sugar actually comes from or the people who produce it? As a tropical crop, sugarcane cannot grow in most U.S. states. Most of us do not smell the foul odors coming from sugar refineries, look out over vast expanses of nothing but sugarcane, or speak to those who perform the hard labor required to grow and harvest sugarcane.

Of course, sugar can be made from beets, a temperate crop, and more than half of sugar produced in the United States is. But globally, most of the story of sugar, past and present, centers around sugarcane, not beets, and as biofuels become more common, it is sugarcane that is cultivated for ethanol. What's more, some conscious eaters avoid beet sugar as most of it is now made from genetically modified sugar beets.

While I do not fool myself that sugar is "healthy," if I am going to satisfy my sweet tooth, I prefer cane sugar, maple syrup, agave nectar, or honey over the other choices: beet sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners. Of the bunch, most Americans can find only honey and perhaps maple syrup sustainably and locally produced, but cane sugar is often the most versatile product for baking.

As a major consumer of cane sugar, I was disturbed to learn the realities of cane sugar production when I visited a sugarcane-producing area in Bolivia.

Sugarcane grew as far as the eye could see on the degraded soils of the deforested industrial agricultural area in Bolivia's lowlands. At one point, the van I was riding in got stuck in a traffic jam of enormous trucks, each full of sugarcane, delivering their loads to a refinery. The area around the refinery smelled terrible, and the locals told us the smell came from oxidizing ponds that hold the refinery's wastewater. When the refineries are washed out, typically once a year, the wastewater is dumped into local waterways, resulting in fish kills. This spurred me to learn more about how sugar is made, both in the U.S. and around the world, and how it impacts the land and the people who produce it. Sadly, the story of sugar is also the story of the African slave trade. Today, sugar production still uses exploitative labor practices and can cause serious environmental problems.

Continue reading at: http://www.alternet.org/food/153831/sugar_high%3A_the_dark_history_and_nasty_methods_used_to_feed_our_sweet_tooth/

Lost Calories: US trashes $ 1 Bln worth of food

2012-01-22T00:26:00.000-06:00

Lechery, Immodesty and the Talmud

2012-01-22T00:23:00.002-06:00

From The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/opinion/ultra-orthodox-jews-and-the-modesty-fight.html

By DOV LINZER

Published: January 19, 2012

IS it possible for a religious demand for modesty to be about anything other than men controlling women’s bodies? From recent events in Israel, it would certainly seem that it is not.

Last month, an innocent, modestly dressed 8-year-old girl, Naama Margolese, living in Beit Shemesh, described being spat on and vilified by religious extremists — all men — who believed that she did not dress modestly enough while walking past them to the religious school she attends. And more and more, public buses in Israel are enforcing gender segregation imposed by ultra-Orthodox riders in and near their neighborhoods. Woe to the girl or woman who refuses to move to the back of the bus.

This is part of a larger battle being waged in Israel between the ultra-Orthodox and the rest of Israeli society over women’s place in society, over their very right to have a visible presence and to participate in the public sphere.

What is behind these deeply disturbing events? We are told that they arise from a religious concern about modesty, that women must be covered and sequestered so that men do not have improper sexual thoughts. It seems, then, that a religious tenet that begins with men’s sexual thoughts ends with men controlling women’s bodies.

This is not a problem unique to Judaism. But the Talmud, the basis for Jewish law, offers a perhaps surprising answer: It places the responsibility for controlling men’s licentious thoughts about women squarely on the men.

Put more plainly, the Talmud says: It’s your problem, sir; not hers.

Continue reading at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/opinion/ultra-orthodox-jews-and-the-modesty-fight.html

The Onerous Toll of the Helms Amendment and What Obama Can Do To Change It

2012-01-22T00:22:00.002-06:00

From RH Reality Check: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/01/17/dragging-helms-amendment-out-dark

by Jessica Mack

January 17, 2012

It’s been almost three years since President Obama repealed the global gag rule, one of the most ludicrous and paternalistic U.S. foreign policies in history. But as we celebrate the anniversary of its repeal, just one day after the anniversary of Roe v. Wade on January 22nd, another matter deserves our attention.

The last stronghold of America’s oppressive overseas reproductive health policies, the Helms Amendment, is still alive and well. The 1973 amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act restricts U.S. funding for abortion overseas – even in countries where abortion is legal. Specifically, it states:

"No foreign assistance funds may be used to pay for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions.”

The Helms Amendment invented what the global gag rule caricatured: a foreign policy that explicitly intrudes on the lives of women in developing countries, singling out and stigmatizing ‘abortion’ from the continuum of reproductive care necessary for a healthy life. Yet we’ve heard relatively little of this “grandfather” of anti-choice policies over the past 40 years, and all the while its colonial specter has continued to haunt the United State's legacy of global reproductive rights.

Some are now aruing publicly for change. In late-December, 12 Members of Congress, including Representatives Lois Capps, Pete Stark, and Jan Schakowsky, sent a letter to President Obama asking for a formal review of the policy for the first time in history.

Continue reading at: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/01/17/dragging-helms-amendment-out-dark

Greece on verge of breakthrough in deal to cancel 70% of debt

2012-01-22T00:21:00.002-06:00

From The Guardian UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/20/greece-verge-breakthrough-debt-deal

• Agreement secured on interest rate for new bonds

• Athens hopes to brief EU meeting on Monday

Phillip Inman and Helena Smith in Athens

guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 January 2012

Greece is on the verge of a breakthrough in talks with its creditors that could wipe out up to 70% of its debts and alleviate the crisis in the eurozone.

An outline deal, hurriedly endorsed by Brussels, came after a frantic three days of negotiations that at one time appeared to be heading for deadlock.

It appeared that Greece had secured a deal to pay an interest rate of 3.1%, rising to 4.75%, on new 30-year bonds created from its outstanding €360bn (£300bn) debt burden. The effect would be for creditors to accept writedowns of up to 70% on many of their loans.

Sources close to the Greek government said it was still possible that major lenders could walk away if there was a failure to get agreement on some of the fine detail, but Athens was confident that further talks over the weekend would bring a comprehensive deal.

Continue reading at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/20/greece-verge-breakthrough-debt-deal

Score One for Women's Health! Obama Administration Stands Up For Birth Control

2012-01-22T00:20:00.002-06:00

From The ACLU: http://www.aclu.org/blog/religion-belief-reproductive-freedom/score-one-womens-health-obama-administration-stands-birth

Posted by Sarah Lipton-Lubet, Washington Legislative Office

Jan 20th, 2012

Most people may be keeping track of the NFL playoffs at the moment, but the big win today went to women. For anyone who’s keeping score, it’s women’s health — 1, discrimination — 0, with the Obama administration and thousands of women’s health proponents who pressured the Administration to do the right thing tied for MVP.

Today, the Obama administration announced that it would keep in place a proposed rule that ensures that new insurance plans include coverage of contraception, and provides an exception for houses of worship. The powerful U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ lobby, among others, had pressed for months to create gaping loopholes so that a broad range of employers could discriminate against women and deny them coverage for this essential preventive care. They tried to do so in the name of “religious liberty,” but what we know, is that as a nation, we protect religious beliefs, but one person’s religion must not be used to trump another’s civil rights protections. Because of the outcry from groups like the ACLU, however, the Obama administration stood up for women’s health and did not broaden the religious exception. The final rule will give certain religious employers that do not currently cover contraception an additional year to come into compliance.

We also know that the majority of women of childbearing age, regardless of religious background, use some form of birth control for 30 years, at costs that range from $50 per month for oral contraception, to up to $1,000 for longer-acting methods. We use birth control to prevent unintended pregnancies, protect our health, and to plan our lives. That’s why the nonpartisan Institute of Medicine initially recommended to HHS that insurance companies be required to cover contraceptives in the first place, and why the administration adopted — and has now confirmed — that policy.

Continue reading at: http://www.aclu.org/blog/religion-belief-reproductive-freedom/score-one-womens-health-obama-administration-stands-birth

Will Obama endorse marriage equality in ‘State of the Union’ address?

2012-01-22T00:19:00.002-06:00

From The Washington Blade: http://www.washingtonblade.com/2012/01/20/will-obama-endorse-marriage-equality-in-sotu/

By Chris Johnson

January 20, 2012

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said on Friday he wouldn’t rule “in or out” the possibility of President Obama endorsing same-sex marriage in the upcoming State of the Union address.

Carney made the remarks on whether Obama would announce support for marriage equality during the State of the Union address, which is set to take place Tuesday before a joint session of Congress, in response to a question from the Washington Blade.

“I will not rule anything in or out,” Carney said. “I’m just not going to talk about — beyond pointing at his words — his personal views on this. I think his administration’s policies on related issues are there for people to judge.”

Obama doesn’t support same-sex marriage, but since October 2010 he’s suggested his views could “evolve” in favor of same-sex marriage, However, he hasn’t yet made an endorsement in support of marriage rights for gay couples.

However, in 1996, Obama, during his bid to become an Illinois state senator, said in a questionnaire response to the Windy City Times, “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.”

Continue reading at: http://www.washingtonblade.com/2012/01/20/will-obama-endorse-marriage-equality-in-sotu/

Girl Scouts Do the Right Thing By Accepting Transkid as a Girl Scout--- Buy Girl Scout Cookies This Year to Show Your Appreciation

2012-01-22T00:17:00.000-06:00

Quiverful family's One Man Population Bomb and patriarchal jerk

Duggar Douche Nozzle Comes Out Against Transgender Girl Scout

From Buzzfeed: http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/duggar-dad-comes-out-against-transgender-girl-scou

“Our family loves Girl Scout cookies and I don't think allowing a boy in the Girl Scouts is a good thing,” says Douche Nozzle Jim Bob Duggar.

LAURENS, S.C. -- Unlike the presidential candidate he's endorsing, reality TV star and father of 19 Jim Bob Duggar has an opinion on the conflict over a transgender child in the Girl Scouts.

"Our family loves Girl Scout cookies and I don't think allowing a boy in the Girl Scouts is a good thing," Duggar told BuzzFeed after a Rick Santorum campaign stop in Laurens. Duggar and some of his children are on the campaign trail for Rick Santorum in South Carolina this week.

"I think the founders of the Girl Scouts would be truly upset to hear this direction," Duggar said, noting that his wife Michelle is a former Girl Scout troop leader. "If they're wanting to create a new scout program where girls and boys would join together, that might be an option. But whether somebody declares they're a boy or girl and can join either one -- it isn't even logical and it goes against the core principles the group was founded on."

Continue reading at: http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/duggar-dad-comes-out-against-transgender-girl-scou

Girl Scouts accepts transgender kid, provokes cookie boycott

From CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/13/living/girl-scout-boycott/

By Katia Hetter, Special to CNN
Fri January 13, 2012

(CNN) -- The Girl Scout cookie can't seem to catch a break.

Under fire in years past for including trans fats, high fructose corn syrup and palm oil in its cookies, the Girl Scouts' current cookie selling season is under fire because of policies that have nothing to do with the actual composition of the cookies.

A group calling itself HonestGirlScouts.com has posted a YouTube video calling for a boycott of Girl Scout cookies in response to a Colorado troop's decision to allow a 7-year-old transgender child into its troop. Gay rights and transgender rights groups have reported a grassroots LGBT movement of supporters buying Girl Scout cookies in response to the video.

"I've decided to purchase as many boxes as my modest budget will allow and donate them to the local LGBTQ community center," says Mara Morken, a lesbian stay-at-home mom in Fargo, North Dakota. "I want to show support for GSUSA in their honorable decision to allow all girls to participate in their programs. However I do not want that support to show itself on my thighs, so I will donate the entire cookie order!"

After an initial burst of publicity around the nearly 8-minute video featuring a teen Girl Scout wearing a Girl Scout sash, the video has been made private on YouTube. However, it's still available for viewing elsewhere on the Internet.

"I ask all fellow Girl Scouts who want a true, all-girl experience not to sell any Girl Scouts cookies until GSUSA (Girl Scouts of the USA) addresses our concerns," says the girl, identified as a teen named Taylor, a troop member from California, in some news reports. "I ask all parents who want their girls to be in a safe environment to tell their leaders why you will not allow your girls to make any more money for GSUSA."

Continue reading at: http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/13/living/girl-scout-boycott/

The Girl Scouts' Allegedly Radical Feminist Lesbian Agenda

From Slate: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/09/the_girl_scouts_allegedly_radical_feminist_lesbian_agenda.html

What conservative Christian rumors about the group get wrong—and right.

By Amanda Marcotte
Posted Thursday, Sept. 15, 2011

Most of us, if pressed to think about the Girl Scouts, conjure up images of girlish innocence: summer camp, volunteerism, and, of course, cookies. A small but growing segment of the public, however, has started to think of the Girl Scouts in far darker terms.

More than a decade ago, Kathryn Jean Lopez of the National Review wrote: "The Girl Scouts' leaders hope to make their youthful charges the shock troops of an ongoing feminist revolution." A number of prominent voices on the Christian right went on to join her in sounding an alarm about the organization, accusing it of religious and sexual subversion. Cathy Ruse of the Family Research Council alleged that the organization is "pushing promiscuous sex on the girls." Bob Knight, while working for Concerned Women for America, accused the Girl Scouts of drifting into "radical feminism," and while the word "witchcraft" has yet to be trotted out, popular right wing website WorldNetDaily has accused the Girl Scouts of promoting "lesbianism" and "paganism."

For years, such suspicions swirled in a disorganized cloud, until in the spring of 2010, they coalesced around an urban legend that the Girl Scouts were working with Planned Parenthood to secretly distribute sex manuals to young girls. Wendy Wright, also of CWA, was one of those who promoted the fast-spreading tale, writing on CWA's website that "the group hosted a 'no adults allowed' meeting at the United Nations (U.N.) where a graphic sex guide was distributed." The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute was also instrumental in promoting the story, insinuating that the Girl Scouts were using a Planned Parenthood brochure to promote casual sex and to encourage HIV-positive people to conceal their status from sex partners.

Planned Parenthood and the United Nations hijacking a girl's organization to encourage orgiastic behavior? If the story had been generated by a computer programmed to push right-wing buttons it could hardly have been better suited to the task. And yet these critics aren't entirely wrong to perceive the group as a feminist organization, however mild and mainstream its strain of feminism may be, or to perceive the group as comparatively forward-looking (something that's obvious when you contrast the group, both now and historically, with the Boy Scouts). Since their founding, the Girl Scouts have taken the well-being of girls as their mission, and they lobby to this end both nationally and internationally. So even as specific accusations against the group are spurious, it makes a certain amount sense that the group's conservative Christian critics, who value traditional gender roles, would oppose an organization that takes female equality as a given.

Continue reading at: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/09/the_girl_scouts_allegedly_radical_feminist_lesbian_agenda.html

Honest and Fair, Friendly and Helpful, Considerate and Caring, Courageous and Strong

From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jody-huckaby/bobby-montoya-girl-scouts-transgender_b_1204376.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

Jody Huckaby
Executive Director, PFLAG National
Posted: 1/13/12

I will do my best to be

Honest and Fair,

Friendly and Helpful,

Considerate and Caring,

Courageous and Strong…

These are the opening phrases of the Girl Scout Law. And over the last few months, we’ve heard them used in a few different contexts.

We watched as the Girl Scouts of Colorado did their best to live to the letter of this law by allowing Bobby Montoya, a transgender girl, to join the Girl Scouts of Denver, Colo. We saw them slightly twisted when several troops in Louisiana, in protest of that decision, decided to disband, their leaders resigning. And we saw them stretched to their limit—and possibly their breaking point—when the video of a young California girl calling for a ban on Girl Scout cookies in protest of the decision popped up and went viral.

In the face of all of this—ignorance and resignation threats from troop leaders across the country—the Girls Scouts of Denver held firm in their decision. PFLAG National applauds and supports them.

Tragically, exclusion, discrimination, and rejection are common experiences for many transgender and gender non-conforming young people. In fact, in the 2009 report by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, "Injustice at Every Turn," 57 percent of transgender respondents said that they experienced significant rejection when coming out as transgender to immediate family, including parents, guardians, and siblings. In school, 31 percent of these same respondents reported harassment by teachers or staff in K-12 settings.

Ultimately, it is family acceptance that offers the best protection against the many threats to the health and well-being of our children. And if it is a Girl Scout’s duty to “make the world a better place, and be a sister to every Girl Scout,” then why should Bobby Montoya lose out on this important aspect of acceptance?

Continue reading at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jody-huckaby/bobby-montoya-girl-scouts-transgender_b_1204376.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

You know... Maybe the Girl Scouts really have a handle on what it means to be a Scout, respect others and honor American ideals of equality, respect, and justice. They seem miles a head of the Boy Scouts in respect for the human dignity of all girls including atheist, lesbian and TS/TG girls.

Maybe some radical feminists out there should look to the Girl Scouts and the example they are setting.

Catholic Bishops Fail to Take Birth Control from More Women

2012-01-22T00:15:00.002-06:00

NOW Press release: http://www.now.org/press/01-12/01-20b.html

Statement of NOW President Terry O'Neill

January 20, 2012

In an important decision that ensures access to affordable birth control for millions of women, including those who get insurance coverage through a religiously affiliated hospital, university, or other religiously affiliated organization that serves the broader public, the Obama administration announced today that it would not expand an unconstitutional refusal clause that will already deny contraceptive coverage to some women under the Affordable Care Act. NOW thanks the many activists and women's rights supporters around the country who flooded the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services with messages urging the administration to remove -- not expand -- that refusal clause.

Last year, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops intensified its lobbying campaign peddling a version of so-called "religious freedom" that would allow organizations to withhold needed reproductive health care from women, as if those organizations were people with the ability to have a "conscience." Though 77 percent of women and men in this country believe private medical insurance should cover birth control with no co-pay, just like any other preventive health service, the bishops had already convinced HHS to insert a deeply discriminatory refusal clause that will deny birth control to women who work for religious institutions, such as churches, and get their health coverage through their employers.

Contraception is basic medical care, and nearly all women use a form of birth control at some point in their lives. On average, a woman uses birth control for 30 years of her life at an average cost of $50 per month. After a thorough review that included independent recommendations from the Institute of Medicine, contraceptive coverage will be available without co-pay under the Affordable Care Act.

The National Organization for Women remains deeply disturbed by the narrower refusal clause earlier secured by the bishops. Any attack on some women's access to birth control is an attack on all women's access to birth control. We continue to affirm that any reproductive health refusal clause infringes a woman's right to freedom of religion under the First Amendment, her right to privacy under Griswold v. Connecticut, her right to equal protection of the laws under the 14th Amendment, and her right to be free from workplace discrimination.

###

Shit New Age People Say

2012-01-21T00:25:00.000-06:00

Former President says Newt Gingrich "appeals" to racist groups

2012-01-21T00:19:00.002-06:00

From The Orlando Liberal Examiner: http://www.examiner.com/liberal-in-orlando/former-president-says-newt-gingrich-appeals-to-racist-groups

Robert Sobel

Orlando Liberal Examiner January 19, 2012

If you have been paying attention to any of the Republican debates you will notice a recurring theme, race. Whether it's subtle or not so subtle comments, every Republican candidate has had an obsession with the African-American community as well as other minorities. One of the biggest statements that has brought attention to the Republican field is former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich's comments about young children and janitorial work. Newt Gingrich claims that children around the age of 10, in low-income areas should be given the job of janitors while firing the current adults who hold the position. While Newt Gingrich claims that janitors in New York make an "obscene" amount of money, acrroding to simplyhired.com the average salary of a janitor is around $22,000 a year. Head janitors, those who run the school and are in charge of all the people below them, can crack the $100,000 a year markwith massive overtime and years put in at the job.

By what Newt Gingrich has said, he wants to roll back child labor laws, putting dangerous chemicals and heavy equipment in the hands of young children, all at the same time firing hardworking adults who have a family to feed and bills to pay. Newt Gingrich, along with many other Republicans, direct these comments towards low-income families and minorities, in particular the African-American community. Newt Gingrich has even stated that food stamps are an African-American problem, despite more white Americans receiving them. Republicans will always cry "reverse racism" and blame the "liberal left," but the truth is easy to see.

Former President Jimmy Carter is one who has noticed what has gone on and hasn't been shy about making a comment towards the Republican party and Newt Gingrich.

President Carter: “I wouldn’t say he is racist, but he knows the subtle words to use to appeal to a racist group....When you emphasize, over and over, welfare, food stamps, and ‘why don’t the black people get jobs,’ and if I’m president, I’ll make sure they turn toward a work ethic, rather than an ethic of welfare and food stamps, that’s appealing to the wrong element in South Carolina.”

Complete article at: http://www.examiner.com/liberal-in-orlando/former-president-says-newt-gingrich-appeals-to-racist-groups

Catholic leaders tell Gingrich, Santorum ‘to stop perpetuating ugly racial stereotypes’

2012-01-21T00:18:00.002-06:00

From The Floridian Independent: http://floridaindependent.com/65318/newt-gingrich-rick-santorum-catholics-to-stop-perpetuating-ugly-racial-stereotypes

By Marcos Restrepo

01.20.12

Catholic leaders issued a letter Friday to GOP presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, themselves Catholics, urging them “to stop perpetuating ugly racial stereotypes on the campaign trail.”

The letter, signed by 45 Catholic leaders says:

Mr. Gingrich has frequently attacked President Obama as a “food stamp president” and claimed that African Americans are content to collect welfare benefits rather than pursue employment. Campaigning in Iowa, Mr. Santorum remarked: “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”

“At a time when nearly 1 in 6 Americans live in poverty, charities and the free market alone can’t address the urgent needs of our most vulnerable neighbors. And while jobseekers outnumber job openings 4-to-1, suggesting that the unemployed would rather collect benefits than work is misleading and insulting,” the letter adds.

“This statement is urging prominent Catholics in the race to go back and look at church teaching,” John Gehring, the Catholic outreach coordinator at Faith in Public Life, tells The Florida Independent, adding “that the letter is also about poverty.”

“The Catholic bishops have been incredibly important in raising a prophetic voice that really challenges those who think that the free market alone can sort of solve our economic problems,” Gehring says.

“You have Catholic conservative leaders, like John Boener, Paul Ryan, Rick Santourm, Newt Gingrich and they’ve all been looking to dismantle vital social safety nets,” Gehring says.

Continue reading at: http://floridaindependent.com/65318/newt-gingrich-rick-santorum-catholics-to-stop-perpetuating-ugly-racial-stereotypes

Republican Racism is an Air Raid Siren, Not a Dog Whistle

2012-01-21T00:17:00.000-06:00

From Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/153819/republican_racism_is_an_air_raid_siren%2C_not_a_dog_whistle/

Republican candidates are overtly signaling that whiteness and American identity are intertwined.

By Chauncey DeVega

January 19, 2012

On his MSNBC show Hardball, Chris Matthews called out Newt Gingrich and other Republicans for what he described as their "dog whistle" appeals to white racism during the South Carolina debate on Monday night.

He was correct in identifying the work that racism does for the Tea Party GOP and its candidates in their efforts to win over white conservative voters. However, Chris Matthews was too generous and kind. Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and other Republican candidates are not engaging in subtle dog whistles to their faithful, where racism and white racial anxiety hides in the background, masked and hidden by other language.

Definitions matter: dog whistle politics are based on a signal or cue to the in-group, and one so subtle that those not in the know will overlook it as no more than quixotic background noise, a blip, a comment without context or meaning.

For example, during the 2004 election, President Bush's mention of the infamous Dredd Scott Supreme Court decision had nothing to do with African Americans and slavery. Rather, it was a wink to a rabidly anti-choice conservative Right-wing audience that Roe vs. Wade would be overturned by his administration.

In 2008, McCain-Palin featured a negative campaign ad which borrowed from the movie The Ten Commandments and suggested that Barack Obama was the Anti-Christ. If one was not part of the Left Behind Jesus Camp Christian Nationalist Dominionist crowd, the visuals and narrative of the commercial were odd, bizarre, utterly strange, and devoid of context. The ugliness of these symbols and metaphors were so covert, that they made sense for those outside of the targeted audience only after Time magazine thoroughly deconstructed the campaign adand its malicious intent.

Continue reading at: http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/153819/republican_racism_is_an_air_raid_siren%2C_not_a_dog_whistle/

Santorum Staffer Says Women Shouldn’t Be President Because It’s Against God’s Will

2012-01-21T00:15:00.002-06:00

From Think Progress: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/01/17/402438/santorum-staffer-says-women-shouldnt-be-president-because-its-against-gods-will/

By Marie Diamond

on Jan 17, 2012

n an article about the reasons Rep. Michele Bachmann’s campaign fizzled, the Des Moines Register points to “sexism among conservatives,” singling out an offensive email written by a staffer to Rick Santorum:

Rival presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s Iowa coalitions director, Jamie Johnson, sent out an email saying that children’s lives would be harmed if the nation had a female president. [...]

“The question then comes, ‘Is it God’s highest desire, that is, his biblically expressed will, … to have a woman rule the institutions of the family, the church, and the state?’ ” Johnson’s email said.

Johnson, who remains on Santorum’s staff, complained that the email was “blown out of proportion” and should not be held against him because it was sent from a personal email account.

But he refused to back away from the substance of the email, saying “I was sharing my personal reflections with a friend…[T]hey were reflections on over 25 years of formal, theological study [based in] classical Christian doctrine.”

Continue reading at: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/01/17/402438/santorum-staffer-says-women-shouldnt-be-president-because-its-against-gods-will/

'Enemy is on Wall Street, not in Iran'

2012-01-21T00:14:00.002-06:00

This Week in Poverty: An American Commitment to Children?

2012-01-21T00:13:00.002-06:00

From The Nation: http://www.thenation.com/blog/165773/week-poverty-american-commitment-children

Greg Kaufmann

on January 20, 2012

his week, at a forum on poverty and the 2012 election, Republican pollster Jim McLaughlin said 88 percent of voters view a candidate’s position on equal opportunity for children of all races as important in deciding their vote for president. Washington Postcolumnist Michael Gerson commented that it was “most encouraging” that “Americans of every ideological background believe in opportunity for children. It’s a common ground commitment.”

I wish I shared his confidence. I think if that commitment were truly a strong one, we would be doing much more to help the 22 percent of American children and their families—disproportionately people of color—get out of poverty.

Yet too many politicians and citizens still seize on President Reagan’s old line—“We fought a war against poverty, and poverty won”—as a reason not to make substantial investments in children and families. The data, however, suggest that this take on anti-poverty legislation is a myth.

From 1964 to 1973 we reduced poverty by 43 percent. More recently, six initiatives in the Recovery Act kept nearly 7 million Americans from falling into poverty. Saying we failed simply because there is still poverty is like saying clean air and clean water laws failed because there is still pollution.

The truth is, we do know many of the things that need to be done to reduce poverty, and our failure to act means we are choosing to accept a brutal status quo. Here’s a look back at how we could have reduced poverty by 25 percent if we had possessed the will. These programs and others still offer us opportunities to prove our commitment to children and their families today.

Continue reading at: http://www.thenation.com/blog/165773/week-poverty-american-commitment-children

Non-Union Retail Workers Bear Costs of Bias

2012-01-21T00:12:00.002-06:00

From Women's News: http://www.womensenews.org/story/equal-payfair-wage/120116/non-union-retail-workers-bear-costs-bias

By Samantha Kimmey

WeNews correspondent

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Female retail workers in the New York area experience hardships common in a sector plagued by low pay, little health insurance, scheduling instability and an abuse of part-time job status, a Retail Action Project report finds today.

NEW YORK (WOMENSENEWS)--Female retail workers in New York are less likely than men to have health coverage and paid time off, as well as less likely to receive a promotion, a report issued today by the Retail Action Projectfinds.

The advocacy group also finds a gender-pay gap among the respondents, all of whom worked in non-unionized large stores or national chains.

While the outlook for all non-unionized retail workers is poor--often with a high turnover rate, low wages and lack of health benefits--women and minorities in particular face difficult obstacles.

In its survey of 436 workers--59 percent of whom were women--the New York-based group found that women report earning a median $9 per hour versus $10.13 for men. These disparities are amplified for female women of color: The data gathered indicates that 77 percent of Latinas and 42 percent of black women earn less than $10 per hour, while 39 percent of white women were paid at that rate.

Retail employs approximately 7.8 million women, almost 12 percent of working women in the United States and more than any other sector, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The report finds deterioration in the conditions for most of its surveyed pool, male and female, and points to unionized stores as a model for improving fairness in wages, scheduling and benefits.

Continue reading at: http://www.womensenews.org/story/equal-payfair-wage/120116/non-union-retail-workers-bear-costs-bias

Couple Finally Reveals Child's Gender, Five Years After Birth

2012-01-21T00:11:00.002-06:00

Like not indoctrinating your child in religion or gender stereotyping is such a horrible thing.

From Yahoo Shine: http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/couple-finally-reveals-childs-gender-five-years-birth-180300388.html

By Piper Weiss,

January 20, 2012

It's a boy! And he's five. Beck Laxton, 46, and partner Kieran Cooper, 44, have spent half the decade concealing the gender of their son, Sasha.

"I wanted to avoid all that stereotyping," Laxton said in an interview with the Cambridge News. "Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?"

Laxton, a UK-based web editor, and her partner, Cooper, decided to keep Sasha's sex a secret when he was still in the womb. The birth announcement stated the name of the gender-neutral name of their child, but skipped the big reveal. Up until recently, the couple only told a few close friends and family members that Sasha was a boy and managed to keep the rest of the world in the dark. But now that he's starting school the secret's out.

For years, Becks has been referring to her child, the youngest of three, as "the infant" on her personal blog. But guarding the public from her son's gender was only part of her quest to let her kid just be a kid.

Sasha dresses in clothes he likes -- be it a hand-me-downs from his sister or his brother. The big no-no's are hyper-masculine outfits like skull-print shirts. In one photo, sent to friends and family, Sasha's dressed in a shiny pink girl's swimsuit. "Children like sparkly things," says Beck. "And if someone thought Sasha was a girl because he was wearing a pink swimming costume, then what effect would that have? "

Continue reading at: http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/couple-finally-reveals-childs-gender-five-years-birth-180300388.html

We must stop this corporate takeover of American democracy

2012-01-21T00:10:00.002-06:00

From Guardian UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/20/us-constitution-and-civil-liberties-us-supreme-court

Unless we can reverse the supreme court's dreadful Citizens United decision, US politics will become a plutocrats' plaything

Bernie Sanders guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 January 2012

The corporate barbarians are through the gate of American democracy. Not satisfied with their all-pervasive influence on our culture, economy and legislative processes, they want more. They want it all.

Two years ago, the United States supreme court betrayed our Constitution and those who fought to ensure that its protections are enjoyed equally by all persons regardless of religion, race or gender by engaging in an unabashed power-grab on behalf of corporate America. In its now infamous decision in the Citizens United case, five justices declared that corporations must be treated as if they are actual people under the Constitution when it comes to spending money to influence our elections, allowing them for the first time to draw on the corporate checkbook – in any amount and at any time – to run ads explicitly for or against specific candidates.

What's next … a corporate right to vote?

Don't laugh. Just this month, the Republican National Committee filed an amicus brief in a US appeals court contending that the natural extension of the Citizens United rationale is that the century-old ban on corporate contributions directly to candidates and political parties is similarly unconstitutional. They want corporations to be able to sponsor candidates and parties directly while claiming with a straight face this would not result in any sort of corruption. And while, this month, they take no issue with corporations being subject to the existing contribution limits, anyone paying attention knows that eliminating such caps will be corporate America's next prize in its brazen ambition for absolute control over our elections.

The US Constitution has served us very well, but when the supreme court says, for purposes of the first amendment, that corporations are people, that writing checks from the company's bank account is constitutionally-protected speech and that attempts by the federal government and states to impose reasonable restrictions on campaign ads are unconstitutional, our democracy is in grave danger.

Continue reading at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/20/us-constitution-and-civil-liberties-us-supreme-court

Megaupload Op: Anonymous downs FBI, DoJ, music sites in biggest attack ever

2012-01-21T00:09:00.000-06:00

On US Education: It’s the Socioeconomic Segregation, Stupid

2012-01-21T00:07:00.003-06:00

From Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/20-4

by Jim Horn

Published on Friday, January 20, 2012 by Common Dreams

In a piece for The Nation last week, Linda Darling-Hammond demolished most of the remaining chunks of any size within the crumbling structure of corporate education’'s most ironically-titled reform ever --No Child Left Behind. NCLB is now rubble, even though many unseen victims continue to be buried beneath its mammoth pile.

Darling-Hammond, who was recruited to get Team Obama up to speed on education issues following the 2008 election, entitled her piece, "Why Is Congress Redlining Our Schools?". It should be noted that as soon as Team Obama got a lay of the edu-land in early 2009, they dismissed Darling-Hammond and brought in corporate lackey, Arne Duncan, to serve as titular head of the Education Department while the corporate foundations run the show.

Now that I think about it, she might have more appropriately named her piece "Why are the White House and Congress Redlining Our Schools?”.

Just as red-lining was used for many years by the FHA to maintain racial purity and avoid ethnic mixing in housing, red-lining is a good description of what is going on today in urban public education to contain and isolate children of the poor in the new chain gang charter schools. Thanks to requirements of NCLB, residents of urban areas who send their children to public schools with their sub-par testing results must contend with the federal label of failure and high risk, with public monies often withheld because the poor children in these schools cannot pass tests whose pass rates are directly correlated to family income. And as the teachers and principals in these schools have been blamed, then, for the student failure that poverty has assured, these red-lined schools are labeled, shut down, or reconstituted per the NCLB plan.

Continue reading at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/20-4

Fact Checking Big Oil

2012-01-21T00:06:00.002-06:00

Trumka Voices ‘Dissent’ From Obama’s Corporate-Backed Jobs Council Report

2012-01-21T00:05:00.000-06:00

From In These Times: http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/12585/trumka_voices_dissent_from_obamas_corporate-backed_jobs_council_report/

Strong criticism comes as labor federation withholds re-election endorsement

By Mike Elk

Thursday Jan 19, 2012

WASHINGTON D.C.—In a sign of what could be growing political independence from the White House, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on Tuesday strongly criticized the latest report issued by the President's Council on Jobs and Competiveness. The Council's "Roadmap to Renewal" report, released that day, recommended corporate tax cuts, deregulation and government budgets cuts.

“[R]eforming our regulatory system and reducing the statutory corporate tax rate are not not crucial elements of “competitiveness” for the United States going forward, nor does empirical evidence support the claim that significant net new job creation would result from such “reforms,” Trumka said in what he called "constructive dissent."

He didn't attend the Council's Tuesday meeting at the White House because he was sick, according to the AFL-CIO. The other labor leader on the 25-member Council, United Food and Commercial Workers President Joe Hansen, did attend the meeting. But on this video of the meeting, Hansen appeared to be the only Council who abstained from approving the report, saying, "I certainly think there's been an awful lot of good work in the report, but I choose to abstain at this time. ... My concern is with the tax reform."

President Obama issued a laudatory statement, saying “I’m proud that we’ve taken action on a majority of the Council’s recommendations on issues ranging from insourcing to permitting to clean energy.”

Trumka also criticized the composition of Obama’s Job Council, which is made up of 23 corporate executives and two labor leaders, saying, “I believe strongly that the Jobs Council’s membership is simply too narrowly representative of our country to provide a balanced set of recommendations to the President in these critical areas…. As a result, the report addresses regulatory issues as if we were not in the midst of a prolonged economic crisis whose proximate causes clearly included inadequate regulation of business, and in particular financial markets and institutions.”

Continue reading at: http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/12585/trumka_voices_dissent_from_obamas_corporate-backed_jobs_council_report/

Super PACs Super-Size Campaign Corruption

2012-01-21T00:03:00.002-06:00

From Truth Dig: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/super_pacs_super-size_campaign_corruption_20120120/

By Bill Boyarsky

Posted on Jan 20, 2012

Given time and enough money, the super PACs and other secretive political campaign funds are capable of causing corruptive influence that could reach from the presidency down to the lowest ranked members of the House.

So far, most attention in the campaign has been centered on the opaque nature of these funds, their size and their impact—particularly on former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, targeted by the super PAC affiliated with Mitt Romney’s campaign. Thanks to Stephen Colbert, the subject of campaign finance, usually too arcane for public instruction, has been elevated at least to cocktail party conversation.

The media have also been focused on how the money is being used—in television commercials and other advertising, most of it negative.

But not enough notice has been paid to the possibility—or even likelihood—of corruption. Corruption, of course, has always been part of politics. What’s new is the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United case. In one of the worst misjudgments of this court, the justices by a 5-4 vote killed as unconstitutional the law banning corporations and unions from paying for political advertising with unlimited contributions from their own treasuries.

The majority said the ban was unconstitutional, violating First Amendment rights of free speech. Corporations and unions, the justices said, are entitled to the same First Amendment protections as individuals.

Continue reading at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/super_pacs_super-size_campaign_corruption_20120120/

How Will Egg-as-Person Legislation Fare in Kansas?

2012-01-21T00:02:00.002-06:00

From RH Reality Check: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/01/18/how-will-egg-as-person-legislation-fare-in-kansas

by Kari Ann Rinker, National Organization for Women (NOW), Kansas

January 19, 2012

While the normal and expected initial reaction to hearing about any attempt at personhood legislation should be met with a certain amount of alarm by women and reproductive rights supporters, those of us on the ground fighting such attempts must push past the initial alarm, stop and partake in some careful analysis. This is especially important in Kansas, where the assaults are numerous and resources are thin. Best practice is to stop, breathe, take stock and prioritize. This step of course follows the part where I’ve packed my tornado shelter full with tampons, maxi pads, oral contraception, condoms and whatever other items associated with women's reproductive capacities that I believe might be legislatively stripped from me next.

When the news of Kansas personhood broke on Friday and I was scrambling around in tornado shelter mode, answering press calls and cursing a lot, I knew that this was to be taken seriously. This is Kansas and in sessions past, especially since last session, under the leadership of Governor Brownback, the anti-choice crowd has pretty much gotten anything and everything on their legislative plate that they could possibly want. They have gone back for seconds, even thirds... their gluttonous appetite for eliminating reproductive choice and access simply cannot be suppressed.

Even when the top dogs in leadership have attempted to restrain them, they have found a way to be fed by their respective legislative abortion kitchen compatriots. Last session, the abortion insurance ban was pushed through in conference committee in violation of the joint rules stating that language must have passed at least one chamber. Neither chamber had a hearing on the insurance ban of abortion.

Senator David Haley had this to say about the rules violation:

MR. PRESIDENT: I vote "NO" on the conference committee report to HB 2075,
time-honored rules of the Kansas Legislature; specifically Joint Rule 3, Section F, of the Joint Rules of the House and Senate to, in this instance, insert new language (on abortion based insurance policy riders) which has never passed either chamber is foul.....and cheats our honor. Sure, twenty-one of us can make a new rule here as we go along. But the eyes and ears of all law-abiding Kansans are watching and listening. Perverting the rules of the Senate to subsidize any political agenda or issue cheapens the respect that each of us should demand of this body and this process. A “YES” vote on this measure dims the light in the chamber; tarnishes the gild.

Continue reading at: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/01/18/how-will-egg-as-person-legislation-fare-in-kansas

Friday Night Fun and Culture: Johnny Otis and Etta James

2012-01-20T15:59:00.000-06:00

This week two giants in Rhythm and Blues passed away Johnny Otis and Etta James.

George Carlin - Why You Are In Debt

2012-01-20T14:29:00.000-06:00

Shit (Young, White, Class-privileged, City-based) "Radical Queers" Say to Each Other

2012-01-20T01:00:00.002-06:00