Comedian Ahmed Bahroocha finds a metaphor for gay marriage

Sens. Deb Fischer, Mike Johanns and Charles Grassley defy public opinion, vote to kill LGBT civil rights law; how all senators voted on ENDA

Grassley, Fischer and Johanns to gay constituents: Drop dead

ENDA, the Employment NonDiscrimination Act covering LGBTs, has been introduced and re-introduced since 1996. Today it passed for the first time in the Senate, 64-32.
   HRC (Human Rights Campaign), published a complete list of how each senator voted and suggested that readers whose senators voted "no" send an email (through HRC's name-gathering, fund-raising website, of course) including the following:

Your opposition to this crucial legislation puts you at odds with a majority of Americans who support workplace equality. I hope you will be persuaded to stand on the right side of history the next time pro-equality legislation comes up for a vote. 

     Putting their own agenda above the will of Nebraskans, Sens. Johanns and Fischer nixed ENDA despite the fact that 73% of Nebraskans favor "Protecting gay, lesbian, bisexual,and transgender people from discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations."
     Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, who purportedly represents a state where support for LGBT legal protection is even higher than in Nebraska, also voted, once again, against legal protection for LGBTs.
     Contact information:

• Senator Charles Grassley
• Senator Deb Fischer
• Senator Mike Johanns

Arafat's widow has long claimed Israel poisoned her husband; now Swiss scientists say he had lethal levels of radioactive polonium in his body

As Kremlin arrests Norwegian journalists in Sochi three times, Thomas Roberts interviews Anton Krasovsky, fired for coming out on Russian TV

Roberts, in Russia to host Donald Trump's Miss Universe pageant, interviews a photogenic fellow television anchor who used to tow the Kremlin line as a commenter on a Russian cable show before being thrown under the bus after he came out on the air. Meanwhile, news of Russian harassment of Norwegian journalists was only briefly mentioned in an introduction to Thomas' piece and by graphics superimposed on his interview with Krasovsky.
     For a more substantial account of Russian officials in Sochi stopping Oystein Bogen and Aage Aunes, reporter and cameraman respectively of Norway's TV2, six times and arresting them thrice go to The Guardian.
     Below: Roberts' Krasvosky interview, prefaced by news from MSNBC on Illinois' just-passed marriage equality legislation.

GoodAsYou roasts Christie

Jeremy Hooper is usually, if anything, overly polite in responding to heterosexual supremacists, but something about Chris Christie's passive-aggressive attitude toward New Jersey LGBTs stuck in Hooper's craw today. Hence this pithy takedown:

      You know what, governor? You don't deserve any tinge of warm feelings about these couples' marriages! If you felt such a strong need to spend years telling society that these couples' happiness comes at some great expense (and let's be clear: you did), then you can take your "I'm happy if they're happy" and shove it up your New Jersey Turnpike.
      I'm sorry, but I'm not playing this "he's such a moderate" game, just like I refuse to call him frank or refreshing when he's more accurately acting like a bully. Respect is earned, and on this issue on marriage equality, Gov. Christie has recruited quite the opposite.

This Glen Campbell / Keith Urban duet is probably better than anything you'll see on tonight's CMA awards show

How to make climate change deniers accountable at the polls

Gila Regional Medical Center in New Mexico illegally performed invasive, unnecessary, and forced procedures on protesting man, then billed victim

Doctors took two x-rays, performed two digital rectal exams, three enemas, and a colonoscopy after a doctor at an emergency room in a different facility in Deming, N.M. refused to cooperate with accompanying cops, calling internal body search demands "unethical." A policeman was convinced the man was hiding drugs. None were found.
     Dude should hold an auction for lawyers interested in suing on his behalf.



From Chris Ramirez, KOB Eyewitness News 4:

     There are major concerns about the way the search warrant was carried out. Kennedy [David Eckert's attorney, Shannon Kennedy] argues that the search warrant was overly broad and lacked probable cause.  But beyond that, the warrant was only valid in Luna County, where Deming is located.  The Gila Regional Medical Center is in Grant County.  That means all of the medical procedures were performed illegally and the doctors who performed the procedures did so with no legal basis and no consent from the patient.
     In addition, even if the search warrant was executed in the correct New Mexico county, the warrant expired at 10 p.m.  Medical records show the prepping for the colonoscopy started at 1 a.m. the following day, three hours after the warrant expired.
     "This is like something out of a science fiction film, anal probing by government officials and public employees," Kennedy said.

From James Staley, of the Silver City News-Sun:

Drs. Okay H. Odacha (left) and Robert Wilcox, of the
Gila Regional Medical Center, accused in federal suit
of illegally performing six invasive procedures on man
without his consent and in spite of his refusals. Wilcox
said he "reasonably believed" that the warrant, issued
for another county, and which had expired hours
before a forced colonoscopy was performed, was valid.

     ...one of the physicians named in the suit, Dr. Robert Wilcox, said in court filings he "reasonably believed" the warrant to be valid.
     At the Gila Regional Medical Center, medical personnel performed the six invasive procedures, plus two X-rays — all without Eckert's consent, the lawsuit claims. Officials again found no drugs in Eckert's body.
     ...During those procedures, the suit alleges, police officers mocked, harassed and berated Eckert. They also repeatedly misplaced the privacy curtain, exposing Eckert to a public hallway during "intimate and humiliating searches."
     Aside from Dougherty and Wilcox, Eckert is suing the city of Deming; Deming police officers Bobby Orosco, Robert Chavez, FNU (first name unknown) Hernandez; Hidalgo County; Hidalgo County sheriff's deputies David Arredondo, Robert Rodriguez, Patrick Green; and Dr. Okay H. Odocha, MD.

Omaha man gets his 1953 Triumph Tiger 100 motor­cycle back; it was stolen almost a half-century ago

Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection

When Customs ran the vehicle ID on the motorcycle, a 1967 Omaha stolen vehicle report appeared and now a Nebraska man in his 70s — who still lives in Omaha — will get his bike back in a condition which may be better than it was when it was stolen from his back yard 46 years ago.

     U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Monday the black and blue 1953 Triumph Tiger 100, recovered last week at the Port of Los Angeles, was on its way to Japan, with a listed value listed of $9,000. It was worth $300 when stolen decades ago.
     A National Insurance Crime Bureau employee in Los Angeles said it was the oldest stolen vehicle he can recall being recovered.

CBS: Ritchie Incognito got away with bullying team mates while at Nebraska

The Dolphins initially rebuffed accusations about Incognito's behavior until confronted by Martin's agent with transcripts of texts sent by Incognito to Martin. Now there are reports that Dolphins coaches asked Incognito to "toughen Martin up."



Below: Incognito shirtless and out of control at a bar:



Here's locker room video of Incognito in 2012 harassing then-rookie tight end Michael Egnew after tampering with his facebook page. After that, he insulted Egnew's fiance.

Unlike Rush Limbaugh, David Koch aparently is a cheap tipper

Having missed its broadcast on PBS' Independent Lens, AKSARBENT caught Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream on Netflix las night. It's another searing indictment of the way that the 1% have stacked government regulations and tax policy in their favor in general, but specifically it rips David Koch, the richest resident of 740 Park Avenue, the prestigious New York City residential building that constitutes the symbol on which the documentary is hung.
     The producers interviewed a former doorman at the building who revealed that after loading bag after heavy bag into the Kochs' vehicle/s for various excursions to the Hamptons, he was rewarded! At Christmas! With $50! In the form of a check!
     Even Rush Limbaugh is more generous than that — he routinely tips waiters far more than $50.

Oh look, there's a Sen. Mark Christensen in Hawaii's legislature too

And the name of the doppelgänger is Mark McDermott, the Christian hate-group-aligned freakshow who seems to be the ideological (and intellectual) twin of Nebraska's Sen. Christensen...
     One difference: to our knowledge McDermott has never been accused of possibly outing a rural neighbor without his consent in a public hearing before a state deliberative body, which puts him one up on Christensen.
     Last Friday, during a Judiciary Committee hearing on the effects of the repeal of the federal DOMA law on gay couples in Nebraska, Sen. Christensen opined that homosexuality seemed (to him) to be a choice and not the result of the "bad genetics" he said fellow senator Ernie Chambers mentioned in comments earlier in the hearing.
     One slight problem: Chambers never used that phrase or anything similar in his remarks about the genetic nature of anyone's sexual orientation.
     Maybe Christensen was confusing Sen. Chambers' remarks with something he read in Mein Kampf? 




Above at about 7:16: Mark Christensen says "homersexuals" aren't that way because of
"bad genetics" (a phrase he falsely attributed to Sen. Chambers) — just bad choices apparently.

Hollywood Reporter: three of Marvin Gaye's kids countersue Robin Thicke after his pre-emptive Blurred Lines lawsuit — and they're suing EMI too, accusing it of conflict of interest

The family alleges Thicke infringed the copyrights of two, not just one, songs, that EMI breached a contract and its fiduciary duty to protect Gaye's songs and that EMI conspired to plant false stories in the press that the Gaye family turned town a six-figure settlement when no such settlement was offered. You can read the lawsuit here.
     Below is a mashup of the two songs, and the transition is seamless.
     We wouldn't want to be Robin Thicke's legal team when the two songs are played in court.

Eminent domain abuse: shady pipeline project targeting nuns in Kentucky

From the Kentucky Student Environmental Coalition:

And surprise, surprise the companies involved are already being shady about it. The project is a joint venture between Williams and Boardwalk Pipeline Partners and thus far they have not held any public meetings and have cancelled their appearance at a Fiscal Court meeting in Nelson County at the last minute. Not only has there been a lack of information provided to the general public about the project, but there has also been reports of bullying on the part of representatives going door-to-door. These reports include targeting the elderly, being extremely pushy, and in at least one instance telling a resident that they "might as well lease, because we will get your land either way". It is unclear as to whether or not the companies will seek eminent domain, but it is clear that many Kentuckians can't see the benefits outweighing the cost in this one, and are not going to forfeit their land without a fight.

ENDA cloture vote: Deb Fischer, Mike Johanns, and Charles Grassley backstabbed gay constituents again

Grassley, Fischer and Johanns to gay constituents: Drop dead

Although employment antibias laws protecting LGBTs are not controversial among voters, Deb Fischer, Mike Johanns and Charles Grassley today pandered to homophobes nevertheless and sold gay constituents down the river when they voted against cloture (ending discussion, filibustering and proceeding to a vote) of the Employment NonDiscrimination Act covering gay people. The New York Times has the state-by-state, senator-by-senator vote here.

Human calculator Devi Shakuntala, today's Google honoree, also pioneering Indian gay rights advocate

Today's Google honoree is Shakuntala Devi, India's "human calculator" who would have been 84 today had she not died last April. In 1977, at SMU, she extracted the 23rd root of a 201-digit number in 50 seconds, beating a Univac computer by 12 seconds.
     But she was also renowned in India for something else, reported the Christian Science Monitor.

     ...During her life, she published almost a dozen books, most of them about mathematics. Her writing also included a 1977 book on homosexuality that was widely considered a pioneering move in conservative India, calling for total acceptance of homosexuality in the country. She later said that the book was a compassionate response to her failed marriage to a gay man.

Some very bad news for the future of the Nebraska Family Alliance

GOP cuts off support to Deb Fischer's advertising firm

Right-wing website breitbart.com reports that the National Republican Senate Committee, the GOP's campaign arm for electing senators, will no longer do business with Jamestown Associates, which:

...has done work with the Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF), a conservative group largely responsible for the elections of Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Rand Paul (R-KY), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Ron Johnson (R-WI), among others. Former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), who left the U.S. Senate last year to become the president of the Heritage Foundation, founded SCF.

It's part of the GOP establishment's war on tea partiers like the ones Fischer embraces. From the World-Herald on August 2nd:

     Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Deb Fischer of Nebraska were among a dozen GOP senators who penned a letter insisting that they would not support any legislation to keep the government operating this fall unless it also shuts down funding for the Affordable Care Act, which is frequently referred to as Obamacare.
     News of the letter produced a swift and strong backlash from other Republicans who denounced the tactic as a pointless and ultimately self-defeating bid for attention.

     After the shutdown produced furious polling fallout from voters, Fischer blithely backpedaled, calling the shutdown she encouraged "disappointing."

Hollywood Reporter: Gravity biggest live-action October release in movie history

Globally, Gravity has taken in $400,000,000.

Report: ALEC's systematic state-by-state attack on clean energy

Progress Now has released an invaluable tally on state legislature assaults on clean energy by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) a Koch-brothers funded organization that writes "model" statutes to be introduced into state legislatures by appropriately compliant stooges, like Nebraska State Senator Charlie Janssen, who lied to KMTV about his association with ALEC.

Two Google engineers burst into profanity on seeing NSA smiley face on diagram of user info intercepts via fiber optic links between data centers

Google's Lake Manawa Data Center
in Council Bluffs, Iowa (courtesy Google Maps)

The Washington Post has published another NSA Powerpoint slide from Edward Snowden. The paper says two engineers "with close ties to Google" were furious when they saw the evidence of NSA perfidy, illustrated by a smiley face in the center bottom of the hand drawing:

     According to a top-secret accounting dated Jan. 9, 2013, the NSA’s acquisitions directorate sends millions of records every day from internal Yahoo and Google networks to data warehouses at the agency’s headquarters at Fort Meade, Md. In the preceding 30 days, the report said, field collectors had processed and sent back 181,280,466 new records — including “metadata,” which would indicate who sent or received e-mails and when, as well as content such as text, audio and video.
     The NSA’s principal tool to exploit the data links is a project called MUSCULAR, operated jointly with the agency’s British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters . From undisclosed interception points, the NSA and the GCHQ are copying entire data flows across fiber-optic cables that carry information among the data centers of the Silicon Valley giants.

     Bloomberg reports that the company's top lawyer isn't very happy with the NSA:

     Google was “outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fiber networks,” David Drummond, the company’s top lawyer, said in a statement.
     “We do not provide any government, including the U.S. government, with access to our systems,” and the spying “underscores the need for urgent reform,” Drummond said.

In a not-so-veiled threat, NSA Chief Gen. Keith Alexander warned that curbing his keyhole enthusiasm might result in making the U.S. more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.


Would you buy a used car from General Keith Alexander?

In the video above, Alexander insisted that the NSA does not have "direct access" to Google and Yahoo servers, and that it gets info through FBI court orders and that NSA requests numbered in the thousands not millions. While Alexander was misleading his audience, WaPo/Snowden were exposing the following (bracketed comment added by AKSARBENT):

According to a top-secret accounting dated Jan. 9, 2013, the NSA’s acquisitions directorate sends millions of records every day from internal Yahoo and Google networks [by tapping into fiber optics outside the data centers] to data warehouses at the agency’s headquarters at Fort Meade, Md. In the preceding 30 days, the report said, field collectors had processed and sent back 181,280,466 new records — including “metadata,” which would indicate who sent or received e-mails and when, as well as content such as text, audio and video.

NYT: Senate one vote short of breaking filibuster on antigay workplace bias bill

GOP senators are getting calls from constituents alarmed by disinformation being spread by the usual suspects:

One senator recalled having to explain to a colleague that the legislation would not require insurance companies to pay for sex-change operations. Another spoke of phone calls from constituents who were convinced that their children could be taught in school by men wearing dresses. And conservative groups like the Family Research Council are warning their supporters that the bill would force Christian bookstores to hire drag performers.

UPDATE: Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) will become the 60th senator to support ENDA, making the proposed Senate bill filibuster proof, but since John Boehner is opposed to the measure, he may prevent it from coming to a vote in the House.

70 human rights organizations critical of UK press crackdown following disclosure of widespread surveillance by British government

David Cameron

From the Guardian newspaper: "The open letter to the prime minister, which was organised by Article 19 in the UK and is signed by groups from the US to Malaysia and Israel, says the British government response has damaged the country's longstanding reputation for freedom of expression and a free press."
     From the letter:

We are alarmed at the way in which the UK government has reacted, using national security legislation against those who have helped bring this public interest information to global attention. We are concerned about:

• The use of Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 to detain the Brazilian media worker, David Miranda on 18 August 2013 at London Heathrow Airport. Miranda was carrying journalistic material on behalf of the UK's Guardian newspaper and is the partner of the journalist, Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story of mass surveillance of digital communications by the UK and USA
• The sustained pressure against the UK's Guardian newspaper for reporting the disclosures of whistleblower, Edward Snowden, including sending officials to force the Guardian to destroy hard drives allegedly containing information from Snowden
• Your call on 16 October 2013 for a House of Commons Select Committee to review whether the Guardian has damaged national security by publishing material provided by Edward Snowden, and a subsequent announcement that the review will be conducted by the Home Affairs Select Committee as part of their inquiry into anti-terrorism.

We believe these actions clearly violate the right to freedom of expression, which is protected under British, European and international law. Under such laws, the right to freedom of expression includes the protection of both journalists, and those that assist them in the course of their vital work.

Stephen Colbert interviews 16-year-old gay whiz kid who won top Intel Science prize for ultra-cheap, accurate test for pancreatic cancer

Andraka was also profiled on 60 Minutes.

(Via Towleroad)

Halloween costume finalists at the Max

Cell phone photo courtesy of Progressive Oasis

Video: Omaha drag queens stage 'Drag Out Hate' rally after assault on straight man, Ryan Langenegger, when he stood up for his gay friends

Why keep this story to yourself? Share it with friends via the Facebook,
Google+, Reddit, Twitter, or email buttons at the bottom of this post.
Also: Remarkable 1/2-hour progay rant by Sen. Ernie Chambers in Judiciary Committee Friday,
in which he ripped a fellow senator for possibly outing a rural neighbor and dropped the gay F-bomb. 

Above: pushback to assault on Ryan Langenegger
organized  by "Anna Roxia"

Langenegger wasn't at the rally, but a statement (see video) from him was read to the crowd.
     Some people maintain Nebraskans won't attend a gay rights rally.  Smart drag queens know better.
     You just have to find a place outdoors with a big screen TV showing the Husker game.
     Fortunately, there is such a venue right across the street from the Pepperjax restaurant where Langenegger was sucker punched for standing up for his two gay friends last Saturday night. Score.

(After play begins, click the YouTube sprocket icon to maximize video resolution.)

From Crimestoppers. Hit the link below if you can help identify the 'phobes who harassed Langeneggers' friends and assaulted him. It could be worth 1,000 bucks to you.

Solve this Crime

10/27/2013 - Hate Crime RB#55053-I
On Wednesday 30 October 2013 at 1215 hours, Barbas, Connie C766 spoke to LANGENEGGER, Ryan in regards to an assault that occurred on Sunday 27 October 2013 0300 hours. LANGENEGGER stated that he and his friends were at Pepperjax Grill at 1221 Howard Street. LANGENEGGER stated that there were three males also inside the Restaurant and they started making comments about LANGENEGGER`S two friends, so he and his friends decided to leave to avoid any conflicts.

LANGENEGGER then stated he was assaulted outside the restaurant for defending his gay friends.  If you have any information about this assault, contact the Omaha Police Department or leave a tip with Omaha Crime Stoppers!

NE state senator Beau McCoy, author of failed LB912 to ban gay antibias laws in state, turns on TD Ameritrade scion Peter Ricketts, the biggest contributor to his first successful campaign

Beau McCoy (left) and Peter Ricketts

Both Sen. Beau McCoy of Elkhorn (now a suburb of Omaha) and Pete Ricketts, a failed U.S. Senate candidate in 2006, are running for Governor of Nebraska on the GOP ticket. Said McCoy recently in the Omaha World-Herald:

---

"I don't see how it's possible to be against gay marriage while, at the same time, owning with your family, a national baseball team that purports to be one of the most gay-friendly baseball teams in the country."

---

Rickett's gay lawyer sister, Laura, has been a Lambda Legal volunteer and financial supporter and actively lobbies for marriage equality.

NE DOMA hearing: atheist Sen. Chambers' half-hour pro-gay rant: drops gay f-bomb, calls state backward, rips fellow senator for possibly outing rural neighbor; impatient hetero supremacists revolt

Also: video of rally organized by Omaha drag queens following
assault of straight friend at Old Market Pepperjax restaurant

Why keep this story to yourself? Share it with friends via the Facebook,
Google+, Reddit, Twitter, or email buttons at the bottom of this post. 

Caught in a four-way crossfire between Sen. Chambers vs. Sen. Christensen, and Sen. Ashford vs. angry heterosexual supremacists tired of waiting to testify, was one Brian* something-or-other, a polite, cute and, at times, vaguely alarmed tax attorney who will probably think twice before ever again agreeing to testify before the Nebraska Unicameral.
     Sen. Chambers:

If there's any lawyers out there, and any couple, we should get together and collaborate and try to force Nebraska to at least have the appearance of being civilized; a society that has evolved beyond the dark ages, the middle ages and the period of the inquisition and the burning of so-called witches.
___________________________
*Actually, it was P. Brian Bartels of Omaha's FraserStryker, an attorney specializing in employee benefits, and the coauthor, with Daniel J Wintz, of  Considerations for Employee Benefit Plans and Human Resource Practices Following United States v. Windsor, The Nebraska Lawyer, Sept./Oct. 2013.

Disclaimer: subtitles may not exactly reflect thoughts of subjects in video below


Highlights:

3:30 Mail-order minister and self-declared atheist Chambers trolls for lawyers to help him find a gay couple to marry so he can sue Nebraska for not granting a marriage license

3:44 Calls Nebraska backward, among other things

4:38 Recounts his lawsuit to get chaplain out of legislature

7:18 Sen. Christensen takes to the bait, expounds on "homersexuals"

10:26 Chambers talks about Thomas Jefferson and statutory rape, notes that like Washington, Jefferson and Patrick Henry, he also likes black women. (Chambers is black.)

13:22 Chambers drops the gay F-bomb

16:14 Chambers gets the tax employee benefits attorney to crack a smile by characterizing Catholic Church's indulgence of Michelangelo's same sex tendencies by claiming their position was "We got a little sugar in our britches sometimes also; we understand things like that."

17:37 Sen. Christensen gets some payback from Chambers, who never forgets anything, over a stray comment he made at a previous hearing about a gay neighbor

22:20 Impatient heterosexual supremacists revolt, fearing that they won't get to testify by the 2 pm cutoff of the five-hour hearing, as there is no end in sight to Chambers' monologue; Judiciary Committee Chairman Brad Ashford quells the insurrection

Tomorrow Later this week, AKSARBENT will have some video of the anti-gay rights contingent.

HRC testifies at Nebraska Senate hearing on impact of DOMA ruling on state's gay couples

Also: Sen. Ernie Chambers goes off on half-hour progay rant during hearing; drops gay f-bomb, rips fellow senator for possibly outing rural neighbor

HRC was the first to testify on the chaos caused by Nebraska's draconian constitutional amendment prohibiting marriage equality, civil unions and domestic partnerships, now that DOMA has been ruled unconstitutional at the federal level. The special hearing was called by Sen. Brad Ashford to "Examine the impact of the United States Supreme Court's ruling regarding the Defense of Marriage Act on the State of Nebraska."
     Later in the hearing, Sen. Ernie Chambers went on an EPIC rant in favor of gay marriage, dropping the gay f-bomb, trolling lawyers to help him find a gay couple he could marry and then sue the state for refusing to issue a marriage license. Chambers got a rise out of Sen. Christian, one of the two antigay state senators on the committee, the other being Colby Coash, who, like Clarence Thomas, rarely says anything. At one point a disruption occurred when a (presumably antigay) woman objected to the time Chambers was taking, wondering whether she'd be able to testify.
     AKSARBENT is preparing that video now. It will be up within 24 hours.

KPTM: assault on Ryan Langenegger, who defended Omaha gay friends, now being investigated by Omaha police as hate crime; Mayor won't attend "Drag Out Hate" rally

Homophobic assault in Omaha occurred one block from Central Police Headquarters. According
to the man smashed in the face, the perps didn't run away — they walked.

Langenegger did get sucker punched by the friend of man who was taunting him, KPTM reported.

     "One of his friends ended up hitting me in the side of the face when I wasn't looking," said Langenegger.
     ...Omaha Police are investigating the assault as a hate crime. Federal law defines a hate crime as anytime somebody is criminal act [sic] based off of race, sexual orientation, or sexual preference.
     "That's our main concern is to make sure people are okay," said Omaha Police Officer James Shade. "We will follow up on this and make sure there's not other victims from this."
     Langenegger said things were a little blurry after he was hit, but one thing was clear. "They didn't try to run, we were calling the cops, and they literally just walked away."

FOX 42: Omaha News, Sports and Weather; kptm.com |

     Too bad nobody on Howard Street who saw what happened bothered to discretely follow the trio to see what car they piled into. Sigh.
     Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert still hasn't bothered to post a statement on the attack on the Mayor's office web page, though the incident is all over the Internet because of the memorable photograph taken by Langenegger's friend, Josh Foo, who, unfortunately for the trio of perps, is a professional photographer.
     Stothert did finally release a statement last night to some local media saying that hate crimes in Omaha will not be tolerated and that she's confident the Omaha Police Department will conduct a thorough investigation, which is a nice gesture now that the incident is all over the internet from San Francisco to London.
     Unfortunately, Stothert also said she will not be able to attend the "Drag Out Hate" rally in the Old Market Saturday because she would rather eat glass than be photographed with drag queens.
     “Saturday's planned march in the Old Market is a right of all citizens that we respect,” she said.