LB485: anti-LGBT filibusterers explain their motives in opposing NE bill to outlaw employment bias against LGBTs

Excerpts from Deena Winters' excellent Nebraska Watchdog report on last Thursday's debate and filibuster over LB485. It's the most comprehensive account AKSARBENT has seen so far of the proceedings. Click the link and read the whole thing.

     ...64 percent support the bill. According to a memo provided by her [sponsor Danielle Conrad] office, the Anzalone Liszt Grove Research conducted a statewide survey of 600 likely voters by telephone in January. The poll was paid for by a coalition of supporters of the bill, including Equal Nebraska and Human Rights Campaign.
     ...The bill – which will be Conrad’s last as a lawmaker – was passionately supported by Omaha Sen. Brad Ashford, who got choked up while recalling how his mother “kicked me out of bed and said, ‘Now you get down there and you fight for LB485.’
     ...Sen. Mark Christensen, R-Imperial, admitted he was launching a filibuster, saying his constituents oppose the bill.
     “Christ tells us to love the person but hate the sin,” Christensen said. “He didn’t tell us to love the person, love the sin.”
     He said he didn’t want to get into an ugly debate over the issue, and then quoted from a study of identical twins that concluded homosexuality is not genetic but can be caused by “non-sharing events” or exposure to pornography, sexual abuse and common environmental factors.
Conrad said all major medical associations reject that point of view, and warned those watching the debate they “may hear a lot of hate” and “junk science” but assured them “that will be nothing more than a dark footnote in a chapter on our civil rights.”
     ...Sen. Bill Avery, D-Lincoln, said 95 percent of the emails he’s received on the bill have been supportive.
     Sen. Ernie Chambers, I-Omaha, who has introduced similar bills over his 40-plus-year career, accused opponents of the bill of “hiding behind religion.”
     “These are people, and that ends the discussion,” he said.
     Sen. Beau McCoy, R-Omaha, said all the lawmakers are opposed to discrimination and “believe in loving our fellow man,” but the bill would force Nebraskans to violate tenets of their faith.
     “Similar laws have been used not as a shield against discrimination, but a sword to punish business owners and people of faith,” he said, noting that when Conrad first introduced the bill in committee last year, she said businesses don’t have the same rights as individuals.
     “That troubles me a great deal and I dare say it would trouble an awful lot of Nebraskans to hear that,” McCoy said.
     But Conrad defended the premise, saying a Taco Bell doesn’t have the same standing as an individual. She said Nebraska can offer as many tax incentives as possible, but will never “attract a big fish like Facebook or Google” if it’s not inclusive.
     ...Sen. Jim Smith, R-Papillion, said while he appreciates Conrad’s compassion and the spirit in which she brought the bill, he opposes the bill because it would be another burden on businesses.
      He said most businesses with 15 to 100 employees don’t have a human resources department and will have to spend more money on legal counsel.
     But Sen. Burke Harr, D-Omaha, an attorney, said if it’s a burden not to discriminate,
“that’s a burden we should be willing to take,” noting that “not one person has been sued” since Omaha passed its ban.
     “This is good business,” he said. “Society is changing. You can fight it, but you’re on the wrong side.”
     Sen. Bill Kintner, R-Papillion, accused supporters of the bill of trying to shame people who support religious freedom.
     “If you’re a Christian bookstore, you want people that reflect your Christian values,” he said.
     He also questioned how people would know someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity and called the bill “an attorney’s dream” that might dissuade people from expanding their businesses to more than 15 employees.
     Conrad, an attorney, offered Kintner “a little free legal advice” –  “Don’t fire someone just because they’re gay.”

Former Cornhusker kicker's open letter in support of LB485, LGBT antibias employment law

Eric Leushen during his playing days at Nebraska.
Photo: University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Via Outsports, here is the letter sent by Eric Lueshen, a kicker for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln football temp from 2003-2005, to newspapers throughout Nebraska in support of LB485, to be voted on today.
     Lueshen came out when he was on the team and took his boyfriend to the Student Athlete Formal a decade before Michael Sam came out to his teammates at the University of Missouri.

     From 2003-2006, I was an openly gay Husker football player hailing from Pierce, Nebraska. Teammates, coaches, fellow athletes, my family, and people from all over supported and accepted me for who I was. What mattered to them was the person I was on the inside; someone with strong moral values and great character.

     If my fellow teammates could accept and love me for being gay over a decade ago, why is it so hard to accept other LGBT people in the workplace here in Nebraska now?
     LB 485, pending before the Nebraska Legislature, would update our nondiscrimination laws to include equal employment opportunities for LGBT Nebraskans. Current law already protects people from discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, disability, marital status or national origin. No one should be fired for who they are and who they love. It is a simple matter of fairness and justice. It sends the positive message that Nebraska is a welcoming place to live and work.
     Gay and Lesbians in Nebraska pay taxes, vote, serve in the military, and run successful businesses. We go to school, play football, and cheer for the Huskers. We should be treated equally under the law.
     I believe that most Nebraskans want to treat each other fairly and do the right thing. But when good judgment breaks down, we need to have laws that protect people. No one should have to live in fear that they can be fired from their job for a reason that has nothing to do with their job performance.
     I fully support LB485, and I'm sure my former Husker teammates and coaches do as well. Please join me in the fight for equal employment opportunities for LGBT Nebraskans. I urge you to ask your legislator to act for equality and vote for LB485.

Sincerely,
Eric Lueshen

Nebraska Family Alliance, Glad Tidings Church, going all out to kill LGBT employment antibias bill, LB485

Glad Tidings Church, Omaha

The number one priority of the so-called Nebraska Family Alliance is to make sure that employed heads of LGBT families have no recourse if arbitrarily fired by Nebraska employers. Here's what they're telling their followers in an "action alert."
     Compliant churches in the NFA network are giving marching orders to their congregants.
     This is what one, Glad Tidings Church in Omaha, sent out in a recent email:

     We need to stop the progression of this bill in the State Legislature now. Please make a concerted effort as soon as possible, today or no later than Thursday to contact your State Senator. You can use the following link to the Nebraska Family Alliance website to get the name and contact number of your State representative...
     Thank you and God bless you in your efforts to protect the people of Nebraska.

Heterosexual supremacist Sen. Lydia Brasch,
who deadpanned that she doesn't judge those
gay "individuals" she claims are her friends.
One wonders what her unnamed gay "friends"
will think about her commitment to deny
them same kind of employment protection
that Christians enjoy as a protected class
by opposing LB485.

     By making sure LGBTs have no employment protection because they're not people of Nebraska? Has straight-up hate-mongering ever been plainer?
     In case you've forgotten, here are links to the untruthful testimony of Nebraska Family Alliance's Hannah Buell to the Lincoln City Council and to the NFA's Dave Bydalek trying to con Sen. Brad Ashford into buying the conclusions of the discredited Regnerus Study.
     You can lobby your state senator too. Go here to find out who he or she is if you don't know. Or here to find her/his phone number if you do.
     The vote is today so call today peferably before 10 am Central Time. There will be an NET live feed of debate starting at 10 am Central Time here.
       The Nebraska Family Alliance is cynically creating a victim mythology for homophobes by linking to a dubious litany of accusations by the ADF (Alliance Defending Freedom, which used to be known as the Alliance Defense Fund) of exaggerated or irrelevant examples of problems LB485 supposedly will create, even though Omaha's similar, but even more comprehensive law has resulted, after two years, in zero lawsuits and three pending complaints.

Lisa Biron, member of ADF
Honor Corps Society, now
convicted of eight counts
related to child pornography

     In 2013, Lisa Biron, one of ADF's "honor corps society" attorneys, was convicted of eight counts relating to the manufacture of child pornography starring her daughter.
     JoeMyGod reported that the ADF later scrubbed its Facebook page of mentions of Biron and banned anybody who mentioned her name.
    ADF has almost no shame. Below is a particularly nasty and baseless attack it launched against the ACLU's Don't Filter Me campaign, which has sued school districts who deny gay students access to nonporn gay websites like the Trevor Project or the It Gets Better project while unconstitutionally allowing access to antigay websites such as those purporting to be able to cure homosexuality, even though subjecting minors to such "therapy" is now illegal in several states.

False, gutter-level attack on the ACLU by Nebraska Family Alliance ally
and web page resource, ADF. Read the truth here.

     Wonder if Glad Tidings Church is telling its members about the dishonesty of the organizations linked to or led to in its emails?

Cabaret gets the Tired Old Queen at the Movies treatment

Above: James Caan takes a smoke break after being riddled with
machine gun fire in the famous tollbooth scene in Godfather I.

Cabaret was released in 1972, the same year as The Godfather, which received three Oscars, including Best Picture. What people forget is that Cabaret won EIGHT Oscars. Here Steve Hayes revisits the classic Bob Fosse musical.

Mozilla's chief victimized by Big Gay? Nah

The departure, this week of Mozilla's chief, Brendan Eich, under a dark cloud of personal bias, triggered the predictable cries of victimization from the usual homophobic suspects and  unpredicted indignation from Andrew Sullivan, who Tim Teeman took to task in his Daily Beast rumination on the uproar:

     ...While Mozilla went out of its way to emphasize its belief in inclusivity this week, Eich did not. Mozilla made the decision to fire Eich, gay people did not. The volubility of gay activists isn’t the point here, it’s the immense shift in corporate culture that means even a whiff of homophobia can be bad for business.
     While there is nothing to celebrate in somebody losing their job, we should be celebrating that we have reached a time where homophobia is being questioned and challenged. Instead—please laugh or cry at this point—people bitch about their right to be homophobic being constrained...
     Perhaps those conservatives bemoaning the fate of Eich will take a moment to consider the gay men and women, and those who are transgendered, who have lost jobs or been discriminated against because of their sexuality and sexual identity in the workplace...
     After years of discriminating against gay people, after turning a blind eye to the violence inflicted upon them, to the inequality foisted upon them; after doing all they could to ensure all those bulwarks of prejudice remained firmly in place, the conservative right wing has decided the only remaining course of action is to play the victim...
     The sad thing is to see this misnomer being promulgated by gays themselves. How does Sullivan, when he bemoans the activists who got on Mozilla’s case, think the strides towards equality were achieved in the first place?

Video: Sky diver almost nailed by meteorite

This reminds AKSARBENT of a San Francisco Chronicle stunt in the 1970s, when the Chron announced on its front page (after it became clear that a Soviet satellite was about to fall out of orbit) that it had purchased an insurance policy covering all its subscribers — and only its subscribers — in the event that the spinning spawn of Sputnik belly-flopped into the Bay Area.
     William Randolph Hearst could not have been prouder.
     Well, actually he could have, since San Francisco's Hearst paper was the Examiner, not the Chronicle.

Video: Teen speech contest winner records gender identity performance on Nebraska Public TV after School Activities Association backed down

The NSAA's attempt to censor speech contest winner Michael Barth's performance on NET's statewide broadcast backfired when it created a social media outrage and, perhaps more importantly, the disapproving interest of Nebraska's chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
     NSAA Executive Director Rhonda Blanford-Green admitted that controversy over her attempt to introduce, last year, a non-discrimination policy for transgender students played a part in her decision.
     That controversy was largely stoked by a right-wing religious pressure group, the Nebraska Family Alliance via a disinformation campaign, replete with scare tactics, targeting the NSAA.

Although the World-Herald video (not a recording of his NET performance) which you may watch here, along with an very good interview with Barth's mother, is embeddable, it rudely autoplays and then won't stop, making it unsuitable for many blogs. Below is a screencap from KMTV's video report, which also autoplays, but which you may see here.

In a follow-up editorial, the Omaha World-Herald wrote:

     Hours into the controversy — after Nebraska Educational Television announced that it would record whichever poems Barth chose to present — NSAA executive director Rhonda Blanford-Green reversed the ban. Barth could perform his championship-winning poetry.
     The young man had the support of his mother, his school superintendent, members of the speech community and people on social media nationwide.
     But most importantly, Michael Barth had the courage of his convictions. That’s the stuff of a champion.

KMTV's video, including excerpts from Barth's NET
performance, can be seen here.

Here's what motivated Barth:

     Barth said his presentation was inspired by the bigotry he's faced. Students have bullied him, he said, and called him homophobic slurs for much of his life.
     “Despite being a feminine person, I am still a man and that's what I am,” he said. “That's what I discovered through doing this.”
     Buchan said her son has been accepted into the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
    “He's just a great kid. He's always been somebody who is everybody's friend and has very strong beliefs about things.”

KETV running anonymously-funded, Iowa-based, dark money attack ads against Jon Bruning

Iowa's queen of dark money, GOP District 45
State Senator Sandra Greiner, listed as president
of American Future Fund, swears on a Bible to
support Iowa's constitution and faithfully
discharge the duties of senator. Greiner
was not actually wearing a tiara at the time

The Omaha World-Herald reports that Iowa's American Future Fund, one of the wealthiest dark money 501 (c) (4) organizations in America, is spending $130,000 in Nebraska on ads trashing the campaign of Nebraska's ultra-homophobic AG Jon Bruning to become the state's next governor. Says the Herald:

In the past, American Future Fund has refused to reveal its donors. On Tuesday, the organization did not return a telephone call seeking comment.

     The American Future fund  was kick-started with money from Hawkeye Energy CEO Bruce Rastetter. Its Form 990 for 2012 lists Iowa State Senator Sandra Greiner as president, although the organization's website provides zero information about its current leadership on a farcically-named "About Us" page.
     American Future fund has run $50,000 worth of ads supporting a Bruning GOP opponent,  State Senator Beau McCoy, who called American Future Fund attack ads on Jon Bruning a "cheap shot" and "misleading."
     In 2012, McCoy introduced LB912, a failed measure to outlaw LGBT antidiscrimination ordinances in Nebraska.
     At the time, the head of the Nebraska Democratic party, called McCoy's attempt to deprive Nebraska towns and cities the right to set their own antidiscrimination policies an "outrage," saying:

     This is the same Beau McCoy who wastes our time with partisan attempts to change the electoral vote procedures in the state to unfairly benefit his political party," Rogers said. "Now he introduces legislation to prevent our local communities from setting strong employment nondiscrimination ordinances for minorities. The real McCoy has shown his true colors.
     Rogers said he would recommend McCoy introduce measures to help his constituents in District 39, something he has consistently failed to do.

Nasty GOP infighting begins; WOWT airing dark money group ad attacking Jon Bruning; Sen. Deb Fischer's former campaign manager listed as contact

Antigay political blog Objective Conservative has noticed that Citizens for a Sound Government, a dark money group which used to be active in Colorado, now lists a Shawnee Mission post office box as an address.

     It also says, "contact Aaron Trost, providing his email address (aaron@citizensforasoundgovernment.com) and the website (www.citizensforasoundgovernment.com).
     ...Interestingly, Trost was U.S. Senator Deb Fischer's campaign manager in her victorious 2012 campaign against Bruning and Stenberg.

     AKSARBENT thinks WOWT should tell its viewers who is behind the anonymously-funded Jack-The-Ripper political attack ads it airs. After all, doesn't its FCC license encourage it to operate in the public interest?
     Maybe Channel Six's new slogan should be: News you trust... Ads telling you how to vote from people you don't know.
     In WOWT's defense we should note that politicians aren't the only charlatans whose lies it broadcasts.

Nebraska Unicameral begins debate on LB485, LGBT employment antidiscrimination bill

The enemies of LGBT legal recourse to arbitrary discrimination are pulling out all the stops to ensure that this bill does not pass. Sen. Beau McCoy has vowed to filibuster the bill. (McCoy's biggest 2008 contributor was TD Ameritrade millionaire Peter Ricketts, now running against him for Governor.)
     To contact your state senator, go here.
     Just in from the Lincoln Journal-Star:

Sen. Lydia Brasch, who says charitably that
she doesn't judge those gay "individuals"
she claims are her friends. One wonders what
her unnamed gay "friends" will think about her
commitment to deny them same kind of
employment protection that Christians enjoy
as a protected class. To see the kind of people
with whom Brasch aligns herself, go here.

     ...Sen. Lydia Brasch of Bancroft was among those opposing the measure. She said she has had emails from people who fear the measure would infringe on their religious and "faith-based" beliefs.
     "I stand in support of faith. I believe LB485 does not support faith," she said. "The foundation of this country is based on faith.
     "I have known, I still know, I am friends with individuals who are gay," Brasch said. "It's not a basis for our friendship. I don't judge them. I don't believe that when we are faith-based, that we judge other people. That is what God does."
     Amy Miller, legal director of the Nebraska chapter of the ACLU, spoke in support of the bill last year in committee. She said Conrad's measure does not create special rights or privileges that would not be available to all Nebraskans.

The Unicameral adjourned Thursday without a vote on LB485. The Omaha World-Herald quoted TransCanada lapdog and Papillion Sen. Jim Smith: “I believe this bill is one additional burden to our employers, our business men and the job creators in our state.”
     The sponsor, Lincoln Sen. Danielle Conrad, told the Herald that a majority of state lawmakers support her bill.
     The Unicameral adjourned today without voting on the legislation and won't meet tomorrow.
     More debate, if needed, and a vote on the bill is scheduled for Monday. Opponents need 17 votes to block the measure and will probably filibuster it. Supporters need 33 of 49 votes to end a filibuster.

#1 priority of Nebraska Family Alliance: killing state bill ensuring equal protection of LGBTs in employment

Left to right: Dave Bydalek – Policy Director, Karen Bowling – Outreach and Operations Director, Hallie Ewing – Communication and Office Coordinator, Hannah Buell – Policy Research and Intern Coordinator, Al Riskowski – Executive Director (Via Nebraska Family Alliance Website)

The "Action Alert" on the organization's web site says: If you only call your senator one time this session, let THIS be the time."
     Below are the silly Stepford talking points the Nebraska Family Alliance is coaching its supporters into using in order to further the organization's fake heterosexual victim narrative and kill equal employment protection for LGBTs in the Unicameral crib, because hey, it should only be illegal for LGBTs to discriminate against homophobic Christers, not the other way around.
     In case you've forgotten, here are links to the untruthful testimony of NFA's Hannah Buell to the Lincoln City Council and to the NFA's Dave Bydalek trying to con Sen. Brad Ashford into buying the conclusions of the discredited Regnerus Study.

Nebraska School Activities Association tells Class C1 Poetry winner not to read his piece on NET TV; ACLU not amused; was NSAA director cowed by anti-LGBT disinformation tactics of right-wing Nebraska Family Alliance last year?

Update: NSAA caves to public outrage and a stern admonition from Nebraska's ACLU, says Barth can read his piece on Nebraska Public Television. Here's the statement, via the World-Herald. KETV says The Best of the Best program will air April 20 at 9 a.m. on NET 1 and that the full program will also be available online.

Michael Barth

After Michael Barth, a student poet from Gordon-Rushville High School won the Class C1 poetry division at the Nebraska School Activities Association with performance piece incorporating excerpts from Same Love, Swingset and Manly Man, he was asked by NSAA Executive Director Rhonda Blanford-Green to perform something else or else.
     Said Blanford-Green to Margaret Reist of the Lincoln Journal-Star:

“I don’t want the speech platform to be seen as pushing an individualized agenda. If we have the opportunity to promote speech in a positive light that doesn’t create controversy or debate about students, content, the activity of the NSAA – that drove my decision.”

Nebraska Student Activities Association
Executive Director Rhonda Blanford-Green

     If you read between those lines and saw a right-wing, troglodyte, anti-LGBT authoritarian, you'd be wrong. Blanford-Green isn't. More from the Journal-Star:

     Last year, she tried to introduce a non-discrimination policy for transgender students. That proposal erupted in controversy, and the NSAA board decided to let districts handle the issue on a local level.
     That experience played a part in her decision, she said Wednesday.

     Aha! Constant readers of AKSARBENT probably have already figured what is really at play here: a cowed bureaucrat whose proposed reforms were attacked last year by the Nebraska Family Alliance, a right wing religious pressure group which launched a campaign against proposed NSAA reforms, using disinformation and scare tactics, eloquently refuted by Zack Ford at ThinkProgress.
     Here's what student Barth told the HuffPost:

"I was contacted on Sunday that I was selected for the Best of the Best showcase ... and we had to send them a physical copy of my speech. And they read through it and they declined it because the executive director of the NSAA believes that it was advocating transgender rights and that demographic of people. The real controversy is how they're seeing that in the poetry. My poetry program is not advocating gay rights or straight rights or transgender rights or anything like that. It's about love and accepting each other." Students and supporters of Barth have created a Facebook support page which has 426 members and growing.

     Barth's mother told the Omaha World-Herald's Joe Dejka:
“This is the speech he won with; it was seen by seven judges at state speech. They found nothing wrong with the content. And there is nothing wrong with the content.”
     “All this is about is, basically what his stance is is you shouldn't look at a man and, because he's feminine, think that he's gay,” she said. “And so, the fact that she thinks it's about lesbian and gay rights, and that's why we're denying it, really bothers me.”
     ...Her son is a youth group member, a drama kid and an excellent student.She said he's been accepted into the Johnny Carson theatre program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
     “He's just a great kid. He's always been somebody who is everybody's friend, and has very strong beliefs about things.”
     Blanford-Green said Barth can keep his Class C-1 title, but has to pick a different poem to perform for the Best of the Best broadcast on Nebraska Educational Television.

     She said the association decided the poem was inappropriate to feature in the broadcast because people could perceive that the NSAA endorsed the speech content. It would invite controversy, she said.
     Deb Velder, contest director, said Blanford-Green made the decision to ask Barth to prepare a different speech.

Previous winners at NSAA speech competition. Photo: Brian Blobaum

     On Wednesday, the Nebraska ACLU issued a statement on the imbroglio. Director Amy Miller said the NSAA doesn't get to decide what will offend moral standards, is constitutionally obligated to allow students to present speeches without censorship and found troubling the assertion that Barth's speech "advances a political agenda. The lives of gay and transgender people should be able to be discussed without being labeled as a political agenda.”     
    The Lincoln Journal-Star said Barth's supporters, in addition to creating a Facebook page, made a number of calls to NSAA officials and alerted news media.

     Bridgeport speech coach Glen Lussetto said he judged Barth's speech twice and said it promotes acceptance, not an agenda. He said Barth removed all profanity and other content that could be deemed offensive before the state contest. And, Lussetto said, the performance didn't offend him.
     “And I’m about as conservative as they come in this speech community,” he said.
     ...Merrell Nelsen, superintendent of Gordon-Rushville Public Schools, said the district supports Barth and is also thankful the NSAA gave him the opportunity to perform on NET.
     What he should perform should be between Barth and the NSAA, he said.
     "I talked to Michael and wished him the best and told him he would have to make his own decisions and we’d support him whatever he decided to do," Nelsen said.

Back from the dead: LB485; LGBT employment discrimination bill to be debated by full Nebraska Unicameral

The Judiciary Committee has apparently changed its collective mind. The Omaha World-Herald explains what happened (links added by AKSARBENT):

In February, the bill generated only three yes votes in the Judiciary Committee, two short of the majority needed to advance it to debate by all senators.
     But on Monday, the vote was 5-1 to move the bill.
     Omaha Sen. Steve Lathrop, who was not present in February, voted yes. So did Hyannis Sen. Al Davis, who voted no in February, citing several emails from constituents who opposed LB 485.
     Davis said he’d given the proposal a lot of thought since then and concluded that people should not be discriminated against for matters he considers “biological.”
     “I finally decided you have to do the right thing,” he said.
     Also voting yes were Sens. Brad Ashford and Ernie Chambers, both of Omaha, and Sen. Amanda McGill of Lincoln. Hastings Sen. Les Seiler voted no, and Sens. Colby Coash of Lincoln and Mark Christensen of Imperial were not present.

     As God is his witness, home-schooled climate change denier and steadfast homophobe Sen. Beau McCoy of Elkhorn has vowed to filibuster the bill, after which he shall never go hungry again.



Below: Sen. Chambers' AMAZING rant during a pre-session Unicameral Judiciary Committee hearing on the effect of DOMA in Nebraska last fall:

NE DOMA hearing: Atheist Sen. Chambers' half-hour pro-gay rant: drops gay f-bomb, calls state backward, says that like Jefferson, Henry and Washington, he likes black women too; rips fellow senator for possibly outing rural neighbor; impatient hetero supremacists revolt
     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.
     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 rises to the bait, expounds on "homersexuals"
• 10:26 Chambers talks about Thomas Jefferson and statutory rape, notes that like Jefferson, Patrick Henry and , he too, likes black women. (Chambers is black.)
• 13:22 Chambers drops the gay F-bomb
• 16:14 Chambers gets the tax 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 hetero 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

Did Pete Ricketts' business, TD Ameritrade, sell out Nebraska investors by accepting hundreds of millions of dollars to route orders to a high frequency trader?

(For you readers outside Nebraska, Peter Ricketts, a former Chief Operating Officer of TD Ameritrade, the brokerage firm his father founded, is running for Governor of Nebraska, after an unsuccessful U.S. Senate bid.)
     In the last several years, TD Ameritrade has made several fortunes by routing its customers' stock purchase orders to a high-frequency trading hedge fund called Citadel, now suspected of, but not proven to have engaged in illegal  "front-running." (Note: evidently front-running, though illegal if done by humans, is somehow within the law if done by computer algorithms. The Justice Department is now evaluating whether computer-implemented front-running constitutes illegal inside trading.) From the New York Times Magazine adaptation and condensation of Michael Lewis' new blockbuster exposé, Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt:

     ...“You could see that something had just changed,” Gitlin says. “You could see that when you were trading a stock, the market knew what you were going to do, and it was going to move against you.” But what Katsuyama described was a far more detailed picture of the market than Gitlin had ever considered — and in that market, all the incentives were screwy. The Wall Street brokerage firm that was deciding where to send T. Rowe Price’s buy and sell orders had a great deal of power over how and where those orders were submitted. Some exchanges paid brokerages for their orders; others charged for those orders. Did that influence where the broker decided to send an order, even when it didn’t sync with the interests of the investors the broker was supposed to represent? No one could say.
     Another wacky incentive was “payment for order flow.” As of 2010, every American brokerage and all the online brokers effectively auctioned their customers’ stock-market orders. The online broker TD Ameritrade, for example, was paid hundreds of millions of dollars each year to send its orders to a hedge fund called Citadel, which executed the orders on behalf of TD Ameritrade. Why was Citadel willing to pay so much to see the flow? No one could say with certainty what Citadel’s advantage was.

After House of Cards production co. demanded more tax credits to keep filming in MD, pols made a threat of their own

Unamused by the threat made by House of Cards production company to Maryland politicians,
House of Delegates member C. William Frick (r) pulled a Frank Underwood (l) by orchestrating
a legislative threat of his own to MRC Senior Vice President in charge of over-reaching greed,
Charlie Goldstein.
.

In recent years Maryland has given away $40 million in tax incentives to production companies filming in the state, with the lion's share of that sum going to the Netflix hit House of Cards, already the recipient of $31 million in tax credits.
     Apparently that wasn't enough for the show's production company, MRC, as its senior Vice President, Charlie Goldstein, sent a letter to Maryland's governor Martin O'Malley, threatening to take his ball and go home if the state didn't pony up even more, :

We wanted you to be aware that while we had planned to begin filming in early spring, we have decided to push back the start date for filming until June to ensure there has been a positive outcome of the legislation. In the event sufficient incentives do not become available, we will have to break down our stage, sets and offices and set up in another state.

     This bald attempt at intimidation did not set well with Maryland House of Delegates member C. William Frick, who proposed "adopted budget language" by the delegates that gives the state the power to "seize the production company's property," if it stops filming in Maryland. According to The Washington Post, it was approved, without a debate or vote call.
     So there. Life imitates art once more, and somewhere Frank Underwood is smiling.

Newsmax host: Don Lemon laughed at Emily Miller's defense of Michele Bachman because he's gay; Miller: 'I'm not some kind of right wing nut!'

NewsMax host Steve Malzberg:

Ever since he [Lemon] announced he was gay... I see a correlation there...

Lemon and his other guest, The Root editor Keli Goff, had laughed through assertions by Moonie-owned Washington Times' writer Miller about Obama's lack of merit as president:

Lemon: She [Bachmann] is saying that people voted for Barack Obama because they were guilty.
Miller: I think there's a lot of truth to that. There's still white guilt over...
Lemon: And they were still guilty four years later?
Miller: Absolutely. I think so because he obviously didn't win on the merits. The economy — are you going to laugh, Don or let me finish? — the economy is, um, a disaster and it's the highest unemployment rate, even though it was jimmied in the end, of any president that's been reelected, so — he destroyed our healthcare system — so what merits? I think people want to give him a chance because he's black.

Ford mocks GM's obnoxious 1% Cadillac ad

And tips its hat to those in its HQ hometown, Detroit, who are trying to pull the city back from the abyss. Instead of an actor, Ford used a real entrepreneur doing good while she makes good. N'est-ce pas, GM?
     Mark Duffy eviscerated the ad here.
     Via Billerco:




Jim Farley, Ford's global sales and marketing chief, absolutely loathes General Motors:

    Last summer, in the run-up to a book on Ford by Bill Vlasic of the New York Times, Farley was quoted as saying he hates GM and what it stands for.
     "I'm going to beat Chevrolet on the head with a bat. And I'm going to enjoy it," Farley is quoted as saying.

In the answer ad below, Farley makes good on his threat:

Attention heteros: extremist NE AG, Jon Bruning, doesn't think you have a right to be divorced either

Margie and Bonnie Nichols, married in Iowa in 2009 and together for longer than a decade, are finding that the road to splitsville doesn't end in Nebraska.
     In August,  Lancaster County District Judge Stephanie Stacy dismissed their divorce case, writing in her order, “A finding that the marriage is irretrievably broken — by its very nature — cannot be made without recognizing the marriage itself, and it stretches logic and common sense to conclude otherwise.”
     Nebraska constitutionally banned same sex marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships in 2000 in one of the most draconian exclusions in the USA.
     Now, uber-homophobic Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning, currently campaigning for a promotion to governor after Cornhusker voters rejected his Senate bid, has weighed in on the case:

     Bruning’s office argued the constitutionality of Nebraska’s same-sex marriage law shouldn’t be considered and said divorce isn’t a right.
     “Bonnie cites no authority for the proposition that divorce is a fundamental right or a privilege and immunity guaranteed by the federal constitution. This is because there is no authority for such a proposition,” the Attorney General’s Office wrote.
     ACLU and Legal Aid argued divorce could be handled without delving into the constitutionality of Nebraska’s prohibition of same-sex marriage, and that not letting courts hear these cases violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the U.S. Constitution.
     For Margie and Bonnie Nichols, the inability to get divorced raises a number of potential problems and liabilities related to filing federal taxes, being responsible for each other’s debt, Social Security income and other retirement benefits. Mikolajczyk [of Omaha-based Domina Law Group] said an annulment doesn’t offer the same legal protections as a divorce, nor does it address issues of alimony or property division.
     The women cannot remarry, even to someone of the opposite sex. Doing so without a divorce would run afoul of bigamy laws, which come with criminal penalties.
     “They want to terminate this contract just as anyone else in our state has the right to dissolve their marriage,” Mikolajczyk said. “They both would like the opportunity to move on with their lives, and you can’t really do that if other states and the federal government perceive them as still married.”

Nebraska AG Jon Bruning pictured
with Eames and Barcelona chairs

     In November 2003, Jon Bruning said Massachusetts' Supreme Court ruling against that state's ban on gay marriages was ridiculous. "Does that mean you have to allow a man to marry his pet, or a man to marry his chair?" Bruning said. "I mean, at some point, it needs to stop." [Associated Press, 11/18/03]
     In 2011, Jon Bruning had Nebraska State Senator Mike Gloor introduce legislation punishing HIV+ Nebraskans who sneezed in the direction of a cop with up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine — despite the fact that the CDC has repeatedly said that saliva has never been shown to transmit HIV.
     In 2012, after state Senator Beau McCoy's bill to kill looming gay rights ordinances in Omaha and Lincoln died in committee, Bruning issued an opinion that LGBT rights ordinances were illegal anyway despite contrary opinions by city attorneys in both Lincoln and Omaha.
     Nebraska's action leaves just five states in which marriage equality lawsuits have not been challenged recently.

Omaha's own Andrew Rannells 'lit up the room' in Broadway Backwards, helping raise $423,182 for LGBT Community Center and AIDS fight

The star of the original production of The Book of Mormon and costar of NBC's inexplicably cancelled The New Normal performed before an SRO audience last Monday in a return to Broadway at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre in New York City to help raise almost half a million dollars in one night for charity, beating last year's record by about $80,000.
     The event was the ninth yearly installment of Broadway Backwards, a review in which performers (51 in 2014) take part by singing songs written for the gender opposite theirs. A typically hilarious account by Joe Jervis, in attendance, is here, and a recap, from Broadway Cares, which puts on the show, is here, from which the following is excerpted:

     Groff and Rannells each showed sentimental sides that left audience members in tears. Groff tenderly performed "I Got Lost in His Arms" from Annie Get Your Gun combined with "Goodnight My Someone" from Music Man. Rannells lit up the room with a stunning rendition of "The Man That Got Away" from A Star is Born.

The Rannells' rendition referenced above is first up in the YouTube compilation clip below:

Russians poisoned Canadian MP in 2006, then invited him back. Embassy apologized: 'It won't happen again'

You can hear Liberal MP Irwin Cotler (one of 13 Canadians who have now been officially barred from visiting Russia in retaliation for Western sanctions against Putin cronies) describe the Russian government's attempt to assassinate him in 2006 at the CBC's web site.
     In 2010, after declining an invitation to revisit Russia:

...Mr. Cotler made a half-joking reference to being poisoned. He says that the embassy responded: "Sorry about that. It was a mistake. It won't happen again."

Chilled relations affecting sales of U.S. caviar to Russia

Ghost Pepper caviar on raw Louisiana oysters
Photo: Louisiana Caviar Company

USA Today reports that Russian restaurants and grocery stores suddenly cut orders to the Louisiana Caviar Co. of New Orleans months ago as tensions with Ukraine grew.

"I just saw it as anti-American sentiment," says company owner John Burke. Russian sales made up about 20% of his revenue but he has more than offset the loss with increased sales in the U.S. and Mexico.

E*TRADE baby throws fit, quits after being forced to work with cat

Here at AKSARBENT we're rooting for E*TRADE's clever ads to eat TD Ameritrade's lunch, thereby defunding Ricketts scion Peter's bid to be the latest in a succession of troglodyte Nebraska GOP governors, although almost anyone would be better than Dave Heineman, who is now applying a gay litmus test to aspirants to the State Board of Education.

The recording of which Bryan Adams is so ashamed, he supposed stopped its sale

Audio engineers electronically raised the pitch of Adams' voice enough that if his name hadn't been on the record, no one would have been the wiser later, when he made a bigger name for himself as a rocker.
     This song was huge in gay clubs in the 70s.
     AKSARBENT first heard it at the I-Beam in Haight-Ashbury, which opened in 1977 and was shut after irate neighbors got the city to close the club on account of excessive noise — 17 years later. We would relate an amusing event which befell us there, involving a wardrobe malfunction, but we shan't burden the Internet with the details or ourselves with the ignominy, mortification or indignity attendant to the unfortunate incident.

Each state's coolest invention

This highly subjective survey, set to a nice Calypso tune, names Kool-Aid as Nebraska's best invention. (Don't believe Buzzfeed? Just ask Jim Jones!) The other renowned crap food concoction given to the world by the Cornhusker State was the TV dinner, created by Swanson in the 1950s. The state also is responsible for Cliff's Notes "study guides" which have enabled millions of students to fake their way through English Lit. classes.
     Behold the real life entrepreneurial expression of what politicians like to refer to as Nebraska Values when they spend corporate contributions on image campaigns designed to blow smoke up the ass of the body politic.

AT HRC gala, Joe Biden draws a straight line between Russia's abuse of LGBTs and incursion into Ukraine

At a Human Rights Campaign event in Los Angeles, Biden called for passage of ENDA, the Employment NonDiscrimination Act, in the GOP-controlled House, where it is stalled and connected the dots between officially-sanctioned homophobia in Russia and its annexation of Crimea.

“As the great Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov said, ‘A country that does not respect the rights of its citizens will not respect the rights of its neighbors,’ and we're seeing that today, we're seeing that today in Ukraine,” the vice president said.

New US funding reductions to Uganda in wake of 'abhorrent' antiLGBT law

Flashback: At the end of the above piece, after covering Pastor Rick Warren's various lying denials of his actions, Rachel Maddow took note of Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley's denial of having anything to do with "the family," a Christer sect of Washington lawmakers who were among the first to have knowledge of proposed anti-LGBT legislation at an Ugandan prayer breakfast they hosted.

Kate Nocera of Buzzfeed has identified new actions to be taken immediately by the U.S. government in reaction to Uganda's Nazi-esque targeting of its LGBT citizens. It is now against the law in that country to fail to report known LGBTs to the government; they can receive prison terms of up to life. Four types of aid to Uganda will be cut:

• $6.4 million will be diverted from the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda, a group that has publicly supported the anti-gay law and will go to other organizations;
• A U.S.-funded study to help identify populations at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS has been suspended out of fear that staff and survey respondents could be put in danger because the law criminalizes “promoting homosexuality”;
• $3 million in funding designated for tourism and biodiversity promotion will be redirected to NGOs working on biodiversity protection, now that LGBT tourists and allies in Uganda are now at risk;
• The Department of Defense will move several events scheduled in the country later this spring to other locations. “Certain near-term invitational travel” for Ugandan military and police personnel has also been suspended or canceled.

     National Security Council spokesman Jonathan Lalley wrote in an email that the U.S would continue “to look at additional steps we may take, to work to protect LGBT individuals from violence and discrimination, and to urge Uganda to repeal this abhorrent law.”

     “As we continue to consider the implications of President Museveni’s decision to enact the Anti-Homosexuality Act, the United States has taken certain immediate steps to demonstrate our support for the LGBT community in Uganda, deter other countries from enacting similar laws, and reinforce our commitment to the promotion and defense of human rights for all people — including LGBT individuals — as a U.S. priority,” Lalley said.

OK Sen. Inhofe visited Africa 108 times, invited author of Uganda's Nazi-esque anti-LGBT law to USA 3 times

In Uganda, it's now a crime not to report anyone you know to be gay. LGBTs can receive life imprisonment. The world has not reacted approvingly. (Evidence here, here and here.) Contact Sen. Jim Inhofe here.


(Via CBE via JoeMyGod)

Rachel Maddow refused to speak name of anti-LGBT Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps during her piece after his death

Is Pete Ricketts reaching out to homophobes or LGBTs?

Or does the gay-vague campaign of the multimillionaire TD Ameritrade scion running for governor (after Nebraskans rejected his U.S. Senate bid) just have way too much money to throw at Google/YouTube? Or is he playing both ends to the middle? We're so confused.

NOTE: In 2008, Ricketts was the #1 contributor to the successful state senate campaign of Beau McCoy, who unsuccessfully tried to outlaw municipal LGBT antidiscrimination laws in Nebraska and tried to mislead the Unicameral's Judiciary Committee into thinking that the Omaha World-Herald supported his efforts. Thanks, Dick Peter.

2 years after anti-LGBTs predicted deluge of lawsuits over Omaha LGBT ordinance: 0 lawsuits, 3 pending complaints

The Omaha World-Herald requested information from the city regarding actions filed after passage of legislation adding LGBTs to protected classes in employment and public accommodations in Omaha (but not housing) and this is what Erin Golden discovered:

Officials say they have not received many calls from business owners looking for help or clarification, and they're not aware of any lawsuits tied to the ordinance.
     “It's been very minimal,” said Rhonda Uher, assistant director of the Human Rights and Relations Department.
     ...All are related to employment, rather than public accommodations. One involved an employee who was fired and another an employee who was allegedly harassed — both, those involved said, because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. In a third case, an employee said he or she was unfairly disciplined. Another pointed to unfair terms and conditions of employment.
     The fifth case was classified as “constructive discharge.” That involves a claim of workplace conditions that became so unpleasant that the employee walked off the job.
     The two cases that have been dismissed are those related to discipline and dismissal.

     In 2013, 143 complaints were filed;  54 involved race, 26 involved gender, and 16 each related to age and disability.
     Patrick Bonnett, executive director of the so-called Omaha Liberty Project told the Herald he is still gathering signatures to put a repeal on the ballot and hopes to get the requisite number during the church fish fry season this spring.