New Hepatitis C drugs are effective but so expensive that they could bankrupt Medicare, private insurers

New drugs can cure Hep C, but they're very costly: one drug costs $1,000 per pill and $84,000 for the course of medication.
     Five million people (five times the number infected with HIV) have Hep C and most of them don't know it. Onset of the disease usually takes decades; people infected in the 1960s are just now "getting into trouble."
     Although even newer drugs are in the pipeline and may decrease costs due to competition, at current prices, curing everyone infected could total hundreds of billions of dollars and bankrupt private insurers and government programs.

No Keystone XL (#NOKXL) demonstration today at Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge between Omaha and Council Bluffs

More information here.

French high school boys taunt anti-gay marriage group, Manif Pour Tous

The dishonestly-named anti-gay marriage group, Manif Pour Tous (Marriage for All) hates the fact officials in Nantes in Western France instituted a 'Lift the Skirt' campaign to "protest against sexism." In the campaign, teachers and male students at 27 public schools are encouraged to wear skirts on May 16. The idea came from students themselves. French right-wingers cite this as evidence that school officials are indoctrinating students in "gender theory," the belief that gender is not fixed at birth, a charge which dismays education authorities.

Lycée Clemenceau Nantes: perche sur un mur un lycéen se met en jupe, en réponse aux militants de la Manif pour tous pic.twitter.com/u4UwIqwIFU
— Metronews Nantes (@MetroNantes) May 15, 2014

     Rough translation of picture below: High school Clemenceau Nantes: Atop a wall, a high school student puts on a skirt, in response to Manif Pour Tous militants.
     Video via @Str8grandmother (you may have to click through to youtube on one of these). More at JoeMyGod.

Barclays flashes gay rights message on its 3,400 UK ATMs for a week

Barclays Bank announced its headline sponsorship of London's gay day, including using its cash points to support the event. It will turn many of its cash machines along the parade route into "GAYTMs" and let accountholders use the Pingit payment app to donate.
     But it has also put an ad for International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) on all 3,400 of its ‘hole in the wall’ machines, making 685,000 impressions per day for the week ending tomorrow.

Video: Visit Vegas, boys

On Monday, we blogged about the new LGBT nightclub Caesar's Palace/Bally's will soon open inside Bally's — the first gay nightclub, they say, inside a Strip casino.
      Today we saw a new gaycentric ad for America's gambling mecca.
     From the YouTube description, which says everything and nothing:

---

Las Vegas means: no assumptions, no judgment, come as you are, be who you want and do what you like. When you visit Las Vegas, we encourage you to embrace who you are at your very core [Warning: even in Vegas, embracing your very core in public may subject you to arrest—AKSARBENT]. A Las Vegas vacation will push your comfort zone and create unforgettable moments.

---

In respect of the top video, AKSARBENT has always had its own personal lyrics for the Loving Spoonful song in the bottom video.

Barilla now paying gay bloggers to promote LGBT inclusiveness in new 'Share The Table' social media campaign

From a sponsored post in the DesignerDaddy blog:

     While I’d heard of efforts on the part of Barilla to make amends, I paid them little mind. I was skeptical they could do anything to salvage a relationship with the LGBT community and our allies.
     But then I was asked to take part in Barilla’s Share the Table campaign. And I was approached specifically because I’m a gay father. I learned they’d also enlisted other LGBT bloggers, including fellow parents Polly Pagenhart and Vikki Reich.
     According to the materials I was given and my own research, Barilla has been making changes ever since the interview and subsequent boycott. They met with and received counsel from GLAAD; established a Diversity & Inclusion Board and appointed a Chief Diversity Officer; participated in HRC’s Corporate Equality Index; and as evidenced by this post, they want to partner with influencers in the LGBT community as part of Share the Table, to ensure families of all kinds are included.

Barilla factory, Ames, IA.
The company has another in Avon, NY.

As soon as AKSARBENT finds out how much Barilla is paying, we're off to the park with a pot of pasta and our cell phone camera in search of adorable tots in the weekend custody of angry, recently-divorced and half-lit dads willing to fake the rainbow in exchange for a 60/40 split. Call us, Guido.

The gay reason former Treasury Sec. Geithner called Dinesh D'Souza a dick in college at Dartmouth

Former treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, in his new memoir, Stress Test, recounted the time he spotted far right activist Dinesh D'Souza when they both were at Dartmouth and D'Souza was an editor at the conservative Dartmouth Review.
     Vox.com's Ezra Klein asked him about that in the interview below at the 30:30 mark.

Klein: So I have a couple very specific questions about your book. I would like to hear more about the time you called Dinesh D'Souza a dick.
Geithner: There was a group of conservative students at that point that started a conservative newspaper called the Dartmouth Review and they published in their newspaper a confidential list of members of the Lesbian-Gay Student Alliance, including a bunch of people who hadn't come out to their friends or their parents. And it was devastating to them. They did it without their consent. And so I ran into him [D'Souza] in a line at the dining hall or one of the cafes and said, "Well, you hood."

     D'Souza is under federal criminal indictment for allegedly violating campaign finance law.


(Via Talking Points Memo)

I am used to be the NRA!

Mark Kessler also used to be the police chief of Gilberton, PA. Recently, he was fired asked to retire and given a lovely $30,000 parting gift. (Via JMG)



On The Pete Santilli Show, Kessler said:

...that he now believes the NRA has been hijacked. He was surprised and dissapointed when the powerful lobby gave him no support after he went to them for help while forming his now wildly popular Constitutional Security Force. The tenacious and outspoken Chief Kessler was adamant about his right to form a constitutional security force even though the NRA told him he would not succeed, and that it would do him no good to try.  The now high profile Chief forged ahead without the N.R.A. and went on to prove them wrong, and he now proudly has the support of 38 states. For Chief Kessler there is no turning back and no fear as he plans to run against the democrat he calls unconstitutional, sheriff Joe Grudie.

Ted Nugent, fundraiser for Lincoln Sen. Colby Coasch, likes the NRA too!

Laura Ricketts, incoming chair of LPAC, lesbian SuperPAC, announces 2014 endorsements

Laura Ricketts, sister of GOP nominee for governor of Nebraska, Peter Ricketts, who "previously served as a member of the Democratic National Committee Finance Committee and chaired its LGBT leadership panel, will announce that the organization will take a stand against a Tennessee constitutional ballot initiative that LPAC says will repeal reproductive rights protections."
    Her announcement revealed a million-dollar fundraising goal for 2014, in addition to $1.2 million raised since LPAC's inception, in 2012. LPAC supported the election of the country’s first openly gay senator, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.
(via JMG) 



Ricketts said she hopes that her group will be able to find GOP candidates to support:

“I would love it if we could endorse Republican candidates as well,” she said. “Our intention is to be bi-partisan,” backing candidates “who meet our values and goals,” which include ending discriminatory treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals and their families.

LPAC has three endorsement criteria:

Ending discriminatory treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals and their families, protecting access to reproductive freedom and quality healthcare, and advancing social, racial, and economic justice for all Americans.

     Ricketts, a co-owner of the Chicago Cubs, also is on the Democratic National Committeeʼs executive committee and the board of EMILY's List, dedicated to electing Democratic women to office.
     LPAC supports three men: Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D), who signed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in November, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes' spouse, Sean Eldridge, a congressional candidate, and openly gay gubernatorial candidate Rep. Michael Michaud (D-Maine).
     LPAC's slate:

• Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.);
• Congressional candidate Sean Eldridge (D-N.Y. 19th District);
• Congressional candidate Gwen Graham (D-Fla. 2nd District);
• Congressional candidate Amanda Renteria (D-Calif. 21st District);
• New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan (D);
• Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D);
• Gubernatorial candidate, state Sen. Wendy Davis (D-Texas);
• Gubernatorial candidate, Rep. Michael Michaud (D-Maine);
• Gubernatorial candidate, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley (D);
• Gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke (D-Wis.);
• Gubernatorial candidate, state Del. Heather Mizeur (D-Md.);
• Lieutenant Governor candidate, state Assemblywoman Lucy Flores (D-Nev.);
• Secretary of State candidate, state Sen. Nina Turner (D-Ohio);
• Attorney General candidate Maura Healey (D-Mass.)

GOP War on Women, MO edition: Here are the 102 Republicans (and 9 Democrats) who passed HB 1305, forcing victims of rape or incest to wait three days before getting an abortion

From Fox News:

     The measure would triple Missouri's current 24-hour waiting period and put the state in line with Utah and South Dakota as the only states to mandate a 72-hour time frame. Missouri currently has only one clinic performing elective abortions.

Missouri State Capitol
Photo: JeromeG111, via Flickr

     The House voted 111-39 in favor on Wednesday, sending it to Democratic Gov. Nixon, who has previously allowed other abortion restrictions to become law without his signature. That included a measure last year that requires doctors to be in the room for the initial dose of a drug used in medical abortions. Below are the Republicans and Democrats who voted for HB 1305.
     102 Republicans and nine Democrats voted "Yes." One Republican and 38 Democrats voted no, and five Republicans and four Democrats didn't vote at all.

REPUBLICANS VOTING YES
Sue Allen, Town and Country
Sonya Anderson, Springfield
Kevin Austin, Springfield
Kurt Bahr, O’Fallon
Jay Barnes, Jefferson City
Mike Bernskoetter, Jefferson City
T.J. Berry, Kearney
Rick Brattin, Harrisonville
Wanda Brown, Lincoln
Eric Burlison, Springfield
Mike Cierpiot, Lee’s Summit
Kathie Conway, St. Charles
Steve Cookson, Poplar Bluff
Robert Cornejo, St. Peters
Sandy Crawford, Buffalo
Gary Cross, Lee’s Summit
Paul Curtman, Pacific
Charlie Davis, Webb City
John Diehl, Town and Country
Dean Dohrman, La Monte
Tony Dugger, Hartville
Kevin Elmer, Nixa
Kevin Engler, Farmington
Sue Entlicher, Bolivar
Scott Fitzpatrick, Shell Knob
Paul Fitzwater, Potosi
Tom Flanigan, Carthage
Lyndall Fraker, Marshfield
Diane Franklin, Camdenton
Keith Frederick, Rolla
Elaine Gannon, De Soto
Chuck Gatschenberger, Lake St. Louis
Don Gosen, Chesterfield
Casey Guernsey, Bethany
Elijah Haahr, Springfield
Kent Hampton, Malden
Jim Hansen, Frankford
Ron Hicks, St. Peters
Galen Higdon, St. Joseph
Dave Hinson, St. Clair
Denny Hoskins, Warrensburg
Lincoln Hough, Springfield
Jay Houghton, Martinsburg
Thomas Hurst, Meta
Delus Johnson, St. Joseph
Caleb Jones, Columbia
Jeffery Justus, Branson
Shelley Keeney, Marble Hill
Mike Kelley, Lamar
Andrew Koenig, Manchester
Glen Kolkmeyer, Wellington
Bart Korman, High Hill
Mike Lair, Chillicothe
Bill Lant, Joplin
Jeanie Lauer, Blue Springs
Mike Leara, St. Louis
Donna Lichtenegger, Jackson
Warren Love, Osceola
Steve Lynch, Waynesville
Nick Marshall, Parkville
John McCaherty, High Ridge
Joe Don McGaugh, Carrollton
Jeffrey Messenger, Republic
Rocky Miller, Tuscumbia
Mike Moon, Ash Grove
Lynn Morris, Nixa
Jim Neely, Cameron
Myron Neth, Liberty
Mark Parkinson, St. Charles
Donna Pfautsch, Harrisonville
Don Phillips, Kimberling City
Randy Pike, Adrian
Jeff Pogue, Salem
Craig Redmon, Canton
Holly Rehder, Sikeston
Bill Rieboldt, Neosho
Tim Remole, Excello
Shawn Rhoads, West Plains
Todd Richardson, Poplar Bluff
Jeanie Riddle, Mokane
Robert Ross, Yukon
Caleb Rowden, Columbia
Lyle Rowland, Cedarcreek
Dwight Scharnhorst, St. Louis
Dave Schatz, Sullivan
Ron Schieber, Kansas City
Noel Shull, Kansas City
Lindell Shumake, Hannibal
Sheila Solon, Blue Springs
Chrissy Sommer, St. Charles
Bryan Spencer, Wentzville
Rick Stream, Kirkwood
Kathy Swan, Cape Girardeau
Mike Thomson, Maryville
Noel Torpey, Independence
Nathan Walker, Kirksville
Bill White, Joplin
Paul Wieland, Imperial
Kenneth Wilson, Smithville
David Wood, Versailles
Anne Zerr, St. Charles
Tim Jones, Eureka

DEMOCRATS VOTING YES
Linda Black, Desloge
Pat Conway, St. Joseph
Keith English, Florissant
Ben Harris, Hillsboro
John Mayfield, Independence
TJ McKenna, Festus
Jeff Roorda, Barnhart
Joe Runions, Grandview
Ed Schieffer, Troy

================================

REPUBLICANS VOTING NO
Chris Molendorp, Belton

DEMOCRATS VOTING NO
Ira Anders, Independence
Bob Burns, St. Louis
Michael Butler, St. Louis
Jon Carpenter, Kansas City
Mike Colona, St. Louis
Courtney Curtis, Berkeley
Randy Dunn, Kansas City
Brandon Ellington, Kansas City
Vicki Englund, St. Louis
Michael Frame, Eureka
Kimberly Gardner, St. Louis
Penny Hubbard, St. Louis
Jacob Hummel, St. Louis
Chris Kelly, Columbia
Jeanne Kirkton, Webster Groves
Jeremy LaFaver, Kansas City
Karla May, St. Louis
Gail McCann Beatty, Kansas City
Tom McDonald, Independence
Kevin McManus, Kansas City
Margo McNeil, Florissant
Sue Meredith, St. Louis
Bonnaye Mims, Kansas City
Gina Mitten, St. Louis
Genise Montecillo, St. Louis
Judy Morgan, Kansas City
Mary Nichols, Maryland Heights
Charlie Norr, Springfield
Bill Otto, St. Charles
Sharon Pace, Northwoods
Tommie Pierson, St. Louis
John Rizzo, Kansas City
Jill Schupp, Creve Coeur
Clem Smith, Velda Village Hills
Jay Swearingen, Kansas City
Rochelle Walton Gray, Black Jack
Stephen Webber, Columbia
John Wright, Rocheport

REPUBLICANS NOT VOTING
Stanley Cox, Sedalia
Doug Funderburk, St. Peters
Jeff Grisamore, Lee’s Summit
Marsha Haefner, St. Louis
Dave Muntzel, Boonville

DEMOCRATS NOT VOTING
Steve Hodges, East Prairie
Michele Kratky, St. Louis
Stacey Newman, St. Louis
Josh Peters, St. Louis

Read more: 

Citizen Koch trailer

The documentary opens in theaters this summer. From the clip description:

---

CITIZEN KOCH investigates the impact of unlimited, anonymous spending by corporations and billionaires on the electoral process, featuring stories of life-long Republicans whose loyalty is tested when their families become collateral damage in the GOP fight to take organized labor out at the knees. Alternately terrifying and funny, CITIZEN KOCH is an essential and powerful portrait of our political times.

---

(Via JMG)

Little man's best friend wasn't Rover — it was Fluffy

The Bakersfield, CA dog is under observation for 10 days (rabies, we suppose), after which it will be put down.

Mark Jacobs mocks Joni Ernst's firing range ad

At the end of the ad, Jacobs accuses Ernst of "firing blanks." At long last, have you no shame, Tea Party? Challenging a woman's masculinity is absolutely beyond the Palin pale. AKSARBENT is outraged.

Glenn Greenwald appears on Fresh Air and brilliantly answers every one of Terry Gross' tough questions

Gross never comes to the mic unprepared, and today she had a litany of uncompromising questions for Greenwald, but he eloquently and unflappably demolished every critical accusation. A magnificent, must-hear interview.

First the Internet came after Ann Coulter, now it's Michelle Obama's turn

Ann Coulter mocked Michelle Obama's #Bring Back Our Girls twitter hashtag campaign (which has embarrassed the shit out of Nigeria's government) but in short order, Coulter got wacked by twitter users who used the same tactic, via Photoshop, to ridicule her. Now the pendulum is swinging back toward Obama herself.

Nebraska governor's office escapes capture by one of the U.S.'s most relentless homophobes by 2,171 votes

ALSO: Ben Sasse or Ben's Ass? Tea Party candidate in Neb. Senate race mocked in in hysterical YouTube video with a slew of double-entendre butt jokes. Sasse won last night's primary by surfing a $2.8 million wave of ads savaging his opponents and paid for by front groups tied to wealthy supporters

Official (but not final) returns from Nebraska Secretary of State's office

Actually two notoriously antigay candidates were running. State Sen. Beau McCoy tried, in 2012, to ban ALL municipal LGBT anti­discrimination ordinances in Nebraska by introducing LB912, which died in the Judiciary Committee. McCoy, of Elkhorn, a recently-annexed West Omaha suburb, will retain his senate seat in the state's one-house Unicameral legislature.
     But it is Jon Bruning, second by a mere 2,171 votes to TD Ameritrade scion Pete Ricketts, who has been the most relentlessly antigay politician Nebraska has seen in decades. Attempts by the Omaha World-Herald, Governor Heineman and Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert to annoint Bruning Nebraska's next governor-in-waiting all failed.

From the neck up, at least, Bruning vaguely
resembles a certain underwear model.

     Bruning's animus toward LGBTs seems to have no limits. He has filed briefs against gay marriage in other states. He has had legislation introduced that would imprison HIV+ people who so much as sneeze on a cop. In November 2003, he 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? I mean, at some point, it needs to stop." Associated Press, 11/18/03]
     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.
     And now, after almost 15 long years and thanks to 2,171 Republican voters who chose someone else, Bruning, who conceded last night at about 11:30 pm, will be finally be out of office when his term expires.

     BELOW: In 2012, Bruning broadly insinuated (at the 0:49 time mark) that his GOP U.S. Senate opponent, Don Stenberg, himself quite a heterosexual supremacist, was a pedophile because Stenberg's campaign twitter bot asked to "follow" Bruning's 14-year-old daughter — even though at the time (as Stenberg's campaign later discovered) Bruning's campaign twitter account was itself following at least one 16-year-old girl.

Ann Coulter mocks #BringBackOurGirls, so twitter mocks her

Conor Oberst's new album debuts May 20, but NPR is streaming it now, free

Photo: Butch Hogan

Tom Moon seems to really like the new album by Omaha's Conor Oberst, Upside Down Mountain, and we can see why.
     Here's his precis of You Are Your Mother's Child:

Here we have a tired, heartstring-tugging trope from the 1970s [Harry Chapin's Cat's In The Cradle] resurrected as something lucid and disarmingly poignant. Something that can sneak right inside the most cynical heart and melt the layers.

More from Moon's critical Valentine:

On the surface, the riffing horns and striding beats of "Hundreds of Ways" radiate a kind of parade-day joviality. Get inside the song, though, and you realize Oberst is talking about what it means to contend with dark, possibly unwelcome memories when everyone else seems to be sashaying through life. The very next track, "Artifact #1," delves further into the muddy pools and quagmires of memory, examining what it means to hold onto the last glimmer of a great and vanished love. It's a stunning one-two punch, one of those rare album moments where two works grow more profound as a result of their proximity to each other.

 The album's track list, streaming now at NPR's First Listen:

Time Forgot
Zigzagging Toward The Light
Hundreds of Ways
Artifact #1
Lonely At The Top
Enola Gay
Double Life
Kick
Night At Lake Unknown
You Are Your Mother's Child
Governor's Ball
Desert Island Questionnaire
Common Knowledge

Peruvians rally in favor of same sex civil unions

Via the YouTube channel of Blabbeando.

Memo to global warming deniers of the NE GOP: The Antarctic ice sheet is collapsing. How much do you think a 10-foot rise in coast seawater will cost the U.S.?

The Thwaites Glacier on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Credit: NASA

The worst of the willfully ignorant climate anarchists of the Grand Old Party in Nebraska is home-schooled global warming denier Beau McCoy, who says he has "philosophical issues" with what 97% of scientists say is happening.



     McCoy, of course, is too stupid to have a philosophy. At best he has an outlook or, more likely, talking points given to him by one of the Koch Bros.-funded astroturf slush funds social welfare 501 (c) (4) organizations. 
     The rest of the GOP pack isn't much better, especially Lee "the Keystone XL pipeline is a no-brainer!" Terry and Jon I-gave-that-illegal-TransCanada-money-back-when-I-got-caught-so-shut-up Bruning. More on the sad state of the Antarctic at Gizmodo.
(H/T: Towleroad)

RELATED:

Don't know how to be a renewable energy voter when you go to the polls tomorrow? Bold Nebraska has done all the research for you! Print out their guide or bookmark it on your smartphone. Also, pick up a copy of the League of Women Voters' Guide at the library or elsewhere and take it with you too. The League of Women Voters' Guide is non-partisan, but Bold Nebraska's guide, of course, is not, so don't use it to electioneer at the polling place. 

RELATED AND DISGUSTING:
On the very day that an burst Exxon tar sands pipeline was poisoning Mayflower, Arkansas, Lee Terry was pimping for TransCanada's Keystone XL tar sands pipeline extension to its brand new (and already leaky) Keystone 1 pipeline.
 

Rams got Michael Sams at NFL minimum wage and can exploit him as Mizzou alum bait to boost poor St. Louis attendance

ALSO: Ben Sasse or Ben's Ass? Name of Tea Party candidate in Nebr. Senate race mocked in in hysterical YouTube video with a slew of double-entendre butt jokes.

Patrick Riche, an Economics Professor at the George Herbert Walker School of Business and Technology at Webster University in St Louis, MO, wrote a dollars-and-cents analysis of seventh-round NFL draft pick Michael Sam in a special contribution to Forbes, which you may read in its entirety here. 

Source

...Mr. Sam will not be making much more than minimum wage even if he does make the Rams.  The minimum wage for an NFL player in 2014 is $420,000.  Had Mr. Sam been selected in the first-round of the draft (as 10 of his 12 SEC peers had over the last decade), he would have been guaranteed at least $6.5 million over the next four years.
     ...Based on Mr. Bedard’s feedback, he likely wasn’t first-round material.  Based on Mr. Polian’s feedback, he was far better than a seventh-round pick.
     It is equally plausible that perhaps a partial explanation why the Rams were willing to select Mr. Sam with their last draft pick is tied to geography... given that St Louis is home to a copious amount of Mizzou grads, it is not infeasible that... if Mr. Sam makes the team, it might further influence local Mizzou and Sam supporters to the games.
     And for a team that finished 29th out of 32 teams in attendance at an average of 87.5% of tickets sold, any little thing that could boost home attendance is a welcomed endeavor...

Note: many anti-Sam tweets
also mentioned the University of
Missouri as an object of emnity

     And finally, if I take a turn to cynical-town, could it be that another reason the Rams took a chance on Mr. Sam is that the Rams wanted to engage in a positive public relations tactic (giving Mr. Sam a chance when other teams wouldn’t) at a time when the franchise is under considerable local scrutiny in that ownership could conceivably relocate the team after the 2014 season given the nasty dispute between the team and city which has festered over the last few years.

How parents at Glad Tidings Church and the Nebraska Family Association can talk to their kids about Michael Sam

Glad Tidings Church, Omaha

Although the Nebraska Family Alliance and affiliated heterosexual supremacist churches like Glad Tidings have done a great job of making sure that employed heads of LGBT families in Nebraska have no recourse if arbitrarily fired by Nebraska employers — in fact the NFA has made that goal its number one priority recently (evidence here) — they can't expected to be everywhere all the time, especially when there are 500 channels of TV on which a gay couple could start making out at any given moment.
     This just happened on ESPN, of all places, after Mizzou's Michael Sam was notified he been drafted into the NFL by the St. Louis Rams; he immediately smeared cake on his boyfriend's face and started kissing him ON TV. (Ewwww!)
     Below is a helpful guide for Christian parents if the worst happens.

HRC's twitter jockey must have had a rough weekend

The above tweet was quietly replaced with a corrected version at 6:23.

Bill Maher: 'If I want to sit in the privacy of my living room and say... I don't like watching two men kiss... I should be able to...'

ALSO: Ben Sasse or Ben's Ass? Name of Tea Party candidate in Nebr. Senate race mocked in in hysterical YouTube video with a slew of double-entendre butt jokes.

Click here to see the entire YouTube clip of Maher's piece
excerpted in this post

Donald Sterling's ugly racism irked Bill Maher less than the invasion of privacy that exposed it.
     AKSARBENT can't say that it disagrees.

     ...Who wants to live in a world where the only privacy you have is inside your head?
     That's what life in East Germany was like. That's why we fought the cold war, remember?
     So we'd never have to live in some awful limbo where you never knew who, even among your friends, was an informer.
     And now we're doing to ourselves!
     Well, don't. Don't be part of the problem.
     If this was a campaign ad, I'd say, "Call [WaPo columnist] Kathleen Parker and tell her you're not ready to edit everything you say in private. And then, just to fuck with her head, tell her you have an audio tape of a book party she gave at her home with five close female friends, all of whom had way too much wine."
     'Cause I'm sure there's been that night and she wouldn't want that tape to come out.
     Who would?
     ...There's a reason houses have doors on them and windows have shades.
     And if I want to sit in the privacy of my living room and say "I think the Little Mermaid is hot and I wanna bang her or I don't like watching two men kiss or I think tattoos look terrible on black people, I should be able to, even if you think that makes me an asshole.
     Now, do I really believe those things?
     I'M NOT TELLING YOU BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT IN MY LIVING ROOM!

GOP War on Women — Beau McCoy edition

Maybe Beau McCoy likes to interrupt girls trying to have some fun.
     Or maybe YouTube is making a sly comment about Beau and the company he keeps.
     Or maybe he isn't wisely spending the $1.8 million his sugar daddy, Charles Herbster, gave him to con Nebraskans into making him governor of a state he isn't from.
     Whatever. AKSARBENT just wishes the Unicameral's #1 homophobe would just dry up and blow away. 

Whose face did Michael Sam smear cake on when he was drafted by the NFL?

His boyfriend, Vito Cammisano, a former swimmer at Mizzou. Buzzfeed's Tony Merevick just posted a slew of pictures.

Bally's to open what it calls first Las Vegas gay nightclub inside a Strip casino

ALSO: Ben Sasse or Ben's Ass? Name of Tea Party candidate in Nebr. Senate race mocked in in hysterical YouTube video with a slew of double-entendre butt jokes.

Interior, Liaison

Now that the Tropicana has a new LGBT­oriented dayclub, and Luxor's gay dayclub is reopening for the season, the Las Vegas Review/Journal reports that Caesar's Palace/Bally's Vegas will open a new Victor Drai-created nightclub inside its Strip casino.
     The format, according to the club's announcement: "hip-hop, rap, top 40 and a drag night."
     Currently the only LGBT club on the Strip is Krave, across from Monte Carlo.

If you're Japanese, don't do this in America!

Leave your bowl on the table, don't slurp your noodles, don't talk to the server unless s/he's near you and give your money directly to the cashier instead of putting it on the counter. Also, apologize if you bump into someone and hold the door for the person directly behind you.
     You can, however, talk much louder than is allowed in Japan.

Video: cake-eater Michael Sam drafted by St. Louis in seventh round

Well, that's one taunt Sam won't be able to get out from under.

Look people if kissing another dude on TV was a crime Kris Jenner would have been locked up a long time ago

— Fake Bo Pelini (@FauxPelini) May 10, 2014

On Glenn Beck's show, Shane Osborn is asked whether he ever tongue-kissed, held hands or saw a movie with Mitch McConnell

Beck: "Wait, wait. This is gonna be good. This is like a junkyard fight."
     AKSARBENT was tempted to quote Beck as later saying "I'd take either one of you guys," but that would be out of context and sleazy so we won't.
     Later, Osborn explained the circumstances of FreedomWorks jilting him for Sasse, a midstream tea party shift that Beck remarked that he had never seen happen before.
     Osborn went on to claim that "Putin owns Obama."
     Really? As much as the Koch Bros. now own the GOP, Shane?
     On immigration, Beck worried aloud about illegals coming in and "taking our stuff." Osborn opined that comprehensive immigration reform is all a Democrat plot to turn Texas purple.
     On racist tax cheat Clive Bundy and his weapons-carrying posse, Osborn said it was "inspiring" to see people standing up to the federal government.
     Finally, recovering alcoholic Beck grilled Osborn (12:35) on his relationship with the evil Osborne Corp. and the constant attacks on Spiderman. When Osborn explained that his surname doesn't have an "e" on the end, Beck said, "That's exactly what a villain trying to kill Spiderman would say."



Below: Ben Sasse, Osborn's tea party opponent, is now the butt of YouTube butt jokes on account of his name. But don't feel too sorry for Sasse. His dark money D.C. friends are pummeling Osborn with $2.8 million in attack ads in sparsely populated Nebraska.