Words to live by from the Nikon User Manual

#1: Not specifically saying Americans are stoooopid,
but this IS published in English...










#2: The James O'Keefe clause...




#3: Wishful thinking (see #2)...

#4: Tina, Tina, Tina...

Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka profiled by Out

Out just printed dual narratives written by David Burtka and his husband, the better-known Neil Patrick Harris, who has been proving for years that Hollywood agents who advise their clients that coming out will be fatal to their careers are probably lying.

Photo: Matthew Kristall

NPH: We found a place in Harlem that a woman had been living in for 40-odd years, and it was roomy and reasonably priced. We went to L.A. and got this moving truck and collected his mattress and bed frame and some stuff we each had in storage, and we started a journey across the country. We stopped in Albuquerque, where my family is, and they gave us some stuff. And we went through Memphis and up to Michigan, where his family is, and picked up his parents’ piano. We went slowly across America, filling up this truck, and by the time we got to New York, we had a new life full of furniture.

James Dobson endorses Rick Santorum; doesn't want Calista Gingrich, 'a woman who was a man's mistress for 8 years,' in White House

Wow, looks like Family Research Council founder Dobson is the new king, queen and royal family of sexism, doesn't it? Serial philanderer Newt gets a pass while decrepit Dobson blames the wifey poo.

Oh nurse... check Mr. Dobson's IV label for clues as to why he waited until just before Santorum's campaign is scheduled to tank before endorsing it, won't you?

Meanwhile, Right Wing Watch notes that the Red White and Blue Fund, a pro-Santorum Super PAC, is airing a new ad in South Carolina narrated by Bauer, who helped found the Family Research Council with Dobson, calling Santorum an opponent of “liberal elites and those who seek to undermine the nation’s freedoms and moral fabric.” Etc., etc.

Here's the sorry spectacle of Gary Bauer skipping merrily off the cliff while muttering crap like "principled stand," which a wizened, cynical political operative like himself wouldn't recognize if it crawled up in his lap, called him "daddy" and then pissed on him, which would be both poetic and just.

Kate Kendall's few choice words for Karen Santorum

Kendall, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, has written an op-ed for the Advocate, excerpted below:

Karen, we need to talk. And by that, I mean that I need to talk and you need to listen.

     ...You love your husband — I get that. You love your faith — fine by me. But when you pretend that hate is love, that lies are truth, and that victims are oppressors, you have become inane.

     Your husband believes that LGBT people cannot be trusted to serve in the military, raise children, form stable relationships or be fully respected under the law. According to you, Rick may love us, but honey, his love is killing us, and we want nothing to do with this abusive relationship. Our community has endured expulsion from family, mass firings, daily epithets, assaults, harassment, humiliation, death, and suicides. We know that if your husband becomes president of our country our long suffering will only deepen and magnify.

     So yes, we are calling him what he is: a sanctimonious bigot who believes that we are dangerous, sick, and evil. We are telling the truth about his vision and his beliefs about us. That is NOT bullying, it's about saving our own lives. Your husband would erase the landmark and life-saving changes we have seen over the past few years, and revisit the hell of a government that does not see us as fully human. Given what so many of my brothers and sisters live through daily, you calling us bullies is contemptible...

Etta James: 10 classic performances

Etta James has died at 73 of luekemia. She also afflicted with Hepatitis C and dementia. Her manager, with whom she stayed for 30 years, admiringly said that she was "unmanageable," and Frank Sinatra said he learned a lot about phrasing by listening to her.

Critic Richard Williams of the Manchester Guardian has picked out 10 classic Etta James performances. Go here.

Grindr hacked in Australia; 100,000 compromised; Expert: no real security in Grindr, Blendr apps

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a hacker has exposed, via a website, now taken down, Grindr users' pseudonyms, passwords, their personal favourites (bookmarked friends), allowed them to be impersonated, thereby having  messages sent and received without their knowledge. At one point, the website also allowed users' profile pictures to be replaced, which happened, causing at least one user to be kicked off, due to a terms of service violation, when his profile picture was replaced with an explicit photo
     Grindr is an application enabling gay males to meet other gay males within close proximity, and has a straight version, Blendr.
     Joel Simkhai, maker of both, said he will release a security update to both applications "over the next few days." An expert in Australia interviewed by the Herald said neither application had any real security.

Minnesotan recalls how the Mormon Church blackballed gay Nebraska couples from marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships

Initiative 416 amended the Nebraska Constitution to "provide that only marriage between a man and a woman shall be valid or recognized in Nebraska, and to provide that the uniting of two persons of the same sex in a civil union, domestic partnership or other similar same-sex relationship shall not be valid or recognized in Nebraska." 

From AmericaBlog:

Prop 8 wasn't the Mormons' first time to the hate dance.  They've been bankrolling anti-gay legislation for at least two decades. Here is one Mormon's story about how they helped push DOMA in the state of Nebraska.

I lived in Nebraska when a petition drive was held there to get DOMA on the ballot. At church we were not even asked if we wanted to gather signatures. We were handed packets (which I did not take) and several hours of our usual meetings were taken up with our bishop and stake president rallying the troops, so to speak – even sending people out on a Sunday to gather signatures at the College World Series. I didn’t speak out against it. I just murmured with my like-minded friends about our disgust over the church getting involved. Hell, damn near running the whole thing. And happy, oh so happy, to join forces with evangelicals who agree with Mormons on nothing other than the so-called moral decline of society.

Here's more information about the Mormon Church's dominant role in amending Nebraska's constitution in a way that ruthlessly has made gay couples strangers to the law for 11 years and counting. The following excerpt is from a much longer 10/4/2000 piece by Leslie Reed published in the Omaha World-Herald. (We were going to email this to John Aravosis, but after 10 minutes of trying to find a damn email address on his web site, AKSARBENT gave up.)

A coalition of Mormons, Catholics and Protestant evangelicals appears to be pushing aside the grassroots committee that gathered 160,000 petition signatures across Nebraska to ban same sex marriage.

     ...Guyla Mills, who managed the successful initiative petition drive, said she refused an offer by two Nebraska members of the Mormon Church to join the coalition, even though they told her they would be able to raise $600,000 to promote the amendment .
     The two men, Arthur Taylor of Omaha and Robert Valentine of Lincoln, were active in the petition drive. Taylor is the president of the Omaha stake of the Mormon Church.
     "The package presented to me was outside the parameters set by the DOMA committee," Mills said.
     "It would be an entity apart from the DOMA committee, it would be funded by outside money, and it would be controlled by one entity."
     She said the entity she referred to was the Mormon Church...
     About one - fourth of the [petition] drive's 3,200 volunteers were Mormons, Mills said. They collected about half the 160,000 signatures.

Omaha Police doing a crackerjack job keeping death-to-gays preacher at UNO Alumni Assoc. from being inconvenienced by Progressive Oasis protesters

Particulars about this weekend's protest organized by the Progressive Oasis blog have been published.
     The blog notes the outstandingly aggressive protection provided by the Omaha Police Department to Pastor Kayser and his defense of cherry-picked biblical imperatives calling for gay Omahans to be executed.
     Omaha police appear to have left no stone unturned in shielding the death-to-gays preacher from having to personally deal with the indignation of his targets; they even trailed the suspicious post-demonstration coffeehouse excursion of one unusually dangerous malcontent who waved potentially lethal signage from across narrow Dodge Street at Pastor Kayser and his pulpit inside the University of Nebraska at Omaha Thompson Alumni Center:

... After the protest Sunday, January 15th, a cop followed one of our protesters from UNO all the way to Crane Coffee near 76th and Cass, so they are keeping an eye out for protesters, unreasonably in my opinion.

     ...The last response I received from [UNO Alumni Assoc. CEO Lee] Denker is that they were looking into their rental policies. They’ve had two weeks, now...

GOP's leading character assassin Newt Gingrich: I am tired of the elite media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans!

This was in response to the TEMERITY of John King asking Gingrich about his adulterous 1999 affair and recent accusations by his then-wife about Gringrich's request for an "open" marriage.


(Via JMG)

Of course, Gingrich has never attacked the "elite media" for covering him as he led the charge to drag Bill Clinton through the mud with a $70,000,000 taxpayer-funded investigation of his affair with Monica Lewinsky even as Gingrich quietly pursued his own adulterous affair.

(Skip to 1:50)

Quote of the day: Kyle Michaelis on Gov. Heineman's State of the State deception

 ...The plan he's really proposing proves it nothing more than the empty promise of a cynical and manipulative politician hiding an actual agenda devoted to tax cuts for corporations and the rich.  There's nothing new in this deception, but - in eight years in office - I don't believe Heineman's ever laid it on so thick.

 

Seriously, at one point in his speech, Heineman actually stated the following:

"Even with our healthy economy, many Nebraska middle class families still struggle from paycheck to paycheck. We can help these families by changing Nebraska's income tax structure and allowing them to keep more of the money they make. If your adjusted gross income is more than $54,000, you are taxed at the same marginal rate as Warren Buffett. That is unfair to middle class families."

When you actually look at Heineman's proposal (see slide 13 here), the big benefit to those middle-class families being treated so unfairly at an income of $54,000 is that they now wouldn't pay the same tax rate as Warren Buffett until their income reaches $60,000.  Meanwhile, for single taxpayers, they can still go ahead and start feeling like Buffett when their income reaches $30,000 (previously $27K).

...Heineman's a fraud.

State Sen. Beau McCoy, author of bill banning local gay rights laws in NE for the sake of 'uniformity,' also insists on uniformity in his facebook page

Politbureau, Soviet Union

Beau McCoy, president of Nebraska
Roof Savers and author of law to revoke and
ban local gay rights ordinances throughout
Nebraska. McCoy (bmccoy@leg.ne.gov)
represents Dist. 39, including parts of
Omaha. His Democratic opponent is
Judy Domina. His biggest 2008 backer
was TD Ameritrade scion Peter Ricketts.

Seen in the comments section of Towleroad:

Posted the following to his facebook and he deleted it within a minute:

"It just merely says that if we're going to change the protected classes ... we need to come to the Capitol to do it so that it's consistent across the state. If it's the right thing to do, it ought to be the right thing to do border-to-border, not just in one city or municipality." - Beau McCoy, 2012State Senator McCoy
    If consistency across the state is what you were aiming for, you could have introduced legislation forcing protections for LGBT citizens across the entire state of Nebraska. Instead, you are aiming to amend state law so that it actually takes away protections for LGBT citizens across specific municipalities where protections are already in place. You will be remembered as just another bigot who voted to take away protections for an already vulnerable minority group. -Michael

Posted by: deppy | Jan 19, 2012 2:12:55 PM

Sen. Beau McCoy's sneak attack at NE LGBT rights laws: Now there's a topic the billionaire Ricketts family can discuss during a holiday dinner...

Peter and Laura Ricketts

Recently AKSARBENT wrote a lengthy post about Nebraska State Senator Beau McCoy's sneak attack at LGBT antidiscrimination ordinances throughout Nebraska.

Turns out that, according to Ballotpedia, McCoy's biggest contributer in 2008, the year he was elected to the Nebraska Unicameral, was Peter Ricketts, son of the billionaire Omaha founder of what is now TD Ameritrade.

Wonder if Ricketts' sister, Laura, a philanthropist and gay Chicago lawyer who served on the board of Lambda Legal for years and is an owner of the Chicago Cubs, knows what her brother's homophobic pet politician has been up to?

The Nebraska Republican Party has announced a re-election kickoff event hosted by Boyd and Charlie’s BBQ Party Room in Elkhorn for Sen. McCoy, now busy kicking Nebraska's LGBT communities to the curb. McCoy's opponent for the 39th District is Judy Domina, who, AKSARBENT hopes, will kick McCoy himself right out of the legislature on election day.

Nebraska GOP Representative Lee Terry runs, hides from Internet backlash against his SOPA bill

Lee Terry must have realized that raising an iron curtain around the Internet and continuing to be a D.C. whore for fatcat Hollywood interests could no longer fly under the radar of his constituents, after Google, Wikipedia, Wordpress, and other giant internet sites tagged him as cosponsor of the worst IP legislation in a decade. Today — through a spokesman, naturally — he finally gave up.

From the Lincoln Journal-Star:

In statements to the Journal Star, Reps. Jeff Fortenberry, Lee Terry and Sen. Mike Johanns said they won't support the bill...

     Terry, along with two other sponsors, announced Tuesday they will remove their names as sponsors of the legislation.

     Terry initially co-sponsored the bill because of the economic impact online piracy has on the economy, but pulled support after hearing lots of negative comments from multiple sources.

     He decided that SOPA, as drafted, isn't the solution, according to spokesman Charles Isom.

______________________________________________________________________

AKSARBENT's pre-Christmas post on Terry's reckless SOPA escapade:

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Lee Terry legislation helps despots by banning US Navy's Internet censorship-busting technology

Lee Terry, Joseph Stalin

Tor, the censorship-busting technology developed by the US Navy and promoted by the State Department as part of the solution to allowing for free communications in repressive regimes, is likely illegal technology under the Stop Online Piracy Act. SOPA makes provision for punishing Americans who contribute expertise to projects that can be used to defeat its censorship regime, and Tor fits the bill.

Terry is a cosponsor of SOPA, called the worst piece of IP legislation in a decade. Because the draconian legislation is so poorly worded and has so many potentially unintended ramifications, virtually no one outside the entertainment industry supports it. Many, including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc., are actively opposing it.

The Stop Online Piracy Act is so reckless that one can only conclude Rep. Terry is too lazy to have read the bill he cosponsored or isn't smart enough to understand what's in it.

NE state senator Beau McCoy introduces Tennessee-style law attacking gay rights ordinances throughout Nebraska; would block 2nd attempt at one in Omaha

Update: Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst, other prominent Omaha musicians sign open letter calling LB912 "deplorable and unacceptable."
     Peter Ricketts, billionaire TD Ameritrade family scion, was Beau McCoy's largest 2008 contributor, which should make for some interesting holiday dinner table talk between Ricketts and his gay sister.
     McCoy's Democratic opponent for the 39th district is Judy Domina, a longtime resident of Elkhorn.
     A previous headline said McCoy's proposal would void a Lincoln gay rights ordinance. That was wrong. One was proposed, but defeated by voters in May of 1982.

Juan Perez, Jr., of the Omaha World-Herald reports that as Omaha City Councilman Ben Gray tries again to introduce a gay rights ordinance in Omaha, a state senator from that city, Beau McCoy, has introduced legislation (LB912, which is functionally identical to legislation enacted in Tennessee earlier this year) nullifying gay rights ordinances throughout Nebraska and prohibiting their future enactment. McCoy even uses the same excuse employed by bigots in Tennessee, saying such encroachment by the state on the freedom of cities to enact their own antidiscrimination legislation is called for by the need for "uniformity."

Beau McCoy, president of Nebraska Roof
Savers and author of law to revoke and
ban local gay rights ordinances throughout
Nebraska. McCoy (bmccoy@leg.ne.gov)
represents Dist. 39, including parts of
Omaha. His Democratic opponent is
Judy Domina.

McCoy's proposed bill would amend state law to prohibit local governments from creating new classes of residents protected from discrimination.

"It just merely says that if we're going to change the protected classes ... we need to come to the Capitol to do it so that it's consistent across the state," McCoy said. "If it's the right thing to do, it ought to be the right thing to do border-to-border, not just in one city or municipality."

     McCoy refused to say whether he'd support a "uniform" statewide proposal to include gay people as a protected class.
     Councilman Ben Gray will soon reintroduce an antidiscrimination ordinance which failed in 2010 on a 3-3 council vote. (Ben Gray, Pete Festersen and Chris Jerram voted in favor; "Mean" Jean Stothert, Garry Gernandt and Thomas Mulligan were opposed.) Councilman Franklin Thompson called for a referendum and refused to vote. (Last summer the Human Rights Campaign released a poll during its bus tour (which included stops in Lincoln and Omaha)  revealing that a majority of Omahans favored passing an ordinance that would prohibit firing people because of their sexual orientation.)

Knee-jerk homophobe Perkins, of
Omaha's Pilgrim Baptist Church, who
opposed a gay rights law in Omaha
by saying "I find it offensive that we
would equate this with civil rights.
Those rights were based upon a
person's color of their skin,
which they could not change."

The measure was shot down with the help of the Omaha Chamber of Commerce's executive committee, antigay churches, especially Pilgrim Baptist Church, home of heterosexual supremacist Cedric Perkins, and right-wing Christian policy organizations.

When the Omaha Chamber of Commerce opposed the antidiscrimination ordinance in 2010, it said the law would impose "ambiguous and unclear" regulations and would be "difficult" for businesses to implement, saying such concerns were best approved at the state or federal level. The World-Herald said the Chamber would not elaborate on those arguments this week, citing the lack of final language for the latest proposal.

LB912 includes the following language:

Sec. 3. (1) It is the purpose of this section to improve
intrastate commerce by ensuring that no county, municipality, or
other political subdivision will subject businesses, organizations,
or employers operating in Nebraska to varied and nonuniform protected
classifications in nondiscrimination laws, ordinances, resolutions,
rules, or policies. Further, it is the purpose of this section to
focus and thereby improve the effectiveness of the efforts of
counties, municipalities, or other political subdivisions to punish
and eliminate discrimination based on the protected classifications
identified in laws enacted by the Legislature.
(2) A county, municipality, or other political
subdivision shall not adopt or enforce a local law, ordinance,
resolution, rule, or policy that creates a protected classification
unless such classification is contained in the Age Discrimination in
Employment Act, the Nebraska Fair Employment Practice Act, the
Nebraska Fair Housing Act, or sections 20-126 to 20-143 or 48-1219 to
48-1227. This subsection does not apply to a law, ordinance,
resolution, rule, or policy that applies only to the employees of the
county, municipality, or other political subdivision.
(3) Any local law, ordinance, resolution, rule, or policy
adopted before the effective date of this act that violates
subsection (2) of this section is null and void.

Nick Jonas talks to Advocate interviewer but doesn't tell him anything

Nick Jonas photographed playing golf with DJ Rick
Dees, Valentine's Day, 2011. Dees tweeted that Nick
is "a great golfer and hits it long."

AKSARBENT just finished a spectacularly and doubtless deliberately boring Advocate interview given by the very shrewd Nick Jonas, a clever 19-year-old who certainly knows which of the three words in "show business interview" is most important.

We learned the following provocative revelations: Nick just loves his gay friends and Rick Warren too! And his gay fans have such good taste!

Despite repeated narcoleptic interruptions, AKSARBENT managed to click through until the end and was glad it persevered, as said persistence revealed the only nonsnoozeworthy answer in the entire interview, one which revealed a Clintonesque ability on the part of Jonas to reframe a question in order to deflect it. Emphasis added.

Gay boybanders and pop idols rarely come out at the height of their popularity. If a Jonas Brother came out, what impact might it have on your career?

     The amazing thing about our fans is that they’re incredibly supportive about everything that we do, but I have to separate us from the equation because the three of us aren’t gay. If someone in our position came out, I’d hope that support would carry over and that their fans would love them just the same.

Black pastors join antigay extremists in protesting inclusion on SPLC's hate group list

SPLC photo

Here's, in part, what the SPLC had to say about the protests outside its doors today:

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

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

     In fact, it has everything to do with hate and intolerance.

     Mark Potok, editor of the SPLC’s Intelligence Report and this blog, responded to the accusations: “Our listing of anti-gay hate groups is completely unrelated to religion, Christianity or the Bible. These groups are listed because they repeatedly lie in an effort to defame LGBT people, an exercise they’ve been extraordinarily successful at.

      The idea that we are criticizing these groups because they represent Judeo-Christian morality is simply ludicrous.”

     The SPLC does not identify anti-gay hate groups based on their religious views. Instead, the SPLC lists anti-gay groups on the basis of spreading known falsehoods and demonizing propaganda against LGBT people, such as the claim that gay men largely orchestrated the Holocaust.

     In 2007, LaBarbera claimed that there was “a disproportionate incidence of pedophilia” among gay men — a devastating accusation, but one that is entirely false, according to all the relevant scientific organizations

David Koch joins Karl Rove in tag team attack ads on Bob Kerrey even before he decides to run for Ben Nelson's senate seat

Last week AKSARBENT noted the Karl Rove radio assault on former governor and senator Bob Kerrey, who is merely back in Nebraska to sound out acquaintances on a possible bid to replace Democrat Ben Nelson following his retirement.

Now it seems that just as Rove's American Crossroads attack ends, David Koch's Astroturf group, Americans for Prosperity, has picked up the trash-talk baton with a $105,000 radio and TV ad campaign against the gay-friendly Kerrey, who, as yet, hasn't made any announcement.

The ad ends with an invitation to sign a "petition" (which would involve giving personal information to the Koch organization) to "remind" Bob Kerrey that Nebraskans are against big government, intoned by a voiceover artist in a generic Hollywood Westerner accent that no one in Nebraska speaks.

Don Walton of the Lincoln Journal-Star writes:

The anti-Kerrey ad campaigns drew a quick response from Paul Johnson, the man who will manage Kerrey's campaign if he decides to become a candidate.

     "It's pretty obvious that Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and their national organizations are terrified of someone like Bob Kerrey running for the Senate," Johnson said.

     "What they fear most are independent leaders willing to do what's right for the country instead of serving as a lap dog for their self-serving agenda."

David Packman to Bryan Fischer: 'How are all these lebians getting pregnant?'

As you can see, the real Glee is no longer on Fox. It's on David Packman's web site whenever he gets to interview equivocator extraordinaire Bryan Fischer, the bad boy of the well-heeled "nonprofit,"  American Family Association, which occasionally has to follow Fischer around with an ideological pooper scooper whenever his trash talk gets so extreme that even the AFA can't defend it .

In the video, Packman nails Fischer on the "new covenant" dodge used by Christers to excuse their cherry-picking of Leviticus to hammer gay people. This is rarely done.

During the discussion of higher rates of breast cancer among lesbians:

Packman: What are lesbians doing that exposes them to such a risk? You wouldn't ask that question?
Fischer: Yeah, they're not having kids.
Packman: And that's what increases the risk of breast cancer.
Fischer: Yes, early abortions and delayed first pregnancy increase the risk of breast cancer.
Packman: What evidence do you have that lesbians have a lot of abortions?
Fischer: They're women! American women have abortions! Have you not been keeping track of current events, David? Are you somehow unaware of the fact that American women have abortions?
Packman: How are these lesbians getting pregnant?
Fischer: Well, because a lot of lesbians, David, are very fluid in their sexual orientation. This may be breaking news to you. A longitudinal study done by the American Psychiatric Association revealed that the average lesbian will change her sexual orientation up to three times over the course of a decade.
Packman: It is incredible that one of your main gripes with homosexuality is that it goes against nature and it doesn't create pregnancies, but you also accuse lesbians of having all of these abortions which, somehow they've gotten pregnant. It's incredible.

Well funded Alliance Defense Fund uses 2100+ attorneys to attack laws protecting gay people from discrimination

Recently, Talking Points Memo examined the corrosive effect of efforts by the Alliance Defense Fund to create huge loopholes in the effectiveness of laws designed to protect gay citizens from discrimination.

...Recently, the concept of “religious liberty” as legal loophole has gotten a degree of national attention, with state legislators in Tennessee and Michigan proposing language to exclude religious beliefs, or “moral convictions,” from state bullying laws...

     The bullying laws are the most recent manifestation of a much broader effort by groups like the ADF to argue that “religious liberty” should provide cover for people who would discriminate against gays and lesbians...

     The ADF is a Scottsdale, Arizona-based non-profit that was formed in 1994 by prominent members of the religious right, like the late Dr. James Kennedy, Don Wildmon of the American Family Association and Rev. James Dobson of Focus on the Family. According to its website, leaders of 35 ministries also helped form the legal defense fund...[According to ADF's web site] it currently has over 150 ongoing litigation cases, and on average wins “more than three out of every four cases brought to conclusion.”

     Primarily, the ADF’s funding comes from private donations — including mainstay right-wing donors like the Bill and Berniece Grewcock Foundation, which, according to Media Matters, had contributed at least $100,000 to the ADF as of 2009. According to its site, the ADF has spent $35 million funding cases all over the country since 1994. In 2009, the ADF even offered free legal representation to county recorder offices in Iowa who refused to issue marriage licenses under the state’s new gay marriage law because of “rights of conscience.”

CBS airs image-building ad from hate group

From the Change.org petition (explanatory link added by AKSARBENT):

Focus On The Family is an organization well known for promoting hate against LGBT families. On January 14th, CBS made the unfortunate decision to air a commercial for Focus On The Family during the nationally televised Denver Broncos/New England Patriots NFL game. CBS should apologize to their viewers for this offense and make it clear that they do not support the views of this organization.

(Source)

ESPN mentions Tim Tebow 160 times in one hour

(Source: Deadspin)

Anticipated Facebook IPO could put hundreds of millions into CA coffers

 

Bloomberg says a report from California legislative analyst Mac Taylor forecasts that the sheer size of a Facebook IPO, expected to value the network at $100 billion, would necessitate an adjustment in the state's revenue projections to account for hundreds of millions of additional revenue from capital gains taxes.

 

 

Short takes: Santorum gets what he deserves; Huge oil platform to be parked off Keys; Apple 'fesses up; 2011 bumper grain crop not enough

Post-Steve Jobs, secretive Apple releases list of major suppliers for the first time

LightSquared slams federal officials who say its proposed national high-speed wireless broadband network would interfere with GPS signals. It said the expert panel has "deep ties with the same GPS manufacturers who have sold poorly designed equipment to America's farmers, public safety officials, military and government agencies... The devices selected as part of the most recent round of testing include numerous obsolete and off-market GPS receivers that nearly guaranteed failure." LightSquared urged the Federal Communications Commission to retake control of the testing.

Massive Italian oil platform contracted by Cuba may arrive off Florida Keys in two weeks

James Dobson's toxic son, Ryan, invited Jeff Wright of Summit Ministries on his show to misinform gullible listeners. Wright claims 6 in 10 gay males were abused as children, which would be news to the American Psychiatric Association were it true

Peter LaBarbera is grateful that Rick Santorum considers homosexuality in the military a serious issue. AKSARBENT thinks all those Barbie Girl lip-dubs made by crotch-grabbing hetero GIs faking the rainbow is a serious issue too, and demands that something be done about it

After round after round of budget cuts and layoffs, Focus On The Family is now offering financial planning counseling services. Seriously?

John Aravosis thinks Mormons whining about their image and being misunderstood should put a sock in it until they stop the gay bashing

Last year's bumper grain crop wasn't enough to rebuild world's stocks, which is good news if you're a midwest farmer, bad news if you're penniless and starving in the third world

Biblical Linguist who specializes in Biblical translation says Joel Osteen was cherry picking in respect of gay being intrinsically sinful during his appearance on Oprah Winfrey's show

The AP says Washington State is within three legislative votes of passing gay marriage

ABC cancels dismal, offensive Work It after two episodes

The Hollywood Reporter says ABC has axed Work It after two airings. The premiere attracted fewer viewers than canceled predecessor, Man Up,  repeats of which will appear in its place.

Work It premiered lower than its canceled predecessor, Man Up, on Jan 3, drawing a 2.0 in the key adults 18-49 demographic and luring 6.1 million viewers. Its second airing tumbled 20 percent, dropping to a 1.6 in the demo and 5.1 million viewers.

Both the Human Rights Campaign and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation asked ABC not to show he program at all, arguing that it reinforced false, stereotypes about transgender people.

Red State Update paraphrases Rick Santorum's response to 'What if you had a gay son?'

(At 2:34)

Dunlap: I would love him just as much as I did the second before he told me that he was the same as a person who has sex with dogs and that he could never get married or else he will make Jesus so mad Jesus will set America on fire.

Jackie: Bless his heart. That's a good daddy, right there.

Karl Rove runs attack ads to scare Bob Kerrey away from NE senate race; former governor/senator/Navy Seal calls ads 'funny;' slyly implies overweight Rove should work out more

Senators Bob Kerrey and John
Kerry in NYC 10/22/11

Robynn Tysver of the Omaha World-Herald reports that Karl Rove has spent $30,000 on radio advertising to intimidate Bob Kerrey during his current Nebraska visit to sound out friends and acquaintances about running for the senate seat Democrat Ben Nelson is leaving.
     Kerrey has lived in New York City for the last 11 years, much of that time as president of the New School, but retains partial ownership of family-owned restaurants and health clubs in Nebraska.
     Kerrey's written response [link added] to Rove said, in part:

     I heard your very funny radio ad and would like to invite you to come to Nebraska and have a burger with my family at one of my restaurants. Or better: let's work out at one of my health clubs. I am certain you'll be glad you did.

     Sincerely, Bob Kerrey

Veteran CBS correspondent Richard Threlkeld, 74, dies after car collides with propane tanker in Long Island

Threlkeld in 1967

In his more than 25 years at CBS, Threlkeld, of Cedar Rapids, IA, covered Gulf War I, Vietnam, Robert Kennedy's assasination and Patty Hearst's kidnapping. The AP reports:

In 1981, Threlkeld decided to jump to up-and-coming ABC News without fanfare and without telling CBS.

     "I don't like to horse trade. I'm not a horse," Threlkeld told The Associated Press at the time. "After I decided ABC was the best place for me to go, it would have been wrong to make a verbal agreement and take it back to CBS to see what they could do."

     Click here to see a piece he did on the beat generation for CBS' Sunday Morning in 1995.
     Threlkeld is survived by his wife, Betsy Aaron, herself a veteran network television reporter.

Romney touts endorsement of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who said LGBT equality groups support 'homosexual pedophilia'

The Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Koback, Harvard '88, is a virulent homophobe who, in 2004, accused the US congressional candidate who beat him of supporting LGBT groups like the Human Rights Campaign, which Kobach claimed supported "homosexual pedophilia." Today the HRC said:

'Romney has a long track record of wild flip-flops on LGBT issues. This is perhaps the most glaring example to date that he is a dangerous candidate who will say whatever it takes to get elected.'

Andrew Harmon, writing in the Advocate, reported that Kobach attends Christ Church in Overland Park, which left the Episcopal church after the ordination of New Hampshire bishop Gene Robinson. The church has in the past had ties to antigay churches fomenting violence in Rwanda.

Kobach is also a xenophobe who has crafted anti-immigrant legislation in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Texas and Alabama.

George Talbot, political editor and columnist of the Mobile Press-Register notes:

The Southern Poverty Law Center placed Kobach on its "nativist" watch list, citing his legal work on behalf of the Federation for American Immigration Reform — a Washington, D.C., non-profit organization that has been described as a hate group by the SPLC.

     The Montgomery-based SPLC released a 26-page report on Kobach earlier this year, detailing his work on local and state immigration bills in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Texas.

     "What we found is that, wherever he’s gone, you find communities torn apart culturally, economically and racially," said SPLC spokesman Mark Potok. "Kris Kobach comes to town and leaves strife in his wake. Our expectation is Alabama will be no different."

David Leopold, past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, thinks Romney may live to regret his enthusiastic welcome of Kobach's endorsement.

Matt Baume: Marriage News Watch, 1/9/12

We're just one week in and already 2012 is looking like a strong year for marriage, with encouraging action in Washington, Maryland, and Colorado. The governor of Michigan revokes health care coverage for domestic partners, leaving families with no access to medical care. And a binational couple in San Francisco gets a two-year reprieve, but their eventual fate may depend on whoever occupies the White House two years from now.

Who made When Mitt Romney Came to Town? Jason Meath, GOP columnist for Andrew Breitbart, Betty White basher and new BFF to the oppressed masses

Jason Meath

The scorching half-hour propaganda film has angered some of Gingrich's supporters to the point of abandoning his campaign. Though it has no director credit, it was made independently by Jason Meath, President of Advertising & Advocacy of DC's Xenophon Strategies, and bought using a $5 million donation from Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson by the Winning Our Future SuperPAC which is doing to Mitt Romney in South Carolina what he did to Newt Gingrich in Iowa.



Among other services, Xenophon Strategies will handle Crisis Communications for your business if it gets caught sourcing silk from substandard Indian facilities:

Xenophon has supported Williams-Sonoma, and its subsidiaries – specifically, Pottery Barn – during several issues involving activist organizations and corporate developments, including a national news story that focused on the sourcing of silk supplies from sub-standard working facilities in India. Xenophon senior management counseled Williams-Sonoma from the initial contact by the news outlet, during several months of fact-gathering by producers and reporters, and after the report was broadcast. Xenophon also designed and implemented an internal communications system to defend the company and provide accurate information to customers and employees.

Meath is a standard-issue Republican who has written lots of posts for the Big Hollywood section of Andrew Breitbart's web site. According to Meath's own web site, he is a "Bush-Cheney '04 communications veteran, as member of the Maverick Media team that produced all advertising for President George W. Bush. He has written and produced hundreds of ads for political and corporate clients through eight major election cycles."

Also, he isn't too crazy about gay favorite Betty White:

...Do we really need to hear 88-year-old Betty White joking about “muffins,” prison sex and lesbians? ...2010 adds an indelible asterisk to White’s long and accomplished resume. It marks the time a beautiful and talented lady of comedy — who knew how to deliver a good joke – just became one instead.

Rick Tyler, an adviser to the Winning Our Future SuperPAC which bought Meath's film and former campaign spokesman for Gingrich, spoke this evil about his fellow Republican:

Mitt Romney is not a capitalist He is a predatory corporate mugger. If you ever wonder why so many manufacturing jobs are overseas, you need to look no further than Mitt Romney. He can claim thousands of jobs created, only those jobs were created in Mexico and Southeast Asia.