Former Navy Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, who founded lobbying group The Pray In Jesus Name Project, appeared on a progressive talk show this week to criticize President Barack Obama’s endorsement of same sex marriage … But somehow ended up promoting his theory that gay people unknowingly secrete invisible, evil creatures which find and possess certain animals, turning them gay as well.

Police officers were caught by a security camera apparently beating a black teen as he lay prone with his hands behind his head. Chad Holley, then fifteen, was running from police after committing burglary .

Despite the video and expert testimony that “Blomberg’s actions were ‘objectively unreasonable’ and were ‘contrary to any legitimate police action,’” an all-white, six member jury acquitted Blomberg on Wednesday. Blomberg was the first of four officers who were fired by the Houston police department over the incident to face trial trial for official oppression, which carries a penalty of up to one year in jail. 

Michael Linden presents this clever, smart graph that shows spending, taxes, and the deficit all lower today, as a share of GDP, than in Obama's first year:

This is an inconvenient truth. It is inconvenient for Mitt Romney that spending, taxes, and the deficit are all lower today than when President Obama took office.

It is inconvenient for liberals (not to mention, really inconvenient for the unemployed) that we've been overly aggressive in paring down our deficits even with high unemployment and huge cuts to state and local government.

Myth: 1. Independent voters aren’t really independent.

Fact: About half are, swinging from party to party.

Myth: 2. Independent voters are less engaged.

Fact: They are well informed, attentive to the news, and about two-thirds of them say they are independent because “both parties care more about special interests than about average Americans."

Myth: 3. Independent voters want a third party.

Fact: : Some of them think we do need a third- or multi-party system and consistently vote for outsider and third-party candidates, while others accept that this is a two-party nation.

Myth: 4. Independents are centrists.

Fact: Most independents are socially liberal, fiscally responsible centrists, but some libertarians and far-left progressives also call themselves independents.

Myth: 5. Independent voters are disillusioned with President Obama.

Fact: In 2008, Barack Obama won 52 percent of independent voters.  Gallup polling has shown Obama and presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney in a virtual tie among independent voters.  Ninety percent of Democrats and Republicans say they plan to vote for their party’s candidate, while a third of independent voters say they are not sure how they will vote.

Fracking exposes citizens to a wild mix of highly toxic chemicals and carcinogens. So when patients show up at their doctors' offices, the doctors need to figure out which chemicals are the likely culprits.

The doctors of sick patients can, with great effort, access the names of many of the chemicals used in fracking and so try to figure out why their patients are suffering severe health problems but....it's tough to find out the "trade-secret" chemicals.  A new law permits doctors to find those out BUT only if they sign a confidentiality agreement and agree not to share that information. That's a move that makes doctors like Pare nervous.

"As I understand it, it's legally binding, so if 20 years from now I hiccup that someone was exposed to zippity doo dah, I'm legally liable for that," she says.

It's not even clear whether the doctor can share the trade-secret ingredient with the patient or the patient's neighbors, co-workers or primary care doctor.

What the frack?  You could be a doctor who sees ten people suffering skin lesions because of trade-secret chemical THAED, you can know that another dozen are going to another physician with these symptoms, and you better not tell the other physician or you violate the law.

Only in corporate America?

The neighbours of the Florida woman who fatally shot her four children and herself, refused to open the doors to three of the frantic children who had fled to their house.

During a recording of a 911 call made by the neighbours on the night of the attack by Tonya Thomas, 33, a crying female caller can be heard to say, 'Get back, you're not coming in our house.'

The caller's husband then grabbed the phone and told the dispatcher, 'They tried to break in our front door to get in, I guess to try and get away from her - who-ever's got the gun.'

The neighbours made the 911 call as they responded to hearing gunfire coming from the property next door and went downstairs after their front door was knocked.

'I knew this was gonna happen you guys,' the crying female caller told the dispatcher as the deaths of Joel, 12, Jazlin, 13, Jaxs, 15, and Pebbles Johnson, 17 unfolded in front of their eyes.

'The boy's in our front yard - get him a towel - he's got blood on his right side.'

During the chaotic phone call to dispatchers, the husband tells them that he is armed and willing to defend his house from the injured children trying to flee their murderous mother.

 

Prosecutors on Thursday made public a trove of evidence used to justify murder charges against Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman, including a police report that concluded "the encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin was ultimately avoidable by Zimmerman."

The evidence – including 183 pages of documents, witness statements and other material – was released Thursday to news organizations and other requestors by special prosecutor Angela Corey’s office, who has charged the 28-year-old Zimmerman with second-degree murder in the killing of 17-year-old Martin on Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla. Also included was a document explaining what material was withheld.

 

In The New York Times earlier this month, Nicholas D. Kristof called for a boycott of Anheuser-Busch because of how the company’s products are affecting residents of an Indian reservation that has been decimated by alcoholism. The reservation is dry, but the nearby town of Whiteclay, Neb., (with a population of about 10 people) “sells more than four million cans of beer and malt liquor annually” and “is the main channel through which alcohol illegally enters the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.”

How can tribes, states, the federal government and local communities deal with alcoholism on and around reservations? If the beer companies and liquor stores are following the law, do they have a further responsibility to their communities?

 

Prosecuting women based on the outcomes of their pregnancies violates their constitutional rights and is cruel and unusual punishment. And yet, this is what is happening.

Last week, the Indiana Supreme Court declined to drop feticide and murder charges against a woman named Bei Bei Shuai, who has been in jail for 14 months and faces 45 years in prison because, after attempting suicide while pregnant. She was saved by friends and three days after an emergency c-section the newborn died.   Her situation is tragic. But, her case is also a very dangerous precedent, ensuring as it does that girls and women will lose their rights and can be put in jail for miscarriage, drug addiction, accidents, attempted suicides, and for “chemically endangering” their fetuses from the moment of conception. Circumstances like hers are sadly, too frequent. She needs public support. Another woman, Christine Taylor was arrested and imprisoned and charged with "attempted feticide" for falling down stairs under what her doctors thought were questionable circumstances.  

 Hundreds of women around the country* are currently imprisoned under the aegis of "best intentions" laws. What this means is that feticide and fetal murder laws can now be used to charge, imprison and penalize pregnant women at the discretion of legislators and law enforcement officials.

 

What is it with cops and tasers? Why do so many of them seem compelled to use them in highly inappropriate ways? "Highly inappropriate" is about the only way to describe what happened to Malaika Brooks, who was seven months pregnant and driving her kid to school one day in 2004 when a routine traffic stop went terribly wrong.

The police say she was going 32 miles per hour in a school zone; the speed limit was 20. 

 

Ms. Brooks said she would accept a ticket but drew the line at signing it, which state law required at the time. Ms. Brooks thought, wrongly, that signing was an acknowledgment of guilt.

 

Refusing to sign was a crime, and the two officers on the scene summoned a sergeant, who instructed them to arrest Ms. Brooks. She would not get out of her car.

 

The situation plainly called for bold action, and Officer Juan M. Ornelas met the challenge by brandishing a Taser and asking Ms. Brooks if she knew what it was.

 

She did not, but she told Officer Ornelas what she did know. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said. “I am pregnant. I’m less than 60 days from having my baby.”

The three men assessed the situation and conferred. “Well, don’t do it in her stomach,” one said. “Do it in her thigh."

 

Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin may not be allowed to return to the United States after he renounced his citizenship to save millions in tax.

The 30-year-old, who has a $3.64billion stake in the social networking site, migrated to Singapore ahead of the company's massive stock market floatation tomorrow.

The timing of the move has raised eyebrows since Singapore does not have a capital gains tax, which could vastly reduce his bill on any payout.

According to an immigration law, he could be refused re-entry to the U.S. if he is judged to have relocated for the purposes of avoiding taxes.

Section 212 of the law, highlighted by Talking Points Memo, states: 'Any alien who is a former citizen of the United States who officially renounces United States citizenship and who is determined by the Attorney General to have renounced United States citizenship for the purpose of avoiding taxation by the United States is excludable.'

A two-year-old boy was in intensive care today after being found so malnourished that he weighed less than half as much as a normal child his age.

The toddler, whose heart had stopped, weighed between 8 and 10 pounds and had no hair or muscle tone when emergency responders arrived at his home in Moses Lake, Washington.

His mother, who said she chose to consult a Chinese herbalist when it came to health matters for her son, was seen attempting to perform CPR when emergency workers arrived. 

 

What follows below was written by a number of students seeking recognition and permission from their high school to form a LGBT club on campus.

I was fortunate to have interacted in and out of the classroom with a number of the kids seeking this recognition.
If asked, I would be happy to play some minor role in advising them, or mediating with the school officials for recognition.
I may be much more aware of what they might face as their church has taken a strong stand on their position with the gay community. On the one hand they claim to love all people, as they define gays as "intrinsically disordered."
Not the kind of love I ever want to receive!
Can you imagine how that feels to a teenager full of angst about just about everything in their lives!! 
The Archbishop in the Seattle Archdiocese has been appointed by the Pope to bring the nuns back into conformance with their stated positions on a number of subjects. (See article in today’s Seattle paper) They feel the nuns have gone too far on supporting-homelessness, poverty, choice; contraception etc in ways the church does not approve of-
If the nuns have angered them you can imagine how this request might boil the water.

I have deleted the name of the school in respect of the process. When and if the kids receive a definitive reply I will be more than happy to share it-

  _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"The biggest disease today is the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for and deserted by everybody" - Mother Teresa

Never before has this statement been more true, especially in the LGBT community. XXXXXXXXX High School (AKA XXXXXX Catholic High School) has long promoted an image of acceptance and love but its lack of support and acknowledgement of its homosexual and lesbian students says otherwise.
Consistently, the school's leaders have denied students from beginning a Gay Straight Alliance based off of the beliefs of the Catholic Church.

Its refusal to allow a GSA to be formed despite the constant attempts to do so sends a message of hate and intolerance to all students and teachers alike. Its actions tell students who feel oppressed and hopeless that they are not equal or accepted at XXXXXX Catholic High School.

Though XXXXXXX Catholic High School is a school grounded in its religious roots, that should not stop it from promoting love and acceptance. Its leaders refuse to allow the formation of a GSA because of fear of the backlash it will undoubtedly receive from the Catholic Church. Still, the need for change is evident and it is time for XXXXXXX Catholic to be on the right side of history by being the first school in the archdiocese of Washington to approve of a GSA.

WASHINGTON -- A day before Congress weighs an amendment to end indefinite military detentions in the U.S., a federal judge Wednesday ruled the law that allows the practice unconstitutional.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" These words, from poet Emma Lazarus, were inscribed on the Statue of Liberty over 100 years ago. Today the golden door has a lock on it, paid for with record profits from the health care, education and financial industries.

1. We're Near the Bottom of the Developed World in Children's Health and Safety
According to a 2007 The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) report, the US ranked last among 21 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations in an assessment of child health and safety. The assessment measured infant mortality, immunization, and death from accidents and injuries.

 We Give Prison Sentences for Smoking Marijuana, but Not for Billion-Dollar Fraud

About half of our world-leading prison population is in jail for non-violent drug offenses. Americans have also been arrested for handing out free food in a park. Mothers in Ohio and Connecticut were jailed for enrolling their kids in out-of-district schools. As of 2003, in California there were 344 individuals serving sentences of 25 years or more for shoplifting as a third offense, in many cases after two non-violent offenses.

How does the market deal with this steady tide of petty crime? It strives for more. The new trend of private prisons is dependent on maintaining a sizable prison population to guarantee profits, with no incentive for rehabilitation.

As the number of inmates has surged, the people who devastated countless American lives "get out of jail free." The savings and loan fraud cost the nation between $300 billion and $500 billion, about 100 times more than the total cost of burglaries in 2010. The financial system bailout has already cost the country $3 trillion. Goldman Sachs packaged bad debt, sold it under a different name, persuaded ratings services to label it AAA and then bet against their own financial creation by selling it short. Other firms accused of fraud and insider trading were Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns, Bank of America, Countrywide Financial, and Wells Fargo. The New York Times reported in 2008 that the Justice Department had postponed the bribery or fraud prosecutions of over 50 corporations, choosing instead to enter into agreements involving fines and "monitoring" periods.

Even for Justice Antonin Scalia, the crassest of the current United States Supreme Court justices, it was a particularly callous piece of writing. In 2006, in a case styled Kansas v. Marsh, the Court's five conservatives had just upheld a portion of Kansas' capital punishment law. The statute was interpreted to direct a sentence of death even if a jury found the "aggravating" and "mitigating" sentencing factors in equilibrium -- "equipoise," the Court lyrically called it. A tie, in other words, would mean death, not life.

"It should be noted at the outset that the dissent does not discuss a single case -- not one -- in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent's name would be shouted from the rooftops by the abolition lobby.'

Capital cases are given especially close scrutiny at every level, which is why in most cases many years elapse before the sentence is executed. And of course capital cases receive special attention in the application of executive clemency. Indeed, one of the arguments made by abolitionists is that the process of finally completing all the appeals and reexaminations of capital sentences is so lengthy, and thus so expensive for the State, that the game is not worth the candle. 

Scalia continues "The proof of the pudding, of course, is that as far as anyone can determine (and many are looking), none of cases included in the .027% error rate for American verdicts involved a capital defendant erroneously executed."

There are two obvious and basic explanations for Justice Scalia's strident concurrence. Either he truly believed that capital cases are "given especially close scrutiny at every level," in which case he hadn't been paying attention to his work all those years. Or he did not truly believe that "capital cases receive special attention in the application of executive clemency," in which case his concurrence was just a thoughtless, reflexive reaction

 Either way, he was wrong. Terribly wrong.

Another hotel masseur is claiming he had a homosexual tryst with John Travolta.

Unlike the first two – one of whom withdrew his lawsuit on Tuesday and the first accuser who dropped his case – this latest man to come forward with gay sex claims involving the actor is named.

Former massage therapist Luis Gonzalez said he spent an afternoon with the Pulp Fiction star at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Laguna Niguel, California, in 1997.

Meanwhile, another unnamed man has made claims today that Travolta accosted him - making it the fifth man to make allegations about the star.

The Republican governor of Kansas has signed a law allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for drugs they believe may induce abortions, a move opponents said could hinder some women's access to birth control.

Governor Sam Brownback's office said on Tuesday that the bill "gives more legal protection to Kansas health care providers who refuse to participate in abortions" based on their conscience.

Opponents of the bill, the latest salvo in the long-running national battle over abortion, said the law may let pharmacists interfere with a woman's health care by denying conventional birth control pills or so-called morning-after pills.

The law also allows doctors to refuse to refer patients to pharmacists who will provide such drugs. A pharmacist cannot be fired for refusing to fill such prescriptions.

Burkhart said the law could create a hardship for women in small towns with a sole pharmacist who may refuse to fill certain prescriptions. In larger cities, women will have to make sure they go to a cooperative pharmacist

First impressions are said to play a big part in how we are perceived by romantic interests and potential employers.

But people can tell more about you than what can be gathered from a firm handshake and a warm smile, according to new research.

People have an inbuilt 'gaydar', which enables them to judge in the blink of an eye whether someone is gay or straight, a study at the University of Washington has found.

And it is easier to judge a woman's sexuality than a man's - just from glancing at them.

The study asked students to guess someone's sexuality from looking at pictures of their faces for less than a second.

 

Jabran was ten years old when I gave him the first racial profiling speech. We were engaged in the obligatory back-to-school shopping. He wanted a sweater that had some hip hop insignia. I looked at him and said, “Honey, if I buy you this sweater, NYPD is going to pick you up.” I was a public defender in Manhattan at the time so I knew of which I spoke.

Last year Jabran had his first devastating racial profiling incident by a white man in the neighborhood. Jabran, in a way that would put many adults to shame, handled this act of violence with impressive aplomb. But, when we were finally home together, my child unleashed a flood of tears and fears that almost caused my undoing.

Jabran’s life, and mine, changed forever that day. We both knew the shift occurred. Many people would no longer see him the way we see him -- a smart, funny honor student who, at age 12, and of his own volition, decided to take a First Aid class so he could help my sister with my niece who has cerebral palsy. But, what if he wasn’t even any of those things? What if he was a struggling black child, subjected to one trauma after another, just trying to survive? Does that child deserve any less protection? All of our children matter but many people only see black boys (and later, men) as threatening figures whose sole purpose is to, at best, feed the coffers of the prison industrial complex, or, at worst, not exist at all.

 

 As I've written before, Bayer's neonicotinoid pesticides, which now coat upwards of 90 percent of US corn seeds and seeds of increasing portions of other major crops like soy, have emerged as a likely trigger for colony collapse disorder

 One of my biggest complaints about the agrichemical industry it its market dominance. As I say above, more than 90 percent of corn seeds planted today are treated with Bayer's pesticide. What if a farmer wants to opt out, to plant seeds free of neonicotinoids? Good luck. According to a Pesticide Action Network press release I received today, farmers in the midwest are complaining that it's virtually impossible to buy untreated seeds. In other words, farmers there have two choices: either pay up for Bayer's poison, or exit the corn-growing business.

The Young Turks host Ana Kasparian explained Tuesday how Louisiana sheriffs had an incentive to keep the inmate population high.

“None violent drug offenders end up in these prisons for very, very long sentences just because these sheriff’s departments profit from it,” she said.

Louisiana’s incarceration rate is the highest in the country, thanks in part to the large presence of prisons owned by private companies, which are often run by rural sheriffs.

The incarceration rate in Louisiana is triple the rate in Iran, seven times greater than in China, and 10 times more than Germany’s.

“Of course there is a racial angle to this as well,” Kasparian said, “because when it comes to blacks in New Orleans alone, 1 in 14 are behind bars and 1 in 7 are either in prison, on parole or on probation.”

 

 

Former President George W. Bush jumped back into presidential politics this week, endorsing presumptive 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney. He also, according to the New York Times, plans to release a book in two months that will lay out his advice on boosting economic growth.

Whether or not he can make it stick in any meaningful way, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) revealed on Tuesday that Republicans still have an appetite for debt limit brinksmanship — even after the last round nearly crippled the economy, and left the GOP’s congressional approval ratings in the sewer.

When Republicans went home for recess last August, after placing the country’s AAA credit rating at risk, and narrowly avoiding a self-imposed default on the national debt, they caught such an earful from constituents that they spent several weeks toning down their rhetoric and avoiding big public spats with Democrats.

Two parent chaperones have been accused of spraying Lysol on students during a Colorado high school prom because teen’s “dirty dancing” looked like “they were advertising butt sex.”

Pat Buchanan was fired from MSNBC recently after publishing a book critics called homophobic, anti-Semitic, and racist – and after a long history of homophobic, anti-Semitic and racist comments. But you’d never know that from watching his appearance on America Live yesterday. In fact, host Megyn Kelly deliberately led her viewers to think he’s a mainstream traditionalist she called upon to weigh in on gay marriage.

Missouri Republicans decided to shame and embarrass our state yesterday with the induction of Rush Limbaugh into the Hall of Famous Missourians: Doors Locked, Dems Banned As Missouri Honors Limbaugh:

One uses a Taser stun gun.

Thomas cries out for help and, toward the end of the beating, starts calling for his father: "Dad! Help me. Help me. Help me, dad."

His voice gets softer and trails off. By the end of the video, he is lying in a pool of blood as the officers wonder out loud what to do next.

One can be heard saying: "We ran out of options so I got to the end of my Taser and I ... smashed his face to hell."

Thomas died five days after the incident. The FBI is investigating civil rights violations in the case, as well.

For the second time in a year, a motorist has been ticketed in South Carolina for displaying a replica of testicles on a vehicle.

A Spartanburg County sheriff's deputy stopped a truck Sunday evening after noticing the "anatomically correct" display on the rear bumper. The incident report says the driver removed the display after being stopped but he was arrested for driving without a license. He was also given a warning ticket for having an obscene display.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) may soon charge George Zimmerman with a hate crime over the killing of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, according to news reports.

WFTV recently learned that the FBI is considering charging the former neighborhood watchmen with a hate crime, which could be punished with the death penalty if murder is involved.

The report said that the FBI was in the process of questioning witnesses from the Retreat at Twin Lakes gated community where the February shooting occurred.

 

As the boycott costs Rush Limbaugh’s empire millions, the host claimed that the Sandra Fluke controversy was contrived by Obama to make women miserable.

Louisiana is the world's prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana's incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran's, seven times China's and 10 times Germany's.

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh was inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians on Monday in the state Capitol.

The Associated Press described the induction as a “secretive ceremony.” The event was closed to the public and only certain guests, including more than 100 Republican lawmakers, were allowed to attend. Police stood guard outdoors to prevent uninvited guests from entering.

The Speaker’s office and the people in his office have been under assault for wanting to do this,” Limbaugh said. “He hung in, he was tough, he did not give them any quarter, laughed at them when they called his office — which is what you have to do, because they are deranged. They literally are deranged. Our so-called friends on the other side of the aisle are deranged.”

Limbaugh’s bust will be displayed at the Capitol alongside other members of the Hall of Famous Missourians, including President Harry Truman and author Mark Twain.

 

Pastor Charles O'Neal of the Beaverton Grace Bible Church claims reviews on a blog started by former church member Julie Anne Smith amount to defamation. Smith, who says "the story of spiritual abuse needs to be told," described O'Neal and his church outside Portland as "creepy" and "cult-like." She described him calling for church elders to search closets of female congregants for clothes that are too revealing, among other lessons from the pulpit.

Last month, the conservative National Review fired its longtime contributor John Derbyshire after Derbyshire published a column in another publication instructing parents on how to train their children to be racists. Although the National Review did the right thing in eventually firing Derbyshire, it published the author for years despite a long history of racist and sexist views. Derbyshire argued in 2009 that women should not vote, and he proclaimed as far back as 2003 that he is a proud “racist.”

A new CBS News/New York Times Poll shows a solid majority of Americans support legal recognition for same-sex couples - though not necessarily through the official act of marriage - and the number of people who do support full marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples is significantly higher among younger generations.

Overall, 38 percent of those who responded to the survey said same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, just like any other couple. Another 24 percent said civil unions should be used to grant same-sex couples legal rights similar to male-female partnerships. Combined, that means 62 percent - close to two thirds - of Americans believe that same-sex unions should be recognized by law.

Of all those who participated, 33 percent said there should be no legal recognition for same-sex couples.

Between 1929 and 1974, North Carolina sterilized more than 7,500 of its residents. Most were operated on without their consent, having been deemed "feebleminded" and unfit to reproduce by the state Eugenics Board. Eighty-five percent were women; about 40 percent were black or Native American. As many as 2,000 victims are thought to still be alive.

Nationwide, 32 other states had eugenics programs during the 20th century, resulting in the sterilization of more than 60,000 Americans

 

The computer-generated drawing was provided to The Associated Press by an official of a country tracking Iran's nuclear program who said it proves the structure exists, despite Tehran's refusal to acknowledge it.

That official said the image is based on information from a person who had seen the chamber at the Parchin military site, adding that going into detail would endanger the life of that informant. The official comes from an IAEA member country that is severely critical of Iran's assertions that its nuclear activities are peaceful and asserts they are a springboard for making atomic arms.

Obama is twice over responsible for Occupy Wall Street's existence. On the one hand, the failures and disappointments of his administration have been well documented and have totally undercut his campaign promises of hope and change, leaving former supporters completely disillusioned.  On the other hand, his 2008 campaign trained young people in organizing and that skill has been used to give birth to the OWS movement.

While the needs of children suffering or at risk of child abuse have been in the public eye this month, one immediate and long-term cause of child abuse has been overlooked: abortion.

. And a woman's life is forever changed.

We like to think her change is for the better, considering the cost. Sadly, all too often it's not, and the psychological change may put future children at risk.

Priscilla Coleman and David Reardon published a review of multiple previous studies in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry which shows a rate of up to 30 percent of women experiencing serious mental health problems following abortion. Many of these problems - depression, anxiety and substance abuse in mothers - are strong risk factors for subsequent child abuse.

So there you have it: a bogus claim about abortion causing mental health issues is now being used as a corollary to prove that since mental health problems and substance abuse can lead to child abuse, abortion must therefore cause child abuse.

 A judge dismissed all charges Thursday against an LDS bishop accused of telling a teenage girl not to seek a protective order and failing to report the girl's disclosure that she had been sexually abused by a teenage relative.

On Thursday, Judge Lyle Anderson dismissed those charges in the middle of a hearing at the request of Duchesne County Attorney Stephen Foote. The prosecutor's request came after Moon testified under oath that he should have handled his interview with the girl differently and should have contacted a legal hotline operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"In 20 years of practicing law, I've never seen it operate like this," defense attorney David Leavitt said after court.

During her interview with a sheriff's investigator, the girl said she told the bishop she wanted to obtain a protective order against her abuser and his mother so she wouldn't be "terrorized,

And then he said that I need to think about what (the boy) is going through, and I don't need to start telling the cops or anything because he's already going to have to go through a bunch of repentance and all that stuff," the girl told the investigator.

After reading this story would you consider taxng churches? Particularly the ones that have become so politically active?

NEW YORK -- Long a lightning rod for conservative criticism, the Girl Scouts of the USA are now facing their highest-level challenge yet: An official inquiry by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

At issue are concerns about program materials that some Catholics find offensive, as well as assertions that the Scouts associate with other groups espousing stances that conflict with church teaching. The Scouts, who have numerous parish-sponsored troops, deny many of the claims and defend their alliances.

The inquiry coincides with the Scouts' 100th anniversary celebrations and follows a chain of other controversies.

Earlier this year, legislators in Indiana and Alaska publicly called the Scouts into question, and the organization was berated in a series aired by a Catholic broadcast network. Last year, the Scouts angered some conservatives by accepting into a Colorado troop a 7-year-old transgender child who was born a boy but was being raised as a girl.

Some of the concerns raised by Catholic critics are recycled complaints that have been denied by the Girl Scouts' head office repeatedly and categorically. It says it has no partnership with Planned Parenthood, and does not take positions on sexuality, birth control and abortion.

"It's been hard to get the message out there as to what is true when distortions get repeated over and over," said Gladys Padro-Soler, the Girl Scouts' director of inclusive membership strategies.

In other instances, the scouts have modified materials that drew complaints – for example, dropping some references to playwright Josefina Lopez because one of her plays, "Simply Maria," was viewed by critics as mocking the Catholic faith.

The new inquiry will be conducted by the bishops' Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth. It will look into the Scouts' "possible problematic relationships with other organizations" and various "problematic" program materials, according to a letter sent by the committee chairman, Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne, Ind., to his fellow bishops.

The bishops' conference provided a copy of the letter to The Associated Press, but otherwise declined comment.

Girl Scout leaders hope the bishops' apprehensions will be eased once they gather information. But there's frustration within the iconic youth organization – known for its inclusiveness and cookie sales – that it has become such an ideological target, with the girls sometimes caught in the political crossfire.

"I know we're a big part of the culture wars," said the Girl Scouts' spokeswoman, Michelle Tompkins. "People use our good name to advance their own agenda."

"For us, there's an overarching sadness to it," Tompkins added. "We're just trying to further girls' leadership."

With the bishops now getting involved, the stakes are high. The Girl Scouts estimate that one-fourth of their 2.3 million youth members are Catholic, and any significant exodus would be a blow given that membership already is down from a peak of more than 3 million several decades ago.

The inquiry coincides with a broader effort by the bishops to analyze church ties with outside groups. Rhoades' committee plans to consult with Girl Scouts leaders and with the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry, which has been liaising with the Scouts for two years about various complaints.

The federation's executive director, Bob McCarty, praised the Girl Scouts for willingness to change some program content.

"I don't think any of this material was intentionally mean-spirited," McCarty said. "I think a lot of it was lack of attention."

However, McCarty expressed doubt that the Girl Scouts' most vehement critics would be satisfied regardless of what steps are taken.

"It's easier to step back and throw verbal bombs," he said. "It takes a lot more energy to work for change."

Mary Rice Hasson, a visiting fellow in Catholic studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank in Washington, accuses McCarty of "whitewashing" Girl Scout programs and policies that struck some Catholics as counter to church teaching.

"They just repeated the Girl Scouts' denials," Hasson said. "Families' concerns were minimized or ignored."

Hasson is pleased that the bishops are launching their own inquiry but is skeptical that further rifts can be avoided.

"A collision course is probably a good description of where things are headed," she said. "The leadership of the Girl Scouts is reflexively liberal. Their board is dominated by people whose views are antithetical to the teachings of the Catholic Church."

One of the long-running concerns is the Girl Scouts' membership in the 145-nation World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.

The association, known as WAGGGS, is on record as saying girls and young women "need an environment where they can freely and openly discuss issues of sex and sexuality." It also has called for increased access to condoms to protect against sexually transmitted diseases.

Some critics want the Girl Scouts of the USA to pull out of the world group; the scouts aren't budging.

"Our world is becoming smaller and our young people need to have those opportunities to engage with their peers from around the world," said the Girl Scouts' CEO, Anna Maria Chavez. "But simply being a member does not mean that we will always take the same positions or endorse the same programs as WAGGGS."

To the Girl Scouts, some of the attacks seem to be a form of guilt by association. Critics contend that Girl Scouts materials shouldn't contain links to groups such as Doctors without Borders, the Sierra Club and Oxfam because they support family planning or emergency contraception.

One repeated complaint, revived in February by the Catholic broadcasting network EWTN, involves an International Planned Parenthood brochure made available to girls attending a Girl Scout workshop at a 2010 United Nations event. The brochure – "Healthy, Happy and Hot" – advised young people with HIV on how to safely lead active sex lives.

The Girl Scouts say they had had no advance knowledge of the brochure and played no role in distributing it.

Another complaint involved a Girl Scout blog suggesting that girls read an article about Chavez – who is Catholic – in Marie Claire magazine. Critics said the blog's link led to a Marie Claire home page promoting, among other items, a sex advice article.

The Girl Scouts' website addresses some of the recurring criticisms.

"Parents or guardians make all decisions regarding program participation that may be of a sensitive nature," it says.

And although it's a secular organization, the Girl Scouts embrace partnerships with religious groups. Scouts can earn a "My Promise, My Faith" pin for activities linked to their religious beliefs.

The Girl Scouts have been entangled in the culture wars as far back as the 1970s, when some conservatives became irked by the prominence of feminists such as Betty Friedan in the organization's leadership.

In 1993, Christian conservatives were outraged when the Girl Scouts formalized a policy allowing girls to substitute another word for "God" – such as Allah or Buddha – in the Girl Scout promise that reads: "On my honor, I will try to serve God and my country."

Among the disgruntled was Patti Garibay, a troop leader in Cincinnati who'd raised three daughters as Girl Scouts. In 1995, she founded the American Heritage Girls, which calls itself a "Christ-centered" alternative and now claims 19,000 members in 45 states.

Garibay said many of the newest members are from Catholic families disenchanted with the Girl Scouts.

One uneasy Catholic parent is Jody Geenen of West Bend, Wis., a troop leader for the past 14 years as her three daughters – now 18, 14 and 12 – became Girl Scouts.

She complains about some program materials adopted by the Girl Scouts in recent years. One example she gave: a patch honoring Hispanic labor organizer Dolores Huerta, whose shortcomings – in the eyes of some Catholics – include a 2007 award from Planned Parenthood.

Geenen hopes the Scouts will change their ways. "I love the Girl Scouts," she said. "But it can't remain the way it is."

American Heritage Girls signed a memorandum of mutual support in 2009 with the Boy Scouts of America, and some local units conduct joint activities. The Boy Scouts have no equivalent pact with the Girl Scouts, and the two organizations have, to an extent, become polarized ideologically.

Even in the face of criticism, the Boys Scouts stand by their policy of excluding atheists and barring gays from leadership roles. The Girl Scouts have no such policies.

"When you have a leadership brand like Girl Scouts, it's natural that we would have some critics," said Chavez. "We're proud of our inclusive approach because that is what has always made this organization strong."

Girl Scout controversies surfaced recently in two state legislatures.

In Indiana, Rep. Bob Morris wrote to his colleagues depicting the Girl Scouts as a radical group that promotes abortions and homosexuality. He later apologized for "reactionary and inflammatory" comments, but stood by his contention that the Scouts have links with Planned Parenthood.

In Alaska, Rep. Wes Keller – before deciding whether to support a resolution honoring the Girl Scouts – said he needed to investigate information "floating around the Internet" about the alleged Planned Parenthood link. Keller later said he was convinced the rumors were baseless; the resolution passed unanimously.

Anacortes

Geoff's story 

“Three of us oversaw an after school program funded by the school district. Me, Jim and Nancy, all volunteers. Jim and Nancy were teachers. I ran a small boat charter, whale watch service. We involved kids aged 12-16 in outdoor projects focusing on the bounty of our shoreline. We had our company tour boat that we could use to cruise close to shore or to scoot out to one of the islands for different marine projects. Usually 18-20 kids showed up four times a week after school. A few more than that would join us on Saturday when we would cap the day with a meal cooked over the fire pit.

Things were running pretty good until we received a complaint from one girl’s mom that her daughter had been bullied. I’d been working with kids long enough to realize that when girls bullied each other it was much harder to recognize, and stem, then when boys would pick on a kid. We tried to watch the kids closely after the mom’s complaint but I couldn’t detect anything out of the ordinary.

The mom complained again saying she would take it to the school council if we didn’t do something about it. We didn’t know what “it” was and the mom wouldn’t allow us to talk directly to her daughter about it.  Not knowing exactly what to do we tossed it to the kids to see what they might think.

In the past we had done some readings together as a group. We had looked at various survival books with accompanying stories of survival. On afternoons that kept us indoors we would occasionally watch some of the TV survival programs to give the kids some entertainment and some education. What I had in mind was to set up the bullying issue within our group and see what the kids said. Maybe they could come up with something to read together that would give us some base line from which we could tackle the problem.

That is what we did. We pulled all the kids together one Saturday morning in our community center room, where we kept our stuff and had snacks, when the weather was inhospitable. I told them there was a terrible case of bullying going on in a school outside of Seattle. It got so bad one kid attacked another with a knife. I shared that bullying seemed to be part of growing up that we all wanted to forget, particularly if we were on the receiving end. I asked an open question to see if any of them felt like they had ever been bullied. I was shocked to see how many hands went up.

Nancy told a story of how she had been bullied at her middle school to such a level she begged her parents to change schools. She shared that she never told the school principal who was behind it. It stopped when the ringleader started to pick on another girl. She said most of the verbal attacks went on in the bathroom or at recess when teachers could not see what was going on. She said she was embarrassed that she never spoke up but understands why people are reluctant to speak up. She remembers what it was like to be afraid.

A number of kids told their stories. A fair amount of them were boys, which surprised a number of the kids, particularly the girls.

Geoff, aged 15, said he was with a group of kids back in Minnesota who used “kids in justice” which was the name given to a group of kids, randomly selected, that handed out “justice” to group members who had trespassed in various ways. He explained that one of his teachers had all the kids read, “Touching Spirit Bear” that dealt with a kid who was a very aggressive bully and thug. When he mentioned the book a number of the kids shouted out they had read it and how much they loved it. We kicked the theme around for a little while deciding we would all read the book as a group. Geoff said it had a lot of survival type info as well as the story of how this kid is dealt with by the community. I volunteered to go to the bookstore and get us enough copies to read. I said I would go while they were having lunch.

Geoff went on to explain that their justice group was based on tribal law, he forgot which tribe, in Canada that used a sacred rite of justice to correct or punish a member of the tribe who had broken their laws or offended another member of the tribe. He said the kids were all given a playing card, which they would write their name on with a marking pen. The cards were then put in the center of the group, shuffled, with four to six cards being drawn by someone who had no affiliation with the group. That would be easy as there were a number of people in the center who could do a drawing. I said I would get the cards during lunch if the kids wanted to go forward. We took a vote. One hundred percent raised their hands.

The bookstore only had five copies of  “Touching Spirit Bear” so I put in an order for twenty more. The clerk said they would arrive on Wednesday, which was good enough. I bought two sets of playing cards and an assortment of markers.

When I got back to the group they were all excited about the book and setting up some sort of peer justice league to deal with problems we had obviously missed. It was a little embarrassing to realize the kids were having issues none of us knew anything about. When we assembled I asked if we needed any leader to oversee the justice group? Most of the kids pointed to Geoff who agreed to be the “consultant.” We wrapped the day with a meal of halibut and salmon cooked on the grill. Kids tossed on spuds, onions and peppers to round out the feast.

On Wednesday morning I picked up the books. When the kids arrived after school the numbers of attendees had swelled by eleven new members. Geoff told us these kids were drawn to the group by the lively conversation at school about our group, our outdoor activities and how we were going to deal with challenges like bullying.

I passed out the books with a promise to buy ten more. We agreed to read the first two chapters by tomorrow. I allowed Geoff to form the circle, oversee the name writing on the cards, shuffle them and the invitation to one of the center’s staff to pull six cards. Once the cards were drawn Geoff read out the names asking them to step out of the circle. He explained that they were the judges but that they were not supreme. They had to further pick from the remaining cards “Advisors” who would counsel each judge on their decisions. The judges would then have to agree on any final outcome. The “advisors” could negotiate with the other judges “advisors” to try to convince that judge of a particular action. Geoff impressed on the kids that they were all in and all valuable. There was a lot of excitement and we broke feeling we could take on anything.

Geoff stuck around to talk with us about how to bring up the bullying issue. He was more diplomatic than we were, as we wanted to dump it on the table, say it was forbidden and blah blah blah if we saw or heard anything about anyone being bullied. He wanted to bring it up as a topic of conversation allowing the group to define bullying and any punishment for it.

At out next meeting Geoff ran the show. He introduced the subject drawing on the character in the book. (Most of the kids were half way through the book so we agreed we’d finish it by Saturday). He asked kids to define bullying making notes on the butcher paper he had hung up on the wall. The kids were very enthusiastic and out spoken about what they wanted to happen to anyone who bullied. They were more draconian than we would have been insisting any kid who bullies should be put out of the group, reported to the school and the police. Believe it or not just about every kid agreed to those terms. There were lesser punishments for wise remarks, swearing, rough housing etc. Some of them were quite funny involving carrying around dead fish in a burlap bag for an afternoon, cleaning the dishes in the Sound, wearing clothing backwards and being ignored by everyone for a day. The silent treatment! Geoff added one new idea just as the kids were going to break up. He had all but the judges toss their cards back in the pile. He asked Nancy to draw two cards, until they were all gone, putting them in separate stacks. He explained that these couples would look out for each other no matter what. They were more than partners – they were bound to protect and support each other. The kids loved it. Not one of them seemed disappointed by the pairings. Some boys were with a girl partner; some older kids were with a younger kid. Did not seem to matter, they all embraced it-

The book was a great success. We had great group activities around the characters, the relationships and the actions of each character and how we might learn from what they did in the story. Every kid played a role in the conversation. Every kid seemed to grow in confidence from meeting to meeting. Geoff didn’t have to do too much with the judges because very little needed to be judged. There were the occasional out bursts and shoving matches that resulted in a kid carrying around a bag of fish for an afternoon or doing the dishes in freezing cold water. All in all things were great.

Thanks to Geoff speaking up, and stepping up, I think we have found a way for kids to deal with most issues that they want dealt with in a fair way by their peers. For us Geoff has made our “job” much easier.”

The Book "Trust Kids" can be ordered through Lulu Publishing

There's a new low in the highly charged Trayvon Martin case. According to a report from Florida TV news station WKMG, an unidentified entrepreneur aimed to profit by selling paper gun targets depicting the unarmed teenager slain in February. The targets, which were advertised for sale online until Friday, feature a hoodie with crosshairs over the chest—the place where George Zimmerman shot Martin at point-blank range. While there's plain black in lieu of Martin's face, tucked into the hoodie's arm are a bag of Skittles and can of iced tea like the kind Martin was carrying on that fateful night.

An advertisement for the targets had been posted on a popular firearms auction website, according to WKMG, in which the sellers stated that they "support Zimmerman and believe he is innocent and that he shot a thug

The accused leaders of a white supremacist group who authorities say were preparing for a race war were given low bails, while eight other accused members faced $500,000 apiece.

Marcus Faella, named as the head of the American Front, posted $50,000 bail while his wife Patricia paid just $5,000 last weekend to leave the Osceola County Jail after their arrests by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, court records show.

Exactly right," Limbaugh said of Baier's remarks. "What do you want to look at, Shep? You want to look at the polls? Or do you want to look at the votes." Even though Obama endorsed same-sex marriage, Limbaugh pressed, nothing has changed. "It's still up to the hicks and the hay seeds in the state," he said.

An entrepreneur has sold out of shooting range targets featuring a silhouette image of Trayvon Martin.

Disgusting.

Web wanderers are more likely to get a computer virus by visiting a religious website than by peering at porn, according to a study released on Tuesday.

"Drive-by attacks" in which hackers booby-trap legitimate websites with malicious code continue to be a bane,

Websites with religious or ideological themes were found to have triple the average number of "threats" that those featuring adult content, according to Symantec.

"It is interesting to note that websites hosting adult/pornographic content are not in the top five, but ranked tenth,"

 

 

Eduardo Saverin, the billionaire co- founder of Facebook Inc. (FB), renounced his U.S. citizenship before an initial public offering that values the social network at as much as $96 billion, a move that may reduce his tax bill.

Facebook plans to raise as much as $11.8 billion through the IPO, the biggest in history for anInternet company. Saverin’s stake is about 4 percent, according to the website Who Owns Facebook. At the high end of the IPO valuation, that would be worth about $3.84 billion.

Saverin, 30, joins a growing number of people giving up U.S. citizenship, a move that can trim their tax liabilities in that country. The Brazilian-born resident of Singapore is one of several people who helped Mark Zuckerberg start Facebook in a Harvard University dorm and stand to reap billions of dollars after the world’s largest social network holds its IPO.

 

Four years ago, Pauline Latu was being held in Contra Costa County Jail. She was pregnant. She asked if it was legal for her guards to shackle her around her waist and ankles even if she was pregnant, but each time she went to court, the guards placed shackles around her ankles and wrapped a chain around her belly. When she was close to delivery, Pauline developed pre-eclampsia, a dangerous condition of pregnancy, and she had to be hospitalized. She was in the hospital for a week, shackled to her bed. To go to the bathroom, she had to get a guard to unlock her from her bed. She would then drag her chain to a portable toilet because it was not long enough to allow her to go to the bathroom. She was traumatized. Her charge? Embezzlement. She was hardly a danger to her community.

Although Friedman was neither a victim of rape nor a personal witness to it during his CCA stint, he believes that private prisons are among those least attentive to the sexual victimization of inmates by guards and other inmates. For instance, in a 2007 survey of local jails by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a CCA facility in Torrance County, New Mexico, clocked in with the highest rate of sexual victimization (13.4 percent), more than four times the national average. It also had the highest rate of staff-on-inmate sexual victimization—7 percent, as compared with a national average of around 2 percent.

CCA can certainly afford to address the issue. The longtime industry leader in prisons and immigrant detention, it owns or operates 67 facilities (see table of its customers below) and boasts about $1.7 billion in annual revenues—more than 40 percent of which come from the federal government and most of the rest from the states and localities. The company reportedly employs 35 lobbyists on Capitol Hill, with hundreds more working in 33 states over the past eight years.

 

Thing One: Fail Whale: Jamie Dimon, scourge of financial regulators, overnight become God's gift to financial regulators.

The JPMorgan CEO has been theswaggering Alpha banker in the industry's fight against post-crisis regulatory efforts, complaining and vaguely threatening about the dire consequences of regulation on an almost daily basis. Last night? Not so much! Instead he was spending most of his breath explaining to investors and reporters how a supposedly benign trading desk in London, run by a man known to other traders as "the London Whale," had taken a $2 billion loss on credit derivates in six weeks. It's a hit to JPMorgan's reputation and profit. Funny thing: Some of the constraints of the very Dodd-Frank financial reform act Dimon hates could have prevented it.

"It is a high irony that the too-big-to-fail bank at the forefront of a relentless effort to stop Dodd-Frank is JPMorgan itself," University of Maryland law professor Michael Greenberger wrote in an email to 7.5 Things last night.

 

Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, released a public service announcement on Friday timed for Mother’s Day this weekend, asking viewers to “call the governor of your state” and encourage them to reconsider “Stand Your Ground” laws like the one cited by the man who killed her son.

Broun argued that the provision unfairly targeted several states and had become "antiquated."

"As Americans, we pride ourselves in our electoral system. But the integrity of our elections is called into question when this outdated law bars states from ensuring that those who come to the polls to vote are eligible to do so," he said.

Broun's remarks were rebuked by a number of other representatives. Even those, like Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who thought the amendment could be worth discussing, said a late-night appropriations debate was not the appropriate time to do so.

Lewis, who marched with Martin Luther King Jr., took to the floor to denounce Broun's amendment.

On Sunday, April 29, the Rev. Sean Harris, pastor of Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina, preached a sermon that sanctioned physical violence toward children who show “effeminate” or “butch” behavior.

One week later, families at Judson Baptist Church in New York City will be using the Sunday School hour to create "Cards Of Hope" which they intend to send to the children who attend Sunday School at Berean Baptist Church.

"The idea for this Sunday will be to talk about discrimination, acceptance, and how we believe God loves all of us, no matter our differences," 

Mitt Romney said Thursday that same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt children, but they should not be married because children should be raised by a mother and a father.

More domestic drilling does not make America less susceptible to global supply disruptions or protect consumers from gasoline price volatility, according to a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office.

The Justice Department filed suit Thursday against Maricopa County, Ariz. Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his office for unlawfully discriminating against Latinos, and in turn, disregarding basic constitutional rights.

Arpaio said Wednesday that he'll fight the charges in court. "And then we'll find out the real story. They're telling me how to run my organization," he said. "I'd like to get this resolved, but I'm not going to give up my authority to the federal government. It's as simple as that."

Here are some of the disturbing allegations from the 32-page lawsuit about the conduct of Arpaio and his office.

 

A monthly newsletter published by the Greene County Republican Committee in Virginia is raising eyebrows for including a column in its March edition that calls for an "armed revolution" if President Barack Obama is elected to a second term in November.

On the House floor Wednesday, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-CA) called for an investigation into an alleged disinformation campaign targeting journalists who reported on Department of Defense spending on Information Operations.

“We face the disturbing possibility that a federal defense contractor that specializes in information and psychological operations may have targeted American journalists,” Johnson said. “And it may have done so using taxpayer dollars and tactics developed to counter the influence of adversaries such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban.”

Attention! People who don't like gay people! Read this!

****Be forewarned, the video is a tear-jerker****

Can a Republican primary in Indiana have even the remotest connection to a presidential election in France? Richard Mourdock, the tea party giant-killer who defeated Sen. Richard Lugar on Tuesday, clearly thinks so.

“Just yesterday, France elected a socialist,” Mourdock declared in his victory speech. “There are those I’m sure in the administration and in the left side of the Democratic Party that were cheering for that. But we’re not going to stand for that in Indiana because the supporters of Barack Obama are not going to win!”

Don’t scoff. There is a point behind what Mourdock said. It’s just not the point he had in mind.

Being a good tea party Republican, Mourdock is all about slashing government spending without regard to the impact of the cuts on the economy or on those who need government help. He cast his campaign as a battle against “the nightmare of ever-growing government” that would turn the United States into a “Western European-style nation.”

This gets us to the irony: Right now, it’s conservatives who want to follow the Western European path of austerity that voters in France and Greece rejected last weekend.

 In his new book, former Secretary of State Colin Powell provides what may be the most authoritative confirmation yet that there was never a considered debate in the George W. Bush White House about whether going to war in Iraq was really a good idea.

In a chapter discussing what he calls his “infamous” February 2003 speech to the United Nations where he authoritatively presented what was later exposed as gross misinformation about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Powell notes that by that time, war “was approaching.”

“By then, the President did not think war could be avoided,” Powell writes. “He had crossed the line in his own mind, even though the NSC [National Security Council] had never met -- and never would meet -- to discuss the decision.” Read more;

According to recent statistics from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), ‘More than 3 million women are, or have been wives or girlfriends of men who secretly have sex with other men.” The Family Pride Coalition has recently estimated through their studies that at least 20 percent of all gay men in America are in heterosexual marriages. These are pretty alarming statistics and are indicative of the many hypotheses that have been formulated on men “on the down low.” That is, men that engage in same-sex infidelity, while being in a heterosexual relationship- whether it’s marriage or courtship.

As reported in these research studies, many women who are in relationships with these “down-low” men typically are unaware that their partner is engaging in “brokeback” activity. And, sometimes, these respective women are the last to know and are harsh on themselves for not seeing the warning signs. In fairness, I think that it can be somewhat difficult to pick up on these signs, especially when you love and trust these men.

Afghanistan is Vietnam redux. Again the U.S. has never lost a battle and again that is irrelevant. As in Vietnam, the puppet government is incompetent, corrupt and illegitimate.

 Little surprise that as in Vietnam only American soldiers are willing to fight and die for such an illegitimate travesty. After 11 years, the Afghan National Army has maybe 100,000 men present for duty (the rest exist only on paper). More than 40 percent of the entire force evaporates every year fromdesertions and non-reenlistment, 75 percent is on drugs, and enough are Taliban infiltrators to sabotage the advisory effort. The Afghan army has no logistics, no air force apart from a few old Soviet helicopters, and still not one battalion can fight on its own. The South Vietnamese Army had over one million men, capable logistics and a large, modern air force. In a country one-fourth the size of Afghanistan, it collapsed in three weeks of fighting.

It is a myth that the war was lost by invading Iraq. It was lost in the C.I.A. stage production called the “Bonn Process,” where a non-entity named Hamid Karzai was foisted on astonished Afghan leaders. When 75 percent of the delegates at the Loya Jirga petitioned to make the king the interim head of state, C.I.A. shenanigans and millions of dollars in bribes killed the indigenous process. Forgetting the lesson of postwar Japan, American “advisers” then insisted on eliminating a ceremonial monarchy, which would have provided a symbol of national unity (like the Japanese emperor) and lent traditional legitimacy to an alien system called democracy.

 Tucked behind a liquor store, opposite a flooring company, Majestic Body Shop was an unremarkable sight amid a blur of commercial properties just east of the city limits. But the police cars that always seemed to be parked at the repair shop caught the eyes of passing drivers. The F.B.I. noticed as well — agents were videotaping Majestic and tapping its phone

What the investigation revealed was startling: a bribery racket suspected to involve kickbacks to dozens of Baltimore police officers.

The scheme to divert cars damaged in traffic accidents to the body shop in return for payoffs resulted in one of the widest police corruption scandals in Baltimore history.

 

A group of 10 white supremacists allegedly trained for a “race war” near Disney World in Orlando before being arrested by authorities this week, according to published reports.

The arrests came after a confidential informant told authorities that the American Front, a skinhead group, was planning “to kill Jews, immigrants and other minorities,” according to an arrest warrant obtained by The Associated Press.

The group’s training facilities were just 11 miles from Disney World, the document added.

Joliet police said a man burned his 11-year-old son with a clothes iron to force the boy to confess to stealing a dollar from him.

Josue E. Manrique, 35, was charged with of aggravated domestic battery and aggravated battery of a child.

Cmdr. Brian Benton said Manrique admitted he’d been drinking Saturday night and acknowledged being on edge before returning home about 3 a.m. Sunday.

“He’d been watching a boxing match where his fighter had lost and was having transmission problems with his car on the way home,” Benton said. “When he came home, he noticed a dollar missing from his dresser and that apparently set him off.”

Police say Manrique took a leather belt and woke his son up by hitting him with it. After striking the boy several times, Manrique turned on the iron and burned the boy on his forearm and top of his hand when the boy denied taking the dollar.

 

A second masseur has come forward with allegations of sexual battery and harassment against John Travolta, one day after the actor was hit with a similar lawsuit. (WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC LANGUAGE)

RadarOnline reports that the second alleged victim, who is identified in the documents only as "Doe Plaintiff No. 2," claims to have "substantial documentation and numerous witnesses regarding the substance of Travolta's actions." The site notes that the second accuser -- who is said to have worked at an unspecified Atlanta-based resort -- is also being represented by the same lawyer as the first. Both are seeking $2 million in punitive damages, and in the amended complaint, they are both now suing Travolta for sexual harassment as well.

 

 President Obama on Wednesday ended nearly two years of “evolving” on the issue of same-sex marriage by publicly endorsing it in a television interview, taking a definitive stand on one of the most contentious and politically charged social issues of the day.

“At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” Mr. Obama told ABC News in an interview that came after the president faced mounting pressure to clarify his position.

In an election that is all but certain to turn on the slowly recovering economy and its persistently high jobless rate, Mr. Obama’s stand nonetheless injects a volatile social issue into the campaign debate and puts him at even sharper odds with his presumptive Republican rival, Mitt Romney, who opposes same-sex marriage and favors an amendment to the United States Constitution to forbid it.

Public support for same-sex marriage is growing at a pace that surprises even professional pollsters as older generations of voters who tend to be strongly opposed are supplanted by younger ones who are just as strongly in favor. Same-sex couples are featured in some of the most popular shows on television, without controversy.

Yet time after time, when the issue is put to voters in states, they have chosen to ban unions between people of the same gender or to defeat measures that would legalize same-sex unions. Just Tuesday, North Carolinians voted overwhelmingly to add a ban to their state constitution, and Republican leaders in the Colorado House blocked a vote on legislation to allow civil unions; North Carolina and Colorado are considered swing states in presidential politics. Read more;

Ever wonder what goes on inside the small minds of fundamentalist men? Want to know how they justify their blatant anti-woman policies and practices? Are they for real? Do they even know how hateful and intolerably ignorant they sound?

 "It is not in them to handle power in the right way," he continues, "they don't know what to do with it.

"Women are now degraded. Women have no shame

 "It's unfortunate that women are allow.., that men are so weak, they've been so intimidated that they allow these women to just run wild and screw up everything - including their souls, and their children."

And if you speak up about it, Satan got [sic] it set up - through the women - that you're gonna be punished in some kind of way."

"I think that one of the greatest mistakes America made was to allow women the opportunity to vote. We should've never turned this over to women," Peterson complains. "And these women are voting in the wrong people. They're voting in people who are evil who agrees [sic] with them who're gonna take us down this pathway of destruction. And this probably was the reason they didn't allow women to vote when men were men. Because men in the good old days understood the nature of the woman. They were not afraid to deal with it. And they understood that, you let them take over, this is what would happen."

"Wherever women are taking over, evil reigns."

WASHINGTON (CN) - Republicans and Democrats took frequent shots at each other for nearly six hours during a House Judiciary Committee markup meeting to amend the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization.

 

President Barack Obama endorsed the right of same-sex couples to marry on Wednesday, a landmark pronouncement made in light of mounting pressure from gay right advocates.

Obama became the first U.S. president to back the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry, a reversal from views expressed during the 2008 campaign, when he said he opposed same-sex marriage but favored civil unions as an alternative.

As if poor people didn’t have enough to worry about, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) has given them one more: enslavement.

West, speaking at the Broward County Lincoln Day Dinner this past Saturday, warned the crowd about the danger of food stamps for American society. “In the last 10 years,” West said, the “food stamp program that has gone from about $20.6 billion to over $75 billion.” The Florida congressmen saw this increase not as a society practicing compassion for its most needy, but as a more nefarious plot. “That’s not how you empower the American people,” West declared. “That’s how you enslave the American people.”

For your pleasure I am sharing some wall art that lives obscurely on a partially hidden wall in north Seattle.
Just when one has tired of the non stop rain, and finds their car automatically driving to a bridge they can fling themselves off, this little slice of happiness says.
"Hang on, the sun will come out tomorrow."

Republicans have made a show of their supposed job creation efforts over the past three years, decrying “job killing” regulations and taxes on “job creators.” They have a web site — 4jobs.gov — devoted to their job creation agenda and have even named legislation the JOBS Act. They have also slammed President Obama, saying that he fails to understand the type of environment the private sector needs to spark job growth.

Despite the GOP’s big talk, historical data shows that private sector job creation is better when a Democrat occupies the White House. Since President John F. Kennedy took office in 1961, in fact, nearly two-thirds of the 66 million private sector jobs added to the economy have come under Democratic presidents, Bloomberg reports:

Elbot Carman, a 25-year-old aspiring graphic designer, made so little money after earning his master's degree last year that the U.S. government now says he can hold off making payments on his school loans.

Carman owes $140,000 in a mix of government and private student loans. Last year he earned $12,000.

"That was so low that they are not requiring me to make a payment this year," said Carman, who works a paid and an unpaid internship and recently moved back in with his mother in Lawrenceville, Georgia to cut costs.

The Texas Democratic Party on Tuesday filed a motion for expedited appeal in its case against the King Street Patriots, a tea party group based in Houston.

“Despite what they believe, the King Street Patriots are not above the law,” said TDP spokeswoman Rebecca Acuna. “This right wing group should not be allowed to continue to intimidate voters and operate illegally for another election cycle.”

A district court judge ruled in March that the King Street Patriots were a political action committee and had illegally aided the Republican Party with its “True the Vote” poll-watching program. The group insisted that it was a nonprofit corporation and appealed the ruling.

The Obama administration saw its first monthly budget surplus in April, with the federal government recording $58 billion, according to figures released by the Congressional Budget Office.

MarketWatch reports:

The surplus -- the first of Barack Obama’s presidency -- was the result of both increased tax collection and lower government spending.

Romney can chip away at Obama’s formidable Hispanic following by focusing on jobs. He can remind voters that instead of drilling down on programs to boost employment early in his term, the president ensnared himself – and the country—in the messy and divisive fight over health care, wasting precious time and gumming up the recovery.

Mitt Romney says that he opposed the government bailout of Detroit because the private market would have provided loans so GM and Chrysler could go through managed bankruptcy, but it turns out the firm Romney once led, Bain Capital, turned down the chance to do so. The government's auto task force asked Bain Capitol if it would like to invest in GM's European operations, The New York Times' Jeremy W. Peters reports, but Bain said no thanks. Detroit executives and Obama administration officials say that Romney is wrong: government money was necessary because at the worst of the financial crisis, private companies would not have lent the $80 billion the automakers needed. Based on The Times report, we now know that the government's argument was true in the case of at least one company: the one Romney helped found and shape.

This isn't the first reported connection between Romney's former businesses and the Detroit bailout. In Jaunary, CNBC reported a Bain & Company employee advised the auto task force on closing some dealerships in November 2009. (The company initially denied the report, before admitting it was true.) That is an uncomfortable fact for Romney,

“Texas has repeatedly ignored or violated directives and orders of this Court that were designed to expedite discovery, and Texas has failed to produce in a timely manner key documents that Defendants need to prepare their defense,” the three judge panel wrote in an order yesterday.

“Most troubling is Texas’ conduct with respect to producing its key state databases, which are central to Defendants’ claim that S.B. 14 has a disparate and retrogressive impact on racial and/or language minority groups,” the panel wrote.

He was really awkward,” Otterbein University student Carissa Reed said of her experience sitting on stage with the former Massachusetts governor two weeks ago. “You could tell he was out of his element. … I was just, like, 'Should I clap?’ None of us knew what to do.”

Reed was witness to what may have been Romney’s most awkward speech of the year, with the least crowd response. During much of the 40-minute Otterbein address, students from various universities, who were on stage with the candidate, openly yawned, looked at their watches, sent texts or e-mails and in at least one case, appeared to fall asleep.

A dog owner was arrested after he broke his puppy's front two legs with a sledgehammer.

Friends of the man brought the dog to a veterinarian when he refused to help the animal after the sustained beating.  

Morkunas had reportedly bragged about using a 16-pound hammer to break up a fight between the puppy and an older dog in Mesa, Arizona.

A couple from Seabrook, Texas are accused of beating their 11-year-old son with a leather belt and applying salt, vinegar and alcohol to his wounds.

According to the criminal complaint against the pair, the boy had to be hospitalised after officers found him curled on a sofa in the foetal position, with 'bandages applied to his waist, buttocks and rear thigh area with bodily fluids seeping through them.'

 

The Labor Department's establishment survey of employers — the jobs count that it bases its payroll figures on — shows that the government has been steadily shedding workers since the crisis struck, with 586,000 fewer jobs than in December 2008. ... But the survey of households that the unemployment rate is based on suggests the government job cuts have been much, much worse.

In April the household survey showed that that there were 442,000 fewer people working in government than in March. The household survey has a much smaller sample size than the establishment survey, and so is prone to volatility, but the magnitude of the drop is striking: It marks the largest decline on both an absolute and a percentage basis on record going back to 1948. Moreover, the household survey has consistently showed bigger drops in government employment than the establishment survey has.

The unemployment rate would be far lower if it hadn't been for those cuts: If there were as many people working in government as there were in December 2008, the unemployment rate in April would have been 7.1%, not 8.1%.

Ceteris is rarely paribus, of course: If there were more government jobs now, for example, it's likely that not as many people would have left the labor force, and so the actual unemployment rate would be north of 7.1%. ...

A 13-year-old girl hanged herself after being bullied at school for months by a group of 'mean girls' who tormented her with names and threats of violence.

Seventh grader Rachel Ehmke killed herself after what her parents said were months of abuse at her Kasson, Minnesota middle school.

Her tormentors put chewing gum in her schoolbooks and wrote the word 'slut' across her locker - even though she had never kissed a boy.

With another girl, she was cornered in the locker room by a 'clique' of girls who then threatened her.

And days before she took her life, an anonymous text message was sent out to other students at the school calling Rachel a 'slut' who needed to be forced out of the school

 

South Dakota's Black Hills, home to the granite faces carved into Mt. Rushmore, should be restored as Native American tribal lands,

Anaya said land restoration would help bring about reconciliation. He named the Black Hills as an example. He said restoring to indigenous people what they have a legitimate claim to can be done in a way that is not divisive "so that the Black Hills, for example, isn't just a reminder of the subordination and domination of indigenous peoples in that country."

The Black Hills, home to Mount Rushmore, are public land but are considered sacred by the Sioux tribes. The Sioux have refused to accept money awarded in a 1980 U.S. Supreme Court decision and have sought return of the land. The Black Hills and other lands were set aside for the Sioux in an 1868 treaty. But Congress passed a law in 1877 taking the land.

Maggie Gallagher, former Chairman of NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, says that if gay marriage becomes the law of the land it will make any anti-gay person seem “like a racist.” So, it also seems Gallagher has just redefined NOM’s mission, admitting her overriding motivation is not so much “to protect marriage,” but to protect the reputations of people in “the faith communities that sustain it.”

Taking another jab at his favorite punching bag, President Obama on Tuesday offered Congress a "to-do" list for the year, drawing attention and gently mocking lawmakers in the unpopular and gridlocked Congress.

"It's about the size of a Post-it Note. So every member of Congress should have time to read it -- and they can glance at it every so often," Obama said of his list of five measures. He added that lawmakers could check off the list as they pass legislation, "just like when Michelle gives me a list, check it off."

Unlikely.

The president's list includes items he has previously announced and Congress has failed to embrace. That includes a proposal to allow more homeowners to refinance their mortgages and a plan to give tax credits to companies that relocate in the United States. Obama also wants expand a tax credit for clean energy manufacturers and give a 10% income tax credit to employers who hire. The president also called for the creation a job corps for veterans.

- Former Bob Jones University student Chris Peterman expected to graduate on May 4. But on April 24, nine days before he was set to receive his diploma, the 23-year-old poli-sci major was suspended from school.

 He claims to have been forced out of school in retaliation for his activism against Chuck Phelps, a former BJU Board of Trustees member who was accused of covering up a sex-abuse scandal at the church where he served as pastor.

Video revealing the circumstances of how a mentally ill homeless man in Fullerton, Calif. died last July was finally published Monday, revealing a stunningly brutal police assault that left Kelly Thomas bleeding, broken and near death.

In the video, one of the officers can be heard telling Thomas, who was schizophrenic, “See my fists? They’re getting ready to start @!$%#ing you up.” When he doesn’t immediately comply and instead stands up, another officer charges in and hits him with a baton, and a scuffle ensues.

For the next approximately eight minutes, Thomas is pinned by the two officers, then up to as many as four more arrive and pile on. As Thomas pleads for mercy and complains that he cannot breathe, he’s tased and punched repeatedly. The treatment continues until Thomas’s cries morph into inaudible grunts and moans.

 

Its possible even right wing bloggers can come to their senses.  Ok a few can.  If only this could happen to the Masses of Right wing lunitics.

Dear Editor:

As far as Mitt piece in yesterday’s Detroit News it was truly reckless, detached from reality, and dishonest. I also think it’s very bad politics, especially in Michigan.

It was Bush that stepped in with the “Bailout” of GM & Chrysler in the fall of ’08, not Obama. So that is just dishonest and W just said it at NADA; “he would do it again.” That circumstance trumped philosophy and he prevented a depression and 20% unemployment.

Secondly, Mitt’s assertion that private financing “DIP” was available in fall of ’08 into ’09 is fantasy. Everyone knows we were in the midst of the greatest financial meltdown since the 1930’s.

Finally, Obama’s Auto Taskforce did do a good job killing all the sacred cows. There was dramatic pain for all.

What more can I say, it is very disappointing.

Mike Jackson

Delta Airlines is siding with an organization that compares pro-choice groups to Nazis and shuns adoption if the parents happen to be gay.

Today, the airline company confirmed that it will stop advertising on the Daily Show after the far-right anti-gay Catholic League, headed up by Bill Donohue, took issue with a graphic used on the Daily Show that showed a manger between a woman’s legs.

The first time Viviette Applewhite went to the polls, she cast her vote for John F. Kennedy. But this year, a strict new voter identification law will likely prevent the now-93-year old woman and many others in Pennsylvania from participating in their country’s democratic process. And Applewhite won’t stand for it.

She will be the plaintiff in the voter identification lawsuit being filed by the ACLU and the NAACP in the state, which claims that “the state’s voter photo ID law violates the Pennsylvania Constitution by depriving citizens of their most fundamental constitutional right – the right to vote.”