Month: July 2008
Judge: High School Must Allow Gay Club
Okeechobee, Fla., is pretty much what you expect — rural and conservative. Oh, and intolerant of gays, too.
Tuesday, U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore issued an opinion that the Gay-Straight Alliance of Okeechobee High School can meet on campus like all other noncurricular school groups, and that its case against the School Board of Okeechobee County is closed. The American Civil Liberties Union called the ruling “ground-breaking.”
It certainly is in Okeechobee County. I was there once, for a football game 30 or so years ago. I have never seen more purple cowboy hats and boots before or since. Purple is one of Okeechobee High’s school colors, so you can understand how they might get a little touchy if some gay people tried to appropriate their color.
Oh, and they call themselves Brahmans — not after the Hindu concept of Brahman as the unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all matter, energy, time, space and being — but after the Brahman cattle that are raised in large numbers in those parts. Actually, I remember a bunch of them being raised right across Highway 441 from the football field.
The club was started in the interest of promoting understanding and tolerance, following the school’s act of discrimination:
Yasmin Gonzalez started the Gay-Straight Alliance in 2006 when she learned she couldn’t take another girl to the Okeechobee High School prom. The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of Gonzalez and the Alliance after club members were prevented from meeting on campus and Principal Toni Wiersma refused to officially recognize them as a student group.
In April, Moore ruled the case moot because Gonzalez had graduated and the club had no more members, but he re-opened it upon learning school officials prevented another student, current Club President Brittany Martin, from reviving the group.
Throughout the discovery process, a temporary injunction existed allowing the club to meet, but still the school board put up “roadblocks” like preventing members from using the word “gay” during meetings.
The school administration argued that it was uncomfortable with the club because it was “sex-based” and the school has a policy of teaching abstinence-only sex education. Now how’s that for logic? That’s what happens when lazy people use “sex” when they mean “gender.”
Currently, the club has only six members, most of whom are straight, who say they joined the club to stand up for gay friends and family members.
I wish you good luck, kids.
Thirty-odd years ago when we won the football game, we were cursed, threatened, spat on, showered with soda pop and rocks were thrown at our bus as we left.
They don’t tolerate losing in Okeechobee County.
Exxon Posts Another Record Profit; McCain Says We Can Trust Them
Exxon CEO Texan Rex Tillerson, whose compensation in 2007 was $21.7 million, including $1.75 million in salary, a $3.36 million bonus for record-breaking profits, and $16.1 million of stock and option awards
Exxon has broken its own profit records yet again, this time for the quarter that ended June 30. As you know from listening to the oil companies, there is no correlation between $4 per gallon gas and this phenomenon.
The world’s largest publicly traded oil company said net income for the April-June period came to $2.22 a share, up from $10.26 billion, or $1.83 a share, a year ago.
Revenue rose 40 percent to $138.1 billion from $98.4 billion in the year-earlier quarter.
It’s hard to comprehend that kind of money when your brain is more used to calculating 15 percent off on the $6.99 pair of shorts at Beall’s Outlet.
McCain: Shame is enough to force oil companies to do the right thing
But John McCain, whose reward from the oil industry for changing his policy on drilling American shorelines was a campaign check for $1.1 million, feels my pain. He explained to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on This Week, when asked what McCain would do differently than Bush to help the economy, his idiotic gas tax holiday would have helped poor people driving gas guzzlers.
McCain: There are many steps that can be taken, absolutely, including a gas tax holiday. Everybody —
Stephanopoulos: There’s not a single economist in the country who says it works.
Mc: And there’s not a single economist who knows very well the low-income American who drives the furtherst (sic) in the oldest automobile that sometimes can’t even afford to go to work.
St: But they all say that’s not who’s going to get the benefit. The oil companies, the gas companies, are going to absorb —
Mc: You know, they say that, but if one, it didn’t happen before, and two, we wouldn’t let it happen. We wouldn’t let it happen, Americans wouldn’t let them absorb that.
St: How would you prevent it?
Mc: We would make them…shamed into it. We of course know how to, American public opinion, and would penalize them if necessary but they wouldn’t. They would pass it on.
You really have to watch the clip to get the full effect. The part quoted starts at 6:28 and ends at 7:12. McCain is blustery and incredulous that there could be any question his new BFFs would try to make even more obscene gains than they’re making now. Except they are already calling for more.
But [Exxon] investors expected even bigger profits Thursday, especially after Europe’s Royal Dutch Shell reported a 33 percent jump in second-quarter earnings of $11.6 billion, which fell just shy of Exxon’s own record earnings from 2007.
McCain’s right about one thing. “Shame” is the word to use when talking about oil company profits.
Dr. Ron Paul Casts Only Vote against Ban on Lead in Toys, Ban Passes House 424 to 1
Rep. Ron Paul, M.D., (R-Texas) the former Republican and Libertarian Party candidate for president, cast the only vote against banning lead in toys in the House of Representatives yesterday:
Alarmed by a year of recalls targeting millions of tainted toys, the House voted overwhelming Wednesday to ban lead and other dangerous chemicals from items such as jewelry and rubber ducks that could end up in kids’ mouths.
The legislation also would toughen rules for testing children’s products and take steps to give more muscle to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which was criticized last year for its feeble handling of a flood of goods from China deemed hazardous to children.
Even flat-earthers like Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), the ranking member of the committee that first passed the ban, were in favor of it. “[Our] children’s toys will be tested in the laboratory before they are tested by our children on the living room floors of America,” Barton said, in a prepared statement.
Key to the libertarian philosophy is the idea that citizens should take responsibility for themselves — that government’s role should be limited to protecting the country from its enemies but little else. For example, government should not provide pensions like Social Security or medical aid through systems like Medicare.
Libertarians also believe that in situations like this, when toy manufacturers infuse their products with enough lead to cause brain damage in children, it is up to the market to punish them.
But dealing with a sudden rise in the incidence of lead in toys is a glaring example of how the libertarian approach is impracticable. By voting against the ban, Dr. Paul is saying that toy manufacturers should be free to put whatever poisons they like in their products, and then, after enough children become brain-damaged to cause a panic, the market — the toy-buying public — will exact its punishment by taking away the manufacturer’s revenue.
Dr. Paul has five grown children, and it would be interesting to know whether he really believes the laissez-faire interests of Chinese toy manufacturers are more important than the health and safety of his 18 grandchildren.
On the other hand, Paul has never been an ideologically pure libertarian. While he apparently believes the government has no business protecting children from malfeasant toymakers, he is firmly in favor of passing laws to regulate the pregnancies of American women as well as the exclusion of gays from the civil right to marry.
Trish Is Just One of FPL’s 39,000 Suckers
My co-editor Trish is a nice person with good intentions who wants to save the environment. Which is why she signed up a couple of years ago for Florida Power & Light’s Sunshine Energy program that was intended to support development of alternative energy sources. About 39,000 other Floridians joined Trish in adding an additional $9.75 per month to their electric bill to support wind farms in Montana, among other things FPL was supposedly doing to develop “green” power sources.
Sorry, Trish, but according to the Miami Herald, the state’s Public Service Commission has put the kibosh on the program because, well — and I hope you’re sitting down when you read this — FPL didn’t do what it said it was going to do with the money. Ahem, your money.
See Trish, of your $9.75 a month, only about 20 percent — less than $2 — was actually being spent on developing alternative electrical resources. The rest was going … somewhere. It wasn’t really clear where that 80 percent was going. There was vague talk about administrative expenses and marketing, but the PSC was just bumfuzzled about where the money went because — get this — the accounting by the subcontractor that was supposed to buy the green energy was so poor.
But to hear FPL tell it, the company did nothing legally or morally wrong:
The utility had acknowledged in regulatory filings that the program could be improved and it volunteered to do so, but it said Sunshine Energy met the requirements laid down by the commission in a formal document called a tariff, which did not specify what percentage of contributions should go directly to renewable energy.
But don’t expect to see any of the money you contributed returned to you, Trish. Since FPL complied with the tariff as written by the PSC (no matter how poorly), it is under no legal obligation to refund the funds. Some FPL customers who contributed to the fund are demanding a public apology from the company, but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that.
In the interest of full disclosure, I almost joined the fund a year ago after attending the Governor’s Climate Change Summit in Miami. I spoke with a guy there who said we should all support programs like Sunshine Energy because it’s the right thing to do. I just was never convinced that FPL would do the right thing with the money, so I didn’t join up. That doesn’t make me wiser than Trish and her 39,000 cohorts. It just means that after years of abuse by FPL (I was out of electricity a total of three weeks during the hurricanes of 2005 due mainly to faulty utility poles installed by FPL that had to be replaced before power could be restored), I simply didn’t and don’t trust the company.
Remember — Florida Power & Light tried to build a coal-burning power plant on the edge of the Everglades that would have spewed mercury-laced emissions all over the River of Grass. The Public Service Commission performed a true public service in April by denying the permit for that project.
FPL — you just can’t trust ’em.
Update from Trish: Checked the FPL bill I paid last week, and there was the $9.75 Sunshine energy charge. I called the 800# and after 3 minutes, 25 seconds of listening to menu options that didn’t apply (no, I don’t want to know my last payment amount or change my billing address), I got in the queue to speak to a representative. A recording cut in to say that due to the volume of calls, my wait time might be excessive and I should leave my phone number to be called back. I did so, waiting while the simulated operator confirmed in painstakingly slow, perfect elocution each digit of my area code and phone number, followed by each letter of my last name. Finally, just as my lunch heated up and I was ready to eat, Whitney called me back. I explained that I wanted the Sunshine energy charge removed from future bills, and he said I’d have to be transferred to the department handling that. Next, Bertha came on the line and I was immediately disconnected. This time, I jammed the “0” key sooner and more often, cutting in half the time it took to get a person. This person transferred me to the department that handles these requests, and I was assured the charge would not appear on my next bill. But if I have any questions in the future, I can call the correct department direct at 1-888-FPL-GREEN. I snorted derisively and hung up.
Obama’s ‘Honeymoon’ With MSM Just Another Republican Fantasy
There are numerous myths swirling around the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama. He’s a Muslim. He hates Jews. His wife is uppity. But one of the most enduring chestnuts — that Obama gets a pass in the media while Old Maverick Sen. John McCain has to answer the hard questions (like what’s the diff between a Shiite and a Sunni) has been demythified by the new report from the Center for Media and Public Affairs.
Major findings (based on a scientific content analysis of election news stories that aired on ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Fox Special Report) include:
Since the primaries ended, on-air evaluations of Barack Obama have been 72 percent negative (versus 28 percent positive). That’s worse than John McCain’s coverage, which has been 57 percent negative (versus 43 percent positive) during the same time period.
This is a major turnaround since McCain and Obama emerged as front-runners in the early primaries. From the New Hampshire primary on January 8 until Hillary Clinton dropped out on June 7, Obama’s coverage was 62 percent positive (38 percent negative) on the broadcast networks; by contrast, McCain’s coverage during this period was only 34 percent positive (66 percent negative).
Obama ran even farther behind McCain on Fox News Channel’s Special Report with 79 percent negative comments (21 percent positive), compared to 61 percent negative comments (39 percent positive) for McCain since June 8. During the primaries Obama had a slight lead in good press on Fox, with 52 percent favorable comments (48 percent unfavorable), compared to 48 percent favorable (52 percent unfavorable) for McCain.
Obama’s bad press has come at a time when he was much more visible than McCain. Since June 8, he has been the subject of 120 stories on the three network evening news shows, 50 percent more than John McCain’s 80 stories.
So where does this myth come from and why is it perpetuated? You guessed it — Fox News. Here are results from a recent Fox survey:
Nearly seven in 10 Americans (67 percent) say they believe most in the media want Obama to win the November election — while a scant 11 percent think the media are pulling for John McCain. Moreover, only about one in 10 (11 percent) volunteers the belief that the media is neutral on the race to become the 44th President of the United States.
When asked to rate the objectivity of media coverage of the campaigns, Americans feel Obama gets more of a positive spin by a better than seven-to-one margin (46 percent more positive toward Obama; 6 percent more positive toward McCain). Just under four Americans in 10 (36 percent) says both campaigns are being covered objectively.
Fox asked fair and balanced questions like “Have you heard any of your friends and neighbors say there is something about Barack Obama that scares them?” To which 49 percent said yes and 50 percent said no. To be fair, they asked the same question about McCain, and only 36 percent said their friends and neighbors found McCain scary.
[…]
Rightwing Terrorist Who Opened Fire in Liberal Church Owned Books By O’Reilly, Hannity and Michael Savage
Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. -Gal. 6:7
Considering the hatred for liberals spewed by the rightwing noise machiners like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Michael “Savage” Weiner and the rest, it is a miracle there aren’t more terrorist incidents like this:
Police found copies of “Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder” by radio talk show host Michael Savage, “Let Freedom Ring” by talk show host Sean Hannity, and “The O’Reilly Factor,” by television talk show host Bill O’Reilly, in the killer’s home.
Jim Adkisson, the 58 year old man being held in a Knoxville, Tenn., jail on murder charges stemming from a shooting during a children’s musical at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church on Sunday, is said to have had a array of right-wing political books in his home, along with brass knuckles, empty shotgun shell boxes, and a handgun discovered by police who searched his home.
Police reportedly found books by O’Reilly, Hannity and Weiner in Adkisson’s home:
Knoxville Police Department Officer Steve Still requested the search warrant after interviewing Adkisson. who was subdued by several church members after firing three rounds from a 12-gauge shotgun into the congregation.
Adkisson targeted the church, Still wrote in the document obtained by WBIR-TV, Channel 10, “because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country’s hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets.”
Adkisson told Still that “he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them in to office.”
Adkisson told officers he left the house unlocked for them because “he expected to be killed during the assault.”
Inside the house, officers found “Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder” by radio talk show host Michael Savage, “Let Freedom Ring” by talk show host Sean Hannity, and “The O’Reilly Factor,” by television talk show host Bill O’Reilly.
The shotgun-wielding suspect in Sunday’s mass shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church was motivated by a hatred of “the liberal movement,” and he planned to shoot until police shot him, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV said this morning.
Adkisson, 58, of Powell wrote a four-page letter in which he stated his “hatred of the liberal movement,” Owen said. “Liberals in general, as well as gays.”
Adkisson opened fire on the congregation while the children’s play was underway, allegedly killing two people in their sixties and injuring seven other adults.
Report: Loyal Bushie Monica Goodling Fired US Attorney on Mistaken Belief Attorney Was Gay
In April, NPR reported that Department of Justice investigators were pursuing charges that, Monica Goodling, the political hack installed by the GOP at the department who famously used an applicants’ qualification as a “loyal Bushie” as a litmus test for employment, had fired a senior official because Goodling suspected the woman was gay.
Now, according to a report from the DOJ inspector general, it appears that the rumor was true:
In the second of a series of reports on the politically charged tenure of former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, the department’s inspector general found that two former Justice aides used sexual orientation as a litmus test in deciding whom they would hire or fire.
The report describes an alleged “sexual relationship” between a career prosecutor and a U.S. attorney, who were not named. Margaret M. Chiara, the former U.S. attorney in Grand Rapids, Mich., said in an interview with The Times that she now believed she was fired because of the erroneous belief that she was having a relationship with career prosecutor Leslie Hagen.
“I could not begin to understand how I found myself sharing the misfortune of my former colleagues,” Chiara said of the eight other U.S. attorneys who were fired. “Now I understand.”
Justice officials said after her firing that Chiara was let go because of mismanagement and because she had caused morale in her office to sink. Chiara said Monday she believed those concerns were raised by the same people who spread rumors about her and Hagen.
“I guess now I am persuaded with deep regret that this is what was the basis,” she added. “There is nothing else.”
The investigators found that Hagen lost a coveted assignment in Washington after rumors of the supposed relationship reached Gonzales aide Monica M. Goodling.
And:
Monday’s report also said that Goodling used an Internet search that included the words “gay” and “homosexual” to screen candidates and their backgrounds.
Investigators found that Goodling used the same search parameters as Jan Williams, who served as White House liaison before Goodling. The report said that Williams had used the string in late 2005 and early 2006 to research candidates for positions on a national advisory commission on violence against women.
Goodling, a graduate of a college operated by televangelist Pat Robertson, was also found to have nixed the hiring of a terrorism expert because his wife was a Democrat.
Draft-Dodger Cheney’s Security Requirements Too Much for Disabled Vets Convention
During the Vietnam war, Dick Cheney applied for and received no less than five deferments from the draft. Decades later he told a reporter that he had “other priorities” that outweighed going to Vietnam. So because Dick Cheney sat out the war, another young man went in his place, and that soldier may have been among the 58,000 who died or the 300,000 who were permanently disabled in Vietnam.
During his Senate confirmation hearings as defense secretary in 1989, Cheney falsely claimed under oath, “I would have obviously been happy to serve had I been called.”
This is an interesting historical footnote today in light of news that the Disabled Veterans of American, better known as the DAV, has rescinded its invitation to Cheney to speak at their convention next month because his security requirements would have caused extreme physical strain on DAV members.
Cheney would have required the predominantly elderly veterans, many of whom lost limbs in battle, to assemble in the meeting hall at 6:30 a.m., after which the doors would be closed and no one could leave the room, even to go to the restroom, until after Cheney’s speech. Since Cheney was scheduled to begin his remarks at 8:30 a.m., and probably would have spoken for the better part of an hour, the vets would have been trapped in the room for nearly three hours.
“It was a huge imposition on our delegates,” added David Autry, [a] Disabled American Veterans official.
Autry said vets would’ve had to get up “at Oh-dark-30 and try to get breakfast and showered and get their prosthetics on.”
Once inside, they “could not leave the meeting room, and the bathrooms are outside,” he said.
A Cheney aide denied that it was his security that caused the rift:
Spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said the two-hour rule is “a recommendation, not a requirement,” and “we always work to make sure the bathrooms are within the security perimeters.”
“The vice president would never let us do anything that didn’t help facilitate the needs of our veterans,” Mitchell added.
Another interesting note about Cheney’s draft dodging is that he apparently lied about it during the Senate hearings on his nomination as defense secretary in the Bush I administration. When asked about his deferments, Cheney falsely asserted under oath that he “would have obviously been happy to serve had I been called.” He was called — five times — and each time he came up with a way to escape service.
