Senator John Ensign (R-NV), an ardent defender of the sanctity of marriage against the radical gay onslaught who recently admitted an extramarital affair with a campaign staffer, is now confirming through his attorney that his parents "paid [his former staffer, her husband, and their two children a total of] $96,000 after the 51-year-old senator told his Mom and Dad about the affair."
In April 2008, Senator John Ensign's parents each made gifts to Doug Hampton, Cindy Hampton, and two of their children in the form of a check totaling $96,000. Each gift was limited to $12,000. The payments were made as gifts, accepted as gifts and complied with tax rules governing gifts.Zach quips: "Here at TPM, we frequently ask our parents to pay off the families of the people we sleep with, so this seems pretty standard." Oh, totally.
After the Senator told his parents about the affair, his parents decided to make the gifts out of concern for the well-being of long-time family friends during a difficult time. The gifts are consistent with a pattern of generosity by the Ensign family to the Hamptons and others.
None of the gifts came from campaign or official funds nor were they related to any campaign or official duties. Senator Ensign has complied with all applicable laws and Senate ethics rules.
Paul Coggins
Fish & Richardson P.C.
Counsel for Senator John Ensign
Dumbass of the Day (emphasis mine):
Last month President Obama issued an executive order granting some benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. Now there's a push on Capitol Hill to give partners of gay federal workers the same employment benefits as spouses of heterosexual ones.Effectively, Chaffetz's argument is: We can't give same-sex couples something opposite-sex couples don't have, just because opposite-sex couples have something same-sex couples don't have! It wouldn't be fair. Idiot.
Bill sponsors say about 30,000 federal workers would benefit. During a hearing on the legislation, Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz stirred remarks by posing this question.
"Doesn't it discriminate in terms by giving same-sex couples greater federal benefits than opposite sex couples who may not be married?" he asked.
Virginia Democrat Gerry Connolly said he found the question to be odd.
"The screaming contradiction of that question is that marriage is available to people in that situation and it is not in all but a handful of states to those of same-sex partnerships so that's why you have to look at other ways of trying to address the issue," he said.
The thing is, he would have a point, if he were arguing from a womanist/feminist, progressive, and/or religious freedom perspective that straight people shouldn't have to get married to get benefits. It's a deeply antifeminist requirement, given that it is disproportionately women who are likely to be underemployed in positions lacking benefits or willingly unemployed to stay at home for child-rearing, and it is plainly discriminatory against people who choose not to be married.
The best solution is thus a comprehensive one: Give same-sex couples exactly the same marriage rights as opposite-sex couples, and then give every person the right to share benefits with a partner, married or not. Done and dusted.
But, until that happens, Chaffetz just needs to STFU about the "discrimination" of giving same-sex couples partner benefits, as if it's some kind of grand scam. I'm quite certain they'd happily choose full equality over some jury-rigged attempt at benefits parity. That it isn't being offered them isn't a reason to deny them even this sad substitute.
[H/T to Shaker Em_and_Ink.]
Ah, predictability.
Malia Obama wore a couple of shirts with peace signs on them during her recent trip to Europe. Needless to say, wingnuts everywhere are up in arms because... well... I dunno. Peace is bad, maybe?
Let's go to the source, and check out what one of the wingblogs has to say:
My question is, did mommy and daddy influence Malia or is Malia helping daddy make important national security decisions? My question for all of y'all is do you still doubt the radical views of your President in Training Pants?That's not really helpful is it? But as to the questions, I'd say, yes, Malia's parents do, indeed, influence her. I don't know from experience, but it is my understanding that that is part of raising a child. As for whether Malia is making policy decisions, that is, clearly, just a stupid fucking assertation.
And in what Orwellian dystopian view of the world is peace considered a "radical view"?
Also, "President in Training Pants"?
Maybe the author can clear up my confusion.
Malia has only been around Barack for 11 years--yes, that is how old she is--which is hard to believe looking at these pictures, and yet we are expected to believe that people like Jeremiah Wright, whom Barack knew for 20 years, had no effect on his thinking.Okay, that's even less helpful.
Seriously, what the fuck is being said here? Malia is eleven (but doesn't look it, whatever the fuck that means) and is influencing the president because he was influenced by Jeremiah Wright to raise his daughters to be little socialist peaceniks? I'm really, really confused here.
Someone please explain this "outrage" to me.
So there's this story on CNN about a small town in Georgia whose economic prospects were seriously grim until Kia announced it was going to open a plant there. Good news indeed. Or, at least it seems to be; I don't know Kia's reputation as an employer, but the people of West Point, Georgia seem pretty excited, anyway.
Someone was so happy, they put up a sign of gratitude on the side of the road:
[Text: Thank You Jesus for Bringing Kia to Our Town!]
Iain, who sent the story to me, comments: "Couldn't that sign also read 'Thanks, Jesus, for fucking over every other poor town in the whole wide world!'? I never understand this shit."
Nor do I. Like, I don't understand why the best way to show your appreciation to someone for helping you out is to disappear the agency of their decision and give the credit to Jesus, either.
Wevs.
This has been another episode of "Zuh?" from your resident damn, dirty, hell-destined atheists.
Fed Appeals Court: No Conscience Clause for Plan B
| posted by Melissa McEwan | Thursday, July 09, 2009Unfortunately, this won't be the end of this story, which began when family-owned Ralph's Thriftway and two pharmacists employed by other pharmacies sued Washington state over its requirement that all state pharmacies stock and dispense Plan B, which the plaintiffs assert they're prohibited from doing because of their "Christian beliefs… They said that the new regulations would force them to choose between keeping their jobs and heeding their religious objections to a medication they regard as a form of abortion" (wrongly so, btw).
Pharmacists are obliged to dispense the Plan B pill, even if they are personally opposed to the "morning after" contraceptive on religious grounds, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.Lest you think the 9th Circuit is staffed by zany socialists, the three judges were comprised of one liberal Clinton appointee and two conservatives appointed by George W. Bush—all three of whom nonetheless agreed that freedom of religion "does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability."
In a case that could affect policy across the western U.S., a supermarket pharmacy owner in Olympia, Wash., failed in a bid to block 2007 regulations that required all Washington pharmacies to stock and dispense the pills.
…[A temporary injunction from the U.S. District Court in Seattle pending trial on the constitutionality of the regulations] prevented state officials from penalizing pharmacists who refused to dispense Plan B as long as they referred consumers to a nearby pharmacy where it was available.
On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the injunction, saying the district court was wrong in issuing it based on an erroneous finding that the rules violated the free exercise of religion clause of the U.S. Constitution.
…Although the courts have yet to pronounce judgment on other aspects of the lawsuit, the unanimous ruling on the free-exercise clause could portend further judgments, as the case moves forward, that a patient's right to timely medication supersedes a pharmacist's personal convictions.
"Any refusal to dispense -- regardless of whether it is motivated by religion, morals, conscience, ethics, discriminatory prejudices, or personal distaste for a patient -- violates the rules," the panel said.And seeking permission to break those rules, to get on-the-job exemptions from primary duties based on religious beliefs, is, as I've said before, nothing less than the "special rights" conservatives are incessantly accusing the LGBTQI community, women, and/or people of color of seeking, despite the reality that members of those groups just want baseline equality. Christians who want to use their individualistic interpretation of the Bible to rewrite their job descriptions want an inequality that caters to their personal whims. Privilege me.
I'm extremely relieved that the 9th Circuit said: No.
[Trigger warning.]
Eight-year Houston Fire Department veteran Paula Keyes, left, and nine-year veteran Jane Draycott, right, were targeted this week by a hate campaign that would be cruel irrespective of its perpetrators, but is made even worse by the fact that it's their fellow firefighters, in whose hands they have to put their lives on the job, who orchestrated the harassment.
In their first comments about harassment that culminated in racist and sexist epithets scrawled across a door at Fire Station 54 at Bush Intercontinental Airport, Jane Draycott and Paula Keyes said they're devastated by the attacks and at a loss to understand them.In a video of their public statements, Draycott heartbreakingly reveals that someone had scrawled on her deceased daughter's face the word "dead" and on her face the word "die." The n-word was used against Keyes in the graffiti, which also called the women bitches. They are the only two women among 50 men assigned to Station 54 in Houston.
"It's demented," said Draycott, a 16-year veteran of Texas fire departments who came to work Tuesday to find not just the graffiti but the mutilation of a treasured photo of her and her teenage daughter who was killed in a 2006 car crash. "Someone is absolutely sick to do this. It's got to stop."
Keyes, who has been at Station 54 only three months, quite understandably wants to be transferred: "I'm risking my life to save other lives. I have to worry about my co-workers writing 'die' on my family's photos. I worked too hard to get where I am ... for them to drag me back down." She works a job where she has to put her life in the hands of quite possibly the same people sending her death threats; there's no way anyone could ever feel totally safe knowing that. "I never thought I'd have to be afraid of my own co-workers. I had their backs. I thought they had mine."
Draycott has been at Station 54 for two years and has made "frequent complaints about the abuse, but it never changed."
Draycott described the litany of incidents over the past two years: her shower’s cold water being disconnected so she was subsequently scalded; vandalism in the women's restroom that included urination on the toilet seats, sink and walls and snipping of wires to the speaker that alerts firefighters to emergency calls; and a colleague saying he didn't want to sit with "the riffraff" when declining to sit at her table.Also a totally understandable position. She's invested a lot of time and energy already in this fight and wants to see it through. If that's going to be possible, that is.
She also described superiors forcing her to take and score highly on exams after being off work for extended periods while her male coworkers who were off longer did not have to demonstrate such re-entry skills.
…Draycott said she feels like "a rubber band that's been wound too tight" because of the stress the past two years. But she also said she's intent on returning to her job at Station 54. "I'm not going to let them run me out of my station," vowed Draycott, the holder of a black belt in karate. "They're not going to succeed."
Right now, Keyes and Draycott are "not working while the matter is being investigated and are having to use vacation time," according to their attorney, who is working to get them paid leave. It's completely absurd they aren't on paid leave already; if he can't secure it, their vacation time will eventually run out and they'll be on unpaid leave or forced to go back on the job without their harassers having been identified.
Their targeting has left the Fire Department in turmoil, with Chief Phil Boriskie expressing fury at the unknown perpetrators.I find it rather spectacularly amazing that he's suddenly "mad as hell," given Draycott's contention she's been complaining about this shit for two years. Unless, of course, he's just "mad as hell" at the perpetrators for escalating the harassment to something that he couldn't ignore.
"You know me as being a calm and collected individual in the face of adversity," the chief said earlier Wednesday. "I'm having difficulty today because I'm mad, mad as hell."
I also find it amazing—and frightening and profoundly contemptible—that there is not a single man among 50 who is willing to side with Keyes and Draycott and provide information about who's terrorizing them.
I am reminded, painfully so, of Australian ambulance officer Christine Hodder, who committed suicide after intensive bullying at her job by her all-male coworkers to which management turned a blind eye for six years, and in that time had only one male colleague come to her aid. He was subsequently bullied as well.
I cannot believe there is not a single man among Keyes' and Draycott's coworkers who will not come forward in their defense, in solidarity with women who risk their lives to save others'. Despicable.
Silence, silence, and more silence:
"I mean, let's be real. I didn't come in with a blind eye to where I was working. I am at a place where it is a majority of white males," said veteran female firefighter Vantrece Williams.Imagine the level of harassment, and the endemic silencing of complaints, and the criminal complacency of management, where sexual assault isn't a scandal and its victims have to think: "Is this a battle I want to pick?" when considering whether to report it.
Williams says she's been harassed, but nothing was ever done about it. Mainly because she says many firefighters won't speak out when they witness something bad taking place.
…11 News heard allegations of women firefighters being groped by their male co-workers, and an allegation of a male firefighter masturbating over a female co-worker while she was trying to sleep in her bed.
"You see it. It gets to the point, because nothing ever happens, that you have to pick your battles," said Williams.
Now that it's reached a fevered pitch too pointed to ignore, City Council members are getting involved, with Councilperson Jarvis Johnson noting that "outside investigators may be warranted" (gee, ya think?) and calling for "a citywide zero-tolerance policy on racism." Maybe while he's at it, he could call for a citywide zero-tolerance policy on sexism, too. A black woman who's groped or—for fuck's sake—masturbated on isn't just getting targeted in that way just because she's black.
With institutional problems this entrenched, it's going to take a hell of a lot of work to change the fundamental culture of the Houston fire brigade—but naming the problems, plural, for what they are, is a good start. In fact, it's the only start, if the city really wants to effect a material change.
Despite her determination to return to the station, Draycott admitted that the abuse has taken its toll.Blub.
"I used to be so proud to be a Houston firefighter," she said. "I used to have a firefighter decal on my car. I don't anymore."
[H/T to Shaker Betsy.]
"Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that had changed their abortion laws before Roe [to make abortion legal] are not going to change back. So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don't know why this hasn't been said more often."—Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a fantastic interview I highly recommend, which starts with this blub-worthy introduction: "In late February, three weeks after she had an operation for a recurrence of cancer, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg went to Barack Obama's first address to Congress. Given the circumstances, it wasn't an event anyone expected her to attend. She went, she said, because she wanted the country to see that there was a woman on the Supreme Court." And it only gets better from there.
Thank you to Shaker The Bald Soprano for sending it along.
And given that this is based on testimony given by CIA Director Leon Panetta, I'm not sure why the New York Times offers as its headline, "Democrats Say C.I.A. Deceived Congress for Years," which sounds as if there's some game of "they-said, they-said" being played. There isn't. If the Times wants to indicate that the Democrats are publicly reporting what the GOP won't, something like "Democrats Reveal" would be more appropriate. Anyway…
The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, has told the House Intelligence Committee in closed-door testimony that the C.I.A. concealed "significant actions" from Congress from 2001 until late last month, seven Democratic committee members said.Spencer Ackerman's got the aforementioned letter here, with only Democratic signatories. It's understandable that the Dems would have an extra investment in this issue, given the accusations made against Speaker Pelosi, but Steve asks the obvious question: "[W]hy is it that [Intelligence] committee Democrats are the only ones expressing concern?"
In a June 26 letter to Mr. Panetta discussing his testimony, Democrats said that the agency had "misled members" of Congress for eight years about the classified matters, which the letter did not disclose. "This is similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods," said the letter, made public late Wednesday by Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, one of the signers.
In an interview, Mr. Holt declined to reveal the nature of the C.I.A.'s alleged deceptions,. But he said, "We wouldn't be doing this over a trivial matter."
It's tempting to think Republicans on the Intelligence Committee might be bothered by eight years of deception.As usual, politics is more important to the GOP than integrity—or anything else, really, including decency, rule of law, national security, and the safety of our troops, given that Sam Stein reports the "significant actions" about which the CIA lied "concern Bush administration interrogation policies."
Except, they're not. They seem to realize that Dems are right about this, but can't be too critical because it would undermine their baseless smear against Speaker Pelosi. Congressional Republicans, in other words, refuse to let facts get in the way of a good lie.
Maha points out that the rightwing blogosphere is instead all a-flutter about the White House spelling the president's name wrong. Good times.
I know, with a title like that, you're probably thinking, "Oh, here comes another anti-war screed."
Well, no. In this case, I'm speaking about letting Canadian citizens return home where they belong. And about it not making a damn bit of difference to that right of Canadian citizenship (not privilege - RIGHT!) whether the citizen was born in Montreal, Manchester or Mogadishu. An immigrant citizen is a citizen. Period.
Not only do we (for I, too, am an immigrant to this country - though in my case, since I come from one of the "good" countries, I'm considered an expat, not an immigrant - classism and racism combine in this nasty little meme) take the same oath, it occurs to me that we take an oath that native-born Canadians don't.
Ms. Suaad Hagi Mohamud and I swore the same oath, this one (well, okay, I affirmed mine, because I'm an atheist and serious about it, but same effect under the law):
I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfill my duties as a Canadian citizen.Anyone think I'm shooting wildly in the dark when I suggest that most of those making such pungent, racist and xenophobic criticism of this Canadian mother haven't taken a similar oath or affirmation, because they were almost certainly born here? Me either.
It's not supposed to matter: a citizen is a citizen is a citizen. We have the same rights, the same responsibilities, the same loyalty. To suggest otherwise, based solely on the fact that someone was born in Somalia instead of the UK is, plainly, racism.
The Canadian government needs to get its collective thumb out of its collective Harper and bring this Canadian home, where she belongs, with her Canadian child. Our lads aren't dying in Afghanistan to defend this kind of racist bullshit.
Canadian Shakers are urged to contact their Members of Parliament to make it clear that Canada doesn't treat its citizens this shabbily.
Mustang Bobby
What the hell is up with that hair? What the hell is with that wispy little 'stache?? What the hell are you frowning about??? What the hell????
[See also: Deeky, Liss, evilsciencechick, katecontinued, ClumsyKisses, Mistress Sparkletoes, Liiiz, Reedme, and Mama Shakes.]
Who played your favorite film deity? Morgan Freeman as God in the Bruce and Evan Almighties? Willem Dafoe in The Last Temptation of Christ? Alanis Morissette as God in Dogma? Ursula Andress as Aphrodite in Clash of the Titans?
Interpreting the question literally, I suppose I'd cast my vote for George Burns in the Oh God trilogy, which I thought was hilarious when I was a kid (though I suppose I might be horrified if I watched them now). Interpreting it figuratively, I've got to go with Vincent D'Onofrio as Thor in Adventures in Babysitting.
The memo about post-racial America didn't get to The Valley Swim Club in northeast Philadelphia.
The Creative Steps Day Camp paid more than $1900 to The Valley Swim Club. The Valley Swim Club is a private club that advertises open membership. But the campers' first visit to the pool suggested otherwise.The president of the club issued a statement that didn't help matters much.
"When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool," Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. "The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately."
The next day the club told the camp director that the camp's membership was being suspended and their money would be refunded.
"There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club," John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club said in a statement.Paging Dr. Freud...
I'm pretty sure that there are a few lawyers among the membership of The Valley Swim Club. That's good, because they're going to need one.
Cross-posted.
"[Rep. Steve King (R-IA)]'s lone vote against acknowledging the role slaves played in the construction of the United States Capitol is a slap in the face to the very sacrifices and contributions African Americans made to our nation. This is the latest in a long line of erratic behavior from King that has made him an embarrassment to Iowans and to the Republican Party."—DCCC national press secretary Ryan Rudominer, on King's latest foray into the totally fucking absurd, which he ludicrously tried to justify by claiming he was somehow defending "America's Christian heritage" (which he natch also referred to as "our Judeo-Christian heritage").
Wonkette gets 1,000 points for the best headline on King's idiocy: "Lone Fartsack Votes Against Resolution to Thank Slaves for Building the Capitol."
"Look into my eyes...you are getting sleepy...
but not so sleepy that you can't scratch my head!"
(That image is not Photoshopped, btw. The flash just reflected really weirdly in her lovely green eyes.)
Feel the Homomentum!Shaker Daphne emails and Shaker Scott Madin leaves in comments the news that Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has filed a lawsuit in federal court suing the federal government on the basis that the "Defense of Marriage Act interferes with the right of Massachusetts to define and regulate marriage as it sees fit."
I have written probably two dozen times over the last five years about how this very conflict was inevitable, given both parties' "states' rights" punt on same-sex marriage. There are too many federal rights conferred by marriage, and access to benefits contingent on marriage, for a state-by-state hodgepodge of marriage statuses to be built while the federal government stays out of it.
I can't say I'm remotely disappointed to find we may well be finally on the brink of what is almost certainly the final battle in same-sex marriage equality.
[Strong trigger warning.]
Some rape jokes are just so hilarious, you have to have them permanently inked onto your body.
From Buzzfeed's collection of 16 Bad Michael Jackson Tattoos.
I can't begin to relate to the sort of thinking that finds the possibility of Michael Jackson having been a pedophile some kind of grand joke—and this tat is certainly played for a joke; note that it's Macaulay Culkin making his comedic Home Alone face who's cast as the victim here. I cannot wrap my head around the ability, nor the evident urge, to find humor in sexual assault.
I have already heard the joke that the results of Michael Jackson's autopsy are in and have shown he died of food poisoning—from "eating an eight-year-old wiener."
The person who told me this joke laughed, as did the other person to whom it was told. I said, "Really? A rape joke?"
The teller of the joke was embarrassed and apologetic and said by way of explanation, "I didn't even think about that aspect of it."
Thing is, there is no other aspect.
We are just indoctrinated to find funny the idea of a man raping a child, as long as it's presented with a clever play on words or a silly image. Our culture is so thick with it, there are people who will put this joke on their flesh, forever, and others who will pass along the image of it without a modicum of alarm.
[Rape is Hilarious: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-One, Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, Twenty-Four, Twenty-Five, Twenty-Six, Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-Nine, Thirty, Thirty-One, Thirty-Two.]
...if Jeb Bush is really as big an asshole as his brother, he is. They are assholes in different ways, but both assholes all the same.
