Thursday Open Thread
Welcome to the Thursday edition of your semi-daily open thread. Use this thread to talk about whatever’s on your mind. Remember, nothing is off-topic!
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) is one of our most wingnutty members of Congress. He has a brilliant idea on how to end anti-LGBT discrimination:
But King said he knows how to resolve the problem of workplace discrimination without passing new legal protections.
King then told a story about his days in the Iowa Senate, when gay activists came to lobby a fellow Republican lawmaker, state Sen. Jerry Behn of Boone, for protected status for sexual orientation and gender identity.
He said, “Let me ask you a question. Am I heterosexual or homosexual?” And they looked him up and down — and actually they should have known — but they said “We don’t know.” And he said “Exactly my point. If you don’t project it, if you don’t advertise it, how would anyone know to discriminate against you?” And that’s at the basis of this.
I love this part: Am I heterosexual or homosexual?” And they looked him up and down — and actually they should have known — but they said “We don’t know.” We should simultaneously know and not know King’s sexual orientation just by looking at him. I suppose King could be suggesting that the following things be outlawed at work instead: the wearing of wedding rings, pictures of your family at your desk and watercooler talk about your family.
“I am immediately resigning my membership in NARTH to allow myself the time necessary to fight the false media reports that have been made against me,” he said in a statement. “With the assistance of a defamation attorney, I will fight these false reports because I have not engaged in any homosexual behavior whatsoever. I am not gay and never have been.”
Sure, because hiring male escorts to carry luggage and give nude massages to your genitals is normal heterosexual behavior. We should be ashamed of ourselves for thinking otherwise.
Tags: Open Thread
How is Obomba’s $7 billion/month war in Afghanistan going?
Torture? Yep.
Secret Prisons? Yep.
Executing Prisoners? Yep.
Sucking up to Karzai? Yep.
Sounds like war crimes to me. Where are the calls for impeachment?
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0512/hersh-battlefield-executions-continue-obama/
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0513/pentagon-expanding-guantanamolike-prison-afghanistan/
http://www.juancole.com/2010/05/karzai-defeats-obama-2-1.html
I have a comment in moderation as opposed to a moderate comment.
Americans for Financial Reform (AFR, http://www.ourfinancialsecurity.org) is working on getting good financial reform through Congress. One recent stumbling block is our own wonderful Senator Tom Carper, who has an amendment to strip our state attorneys general of the ability to rein in financial institutions who are harming our state’s citizens.
At 4:24 PM today, WDEL (Allan Loudell) will be interviewing Lauren Saunders, managing attorney of the National Consumer Law Center, about the Carper Amendment #3949. Saunders is great. Tell your friends and neighbors to tune in.
Keep making those calls to our senators, let them hear from you.
Lauren K. Saunders
Managing Attorney
National Consumer Law Center
Washington, DC 20036
A1, i followed your links.. cause ya know i’ve recently been arguing for fairness and open mindedness and all that BS, and the first one was HEARSAY!. .. “…Journalists say”
No actual reporting, just tabloid style online rag.
heck of a job, A1
crazy wingnuts 2001 = A1 probably all the time. (like how i stole your bumpersticker?)
Via the Huffington Post, Lewis Black finally nails the true essence of Glenn Beck. Bill Colley is no different than Beck, except he has a much smaller listening audience.
I guess our arrival is now official. He hates us, too.
Congratulations, Smitty! You guys have arrived. 👿
Evil emoticon? How about twisted 😈 ? It just looks better.
Alas, you are the emoticon king.
a. price,
A1’s 1st link was to a speech by seymour hersch.
Who ya gonna believe?
Obomba, who lied when said he’ll filibuster the telecom immunity bill (and didn’t) …..or Sy Hersch, who exposed the truth about the My Lai massacre ?
yeah, let’s make our judgments based on “what some guy said”
a.price dismisses New Yorker journalist and former NYT reporter Seymour Hersh, the reporter who broke the story of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the torture of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, as a “tabloid style online rag” journalist.
No wonder why you’re so easy to dismiss.
Torture 2010 = Torture 2005
It’s now been about 52 hours since Beau went to the hospital, and it’s becoming clearer that we are going to be kept in the dark. This from WDEL’s web site:
— Hallie Biden sent the message to the Delaware attorney general’s campaign supporters Thursday morning. “Thank you so much for your prayers and well-wishes over the last couple of days. As you all know by now, we made it!” She said Biden, the vice president’s eldest son, will remain in the hospital for a little while but is ready to get back home.–
Still think we’re getting no details because the doctors aren’t sure yet, or some other such BS excuse?
A1: While I support your call for impeachment, it must be coupled with the opening of an investigation into the Bush Administration’s march to invasion. If we’re going to punish presidents for breaking the law, as we should, I’d rather not do it selectively.
Of course, all this presupposes a Congress that finds these actions reprehensible. There is, sadly, no sign of that.
Generally speaking, I find that following links to blog flame fests don’t make my understanding of the issues, or even the players, any clearer. Today is no exception. 😀
In happier news, I’m really enjoying nemski’s report on the nasatweetup, even while horribly envious of his attendance there.
He had lots of wonderful PROOF in the previous cases. Not that wingnuts like you need proof. anything to support the narrative. that is all wingnuts need.
and geezer… you are on the “impeach obama because we didn’t get our left wing utopia” too?
Sesame street 1992 = Barney the dinosaur 2001
It is becoming clearer now why Obomba, Holder, and the House Dems have so far refused to investigate or prosecute the crimes of the previous administration or this one. Above-the-law criminal behavior has now become normal and acceptable.
The statement that “we are a nation ruled by laws not men” is now “inoperative” ( to use the Nixonion phrase).
Price: No. I’m on the “Impeach presidents who use ‘war powers’ in this not-a-war on terror in order to wage aggressive war and justify torture” bandwagon. Sorry. Sauce for goose = sauce for gander. Or were you against impeaching Bush as well?
How does a world in which we don’t torture people = left-wing utopia?
Well, since an impeached Bush would have resulted in a President Cheney, i was very against bush leaving before the end of his term
So it’s not principle you’re concerned with, but political advantage. Thanks for clarifying that.
In the gay conservative hypocrite context, “I am not gay” means “I’m a pitcher, not a catcher.”
oh c’mon as if Cheney with actual presidential powers isnt frightening enough to defect to Antarctica.
thumbtacks 2309 = Torah verses 5786
It’s the Larry Craig rule: If you have to call a press conference to announce “I’m not gay” – you’re gay.
How can we give this woman more power to get things done?
I wish Elizabeth Warren had been nominated for SCOTUS.
“oh c’mon as if Cheney with actual presidential powers isnt frightening enough to defect to Antarctica.”
Deflect all you want. As noted, your interest is political, to the point where all you see is what you want to. My initial comment on this noted both that I would want Bush investigated too, as well as the political reality that neither one will happen. All you chose to see was criticism of Obama.
Why should anyone take your defense of him seriously? Remember, I called out A1 some days ago not for liberal leanings but for blaming Obama for something he had no control over (offshore drilling). I am applying what I try to make an objective standard. Can you say the same?
I wish Elizabeth Warren had been nominated for SCOTUS.
*
I’d prefer they’d make her a replacement for Geithner, Bernanke or Summers.
when are people going to start bashing Obama for the way his admin handles the press
a.price, keep telling yourself that your Emperor Obomba’s clothes are lovely today and ridiculing the people who see that he is naked.
Cheney would have been found equally complicit in the crimes as Bush, if not more complicit, and would have been impeached along with him, if there were any justice.
As far as your silly call for “proof,” Hersh is one who actually practices good journalism, such as getting independent verification from a second source. He has something known as “credibility,” a quality that Obomba and you lack. Also, the Red Cross has verified the existence of the “black” prison in Bagram.
Torture 2010 = Torture 2005
so cute.
Hersch is not the only source for the Bagram black site. The BBC is actually ahead of him on that story. Still no attempt at a substantive response from Obama supporters…
I am waiting for cassandra_m to blog about it.
A new poll shows Sestak up by 9 in the PA-Sen primary.
The overall poll average has the two tied. This is going to be an interesting race. In fact, Tuesday has a lot of interesting primaries – Lincoln vs. Halter (AR-Sen), Paul vs. Grayson (KY-Sen R), Conway vs. Mongiardo (KY-Sen D) and Specter vs. Sestak (PA-Sen).
Commenting on the DL poll. the new Specter ads featuring BHO are strong. I wonder why he kept them in the can so long.
This story about KWS is hilarious … actually, just the headline, because I didn’t make it much farther … I got as far as “Delaware insurance watchdog” and then started laughing hysterically.
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100513/BUSINESS/5130330
“U.S. Said to Allow Drilling Without Needed Permits”
“The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, is partly responsible for protecting endangered species and marine mammals. It has said on repeated occasions that drilling in the gulf affects these animals, but the minerals agency since January 2009 has approved at least three huge lease sales, 103 seismic blasting projects and 346 drilling plans. Agency records also show that permission for those projects and plans was granted without getting the permits required under federal law.”
Obomba is still dancing to the tune of his corporate masters, but let’s discuss whether or not it is appropriate to call Palin’s prop baby names.
Obomba has scheduled to be angry about the oil gusher today. Then it will be back to more fun stuff like granting illegal drilling permits.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/05/president-obama-angry-and-frustrated-with-bp-halliburton—-and-interior-department-does-not-escape-notice-either.html