The BP “Cleanup”

Apparently, Mac McClelland over at Mother Jones has a mole inside BP’s cleanup operation, and what he has to say about BP’s efforts down there is pretty grim and disturbing. Some highlights:

- the workers on Elmer’s Island don’t wear respirators because BP and OSHA have deemed them unnecessary
- the only type of air-monitoring equipment on the island are multigas meters that are meant for indoor use and only measure limited types of pollutants
- workers are not being regularly paid, as contractors keep losing their paychecks
- workers/contractors are only cleaning up on about 8 miles of beach, because since contractors are getting paid anyway, why would they give a fk about actually making a serious effort?
- and, my favorite, prostitutes have been brought in, and only cost $200 each!

You can read all the details here: [Mother Jones]

The World’s True Oil Spill Calamity

WHILE YOU WERE IGNORING: As we pontificate and hem and haw about the Gulf of Mexico oil “disaster”, there is a recurring, ongoing, and seemingly never-ending oil disaster in Nigeria that no one gives two shits about. Food sources and livelihoods are being quietly destroyed, but it’s Africa so who cares. Read this: [New York Times]

Of Course We Care About The People

Hey! Good news for the roughly 900,000 unemployed and millions who rely on Medicare and Medicaid benefits out there. Today, the Senate voted against the $140 billion provision that would keep up Medicare payments to doctors, provide states money for Medicaid, and extend unemployment insurance. They couldn’t justify the cost as an “emergency” worthy enough to trump deficit concerns, and stuff. Because lowering the deficit is like, totally feasible, y’all! [Washington Independent]

HIV-Prevention Female Birth Control In First Field Test

Excellent news. For the first time, trials are beginning for a type of birth control that would allow women to prevent the sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS, without the need for their partner’s knowledge or consent - a terribly important caveat for far too many women in awful situations all over the world. The new birth control is a vaginal ring containing an antiretroviral drug (ARV), and is indiscreet, semi-permanent, and durable. The ring functions as existing birth control rings, hormonally preventing pregnancy. However, the added ARVs “could one day be used to prevent HIV transmission during sex,” according to the press release by the International Partnership for Microbicide. [Foreign Policy Blog]

Why Hasn’t Barack Obama Dived To The Sea Floor To Tie BP’s Leaking Pipes Into A Knot, To Save The Ducks?

HE’S THE PRESIDENT, IT’S HIS JOB!!!! “A month and a half after the spill began, 69 percent in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll rate the federal response negatively. That compares with a 62 negative rating for the response to Katrina two weeks after the August 2005 hurricane.” Why hasn’t Barack Obama appeared in front of his trembling nation, and demanded that BP stop making the oil leak. I thought he was The One. Why hasn’t he been all leader-y, with the leadership? And where is FEMA?!? Why is Barack HUSSEIN Obama such a fagggg? [ABC News]

UPDATE: Not like there was any doubt, but the Texas State Board of Education approved the changes to the social studies and history curriculum we listed here last week. Who needs facts when there’s ideology? [MSNBC]

Texas To Re-Write School Curriculum With Whitewashed Fantasies Of Guns, Dungarees, And The Baby Jeebus

Remember when America, and specifically, the United States, was mentioned by name, in the Bible, as the “chosen” nation? Yes you do, you liar. It was right there, in the Bible. Like, on page 8! Pfft. Whatever. It’ll be in the Texas school books sometime soon anyway, as proof.

Cynthia Dunbar, Texas lawyer, wingnut, and school board member, has led a like-minded legion of miserable pieces of shit on said school board, in an effort to change the school curriculum from one she says is a compendium of liberal mumbo-jumbo. We’ve seen this coming with the Texas school board for months now, but some of these proposed changes are just beyond the pale. Let’s just blockquote the hell out of this Guardian UK article, shall we:

The board is to vote on a sweeping purge of alleged liberal bias in Texas school textbooks in favour of what Dunbar says really matters: a belief in America as a nation chosen by God as a beacon to the world, and free enterprise as the cornerstone of liberty and democracy.

“We are fighting for our children’s education and our nation’s future,” Dunbar said. “In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections.”

Those corrections have prompted a blizzard of accusations of rewriting history and indoctrinating children by promoting rightwing views on religion, economics and guns while diminishing the science of evolution, the civil rights movement and the horrors of slavery.

Several changes include sidelining Thomas Jefferson, who favoured separation of church and state, while introducing a new focus on the “significant contributions” of pro-slavery Confederate leaders during the civil war.

The new curriculum asserts that “the right to keep and bear arms” is an important element of a democratic society. Study of Sir Isaac Newton is dropped in favour of examining scientific advances through military technology.

There is also a suggestion that the anti-communist witch-hunt by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s may have been justified.

The education board has dropped references to the slave trade in favour of calling it the more innocuous “Atlantic triangular trade”, and recasts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as driven by Islamic fundamentalism.

…

Dunbar was elected to the state education board on the back of a campaign in which she argued for the teaching of creationism – euphemistically known as intelligent design – in science classes.
Two years ago, she published a book, One Nation Under God, in which she argued that the United States was ultimately governed by the scriptures.

“The only accurate method of ascertaining the intent of the founding fathers at the time of our government’s inception comes from a biblical worldview,” she wrote. “We as a nation were intended by God to be a light set on a hill to serve as a beacon of hope and Christian charity to a lost and dying world.”

Honestly, I don’t know what I can add here. It’s just quite stunning to see these zealots running around re-writing history as they see fit, and ironic that they’re doing so while condemning other similar forms of zealotry and Zionism across the world. Fortunately, states like California are already fighting against this by proposing legislation that would disallow this practice in Texas, and others should follow suit. Anyway, just read this entire article; the whole situation is pretty despicable. [Guardian UK]

Idiot Connecticut Senate Candidate Loves To Tell Stories Of His Tour In Vietnam, Even Though He Was Never There

A MINOR DETAIL, OF COURSE: From the New York Times: “At a ceremony honoring veterans and senior citizens who sent presents to soldiers overseas, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut rose and spoke of an earlier time in his life.

“We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam,” Mr. Blumenthal said to the group gathered in Norwalk in March 2008. “And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it — Afghanistan or Iraq — we owe our military men and women unconditional support.”

There was one problem: Mr. Blumenthal, a Democrat now running for the United States Senate, never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records.”

Whoops. Blumenthal, who is (was?) the frontrunner in the Democratic primary for a Connecticut Senate seat, is widely considered to be a brilliant attorney. But we can also now confirm, that he is a fraud and a fucking dingus. And he has leathery skin. And kind of looks like Eliot Spitzer. Not good qualities. [New York Times]

Life Sentences For Imprisoned Youths

The Supreme Court is doing all kinds of stuff today, we see. Anyway, by a 5-4 vote, the court has ruled that juveniles may not be locked up for life without chance of parole if they haven’t killed anyone. If you have killed someone, however, you’re out of luck, because the Court doesn’t see any reason why you should be allowed to demonstrate that you are fit to rejoin society at a later date, because things like maturity, development, remorse, therapy, rehab, and so on and so forth are make believe and not of concern to our Constitution, mkay? There’s a moral here… don’t get caught! [New York Times]

When They Said “You” Can Keep the Insurance You Have, They Really Meant “Men”

In this week’s health care initiative fail news, the health care overhaul that Democrats fought to pass into law, and abortion opponents (unsuccessfully) fought to block, is now being employed by said anti-abortionists to limit abortion coverage by private insurers. See? This is why crazies always win – they’re clever motherfuckers.

Apparently, “an obscure part of the law allows states to restrict abortion coverage by private plans operating in new insurance markets. Capitalizing on that language, abortion foes have succeeded in passing bans that, in some cases, go beyond federal statutes. ‘We don’t consider elective abortion to be health care, so we don’t think it’s a bad thing for fewer private insurance companies to cover it,’ said Mary Harned, attorney for Americans United for Life, a national organization that wrote a model law for the states.”

Awesome. So instead of increasing access to health care and choices, the law is being used to take them away… with (surprisingly? not surprisingly?) significant success:

“Since Obama signed the legislation law March 23, Arizona and Tennessee have enacted laws restricting abortion coverage by health plans in new insurance markets, called exchanges. About 30 million people will get their coverage through exchanges, which open in 2014 to serve individuals and small businesses.

In Florida, Mississippi and Missouri, lawmakers have passed bans and sent them to their governors. Most of the states allow exceptions in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. Insurers still could offer separate policies to specifically cover abortion.

Three other states may act this year – Louisiana, Ohio and Oklahoma. Overall, there are 29 states where lawmakers or public policy groups expressed serious interest, Harned said.”

That’s more than half this country that’s moving to restrict all insurance companies from providing abortion coverage to women. And this is in addition to the elimination in abortion coverage in state insurance plans (per the federal standard in the health care bill).

You know, I’m not knocking the health care bill – people should certainly have access to health care. But why is every goddamn politician willing to pay the price with women’s rights, and women’s bodies? How is this an okay compromise? Why pass legislation that not only harms women at the federal level (by leaving abortion policy to the individual states), but is so sloppy in its language that it has a gaping fucking asshole loophole allowing individual states to restrict private coverage as well? All dictated by miserable, despicable religious groups, no less? I mean, jesus. If we wanted our choices governed by religion, why the fuck did we move into modernity and democracy to begin with? And where is the damn outrage?!? Pro-choice groups? Obama? Anyone? Bueller?!? [AP via Jezebel]

Indefinite Prison Terms For Sex Offenders

Today, the Supreme Court ruled that inmates considered “sexually dangerous” can be detained indefinitely after their prison terms are complete. So now Congress deciding on the (indefinite) detainment of sexual offenders is totally legalized. Yeah, that’s not beyond its current powers at all. Justices Thomas and Scalia were the only dissenting, reasonable humans, noting that nothing in Constitution “expressly delegates to Congress the power to enact a civil commitment regime for sexually dangerous persons, nor does any other provision in the constitution vest Congress or the other branches of the federal government with such power.”

Not that that matters, of course. [NOLA]

Mark Sanford Trying To Rekindle Sexin’ Relationship With Argentine Paramour…

…BY PUBLICLY ANNOUNCING TO REPORTERS THAT HE’S TRYING TO REKINDLE RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS ARGENTINE PARAMOUR: Gov. Sanford of South Carolina told reporters on Wednesday that he spent last weekend in Florida with his ex “side piece” trying to resuscitate their goings on. And we quote:

“As a matter of record, everybody in this room knows exactly who I was with over the weekend,” Sanford said at a news conference Wednesday. “That is no mystery to anybody, given what I said last summer. And, you know, the purpose was obviously to see if something could be restarted on that front given the rather enormous geographic gulf between us. And time will tell. I don’t know if it will or won’t.”

Sanford went on to say, not ironically, that he was confounded and dismayed by the media’s ongoing coverage of his private life. Ummmmm?? [The State]

Gay Sensation George Rekers Says He’s Not Gay

George Rekers, Rentboy.com visitor, alleged long stroke enthusiast, and board member of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), is now just a simple Rentboy.com visitor and alleged long stroke enthusiast, as he has resigned his post as a board member at NARTH. Because he’s not gay. From TPM Muckraker:

“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.”

Some would say that mustache is a little suspect, but … the moral of the story is ‘deny deny deny, and if that doesn’t work, sue’. Right? Hey, maybe he’s telling the truth. Maybe he really did hire that young man from a bondage/escort website to carry his luggage across Europe, all the while hoping to exorcise the homosexuality from of his body. But then, why did he quit his gig at the ‘We Cure Gays’ place, if the only thing he’s guilty of is living by the organizational tenets? [TPM Muckraker]

George Rekers Fancies The Long Stroke, And Who Doesn’t?!?

Getting to the bottom of things here (shut up), it seems George Rekers’ rented boy, from Rentboy.com, is divulging details of their dalliance across Europe. Speaking with the Miami New Times, “Lucien” reveals that the pair did not, in fact, have sex. Lame. Instead, Rekers spent most of the days letting “Lucien” beat him off. Ohhh second base. Nice! Here’s more:

The male escort hired by anti-gay activist George Alan Rekers has told Miami New Times the Baptist minister is a homosexual who paid him to provide body rubs once a day in the nude, during their ten-day vacation in Europe.
Rekers allegedly named his favorite maneuver the “long stroke” — a complicated caress “across his penis, thigh… and his anus over the butt cheeks,” as the escort puts it. “Rekers liked to be rubbed down there,” he says.

In his first interview since New Times broke the story Tuesday, the 20-year-old escort, who prefers to go by the name Lucien, contradicts Rekers’s contentions that he hired the escort to help carry his luggage and that he was trying to save the soul of a lost sinner.

Although Rekers does have physical ailments that make it difficult for him to haul suitcases, Lucien wasn’t hired to carry luggage on their European vacation, the escort says.

“It’s a situation where he’s going against homosexuality when he is a homosexual,” Lucien says. (When New Times called seeking comment, Rekers had turned his phone off. An email was not returned.)

Well I’m told the long stroke isn’t gayer than anything else in Europe. (Zing!) So maybe Rekers isn’t a self-loathing gay man after all. It’s possible. [Miami New Times]

George Rekers, Family Research Council Co-Founder, Likes It When Male Prostitutes Handle His Bags Across Europe

Remember when you took that vacation to Europe, and you needed help carrying your luggage, so you went online to Rentboy.com and found a gay male prostitute who helped you carry that luggage, and it was awesome, but some people took it the wrong way and were like, ‘Wait what the fuck?’ Well, the same exact thing just happened to George Rekers, co-founder of the James Dobson Family Research Council, an Christian lobby that, amongst other things, hates the bejeebers out of gay people. That is totally rare for a Christian lobby, I know!

But this whole thing can be easily explained I’m sure; I mean, it’s not like the Rentboy.com profile of “Lucien”, Rekers’ European companion, explicitly mentioned his “uncut” cock or his tight ass or something crazy like that. From the Miami New Times:

The pictures on the Rentboy.com profile show a shirtless young man with delicate features, guileless eyes, and sun-kissed, hairless skin. The profile touts his “smooth, sweet, tight ass” and “perfectly built 8 inch cock (uncut)” and explains he is “sensual,” “wild,” and “up for anything” — as long you ask first. And as long as you pay.

Oh. Hm. Well, go on:

On April 13, the “rent boy” (whom we’ll call Lucien) arrived at Miami International Airport on Iberian Airlines Flight 6123, after a ten-day, fully subsidized trip to Europe. He was soon followed out of customs by an old man with an atavistic mustache and a desperate blond comb-over, pushing an overburdened baggage cart.

That man was George Alan Rekers, of North Miami — the callboy’s client and, as it happens, one of America’s most prominent anti-gay activists. Rekers, a Baptist minister who is a leading scholar for the Christian right, left the terminal with his gay escort, looking a bit discomfited when a picture of the two was snapped with a hot-pink digital camera.

Reached by New Times before a trip to Bermuda, Rekers said he learned Lucien was a prostitute only midway through their vacation. “I had surgery,” Rekers said, “and I can’t lift luggage. That’s why I hired him.” (Medical problems didn’t stop him from pushing the tottering baggage cart through MIA.)

Yet Rekers wouldn’t deny he met his slender, blond escort at Rentboy.com — which features homepage images of men in bondage and grainy videos of crotch-rubbing twinks — and Lucien confirmed it.

At the small western Miami townhome he shares with a roommate, a nervous Lucien expressed surprise when we told him that Rekers denied knowing about his line of work from the beginning. “He should’ve been able to tell you that,” he said, fidgeting and fixing his eyes on his knees. “But that’s up to him.”

Yikes. Their next vacation together is going to very, very awkward. Work it out you guys. [Miami New Times]

HEY READ THIS THING! It’s all about the psychotic but funny legislation that is coming to pass in our “great” nation, just in the last two years. We are wacky and racist and sexist and sad. Hooray! [TPM Livewire]

California Rep Thinks We Should Round Up U.S Citizens And Deport ‘Em

Republican Representative Duncan D. Hunter is a Real American. It is in his soul. Yup. In the barren recesses of his aortic valve, a baby bald eagle squawks for Liberty. How do I know? I just do. Okay? Oh, and because he said so.

Hunter (R-Calif) was out Tea Partying last week or whatever, when a Q & A session broke out. The subject: Messicans. And why not, really? They are a very good subject! Anywho, some insane person in the audience got up and asked an insane question, and got the requisite insane answer. According to Talking Points Memo, this is how the deal went down:

“Would you support deportation of natural born American citizens that are the children of illegal aliens?” a man in the audience asked.

“I would have to, yes,” Hunter said.

He continued:

“You can look and say, ‘You’re a mean guy. That’s a mean thing to do. That’s not a humanitarian thing to do.’ We simply cannot afford what we’re doing right now.”

Hunter would later say, “it takes more than walking across the border to become an American citizen. It’s within our souls.”

Is that what I’ve been feeling all this time? I thought it was gas. Well who cares, because I am now convinced. Even though it’s illegal to do what he proposes, and seemingly impossible, I say what’s the harm?

But, I get the feeling that if the man in the audience asked ‘Can we shoot a Messican if they’re within range and I’ve got a clear shot?’, he would have given the exact same answer. [Mother Jones]

Oklahoma Takes Women’s Rights Back A Century

What the FUCK is going on in this country? Yesterday, the Oklahoma Legislature went ahead and overrode the governor’s vetoes, and passed two of the strictest abortions measure to date (or, since Roe v. Wade, anyway). The first measure requires not only that women undergo an ultrasound, but that doctors set up the monitor so women can see the fetus, and simultaneously are subjected to a detailed description of the heart, limbs and organs of the fetus before getting an abortion. NO EXCEPTIONS are made for rape and incest victims.

The second measure passed into law prevents women who have had a disabled baby from suing a doctor for withholding information about birth defects while the child was in the womb. If that reads like the law makes it absolutely legal for doctors to mislead/lie to their patients about the health of their baby so as to prevent women from choosing abortion, that’s because it does.

The laws are an unconstitutional intrusion into women’s privacy, a violation of women’s right to equal protection, a violation of doctors’ freedom of speech, and nothing but yet another roadblock aimed at discouraging women from exercising their right to choice. The Center for Reproductive Rights said as much, when it sued to block the ultrasound law as unconstitutional, a few hours after the measures were passed. No action has been taken on the second law, pertaining to communicating birth defects to potential mothers. [NY Times]

Muslim Clerics Declare War On Women Who Have The Nerve To Uhh Be Capable Of Tanning

Iran’s Islamic leadership continues its fear mongering campaign this week, threatening to arrest women who are suntanned and “who look like walking mannequins,” whatever the fuck that means. Clerics are denouncing the women for violating the spirit of Islamic laws by dressing fashionably rather than wearing the headscarves and shape shrouding cloaks the religion demands of them. I’m assuming these are the same women who “disturb” the young men of the country and subsequently “cause” earthquakes (and no, we don’t just mean the ones in their pants). Shame on you ladies. Don’t you know you’re not supposed to tan in a sun-drenched country? [Telegraph UK]

XENOPHOBIA IS CONTAGIOUS: You thought Arizona was bad enough. Well, here comes the next wingnut, Republican Representative Debbie Riddle, who says she plans to introduce a similar “get-tough” immigration measure in Texas in the January legislative session. Because the federal government isn’t doing its job or some shit, not because this country is disgustingly discriminatory, exploitive and racist. [Salon]

Michael Steele Has Stopped Trying

We haven’t posted about Michael Steele in forever, which is sad because, well it’s obvious why that is a sad thing. BUT!

Money Mike was speaking for Depaul University students on Tuesday, and was asked this simple question: “Why should an African-American vote Republican?”

BOOM:

“You really don’t have a reason to, to be honest — we haven’t done a very good job of really giving you one. True? True.”

“For the last 40-plus years we had a ‘Southern Strategy’ that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South. Well, guess what happened in 1992, folks, ‘Bubba’ went back home to the Democratic Party and voted for Bill Clinton.”

So…he tells us what we already know, and then admits to a ‘strategy’ of alienating black people to win the white vote. (Which we pretty much already knew as well.) Michael Steele is basically daring the RNC to fire his ass. Good for him. [Think Progress]

Supreme Court Strikes Down Ban Against…People Selling Videos Of Women In High Heels Stepping On Small Animals

UHHH? “The high court’s 8-1 ruling was a victory for free-speech advocates and a defeat for the federal government and for groups like the Humane Society of the United States.

Congress adopted the law in 1999 in an attempt to stop people from profiting by the interstate sale of depictions of torture and killing of animals. It was mainly aimed at “crush” videos in which women in high-heeled shoes step on small animals as a type of sexual fetish.” Sweet. Hooray…for…free speech (?) or whatever. Yeah. Jesus Christ. What the fuck is the matter with people? Jacking it to women stomping on small animals? [Reuters]

It Was ‘Beat Up A White Supremacist Day’ In L.A. Yesterday

MAKE IT AN ANNUAL EVENT! A 40-person rally of white supremacists hit the Los Angeles City Hall yesterday, only to be met by ‘hundreds’ of people who, predictably, hate white supremacists. Hilarity ensued. From the LA Times:

Before members of the white supremacist group had arrived, a bare-chested middle-aged man with Nazi insignias tattooed on his chest and back walked into a crowd of hundreds of counter-protesters gathered near 1st and Spring streets.

Surrounded, the man mockingly bobbed his head to the rhythm of demonstrators chanting “Nazi scum.” About a dozen protesters suddenly began pelting the man with punches and kicks. He fell and was struck on the back with the wooden handle of a protester’s sign, which snapped in two. Police eventually reached the man and pulled him from the melee, as blood poured from the back of his neck.

Another man was rushed by a mob on Spring Street. He was punched in the face and kicked for about 20 seconds before police made it to the scene. After that beating was broken up, the man began running south on Spring Street, only to be chased down by a protester and slugged in the face. He collapsed and his face slammed to the curb as protesters began pummeling him again.

The bloodied man was then escorted away by police. Both victims were treated and released, police said.

Sad. Just…sad. But the best part is the white supremacists receiving police protection and escort from a large contingent of black and Latino officers. Another Win, for irony. [LA Times]

Rape By Civilians On The Rise In The Congo

Man, what’s happening in the Congo makes me physically ill; really, it hurts.

The latest report by Oxfam came out yesterday, and it is devastating. We are all aware of the atrocious levels of rape – tens of thousands of women (and men) – perpetuated by the Congolese and Rwandan militias in the Congo, reaching over 9,000 in 2009 alone. As Oxfam reports, many of these sexual assaults (56%) are committed by armed men in homes in the presence of the victim’s families, including their children. According to the report, this increasing pervasiveness of sexual violence has resulted in the “normalisation of rape among the civilian population, suggesting the erosion of all constructive social mechanisms that ought to protect civilians from sexual violence.” The results are both tragic and alarming: rapes committed by civilians increased from 1% in 2004 to 38% in 2008 (!!!) … And still no one is really doing anything, and President Kabila is asking the UN to withdraw its peacekeeping troops. [The Guardian UK]