ONTD_Political

Democratic Senator uses Okla. tornado for anti-GOP rant over global warming

2013-05-21T03:36:13Z

(Idt I'd call this a ~rant, but okay)

While many Americans were tuned into news coverage of the massive damage from tornadoes ravaging the state of Oklahoma, Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse took to the Senate floor to rail against his Republican colleagues for denying the theory of anthropogenic global warming.

Whitehouse spent 15 minutes chastising GOP senators and justified his remarks by alluding to states that seek federal assistance in the wake of natural disasters.

“So, you may have a question for me,” Whitehouse said. “Why do you care? Why do you, Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, care if we Republicans run off the climate cliff like a bunch of proverbial lemmings and disgrace ourselves? I’ll tell you why. We’re stuck in this together. We are stuck in this together. When cyclones tear up Oklahoma and hurricanes swamp Alabama and wildfires scorch Texas, you come to us, the rest of the country, for billions of dollars to recover. And the damage that your polluters and deniers are doing doesn’t just hit Oklahoma and Alabama and Texas. It hits Rhode Island with floods and storms. It hits Oregon with acidified seas, it hits Montana with dying forests. So, like it or not, we’re in this together.”

Whitehouse went on to condemn the current Republican position on global warming, citing economic, environmental and diplomatic damages.

“You drag America with you to your fate,” he continued. “So, I want this future: I want a Republican Party that has returned to its senses and is strong and a worthy adversary in a strong America that has done right by its people and the world. That’s what I want. I don’t want this future. I don’t want a Republican Party disgraced, that let its extremists run off the cliff, and an America suffering from grave economic and environmental and diplomatic damage because we failed, because we didn’t wake up and do our duty to our people, and because we didn’t lead the world. I do not want that future. But that’s where we’re headed. So I will keep reaching out and calling out, ever hopeful that you will wake up before it is too late.”

(Video doesn't want to embed, but can be viewed at the Source)

When the IRS Targeted Liberals

2013-05-21T03:35:49Z

While few are defending the Internal Revenue Service for targeting some 300 conservative groups, there are two critical pieces of context missing from the conventional wisdom on the “scandal.” First, at least from what we know so far, the groups were not targeted in a political vendetta — but rather were executing a makeshift enforcement test (an ugly one, mind you) for IRS employees tasked with separating political groups not allowed to claim tax-exempt status, from bona fide social welfare organizations. Employees are given almost zero official guidance on how to do that, so they went after Tea Party groups because those seemed like they might be political. </b>Keep in mind, the commissioner of the IRS at the time was a Bush appointee.

The second is that while this is the first time this kind of thing has become a national scandal, it’s not the first time such activity has occurred.

“I wish there was more GOP interest when I raised the same issue during the Bush administration, where they audited a progressive church in my district in what look liked a very selective way,” California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said on MSNBC Monday. “I found only one Republican, [North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones], that would join me in calling for an investigation during the Bush administration. I’m glad now that the GOP has found interest in this issue and it ought to be a bipartisan concern.”</b>

The well-known church, All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena, became a bit of a cause célèbre on the left after the IRS threatened to revoke the church’s tax-exempt status over an anti-Iraq War sermon the Sunday before the 2004 election. “Jesus [would say], ‘Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine,’” rector George Regas said from the dais.

The church, which said progressive activism was in its “DNA,” hired a powerful Washington lawyer and enlisted the help of Schiff, who met with the commissioner of the IRS twice and called for a Government Accountability Office investigation, saying the IRS audit violated the First Amendment and was unduly targeting a political opponent of the Bush administration. “My client is very concerned that the close coordination undertaken by the IRS allowed partisan political concerns to direct the course of the All Saints examination,” church attorney Marcus Owens, who is widely considered one of the country’s leading experts on this area of the law, said at the time. In 2007, the IRS closed the case, decreeing that the church violated rules preventing political intervention, but it did not revoke its nonprofit status.

And while All Saints came under the gun, conservative churches across the country were helping to mobilize voters for Bush with little oversight. In 2006, citing the precedent of All Saints, “a group of religious leaders accused the Internal Revenue Service yesterday of playing politics by ignoring its complaint that two large churches in Ohio are engaging in what it says are political activities, in violation of the tax code,” the New York Times reported at the time. The churches essentially campaigned for a Republican gubernatorial candidate, they alleged, and even flew him on one of their planes.

Meanwhile, Citizens for Ethics in Washington filed two ethics complaints against a church in Minnesota. “You know we can’t publicly endorse as a church and would not for any candidate, but I can tell you personally that I’m going to vote for Michele Bachmann,” pastor Mac Hammond of the Living Word Christian Center in Minnesota said in 2006 before welcoming her to the church. The IRS opened an audit into the church, but it went nowhere after the church appealed the audit on a technicality.

And it wasn’t just churches. In 2004, the IRS went after the NAACP, auditing the nation’s oldest civil rights group after its chairman criticized President Bush for being the first sitting president since Herbert Hoover not to address the organization. “They are saying if you criticize the president we are going to take your tax exemption away from you,” then-chairman Julian Bond said. “It’s pretty obvious that the complainant was someone who doesn’t believe George Bush should be criticized, and it’s obvious of their response that the IRS believes this, too.”

In a letter to the IRS, Democratic Reps. Charles Rangel, Pete Stark and John Conyers wrote: “It is obvious that the timing of this IRS examination is nothing more than an effort to intimidate the members of the NAACP, and the communities the organization represents, in their get-out-the-vote effort nationwide.”

Then, in 2006, the Wall Street Journal broke the story of a how a little-known pressure group called Public Interest Watch — which received 97 percent of its funds from Exxon Mobile one year — managed to get the IRS to open an investigation into Greenpeace. Greenpeace had labeled Exxon Mobil the “No. 1 climate criminal.” The IRS acknowledged its audit was initiated by Public Interest Watch and threatened to revoke Greenpeace’s tax-exempt status, but closed the investigation three months later.

As the Journal reporter, Steve Stecklow, later said in an interview, “This comes against a backdrop where a number of conservative groups have been attacking nonprofits and NGOs over their tax-exempt status. There have been hearings on Capitol Hill. There have been a number of conservative groups in Washington who have been quite critical.”

Indeed, the year before that, the Senate held a hearing on nonprofits’ political activity. Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, the then-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said the IRS needed better enforcement, but also “legislative changes” to better define the lines between politics and social welfare, since they had not been updated in “a generation.” Unfortunately, neither Congress nor the IRS has defined 501(c)4′s sufficiently to this day, leaving the door open for IRS auditors to make up their own, discriminatory rules.

Those cases mostly involved 501(c)3 organizations, which live in a different section of the tax code for real charities like hospitals and schools. The rules are much stronger and better developed for (c)3′s, in part because they’ve been around longer. But with “social welfare” (c)4 groups, the kind of political activity we saw in 2010 and 2012 is so unprecedented that you get cases like Emerge America, a progressive nonprofit that trains Democratic female candidates for public office. The group has chapters across the country, but in 2011, chapters in Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada were denied 501(c)4 tax-exempt status. Leaders called the situation “bizarre” because in the five years Nevada had waited for approval, the Kentucky chapter was approved, only for the other three to be denied.

A former IRS official told the New York Times that probably meant the applications were sent to different offices, which use slightly different standards. Different offices within the same organization that are supposed to impose the exact same rules in a consistent manner have such uneven conceptions of where to draw the line at a political group, that they can approve one organization and then deny its twin in a different state.

All of these stories suggest that while concern with the IRS posture toward conservative groups now may be merited, to fully understand the situation requires a bit of context and history.

Source is getting a little tired of the false equivalencies.

Mysterious poop foam causing explosions on US hog farms

2013-05-21T03:35:39Z

Starting in about 2009, in the pits that capture manure under factory-scale hog farms, a gray, bubbly substance began appearing at the surface of the fecal soup. The problem is menacing: As manure breaks down, it emits toxic gases like hydrogen sulfide and flammable ones like methane, and trapping these noxious fumes under a layer of foam can lead to sudden, disastrous releases and even explosions. According to a 2012 report from the University of Minnesota, by September 2011, the foam had "caused about a half-dozen explosions in the upper Midwest…one explosion destroyed a barn on a farm in northern Iowa, killing 1,500 pigs and severely burning the worker involved."

And the foam grows to a thickness of up to four feet—check out these imagesa 2009 explosion that lifted a hog barn a "couple of feet off the ground" and blew the farm operator himself 20 feet from the building. (Thankfully, he wasn't injured, and there were no animals in it.) And check out the footage, starting about 3:19 in, of the foam itself, which must be seen to be believed. At one point , a shovel dips into the mire and scoops up as sample—which jiggles and pulsates, alive, apparently, with microbial activity. Schmidt also does a great job of explaining just how manure foam can cause explosions.

I wrote about the phenomenon about a year ago. But these days, there's not much in the agriculture trade press about it. Which led me to wonder: Has the mysterious foam subsided—or congealed into yet another fact of factory farming that isn't even notable anymore, like, you know, raising hundreds of pigs over pits that concentrate their waste, or dosing them them daily with low levels of antibiotics, leading to rampant antibiotic-resistant bacteria?

I decided to do a bit of digging for an update. Via email, Angela Kent, an associate professor in the department of natural resources and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois, informed me that "manure foaming" is "still a very serious problem among pork producers in the Midwest." Scientists have still not been able to finger the cause of it, but "we are in the midst of a large multi-institution investigation focused on finding the cause of this very serious problem."

So: still happening, and still no explanation.

I then got Larry Jacobson, a professor and extension engineer at the University of Minnesota who has been working on the issue, on the phone. He confirmed that the problem persists—just about a month ago, he said, workers were welding metal fixtures in an empty hog facility and a fire broke out, likely because a spark managed to penetrate foam enough to free trapped methane and ignite it. (No one was injured.)

Jacobson said that surveys show that around 25 percent of operations in the hog-intensive regions of Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa are experiencing foam—and "the number may be higher, because some operators might not know that they have it."

He added that the practice of feeding hogs distillers grains, the mush leftover from the corn ethanol process, might be one of the triggers. Distillers grains entered hog rations in a major way around the same time that the foam started emerging, and manure from hogs fed distillers grains contains heightened levels of undigested fiber and volatile fatty acids—both of which are emerging as preconditions of foam formation, he said. But he added that distillers grains aren't likely the sole cause, because on some operations, the foam will emerge in some buildings but not others, even when all the hogs are getting the same feed mix.

But if the causes of manure foam remain a mystery, a solution seems to be emerging, Jacobson told me: Dump a bit of monensin, an antibiotic widely used to make cows grow faster, directly into the foam-ridden pit. At rather low levels—Jacobson told me that about 25 pounds of the stuff will treat a typical 500,000 gallon pit—the stuff effectively breaks up the foam, likely by altering the mix of microbes present. No other treatment has been shown to work consistently, he said.

Thankfully, monensin isn't used in human medicine. Still, it's striking to consider that the meat industry's ravenous appetite for antibiotics has now extended to having to treat hog shit with them.

source: Mother Jones

Florida Girl Faces Felony for Dating Female Classmate

2013-05-20T18:05:34Z

Kaitlyn Hunt's parents knew their 18-year-old daughter was dating a 15-year-old girl whom she met through classes and varsity sports at the Florida high school the two attended. But when the younger girl's parents learned about the relationship, they had Kaitlyn arrested on two counts of felony lewd and lascivious battery on a child ages 12 to 16. Kaitlyn must now choose whether to go to trial — if found guilty, she'd have to register as a sex offender and could serve up to 15 years in prison — or accept a plea deal of two years' house arrest and one year of probation. The Hunts hope growing publicity will pressure the state to drop her case and focus on protecting and educating teenagers instead of prosecuting them for falling in consensual love.

Steven Hunt told Jezebel in a phone interview that his daughter Kaitlyn, whom friends and family call "Kate," grew close with her 15-year-old former girlfriend through classes and the varsity basketball team the two played on at Sebastian River High School in Sebastian, Fla; the younger girl was a freshman student enrolled in International Baccalaureate courses with upperclassmen, so they were peers in the same social circle. Kate's mother, Kelley Hunt Smith, wrote on Facebook that the two girls hung out with the family at their home and before basketball games. Since Kelley had seen the girl's father at sporting events, she assumed her family knew about and accepted the relationship. Kate had always dated boys, but when she told her mother she was dating a girl, Kelley "didn’t want to make it a big deal," she wrote. "I talked to her about it, and figured it was just a social thing, times have changed and a lot of kids are experimenting, so I didn’t make much of it."

"We knew about her sexual preference for a long time," Steve said. "It wasn't an issue for us."

But it was an issue for her former girlfriend's parents. When the girls' basketball coach found out the two were dating, she kicked Kate off the team and told the younger girl's parents, who told police. That's when Kate was arrested. According to Kelley:

On Saturday February 16th our families world was shattered and our daughters nightmare begun. The police came to our home and arrested my daughter, put her in hand cuffs and we had no idea why. They refused to tell us anything at first because she had turned 18. Kate was ripped out of our arms, terrified, crying hysterically. My younger daughter was there at the time, my husband and myself, we were mortified. They finally told us she was being arrested on “probable cause”. I asked them probable cause of what, they said sexual battery on a person 12-16 years old. My heart dropped, I knew then that it had to have been her girlfriend's parents. These people never came to us as parents, never tried to speak to us, didn’t try to get the school involved to speak to us and tell us they had a problem with the girls dating, not one single word. Instead, they set out their vengeance and had my child arrested on FELONY charges.

Kate, who agreed to cut off contact with her former girlfriend and was subsequently expelled weeks before graduation to boot, has until Friday to decide whether to go to trial or take the plea deal. Her parents don't want her to choose either option.

“The (assistant) state attorney, Brian Workman needs to use taxpayers money to prosecute REAL criminals, not a high school student who has never been in trouble a day in her young life, all because she had a mutual consenting relationship with someone who has bigoted parents,” wrote Hunt Smith. "...they feel like my daughter “made” their daughter gay. They are bigoted, religious zeolites that see being gay as a sin and wrong, and they blame my daughter."

Kate's father said this case highlights glaring problems with age-of-consent laws and sex-education. The age of consent in Florida is 18, but should 18-year-old high schoolers really be responsible for setting boundaries with the 14 to 17-year-olds who take the same classes and participate in the same after-school activities as they do? "There's no education at her school that describes what to do and what not to do within a consensual relationship in terms of age," Steve said. "The fact that this was a same-sex relationship was clearly the motivation factor [behind the arrest]. But this law is ridiculous regardless of whether teenagers are gay or straight."

From the "Free Kate" Facebook page:

The law needs to change, not only to protect Kate, but to protect the millions of teenagers, boys and girls, straight and gay, whose lives are regularly ruined because parents disapprove of their children's sexual choices. We want justice for all 18-year-old high school seniors who have undergone criminal prosecution for exercising poor judgement in their dating life. Such students are not predators. They're just kids. Likewise, we believe the law should not be arbitrarily enforced based on a parent's anger. Parents should be empowered to protect their children, but not at the price of destroying another young person's life forever.

The Hunts have launched a Change.org petition, which has over 52K signatures, and a fundraising site to help with extensive legal fees. "Kate is strong but scared," Steve said. "We hope she gets her freedom soon."

source

I feel like the headline is misleading because it doesn't seem like the law is targeting this girl for being gay. However, I suspect that if the younger girl was dating an 18 year old boy, her parents never would have pressed charges. What does _p think about cases like this?

Their Instruments May Be Garbage, But the Music Will Bring Tears to Your Eyes

2013-05-20T17:30:13Z

Close your eyes and listen to Juan Manuel Chavez launch into the Prelude of Bach's Cello Suite No. 1, and you would never guess that, instead of spruce and maple, his instrument is crafted from an old oil can, a beef tenderizing tool, and a discarded pasta making device—all of it scavenged from the landfill that surrounds his home in Paraguay.

Chavez is a cellist in the Landfill Harmonic Orchestra in Cateura, an Asunción slum where bottle caps, door keys, and paint cans have been given new purpose. Under the supervision of local musician Favio Chávez, these utterly impoverished kids make beautiful music on instruments constructed almost entirely out of materials reclaimed from the dump.

Filmmaker and Asunción native Alejandra Nash first heard about the phenomenon back in 2009, and decided to produce a documentary about the kids—she and her co-producers are aiming for a 2014 release. She'll have plenty of support. The teaser she posted online last November quickly went viral, with 2 million views on Vimeo, and nearly 1 million on Youtube. It's inspiring. Check it out...

Now her project's Facebook page has more than 125,000 likes. And a Kickstarter campaign Nash launched in April to help fund the film's completion has raised almost $200,000, well over the $175,000 she'd asked for. Beyond funding post-production work, the additional money will help finance a world tour for the orchestra, and an expansion of what has come to be known as the Landfill Harmonic Movement.

The idea for the orchestra first came about after Chávez brought a youth orchestra from the neighboring town of Carapeguá to perform in Cateura. The Cateura kids wanted to learn, too, but as Chávez points out in the teaser, "A community like Cateura is not a place to have a violin. In fact, a violin is worth more than a house here."

So he and local garbage picker Nicolás Gómez began experimenting with instruments they constructed from trash: Tin water pipes, buttons, bottle caps, and spoon and fork handles make up the body and keys of the saxophones. Oil or paint cans and recycled wood are used for the string section.

The orchestra consists of about 20 kids, from 11 to 19. They play mostly classical music, but the children have also learned some more-contemporary Latin music and orchestral versions of Beatles songs. Chávez helps them choose the instruments that suit them best. "One of the kids actually has a hearing problem, he doesn't have a musical ear at all," Rodolfo Madero, the film's executive producer, told me over the phone. "He wanted to be part of the orchestra so they built the drums section. He's good at it."

Madero believes the orchestra will prove transformative for many of the children. For some, it already has. "These kids are acquiring a skill," he says. "They are becoming better musicians every day, they are getting the experience of playing at international forums." The orchestra has already traveled to Brazil and Colombia, and has been invited to perform in Japan, India, Europe, and the United States this year. One of the program's flute players now plays for Paraguay's national orchestra, and the Miami Symphony Orchestra has offered scholarships for a couple of the students to join their youth symphony.

Beyond the music, Landfill Harmonic has an obvious environmental message. Some 2,500 families live in Cateura, and according to a 2010 UNICEF report, it is "the final dumping site for more than 1,500 tons of solid waste each day." Filmmaker Nash notes in the press materials that the town gets flooded with contaminated water whenever it rains: "The lack of environmental education is an issue, as well as the garbage/recycling system, which is archaic." And because of the landfill's location along the Paraguay River, inadequate waste management in Cateura is threatening an essential national water source. "What these kids are showing us is that you shouldn't throw away your things or people just because of the way that they look," Madero told me. "They represent the fact that not everything is disposable."

While the project may be small, Madero says, it should be replicable, and will inspire people to consider the social and environmental impacts of their own behavior. Health and environmental organizations in Kenya, Mexico, and Haiti, he says, have expressed interest in launching similar projects in their countries.

"It's been an important change for the community to see these kids rising above the reality that they live in a landfill," Madero says, adding that he knows some parents who were inspired to quit using drugs after their kids took up music. What's more, money left over from the orchestra's performances goes into a fund that provides small no-interest loans to the families to repair homes or build extra rooms. "Community wise it's very, very significant," he says.

Source.

Rare crane egg given 24-hour guard

2013-05-20T12:52:30Z

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/may/20/rare-crane-egg-24-hour-guard

The first common crane egg laid in western Britain for more than 400 years has been given a round-the-clock guard, conservationists said.

The nesting pair that produced the egg are part of the Great Crane Project, which has been rearing cranes in captivity since 2010 and reintroducing them to the Somerset Levels and Moors where they would have been found centuries ago.

The egg laid at a nest at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust's (WWT) Slimbridge Wetland Centre is the first known to be laid by the project's cranes, which were hand-reared at the centre and the oldest of which only reached maturity this year.

Once widespread in Britain, the species was driven to extinction as a breeding bird by hunting and habitat loss by 1600, although a small population has been established in the Norfolk Broads since 1979.

The public can watch the nesting pair from hides, and a long lens video link has been set up to give visitors to the wetland centre and online a close-up view.

The video cameras will also assist the guards protecting the egg against egg collectors. Egg collecting has been illegal in the UK for almost 60 years but a few people are still known to raid nests.

WWT's Nigel Jarrett said: "Cranes are an iconic part of British wildlife and one that was all but lost for centuries.

"There is a long way to go before cranes become widespread again, but it is absolutely momentous to see this egg laid at Slimbridge."

He added: "The parents of this egg were hand-reared here at Slimbridge and have thrived through their first three years on the wetlands of the Somerset Moors thanks to the help and support of the local community, particularly the farmers."

Photo and video at the link.

Because We Need Some Good News RN

2013-05-20T12:40:16Z

Teenage chemistry enthusiast won't be charged with felony, will go to space camp

Kiera Wilmot — the Florida 16-year-old who created a small explosion just outside her school before classes started by mixing cleaning solution and tin foil (she was just curious, nobody was harmed) — will not be charged with a felony, after all. Florida State Attorneys dropped the charges against Wilmot yesterday. After her case garnered national attention, she ended up with a lawyer who has defended her mostly for free. There's no word yet on whether she'll be allowed to return to the school that expelled her and pressed charges in the first place.

In the meantime, the Internet has created a nice happy ending here. Homer Hickam — the writer and former NASA engineer whose memoir is the basis of the movie October Sky — started a Crowdtilt campaign to send Wilmot and her twin sister Kayla to the Advanced Space Academy program at the U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala.. The cost of space camp can run upwards of $1200. Hickam paid for Kiera Wilmot to go and the Crowdtilt campaign raised the other $1200 for her sister, plus extra money for their travel expenses. The campaign hit its $2500 goal in just two days and is now up to $2920. Hickam says the extra money is going to the girls' mother.

A second Crowdtilt campaign raised more than $8000 for a Kiera Wilmot Defense Fund. Now that the charges have been dropped, that money will go into a trust, to pay the few legal expenses the family does have and to cover costs associated with Wilmot's education — especially since it's still unclear whether she'll be allowed back into the local public school.

Good job, Internet!

Source

Iranian firefighter saves lives, even after his death

2013-05-20T12:39:54Z

According to Jalal Maleki, the spokesman of Iran's Firefighters Organization, body parts of firefighter Omid Abbasi will be offered to patients in need of transplants. Abbasi died during a mission in north Tehran after saving a girl from a fire in a residential complex.

Jalal Maleki told Mehr News that "firefighters received a call informing of a fire at a residential building in Bagheri neighborhood in Tehran at 2:18 PM on Tuesday.

A young woman with her two children had been trapped inside an apartment. The woman managed to escape along with her son, but her 9-year-old daughter was hanging from a window and was on the brink of a free fall when she was saved by the firefighters. A young firefighter, Omid Abbasi, gave his oxygen mask to 9-year-old girl. But he himself subsequently suffered brain death.

However, this was not the end for the young firefighter, as his family decided, in a laudable act, to give his body parts to be transplanted to patients in need of his organs.

Arrangements for transplanting of organs of young firefighter have been made in Masih Daneshvari Hospital in Tehran.

Source

Trigger Warning: Pete Santilli, Radio Host: Hillary Clinton Needs To Be 'Shot In The Vagina'

2013-05-19T19:50:11Z

Radio host Pete Santilli made shocking remarks about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, claiming she should be "shot" for being "involved in the killings of American troops."

Santilli hosts a show on his website, but says he's "ready to take my show to national syndication; that is, of course, if the FCC regulated AM/FM radio stations can handle my truth & honesty."

"Hillary Clinton needs to be convicted. She needs to be tried, convicted and shot in the vagina," Santilli said, Right Wing Watch reports. "I want to pull the trigger."

Santilli criticized Clinton over the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consultate in Benghazi, Libya. He also slammed Clinton over what he called "the fake hunt down of this Obama bin Laden thing":

"I want to shoot her right in the vagina and I don't want her to die right away; I want her to feel the pain and I want to look her in the eyes and I want to say, on behalf of all Americans that you've killed, on behalf of the Navy SEALS, the families of Navy SEAL Team Six who were involved in the fake hunt down of this Obama, Obama bin Laden thing, that whole fake scenario, because these Navy SEALS know the truth, they killed them all. On behalf of all of those people, I'm supporting our troops by saying we need to try, convict, and shoot Hillary Clinton in the vagina."

Santilli also criticized Obama, saying he deserves the same punishment as Clinton.

"Barack Obama needs to be tried, convicted, and shot for crimes against the United States of America," Santilli said. "And if anybody has a problem with that, then you are an enemy of our state."

By Paige Lavender. Posted: 05/18/2013 2:35 pm EDT. Updated: 05/18/2013 3:06 pm EDT.

Video at Source

The Shame of Osaka and the Shame of Tokyo prove they just can't keep their mouths shut

2013-05-19T19:49:00Z

Hashimoto to ask overseas media for correct reporting

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto is now pointing the finger at translators as well as native speakers of Japanese for the continuing criticism over his recent comments on “comfort women,” those who were forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers during World War II.

Hashimoto, who previously said that comfort women were a necessary part of the war, said he will meet journalists at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo on May 27 to explain his words.

“If my comments were translated as meaning that I thought (comfort women) were necessary, I want to stop (that misunderstanding),” he told reporters at the Osaka city hall.

He also said, “Japanese lack reading comprehension” if they think he thought comfort women were necessary.

Hashimoto emphasized that he meant that the armed forces of countries around the world thought that they needed to use women.

On a television program on May 16, he clarified his remarks, saying: “In those days, it was probably thought that (comfort women) were necessary, but it was a terrible thing. I feel sorry and ashamed that such a system existed.”

Hashimoto, co-leader of the Japan Restoration Party, also struck back at criticism from the U.S. government on May 17.

“It is a fact that the United States used Okinawan women during the occupation and after,” he said. “Few Americans know about that.

“I want (the United States) to face up to what it did and together work for the improvement of women’s human rights in a future-oriented manner.”

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki earlier said Hashimoto’s comments were “outrageous and offensive.”

Hashimoto said: “Japan’s comfort women system was wrong. But countries around the world did something like it during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.”

He also said the United States must “look squarely at the reality that Okinawans’ human rights are being trampled on.”

On a television program on May 18, Hashimoto said he will continue to raise the issue of sex crimes by U.S. servicemen in Okinawa.

“Everyone in the U.S. State Department is angry. I feel greatly honored,” he said. “I want to inform the State Department of the reality of Japan, an island nation in the East, as well as its small island of Okinawa.”

But Hashimoto is still facing criticism for his remarks on comfort women and his proposal that the U.S. military use Japan’s legal sex industry to reduce sex crimes by servicemen.

Hashimoto appears to be growing increasingly frustrated with the media, although he has previously made it a rule to answer all reporters’ questions.

In a doorstep interview on the evening of May 17, a reporter asked Hashimoto if the leader of a political party should be more responsible for what he or she said before TV cameras.

“I will stop meeting you if I am asked such a question from a media representative,” Hashimoto said. “It is your job to report on (what someone said) judging from the overall context.”

Hashimoto has usually met with reporters twice a day to increase his presence through media exposure.

--

Ishihara blasts Hashimoto over wartime 'aggression' statement

Shintaro Ishihara joined the chorus of criticism against fellow Japan Restoration Party co-leader Toru Hashimoto but from a different angle: He said his political partner’s reference to Japan’s wartime aggression displayed his ignorance.

“It was not aggression,” Ishihara, a strident nationalist who has consistently defended Japan’s actions in World War II, told The Asahi Shimbun on May 17. “It's nothing but masochism to define the war as aggression. It's ignorance of history.”

The rift between the two co-leaders over perceptions of history will likely throw the Japan Restoration Party into further turmoil.

Hashimoto, who is also Osaka mayor, sparked an international uproar by saying that “comfort women,” a euphemism for women, mostly Koreans, who were forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers before and during World War II, were a necessary part of the war.

He also proposed to a U.S. commander in Okinawa that the U.S. servicemen use legal services in Japan’s sex industry to keep their sexual energy under control.

Some party members are now whispering that Hashimoto, by far the most popular politician in the Japan Restoration Party, should resign as co-leader.

“The Japan Restoration Party is over,” a young party member lamented.

Hashimoto has repeatedly tried to quell the criticism by clarifying his stance on the comfort women issue.

“Japan must accept (what it did during the war) as aggression as a result of its defeat," Hashimoto said. "Japan must reflect on it and apologize.”

But those words upset Ishihara, a former Tokyo governor.

“It is completely different (from my opinion),” Ishihara said. “He should have a correct perspective on history and the world.

“In the modern era, all white people in Europe (colonized other parts of the world). It is wrong if Japanese define their own history in accordance with the set of values determined by the Tokyo war crimes tribunal.”

On May 18, Hashimoto accepted Ishihara’s criticism and said he will soon meet with the co-leader to discuss the issue.

“Ishihara is from a generation who risked their lives in the war,” he told a television program. “There are probably various ways of thinking.”

But Hashimoto did not budge on his aggression statement. “Japan was defeated in war, and my generation, which did not experience war, must accept (what Japan did as aggression).”

Ishihara himself has repeatedly infuriated Japan’s neighbors by denying Japan’s aggression during World War II. He has said that the Korean Peninsula was so divided that it was annexed by Japan, based on the consensus of Koreans, in 1910.

Ishihara initially defended Hashimoto’s remarks on comfort women.

“Military and prostitution are inseparable,” he said May 14. “Basically, what (Hashimoto) said is not that wrong.”

Ishihara’s latest harsh words against Hashimoto came just after Japan Restoration Party member Shingo Nishimura fueled criticism against the party.

“There are still many South Korean prostitutes roaming around Japan,” Nishimura, a Lower House member, said at a meeting of party lawmakers on May 17. “We should say, ‘You must be a South Korean comfort woman’ in Osaka.”

His gaffe stemmed from the controversy over Hashimoto’s comfort women remarks.

“Overseas reports have painted comfort women as sex slaves," Nishimura said at the meeting. "If such a notion gains currency, anti-Japanese rioting could (take place).”

Ichiro Matsui, secretary-general of the Japan Restoration Party, said the party plans to expel Nishimura because his remarks represent an infringement on human rights.

“We are extremely sorry,” Hashimoto said of Nishimura’s comments. “We made a grave error to South Korean people and those who served as comfort women.”

Nishimura has already retracted his statements and submitted his resignation to the party leadership.

The Japan Restoration Party, formed in September, had been seen as a potential force in national politics because of the popularity of Hashimoto and his radical views on changing the way Japan operates.

The party has origins in Osaka Ishin no Kai, a regional political party that Hashimoto set up on a key plank of reforming the nation’s centralized administrative system.

The Sunrise Party, led by Ishihara, merged with the Japan Restoration Party ahead of the Lower House election in December.

But the new party has not held in-depth discussions on forming a consensus on perceptions of history.

Under Ishihara’s initiative, the party's platform, adopted in March, includes such expressions as “the occupation-era Constitution that reduced Japan to the subject of isolation and contempt.”

Members of the former Osaka Ishin no Kai opposed, saying their political orientation is different.

The Diet members of the Japan Restoration Party said May 16 that the party’s basic policy is to respect the fundamental human rights of women.

But Hashimoto brushed it aside, saying it was simply words of caution to him.

“The uproar (over Hashimoto’s remarks) has truly harmed Japan’s national interest,” a Japan Restoration Party Diet member said.

Another added, “We would like to submit a recommendation to Hashimoto to resign.”

However, party lawmakers have not openly criticized Hashimoto.

--

So Hashimoto goes BEEP BEEP BEEP as he backpedals away from his statements, and Ishihara has to show up to prove he's still the biggest asshole in Japanese politics.

Oh fuck youuuuu

2013-05-19T11:49:03Z

Women sad, angry over sale of nonprofit Ohio home

CINCINNATI (AP) — For more than 100 years, the Anna Louise Inn in downtown Cincinnati has been a safe, serene place that thousands of struggling women came to know as home.

But after losing a two-year fight with a Fortune 500 company determined to buy their beautiful, 104-year-old property and turn it into a boutique hotel — even though it wasn't for sale — the women of the Anna Louise Inn have to leave the neighborhood.

While most of the 60 women living there are relieved that the fight with Western & Southern Insurance Group appears over, they can't help but also feel sad and angry.

"I'm upset with them that they would be that greedy to take away what's been here for so long for women," said Robin Howard, 55, who has lived at the Anna Louise for more than two years after fleeing an abusive relationship. "We have rights, too. This is home. It's a safe haven."

For Wendy Gonzales, 25, the Anna Louise has allowed her to escape an addiction to methamphetamine and an abusive husband who she said forced her into prostitution.

"I thank God for the Anna Louise Inn. Without it, I don't know where I would be," said Gonzales, who now works as a housekeeper at a hotel within walking distance. "It's quiet, it's peaceful. Looking out here, you don't see your average thugs walking down the street. ... It's just nice to walk out and know that you're safe."

The Anna Louise has been housing women since 1909 in the same charming, dormitory-style building that looks like a plantation home. Although it began by helping young, ambitious types who were pouring into then-booming Cincinnati, it later became geared toward women who needed a fresh start; some have left abusive husbands, others are transitioning from foster care to adulthood while others are recovering prostitutes and drug addicts.

The historic downtown Cincinnati neighborhood where the women live, known as Lytle Park, became an important part of their recovery, since most were coming from dangerous parts of the city where it'd be easier to slip back into their former ways of life.

Western & Southern executives, whose headquarters sit across a park from the Anna Louise, offered to buy the Anna Louise for $1.8 million several years ago, less than half its value. The Anna Louise declined and won $12.6 million in federal and state tax credits to renovate the home, where some rooms are smaller than 100 square feet and all the women have to share bathrooms and one kitchen.

Days before the renovation was to begin, Western & Southern sued over a zoning issue and a judge ordered an immediate construction halt until the legal fight was resolved. The Anna Louise and its supporters didn't back down, vowing to fight Western & Southern with everything they had — until last week when they inked a deal with the company to sell the home for $4 million.

Leaders at Cincinnati Union Bethel, the nonprofit that runs the Anna Louise, said they sold reluctantly because they couldn't afford to fight any longer.

Under the deal with Western & Southern, the women living at the Anna Louise will stay there until a new building for them is finished, in about two years. It will be located in a shabby neighborhood on a busy street 2 miles north of where they are now. The nearest park is a 1.5-mile walk away, over a freeway.

"Western & Southern had the money to fight and the Anna Louise Inn didn't," said Howard, who is about to receive a degree in social work, which she wants to use to help women flee abusive relationships. "When you have that much money and you want something, eventually you're going to get it."

The Anna Louise will now be among a bevy of properties in the neighborhood owned by Western & Southern, which developed Cincinnati's tallest building in 2011 and has renovated a handful of historic properties in the area, including an upscale hotel.

Company CEO John Barrett has long said it was time for the women at the Anna Louise to leave the neighborhood to make way for economic development. He plans to turn the building into a boutique hotel and envisions transforming the neighborhood into a hub of activity with restaurants and bars. (Could this man sound anymore cartoonishly evil?)

"This truly is a win for everyone and will make Lytle Park a destination like no other," Barrett said in a Monday news release announcing the Anna Louise sale. (Apparently, he can. Jesus Christ, it's like he's the living embodiment of the corrupt CEO stereotype from every 80's movie ever. All we need now is for him plotting to buy out the local home for troubled youth with the intentions of putting a casino on top of it)

Barrett, who has repeatedly declined requests for an interview, has become a loathed figure at the Anna Louise, not only for his tireless efforts to acquire the property but also for the way he has talked about the women living there, repeatedly referring to them as recovering prostitutes and saying they just don't belong in the neighborhood.

"That hurt. To be categorized," said Sherene Julian, 48, who escaped decades of drug addiction and prostitution when she moved to the Anna Louise. "It made me feel that I was lesser than."

Julian, who recently moved in with her boyfriend but still gets medical services at the Anna Louise, said a part of the women's home will always be with her.

"To me it's sacred ground because that's where I was able to turn my life around," Julian said. "I know for a fact if the Anna Louise did not intervene in my life I would probably be dead."

Tatiana McCormick, 24, who lived at the inn after leaving Ohio's foster care system six years ago, said she's angry about the home's sale.

"A lot of these ladies now have to worry about their living situation," she said. "This was something that was going well for people and it's been there for three generations. To have it happen like this, it's just outrageous."

SOURCE

Jerkass Cop shoots and kills neighbor's puppy

2013-05-19T01:54:23Z

Chicago police on Friday night launched an investigation into what led an off-duty officer to shoot and kill his neighbor's dog.

The officer, an eight-year veteran of the force, said he was out with his young son on the 5800 block of North Oketo Avenue, on the city's far northwest side, when Maximus, a four-month-old pit bull, charged at them.

The dog's owner, Samantha Maglaya, said that wasn't the case.

"He would sit in the yard and listen to the birds. He didn't even bark. He never growled," she said. "He was the biggest baby."

Maglaya rushed Maximus to an animal hospital after the Friday afternoon shooting but the animal couldn't be saved.

"We just drove as fast as possible. I was hoping I could get him there to save him but he died in the car," she said through tears, describing how her pet had been wounded eight times.

Outside the family home, Maglaya's young daughter wore Maximus' collar.

The off-duty officer said he was walking from a house just down the block when the incident unfolded.

"It's supposed to be on a leash. If that dog is on a leash this never happens," the officer said. "[My son] wanted to ride his bike. So he's riding down the sidewalk. As I'm walking down the street the dog comes out of the gangway charging at him."

But neighbors said the boy was nearly a block away during the shooting. And they say Maximus never even barked.

A police sergeant interviewed the officer, who said he's on vacation. The sergeant also met with the family who owned the dog. They say the sergeant issued them two citations after the shooting.

The case was turned over to the Independent Police Review Authority.

Source

According to information posted by the Maglaya family on Mrs. Maglaya's facebook account, the officer had previously threatened to kill their puppy on multiple occasions. (ETA: Further information from the family on the wife's facebook notes the officer had also previously referred to them as "Section 8 Scum" and was hostile as a result of them being the only Hispanic family on the street.) They further report they are hiring a lawyer and obtaining sworn statements from neighbors. They further note in the video that their 5-year old daughter was with Maximus and had to watch the asshole unload 8 - 9 rounds into her puppy.

This is not the first time a Chicago officer has shot someone's puppy. On December 1st, an officer writing a parking ticket shot a 7-month old Miniature Bull Terrier puppy named Colonel. Colonel was lucky and managed to survive his horrific injuries, and the family went on to sue the city.

Colorado recently passed a measure requiring officers to receive training on how to handle encounters with dogs without resorting to lethal force, after several high-profile incidents of pets being killed by police.

ETA: Another article covering the story. Beware, man suspected to be the officer harassing the owner in comments. It is also being reported that the CPD is harassing the family and that the officer involved in the shooting has threatened neighbors with a gun over the incident.

From the Facebook page Justice for Maximus

Samantha Maglaya
Can someone plz tell me why the CPD just knocked on my door at 11:30 at night without so much as even a call saying that they needed to interview me. There was 6 officers and 2 squad cars. They asked who's dog it was, if we have the documents for his shots, who lives in my house, my info, who we got the dog from, & who I spoke with when I filed my complaint.

Son of ETA: The Maglaya family has uploaded video of a police SUV cruising very slowly past their house before picking up speed and driving away, and noted they have seen multiple police vehicles do the same thing all day long.

Oxford, Alabama destroying Native American ceremonial mound to build a Sam's Club

2013-05-18T23:14:14Z

City leaders in Oxford, Ala. have approved the destruction of a 1,500-year-old Native American ceremonial mound and are using the dirt as fill for a new Sam's Club, a retail warehouse store operated by Wal-Mart.{C}A University of Alabama archaeology report commissioned by the city found that the site was historically significant as the largest of several ancient stone and earthen mounds throughout the Choccolocco Valley. But Oxford Mayor Leon Smith -- whose campaign has financial connections to firms involved in the $2.6 million no-bid project -- insists the mound is not man-made and was used only to "send smoke signals."

"The City of Oxford and its archaeological advisers have completed a review and evaluation of a stone mound that was identified near Boiling Springs, Calhoun County, Alabama, and have concluded that the mound is the result of natural phenomena and does not meet the eligibility criteria for the Natural [sic] Register of Historic Places," according to a news release Smith issued last week.

In fact, the report does not conclude the mound is a result of "natural phenomena" but says very clearly it is of "cultural origin." And while the University's Office of Archaeological Research does not believe the site qualifies for the National Register of Historic Places, the Alabama Historical Commission disagrees, noting that the structure meets at least three criteria for inclusion: its "association with a broad pattern of history," architecture "embodying distinctive characteristics," and for the information it might yield to scholars.

The site is also significant to Native Americans. The Woodland and Mississippian cultures that inhabited the Southeast and Midwest before Europeans arrived constructed and used these mounds for various rituals, which may have included funerals. There are concerns that human remains may be present at the site, though none have been found yet.

United South and Eastern Tribes, a nonprofit coalition of 25 federally recognized tribes from Maine to Texas, passed a resolution in 2007 calling for the preservation of such structures, which it calls "prayer in stone." Native Americans have held protests against the mound's demolition, and last week someone altered a sign for the Leon Smith Parkway that runs past the development to read "Indian Mound Pkwy."

A local resident named Johnny Rollins told the Anniston Star how his Native American grandmother taught him that when she died he could "go to that mountain" to talk to her:
"It seems like it's taking part of you away," he said of the demolition. "I always felt I had ties to that there."

Since the media began reporting on the site's demolition, city officials have revised their story and are now claiming that dirt from the mound is not being used as fill, despite earlier statements to the contrary. But eyewitnesses say they have seen workers hauling dirt from the mound to the Sam's Club development.

"I mean really, I went there, saw the giant trucks deliver the earth straight from the mound to the construction site, and I still can't believe what they are doing," writes the seventh-generation Alabamian behind the blog Deep Fried Kudzu. She shared the photo above showing roads for construction vehicles now cut to the top of the mound and has other photos and her story of visiting the site at the website.

'More prettier' than an Indian mound

Deepening the development's controversy is how the contracting has been handled. The force behind the project is Oxford's Commercial Development Authority, a public board that uses taxpayer money to lure businesses to the area. The CDA owns the land where the mound is located.

Alabama law exempts CDAs from bid requirements, which means contracts can go to whomever the board chooses. A recent Anniston Star investigative series about the CDA revealed among other things that the group has awarded nearly $9 million in contracts since 1994 but has taken bids for none of them.

The newspaper also detailed the financial ties between the CDA, firms it does business with, and Mayor Smith's political campaign.

For example, the $2.6 million contract for preparing the Sam's Club site went to Oxford-based Taylor Corp., with the money for that coming in part from the sale of city property to Georgia-based developers Abernathy and Timberlake. Taylor Corp. owner Tommy Taylor, who has received thousands of dollars in city contracts for non-CDA work, donated $1,000 to Smith in 2004 and $1,000 in 2008, while Abernathy and Timberlake donated $1,000 to Smith's re-election campaign in 2004, the paper reports.

The Anniston Star also found that the CDA paid engineering firm Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood of Montgomery, Ala. $45,000 in engineering contracts for the Sam's Club project, with part of that money paying for the archaeological study. The firm contributed $500 to Smith in 2004.

An Alabama Ethics Commission official said the relationships could violate state law "depending on facts," but the mayor said he's done nothing wrong.

Meanwhile, the controversy over the damaged mound's fate rages on. After getting an earful from alarmed preservationists, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley (R) forwarded their concerns to the state Historical Commission -- but said his office has no intention of getting involved. According to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, Tommy Taylor contributed $1,000 to Riley's 2006 gubernatorial campaign, while Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood contributed $1,500.

For now, it appears Oxford officials are pressing ahead with the project. As Mayor Smith said in its defense, "What it's going to be is more prettier than it is today."

Source

Texas being Texas.

2013-05-18T23:14:00Z

Republican Texas judge orders lesbian couple to live apart or lose children

A Republican Texas Judge has ordered a lesbian couple to live apart or give up custody of their children. According to Think Progress, Judge John Roach of McKinney, Texas has given Page Price 30 days to move out of the home she shares with Carolyn Compton and Compton’s two children from a previous marriage because he does not approve of Compton and Price’s “lifestyle.”

Roach has placed a “morality clause” in Compton’s divorce papers, which forbids Compton from having anyone she is not related to “by blood or marriage” in her home past 9:00 p.m. if the children are present. Same sex marriage is illegal in Texas, so by law, Compton cannot live with Price if she wishes to retain custody of her children.

Compton said that she and Price have been together for three years. Compton’s ex-husband rarely bothers to see the children and was previously arrested on charges of third-degree felony stalking in 2011, charges that he was able to plea down to criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor.

In a post on Facebook, Price wrote that Roach had inserted the morality clause into the divorce agreement when Compton’s ex-husband Joshua Compton attempted to gain custody of the children in 2011. The judge wrote that he disapproved of the two women’s “lifestyle.”

“Our children are all happy and well adjusted. By his enforcement, being that we cannot marry in this state, I have been ordered to move out of my home,” Price wrote.

The two women are working with attorneys to figure out what steps they can take to fight the state’s notoriously conservative court system.

Ken Upton Jr., senior staff attorney for Lambda Legal’s Dallas office, told the Dallas Voice newspaper that morality clauses are a holdover from a time when judges tried to keep people with children from living together outside of marriage. Courts often insert the clauses without telling the people involved, particularly in backward, conservative areas like Collin County, Texas. “What the clause has become is an extra burden on gay people because they’re no more likely to violate it than straight people,” Upton told the Voice “It’s a problem that continues with homophobia.”

SOURCE

Hey, hey, Judge Roach:

Shenanigans SATURDAY: May 18, 2013.

2013-05-18T14:31:13Z

Please exploit these resources:

macro blanks: browse by ALBUMS

macro blanks: browse by TAGS

ROFLBOT (for your caption needs)

MOAR Picture Sources:

PIXCETERA (click)

THE BIG PICTURE (click)

The White House Flicker photostream

Train derailment shuts down NY to Boston rail service

2013-05-18T01:03:29Z

Multiple passengers were injured when two Metro-North trains collided near a station Friday night.

The "major train derailment" happened when a Metro-North train, which left New Haven and was headed to Grand Central Station, collided with a westbound train, which was also out of New Haven, on adjacent track around 6:10 p.m.

Multiple cars from each train were derailed.

Police said 22 people were transported to the hospital with four of them having serious injuries. There were no reported fatalities.

Passengers told Eyewitness News there were some people complaining about neck and back pain.

There is no Metro-North service between Stamford and New Haven. Trains are being stopped at the nearest station.

Sources told Eyewitness News Metro-North service will likely be impacted for several days, will have to set up some sort of shuttle system.

Service on Amtrak Acela and Northeast Regional between New York and Boston has been suspended indefinitely.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy headed to the derailment Friday night. The National Transportation Safety Board gathered information and sent a team of investigators to Connecticut for the collision.

Eyewitness News talked to at least one passenger that said the train was traveling around 50 mph. The collision was "loud" and "jolted" people out of their seats.

"Tracks looks like twisted ribbons of metal," Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch tweeted.

Passengers were held for about 15 minutes until smoke cleared.

Metro-North officials said they will continue to update their customers as more information becomes available.

Source: KLTV CT

CT rail Twitter has updates
saw live coverage on TV. apparently they are doing bridge repairs in this area, so ALL train traffic for the NY/Boston corridor is passing on two parallel lines at this choke point. The derailment occurred there, blocking BOTH lines.

Missouri Lawmaker Blames Gay Colleagues For Killing Bullying Bill

2013-05-17T23:06:53Z

The Missouri legislature has allowed an anti-bullying bill (HB 134) to die, and its Republican sponsor is blaming her gay colleagues for killing it. For all of the effective anti-bullying measures Rep. Sue Allen’s bill included, it specifically banned the creation of enumerated lists of identities to protect, such as sexual orientation and gender identity. Enumerating protections has helped guarantee that anti-LGBT bullying does not go unreported, but according to Allen, they’re too “partisan”:

I typically try to keep partisanship out of my message, but this is an issue for the Democrats who wish for certain students (GLBT –gay, lesbian, bisexual, & transgender) to be “enumerated” within school policies. [...]

What “they” don’t seem to understand is that any stronger policies help ALL students, even those they would have categorized.

So….it seems some people care more about arguing points to make some students more protected when what they’ve really done is to NO better protect ANY student.

The “they” Allen refers to are openly gay lawmakers Sen. Jolie Justus (D) and Rep. Mike Colona (D), who Allen encourages her supporters to contact and blame for the bill’s failure.

Allen clearly does not understand the purpose and function of enumerating groups, calling it “discriminatory” to specify some groups for students and not others. Speaking with the Riverfront Times, she added, “Why are we always segregating?” Of course, enumerating groups does nothing of the sort; instead, it ensures that groups known to be targeted for bullying are specifically listed so that such harassment can be more easily identified. No student is excluded from a bullying policy because they don’t belong to one of the enumerated groups; instead, the groups serve to raise awareness about forms of bullying that are already problematic.

It would also be different if Allen’s bill simply did not address enumerate groups, but it specifically bans them. The only purpose for such a limitation is to ensure protections for the LGBT community are never extended. This is particularly problematic given the incredibly high rates of anti-LGBT bullying that take place in Missouri.

[homophobic language]

According to GLSEN’s 2011 National School Climate Survey, 94 percent of Missouri students regularly hear homophobic language like “f*g” and “d**e” at school, and 83 percent of LGBT students have experience harassment or assault for their sexual orientation. These are rates far higher than national averages.

With a bullying epidemic like that, Allen should better appreciate that enumerating protections to groups like LGBT students would actually better protect all students. Instead, she’s encouraging people to bully her gay colleagues for wanting to fix her problematic bill.

source

PR Senate Passes Gay Rights Bill 15-11

2013-05-17T18:17:26Z

The Puerto Rican Senate on Thursday approved legislation that would ban discrimination against gays in employment, housing, public accommodations, and government services on the island.

The 15-11 vote came after hours of heated debate in the upper chamber on Senate Bill 238, which had been lodged by Popular Democratic Party Sen. Ramón Nieves Pérez in January.

The approval of the legislation came despite an organized campaign against its passage by religious groups, which flooded the Capitol with calls and petitions in a bid to derail the measure.

“The country, you and I are sick and tired of the marginalization,” Popular Democratic Party Sen. Mari Tere González said.

New Progressive Party Sen. Thomas Rivera Schatz, a former president of the upper chamber, is among those who spoke against the bill.

“This Senate speaks of tolerance but discriminates against those who don’t have the same political ideology,” he tweeted during the debate.

The bill’s passage came three days after San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz mandated the Puerto Rican capital’s police department to equally apply the island’s current domestic violence laws, regardless of the reported victim’s sexual orientation. She also signed a second executive order that bans discrimination against the city’s municipal employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity and expression.

Gov. Alejandro García Padilla said he opposes the Puerto Rico Supreme Court decision that narrowly upheld the island’s gay adoption ban. He also supports both SB 238 and a separate measure on which a Senate committee will hold a hearing on Friday that would extend adoption rights to gays and lesbians.

Senate Bill 238 bans discrimination based on real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity in employment as well as in public and private services.

Its partner legislation, House of Representatives Bill 488, seeks to extend existing domestic violence protections to any person regardless of their marital status, sexual orientation or gender identity.

Amnesty International says that lawmakers have a “historic opportunity” to end discrimination against Puerto Rico’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI).

“The approval of these two laws would be a big step for justice and equality for an important sector of Puerto Rico’s population, which to date has fallen victim to institutionalized discrimination,” said Pedro Santiago, director of Amnesty International Puerto Rico.

“These two measures would expand the protection of rights for LGBTI people in Puerto Rico. Our legislators should be brave enough to overcome prejudice when making new laws. Human rights are not a matter of choice but of justice, and all people are entitled to enjoy them regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” said Santiago.

Legislators in the U.S. territory and the administration of García Padilla have moved on several proposals to extend more rights to gays and lesbians.

Still, the governor has maintained he doesn’t support same-sex marriages, which remain banned in Puerto Rico.

Hundreds of people marched through the capital San Juan last month to demand that the governor approve a constitutional amendment stating that only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid. It was the second such march in the past three months. A similar march in February drew an estimated 200,000 people.

San Juan Archbishop Roberto González Nieves is heading a multi-denominational group of religious leaders in a campaign against same-sex adoption in Puerto Rico.

Last month, Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court dismissed an appeal of its recent decision to deny a lesbian’s adoption request.

The woman’s partner gave birth to a girl, now 12, through in vitro fertilization. The plaintiff said that it is in the child’s best interest for the woman to adopt the girl as the second parent.

The high court voted 5-4 to uphold a law banning gay couples from adopting children. That decision was appealed.

It was the first time the court heard a case on same-sex adoptions.

Source.

We're moving slowly, but it'll happen. The Senators who spoke in favor of the bill did so amazingly, so a heartfelt thanks to them.

Efrain Rios Montt found guilty of genocide & crimes against humanity by Guatemalan court

2013-05-17T18:16:35Z

TRANSCRIPT
HARI SREENIVASAN: Xeni Jardin has been following the story in Guatemala and was the producer on Miles O'Brien's earlier report. [triggers for rape, genocide, and violence. PBS does NOT sanitize genocide]

So, Xeni Jardin, give us an idea, how significant was this trial for the people there?

XENI JARDIN: This is huge.

This is the first time in modern history that a domestic court has convicted a former head of state on these kinds of charges, genocide, crimes against humanity. But for both sides in this case, for the people who support the military, who support Rios Montt, and for the nation's majority indigenous population, this is huge.

This -- you know, it's fair to state that for many people this reopens old wounds. The country's 36-year civil war is not that long ago. And literally everyone in this country is still touched by that legacy in one way or another, some people very directly.

HARI SREENIVASAN: You were in the courtroom during the verdict. And for those of us not who are following you on Twitter and other social media, what was the scene like?

XENI JARDIN: It was completely surreal, Hari.

The courtroom holds about 400 people. There are seats for 400 people. And I think there were easily 500, possibly 600 people packed into that courtroom. When the verdict was read, you know, Judge Jasmine Barrios began by explaining why Rios Montt was considered by the court to be guilty of genocide, of crimes against humanity.

But then when she actually got to the point of saying that he was guilty, there were claps. There were cheers. And then people kind of calmed down to hear the rest of what the court had to say. And then after -- after she slammed the gavel on the desk, total chaos broke out.

There was, you know, a swarm of cameramen who just encircled the defense table, and specifically Rios Montt, looking for that shot of the century of this man's reaction, this man who -- whose legacy is indelibly imprinted on this country.

And then back in the gallery, behind where I was sitting with members of the press, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people were chanting, "Justice, justice," and, "Yes, it was genocide," which was a rallying cry on Twitter and in the streets in weeks before this verdict arrived.

You could see as you looked around the courtroom, Hari, that people were weeping. There were mothers holding their children and kind of swaying to the rhythm. The Ixil grandmothers who had testified of being gang-raped by 20 soldiers at a time for weeks on end, many of these women, they weren't cheering. They were weeping. It was just such a powerful, powerful moment.

HARI SREENIVASAN: How significant is it that they were even able to reach a verdict?

XENI JARDIN: I think it's extraordinary that the trial came to any conclusion at all.

You know, the U.S. Embassy here in Guatemala issued a statement today urging the society and the Guatemalan government to respect the court's outcome. And I think that everybody -- you know, part of why this matters is because of the question of whether Rios Montt is an individual is guilty.

But part of why this trial matters is that the judicial system here is so fragile. And it's just incredible that any case of this substance could come to a completion in a country where a tiny fraction of murders, just murders of everyday citizens now are ever brought to trial, let alone convicted.

HARI SREENIVASAN: So what happens to these victims now? Is there a compensation? Who pays?

XENI JARDIN: Victims' representatives say that, look, these indigenous campesinos, they were robbed of their land. They were displaced from their land. They are subsistence farmers.

Many, many families in that region lost their breadwinners. Who should be responsible for them? Is that Rios Montt's estate who should pay that out? What about the government of Guatemala?

I almost think that this is the more contentious issue than whether or not Rios Montt as an individual can be found guilty of these crimes. The idea of reparations to victims in this case is something that many people in Guatemala are -- have a very hostile reaction to.

So, you know, I spoke with some of the Ixil observers and querrelantes, which is the word for basically criminal witness in the trial. And I remember one of them said, you know, even assuming that the General Rios Montt stays in jail, "He will be fed every night," this woman said. "What about us? We still have to worry about whether we will die of hunger."

HARI SREENIVASAN: Xeni Jardin joining us from Guatemala, thanks so much.

XENI JARDIN: It's my pleasure, Hari.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And an update from Guatemala.

After Hari's interview, the court ordered reparations for victims, including official apologies by the state and a national day of remembrance. But the victims won't get the land they requested or any monetary compensation from the government.

And late today, the Associated Press reported that Rios Montt had been taken to a military hospital after fainting.

source: PBS Newshour

companion piece, the forensic science used in the court cass: TRIGGER WARNINGS for violence, rape, genocide, killing of children this is an excellent report including excavation of mass graves, satellite photos of the devastation, statistics and even documentary footage shot at the time, but it is a TOUGH piece to watch.

French Constitutional Court approves Gay Marriage Law

2013-05-17T17:23:47Z

France's constitutional court on Friday approved a gay-marriage bill passed by parliament on April 23. President François Hollande is expected to sign the bill into law next week, legalising marriage and adoption for same-sex couples.
By FRANCE 24 (text)

France's Constitutional Council on Friday approved a gay-marriage bill passed by parliament on April 23, rejecting a challenge to the legislation launched by the main opposition party.

France's parliament approved the bill in a third and final vote on April 23, but the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy immediately launched a challenge to the bill on constitutional grounds.

President François Hollande is expected to sign the bill into law next week, marking the final step in legalising marriage and adoption for same-sex couples in France. Hollande, who promised to support "marriage for all" throughout his presidential campaign, has said he would sign the bill as soon as the court had ruled.

A Constitutional Council statement added a caveat, however, saying the legality of gay adoption did not establish the "right to a child" and emphasising that the interests of the children involved would continue to be the overriding consideration.

The ruling comes after months of controversy and protests both for and against the bill that saw thousands taking to the streets and sporadic outbreaks of violence. France is secular but also overwhelmingly Catholic, and demonstrations against the bill drew tens of thousands ahead of the final parliamentary vote.

Overall, however, surveys indicate that almost 60 percent of the French population support Hollande's vision of "marriage for all".

France24

For those who read French, more info at Le Monde

I think all that's left now is for Hollande to sign it, and it's the law!

Kevin Cramer, North Dakota Congressman, Ties School Shootings To Abortion Legalization

2013-05-17T17:23:08Z

WASHINGTON -- Since mass shootings in places like Aurora and Newtown, lawmakers have been searching for answers for how to stop future massacres, examining issues like gun control and mental health. But in a speech this month, Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) pointed to different culprits: the legalization of abortion and a demise in religious values.

Cramer made his remarks during a commencement address at the University of Mary on May 4. He decried a local TV anchor who was fired after accidentally swearing on air and then became an internet sensation, as well as the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision.

From his speech:

"Just in the last several days, a Bismarck news anchor mistakenly uttered vulgarity on live television. He's been heralded by celebrities from New York to California as some sort of pop icon. His bosses have been called goons because they fired him.

We learned this week that the Pentagon is vetting its guide on religious tolerance with a group that compared Christian evangelism to rape, and advocated that military personnel and colluding chaplains who proselytize should be court-marshalled.

Forty years ago, the United States Supreme Court sanctioned abortion on demand. And we wonder why our culture sees school shootings so often."

Cramer also mentioned the 9/11 and Boston Marathon attacks, saying, "Innocent people in New York have airplanes flown into their places of work, and marathoners in Boston are victims of bombs, yet Christianity is singled out as bigotry in our public institutions because politicians and academics lack the courage to speak truth. We've normalized perversion and perverted God's natural law to the point where the only thing not tolerated anymore is a stand for truth."

He added that he expected to face criticism for his remarks, stating, "I was asked recently by a reporter if I'm afraid that some people would attack me if I speak like this. And I said, 'No, I'm not afraid they will, I'm quite certain they will."

Cramer's office declined to comment further.

James Dobson, evangelical pundit and founder of Focus on the Family, made comments similar to Cramer's in December after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

"I mean millions of people have decided that God doesn't exist, or he's irrelevant to me and we have killed fifty-four million babies and the institution of marriage is right on the verge of a complete redefinition," he said, adding, "I think we have turned our back on the Scripture and on God Almighty and I think he has allowed judgment to fall upon us. I think that's what's going on."

In March, Cramer attracted attention for getting into a heated discussion with Native American victim assistance leaders during a conversation about the Violence Against Women Act. The congressman reportedly said he wanted to "wring the Tribal council’s neck and slam them against the wall". Cramer later apologized for his remarks.

By Amanda Terkel. Posted: 05/16/2013 12:08 pm EDT. Updated: 05/16/2013 8:33 pm EDT.

Source. Full video of Cramer's remarks here, with the aforementioned portion starting around 1:13:00.

More controversy for Japan party as lawmaker accuses Koreans of involvement in prostitution

2013-05-17T14:42:05Z

More controversy for Japan party as lawmaker accuses Koreans of involvement in prostitution

An emerging Japanese nationalist political party whose co-leader outraged many with remarks about Japan’s wartime and modern sexual services became embroiled in more controversy Friday when a party lawmaker accused ethnic Koreans of involvement in prostitution.

The Japan Restoration Party urged the lawmaker, Shingo Nishimura, to retract his comments suggesting many ethnic Koreans are engaged in prostitution in Japan. Nishimura withdrew his remarks, but the party forced him out anyway.

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, a founder and co-leader of the party, angered Japan’s neighbors by saying this week that the Japanese military’s wartime practice of forcing Asian women into prostitution was necessary to maintain discipline and provide relaxation for soldiers. He also angered the U.S. by suggesting that American troops based in southern Japan should patronize legal adult entertainment establishments to reduce sex crime there.

The uproar over Hashimoto’s comments, and Nishimura’s predicament, typify the difficulties Japanese politicians can create for themselves when commenting on sensitive topics without considering how those outside their own circles might react.

Nishimura made the comments during a Restoration Party meeting Friday that was discussing the remarks made by Hashimoto, who continues to insist that other countries also commonly impressed women into military brothels during World War II and that Japan is being unfairly singled out.

Defending Hashimoto, Nishimura objected to media reports describing the women impressed into wartime military brothels as “sex slaves.” Video footage of the meeting was broadcast by the TBS TV network.

“’Comfort women’ is erroneously translated as ‘sex slaves,’ which might encourage anti-Japanese riots and conspiracies,” Nishimura said. “We better fight back by telling them that the words ‘comfort women’ and ‘sex slaves’ are completely different and that there are numerous South Korean prostitutes roaming around Japan.”

Nishimura said jokingly that he might return to his hometown of Osaka, go to crowded entertainment districts and tell them, “’Hey, you South Korean comfort women!’”

“So, let’s fight,” he said, suggesting the party stand by Hashimoto.

Even fellow lawmakers who usually support nationalist views appeared stunned.

“Please take back what you just said. Take back your comment. You should retract the word ‘South Koreans,’” said party member Kenta Matsunami.

Nishimura returned to the microphone and agreed to retract that part. He later said his remarks were inappropriate, but only because he had never conducted a survey to gather data to back up his comment, and because he singled out a particular country by name.

Urged by other party members who demanded a tougher penalty than just a retraction, Nishimura submitted his resignation from the party, but party secretary-general Ichiro Matsui refused to accept it immediately and said the party wanted to expel him instead.

“I’m completely baffled by the comment. I don’t think he should stay with our group anymore,” Matsui said.

The Restoration Party has so far not condemned Hashimoto. Government officials have avoided making comments on his remarks on the grounds that he is the leader of an opposition party.

Hashimoto attributed the backlash against his comments to a lack of sensitivity on his part. The U.S. State Department called his remarks “outrageous and offensive.”

On Friday, Hashimoto lashed back at his critics through Twitter, insisting that organized sex services were needed to prevent sex crimes by American troops during the 1945-1952 U.S. occupation following Japan’s defeat in World War II.

Nishimura has raised various hooplas in the past.

In 2005, the Democratic Party of Japan, an opposition party, expelled Nishimura for allegedly letting an unqualified employee do legal work on his behalf while taking a cut of the fees.

In October 1999, Nishimura was forced to resign as parliamentary vice-minister of defense for suggesting Japan should be armed with nuclear weapons, after serving in the post for only 16 days.

Japan, whose cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were razed by atomic bombs at the end of World War II, has rejected the use of nuclear weapons.

--

OH MY GOD, EVERY MEMBER OF THE ISHIN NO KAI NEEDS TO SHUT UP.

For Sale: A video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Smoking Crack Cocaine

2013-05-17T13:10:58Z

CRACK COCAINE
JOHN COOK
Yesterday 8:28pm

For Sale: A Video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Smoking Crack Cocaine
Rob Ford, Toronto's conservative mayor, is a wild lunatic given to making bizarre racist pronouncements and randomly slapping refrigerator magnets on cars. One reason for this is that he smokes crack cocaine. I know this because I watched him do it, on a videotape. He was fucking hiiiiigh. It's for sale if you've got six figures.

It began like this: We've made fun of Ford before for his bizarre pronouncements and nude pictures. Last week, we got a tip from someone claiming to have a videotape of Ford smoking crack. Would we like to buy it?

The tipster made the following claims:

• Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smokes crack cocaine.

• There is a video of Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine, taken within the last six months.

• Rob Ford purchases his crack cocaine from a crew of Toronto drug dealers that service a veritable who's who of A-list...Torontonians? Torontites? Anyway, a lot of prominent people in Toronto purchase and enjoy crack and powder cocaine, and they all buy it from the same folks. The same folks Ford buys it from. Ford's longtime friend, people on his staff, his brother, a prominent hockey analyst, and more.

As evidence of his claims, our tipster provided the photo above. It shows Ford hanging out with a number of people. The gentleman standing to his right, flipping the camera the bird, is Anthony Smith. Smith, a 21-year-old college student, was killed two months ago outside a Toronto nightclub in a gangland-style shooting. A photo, from a CBC story on his murder, is at left. Smith was, according to our tipster, a kid from the same neighborhood as the dealers who service Ford, and the photo was taken while Ford was going to the neighborhood to purchase and smoke crack cocaine.

If you're curious about the photo's veracity, at left is another photo, from the National Post, of Ford wearing the same sweatshirt.

Needless to say, the story intrigued me. I asked the tipster for a screengrab of the video to verify that he had what he claimed to have. He refused. If I wanted to see the video, I was going to have to go to Toronto. He sounded confident enough. Certain things that he told me checked out. So off I went.

Toronto is lovely. Our first effort to meet up, at a Toronto bus station at night, fizzled. The tipster was there, but the person who actually had possession of the video was a no-show. The tipster and I retired to a coffee shop to talk Toronto politics and Rob Ford's curious history—his rise as a sort of oddly drunken, brazenly honest conservative voice in a decidedly liberal and polite city. It was a nice night, but I was beginning to worry I'd been had.

The next morning, I connected again with the tipster. He was going to locate the owner of the video, he told me. Last night, there had been a mix-up. The video was being stored in a safe place, but the person who had access to the safe place had briefly disappeared, and so the owner couldn't get access to the safe place to get the device on which the video was stored. By the morning, however, the tipster and the owner had located the person who had access to the safe place. This was going to happen.

Checkout time was at noon. My flight was at 7:30 p.m. I loitered around downtown Toronto, checking out the mall, until I got the text: We were to meet up at a chain restaurant near the airport. The tipster picked me up from the restaurant and drove me to a housing development. The owner of the video would meet us there.

We sit idling in his car, making small talk. The tipster calls the owner and talks in language other than English. "He'll be right down," he says. Fifteen minutes pass. "Waiting for the elevator," he says. Ten minutes pass. A young gentleman opens the rear door of the car and gets in. The two men speak in a language other than English. The young gentleman immediately exits the vehicle. No video.

The tipster looks at me: "The battery is dead." The young gentleman—the owner of the video—needed to go back upstairs to charge the battery on the device that contained the video. We wait. More small talk.

The owner of the video returns. He thrusts a device, a phone with a touchscreen, in my face. "Can I hold it?" I ask.

"No."

I crane my neck. It plays.

Here is what the video shows: Rob Ford, the mayor of Toronto, is the only person visible in the frame. Prior to the trip, I spent a lot of time looking at photographs of Rob Ford. The man in the video is Rob Ford. It is well-lit, clear. Ford is seated, in a room in a house. In one hand is a a clear, glass pipe. The kind with a big globe and two glass cylinders sticking out of it. In the other hand is a lighter. A slurred voice off-camera is ranting about Canadian politics in what sounds like an attempt to goad Ford. "Pierre Trudeau was a faggot!" is the one phrase the lodges in my mind. Ford, pipe in one hand and lighter in the other, is laughing, and mildly protesting at the sacrilege. He seems to keep trying to light the pipe, but keeps stopping to laugh. He is red-faced and sweaty, heaving with each breath. Finally, he finds his moment and lights up. He inhales.

In one move, the owner stops the video and draws the device back into his pocket.

"You took this?" I ask.

"Yes."

"When?"

"Within the last six months."

"You're sure it's crack?"

"Yes."

"You've seen him smoke crack before?"

"Yes. Gotta jet."

And he is gone.

So: That was a video of the mayor of Toronto smoking crack. The trouble is, the owner wants money. More money than I am willing to pay. The tipster has already reached out to one other news outlet, a Canadian organization that he refused to name, which offered $40,000. The owner rejected that. He thinks he can get six figures. It's unlikely he's going to get six figures.

But I am going to try. The tipster wants this video out. Rob Ford needs to be held to account. The owner just wants money—preferably enough to get out of town after this blows up, since he doesn't think it will be safe for him. The tipster and I both fear that the owner will try to sell the video back to Ford. That would be a shame.

So if Gawker can't come up with enough money to ring this owner's bell, perhaps we can find a partner. This isn't just the mayor of Toronto smoking crack cocaine, after all: This is Toronto Confidential. There are a host of important local officials wrapped up in this drug ring. 60 Minutes? No. Dateline NBC? No. Inside Edition? No. National Enquirer? No. CNN? Maybe!

Well, no. But when I emailed an acquaintance at CNN this afternoon, laying out much the same information I've offered above and asking for discretion and confidentiality lest we screw up a pretty fucking great story about the mayor of the fifth-largest city in North America smoking crack cocaine on camera, he forwarded the email to his producer. The producer, in turn, asked CNN's Canada reporter about it. The Canada reporter—and this was a pretty fucking big mistake—called a source who used to work in Ford's office. Within 40 minutes, word had gotten back to me that "CNN called Ford's office asking about a crack tape."

And so here we are. The owner still hasn't found a buyer with pockets deep enough to meet his demands. But word is out around Toronto now that the tape exist, and Ford's circle knows about it courtesy a CNN reporter. So, with permission, I am laying out everything I know about the Rob Ford Crack Tape in the hopes that a) everyone knows that Rob Ford, the mayor of Toronto, smokes crack, and b) this knowledge might hasten the arrival of the Rob Ford Crack Tape on the internet or broadcast television, because really, it is something to behold.

If you want to buy it, let me know. I can put you in touch with a guy.

Ford's office did not immediately respond to an email.

Update: We've received an email from Dennis Morris, a gentleman with a hotmail.com email address purporting to be Ford's attorney. Here is the message. We haven't corrected its formatting.

Greetings;I am a lawyer,and have been contacted by Mayor Ford's office in reference to your indicating you will post a photo of Mayor Ford smoking crack cocaine. Mayor Ford denies such took place,and if such posting occurs,it is false and defamatory,and you will be held legally accountable.In reference to the photo,you wish to publish, Mayor Ford has his photo taken daily,sometimes with others.

If the person you mention is now deceased,it is sad,regardless of his alleged background.

Please govern yourself accordingly.

Dennis Morris.
To contact the author of this post, email john@gawker.com.

[Images via National Post and CBC]

Gawker Media 2013

Source

I was aware that he had an alcoholism issue, but this? I hope he can be talked into rehab. He needs to step down and go to rehab.

Female lawmakers blast Hashimoto, call him the 'shame of Osaka'

2013-05-17T05:59:48Z

Female lawmakers blast Hashimoto, call him the 'shame of Osaka'

A multipartisan group of female lawmakers demanded that Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto retract his remark about wartime “comfort women,” saying he has embarrassed Japan and shown the world he does not understand human rights.

Ten Diet members held a news conference on May 16 at the Upper House members’ building in Tokyo to express their outrage and seek an apology from the mayor.

Criticism around the world erupted after Hashimoto said earlier this week that “comfort women,” a euphemism for women sent to front-line brothels, were necessary for battle-weary Japanese soldiers during World War II.

The lawmakers said Hashimoto’s comment could not be overlooked because it was a major statement that trampled on human rights.

“Hashimoto is the shame of Osaka,” said Kiyomi Tsujimoto, a Lower House member of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan who is also from Osaka Prefecture. “He has said that he would make Osaka into an international city and foster children so they can work in the global marketplace, but he has shown the world that he himself does not possess a global awareness of human rights.”

She said the comment from Hashimoto, who is also co-leader of the Japan Restoration Party, was the equivalent of saying there was nothing wrong with using women in carrying out war.

The 10 lawmakers at the news conference came from five different parties--the DPJ, People’s Life Party, Green Wind, the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party.

Mizuho Fukushima, the SDP leader, said all parties were invited to take part in the news conference. But no members from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party or New Komeito attended. The coalition partners said they would handle the matter on their own.

Yuko Mori, an Upper House member of People’s Life Party, said she fears that people in other countries may come to believe that all Japanese share Hashimoto’s opinions.

“Articles have been widely reported around the world about Hashimoto’s comment that said a ‘Japanese mayor said sex slaves are necessary.’ This has become a very serious matter,” Mori said. “Having such an individual as the mayor of the international city of Osaka as well as the co-leader of a political party will lead to the perception that the Japanese people have a very low sense of human rights.”

Renho, a DPJ Upper House member, said Hashimoto’s comment was an outrageous anachronism. In addition to calling for a retraction and apology, she asked that Hashimoto step down and let Osaka voters decide if they want him to remain as mayor.

She also criticized the Japan Restoration Party, which is also led by Shintaro Ishihara, the former Tokyo governor whose nationalistic words and actions have often triggered outrage from Japan’s neighbors.

“I simply cannot understand how all members of the party can say that Hashimoto’s comments are his personal views,” said Renho, who goes by just a single name.

***

Excerpts from a question-and-answer session with Hashimoto can be found at: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201305160087

--

This is a day or so old, sorry - LJ hated me so no posting. :( Since this came out, Hashimoto has continued to open his big mouth and is not backing down. It has been a wild couple of days in regards to this.

Politicians here have been all but falling over themselves to distance themselves from Hashimoto's idiotic remarks. Also, it's been interesting to see the cultural divide, as it were, on social media in Japan. The Japanese twitterverse has been full of people blasting Hashimoto, while 2chan (where the netoyou haunt) have defended him.

NC Birth Control Bill Protested By Women In 'Mad Men' Garb+ bill heads to floor + amended & passed

2013-05-17T04:20:04Z

Donning vintage outfits from the 1960s, a group of North Carolina women sent the message to state lawmakers on Wednesday that while they enjoy watching AMC's "Mad Men," they don't want to live in an episode of it.

The costumed protest, organized by Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina, took place at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on a bill that would allow employers and pharmacists to refuse to cover or dispense contraception for moral reasons. If passed, the law would violate President Barack Obama's contraception mandate, which requires employers to cover birth control at no cost to women, and would effectively reverse a 14-year-old state law requiring all employers who cover other prescription drugs to also cover contraception.

Planned Parenthood supporters showed up at the hearing wearing 1960s garb to suggest that lawmakers are turning back the clock on women's reproductive rights.

“We love a good vintage look -- but not when it's running the state legislature," Melissa Reed, Vice President of Public Policy for Planned Parenthood Health Systems, said in a statement. "That is why we are here to remind these politicians and bosses who continue to insist that they should be the ones who decide if and when women can access birth control.”
north carolina birth control

Despite the protest, the Republican-controlled committee approved the bill by a vote of 8 to 6, continuing the North Carolina General Assembly's streak of advancing bills that limit reproductive rights.

The House Health and Human Services Committee approved a bill earlier this month that would require teenagers to present a notarized parental consent form in order to access sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment, mental health counseling, pregnancy care or substance abuse treatment. And a bill approved by the Senate Health Committee last week would require North Carolina’s health instructors to teach that abortions can cause premature births in later pregnancies, a statement that was strongly disputed by medical health experts at the bill's hearing.

“We’re here to say to state legislators who want to turn the clock back to the 1950s: We like watching Mad Men -- but we don’t want to live in it,” Paige Johnson, Vice President of Public Affairs for PPCNC, said in a statement on Wednesday. “Women's preventive care — including birth control -– is basic health care. Politicians and bosses have no business denying women access to this basic health care. This shouldn't be a revolutionary idea, but unfortunately it is to some.”

---

Virtually any employer in North Carolina could opt to buy insurance plans that do not include contraception coverage under a bill that cleared the House Judiciary A Committee Wednesday.

The same bill bars cities and counties from offering health insurance plans that pay for abortions except in the case of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at risk.

The measure, sponsored by Rep. Jacqueline Schaffer, R-Mecklenburg, is heading to the floor in advance of the legislature's crossover deadline on Thursday, the point by which bills that don't raise or spend money must pass either the House or Senate.

If debate in the committee is any indication, the measure could face a tough challenge when it reaches the House floor. At least two Republicans sided with Democrats to try to pull the contraception measure from the bill.

"To suggest in the 21st century that a woman could be prevented from having access to birth control, even as far to the right as I am, that's going off the cliff," said Rep. Bob Steinburg, R-Chowan. "This is going too far."
Bill changed before committee

As originally drafted, House Bill 730 dealt mainly with the question of coverage for contraception.

North Carolina law already allows employers with religious affiliations to offer health plans with no contraception coverage. This bill extends the definition of "religious employer" to "include any employer, whether incorporated or not and whether for-profit or not, that has a religious, moral, or ethical objection to providing such coverage."

The original version of the bill also extended the right to opt out of helping with an abortion procedure to any health care provider, not just doctors and nurses, as is the case under current law.

A new version of the bill, which had been shown to some conservative groups but not to the general public before it was presented to the committee, added two sections restricting the availability of insurance coverage for abortion.

One provision says that any health plans created pursuant to the federal Affordable Care Act would not include abortion coverage, despite at least one federal court ruling that such provisions run counter to the law and are therefore unenforceable.

A final section of the bill prohibits cities and counties from offering abortion coverage in their health plans greater than what the state allows in its employee health plan. Currently, the State Health Plan pays for abortion only in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at stake.

Large rewrites of bills in committee are not unusual at the legislature, and it is not unusual for bills to move swiftly in advance of key legislative deadlines. But opponents of the measure decried the last-minute additions.

"We're doing legislation by ambush," said Rep. Larry Hall, D-Durham, the House minority leader.
Bill draws support, opponents

"I think we all can recognize that North Carolinians hold differing views on these issues concerning certain medical treatment and procedures. This bill strives to protect those conscience rights," Schaffer said.

She said the measure was aimed at making sure nobody was forced to pay for or participate in a procedure to which they objected.

The bill has drawn support from conservative groups, particularly those opposed to abortion.

"This is a matter of religious freedom for these business owners. It is not a matter of discrimination against women," said Tami Fitzgerald, director of the North Carolina Values Coalition, a group that helped push through the amendment to the state constitution banning gay marriage. "Women are free to pay for their own contraception if they want to, but their employers should not be compelled to pay for it."

"This bill has the potential to cause great harm," said Dr. Rebecca Mercier of Chapel Hill, pointing out that contraceptive medications have uses outside of preventing pregnancy.

"This bill is based on some fiction that contraception is controversial in this country and morally ambiguous. It is not. It is an essential pillar of women's health care here and throughout the world," she said.

Women organized by Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina dressed in 1950s- and 1960s-era clothing to attend the meeting, making the point they believed lawmakers were returning health care coverage to a 1950s sensibility.
Committee discussion was heated

"There is probably nobody in this room that is any more pro-life than I am," Steinburg said. "But I've got to tell you, I've got a real problem with this bill as is."

The conservative Republican told committee members that his wife had benefited from taking contraceptive medication for a condition unrelated to preventing pregnancy.

Also, he said, the state should not be getting in the way of coverage that helps prevent unplanned pregnancies, which often lead to more strain on state health care resources such as Medicaid.

Rep. Deborah Ross, D-Wake, offered an amendment to pull the contraception provision from the bill.

"It's simply not good policy," she said, adding that preventing contraception coverage might lead more women to seek abortions.

Schaffer insisted the bill doesn't make much of a change to current law.

"We're not attempting to change the law," she said, pointing out that there are already health plans that allow some employers to opt out of contraception coverage. "We're attempting to extend the conscience rights of religious employers."

That drew a rebuke from Rep. Alma Adams, D-Guilford, who said the bill obviously changed the law because it would put more women in situations where they would not be able to obtain birth control.

"More women are going to be denied," she said.

The amendment failed on a 7-7 vote, with Steinburg and Rep. Jon Hardister, R-Guilford, bucking their fellow Republicans to vote for it.

On the final committee vote, the measure passed 8-6, with Hardister raising his hand to support passage. It will next go to the House floor, likely late Wednesday.

---

The state House has passed a bill dealing with several abortion-related provisions, but only after removing a controversial provision dealing with contraception coverage.

House Bill 730, which passed the House Judiciary A Committee Wednesday morning, originally contained a measure that would have allowed employers to opt out of providing contraception in their health plans.

North Carolina law already allows employers with religious affiliations to offer health plans with no contraception coverage. The committee-passed version of the bill extended the definition of "religious employer" to "include any employer, whether incorporated or not and whether for-profit or not, that has a religious, moral, or ethical objection to providing such coverage."

However, the contraception provision was controversial among Republicans.

"It's going to hurt on the House floor," Rep. Bob Steinburg, R-Chowan, warned the committee.

His fellow Republicans took that warning to heart and stripped the provision when it came to the House floor Wednesday night.

The bill now deals with three different abortion-related matters:

extending the right to opt out of helping with an abortion procedure to any health care provider, not just doctors and nurses, as is the case under current law
prohibiting health plans created pursuant to the federal Affordable Care Act from including abortion coverage, despite at least one federal court ruling that such provisions run counter to the law and are therefore unenforceable
prohibiting cities and counties from offering abortion coverage in their health plans greater than what the state allows in its employee health plan. Currently, the State Health Plan pays for abortion only in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at stake

The provisions with respect to the Affordable Care Act and local government coverage were not part of the bill as filed and were not available to the public before the morning committee meeting. They now make up the bulk of the bill.

The bill passed the House 67-38. It will be debated and voted on again Thursday before heading to the state Senate.

Even without the contraception measure, the measure still angers liberal health advocacy groups.

"Thousands of our activists contacted their representatives over the last three days to tell them that women – not employers or politicians – have the right to control their health decisions, including whether to use birth control," said Suzanne Buckley, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina. "We celebrate the defeat of this extreme, out-of-touch provision of HB 730 and turn our attention to the remaining provisions of HB 730 up for third reading tomorrow night."

---

The House has sent to the Senate a bill that would prohibit cities and counties from offering abortion coverage in their employee health plans.

"This does not have anything to do with removing a woman's access to abortion," said Rep. Jacqueline Schaffer, R-Mecklenburg. "We should not be forcing taxpayer to fund procedures they find morally objectionable."

The measure will also affect the health insurance plans offered on the exchanges set up by the federal Affordable Care Act. The exchanges, which will provide a way for people currently without health insurance to buy an affordable policy, will not be able to offer plans in North Carolina that include coverage for abortion procedures.

"It will leave women without coverage for safe, common and critical cares," said Rep. Alma Adams, D-Guilford. "It will force them into back rooms."

The measure passed 72-39.

HuffPo & WRAL 2 3

Many different articles and it's a long read but this bill was and still is very harmful. It was a very sneaky move of the GOP to slip this bill through on the day before crossover. And sorry for yesterday, LJ went off the rails and used me for their antics.