Video: British nerds bond over World of Warcraft

I love this. The end is the best part.

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Hate group tries to claim credit for Komen debacle

The officially-designed religious right hate group, American Family Association, is now oddly (or typically) claiming credit for the failure of two Susan G. Komen events to pull in the support they previously expected. Here is AFA's latest email alert:

Nationwide, women are choosing to no longer support Komen and its partnership with Planned Parenthood.

A March 25 Komen race in Southern Arizona was short 7,267 participants of their goal of 11,000. The event also failed to meet their fundraising goal of $700,000 by over $100,000.

Another race in Indianapolis scheduled for next week is also expected to be at least 10,000 short of last year's 37,500 participants.

There's that.  Or maybe people are leaving Komen in droves specifically BECAUSE of what it did to Planned Parenthood. I don't know anyone progressive who would ever give another dime to Susan G. Komen after the Planned Parenthood debacle. So, gee, perhaps that's why their fundraising and turnout is suffering.

AFA is good at trying to claim victory from the jaws of the defeat. Probably because they're just not that good at this game. Hell, Joe and I beat them a few years ago when they got Ford Motor Company to stop advertising in gay publications. After we blew the issue up here on the blog, forcing other gay groups to finally get involved, Ford caved. AFA was ticked at us. I know they were, because someone inside subsequently defected and told me about the meetings.

So it's understandable why AFA feels the need to claim credit when it's not clear that any is due.  Otherwise, they'd have nothing to say. Read the rest of this post...

Eyeless crabs: Gulf seafood showing signs of mutations post BP spill

If you believe BP, there's nothing wrong with the seafood in the Gulf of Mexico. You probably also don't believe in climate change or any other science that shows the negative impact of oil on the environment. As this Al Jazeera article explains, it took nearly four years for the impact of a spill in Alaska to be fully understood but the results are showing much faster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Fishermen and scientists are alarmed by the significant increase in mutated fish and shellfish, including eyeless crabs and shrimp. Overall catches have dropped as well, which should be setting off alarms. The studies will continue but until the court case starts against BP it may be a long time until everything is known.

When discussing domestic oil drilling, Big Oil and their apologists (also known as the GOP) always ignore critical issues such as the negative impact of lost tourism, lost jobs related to the seafood industry as well as lost food sources for Americans. How are those not also important? Just because they don't have the deep pockets to smear everyone else doesn't mean those industries aren't also important, no? Read the rest of this post...

Delta to punish business travelers with new fees

If ever you want to learn how about best practices for alienating customers and driving them to the competition, just follow Delta Air Lines. What used to be a great airline (a few decades ago) is now scraping the bottom in a market that is known for low quality. Because of the Air France links, I have the displeasure of flying Delta from time to time. The people working the planes are usually as nice as could be but the overall quality compared to the rest of the industry is below average.

What's worse is that the airline is already expensive, plus the insulting fees and now new fees for the people who fly the most. Delta management consistently has a knack for annoying customers. I'm still waiting for a response to a message about baggage fees from last year when my luggage didn't arrive with my flight. Speaking with customers obviously isn't very important for Delta management. Once again, what are the clowns running Delta thinking? Read the rest of this post...

Romneys to skip annual dancing horse thing that sounds like sex act

And the Romney continue to reinvent themselves.

The World Cup finals for the elite sport of dancing horses, known as dressage, opened today in the Netherlands without the presence of two of its most prominent wealthy devotees, Mitt and Ann Romney. The Romneys' horse, Rafalca, will compete, however, performing to music personally selected by the Republican presidential candidate.

Of course. It's not like the Romneys ride horses. That would be too normal. They own them.

In the midst of her husband's race for president, Ann Romney has quietly climbed to the upper ranks of the equestrian sport of dressage -- not as a rider but as an owner and financial sponsor of a horse-and-rider team from California. [emphasis added]

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Ted Nugent to meet tomorrow with Secret Service over Obama remarks

Oh to be a fly on the wall.

In the meantime, Romney has still said nothing about Nugent calling President Obama a "piece of sh-t," about referring to blacks as "n-----s," about calling Hillary Clinton a "c-nt," a "wh-re" and a b-tich," about calling Nancy Pelosi "sub-human," and Debbie Wasserman Schultz a "brain-dead idiot."

A lot of women on that list. Read the rest of this post...

How does Mitt Romney feel about Ted Nugent's use of the n-word?

The hits just keep on coming. Here's Nugent back in 1990, quoted in the Detroit Free Press magazine:

In the same interview Nugent expounded on his racial views, "I use the word n----r a lot because I hang around with a lot of n----rs, and they use the word n----r, and I tend to use words that communicate...."

So "they" like to be called that.  Good to know. Read the rest of this post...

Does Romney agree with Ted Nugent that Hillary Clinton is a "c*nt" and a "two-bit wh*re"?

Romney wooed Ted Nugent. Romney and his son Tagg publicly talked about how excited they were that Ted Nugent was endorsing Romney. Every hour we find out something even more despicable about Ted Nugent. What is Mitt Romney doing? From the Violence Policy Center:

[I]n a July 1994 interview in Westworld Newspaper, Nugent called Hillary Clinton a "toxic c--t," adding, "This bitch is nothing but a two-bit whore for Fidel Castro."

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White House LGBT Exec Order debacle: One week later, still mired in controversy

A week ago, the White House announced that the President wouldn't be signing the LGBT non-discrimination Executive Order. We just cross-posted at AMERICAblog Gay, but wanted to give everyone the update. Because, the fallout continues. I have to imagine that the political geniuses on the campaign and at the White House figured that this would slide by. After all, we're now smack in the middle of the campaign. Their opponent, Mitt Romney, has been burnishing his anti-gay credentials, including an endorsement from the race-baiters at NOM. Surely, they must have calculated, this will be a mere bump in the road.

Wrong -- like so many calculations made by Team Obama, especially when it comes to the LGBT community.

In Roll Call, "The newspaper of Capitol Hill Since 1955" (sub. req.), Rep. Jared Polis took a whack at the White House:

“Without a Congress that’s willing to pass [the Employment Non-Discrimination Act], I wish the president was a little more aggressive to pursue nondiscrimination,” openly gay Rep. Jared Polis said in a brief interview Monday.

The Colorado Democrat, a leader in the LGBT Equality Caucus, said Obama made a strategic misstep last week when he announced he wanted Congress to move on enacting a nondiscrimination policy for all workers rather than issue an
executive order that could protect employees working for federal contractors. With a Republican-led House and a Congress now focused on the elections, the chances of passing a gay-rights-oriented bill this year are dim at best. And the prospects could remain equally grim if Democrats fail to win back control of the House in November.

“I was disappointed they haven’t reached out yet,” Polis said, noting that he had not spoken with anyone in the administration sincelast week’s announcement. “They certainly have a lot of explaining to do in the LGBT community.”

They're not explaining it well at all.

Watch this exchange between White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and the Washington Blade's Chris Johnson.

Okay. So, now, they want to do ENDA legislatively - and it's like DADT? The only thing like DADT is the way Carney is obfuscating, just like Gibbs did when he got DADT questions.

Speaking of DADT, Metro Weekly's Chris Geidner has an analysis pointing out four reasons why the contractor executive order is not like DADT:

Asked if the administration misjudged the response from Obama's supporters to the decision not to pursue the executive order, Carney defended the decision as "the right approach."

He said, "The president believes that, in this case, the right approach is to try and build support for ENDA. I think that a good example, again, is to look at the approach that was taken by this administration in dealing with his commitment to repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' and working with Congress and working with the Pentagon to make sure that that came to pass. There was criticism at the time that we weren't taking the right approach. In the end, I think, it has been shown to have been the right approach and to have been an effective approach in building support and ensuring that in its implementation ... that the implementation itself has been extremely effective."

There are four major distinctions between what happened surrounding DADT repeal and what is going on with the administration's actions to advance LGBT workplace protections, distinctions thus far ignored by the White House.

Geidner's four distinctions, all backed up with supporting info., are:

First, the control of Congress was in the Democrats' hands in the 111th Congress.

Second, although a formal moratorium on DADT discharges was not put in place prior to DADT repeal, the administration did take interim steps to lessen discrimination while awaiting legislative action on the repeal.

Third, unlike with DADT repeal, the relevant agencies appear to be fully on board with the executive action being sought here.

Fourth, unlike the DADT discharge change, the additional effects of the proposed executive order being sought by advocates with regards to workplace discrimination have impact beyond that which would be achieved by ENDA.

Kinda demolishes the White House arguments.

Yesterday, Mike Signorile wrote a great post over at Huffington, providing some context for what the White House decision means politically and for the LGBT movement:

The problem for the campaign is that the White House itself brought this issue to everyone's attention by calling the meeting of LGBT activists, inspiring reports of a "rift" with gays where there previously wasn't one, and it's not going to go away anytime soon, as activists now have the support of LGBT people across the country who are suddenly focusing in on this issue.

One thing that's being asked is how gay leaders allowed this to happen. Paul Yandura, a gay former Clinton aide, says the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) gave the administration a pass, with HRC sitting on its polling on the issue when it should have released it publicly months ago, and NGLTF not even sending out a press release right after the meeting to criticize the president.

A larger problem is that HRC endorsed the president a year ago, and all the group appears to have gotten in return was his presence as a speaker at their annual dinner. That helps them sell lots of tickets, but doesn't do much in attaining tangible rights. Had HRC not endorsed Obama until now, they could have told the White House, "This is what we want for our endorsement."

The gay groups worried about losing access not only do a disservice to the LGBT movement in this regard, but by not publicly making it clear that refusing to sign the order will be a bigger headache for the president than that imagined during any "panic," they badly serve the president, as well.

This should never have been a controversy. The White House needs to fix it -- fast. Read the rest of this post...

Obama transition advisor: Obama's advisers feared "revolt" if he prosecuted Bush-era war crimes

Looks like the State knows how to stand up for itself, even against an incoming president (my emphasis everywhere):

President-Elect Obama’s advisers feared in 2008 that authorities [sic] would “revolt” and that Republicans would block his policy agenda if he prosecuted Bush-era war crimes, according to [UC Berkeley Law School Dean Christopher Edley, Jr.,] who served as one of Obama’s top transition advisers.

There's a old joke that goes like this:

The new president gives his inauguration speech to wild applause, then retires with his transition team to the Oval Office to begin work. Soon one of the top career CIA officials, a man who has been in office for decades, comes to his side and whispers: "Mr. President, may I have a minute? There's something I'd like to show you."

He leads the president to a small room off the main hallway, where a DVD player and television are set up.

"Have a seat, sir," he says. "This will just take a moment."

The president sits and the CIA official starts the DVD. The president watches as the Kennedy assassination is played — shot from an angle never seen in public. It's over in minutes, and the TV screen goes black.

"Any questions, sir?" asks the CIA man.

The president returns to his office to prepare for his first day of administration.

Of course that's a joke; it's been around since Clinton days. Now back to the real world, and Naked Capitalism.

This story has a lot of angles, since Edley is dean of the faculty which includes John Yoo, Bush II's notorious torture-justifying lawyer. Another angle is — hey, this story is old; the exchange reported occurred in September 2011. Where's the press coverage? So please, go read.

I'll give you just one more snippet, about the aspect covered in the headline. Keep in mind, this information came out only because an activist asked the right question during a Q&A; at a 9/11 presentation at which Dean Edley spoke. The article's author says:

The story arose because Susan Harman, a California resident opposed to torture, asked Edley a question Sept. 2 at his forum and mailed his comments to me, among others. ...

Here’s Harman’s account of her actions at the Boalt Hall forum, which focused on such goals as human rights and the rule of law:

I said I was overwhelmed by the surreality of Yoo being on the law faculty . . . when he was single-handedly responsible for the three worst policies of the Bush Administration. They all burbled about academic freedom and the McCarthy era, and said it isn’t their job to prosecute him.

Duh.

Dean Chris Edley volunteered that he’d been party to very high level discussions during Obama’s transition about prosecuting the criminals. He said they decided against it. I asked why. Two reasons: 1) it was thought that the CIA, NSA, and military would revolt, and 2) it was thought the Repugnants [sic; Harman speaking] would retaliate by blocking every piece of legislation they tried to move (which, of course, they’ve done anyhow).

Harman says that she approached Edley privately after the forum closed and said she appreciated that Obama might have been in danger but felt that he “bent over backwards” to protect lawbreakers within the Bush administration. She recalled, “He shrugged and said they will never be prosecuted, and that sometimes politics trumps rule of law.”

Thus we are where we are today. Rule of Law — We of the 99% have more than our share, and the 0.01% seem to have lost theirs.

It's important to note that this "fear of revolt" is not attributed to Obama himself, but to his transition team:

Edley confirmed to me in an exclusive email interview Harman’s quotations, and provided additional information about the transition team’s concerns. Among his important points is that transition officials, not Obama, agreed that he faced the possibility of a revolt.

There you have it. Just the messenger, folks — though it does suggest that the State has its own momentum, doesn't it?

(For longer pieces on the same subject by the same author, go here or here.)

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)
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Romney supporter Nugent now calls Pelosi "sub-human," DNC chair Wasserman "brain-dead idiot"

And Mitt Romney wonders why he has a problem with women.

And not a word from Mitt Romney himself.

Though the Romney family had a lot to say about the supposed slight they took from Democratic operative Hilary Rosen last week. Now, faced with their own big-name supporter who has made violence-tinged comments about the President of the United States, and even about Hillary Clinton - a supporter about whom numerous members of the Romney family recently vocally embraced - the Romney family suddenly grows silent.

Where is Mitt Romney's outrage over Ted Nugent?  Or do the Romneys think Ted Nugent's comments are a "gift" too. Read the rest of this post...

Sanctions easing against Myanmar, but should they?

In recent months, the West has been responsive to discussions with the government in Myanmar to open up the relationships. In return for ending sanctions, Myanmar allowed elections and have freed some (not all) of the political prisoners. With each step, Western governments have made moves to normalize the relationships including steps leading to aid agreements and eventually trade agreements.

One of the opposition groups in Myanmar is pushing back, arguing that these rapid changes are sending the "wrong signal" to the government since so many more political prisoners remain and the war against ethic groups continues. They're not wrong with this argument, though without some links into the previously secretive and closed government, the West has almost no leverage with the government.

If you look at countries like Iran and Syria, the US faces challenges in pushing the local governments since there are so few links. The reasons behind the lack of links is understandable, but without any leverage, is being completely cut off really in the best interest of the West or the local opposition groups? More on the evolving links between the West and Myanmar at Al Jazeera. Read the rest of this post...

Vide: Guy inflates huge Superman costume

It's cute.

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