NYC: ‘Blue Lives Matter’ Bill.

CREDIT: eddtoro/Shutterstock

CREDIT: eddtoro/Shutterstock

New York has become the latest state to introduce a Blue Lives Matter bill, which would classify assaulting an officer as a hate crime. The bill was introduced today by New York Assemblyman Ron Castorina (R), with support from Council Member Joseph C. Borelli (R) and NYPD Sergeant Joe Imperatrice, the president and founder of Blue Lives Matter NYC.

Hate crime legislation currently only applies to attacks based on race, sexual orientation, national origin, and religious affiliation. But this new legislation would classify cops as a protected class, aligning them with ethnic and religious minorities and the LGBT community.

In an interview with the New York Observer, Castorina noted the recent attacks on cops in Baton Rouge and Dallas this past month as a driving force for the bill. He also blamed Black Lives Matter protests for provoking violence against law enforcement.

“It’s based on this climate in this country right now where police officers are being abused and they’re being disrespected, and we’re seeing they have a target on their back, in Louisiana and in Dallas,” Castorina said. “You can envision this happening at a protest, where somebody might throw a rock or a bottle or a punch.”

Talk about a bad, knee-jerk reaction. This is completely unnecessary, as punishments for assaulting a cop are much higher than assaulting a non-cop, and everyone knows that cops will already do whatever they need to in order to tack on a resisting arrest charge, so now they’ll be busy finding ways to tack on an assault charge, too. Oh, this won’t lead anywhere bad, no, of course not. :Insert spine popping eyeroll here: Honesty would be welcome. Why not just call this what it is, a brutal enforcement of bowing down to authority? Being a cop is nowhere near as dangerous as a number of other jobs, and the majority of cops are killed in traffic accidents. The stats are quite clear as to there being many more civilians shot and killed by cops, then cops being shot by civilians.

Civilians get killed by police far more often. Law enforcement officers shot and killed some 990 people in 2015 and another 491 in the first half of this year, according to the Washington Post’s award-winning tracking of police shootings.

That’s almost 1,500 police killings in 18 months, compared to 305 law enforcement officers attacked and killed in the line of duty in the six-year span of numbers in the new report. Police officers have shot and killed about 82 people each month nationwide since the start of last year, and have been killed by attackers roughly 4 times per month going back to the start of 2010.

So of course, cops must be made into a protected class, oh my yes! As these bills pass, and they will, we can all look forward to many more people dying unjustly at the hands of cops, and those who don’t die may well end up with extended prison sentences because of cops who will claim assault. Just what our already over-burdened, fucked up penal system needs. Fuck stormtroopers.

Via ThinkProgress.

NO, Gov. Bryant, NO!

Gov. Phil Bryant. AP Photo.

Gov. Phil Bryant. AP Photo.

Apparently, Governor Bryant doesn’t understand the word no, even though it has been explained to him repeatedly.

A federal judge had some harsh words for Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant when he refused—again—to let the state enforce what many have called the country’s most discriminatory law against LGBTs.

U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves refused Monday to stay his injunction against HB 1523 while Bryant organized his appeal, saying that the “absence does not impair the free exercise of religion.”

[…]

Reeves’s irritation with the case came through loud and clear in his brief, claiming he was “passing the baton” to a higher court and openly doubted if the governor would win on appeal.

Maybe that’s because the Magnolia State tried to compare businesses serving LGBT customers with forcing someone to fight in combat or get an abortion.

“Issuing a marriage license to a gay couple is not like being forced into armed combat or to assist with an abortion,” Reeves wrote.

Honestly, you can hear the exasperation in the writing.

I imagine that’s the same exasperation parents feel when presented with a toddler who refuses to take no for an answer. Grow up, Governor.

Via Out.

Natural Roles and Abilities.

jedwards_112007_180x238White nationalist James Edwards, who is credentialed by the Trump campaign, decided to speak out about Hillary Clinton, and what his god thinks about that uppity woman.

James Edwards, host of The Political Cesspool, reflected on Chelsea Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention and opined that Hillary Clinton could “not be the mother God wants you to be” because she was an “extremist radical, feminist.”

“So I’m sure that there is love between Hillary Clinton and her daughter, but I did not see the family and familial bonds out of the Clinton family that I saw from the Trump family,” he explained. “Does anyone really believe that Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton sleep in the same room? Does anyone really believe that Hillary Clinton even sleeps with men?”

Weren’t you just whining about Chelsea Clinton’s speech? Do you think she came from a cabbage patch or something? Personally, I don’t think about who people might be sleeping with. None of my business. I find it more than telling that far right assholes can’t seem to think about anything else.

“Should Hillary Clinton be president of the United States?” Edwards asked his listeners, adding that “under God’s law, a woman should not even have dominion over her household.”

“There are natural roles and abilities that men and women have that are God-ordained and together, they are complementary of one another, and together, a man and a woman can raise a family,” the radio host insisted. “The husband is the ruler of the house under God’s law, and that’s the law that I abide by,”

Edwards went on to assert that the country would be “better” if women did not have the right to vote.

“I mean, ask yourself that because we see women are so — even more than men, and even though men now — need this status, they need to be accepted, they need food, water, shelter, and status in order to survive, but women especially need that,” Edwards said. “You know, I think the model before suffrage was a husband and a wife come together as a unit and the man casts the vote for that family.”

What an idiot.

Via Raw Story.

Bring Me the Blood of Young People!

Peter Thiel.

Peter Thiel.

Peter Thiel, a wannabe Bathory. Thiel seems to share an obsession which is common among those with an absolutely filthy amount of money – he wants to live forever and ever. Or at least, a seriously long time. The key to a very, very long life? Blood. Specifically, the blood of young people. It’s magical, a resetting of gene expression, doncha know? I’m no scientist, not even close to one, but this seems to me to be more of that age old tradition of parting a fool from his money.

Billionaire PayPal founder Peter Thiel said that he believes transfusions of blood from young people can reverse his aging process and allow him to live a vastly extended lifespan.

In an interview with Inc.com’s Jeff Bercovici, Thiel said that the practice — known as parabiosis — is the closest modern science has come to creating an anti-aging panacea.

Thiel — a hedge funder who acted as a delegate for Donald Trump and spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention — is reportedly obsessed with defying death and extending the human lifespan. He has injected funds into startups that are experimenting with ways to forestall the body’s inevitable decline and death.

“I’m looking into parabiosis stuff,” Thiel told Bercovici, “where they [injected] the young blood into older mice and they found that had a massive rejuvenating effect. … I think there are a lot of these things that have been strangely underexplored.”

Just a thought here, but as there really is nothing new under the sun, perhaps there’s a reason this whole “blood of the young!” business is so um, strangely under explored.

Parabiosis experiments began in the 1950s with crude exercises in which rats were cut open and their circulatory systems restructured and manipulated. Recently, some companies have been advancing human trials with parabiosis. Bercovici wrote that U.S. studies in the field are currently lagging behind trials in China and Korea.

A California company called Ambrosia is conducting human trials in which healthy people aged 35 or older receive transfusions of blood plasma from people under 25. Participants pay $8,000 to take part and their health is closely monitored for the two years they receive the transfusions. Participants must live in or have the means to travel to Monterey, CA.

Ambrosia’s founder Jesse Karmazin told Bercovici that participants experience a reversal of aging systems across every major organ system. Furthermore, the results appear to be long-lasting, he said, if not permanent.

Right. Only $8,000? Gee, I’ll be right over. Interesting that they are starting with 35 years old. 35 is pretty damn young, and it would be easy enough to fool yourself into thinking you feel so much younger at that age. Limit yourself to people who are 55 and older, and we can talk.

“The effects seem to be almost permanent,” Karmazin said. “It’s almost like there’s a resetting of gene expression.”

Someone else who doesn’t understand biology, but is conducting longevity experiments. Okay.

In an interview last year, Thiel told Bercovici that our culture is “a little too biased against all these things” that purportedly prolong life. When the reporter asked Thiel if he was looking at parabiosis as a business opportunity or a personal medial decision, Thiel said the latter. The practice, he said, isn’t necessarily patentable, which compromises its potential money-making value.

However, he said, the FDA needn’t get involved or study the practice because, “it’s just blood transfusions.”

There are rumors that some wealthy individuals in Silicon Valley are doing courses of parabiosis, but Thiel said last year that he hadn’t “quite, quite, quite started yet.” A spokesman for Thiel capital said that nothing has changed since then.

Gawker reported that it received a tip claiming Thiel “spends $40,000 per quarter to get an infusion of blood from an 18-year-old based on research conducted at Stanford on extending the lives of mice.”

Goodness. I’m quite, quite, quite unimpressed. Via Raw Story.

Four White Women Agree.

Fox News presenters Sandra Smith, Lisa Kennedy Montgomery, Elizabeth McDonald and Meghan McCain speak to guest David Webb (center)

Fox News presenters Sandra Smith, Lisa Kennedy Montgomery, Elizabeth McDonald and Meghan McCain speak to guest David Webb (center)

The University of Houston’s Student Government vice president, Rohini Sethi, was hit with sanctions last week after she posted a message on Facebook that read: “Forget #BlackLivesMatter; more like #AllLivesMatter”

“For her to say on her social media ‘forget black lives matter,’ it’s almost as if to say if all of us were to die tomorrow, she wouldn’t care,” University of Houston Black Student Union President Kadidja Koné explained to The Washington Post on Monday.

But four white women hosting Fox News’ Outnumbered on Monday expressed outrage over the sanctions.

“The penalty was so harsh,” host Elizabeth McDonald complained. “The student leader, the president also said… you don’t go to jail for First Amendment violations but she deserves tougher sanctions. Who is this guy? He should be tossed out of his job.”

“I still don’t understand why saying ‘All Lives Matter’ is controversial,” co-host Meghan McCain chimed in. “I don’t understand why you can’t have empathy and understanding for the Black Lives Matter movement and also think that all lives everywhere — including by the way in the womb — also matter. Like, it’s really hard for me to understand how this is controversial.”

Monday’s Outnumbered guest, conservative radio host David Webb, declared that Black Lives Matter was a “violent movement” with “anarchists” behind it.

“It is such a false argument,” co-host Lisa Kennedy Montgomery opined. “It’s so offensive because when you say ‘All Lives Matter,’ you are not intending to say — for most people — is black lives don’t matter, but that’s how it’s taken.”

McCain asserted that universities would let students “go off on Trump” and “to say the most awful, disgusting, horrific things and there would be no recourse.”

“But you say this,” McCain added, “you say ‘All Lives Matter’ and you get demoted and you get your job taken away. That’s crazy.”

“Is there just no open discourse?” co-host Sandra Smith wondered. “Can you just not have a conversation on college campus anymore without someone being offended or having to delete a Facebook post where someone shares their opinion?”

“I’m for not backing down anymore,” Webb said. “You can take your safe space crowd — it doesn’t exist, this is college. This is supposed to be an expansion of our minds.”

Spoken from the safe space haven for bigoted, obnoxious, oblivious assholes. Right. Well, there we have it folks, the incredibly stunning, eloquent, and rational argument for all lives matter. Four white women agree!

Via Raw Story.

#TrumpDebateExcuses.

Via Raw Story.

Facebook, Oh Facebook, Part IV.

636052187367160635-Amy-Pollpeter

A longtime Iowa Department of Public Safety criminalist who publicly posted her personal fears about black people on social media earlier this month is no longer employed by the state, the agency confirmed Wednesday. […] Pollpeter was a criminalist assigned to DPS’ Division of Criminal Investigation.

Rant

What no one from the “blacklivesmatter” seems to remember is that the cold-blooded killer of 5 cops was ONE OF THEM! The movement has not come out and denounced what he did (some have even condoned/supported it). If you are supporting “Black Lives Matter” – You are supporting, even applauding a cop-killer. These men put their lives on the line for your safety EVERY SINGLE DAY! They are rarely respected and even more rarely thanked. The cops in Dallas had never shot a black man, they had nothing to do with the other incidents – we don’t even know what their feelings about blacks were. But yet, the black lives matter movement seems to think it is OK to remain silent about what one of their people did – he shot cops in cold blood. It’s interesting – until a few years ago, I never really saw the color of a person’s skin. They were all just people to me. But BECAUSE OF BLACKS – I do now notice the color of skin – and frankly, I no longer feel safe around them. Yes, not every black person is going to shoot me because I look at them wrong, or because I happen to be attending a training so I’m wearing a DCI shirt that day – but I know that there is a stronger chance that they will today than they would have 5 years ago. BLACKS have effectively created a MORE RACIST environment rather than working to be equal (and let’s face it, I’ve never seen a political statement from blacks that actually wants equality – they want special treatment, special rights, and to be above the law – they want superiority). So yes, if I’m on a sidewalk and you are black, I will now move to the other side of the street and will be watching for whether you have a gun. No, I won’t shoot you, but I won’t trust you either. This is not from some long held belief or teaching that whites are better than blacks, it is purely because there aren’t a bunch of white people running around (instead of working) rioting, looting stores, and shooting cops. The hatred that blacks are experiencing – they have brought on themselves by their actions. I’m sorry that some blacks will suffer for the actions of others – but then again, I’ve seen no apologies from blacks for the suffering that the cops families are going through because of the action of someone else who happened to be in the same profession. #COPSLIVESMATTER.

And this woman was a criminologist, someone who handled evidence. I hope to fuck you remain unemployable for your whole life, Ms. Pollpeter. “I am not a bigot! I’m not! Oh, those people made me one!” Fuck, that was pure bigot bingo. You can tell she was wanting to write nigger rather than black, as she just couldn’t bring herself to attach ‘people’ or ‘person’ to Black. Darn those uppity Black people, if they’d just stay in their proper place and work some shit job, everything would be okely dokely, you bet.

“The Iowa Department of Public Safety has a strong commitment to integrity, impartiality and professionalism in every aspect of our work,” said Commissioner Roxann Ryan. “We have adopted these policies in order to ensure that the public has trust in all that we do, and our policies reflect the high standards that we maintain,”

Gary Licht, a DPS supervisor who oversaw some of Pollpeter’s work, denounced the posts during a Register interview Wednesday.

“What we’re talking about was made public on Facebook. They’re offensive and they do not reflect my thoughts or actions,” Licht said.

Licht said one employee’s comments on social media are not reflective of the department.

“It doesn’t tarnish the rest of us,” Licht said about Pollpeter’s posts. “It’s one person speaking.”

Pollpeter had worked as a DPS criminalist for about 10 years.

Full story is here.

Sunday Facepalm: Stop Clicking Around.

hiltonad

I guess the petition and outrage over Target’s inclusive pee policy has died down, so the American Family Association has found something new to be all outraged over, and have been hawking a new petition in an attempt to shame the Hilton Hotel chain over being terribly inclusive too. I think the advert is kinda cute. Er, I mean it’s obviously evil, those men are in bed!

In the June, 2016, issue of Travel and Leisure magazine, Hilton Worldwide shocked readers by placing a full-page ad that featured two men in bed together. Click here to see the ad.

Travel and Leisure isn’t a gay-specific magazine sent directly to homosexual’s homes. It’s a widely distributed mainstream publication that can be found in many public places such as doctors’ or auto repair waiting rooms.

If Hilton had advertised two men playing tennis, cards, or having lunch, that would have been reasonable. However, Hilton chose to make a cultural and social statement by purposely marketing the promotion of homosexuality to a large segment of the population who finds the idea of two men sleeping together unnatural and offensive.

I guess it didn’t occur to these arbiters of morality that Hilton was aiming at the queer market, letting all the queer folk know that Hilton is inclusive. Not everything is about you, AFA. As for two men playing tennis, cards, or having lunch, well that wouldn’t work with the cute tagline Stop Clicking Around, now would it. Perhaps you didn’t get the double entendre there.

So far, Hilton is defending its decision to promote homosexuality in the magazine and will likely take it further with other forms of mainstream media. Hilton said, “Hilton Worldwide is a global company of diverse cultures serving diverse guests…We are proud to depict and reflect our guest diversity in our advertising…”

Good for Hilton! I think this is great news, and the more mainstream, the better. It’s past time that queer folk are normalized.

Sign our petition to Hilton Worldwide, urging them to market responsibly by advertising in a more family friendly manner when marketing through mainstream media.

Nope, not going to do that. Fuck you and your “family friendly manner” in any marketing whatsoever. If you are going to be that damn upset over an advert, perhaps you shouldn’t be reading things like Travel and Leisure magazine. I understand that bible of yours is advert free. Stick to that.

Via Christian Post and AFA.

Thug is Racist? Really?

Bob Goosman. Facebook.

Bob Goosman. Facebook.

A Dallas weatherman who resigned before he could be fired over a Facebook post calling the victims of police violence “thugs” said he didn’t know the comment would be interpreted as racist, the Dallas Morning News reports.

Bob Goosmann, formerly chief meteorologist for KRLD, posted the comment on Wednesday and by Friday had resigned, stating that he would have “rightly” been fired had he not.

“As many of you have probably noticed, I’ve stayed away from politics on FB,” Goosmann had written. “The DNC parading the mothers of slain thugs around on their stage has me furious.”

He has since deleted the post.

[…]

“I used the word thugs in my post, but I thought a thug was just a violent person,” Goosmann wrote in response to criticism. “The definition of thug does not mention any race. I will say I talked with an African American acquaintance and he told me that he feels like when he hears the word, it is in reference to an African American individual. I had NO IDEA.”

Perhaps if you actually talked with people of colour now and then, you might have known that. Not that I believe that “I had no idea” line.

Via Raw Story.

Ooopsie!

Bill Kintner.

Bill Kintner.

An extremely hateful republican senator is being urged to resign over a sex tape.

An antigay Nebraska Republican state senator is under pressure to resign over a sexually explicit video of himself that was found on his state-issued computer.

According to the Lincoln Journal-Star, the scandal has prompted the state’s Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts to call for Sen. Bill Kintner (R-Papillon) to resign.

The call comes at the conclusion of a year-long investigation into Kintner’s online activities that began when Kintner himself contacted the Nebraska State Patrol regarding “what he believed to be a potential internet scam that occurred while the senator was in Massachusetts using his state computer,” said a State Patrol spokesman on Friday.

The investigation’s findings have been handed over to ethics watchdog group The Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission, which is expected to weigh in on the scandal Aug. 5.

[…]

Blogger Joe.My.God. reported that Kintner “has loudly opposed same-sex marriage, gay adoption, and transgender rights. He has also publicly declared that Christians should let gays know their business isn’t wanted by providing them with bad service.”

Last year, when arguing on the senate floor against a path to citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, Kintner used the racial slur “wetbacks” to describe Latino immigrants entering the country. A class of fourth graders was taking a tour of the senate chambers at the time.

In June of 2015, Kintner posted a grisly photo of a beheaded woman on his Facebook page as part of a post expressing his support for the death penalty. He later took it down, but said it was only because the post’s comment thread was getting too unruly.

If a sex tape gets rid of this hateful asshole, I’ll be most happy he was so damn stupid and engineered his own downfall. People like this do not belong in public office, in any capacity.

Via Raw Story.

There simply isn’t enough facepalm.

Alternate title: Oh for fuck’s sake, stupid white people, get a clue!

Lake Erie warriors - twitter

A National College Prospects Hockey League team that has yet to even take the ice for a game is being blasted on social media for the red-skinned Mohawk logo they released back in May.

Additionally on July 26th, the team tweeted “Warriors Hockey beats the drum in Erie!”

One user responded, “You must be joking. Do you need graphic design help? Or an adult in the front office?” Another user said, “Please fire your branding/marketing team.”

Uni-Watch website contributor Paul Lukas shared the logo Wednesday on his Twitter account which started the massive social media response. Lukas wrote in his tweet: “Quite a logo for the Lake Erie Warriors, new team in the National College Prospects Hockey League.”

Many of the large number of responses deemed the logo racist.

Ryan Adams stated on the Lake Erie Warriors Facebook page, “Seriously? This is your logo? Could you make it just a little more racist?”

On deadspin.com, contributor Barry Petchesky also ripped the logo in an the article entitled, “Hey, Come Look At This Hockey Team’s Logo Before They Apologize And Change It.”

Currently the logo can be seen on the team’s Twitter page, Facebook page and their website.

The Lake Erie Warriors, a Tier III Junior A hockey team competing in the National College Prospects Hockey League, has not yet responded to ICTMN’s request for comment.

They haven’t responded. Well, there’s a big surprise. :eyeroll: Yes, that’s quite the fucking logo. I had no idea at all that the only warriors on the planet were Indians. As for ‘warriors’, gosh what an inspired choice, it’s almost like you didn’t spend a whole 30 seconds coming up with something. You need to fire your “creative thinkers” because they are out of creativity and not too hot on that thinking business. Apparently, the idiots who came up with this logo are unaware that the Mohawk people were (and are) a part of the Haudenosaunee, a confederation dedicated to peace. Kukúše takuni slolye šni šiča don’t care about that, or the reality of Indian peoples.

UPDATE: It’s the Lake Erie Gulls now. At least it was a quick turnaround, just like Barry Petchesky at Deadspin predicted. It’s good they pulled it down and changed it, but really, whoever came up with this in the first place? You should, at the very least, be deeply ashamed.

Full story at ICTMN.

Liberty Counsel: Not Hateful Enough!

Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver (left) with his wife and Liberty Counsel president Anita Staver. Credit: Liberty University.

Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver (left) with his wife and Liberty Counsel president Anita Staver. Credit: Liberty University.

After months of preaching that the so-called First Amendment Defense Act was the only way to protect the “religious freedom” of those opposed to marriage equality, one of the nation’s leading anti-LGBT organizations has done a complete 180.

In a press release published Wednesday, Liberty Counsel explained why it abruptly stopped supporting the sweeping federal legislation. As it turns out, the anti-LGBT legal nonprofit that represented antigay Kentucky clerk Kim Davis and a host of other right-wing dissenters wasn’t all that worried about religious freedom. It appears the group was instead primarily concerned with making sure individuals, businesses, and federal contractors could discriminate against LGBT people without “punishment” from the government.

So after the bill’s lead sponsor in the House, Idaho Rep. Raul Labrador, revealed a change in the language of House Resolution 2802 that would protect people from adverse government action regarding any “religious belief or moral conviction” about marriage, Liberty Counsel balked. While the draft bill posted on Rep. Labrador’s website is dated July 7, the official congressional page for the bill has not been updated since it was introduced June 17.

“For the first time, the federal government under the proposed FADA will formerly [sic] recognize and condone same-sex marriage on par with the natural marriage,” read Wednesday’s press release. “Liberty Counsel can no longer support FADA unless the proposed amendment is abandoned and FADA returns to its original language of marriage being between one man and one woman.”

Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver went on to “urge all members of Congress to reject the proposed amendments to the First Amendment Defense Act that include same-sex marriage,” promising that “pro-family” organizations will not be able to support the legislation unless it singles out same-sex couples for legalized discrimination. The antigay language in FADA is “necessary to protect people of faith,” Staver concluded.

Seems to me that what ‘people of faith’ need is lot of quiet time. Quiet time used to reflect on your personal morals not only being evil, but being used as the justification to treat other people as objects to be crushed.

The Advocate has the full story.