Colorado State Representative and Wacko Televangelist Gordon Klingenschmitt Says That Brutal Attack on a Pregnant Woman Is “The Curse of God upon America” (VIDEO)

Posted on March 28, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro
Gordon “Dr. Chaps” Klingenschmitt

Gordon “Dr. Chaps” Klingenschmitt

By Elaine Magliaro

Last November, I wrote a post about Gordon Klingenschmitt, a far-right Christian zealot and anti-gay televangelist also known as “Dr. Chaps,” who had been “swept into office” in Colorado with just under 70% of the vote. Klingenschmitt, a former Navy chaplain who now represents the state’s 15th House district, supposedly performed an on-air exorcism of President Obama.

Well, the wacko televangelist made the news again recently after he claimed that the gruesome attack on a pregnant Colorado woman named Michele Wilkins may have been God’s punishment for our legal abortion laws. Wilkins, who was seven-months pregnant, had been “lured to the home of a Longmont woman advertising baby clothes for sale on Craigslist.”

Instead of selling baby clothes to Wilkins, “police said 34-year-old Dynel Lane stabbed the 26-year-old pregnant woman and ‘removed’ the fetus from her body. Lane then went to a hospital, where she claimed she had had miscarriage.

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Posted in Christianity, Colorado, Crime, Criminal Law, Media, Murder, Religion, Reproductive Rights, Short Video, Television, United States | Tagged , , , | 105 Comments

Stateside Indiana: Ridiculing and Speaking Out Against Bigotry

Posted on March 27, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro
Mike Pence (R) Governor of Indiana

Mike Pence (R)
Governor of Indiana

By Elaine Magliaro

I’m am so happy to hear that Governor Mike Pence of Indiana “has come in for an extra heaping of scorn on social media” after signing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Curtis M. Wong (Huffington Post) said that the “legislation allows individuals and corporations to cite religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party. Thus, business owners who don’t want to serve same-sex couples now have legal protection to deny service.”

Pence reportedly defended his actions in a speech following the signing of the bill. The Republican Governor of the Hoosier State said, “If I thought it legalized discrimination I would have vetoed it.”

Anyone believe that? Anyone???

The Internet Action Force (IAF) team mocked the state of Indiana in a “tongue-in-cheek” travel commercial. In the video, Indiana  is praised “for its world-class cities, sports teams and ‘Hoosier hospitality that makes everyone welcome, especially bigots.'”

Indiana Is A Great Place To Be A Bigot

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Posted in Christianity, Civil Law, Civil Liberties, Conservatives, Democracy, Documentrary Films, Equal Rights, Fundamentalism, Government, Homosexual Rights, Humor, Justice, Political Science, Politics, Short Video, Society, States, United States | Tagged , , , , , | 15 Comments

Rep. Louie Gohmert for President?????

Posted on March 26, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)

Rep. Louie Gohmert
(R-Texas)

By Elaine Magliaro

Updated below.

Cristina Marcos and Lucy Feickert reported earlier this evening that Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)–arguably the wing-nuttiest politician serving in the US House of Representatives–informed The Hill that he is considering a run for president in 2016. Marcos and Feickert said Gohmert had indicated that “he might launch an exploratory committee for president when originally asked if he would support Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) White House bid.”

The representative from Texas said, “Ted is a good friend and would be an outstanding President; however, I haven’t ruled out an exploratory committee myself.”

Charles Pierce once said that Gohmert was “perhaps the dumbest mammal to enter a legislative chamber since Caligula’s horse.” Gohmert, who is a frequent guest on Fox News, “is known around the Capitol for his lengthy, extemporaneous speeches to a usually empty House chamber on weekly basis.” According to Marcos and Feickert, he “logged the most speaking time on the House floor last year out of any other lawmaker: a whopping 29 hours.”

Louie G. is also known for the various and sundry subjects that he has talked about in the legislative chamber and during committee meetings. Over the years, those subjects have included bestiality, necrophilia, terrorist babies, and the sex lives of caribou.

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Posted in Conservatives, Countries, Government, Political Science, Politics, Short Video, Tea Party, Texas, United States | Tagged , , , | 11 Comments

Some Things You Should Know about the Trans-Pacific Partnership: Senator Elizabeth Warren and Others Have Major Concerns Regarding the Trade Pact That Is Being Negotiated in Secrecy

Posted on March 26, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts)

Senator Elizabeth Warren
(D-Massachusetts)

By Elaine Magliaro

In Ferbruary, I wrote a post about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) being another bad trade deal for the United States. (You can read that post here.) Many people—including some members of Congress—have complained about the “extreme” secrecy surrounding our country’s TPP negotiations with representatives of eleven other nations—Japan, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. This is especially concerning because President Obama wants to “fast track” the trade deal.

Fast tracking TPP would permit Obama to sign the trade agreement “without Congressional approval.” The signed agreement would then be sent to Congress to be “voted on after the fact under a special restricted procedure that forces a vote in 90 days, limits debate, and prevents Congress from responding to public pressure to amend the agreement’s most egregious anti-public interest provisions.” Allowing “fast-track” authorization would reportedly limit the ability of Congress “to address three major concerns with the TPP: the potentially harmful economic impacts of the deal, the very real prospect of the agreement superseding domestic policy in areas ranging from internet privacy to environmental and financial regulations and an unbalanced negotiating process and its likely outcome, both tipped towards corporate rather than public interest.”

Anna Meyer, the Food Campaigns Fellow at Green America, recently wrote an article about how passage of the TPP trade deal could potentially affect Americans’ health. Meyer said that TPP “treats food as just another global commodity to be traded and exchanged. This approach completely overlooks its vital importance to human life.” According to Meyer, “Leaked documents show that the treaties, which together cover nearly three quarters of the global economy, raise several major red flags for food safety.”

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Posted in Australia, Barack Obama, Canada, Countries, Courts, Democracy, Economic Policy, Economics, Foreign Policy, Government, Government Propaganda, Justice, Politics, Propaganda, United States, Vietnam | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

What’s Going on in Public Education: “A Brief History of the ‘Testocracy,’ Standardized Testing and Test-Defying”

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

MoreThanaScoreBy Elaine Magliaro

I just came across an excellent article today titled A Brief History of the “Testocracy,” Standardized Testing and Test-Defying that I think is a MUST READ for anyone concerned about the mania for the high-stakes testing of children and the school reformers who are destroying public education in this country. The article is an excerpt from the book More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing (Haymarket Books). The book was edited by Jesse Hagopian. It includes a Foreword by Diane Ravitch, an Introduction by Alfie Kohn, and an Afterword by Wayne Au.

Truthout:

In this excerpt from More Than a Score, Jesse Hagopian explains who the “testocracy” are, what they want – for everybody else’s children and for their own – and why more people than ever before are resisting tests and working collectively to reclaim public education.

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Posted in Countries, Democracy, Education, Government, Propaganda, United States | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Holy Shit!: Conservative Icon and “Duck Dynasty” Star Phil Robertson Weaves a Gruesome Tale about Child Rape, a Beheading, and Castration at a Florida Prayer Breakfast

Posted on March 24, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro
Phil Robertson Star of Duck Dynasty

Phil Robertson
Star of Duck Dynasty

By Elaine Magliaro

Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch reported on an unbelievable story today. He said that Rick Wiles, the Christian conservative radio host of “Trunews,” had aired a speech on his program last Friday that Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson had delivered at the Vero Beach Prayer Breakfast earlier in the day. In that speech, Robertson told a gruesome and gory hypothetical tale about an atheist father being forced to watch while intruders raped and killed his two little daughters, beheaded his wife, and cut off his genitals.

Nice tale to tell at a prayer breakfast, don’t you think?

It appears Robertson’s speech may have been an attempt “to illustrate the perils of atheism.”

Right Wing Watch:

“I’ll make a bet with you,” Robertson said. “Two guys break into an atheist’s home. He has a little atheist wife and two little atheist daughters. Two guys break into his home and tie him up in a chair and gag him. And then they take his two daughters in front of him and rape both of them and then shoot them and they take his wife and then decapitate her head off in front of him. And then they can look at him and say, ‘Isn’t it great that I don’t have to worry about being judged? Isn’t it great that there’s nothing wrong with this? There’s no right or wrong, now is it dude?’”

Robertson kept going: “Then you take a sharp knife and take his manhood and hold it in front of him and say, ‘Wouldn’t it be something if this [sic] was something wrong with this? But you’re the one who says there is no God, there’s no right, there’s no wrong, so we’re just having fun. We’re sick in the head, have a nice day.’”

“If it happened to them,” Robertson continued, “they probably would say, ‘something about this just ain’t right.”

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Posted in Atheism, Conservatives, Countries, Media, Politics, Propaganda, Religion, Society, Tea Party, United States | Tagged , , | 13 Comments

Municipal Violations, Debtors’ Prisons, For-Profit Probation Companies…and a John Oliver Video

Posted on March 24, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

By Elaine Magliaro

Two years ago, I wrote a column for Res Ipsa Loquitor on the subject of debtors’ prisons in the United States. In that posting, I told about a 2010 report published by the America Civil Liberties Union titled In for a Penny: The Rise of America’s New Debtors’ Prisons. The ACLU said it had found that debtors’ prisons were “flourishing” in this country, “more than two decades after the Supreme Court prohibited imprisoning those who are too poor to pay their legal debts.”

According to the ACLU report, some state and local governments had “turned aggressively to using the threat and reality of imprisonment to squeeze revenue out of the poorest defendants who appear in their courts.” The ACLU said that these “modern-day debtors’ prisons impose devastating human costs, waste taxpayer money and resources, undermine our criminal justice system, are racially skewed, and create a two-tiered system of justice.”

On Sunday, Jon Oliver did an in-depth segment on “municipal violations”—and what happens to people who can’t afford to pay their fines on time. Like Ferguson, Missouri, other towns also target black and low-income people and impose fines and court fees on them in order to raise money to balance their local budgets.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Municipal Violations (HBO)

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Posted in Alabama, Civil Liberties, Countries, Courts, Democracy, Equal Rights, Government, Jurisprudence, Law Enforcement, Local Government, Prison, Racism, Short Video, Society, United States | Tagged , , , , , , | 96 Comments

“SIREN”: A Movie Starring Michele Fiore, the Batshit Crazy Nevada Politician Who Claims Cancer Is a Fungus

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro
Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore (R)

Nevada Assemblywoman
Michele Fiore (R)

By Elaine Magliaro

Last month, I wrote a post about a batshit crazy politician from Nevada who claims that cancer is a fungus that can be flushed out with baking soda. That politician–Michele Fiore–also “gained notoriety for telling a ‘colored’ colleague that racism was a thing of the past, and for calling for ‘hot little girls’ on college campuses to be armed.”

Earlier today, Arturo Garcia of Raw Story posted an article about Cliven Bundy supporter Fiore–who has become a “figure of curiosity” in the Nevada state legislature–once having had hollywood aspirations. You see, nearly ten years ago, Fiore co-wrote and produced a “little-seen” movie called Siren.

Garcia said that what the trailer for Siren “appears to show is a basic-late night-cable quality rags-to-riches story, with Fiore playing a housewife who ventures into the music business, only to run into not only industry pressures, but tensions at home.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, Fiore and her husband made the film on a $1 million budget.

Siren (The Movie) Trailer

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Posted in Conservatives, Countries, Government, Media, Political Science, Politics, Short Video, United States | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

Fort Lauderdale Police Officers Fired Over Racist Text Messages and Video

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro

By Elaine Magliaro

WSVN reported today that the FBI “is launching an inquiry into the Fort Lauderdale Police Department’s internal affairs investigation that led to the firing of three police officers over racial slurs’ that they used in personal text messages and a racist video. The video, titled The Hoods, was created by former Fort Lauderdale Police Officer Alex Alvarez. Alvarez, 22, resigned from the police department while the internal affairs investigation was ongoing.

According to investigators, Officer Alvarez’s former fiancée e-mailed the video to Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Frank Adderley last October. Investigators said that “she also e-mailed racist text messages between Alvarez and three other officers.” Those officers—Christopher Sousa, James Wells and Jason Holding—were all fired on Friday.

The video made by Alex Alvarez:

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Posted in Barack Obama, Countries, Equal Rights, Law Enforcement, Local Government, Political Science, Racism, Short Video, Society, United States | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

A Little Sunday Night Humor: Florida Lawmaker Mocks Rick Scott Official for Refusing to Use the Term “Climate Change’ While Testifying Before the State Legislature (VIDEO)

Posted on March 22, 2015 by Elaine Magliaro
Gov. Rick Scott (R-Florida)

Gov. Rick Scott
(R-Florida)

By Elaine Magliaro

A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article about Governor Rick Scott of Florida. It appears that after Scott took office in 2011 officials of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) had “been ordered not to use the terms ‘climate change’ or ‘global warming’ in any official communications, emails, or reports…” That was what the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting (FCIR) had learned from “former DEP employees, consultants, volunteers and records that it had obtained.”

The Miami Herald reported last Thursday that while Governor Scott’s chief of emergency management, Bryan Koon, was testifying before the Florida legislature, he refused to use the term “climate change.” The Herald reported that “Scott has denied news reports that employees of the Department of Environmental Protection were barred from saying ‘climate change,’ ‘global warming’ and ‘sustainability.'” The paper added that the governor had “declined to discuss the subject in detail.”

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Posted in Climate Change Deniers, Climatology, Conservatives, Countries, Denialism, Energy Policy, Government, Government Propaganda, Political Science, Politics, Propaganda, Science, Short Video, States, United States | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments