Here’s an opportunity for you! The TSA’s body imaging scan policy is open for public comment.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is proposing to revise its civil aviation security regulations to clarify that TSA may use advanced imaging technology (AIT) to screen individuals at security screening checkpoints. This proposed rule is issued to comply with a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which ordered TSA to engage in notice-and-comment rulemaking on the use of AIT for screening. The Court decided that TSA should provide notice and invite comments on the use of AIT technology for primary screening.
Tagg Romney (person who has never held a political office) on the Boston bombing:
“There’s going to be a period of grief, I’m sure there will be some anger. And we’re going to want to figure out how to keep this from happening again. Not just here but all over the country.”
TSA! TSA! TSA! Brace yourself for Patriot Act 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Get ready as this tragic event is used as a reason to pass all sorts of terrible laws. But it’s okay if you can make money enacting terrible laws. Note Norway’s policy response post 2011 massacre.
The trailer warns “If homosexual activists achieve their goal, it will be the criminalization of Christianity.” It goes on to claim that: ”Time and freedom are running out”, and that if ”gays win, Christians lose.”
Because no one is more discriminated against and put upon than the Xristian Xrazies.
It’s not a real movie trailer, look at the end, it is the default stuff from Apple’s iMovie software. RightWingWatch tells us that the last film project by Porter (in 2010), True 2 Life, never made it off the ground. Porter is the author of the book The Criminalization of Christianity, which was published in 2009. So… maybe she is trying again?
“If the Republican Party abandons traditional marriage there is no Republican Party,” he said. “You drive the social conservatives out and throw them to the side of the road, there’s no republican party. They’ll go start a third party.”
–Brian Brown, president of NOM.
First off: do you promise me that, Brian?
Secondly, I’m fine with the GOP breaking into two separate parties that have absolutely no ability to elect anyone again. Please be right, Brian.
Progress is progress, but the Sen. Portman evolution thing this morning is just another example of how shallow and hollow all the family values stuff is.
Portman tells us now that,
“[His son Will coming out as gay] allowed me to think about this issue from a new perspective and that’s as a dad who loves his son a lot and wants him to have the same opportunities that his brother and sister have,” Portman said.
He never walked a mile in someone else’s shoes? He never thought about it before? The Golden Rule?
I’m always a sap for happy endings in movies, but this one still begs the question: if that’s all it took for a death-bed conversion, then doesn’t that prove the pettiness of his previous position?
The cynic in me also wonders if this is an opening gambit for a 2016 Goat Rodeo bid: he’s getting in front of an issue that the changing demographics like.
I’m all for common decency, and it must be new to a life-long Republican, so huzzah for Portman. Now what is he going to do about it? Let’s see him fight for his son’s rights, maybe stand up for ENDA so his kid cannot be fired for being gay, then I’ll be impressed.
UPDATE 1:Read the interview. This is as shallow as it gets (emphasis mine):
Portman, who backed the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act now under review by the U.S. Supreme Court, said he now thinks parts of that bill should be repealed, though he hasn’t considered introducing such legislation himself because economic policy issues are his specialty.
Portman said he believes that same-sex couples who marry legally in states where it’s allowed should get the federal benefits that are granted to heterosexual married couples but aren’t currently extended to gay married couples because of DOMA, such as the ability to file joint tax returns. Family law has traditionally been a state responsibility, Portman says, so the federal definition of marriage should not preempt state marriage laws.
If Ohio voters were to reconsider the gay marriage ban they adopted in 2004, Portman said he might support it, depending on its wording, though he would not be likely to take a leadership role on the issue just as he didn’t take a leadership role in 2004. He stressed that he doesn’t want to force his views on others, and that religious institutions shouldn’t be forced to perform weddings or recognize marriages they don’t condone.
He doesn’t want “to force his view on others,” says the man who voted for a Constitutional Amendment. Yeah, this is political calculation and opportunism at its finest.
Remember when Howard Dean had his 50 State Strategy? Remember when the G.W. Bush administration was stacking courts with their brand of justices? What happens when you combine the two concepts for nefarious reasons matched with massive amounts of anonymous loot?
In Michigan, where three of seven seats on the State Supreme Court were up for election, records were set for both spending and lack of accountability…Of the $15 million or so spent for TV ads in Michigan, 75 percent cannot be attributed to identifiable donors, notes Rich Robinson…
You can thank Judicial Crisis Network for leading this multi-state charge. So, you know, you got that going for you. No one has connected the dots yet why so much money was dumped into a Michigan Supreme Court race. So spin the wheel and guess which high profile case will be coming down the pipeline where someone wants their brand of judge on the bench! Don’t fret, this game will be coming to a state near you soon so you can play at home.
“[Marriage Equality that] you are fighting is the most important movement to win,” [Rick] Santorum added. He said it is even more important that the movement to block abortion in America. He warned that marriage will “disintegrate” along with the American family if same-sex marriage becomes legal.
So, I guess we can now go to the Abortionplex and use our 2-for-1 Groupons with Cardinal Frothy’s blessing?
Noted Volcano scholar and boy exorcist Louisiana’s Governor Bobby “Bubba” Jindal is traveling today to Iowa today to tell the natives there how the law works and that’s why they should keep teh gays down, because when the Iowa Supreme Court did their job and ruled on the matter before them, well, it was beyond the pale.
Anyway Piyush is joined in Iowa with that mix of lube and fecal matter Frothy Santorum, so it should be a knee-slapping fun time as Iowans get a double scolding from two out-of-state Xristian Xrazies courtesy of hate group The Family Leader.
As we noted on blessed Saint Phyllis of Schlafly’s 88th anniversary of hatching last week, she was heading down to Tampa to work on the GOP Platform, you know restricting the rights of women and whatnot. Also,too: Tony Perkins of the famous hate group Family Research Council decided to pitch in to see if he could burn gays at the stake and so here is some of what they have done:
GOP Platform Draft Calls For Abortion Ban Without Rape, Incest Exceptions — TPM
Republican Party Platform Is Unwaveringly Anti-Gay –Think Progress (Note: they have the pertinent passages posted, and they are rather breath-taking in their naked hostility.)
It comes to our attention that we give Ron Paul the short-end of the short stick around here, and so, my fellow incorrigible spitballers, to make up for that oversight, here he is, the good doctor, last night defending The Pill:
But sort of along the line of the pills creating immorality, I don’t see it that way. I think the immorality creates the problem of wanting to use the pills. So you don’t blame the pills. I think it’s sort of like the argument — conservatives use the argument all the time about guns. Guns don’t kill, criminals kill. So, in a way, it’s the morality of society that we have to deal with. The pill is there and, you know, it contributes, maybe, but the pills can’t be blamed for the immorality of our society.
–Ron Paul
So there you have it. Guns don’t kill babies, sluts kill babies. Don’t blame the gun/Pill, blame the criminal/slut.
So, for those of you progressives who think that Goldbug’s sensible position on wars (and it is very sensible) makes him a viable alternative to President Carebear, think again.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday declared California’s same-sex marriage ban to be unconstitutional, putting the bitterly contested, voter-approved law on track for likely consideration by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Our good friend BlueGal has written a blog post called Welcome to the Culture Wars that quite seriously is one of the best essays of her long and storied career on the web.
If there’s one lesson everyone in President Carebear’s administration should have learned by now it is that trying to appease the nut jobbers, obstructionists, and Xristian Xrazies never works.
Anyway, on to today’s exhibit A for Appeasement: Kathleen Sebelius has just single-handedly restricted the morning-after pill Plan B One-Step from being sold over-the-counter. The FDA, after years of study wanted to make it available over the counter to anyone who needed it.
So in what world does it make sense to require a doctor’s prescription to receive emergency contraception? For it to be effective it must be taken as soon as possible after sex. Per the article, “Women who have unprotected intercourse have about 1 chance in 20 of becoming pregnant. Those who take Plan B within three days cut that risk to about 1 in 40.”
Plan B works by preventing ovulation, and it may also make the lining of the uterus less hospitable to a fertilized egg, and that is why the Xristian Xrazies are so opposed: their nutty belief that life begins at conception.
Sebelius overrode the FDA decision, which once again ensures that reproductive rights will remain a hotbed issue. And oh, the Xristian Xrazies will still not vote for Obama. This is one of the all-time, boneheaded mistakes made by a GOP-lite administration. You just f***ed up the brand, Obama. Good going.
Remember, the amendment is the thing that would remove the ability of the government to hold us in indefinite detention, so voting for the amendment is a good thing; voting against the amendment is voting against the Constitution and Bill of Rights, essentially.
“I’m reluctant to criticize any given individual who divorces because moral judgments are hard without more information that it is my business to know – and celebrity divorces are too common to warrant special notice. Hollywood in general and Kim Kardashian in particular support gay marriage. Perhaps that makes sense, if the speed of her divorce reflects a reduced commitment to the marriage.”
– Maggie Gallagher The ethics-challenged homophobe, former unwed mother and known beauty queen stalker, and Chimpy’s shill for hire.
Really? Gay rights=homo-fascism/communism (he cannot make up his mind if this is economic or political? what?)=Satan’s plan to torture wingnuts? Wait. What?
You know the body nazis in front of planned parenthood with the graphic posters and all? You know the ones I honk at and flip the bird to each time I drive past?
It seems it is not just about shaming women into having unwanted babies anymore…
The report says one Jewish investigator who posed as a pregnant woman was told at five centers she wouldn’t go to heaven unless she converted to Christianity, and that one volunteer challenged her to become a “born-again virgin.”
Hundreds of foreign students, waving their fists and shouting defiantly in many languages, walked off their jobs on Wednesday at a plant here that packs Hershey’s chocolates, saying a summer program that was supposed to be a cultural exchange had instead turned them into underpaid labor.
Well, maybe they are learning about the US? Yes.
Anyway, it is a horrible story, basically Hershey’s Chocolate engineered plausible deniability by using subcontractors so they could say that they really didn’t know that they were dealing in Human Trafficking.
A spokesman for Hershey’s, Kirk Saville, said the chocolate company did not directly operate the Palmyra packing plant, which is managed by a company called Exel. A spokeswoman for Exel said it had found the student workers through another staffing company.
Something to think about as you get ready to buy candy for Halloween this year.
NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. (AP) — Gay-rights activists Kitty Lambert and Cheryle Rudd were legally married the very first moment they could be during a midnight ceremony at Niagara Falls that ushered in same-sex marriage in the state and marked a pivotal moment in the national drive for recognition.
I shoulda seen this one coming. According to crazy unkka Pat, our weight training preacher man, God is going to destroy the US because NY is gonna let the ‘mos marry.
Pat takes his grim delight in the announcement, but it is sort of a departure for him: usually he only interprets punishment after the fact, not predicts it. So lookout Continental US (and trust territories? Yes.) because anything that happens now is NY’s fault.
–Tengrain
PS – Robertson also admitted that Jesus “didn’t say anything about the homosexuality.” What a total fag.
Isn’t it fitting? Isn’t this just grand that during what is nominally Gay Pride Weekend across America that New York would recognize marriage equality? Where it all began at the Stonewall Inn sometime in the 60s that suddenly in the 2010s marriage equality comes home.
So… here in Cali, we’re still fighting it out. We had marriage equality as a right, but we did not defend our flanks (as it were) and ethics-challenged homophobe, unwed mother and known beauty queen stalker, el president for life of the failed social engineering non-profit National Organization for Marriage (NOM, which may be a front for the Mormon Church), Chimpy’s shill for hire, the auture of the much-ridiculed Gathering Storm ad, Maggie Gallagher came in and took it all away with Proposition 8, which is now under litigation and likely to be overturned.
NYers: My sincere suggestion: get married. Don’t wait. Just do it. All of the people who married here before Prop H8 were exempted when marriage equality was overturned, which only adds to the absurdity of it all. Just do it.
What an assrocket. As always with Xristian Xrazies, he says that allowing gays to marry infringes on his right to practice his faith.
“The catch was a gift, it’s not like I’d try to do it. I couldn’t do it again so that was a miracle,” he said. “There’s nothing worth more than [maintaining heterosexual marriage] right here for me.”
Asked if he’d give up the Super Bowl to stop gay marriage, Tyree said: “Honestly, I probably would.”
“Nothing means more to me than that my God would be honored,” he said. “Being the fact that I firmly believe that God created and ordained marriage between a man and a woman, I believe that that’s something that should be fought for at all costs.”
“So I’ll lay down everything I am to preserve the honor and integrity of the God that I serve.”
So where does one go to trade a Superbowl Victory for blocking the civil rights of an entire class of people, David? What makes you so special that you think that is an equivalent “trade”? Who died and made you god?
We at Mock, Paper, Scissors are always glad to see the Lamestream Media dig into the deep questions of the day. You know, if they didn’t cover Weinergate, well, who would?
So we salute you, Chuck Todd, for getting to the heart of the problem that has plagued that frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter Rick Santorum. And we’re so pleased that you suggest censoring the internet. Nothing like the media supporting Free Speech.
While everyone is preparing for a barbecue and whatnot, please give a moment to think about the veterans who have given their all for us. Whether we think a war is just or not, they are doing their jobs.
“We reflect on those who have gone before us. We reflect on their service and their sacrifice on behalf of our great nation,” said Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Craparotta, who commands a Marine division in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province. “We should also remember those serving today who embody that same commitment of service and sacrifice. They are committed to something greater than themselves and they muster the physical and moral courage to accomplish extraordinary feats in battle.”
And yes, I do find it somewhat ironic that the day before Memorial Day the president signed into law an extension of the Patriot Act that explicitly takes our freedoms away.
“Congress has once again chosen to rubberstamp the Patriot Act and its overreaching provisions. Since its passage nearly a decade ago, the Patriot Act has been used improperly again and again by law enforcement to invade Americans’ privacy and violate their constitutional rights,” said Laura Murphy, of the ACLU, in a statement.
As regular readers know, it is difficult for me to pay lip service to anything, especially to a war that I still think was about oil and designed to benefit our corporations. However, the stark naked Patriot Act renewal makes it hard to choke out that our troops overseas are protecting our freedoms when we just let those freedoms be signed away, without comment.
So in your thoughts and prayers today, please include bringing our troops home safe, sound, and soon. It is the best thing we can do to honor them.
You link to me, I link to you; but I do not link to commercial eCommerce sites. Yes, it is that simple. Send me an email to let me know. Tengrain AT mockpaperscissors DOT com.
