The Swag Report » In My Humble

Can the super committee save the US economy?

Knowledge — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:50:09 +0000

One of the biggest jokes in Washington is when it comes time to balance the federal budget. It’s when Democrats, Republicans and Independents all take a seat at the proverbial roundtable in a pre-emptive effort to balance or bring some kind of legitimacy and clarity to America’s great big budget. All of this to prevent the government from shutting down.

image from canslerconsulting.com

They put on a big production staring all the famous political actors, and then go on about the business of deciding which non-defense related discretionary spending programs to freeze or cut. Now, mind you, they’re talking about a paltry 10% of total federal spending budget. In retrospect, it’s a tiny the part of the budget but the GOP seems hell bent on revamping it by excluding programs that benefit the poor and working classes and refusing to raise taxes on anyone to protect Americas wealthiest corporations and people.

A whopping 10% of the budget includes services for the poor, senior citizens, women and children yet the unemployed are being considered to go up on the chopping block. How interesting that a little over a year ago both parties sat their happily disgruntled asses on the floor of Congress and agreed to increase the debt by upwards of 337.5 billion dollars in 2011 by allowing tax cuts to go the wealthiest people in our nation. President Eisenhower taxed the richest Americans at 92% during his entire time in office. Were they simply naive then?

Let me follow that up with some proven, researched, facts and figures before I continue. The wealthiest 400 Americans have more riches than half of all American households combined.

Let me repeat that in layman’s terms. According to a very knowledgeable source, “the top 1% of households also known as (the upper class) own 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) have 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people own a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). Payroll taxes, are mostly paid by those with incomes below $100,000 per year.

I would like to add that the majority of income taxes go to the military (or rather the military industrial complex: owned by the wealthy. Since the rich have more to defend, should they not pay more in “defense spending?” Here’s a concept; taxes should be commensurate with wealth. The more you own the higher a percentage you should pay in taxes. And corporate welfare should be completely eliminated, not reformed.

Recently, there has been massive cause for shock and awe with the blatant attack not only on the middle class, but on societies most vulnerable and lowest class; the poor. This collective attack is no longer a stealth, camouflaged effort like with politics of old but one that is indeed weighing heavily on the minds of most Americans today because politicians have yet again made it seem as if caring for those who cannot care for themselves has somehow led us to the place our economy is currently at. The bottom of the barrel. This attack on the poor has trickled on up and is bound to affect the middle class because so many former middle class Americans now find themselves shopping at places like Walmart, Target, and other major discount retailers. They’re patronizing the local Aldi, Dollar Store, and Food Pantry because they’ve found themselves in a situation they’d never thought they’d be. They’re going without.

They are not without education, but they are without jobs or have seen their income severely reduced. They have lost their homes or they are on the brink, and their personal finances and savings are all but gone, reduced to the most common of denominators due to Wall Street executives purposely taking the American economy on a collision course with history. They, who’ve driven their stake into the American dream and were once considered apart of “the haves” cool clique are fast becoming one with the “have-nots”. Even those with jobs rightly feel the effects, having taken a bite out of politics and coming away with a terribly bitter taste in their mouths.

There was once a time when the attack on the poor was masked with political double talk, dodge ball tactics and screwball antics that made Congress resemble that of a largely divided middle school playground at recess. Gutless attempts at major and minor regulatory changes that often face ridiculously fierce resistance, to debating the importance or lack thereof of things like block grants and welfare reform, as if these terms and programs aren’t solidly in place because they are dire necessities. Specifically, the poor and working poor (working class) have bared the brunt of this nation’s addiction to excess. Wall Street caused a crisis of epic proportions that the middle class is still paying for. Political administrations coupled with careless legislatures and lackluster regulators are at the root of the problem.

When you think of programs like Head Start, Earned Income Credit, school lunch programs, Medicaid, TANF, subsidized housing, WIC, and child care assistance, you don’t think about how pertinent it is for those services to be reduced or terminated because the need has always been great. Even 70% of Tea Party supporters don’t want to see Medicare cuts. You think about the fact that those services are not often readily available to those falling within a certain need based demographic but they are put in place for the sake of importance and justification. These services are in place because of moral responsibility and duty. A need to prevent or curtail poverty, despair, homelessness, lack of access to health care for routine and emergency care and it’s safe to say that reducing aid to the poorest and most vulnerable in society will result in more people living miserable existences, more families going to bed hungry, and a growing lack of quality education because one is not afforded to them, etc.

Cutting spending to services that help the needy does not stimulate job growth or economic growth nor will it reduce the national debt by a long shot.

Final words: This budget crises is a moral issue. Our elected leaders and career politicians have been corrupted by money and greed. Politicians are regularly caught up in a system that rewards baseless contempt for the little guy much in the same way that athletes get caught up in steroid abuse. The mindset is if others are doing it, why shouldn’t I. Our government is riddled with junkies and nothing matters except ensuring a steady supply of the drug, which in this case purely equates to money. People need to understand that the flow of money never stops. One mans gain is another mans loss. When the stock market crashed, people made money and lots of it. When companies fail, if you play your cards right, you could profit hugely on their failure. And corporations are more than happy to be the drug – I mean money dealers. They own and control the cash flow . The only way to free our politicians and ultimately ourselves from the current level of corruption that has plagued every facet of corporate America reaching all the way up to our elected government officials is to take the faceless global players out of the politics game and revert back to governing for the good of the people of the country they purport to serve.

We have become a nation that idolizes wealth and because of that we are losing our connection to community, family and country. If we continue to equate being rich as virtuous and the primary testament to personal success we will continue on a collective decline, with more losers than winners just like the game is currently designed to project.

The super committee was created to reduce the federal deficit to the tune of over 1 trillion dollars but I would not be surprised if it ends up increasing it instead.

To monitor the Super Committee’s progress proceed to their website at http://www.deficitreduction.gov/public/.

The American Fall: Protesters Occupy Wall Street

Knowledge — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 21:58:25 +0000

In light of the recent Wall Street protests I thought I’d chime in with why I believe the American Fall, as opposed to the Arab Spring, has officially begun. We live in a country where laws are established to protect the masses from harm. We go as far as we can to stop or prevent behavior that entices and incites troubling consequences and predictable ramifications. But are we really doing all we can for the benefit of society? Let’s take a look at corporations and their value systems. These corporate entities are able to shirk responsibility of poor decision-making time and again, unless the action has reached a point where a larger than usual number of people are effected. Look at the housing bubble bust and on a smaller level: the Bernie Madoff affair.

People have an inherent desire to believe in something that is clearly too good to be true. Where do we develop this warped sense of trust? It is the humanity that some of us were born with. A gift that has been taken for granted and advantage of since the beginning of time. Gross incompetence allowed Bernie Madoff & Co. to thrive financially while bilking people, including family and close friends out of billions of dollars. The SEC, whose job it is to regulate the financial matters of the country, would rather adopt a skeptical approach to smaller investment companies who can easily dip under the radar, even when numerous people have filed complaints against them.

I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men. – Woodrow Wilson

Who does the government really protect? Is the importance any less because the entity is smaller than say a company such as Enron or Lehman Brothers? Corporations are allowed to cause harm to many, pay fines, get bail outs because they’re considered ‘too big to fail’ and yet they continue polluting, scamming, swindling and bilking Americans under the umbrella of those who are supposed to protect us – the little people. We have been lied to and people are finally waking up. They are tired of the blood, sweat and tears being toiled in the name of the almighty dollar when they’re told time and again that they are, in fact, small enough to fail and many do. Far too many Americans have suffered financially over the last decade. Those people are waking up.

Occupy Wall Street is what I like to describe, for the time being, as a disorganized protest and a stark rallying cry. This is one of the most unpredictable types of protest. It has the potential to balloon into something much greater than itself. Why? Because when protesters are willing to put themselves at risk without fear of retribution, absolutely anything becomes possible. When moral outrage begins, all it takes is heightened emotion to fuel the fire that will spread that outrage like a plague.

I estimate that this protest will do more in the way of actually helping President Obama’s re-election bid in 2012 than making sleazy Democrat and Republican legislatures (and their fundraising camps and lobbyists) truly understand the message – because neither party has any control of the movement at present time.

The Tea Party movement was infiltrated in the beginning and I expect the same might happen, if not already in process, with the Occupy Wall Street protests. This could have a domino affect on the 2012 election if President Obama starts vocally and publicly supporting the seeds of discontent that were planted and have grown ever since he took office in ‘08.

The real movement begins when people start to understand that there is a one party system in American politics – and it is run by an oligarchy. The party swap changes that happen every election cycle or so are nothing new. Case in point – since Obama was elected to office we’ve engaged in yet another military campaign – against (Libya) on the recommendation of Newt Gingrich, extended the Patriot Act set in motion by the George W. Bush administration and expanded TSA – airport pat down anyone? Facts likes these are hard to swallow no matter how small you cut it.

While chewing, ask yourself why the government which includes the current administration has failed to prosecute some of the biggest financial fraudsters that are largely to blame for the current state of the economy. It has been in perpetual upheaval since Bush left office and distant cousin Obama took it over. If you get an actual answer instead of the standard side by side comparison based excuse of – ‘Bush did it way worse so we win’ – then you’re off to a pretty good start.

Next up: How to rebuild a civil society that has been deliberately and systematically dismantled from the bottom up.

Knowledge Evolves In Search of Truth

Knowledge — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 22:37:49 +0000

My quest for knowledge revolves around the search for truth, pure and unadulterated. Consequently, the quasi-knowledge I once held evolves while in search of its very distant cousin; truth. As a constant work in progress, I can’t help but acknowledge that I am a part of a fascinating experience where the obvious isn’t always what it seems, where reality and duality take on dual meanings best reserved for those whose eyes are as wide open as their hearts, minds and souls. This vessel that we call Earth is as intricate as we are as human beings, and as it carries us as hosts with its awe-inspiring wonder, we think we know almost everything there is to know about the world in which we live, but we don’t. The real question is, have we even scratched the surface yet? We can’t possible know the ins and outs of Earth, our home, without first knowing ourselves best and then trying to understand our role in the universe.

The Earth is a vast astronomical beauty; a breathtaking celestial body of immense importance and it is being apart of this collective that I consider one of the most unique experiences that most of us will ever have in this lifetime. Everything I have done leading up to every new day has felt like an experience, a training ground in some respects, yet I know that through certain choices I’ve made in the past, I have deprived myself and so many others of mutually beneficial, positive experiences because I didn’t give credence to the idea that we are all connected some way, some how and everything we do carries with it significant meaning; the good, the bad and the ugly.

I remember being chosen to take part in the Space Program in the 8th grade. I was a year younger than everyone else and as nervous as a butterfly fluttering about; my stomach was in a ball of knots leading up to “take off”, but when it came time for us to be sequestered in our man-made space craft that covered almost the length of the school gymnasium’s stage, I suddenly felt at ease. I knew what my mission entailed and the experiments that we were to carry out, and with it, my goal was set. I had an agenda to carry out along with the other crew members, and we all knew well our purpose. That experience should have been a life changing one for me, but because I did not understand the importance of opportunities like that and others that were placed in front of me, I didn’t appreciate the experience then as much as I do when I look back now. That same year I was chosen among a select few students to learn Ham Radio, something I only now appreciate learning as an adult.

We all make difficult choices throughout our lives, not always on the basis of clear thinking, but still knowing and understanding through natural instinct that everything we do carries with it consequences both great and small. Daily, we lend our voice and passion to a continuation and progression of a subject matter; life and the continuation of it, which is representative of every human being walking the earth today, covering all of society in one fell swoop. My heart had never stopped searching for a purpose, a meaning, a quest, and for the longest time I didn’t know or understand, or perhaps I wasn’t ready to know and subconsciously understand that I could not handle the truth once upon a time. The majority of human beings are stuck on that very same wheel going round and round with no fulfilling end in sight, but that is only temporary. We all become ready in our own time.

I have come to a point in my life where I understand, at a very basic level, that every one of us affects the other in absolutely everything we do, everything we think and most importantly, that which we recognize as feelings and emotions vibrate all around us like an energy field, and those vibrations we uniquely refer to as vibes are realer than anything we have ever seen with the naked eye or felt with the gentlest of touch. Even self-destructive tendencies and behaviors bleed into a great basin, the main chasm that affects countless people and things all around us. Our energy affects others just as their energies affect us. This is because each action carries with it a reaction and our energy is so powerful, we have a truly difficult time ever mastering it, if ever at all. I don’t wish to master, but simply to understand my purpose, my calling.

We must be responsible for the energy we draw from ourselves onto others, including the earth, which feels and is affected by everything we do to it, like dropping bombs. The earth relates to us and we to it because it is from there we come and go back to at our journey’s end. There is a great attempt underway to forge together or to tear apart, but to ultimately attain a level of understanding and enlightenment through spiritual uniformity while also retaining aspects of the individuality that makes us unique to ourselves even as we are one.

Waking up from an unreality that had been wholly unfulfilling and realizing that even though we’re denied vast amounts of knowledge dating back centuries to the very first man, history and truth are right in front of our eyes at every waking hour of every day, and we are not denied the right to live, breathe and pursue the truth of our past in spite of or despite it being purposely hidden in plain sight. Awakening from the deepest of slumbers is a mold-breaking, mind-blowing, toe curling occurrence because you don’t yet understand how awe inspiring this life we’ve been given truly is, but you know something incredible lurks just beneath the surface.

When a mission is not realized, the task cannot be completed. We have survived numerous previous civilizations, but our work is not yet complete.

I feel blessed in every way. For once you are awakened, there is no turning back. Willful ignorance is no longer an option, in fact, it is completely illogical to be content with living an absolute illusion. I include myself with a minority of like-minded free thinkers on their own quests to develop a greater understanding of the forces and powers that be that move us all either together or apart, i.e. science, religion, dogma, superstition. When what we need to do literally to heal the world and make it a better, safer place for everyone is to respect each others journey and most importantly to respect each other as human beings.

Leading a horse to water does not automatically mean he’ll drink. You can plant a seed in ones mind; an idea, a mindset, but you must wait to see what blossoms and develops over time. I firmly believe that our experiences as human beings are the most unique, focused, and flexible freedom of thought and physical direction that we will ever experience in life, but not everyone gets to indulge in this priceless gift. Freedom is but a dream for some. It is our duty to make the absolute best out of life for ourselves and others, but how can that dream be realized when most don’t know what they’re here for. The need to know is great, the desire for answers almost indescribable, but the thing I always keep in mind is that no matter what happens here on this Earth, God is greater than all of it.

LezGetReal: Tom and Bill and The Tale of The Fake Lesbians

Knowledge — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 04:22:04 +0000

via Facebook

Welcome to the Internet! Where that 23 year old blonde bombshell from Southern California that likes you for your smile and personality is really a 300 pound middle aged white guy living in his parents basement somewhere down in BumFuck, Egypt, America. Pretending to be a lesbian on online is about as old as the Internet itself. If you’re a lesbian who has pursued other women online, it’s more likely than not that you’ve come across a man pretending to be a woman at some point. If you’ve ever visited the website Lez Get Real you can regrettably join rank with the rest of the duped.

Back when I first started following the lesbian news site, Lez Get Real, it was my understanding that the website was owned by Julie Phineas, a woman I had the pleasure of briefly conversing with via e-mail in 2009, and whose bio on this website states:

LezGetReal.com

This project allowed me to work side by side with the site owner to develop and produce a popular lesbian news site online. This site began as a blog on Blogger.com, where we established a loyal following and team of bloggers. I handled the initial recruiting as well as the editing and publishing of articles on a regular basis. After migrating to the Wordpress platform when the site gained popularity, I handled much of the site migration including template customization, content strategy and the design of the site header using online photo editing software. The logo is by GotLogos.com. This website went on to make a positive difference in the lesbian community and gained popularity and linkbacks from sites like PerezHilton.com. I completed production on this project in July 2009 and the owner has maintained the site ever since.

But is it safe to assume that Julie Phineas knew explicitly that Paula Brooks, site owner and editor of Lez Get Real, was really a man? And by now you know the truth is out about the blogger of A Gay Girl in Damascus. She is also really a man posing as a lesbian. Tom MacMaster, 40-year-old purported Middle-East activist studying for a Masters Degree at Edinburgh University in Scotland. MacMaster, who is married and from Atlanta, Georgia created the online persona and named her Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari; a beautiful, young, lesbian woman living in Damascus, Syria. The blog grabbed the national spotlight when Amina,whose blog had become very popular by then and had amassed a following, was reportedly kidnapped and then declared missing on June 7, 2011.

MacMaster started the blog on February 19, 2011. The blog title accurately described it as being about “an out Syrian lesbian’s thoughts on life, the universe and so on …” And what made it really stand out was that it was started several weeks prior to the start of the Syrian uprisings, also known as the Arab Spring.

I live in Damascus, Syria. It’s a repressive police state. Most LGBT people are still deep in the closet or staying as invisible as possible. But I have set up a blog announcing my sexuality, with my name and my photo. Am I crazy? Maybe. [...] I have to begin by doing something bold and visible. I can, because I’m a dual national and have benefits of politically connected relatives, be more visible than many women here. I’m already out to my family … and I want to be an example to others … to know that one of is trying..

I am somewhat reminded of Orson Wells’ radio adaptation of The War of The Worlds which caused panic and chaos by those who believed the terrifying narrative was real.

But this is no such thing. There’s a clear difference between openly fictionalizing or placing a spin on real events and perpetrating a triple-double whammy by pretending to be someone or something you’re not. No theater training in the world could have aptly prepared Tom MacMaster or Paula Brooks aka Bill Gather and all of the people they lied to for the resulting backlash.

This is one of those chapters in faction (a mix of fiction and fact) where by the end of the story the truth is greater and more interesting than fiction. MacMaster was in the process of writing the story of his life, and he will likely try to capitalize on all of the events leading up to it now. Here’s a quasi academic who doesn’t, at first sight, correlate the difference between fact and fiction and hurt and pain that he’s caused to many. He is so oddly transparent that he and his wife decided to go on vacation in the midst of all the chaos; in the midst of a grand internet hoax coming to light. It’s classic sociopathic behavior from a narcissist and I hope those who read his graduate dissertation pay very close attention to his detail.

The initial apology MacMaster issued was further testament to his abuse and misuse of an unspoken American birthright: white male privilege.

He claims he didn’t mean to hurt anyone, and that would be somewhat understandable if it were just one person at the root of his hurt; that being himself. But there are many hundreds, if not thousands of lives he has greatly and negatively affected.

Tom MacMaster didn’t create Amina’s voice, he took away someone else’s by perpetuating lies. He put real gay bloggers in Syria and every place where homosexuality is illegal in danger by building a wall of lies with which to rest his political, religious, and social ideology upon.

He was and probably still is a wanna-be fiction writer who discovered a way to make an audience keep coming back for more by sensationalizing shit. He fabricated a fictional characters life, and took advantage of good people and a harrowing situation in Syria. His own political endeavors were further emboldened by the feedback he started to receive, and loads of people who wanted to do nothing but help, support, and continue following Amina’s life and activism throughout it all were duped. The fact that he used a fake Syrian lesbian woman’s voice to establish a level of trust and credibility when none was deserved makes his boldness all the more insulting.

People from all over the world rely on bloggers from the Middle-East, Africa, America, India, etc, to report on what’s happening around them. MacMaster joins a growing list of bloggers who learned how to effectively manipulate not only people, but also the media in their quest for attention and/or fame.

It’s really no surprise that people live out very complex fantasies anonymously online every single day. They accomplish this by way of chat rooms, blogs, forums, dating sites, etc, but isn’t there a line that should never ever be crossed when it comes to merging fantasy and reality? It’s my belief that there is, and at the very least our moral compass should not reach beyond possibly, unwittingly putting peoples lives in danger or their careers at stake. Lying about things that could potentially grievously affect people on a grand scale makes a case for greater accountability from all bloggers, including those like me who’ve never claimed to be be journalists, but like to be able to put up a good defense if ever checked.

Another interesting factor is how he only conducted interviews and correspondence by e-mail. Amina’s “girlfriend” whom she was scheduled to meet in Europe is understandably devastated by the revelations. She claims to have had no idea that MacMaster was Amina it is believable due to the fact that they’d never met in person, communicated online, and he reluctantly admitted that she was one of the people he hurt.

Perhaps the most striking is the audacity of his actions of which he’s not the first and certainly won’t be the last. Instead of supporting the efforts of real activists, he’d concocted a fairy tale while living in the comfortable and safe confines of his home, pretending he knew what it was like to be a Syrian lesbian.

In the newest apology published on Sunday, MacMaster called his fictional diary of a Syrian revolutionary an attempt “to illuminate” the uprising against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, “for a western audience.” He also wrote: “I do not believe that I have harmed anyone — I feel that I have created an important voice for issues that I feel strongly about.

And then there’s this: “Syrian state media has picked up on the story and is using it as evidence that the opposition they face in the Middle East are made up of fabricated voices from European and American implants.”

Despite claims that he never intended to hurt anyone I have to say that he’s not only done just that, he’s cast a cloud of doubt over every blogger whose ever had a story to tell.

He cared about getting a narrative, his narrative across. And it should be said that there’s nothing wrong with anonymity or online personas, but among the weaved web of lies MacMaster spun they include stealing another woman’s identity and using her photos to represent Amina in the flesh.

When MacMaster couldn’t keep up the facade any longer, for whatever reason, he stupidly claimed that Amina had been kidnapped by the Syrian government. Her world was about to come crashing down, but then again so was his.

After a woman in Britain said the photographs circulating around the Internet were of her and not the Syrian-American blogger in Damascus doubts began to swirl to the surface as to Amina’s real identity.

The London woman, Jelena Lecic, discovered the use of her photos when an article written in Guardian used one of them. She contacted Guardian and asked them to remove the photos before any action was taken. Amina’s online girlfriend, Sandra Bagaria, the woman who raised alarm about her arrest was also suspected of being Amina, but she is not.

The fraud was elaborate, but poorly executed. What’s not fake is that people are being killed and tortured in Syria, yet the real attention is being placed on McMaster’s disaster. I blame myself for contributing to it, but I don’t apologize for speaking my piece.

For weeks, a touching display of care, concern, and activism on the part of Amina’s supporters was at the forefront for many. Journalists, bloggers, and human rights advocates came together to find ways to pressure government institutions to look further into Amina’s disappearance.

Another victim is Linda S. Carbonell, Managing Editor of Lez Get Real. For having to defend Bill Graber better known as Paula Brooks, who first came under fire for using a pseudonym on the site, then for offering a safe haven to Amina, subsequently losing a main site supporter due to her doubts about the existence of Amina, to actually being a man himself who pretended to be a lesbian.

Both Paula and I have close family members who work for the government. Ginny Thomas is the only person in the government arrogant enough to ignore the restrictions on free speech that are imposed on AMERICAN government workers and their families. Paula and I have always worked under pseudonyms to protect our families. Furthermore, because our site is blatantly and unapologetically liberal, we risk our own jobs if our site is connected to us. America is not free. It just pretends to be.” —Linda S. Carbonell, managing editor

As of early this morning, it was my hope that Paula was exactly who she says she was because according to Liz Henry at bookmaniac.org:

“Brooks had not communicated by voice to the reporters — only over email or chat. Brooks’ online presence looked a bit thin. Ben and Ali tried to verify any of the facts of her education and employment, and could not find evidence of Paula Brooks’ existence. I spoke with people who were close to Brooks and should have met her — but who had never seen her. I have no direct evidence that Brooks is Tom MacMaster, but circumstantial evidence shows it is a good avenue for research. If Brooks is *another distinct hoaxer*, that will be very odd, and will need more investigation.” http://bookmaniac.org/chasing-amina/

Bill Graber is a 58 year old former Air Force pilot who said he used the site to argue in favor of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal. Follow the Washington Post article about it here, Paula Brooks, Editor of Lez Get Real, is a man. Linda S. Carbonell, managing editor for LezGetReal said this following the break:

Ownership of the site is being turned over to me and Bridgette. Nothing has ever appeared on this site that wasn’t factually based. Yes, we post opinions, but we don’t post fiction. The issues remain – the disenfranchisement of Americans for race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, poverty – these things are still happening. In 18 months we will have one of the most important elections in our nation’s history, an election that will determine the future of our nation and possibly the world. That has not changed just because Paula Brooks turned out to be guy who let an on-line persona get away from him. Bill has been trying to ease out of the site for a couple of months now. He would have been “retired” in late August.

The bottom line is MacMaster’s apology lacks substance, genuine remorse and the level of emotion found within the blogs he fabricated to his audience for so long. He’s a lying sack. Paula Brooks’ unraveling is equally disturbing, however like Lez Get Real, I’m waiting for his statement.

MacMaster said this before making two subsequent follow up apologies:

Look, if I was the genius who had pulled this off, I would say, ‘Yeah,’ and write a book,” said MacMaster, reached in Istanbul, where he is vacationing with his wife, a graduate student working on a PhD in international relations.

He also said: “I am not the blogger in question. Whomever that person ‘really’ is, I have doubtless interacted with her at some point. I do not know further than that about her. When I first read the news story, I momentarily thought I had an idea who she was. As time has progressed that seems much less likely. I understand there are a number of unusual coincidences regarding the blogger and either me or my wife. Those are, as far as I am aware, simply unusual. I am not going to make more of that.” source: www.electronicintifada.net

Big fat fraudulent liar.

In another odd twist, the Centre for Syrian Studies where MacMaster’s wife, Britta Froelicher is an Associate Fellow, was partially funded by the Syrian government. He says although his wife is a student (I read expert) of the region, he was the sole author on the blog. I doubt there is any truth to the statement. She has a lot more to lose, thus it’s understandable that her husband would take the bulk of the fall.

Lez Get Real, a lesbian news site I had come to respect has suffered a major blow for MacMaster’s and Brooks recklessness. The reporter on African issues, who prompted me to write about corrective rape in Africa on my blog was reportedly driven from the website for questioning Amina’s authenticity.

Finally, MacMaster/Amina was shopping his memoir for possible publication. Read here, http://www.minalhajratwala.com/2011/06/a-thousand-sighs-memoir-of-a-hoax/

The memoir can be read/downloaded here: http://www.minalhajratwala.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/A-Thousand-Sighs-Part-I.pdf

“All of a sudden, after having years of rejection letters, I was getting a whole lot of positive feedback for some fiction I had written. That certainly fed my vanity.”

At least we have a good idea about his next move. I would say a poorly written book is on the horizon, but I don’t know a single person less deserving of another 15 minutes. Not yet at least.

Had MacMaster not been such a sloppy fraud, he’d have realized that glorifying Amina’s fake life to such a degree as to fabricate her high-profile kidnapping in a country experiencing high levels of unrest would bring more attention to her cause. Perhaps that’s what he wanted to happen. I certainly don’t buy the explanation that he wanted her to fade away multiple times before coming up with the plot to fake her kidnapping. The events that unfolded were sensational and I do believe MacMaster was eating up every last bit of the fanfare the posts were generating.

Watch his interview with London based newspaper Guardian:

Response: Yeah, whatever, man.

Dear Tom,

People are really dying in Syria.

It is not a joke. You are.

You have made fools of people who believed in you.

But now, thankfully, this chapter is ending.

You are no friend of the gay community.

Your deceit has left a stinging welt that will undoubtedly be felt by those connected to you in all the various ways for many years to come.

Please do us gays and lesbians a favor and refrain from pretending to know anything about what it feels like to walk in our shoes.

You know nothing of our struggles, only that your privilege has allowed you to use, abuse and then discard of our community like a fanatic dictator when your gay facade no longer served your purpose.

Your actions are disgraceful and insulting to boot.

Enjoy your 15 minutes, the opportunity won’t likely present itself again, we hope.

Good day to you.

Knowledge

Gay Marriage and Using The Bible as a Crutch for the Mentally Impaired

Knowledge — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:55:28 +0000

For gays and lesbians, true human equality will be achieved when each and every one of us is given the opportunity to enjoy one of the most sought after benefits and rewards of lasting love – and that is marriage. Religion often plays a major role in the joining together of two souls in a union of love, so it never comes as a surprise when some so-called Christian’s weigh in with explanations of why they believe that disallowing gay equality, i.e. marriage, etc, is a matter of utmost importance.

Their opinions, however wayward, are usually filled with your run of the mill bigoted hypocritical sentiments such as “love the sinner – not the sin,” while assuring us that they aren’t the confused damn fools they make themselves out to be for conveniently leaving out parts of the bible they find irrelevant. Is it not evident that discrimination of any form breeds more discrimination. Sadly, it’s as if the religious right, which constitutes a considerable collective of the Black Church, hasn’t learned some important history lessons relating to bigotry and hypocrisy that have been harshly taught through the ages.

(Queue American’s celebrating their newly fought freedom from the British at the end of the Revolutionary War, while slavery was in full affect in the South in America.)

It’s as if their idea of Christianity, taught to black slaves by ancestral slave masters who wanted to “save their souls” while forbidding them from following the religious practices of their forgotten native homeland – Africa, is the one and only way and it is all they know.

Newer generations of well intentioned followers are still being bamboozled. It’s safe to say that if every active gay black church member had the courage to come out of the closet, the black Church or “Spiritual Body” as a whole, as they like to be called, would be left in a state of complete and utter shock, and the move would effectively silence most of the anti-gay bigotry preached from the pulpit.

We are all made in God’s image, and since God is love why would he condemn His people for wanting to express and share that God given affection with another human being? The notion that he would send anyone to hell for doing so is absolutely ridiculous, which is understandably a terrifying concept for the average Christian in-name-only to comprehend.

“Homosexuality is found in over 450 species. Homophobia is found in only one. Which one seems unnatural now?”

image by Ryan Grant Long

Newt Gingrich’s Family Values and the Politics of Infidelity

Knowledge — Fri, 13 May 2011 22:54:16 +0000

image: seanmart.com

The most successful cheaters are those astutely adept at manipulating fact, fiction, and opinion into whatever they want others to believe, primarily to suit their purpose. It is why I don’t find it hard to believe conservative political analysts and associates alike when they say, Newt Gingrich, a man with unquestionable expertise in the area of infidelity, “is one of the smartest people in politics.”

Upon further examination, it seems more likely that he is one of the smartest people in their political circle because they agree with and give credence to his ideology. What they consider brilliance is little more than masterful manipulation with words, actions, or both. And quite frankly, it takes a pretty smart person to pull it off for as long as Newt Gingrich has.

In politics, infidelity runs so deep that it is no longer considered a career ender when an affair is brought to light. Except, of course, if one has engaged in an affair of the toe tapping (Larry Craig), intern harassing (Mark Foley) homosexual variety. For Republicans, being outed as, or associated with anything gay is, by all accounts, “the” political career killer.

The winds of change shift every time a repentent bible thumber who has been exposed for adultery is forgiven, because they have repented and now have God on their side.

It should be noted that, at one time, adultery was an automatic disqualification for those who aspired to public and/or political office. This is no longer the case. Few people would agree that Newton Leroy Gringrich’s past serial adultery makes him unfit for the office of the presidency. No thanks due in part to former President William Jefferson Clinton who made famous the phrase, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” when every Congressman and their mother knew the omission was patently false.

Little known to most Americans until around 2007 was the true story of how Newt Gingrich, Republican Speaker of the House and one of the most powerful men in Washington at the time, was engaged in his own extramarital affair. He was in the midst of the affair when he, along with a slew of other red-handed hypocrites, headed Clinton’s impeachment proceedings. Under Gingrich’s direct leadership, the GOP launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign aimed at exposing Clinton’s relationship with Monica Lewinsky to the American people.

Newt had this to say about the revelation of his affair:

“The president of the United States got in trouble for committing a felony in front of a sitting federal judge. I drew a line in my mind that said, ‘Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed, and even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being.’ As a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept … perjury in your highest officials.”

The difference lies in the fact that Newt didn’t deny his affair during testimony, while under oath, in a court of law. And because he was never asked he had absolutely no chance to deny the affair, nor did he have reason to admit to it. Admittedly, he is absolutely correct in the legal sense. Clinton was impeached because he lied while under oath, resulting from affairs with Linda Tripp, Paula Jones, Lewinsky and others, and not because he had sexual relationships with these women.

As one of the most recognized members of the GOP, the party best known for shouting its family values, morals, and the sanctity of marriage from the rooftops, Gingrich embodies American Conservativism. He also embodies that of a serial adulterer, sex addict, and your run of the mill misogynist.

Say what you will, but in the tumultuous world of politics, Newt is a survivor who can parlay with the best of them. He, at one time, vocally criticized every single wrongdoing of the Democratic Party to try to bring them down.

Of the big Republican and Democratic nominees pondering a run for the office of the President in 2008, a surprising number could have been considered, at one time or another, serial adulterers.

“Sen. John McCain (affair, divorce), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (affair, divorce, affair, divorce), and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (divorce, affair, nasty divorce). Gingrich even ran for office in ‘78 under the slogan “Let Our Family Represent Your Family” while cheating on his wife. He would go on to divorce her following the election. Let’s not forget the despicable John Edwards (D) who carried on an affair and fathered a child while his wife fought the battle of her life against terminal breast cancer.

But back to Gingrich, whose affairs are most alluring because he frequently campaigned under the family values platform. A short timeline follows:

He divorced his second wife, Marianne, in 2000 after his attorneys acknowledged his affair with his current wife, Callista Bisek, a former congressional aide more than 20 years his junior. His first marriage, to former high school geometry teacher, Jackie Battley, ended in divorce in 1981. They married at 18, but he reportedly begins secretly dating her at the tender age of 16, while still in high school.

“The Cato Institute records that Gingrich “famously visited Jackie, his first wife, in the hospital where she was recovering from uterine cancer surgery to discuss details of the impending divorce. He later resisted paying alimony and child support for his two daughters, causing a church to take up a collection. For all of his talk of religious faith and the importance of God, Gingrich left his congregation over the pastor’s criticism of his divorce.”

After 18 years of marriage to his second wife, he asked for a divorce. He’d been having an affair with his soon to be, and current third wife, for 6 years prior. He decided to follow in her footsteps and convert to Roman Catholicism, after which time he was granted an annulment of his second marriage of 18 years. The reason for the annulment was that his former wife had been previously married, and his current wife was active in the church, including singing in the choir, all the while sleeping with the married Gingrich. Apparently, annulment looks better on paper than divorce.

If Bill and Hillary Clinton’s marriage can be publicly dissected on the front page of every newsstand, why should the marital infidelities of other GOP and Democratic candidates be off limits?

The bottom line is this, what bothers most people about Gingrich is not that he cheated on his first wife while she was sick, and his second wife while she was sick, but it is that he had and still has the gall to get on a national podium and lecture the rest of us about family values and morality. He’s not a big fan of taking his own advice.

How can you lecture anyone about the sanctity of marriage while so blatantly ignoring those very ideals yourself? We can all agree that infidelity does not disqualify a man or woman from public office, nor should it. We’d be unable to run the country if that were the case, but it does disqualify them from making lectures and soap box speeches that point to that very thing. It’s his glaring hypocrisy that knows no bounds, and speaks to a character lacking integrity. It’s his defense of “the sanctity of marriage,” and his anti-same sex marriage stance. Here is a man who clearly has no respect for marriage’s sanctity outside of it being an institution that suits him whenever he feels fit, and when his wife, whoever she may be at the time, is without illness.

President “Do As I Say, Not As I Do” Gingrich? Ugh. Will a serious GOP candidate please stand up? Republicans will have to come a lot better than this.

Politics As Warfare

Knowledge — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 18:00:21 +0000

When President Obama took office in 2008, a manufactured political movement began, which coined itself - The Tea Party. Members of the Tea Party were so sure of their political cause, and bolstered by Republican backing, they didn’t think twice about showing up at rally’s, protests and town hall meetings accompanied by their side holstered handguns and fully loaded assault rifles. Some members even resorted to carrying loaded weapons to appropriately named/themed anti-Obama rallies, which lead one blogger to ask folks to imagine if the Tea Party were black. Would the acceptance of these attitudes and behaviors be so easy to come by?

Without a doubt, this country is in the midst of a growing crises of epic proportion relating to matters of journalistic irresponsibility, led by certain media types, which has incited violent acts to occur.

You see, it was no coincidence that Sarah Palin urged Tea Partiers to adopt a “lock and load” mentality when it came to usurping congressional power from the Democratic House and Senate in the November elections. Their aim was to say and do everything in their power to defeat the Democracts in 2010, and they didn’t pull a punch. Palin and Co. rallied the base to return control of the House of Representatives over to Republicans. Palin’s website displayed a map of the U.S. highlighting states with rifle scope cross-hair targets of the 20 congressional districts up for election. While Palin was not the first politician or journalist to use a map of this nature, she gets credit for being the most inflammatory and shocking of all with her use. The map was removed from her website, SarahPac.com, immediately following the shooting in Arizona. The intent was to finger a number of Congressional Democrats campaigning in the midterm election, Gabrielle Giffords being one. Palin urged supporters to “take back the 20” by ousting Democrats that voted for the health care law.

Giffords was fully aware of the impact and power of Palin’s words, and persona, perhaps more so than Palin herself. Her office was vandalized shortly after voting yes on the bill. The front door of her office building was shattered. It would be the first of any such violent incidents arising on the heels of the highly anticipated vote.

Sarah Palin’s efforts were unsuccessful in Gabrielle Giffords state where she won re-election. Millions of dollars poured into the district and attack ads ran rampant as she campaigned against Tea Party favorite, Jesse Kelly, who ran an intimidating campaign. The ads were vicious by design, and in a district that’s mostly conservative, Giffords emerged as the moderate voice of the people. Kelly’s campaign included a June 12th gun event that was billed as follows:

“Get on Target for Victory in November – Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office – Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.”

Now think back to the 90’s when Clinton was president and the country experienced a number of violent acts carried out by anti-government extremists. The Oklahoma City and the Summer Olympics bombings both contributed to the black cloud that hung over politics during the 90’s. Both bombers, American terrorists, held heavy anti-government sentiment that fell to the right of center in politics.

Fast forward to today. Sarah Palin is hardly the lone gun woman in this tragic story, but I don’t even need her words to highlight the destructive nature of violent speech in general. It’s no mistake that the bulk of the quotes come from self-identified right-wing pundits.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann encouraged her constituents by stating: “I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on the issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us, having a revolution every now and then is a good thing, and the people – we the people – are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States.”

Ms. Bachmann is well known for talking about the virtues of Christianity, but doesn’t think twice about using terms like “armed and dangerous” to rally her base.

Rush Limbaugh daily doses of vitriol leave much to be desired: “I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus–living fossils–so we we’ll never forget what these people stood for.”

Ann Coulter: “My only regret with Tim McVeigh is that he did not go to the New York Times building.

“Bill O’Reilly: “Americans who work against our military once the [Iraq] war is underway will be considered Enemies of the State by me. Just fair warning to you, Barbara Streisand, and others who see the world as you do. I don’t want to demonize anyone, but anyone who hurts this country in a time like this, well, let’s just say you will be spotlighted.”

Michael Savage: “I say round liberals up and hang em’ high. When I hear someones in the civil rights business, I oil up my AR-25.”

Glen Beck: “Hang on, let me just tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could.”

These quotes were taken from David Neiwert’s book “The Eliminationists.

“If this congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out” - Sharon Angle

“When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors.” – Ann Coulter

When Joe Stack flew a small plane into an IRS building in Texas last year, politicians extended condolences to the victims, but at the same time sympathized with his disillusionment with IRS. The fact that he was a registered Democrat didn’t dissuade Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) from identifying with the terrorist when he called the IRS “an unnecessary government entity” following the attack.

Spoken and unspoken rhetoric has worked its way into the very conscienceness of American society, which is ripe with political tension. Jared Loughner, the young man that shot 20 people, including Congresswoman Giffords, and killed 6 others, was in some way politically, personally, and socially motivated. What’s also clear is that he displayed behaviors that do not co-align with what society deems as “normal.”

Is Sarah Palin responsible for his actions? No. There are no solid facts to support the notion that Jared Loughner was right-wing or left-wing, but what we know for sure is that his actions were on the fringe, extreme, and reek of radicalism. We now know that Jared Loughner had previous contact with Gabrielle Giffords, as early as 2007. He attended a rally she held and did not appreciate the way she responded to a question he posed concerning politics without language. She replied in Spanish. Jared Loughner acted in the midst of a heated political environment, where one side has been implying, beneath a veil of rhetoric, that it is okay to target, aim, and shoot at political opponents that are demonized in the media, and in television attack ads considered the enemy.

The blame may not rest with Sarah Palin, but the atmosphere in which she politicized absolutely everything not Republican or Tea Party with highly vitriolic hyperbole is symptomatic of a much deeper problem.. Indeed, BOTH sides are guilty of espousing over the top rhetoric, no matter how less inciteful progressives may be, it doesn’t negate the guilt pouring from conservatives as evidenced by the defensive stance they’ve adopted.

Jared Loughner, from what we know so far, has no known coherent political ideology, and even so, mental illness does not make a person inherently violent. According to friends, he has a twisted sense of humor, and loved to delve in conspiracy theories. He was obsessed with 2012, mind control, language control, illiteracy, the truth about 9/11, and the US currency, which he considered “useless” without a gold standard.

From his youtube page:

I attended school: Thornydale elementary,Tortolita Middle School, Mountain View Highschool, Northwest Aztec Middle College, and Pima Community College.
Interests:
My favorite interest was reading, and I studied grammar. Conscience dreams were a great study in college!
Movies:
(*My idiom: I could coin the moment!*)
Music:
Pass me the strings!
Books:
I had favorite books: Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Pulp,Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver’s Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, and Meno.

Loughner may be ruled a sociopath, but until then I am remiss to call him insane. From his ramblings, he is clearly a man who considers himself intelligent, but with a complete inability to know that to be intelligent is to be humbled by the knowledge of how much you don’t know.

Sadly, there are mentally disturbed people everywhere. Of those that are political, their views cross the whole of the political spectrum. Both the right and the left have cast a kind of rhetoric that can be considered rhetoricalin its calls to take up arms, engage in hand to hand combat, etc. The fact is, both the Right and the Left have used graphics and symbols and targets on maps to make a point. So regardless of Mr. Loughner’s political affiliation, he bought a gun, unsheathed it, and shot 20 people at point blank range, killing a Federal Judge, a 9 year old little girl, and 4 others, including the gravely wounded Gabrielle Giffords. He can’t blame anyone, save the voices in his head, but himself. Althogh the atmosphere leading up to the shooting puts much of the focus and spotlight on the politics of the right, we all share a piece of the personal responsibility pie, by either holding others or ourselves accountable for our words.

We have always been a society that favors personal responsibility over playing the victim. Should we not keep in mind that advertising fear and intimidation, or strategies designed to call people to action, or to take up arms are much easier to succeed when one of a parties primary platforms is reduced gun control. Jan Brewer, the Governor of Arizona, signed Senate Bill 1088 into law on April 10, 2010 which allows anyone, 21 or older, to carry a concealed firearm without a permit. What we should be discussing, as a society, is how to prevent the mentally ill from gaining access to firearms.

My condolences go out to the families affected by this terrible tragedy. Despite the rhetoric from either side, the facts, opinions, speculations, motives, paranoid interjections, etc., six people are left dead at the hands of one individual. When families are in pain due to loss and victims remain hospitalized, we all need to take a step back and come to the conclusion that we could all stand to be a lot more civil in general.

The Lesser of the Two: Kirk vs Giannoulias

Knowledge — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 15:49:51 +0000

In one corner we have Congressman Mark Kirk, a man that was so desperate to win favor among the conservative Tea Party crowd that he at one time actively sought the endorsement of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for the Senate candidacy. He did however balk at the idea of receiving an endorsement from Glenn Beck.

When Sarah Palin appeared in Chicago late last year for the ”Oprah Show” it was then that Mark Kirk wrote in an memo that “he is hoping for something “quick and decisive” from Palin about the race, perhaps to the effect of: “Voters in Illinois have a key opportunity to take Barack Obama’s Senate seat. Congressman Kirk is the lead candidate to do that.”

The authenticity of the memo was confirmed by Kirk and the Republican insider he reached out to who has strong ties to Palin. The existence of the memo displays the power of a Sarah Palin endorsement in a campaign race and Kirk, a strong moderate Republican, knew all too well that a backlash against moderate Republicans had begun in the wake of the Tea Party’s rise to fame. What makes Kirk’s request even more absurd is the fact that in a Tribune editorial back in October 2008 Kirk surmised that he didn’t know if she [Sarah Palin] was qualified to be president and that he “would have picked someone different.”

The memo would later reveal that Kirk, North Shore congressman from the 10^th Congressional District, had also canceled a press conference he’d scheduled earlier in the day regarding health care reform. He was concerned about additional backlash that would likely come as a result of the ultra right wing push back against the health care bill and any Republican politicians not coming out against it.

“I canceled the health care press due to the damage to the moderate label,” the e-mail begins.

We can work FAST withJason to communicate with conservative elites that we are the only candidate that can take the president’s Senate seat, leading to a tough go in the next two months but smart conservatives want the humiliation of the White House when and where it counts — November 2010 in Obama’s home state of Illinois,” he continued.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnRtHZtDktw&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Although Kirk is a self identified moderate with a flip-flopping voting record to match, he was more concerned about the positive impact Sarah Palin’s endorsement would have meant for his former Republican primary opponent, Andy Martin.

While Kirk did not receive an endorsement from Sarah Palin, who saw right through his facade, he did receive one from her former running mate, Senator John McCain.

Mark Kirks popularity in the 10^th congressional district has a lot to do with his political posturing (He’s a liberal Republican… no wait, he’s a moderate Republican… no… I think he’ll go with the centrist title) in a state best known for being bluer than Lake Michigan i.e., a Democrat stronghold. He’s a big fish in a big pond and his only source of real competition comes from Democrats, not fellow Republicans, who “lovingly” refer to him as a RINO, Republican In Name Only.

The last time Kirk broke with the GOP in the House, he voted for the Clean Energy bill, then turned around and vowed to oppose the same bill in the Senate. Previously, he vowed to vote for the jobs bill which would funnel money to seriously cash strapped states and save thousands of teacher jobs. The very next day, Kirk voted against that same bill he’d promised to vote for just a day before. The reasoning has been debated and agreed that he voted no due to party pressure since the bill would have removed tax breaks for corporations shipping jobs overseas. Something near and dear to conservative Republicans.

As an Illinois resident and a person born and raised in the 10^thCongressional District where most of my family still resides, I admit that I’ll be placing my vote for Alexi Giannoulias on November 2nd. My reasons are simple.

Mark Kirk is neither clear nor concise and despite what he wants to make us believe, he has far less integrity than his opponent, Alexi Giannoulias. Mark Kirk has been caught in more lies than I can count since initially announcing his bid to run for US Senate. He not only embellished his record of service, awards andaccomplishments with the US Military, he also lied about his experience as a middle-school teacher, which turned out to be “a year in London at a private school and part-time in a nursery school as part of a work-study program while he was a student at Cornell University.”

His sexuality has been called into question more than once. First by Republican primary opponent Andy Martin, and then by Mark Rogers, the same guy that outed former Senator Larry Craig and creepy Congressional Representative Mark Foley. His record on gay rights has been surmised as follows:

“Until now, Mark Kirk elected not to play the typical Washington game. Instead of supporting his party’s dismal record on gay rights, Kirk received Human Rights Campaign ratings of 67% in 2002, 88% in 2004, 76% in 2006 and 85% in 2008. That’s more impressive than a lot of Democrats. I even let Kirk slide by when he didn’t co-sponsor earlier legislation relating to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. My thoughts then were that he wasn’t THAT bad on gay stuff and that the bill was going nowhere anyway.” – Andy Martin

I care less about his sexual preference and more about Kirk’s complete and utter disregard for honesty . There are already far too many liars in the Senate.

In the other corner we have the fresh-faced Democrat Alexi Giannoulias who must not forget that Chicago politics differs from Illinois politics. There exist tiny pockets of liberals, progressives and conservatives nestled all throughout Chicago even though it’s a known Democratic machine, born and bred. However, suburban and collegiate conclaves are notoriously conservative in some parts, especially Kirks neck of the wealthy North shore woods, and particularly downstate Illinois.

In any case, Giannoulias has been accused of approving bank loans to Mobsters while employed at his family’s Broadway Bank, which entered into foreclosure earlier this year. In April, first the Feds and then MB Financial took control of the fledgling financial institution. It is of note that when Giannoulias stopped working for the family business in 2006, it was one of the most profitable banks in Illinois.

According to factcheck.org, “There’s no proof that he “made” the loans to Giorango, the only one of the three men pictured who had been convicted at the time he borrowed money from Broadway. Another of the men didn’t get a loan from Broadway at all. And the third man wasn’t charged with a crime until after Giannoulias had signed off on loans to him. To be accurate, Kirk should have said only that his opponent worked at a family bank that made loans to criminals and their business ventures, and that he had a role in servicing some of the loans.” Giannoulias has also been accused of losing millions of investor dollars through the prior failings of the College BrightStartprogram. Oppenheimer Funds Inc., was the firm discovered to be mismanaging the funds for not only Illinois, but several other states as well and Alexi credits his department for taking action, removing the firm, and recovering some of the lost funds to the tune of $77 million dollars for some 65,000 investors.

At 33, Alexi Giannouliasis a young prospect with few skeletons milling about his closet at the present time. His family’s wealth, the fact that the family bank made LEGAL loans to known mobster(s) (one, to be exact, who had not yet been convicted), he’s known as a spoiled rich kid in some circles and he’s been falsely accused of losing Illinoisans millions of dollars through the College Bright Start program. Neither candidate has a stellar track record nor have either served their state in a capacity that speaks singularly and idealy to the people of Illinois or in a way that makes either stand out considerably.

Regardless of who wins the Senate race in Illinois, just please make sure your voice heard. Join me in casting your vote on November 2nd.

Message To Gay Conservatives: Ann Coulter is no Judy Garland

Knowledge — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 23:15:15 +0000

I failed to criticize Ann Coulter last month when news surfaced that she had accepted an invitation to headline GOProud’s HomoCon 2010, the first annual gathering of so-called homosexual conservatives that took place at Pay-pal co-founder Peter Thiel’s estate in September. (I use the term “so-called” because it’s quite obvious that being homosexual is not exactly a “conservative” value, so take that as you will.)

GOProud is a Washington-based advocacy group for gay conservatives and their allies. Ann Coulter is a ultra-right wing, anti-gay marriage, conservative pundit who is best known for spewing racy humor-laced filth and despising anyone who isn’t rich, white, and most importantly, male. Inside that liberal-hating shell is a conniving genius of a woman who gives the word Republican brand new meaning.

What most people don’t realize is that Ann Coulter is paid; quite handsomely, to espouse viewpoints and opinions that are often harsh and extremely popular or unpopular depending on the crowd. When 90% of your income is derived from speaking engagements, you can typically say whatever and still be assured that someone is not only listening, but they’ll pay to hear you say it.

So why did GOProud ask Coulter to headline their first annual event? Their Chairman, Christopher R. Barr, explained, “the organizations focus is strictly on federal issues.” He further explained that they don’t take a position on state policy issues like same sex marriage by distancing his group from the Log Cabin Republicans who he believes pushes an agenda similar to the gay liberal left, which focuses primarily on social-political issues. GOProud claims to invest in a greater set of values that impact gay conservatives.

“I can promise you, Homocon 2010 will be a hell of a lot more fun than chaining yourself to the White House fence,” concluded Barron.

That still doesn’t explain why they choose Coulter to perform. Perhaps it’s because she is the conservative right’s stand up comic. Her humor is so acerbic that she can be difficult to stomach even when she’s being serious. She holds a law degree and is a best selling author seven times over. She makes Sarah Palin look like a Rhodes Scholar by comparison. We all know there is easy money to be reaped from fear mongering, just ask Sarah Palin. But among the hate mongering crowd, only few can make it all the way to the top and remain there as long as Ann Coulter. She will say almost anything for shock value.

The gay left has done their best to take all the fun out of politics, with their endless list of boycotts and protests. Homocon is going to be our annual effort to counter the ‘no fun police’ on the left… I can’t think of any conservative more fun to headline our inaugural party then the self-professed ‘right-wing Judy Garland’– Ann Coulter.

- Chairman Christopher R. Barro

Some highlights of Coulter’s speech that evening:

“Marriage is not a civil right. You’re not black.”

It was part of a larger argument on which she later elaborated on by telling the crowd that the 14th Amendment only applies to African-Americans and that it does not apply to women, LGBT people or other minorities.

“Blacks must be looking at the gays saying, Why can’t we be oppressed like that.”

Ann Coulter can make jokes saying Muslims would execute gays so they must be conservatives, and the gay elite can laugh heartily while claiming it’s all in good fun, when really it is a sad, but true state of affairs. They laugh because most of their straight conservative counterparts would much rather they be wealthy second class citizens than outright executed, and they know it. The trade off is objective.

This new gay “conservative” agenda appears to be a marketing attempt by the GOP to project gay leftists and progressives as intolerant, radical, vindictive meanie-pies who don’t really have gay people’s best interests at heart. They claim to be more tolerant of gays than the left is tolerant of conservatives. They’re playing a game of political psychological warfare, and right now they are winning.

The irony here is that gay liberals spend countless amounts of time and energy promoting the very idea of personal freedom, social and religious tolerance, and individualism. Why would gay conservatives make it seem as though anyone not conforming to their agenda must be intolerant and un-American?

They (conservatives) tolerate our existance, but refuse to lift a finger to help repeal unconstitutional laws directly linked to discrimination on the basis of sexuality and gender. My own sentiment is that if you are gay, you’re likely denied full equality on a number of measures (military, religion and marriage just to name a few) and you can still be legally discriminated against in the workplace in quite a few states, but as long as you’re tolerated you shouldn’t demand more. The push to the left exists because if society doesn’t support our deepest personal relationships then all of the freedom and money in the world won’t change the fact that we are not truly free, and the left recognizes this glaring hypocrisy. The left can’t afford to act like nothing is wrong.

Enter Ann Coulter; the Right’s lack of a conscience. And because she’s a woman with a large conservative following, she can get away with voicing racial and cultural prejudices masked as fears without being shut down. Oh, and because she’s funny. And so intelligent that she’s stupid or maybe she just doesn’t realize how extremely difficult it is for her fans to separate her message from the comedy routine it is, and those on the left wonder if it’s even fair to separate her message from hate speak altogether.

She is fun, really fun, to write about, that is. She gets under the skin of liberals by the mere mention of her name, and that’s why conservatives love Coulter. In the words of “Madea” from the Cleveland Brown Show, “She’s outrageous!”

Barron defended her, explaining, “Homocon 2010 was a complete and total success. GOProud set out to throw a great party, not hold a policy event, and that’s exactly what we did.”

Forget about the fact that Ann Coulter did nothing but discuss policy and draw some laughs. Overall, the underlying cause of anyone agreeing with her can be born of two things; religious extremism and/or pure misguided emotion. Political decisions aren’t being based on fact and reason, and hell, for logic to come into play you’ve got to have a pretty well rounded individual at the helm. That is almost asking too much.

Whatever the cause, it appears that most Americans make political decisions based on emotion and anecdote rather than reason and fact. Left, right or center, this indicates a profound misunderstanding of the world and a profound lack of political intelligence. Rejecting liberals hardly makes one a conservative and anyone who pretends to take her seriously (besides the media looking for ratings or gay conservative groups looking to make a name for themselves) is emotionally or morally damaged to the point where they do not desire integrity or class in their mission.

Anybody at HomoCon want their dignity money back?

Even mainstream conservatives believe that homosexuality is a sickness sin, one in which the only cure is hell. While attitudes are steadily changing, there is no way the current political environment will allow gay conservatives to fully integrate themselves into the ultra right wing crowd.

Evidence of this is the fact that Ann Coulter was immediately dropped as keynote speaker by a (current) employer, World Net Daily (WND), who said, “Ultimately, as a matter of principle, it would not make sense for us to have Ann speak to a conference about ‘taking America back’ when she clearly does not recognize that the ideals to be espoused there simply do not include the radical and very ‘unconservative’ agenda represented by GOProud,” WND editor and CEO Joseph Farah said. “The drift of the conservative movement to a brand of materialistic libertarianism is one of the main reasons we planned this conference from the beginning.”

They kept it real. Funny how conservative tolerance for other conservatives only really goes so far, and even then it’s on a one way street. Of all people, Ann Coulter, who is neither friend nor stranger to gays gets barred from speaking at an event for being too “gay-friendly.”

Now that’s funny.

Why Juan Williams Was Fired by NPR Then Hired by Fox

Knowledge — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 21:32:14 +0000

When I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.

I do a double take. I have a moment of anxiety of fear given what happened on 9/11. That’s just a reality, he said, noting that when he told his former boss, she suggested that Williams had made a bigoted statement.

It’s not a bigoted statement. In fact, in the course of this conversation with Bill O’Reilly, I said we have an obligation as Americans to be careful to protect the constitutional rights of everyone in our country and to make sure that we don’t have any outbreak of bigotry. but that there’s a reality. You can not ignore what happened on 9/11 and you cannot ignore the connection to Islamic radicalism, and you can’t ignore the fact of what has even recently been said in court with regard to this is the first drop of blood in a Muslim war in America.

According to National Public Radio, Juan Williams was fired for breaking his contract. The statements uttered above culminated in being the straw that broke the camels back so to speak. Williams made the statements while moonlighting as a guest host on the Bill O’Reilly show. Although NPR previously requested that he make light of his employment as a political analyst for NPR while appearing on Fox, the distinction was already firmly in place. NPR said that his remarks “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices.” Williams was paid to report the news in an impartial, unbiased manner, and was expected to do so without compromising NPR’s standards of integrity and ethics in journalism.

Williams appearance and subsequent statements on Fox gave clearance to the support of racial profiling via fear mongering against Muslims, and he opened himself up to personal and professional scrutiny for a shameful display of prejudice whether heartfelt or not.

Before I Proceed, Here Are Some Facts:

1. Juan Williams had a contract with NPR as a political analyst. The terms of his contract included an agreement to refrain from publicly expressing biased opinions. NPR is one of the most consistent news programs in terms of reporting the news in a “fair and balanced” atmosphere.

2. Williams’ freedom of speech is not at issue here. He can express any opinion he wants, as long as he’s not representing a company, entity, or organization that expressly frowns upon doing such a thing.

3. He was already skating on thin ice after a previous warning about his appearances on Fox while also representing and being under contract with NPR.

4. NPR had as much right to terminate his contract as CNN had in terminating Rick Sanchez’s contract due to his insensitive remarks about Jews.

5. While Fox loves controversy and will allow him to get away with saying things like calling Michelle Obama “Stokley Carmichael in a designer dress”, NPR holds itself to a much higher set of standards.

*Stokley Carmichael was a black activist in the 60s whose famous for coining the phrase “Black Power.”

6. My only disappointment lie in the fact that NPR desperately needs MORE diversity not LESS, however a certain standard of quality is expected and appreciated over simply filling a quota.

7. Terrorists typically do whatever they can to assimilate and draw as little attention to themselves as possible leading up to a terrorist act. The fact remains that the 9/11 terrorists were not wearing Muslim garb the day they boarded the planes. If anything, the fact that some Muslims, including Black Muslims, choose to dress in traditional Muslim garb should reassure an intellect like Mr. Williams.

8. A journalists’ duty is to report the news in an unbiased manner. An analysts’ responsibility is to provide a factually unbiased opinion on what’s reported. As it relates to Fox News, expressing ones opinion without regard to the moral or ethical consequence is nothing new or out of the ordinary.

9. Williams’ high profile position at NPR required him to do everything in his professional power to not pontificate his personal opinion in a way that would draw negative attention to not only himself, but also to his network. When he became the news story instead of reporting on the news story, he became a problem for NPR.

10. The First Amendment does not guarantee anyone a job or a media platform in which to exercise their right to free speech, regardless of if their employer is publicly funded or not.

[youtube width="325" height="244"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAfGKVK8PyE&feature=aso[/youtube]

It may not sound THAT bad unless you’re Muslim or Middle-Eastern or someone who is mistaken for either or on a regular basis. Or maybe it just doesn’t ring a bell until you swap the word Muslim for Black.

Riddle me this: How credible can he be in his “neutral analysis” on NPR if he expresses prejudicial opinions based on irrational or rational fears on other networks?

While I agree that single statement may not have been worthy of termination, a culmination of statements made to a similar degree would justify NPR’s decision to finally act in their own best interest. I believe there is much more to the story primarily because the Fox Network was able to put together a multi-million dollar contact for Mr. Williams in a matter of hours.

Final word: A man who gets afraid when he sees a Muslim boarding his plane is no different than a man who gets afraid when he sees a black man walking down the same sidewalk as him at night. There may be cause for concern, but you either push your fears aside and keep them to yourself or you cross over to the other side of the street and keep it moving.

Mr. Williams has no problem prefacing his statements with highlights of his civil-rights book writing campaigns, but he conveniently forgets that for decades blacks in America have protested against this very brand of ignorant, bigoted, and stereotypical thinking, just like the one he declared about Muslims.

Personally, I get a little nervous when I see uninformed Americans entering voting booths, but that’s just me.

I leave you with this:

We only seem to be able to see the bigotry that is aimed at us. Being able to see bigotry that doesn’t actually have anything to do with anyone we know and love, and still be upset about it, is something I wish on every single person. I’m starting to think that the only thing that could bring the human race together is an attack from Mars…those gross, immoral Martians better not even think about messing with us!!!