LGBTQ news and entertainment
Among other statements made by third tier GOP candidate Michele Bachmann in the past several months, she has said the “ACLU is running the CIA” and “we have no jail to hold terrorist prisoners.”
Of course the CIA is being run by General Petraeus, and Guantanamo is still open and able to hold prisoners.
Watch her make her statements then be challenged by responsible members of the press.
Bravo!
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| Capt. Stephen Hill and husband Joshua Snyder |
Army Capt. Stephen Hill says he wasn’t trying to score political points when he asked the Republican presidential candidates if they would reinstate the ban on gays serving openly in the U.S. military.
Now that “don’t ask, don’t tell” has been lifted, he needed to know if the military would take the next step and recognize his marriage, or if a new president would try to force soldiers like him back into the closet.
“I was looking forward to the future and hoping everybody would realize we are soldiers first, always,” said Hill, 41, an Army reservist who returned last week from his yearlong deployment. “I was hoping ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ would be a distant memory for everybody.”
In a recent interview, Hill reflected publicly for the first time on his reasons for submitting the pre-recorded question for the Sept. 22 debate, as well as his reaction to the heckles heard around the world; the answer that former Sen. Rick Santorum gave to thunderous applause; and the outrage expressed on his behalf by, among others, his commander in chief.
This is what he asked: “In 2010, when I was deployed to Iraq, I had to lie about who I was because I’m a gay soldier and I didn’t want to lose my job. My question is, under one of your presidencies, do you intend to circumvent the progress that’s been made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military?”
Santorum replied that he would reinstitute the ban on open service by gay troops because “any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military.”
“What we are doing is playing social experimentation with our military right now. That’s tragic,” he continued. “Leave it alone. Keep it to yourself whether you are heterosexual or homosexual.”
“When the actual booing occurred, my gut dropped out, because my first inclination was, did I just do something wrong?” Hill said.
President Barack Obama, about a week later, chided the Republican contenders for staying silent when several people booed an American soldier.
What Hill remembers most was that a presidential candidate defined his marriage and military service in terms of sex.
“This is not about sex,” Hill said. “A special privilege is not hiding pictures in my house or God forbid, taking mortar fire again and not knowing if Josh will be recognized. I’m fighting every day to protect everyone’s rights as human beings, and it seems counterintuitive for me to be fighting for those rights and not have them.”
UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi thinks this is the appropriate response to a peaceful sit-in.
UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza said officers used force out of concern for their own safety after they were surrounded by students.
Take a look at the first ten seconds of the video. The police officer who pepper sprayed the kids didn’t spray the crowd standing around him. He calmly steps over the sitting students – who clearly pose no threat – and sprays the sitting students.
Do those kids look like they were a “threat”? More at AmericaBlog.
The Yale Daily News points out this amusing self-portrait by one of its football players:
“Tight end Beau Palin ’14 stands at 6’3” and weighs in at 240lbs. He worked in an Illinois mustard factory one summer and baled hay in Wisconsin during another one. He likes to wear the American flag. This is the story of him and his brothers at their home in Oconomowoc, WI.”
Btw, he’s no relation to the former half-term governor of Alaska.
Apparently all of his brothers enjoy wearing Old Glory in a similar fashion, and they are accomplished bare footers.
There was a cute video of Beau and his brothers “bare footing” but the video was made “private.” Sorry about that.
I’m sorry, but the genial chuckle before he spoke and then the tepid “they all followed the law exactly as it’s written” seems a bit disingenuous.
If there’s no problem, why bring up “the law”?
Hmmm… something doesn’t pass the smell test here.
Just my opinion.
Based on the real-life experiences of filmmaker Mike Mills, this endearingly smart and artsy serio-comedy stars Ewan McGregor as the depressed son of a man who comes out of the closet at age 75 after his wife’s death.
The Sound of Music’s Christopher Plummer — an Oscar front-runner — plays the deliriously happy father, who spends his final years with a new gay social circle and a young boyfriend played by ER’s Goran Visnjic.
Check it out on Amazon.
Cheyenne Jackson’s Cocktail Hour: Music of The Mad Men Era
Star of Broadway, Glee, and 30 Rock, Cheyenne Jackson invites you to snap your fingers and tap your toes to the cool, swinging tunes of the 1950s and ’60s—a time when bossa nova was new, the lounges of Las Vegas were hip, and catchy dance music spun on every hi-fi.
From the Carnegie Hall website: Tonight, we take you back to a time when dance music was smooth and new opportunities were around every corner. The Mad Men era of the 1950s and ’60s introduced a new type of culture in America that combined social decadence with suave sophistication. For those special nights out on the town, elegance was the mode, with ladies in beautiful gowns and gentlemen in tuxedos. Of course, a martini and the occasional cigarette were popular accessories to complete the “look.”
Tickets still available starting under $20. How can you beat that?
Available as a limited edition four-disc boxed set with Blu-ray, newly restored DVD, tribute CD, and collectible memorabilia, Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’s Oscar-winning 1961 “West Side Story” — based on the 1957 Broadway hit — now includes special featurettes that analyze and illuminate the film’s dance sequences and enduring legacy, plus song-specific commentary by out lyricist Stephen Sondheim.
I was fortunate to do the show many times. I think I eventually played every Jet in the cast. The score continues to be one of the most powerful and passionate scores in music theatre, and the roles are a gift for the actors who play them.
Check out the newly remastered Blu-ray/DVD package on Amazon.
The congressional super committee, facing a fast-approaching deadline, appears headed toward failure unless negotiations shift dramatically in the final few days.
Multiple sources say Republican leaders have proposed a smaller package of spending cuts and revenues as a ‘Plan B’ if the panel does not succeed, though even this offer appears unlikely to gain much traction.
But the plan, which would reduce the deficit by about $640 billion, was dismissed by Democratic leaders according to two Republican sources. Democrats, according to multiple sources, are insisting on a higher revenue component – such as eliminating oil and gas subsidies – to achieve the “balanced approach” they have sought all along.
Republicans, working with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, offered Democratic leaders this “backup plan” which included about $540 billion in mandatory spending cuts and fees, and only $3 billion in revenue from closing the corporate jets tax break.
That formula breakdowns to tax revenues of only one half of one percent of the total reductions proposed.
Sources say the focus has now shifted to finding a way to lessen the blow of the sequester – the automatic across-the-board cuts scheduled to set in if the super committee does not reach agreement on $1.2 trillion in deficit savings over 10 years.
(source)