Headlines - Friday December 24

They suggested the same the day before with financial regulation. For the Republicans, it's all about turning back the clock. It all worked out so well in the past in their little minds. The flat-earthers who run the Republican party can never get their heads around the fact that the pollution from corporate America does have a cost for everyone else. What outrageous step backwards will the knuckle-draggers think of next?

 

###

 

Boring Willard Romney announces 2012 run with boring Xmas card

Oh look, it's that Mormon brood again, here to tell us all about how the prophet Mitt led the Goberphilians jogging out of Israelite-America with nothing but a golden apple pie made out of melted 2002 Olympic medals. Yes, this dumb Christmas card lets us know that Mitt is running for president again with this incredibly clumsily forced "hint," so get ready for the ultimate campaign battle of politicians' annoying children with weird names: Palin vs. Romney.

###

I thought everybody wanted us to bomb Iran?

Despite sanctions and trade embargoes, over the past decade the United States government has allowed American companies to do billions of dollars in business with Iran and other countries blacklisted as state sponsors of terrorism, an examination by The New York Times has found.

At the behest of a host of companies — from Kraft Food and Pepsi to some of the nation's largest banks — a little-known office of the Treasury Department has granted nearly 10,000 licenses for deals involving countries that have been cast into economic purgatory, beyond the reach of American business.

...

It's all good when there's a buck to be made.

###

 

 

RALEIGH, N.C. — From her Subaru, a car painted as white as the fourth horse of Revelation, Allison Warden proclaims that Jesus Christ shall return May 21.

As in 151 days from now.

###

After years of intensive study, the CIA has finally decoded the secret message.  It means: "Dude, WikiLeaks Task Force?"

###

Kinda like the way your priests "surprise" the children they rape? And why is this criminal not rotting in prison? "God is faithful to his promises but often surprises us by how he fulfils them, the Pope is due to say in a BBC broadcast. Pope Benedict's Christmas message for the UK will be broadcast as Thought For The Day on the Today programme on Radio 4. The child born in Bethlehem brought liberation - but not by military or political means, he will say. In his message, he says he recalls his recent UK visit with "great fondness"."

 

###

 

And now you can visit the virgin Mary in Wisconsin

Merry Christmas Eve, unless you're a non-believer, in which case "may Satan have mercy on your tortured soul." Let's pray that this year Joseph finds a nice Howard Johnson or something so that he doesn't have to spend another Christmas trapped in a manure stable with his manipulative teenage bride who cheated on him with God. But if you're "into" that kind of stuff (cheating virgins giving birth in animal poop sheds), you should definitely visit "a little chapel among the dairy farms" in Wisconsin, one of the few places on Earth where "apparitions of the Virgin Mary have been officially validated by the Roman Catholic Church." So basically the Virgin Mary is officially haunting some poor chapel in Real America, according to the Pope. "Catholic leaders described the decree in Wisconsin as a bolt of joy at a trying time for the Catholic church, which is troubled by revelations of sex abuse." Ha ha, "bolt of joy." Is that what they're calling boners now? [NYT]

###

Uganda's notorious Pastor Martin Ssempa, who infamously tells national audiences that the preferred sexual practice of gay men is eating human feces, has been charged with attempting to blackmail another pastor. Ssempa is accused of offering to pay another man to say that he had "been sodomized" by Pastor Robert Kayanja. A total of eight anti-gay Christian activists have been charged in the case.

Pastor Sempa is accused of hiring Robson Matovu to blackmail Pastor Kayanja. Court heard that Pastor Male reportedly gave Mr Matovu a signed and stamped affidavit implicating Pastor Kayanja while Samson Mukisa was reportedly promised necessities on condition that he would speak publicly on how Pastor Kayanja had sodomised him. A police report indicates that complaints of sodomy against Pastor Kayanja did not reveal any evidence the offences. "In retracting their statements, the complainants said they had been mobilised to make false accusations against Pastor Kayanja in order to tarnish his name," reads a report.

Box Turtle Bulletin's Jim Burroway notes: "Public charges of sodomy are a common way to settle political and other scores in Uganda. Should the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill become law with its death penalty and other heightened penalties for advocacy on behalf of LGBT people or failure to report gay people to police, such conspiracies will increase and carry far greater dangers. The bill will mean that no one will be safe, including straight people."

 

###

 

UTAH: Gay Rights Come To Grand County

In a continuance of the march to full LGBT rights for small town and rural Americans, yesterday Grand County, Utah granted housing and employment protections to its gay and transgender residents. The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

That means one in four Utahns, living in 10 communities from Moab to Logan, are protected from discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Advocates for the statutes hope that groundswell of support will push the Utah Legislature to protect all Utahns. "Each of these local governments has set an example for their residents and for business owners and property owners," said Brandie Balken, executive director of Equality Utah. "They've also set a good example for our Legislature." Sen. Ben McAdams, D-Salt Lake City, plans to introduce a bill in the upcoming legislative session that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to existing housing and employment laws banning discrimination based on characteristics such as race, religion or national origin. Two-thirds of Utahns support such a law, according to a January poll by The Salt Lake Tribune.

Pride In Utah cautions that the GOP head of the Utah state Senate has hinted that his party may attempt to overturn local anti-discrimination laws by statewide edict. In the meantime the effort to institute a state version of ENDA in Utah continues.

 

Of course MY town won't vote for this. Only Mormons can have special rights here.

 

###

 

Putting it all together, piece by piece.

Scientists say an entirely separate type of human identified from bones in Siberia co-existed and interbred with our own species.

The ancient humans have been dubbed Denisovans after the caves in Siberia where their remains were found.

There is also evidence that this group was widespread in Eurasia.

A study in Nature journal shows that Denisovans co-existed with Neanderthals and interbred with our species – perhaps around 50,000 years ago.

An international group of researchers sequenced a complete genome from one of the ancient hominins (human-like creatures), based on nuclear DNA extracted from a finger bone.

According to the researchers, this provides confirmation there were at least four distinct types of human in existence when anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) first left their African homeland.

For you young earth creationists out there, go ahead and ignore the entire story.  It's just more of that ungodly and overrated science stuff trying to mess with your heads.

###

TPM reports on the bitching coming from Republicans over legislation passed in the last week.

Lindsey Graham:

"The lame duck session was meant to basically transition from one Congress to the next, not take every special interest item the liberals want and pass it in two weeks."

Jim DeMint

"Passing a major arms agreement in lame duck is outrageous. Dems trying to jam through a liberal agenda before conservatives come to town."

Lamar Alexander:

"the majority's decision to jam through other matters during this lame duck session has poisoned the well, driven away Republican votes, and jeopardized ratification of this important treaty."

Tom Coburn (on the 9/11 first responders bill)

"This is a bill that's been drawn up and forced through Congress at the end of the year on a basis to solve a problem that we didn't have time to solve and we didn't get done."

Steve King:

"This lame duck session has been full of all kinds of issues that I think didn't have any business being in the lame duck session."

And on and on.  The truth is that all of the legislation passed this week was discussed ad nauseam in the months previous but was blocked by legislative maneuvers by Republicans. The only thing being jammed in the last few weeks was the incredible amount of BS rethugs were trying to force down the throat of Americans.

There are three clear reasons as to why four solid pieces of legislation passed this week.

a) Dems stood their ground threatening to work through Christmas to get the job done. Republicans got scared that the PR would have worked in the Dems favor.  They buckled.

b) The midterms were over and the few Republicans in Congress with half a conscience, understood the importance of passing the current legislation which had been held up by their own party for pure political reasons.  They knew that there was little chance of any of this stuff passing with a Republican-controlled House.  It was now or never.  They chose now.

c) Republicans were being pressured by members of their own party as well as conservative media to get some of these bills passed before the Christmas break.  Fox had been critical of Republicans over the 9/11 first responders bill and having busloads of first responders storming congressional offices pushed them to act.  As for ratification of the START treaty, repeal of DADT and the tax cut bill, Republican protests were sounding more hallow by the day, even by their own lowly standards of acceptable behavior.

And now for one of the more demented Republicans in Congress, Texas Rep. Louie Gomert:

"People who have been voted out of office because the majority in their state did not want them representing them anymore and they're down there cutting a deal with the Russians. The election should have consequences."

Good point, Louie.  Just like the 2008 election should have had consequences, right?  Barack Obama and Democrats ran on a clear platform and won.  You and your gang of fellow thugs used every trick you could think up to lie and misinform the masses on every piece of legislation Democrats proposed…all of which was done with input from your own party.  Yes, I know that Fox is telling a different story but hey, don't get me going on the 'news' network for the weak-minded and gullible.

Yes, jerkoff, elections have consequences and these are the consequences of the 2008 general election, whether you like it or not.