via boingboing

For decades, George Alan Rekers has been a general in the culture wars, though his work has often been behind the scenes. In 1983, he and James Dobson, America’s best-known homophobe, formed the Family Research Council, a D.C.-based, rabidly Christian, and vehemently anti-gay lobbying group that has become a standard-bearer of the nation’s extreme right wing. Its annual Values Summit is considered a litmus test for Republican presidential hopefuls, and Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter have spoken there. (The Family Research Council would not comment about Rekers’s Euro-trip.)

He has also influenced American government, serving in advisory roles with Congress, the White House, and the Department of Health and Human Services and testifying as a state’s witness in favor of Florida’s gay adoption ban. A former research fellow at Harvard University and a distinguished professor of neuropsychiatry at the University of South Carolina, Rekers has published papers and books by the hundreds, with titles like “Who Am I? Lord” and “Growing Up Straight: What Families Should Know About Homosexuality.”

“While he keeps a low public profile, his fingerprints are on almost every anti-gay effort to demean and dehumanize LGBT people,” says Wayne Besen, a gay rights advocate in New York City and the executive director of Truth Wins Out, which investigates the anti-gay movement. “His work is ubiquitously cited by lobby groups that work to deny equality to LGBT Americans. Rekers has caused a great deal of harm to gay and lesbian individuals.”

more HERE and  “there were others escort says”

I first heard this on NPR and then was reminded by the Provisions Library Blog (which is excellent).

The White House has created a new office, one of Social Innovation & Civic Participation, and has named Sonal Shah, who was in charge of global development at Google, as the lead. I haven’t heard as much about this as I’d like to, but apparently the office will identify “the most promising, results-oriented nonprofit programs” “that have had proven success in tackling social problems, such as homelessness and joblessness” and will fund them hopefully with a combination of  50,000,000 earmarked in the 2010 budget & matching funds from philantropists and large organizations. Ironically, the first hit under Google News on the new office  is from the Chronicle of Philanthropy, but only for subscribers..

Optimism? Belief in a broken system? I don’t recognize it, so it’s a bit off-putting.  I read this today and felt something shift in my head, like scooting a book over to fit more snugly to the next. Are things really going to change?

For more on this go Here but, if you’re anything like me, go Here and probably Here as well.

Via Hatewatch (thanks Gabe!)

Two years after glorifying the border vigilante movement in Minutemen: Battle to Secure America’s Borders, a book he co-authored with Minuteman Project leader Jim Gilchrist, right-wing propagandist and conspiracy hound Jerome Corsi found himself being deported—from Kenya.

Immigration agents in Nairobi detained Corsi earlier today because, as one official told the New York Times, “His immigration forms were not in order.” Corsi was on his way to a press conference when he was taken into custody and forced to surrender his passport.

It wasn’t the first time in recent months that Corsi’s attempts to generate publicity have gone awry. In mid-August, just as Corsi was in the midst of a blitz of media appearances to promote his latest bestseller, The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, Hatewatch revealed that Corsi had recently been a guest on the Political Cesspool, an overtly anti-Semitic and white supremacist radio show, and that he was scheduled to appear on the show again. (Corsi subsequently backed out of the second Cesspool appearance). (more…)

Day three of the RNC and what has gone on during the convention is neither surprising or unusual, but intensely disappointing none-the-less. Perhaps saddest of all is the case of the St. Paul 8, a group of people who have been “arrested and charged with second-degree furtherance of terrorism, conspiracy to riot, conspiracy to commit civil disorder and conspiracy to damage property.” Those arrested include members of the RNC Welcoming Committee and are being held on$75,000 bail each. “If convicted, each faces up to five years in jail, a $10,000 fine, or both.” Items gathered in the search at the time of their detainment include gas masks, protective padding, homemade shields, locks and slingshots–sounds to me like they were trying to protect themselves.
You can read their press release here

You can donate to help here

For more info go here, here, here, and here 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 1, 2008

ST. PAUL, MN
Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time. Police violently manhandled Goodman, yanking her arm, as they arrested her. Video of her arrest can be seen here. Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being unlawfuly detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the RepublicanNational Convention. Goodman’s crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.Ramsey County Sherrif Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were being arrested on suspicion of rioting. They are currently being held at the Ramsey County jail in St. Paul. Democracy Now! is calling on all journalists and concerned citizens to call the office of Mayor Chris Coleman and the Ramsey County Jail and demand the immediate release of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar. These calls can be directed to: Chris Rider from Mayor Coleman’s office at 651-266-8535 and the Ramsey County Jail at 651-266-9350 (press extension 0).Democracy Now! stands by Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and condemns this action by Twin Cities law enforcement as a clear violation of the freedom of the press and the First Amenmdent rights of these journalists. During the demonstration in which they were arrested law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force. Several dozen others were also arrested during this action.Amy Goodman is one of the most well-known and well-respected journalists in the United States. She has received journalism’s top honors for her reporting and has a distinguished reputation of bravery and courage. The arrest of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar is a transparent attempt tointimidate journalists from the nation’s leading independent news outlet.Democracy Now! is a nationally-syndicated public TV and radio program that airs on over 700 radio and TV stations across the US and the globe.
Contact:
Dennis Moynihan
Mike Burke

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported today that a bill in Arizona has passed that would ban students in public schools from meeting on campus if they are organized based on race or ethnicity. Even more troubling is the section of the bill that “bar(s) public elementary and secondary schools from teaching anything counter to Western civilization.“(italics mine) Western Civilization? Can I get a definition of that please?

Republican  Rep. John Kavanagh,  said: “This bill basically says, ‘You’re here. Adopt American values.’ If you want a different culture, then fine, go back to that culture.”

For more, read this totally not biased article at The Arizona Republic titled “Plan Targets Anti-Western Lessons” for gems like this: “Pearce, a Mesa Republican, said his target isn’t diversity instruction, but schools that use taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate students in what he characterized as anti-American or seditious thinking. The measure is at least partially a response to a controversy surrounding an ethnic-studies program in the Tucson Unified School District, which critics have said is unpatriotic and teaches revolution.”

Disgraceful, shameful, illegal, and yes, dangerous.
These are words that come to mind every time the Bush
administration makes yet another attempt to
consolidate executive power, while wrapping itself in
secrecy and deception.
And its officials never stop. In May, Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit
group, filed a lawsuit seeking information from the
White House Office of Administration about an
estimated five million e-mail messages that
mysteriously vanished from White House computer
servers between March 2003 and October 2005. Congress
wants to investigate (more…)

Eighty-five percent of Israel’s checkpoints are inside the Palestinian West Bank. Palestinians traveling from towns and villages, whether to find work or give birth or honor the dead, experience aimed guns, hard questions and long waits. Every day, roughly 50 to 100 of Machsom Watch’s 400 Israeli women go out in 24 shifts to keep tabs on the remote outposts and advocate for fair treatment of Palestinians. The women’s main task is to observe and to write reports on what they observe, in order to make private acts of malice public. The reports are then published weekly on the organization’s website for all to read.

read more at In These Times

#1 Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media
#2 Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran
#3 Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger
#4 Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US

Visit http://www.projectcensored.org/censored_2007/ to learn more.