Justin's Political Corner
A few weeks ago, a bipartisan group of legislators once again introduced the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in both the House and the Senate, which will prohibit ”employers, employment agencies, and labor unions from using an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity as the basis for employment decisions, such as hiring, firing, promotion, or compensation”; such protections are already provided based on things like race, religion, gender, national origin, age and disability.
But “Chaps” Gordon Klingenschmitt is not buying it because he knows that ENDA is really all about driving Christian businesses right out of existence.
“ENDA is the end of the world for [conservative] Christian employers,” Klingenschmitt claimed, saying that ENDA is not about equality but rather “bankrupting Christian business owners.” Even more frightening, ENDA is also apparently about forcing major corporations “to give homosexual bonus pay to your gay or lesbian lover” … whatever that means.
h/t: RWW
Black and North African workers were excluded from Paris’s main railway station during a visit by Israel’s President amid fears they might be Muslim, it has been alleged.
The decision was reportedly made ahead of Shimon Peres’s arrival in the city on March 8 to discuss the Middle East peace process with President François Hollande.
The Telegraph reports Peres and his delegation were greeted at Paris Gare du Nord by non-excluded staff from France’s state-owned railway SNCF, and their baggage handling subsidiary, ITIREMIA.
The allegations are made in an official complaint by the left-wing SUD-Rail transport union, which claims deliberate steps were taken to ensure there were “no Muslim employees to welcome the Head of State of Israel.”
It adds the decision was “based on the appearance of employees”.
SUD-Rail spokesman Monique Dabat told Radio Internationale Française: “The employees noticed that anyone who was black or Arab was excluded from the job and when afterwards they demanded an explanation from the site boss they received the reply that it wasn’t because they were black or Arab but there couldn’t be any Muslims getting close to Shimon Peres.”
According to the SUD-Rail statement, employees were initially told by SNCF the measure was taken following “security demands” from the French Interior Ministry and the Israeli Embassy in Paris, both of which have denied all knowledge of the ban.
The Telegraph says SNCF has since admitted the order came from management, with a spokesman promising “a full investigation”.
The incident is being branded by Twitter users as “shocking”, “racist” and “shameful”.
There are an estimated six million Muslims in France, of which around 100,000 are thought to be converts, the New York Times reports.
The country, which has a population of around 65 million, defines itself as secular and publishes no official statistics on race or creed.
The incident is particularly embarrassing for the SNCF because it played a role in the deportation of Jews during the Second World War.
In 2011 it released a statement expressing “sorrow and regret” in which it conceded the SNCF’s equipment and staff were used to haul 76,000 French and other European Jews to Germany, where they were sent to death camps.
Fewer than 3,000 returned alive.
The railroad has repeatedly reiterated it was requisitioned for the Nazi war effort and had no choice in the matter, the Associated Press reports.
(via viva-moment)
West Virginia paper’s anti-LGBT column wants death for ‘n*ggers, sp**s, k**es and wops’ (via Raw Story )
A newspaper in West Virginia is defending its decision to publish a reader’s racist and homophobic comments, which called for “queers” to be put to death along with “n*ggers, spics, kikes and wops.” WCHS-TV reported on Wednesday that the Lincoln Journal had come under fire for printing a…
Zeb Colter, an anti-immigrant character from World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) that has recently drawn the ire of right-wing pundits like Glenn Beck, would be right at home in the conservative media. Many of Colter’s bigoted and flawed arguments have been the right’s stock-in-trade for years.
Beck targeted the Colter character on his radio show, arguing that Colter is “demonizing the Tea Party.” Beck also accused the WWE of “mocking me for standing up for the Constitution.” Beck’s co-host Stu Burguiere complained: “It seems that the villain, the guy you’re supposed to hate, is this stereotype of a conservative that I’ve never met.”
Colter currently appears on WWE programming alongside wrestler Jack Swagger, spouting a lot of heated anti-immigrant rhetoric in the middle of a scripted feud with Mexican-born wrestler Alberto Del Rio. According to WWE, Colter’s rhetoric is intended to “to build the Mexican American character Del Rio into a hero given WWE’s large Latino base.”
WWE explains that in order “to create compelling and relevant content for our audience, it is important to incorporate current events into our storylines.”
In a series of videos, Colter’s character (along with Swagger) expanded on his divisive philosophy, using language that would be right at home on Fox News or on conservative talk radio.
h/t: MMFA
Following a speech in which Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) praised the Civil War-era efforts that resulted in her being a “freed slave,” Rush Limbaugh responded by asking “who owned and who sold” her.
The Hill reported that on the floor of the House of Representatives, Jackson Lee encouraged Congress to compromise in order to avoid automatic budget cuts. According to the article, ”Jackson Lee suggested lawmakers should take inspiration from President Lincoln’s leadership during the Civil War” before saying, “I stand here as a freed slave because this Congress came together. Are we going to be able to do it today to free America?” Limbaugh mocked Jackson Lee by “trying to find out who owned and who sold” her and “what they got for her.”
IRVING, Texas — The Boy Scouts of America put off a decision Wednesday on whether to lift its ban on gay members and leaders, saying the question will be taken up at the organization’s national meeting in May.
“After careful consideration and extensive dialogue within the Scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America’s National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy,” Deron Smith, the BSA director of public relations, said in a statement.
Smith said the organization’s national executive board will prepare a resolution for the 1,400 voting members of the national council to consider. The annual meeting will take place in May, 2013, in Grapevine, Texas.
BSA announced last week it was considering allowing troops to decide whether to allow gay membership. That news has placed a spotlight on executive board meetings that began Monday in Irving, Texas, where scouting headquarters is located.
Smith said last week that the board could take a vote Wednesday or decide to discuss the policy, but that the organization would issue a statement either way. Otherwise, the board has remained silent, with reporters barred from the hotel where its meetings are taking place.
At nearby BSA headquarters, a handful of Scouts and leaders delivered petitions Monday in support of letting gay members join. The conservative group Texas Values, meanwhile, had organized a Wednesday morning prayer vigil urging the Scouts to keep their policy the same.
President Barack Obama, an opponent of the policy, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, an Eagle Scout who supports it, both have weighed in.
Perry, the author of the book “On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For,” said in a speech Saturday that “to have popular culture impact 100 years of their standards is inappropriate.”
Conservatives have warned of mass defections if Scouting allows gay membership to be determined by troops. Local and regional leaders, as well as the leadership of churches that sponsor troops, would be forced to consider their own policies. And policy opponents who delivered four boxes of signatures to BSA headquarters Monday said they wouldn’t be satisfied by only a partial acceptance of gay scouts and leaders.
h/t: Huffington Post
Citizens United, the conservative group that successfully sued to enable wealthy corporations to buy elections, also has it in for same-sex couples. Yet an amicus brief they recently filed in the Supreme Court backing the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act would not simply deny marriage equality to gay people, it calls upon the Supreme Court to toss out a landmark decision ending public school segregation in the District of Columbia and declare that the federal government is free to discriminate against minorities and women.
Citizens United is now claiming that Bolling was wrong, and that the Constitution does absolutely nothing to prevent the United States from engaging in discrimination of any kind. If the justices buy their argument — as they were all too willing to do in the case that bears Citizens United’s name — it would mean that Congress is free to set up its own Jim Crow laws.
h/t: Ian Millhiser at Think Progress Justice
Right-wing firebrand Ann Coulter on Monday said that the United States has a demographic problem rather than a gun problem, arguing that the country has a comparable murder rate to Belgium “if you compare white populations.”
“On the gun crimes, we keep hearing how low they are in Europe, and oh, they’re so low, and they have no guns,” Coulter told Fox’s Sean Hannity. “If you compare white populations, we have the same murder rate as Belgium.”
Prosecutor: NYC subway murder suspect blamed ‘Hindus and Muslims’ for 9-11 (via Raw Story )
New York City police arrested a Bronx woman and charged her with second-degree murder as a hate crime for pushing an Indian man to his death at a Queens subway platform, The New York Times reported on Saturday. Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said the suspect, Erika Menendez, told authorities…
New Orleans residents Mohammed and Talat Husain claim they were refused service at Rep. John Fleming’s (R-LA) Subway franchise in Shreveport, Louisiana. According to Husain, an employee of the chain told them to leave because they are Muslim and threw them out after an altercation. Though Husain called the police, a report was never filed. He recounted the experience to TPM:
“She asked me point blank ‘Are you Muslim?’ and I said, ‘Yes, I’m Muslim,’ She said ‘We can’t serve you’ and locked the door from inside when my wife was still inside the store,” Husain said.
The situation quickly escalated and Husain ended up calling 911. So did a Subway employee. At some point before police arrived, however Husain said the employee unlocked the door and let his wife leave but also made it clear they should take their business elsewhere.
An officer with the Shreveport Police Department arrived after that. Both Husain and a department spokesman said the officer initially patted Husain down to check for weapons. But spokesman Cpl. Marcus Hines said the officer eventually determined the situation was much ado about nothing. Department records show the officer didn’t even file a report.
Fleming’s employees deny Husain’s version of events, and claim that security tapes prove that there was no discrimination against the couple.
Conservative talk radio host Neal Boortz unleashed an astounding array of attacks on President Obama on Thursday, likening him to figures such as Adolf Hitler and serial killer Ted Bundy, as well as terrorist groups Al Qaeda and Ansar al-Sharia.
Boortz, whose Atlanta radio show is nationally syndicated, was addressing a commentary by Herman Cain, in which the former Republican presidential candidate congratulated Obama on his reelection. Boortz replied: “OK, Herman Cain, that’s BS.” He continued:
BOORTZ: I would like to congratulate Richard Speck. I would — you know, I would like to congratulate Ted Bundy on sneaking into yet another sorority house and killing another coed. I would like to congratulate Adolf Hitler on his invasion of Poland. I would like to congratulate the — Al Qaeda for their successful attack on New York City. I would like to congratulate the Ansar al-Sharia crowd over there in Benghazi for their successful assault on our consulate.
Congratulate Barack Obama? I’m sorry, Herman, love you but you can take that and stick in that phony damn cowboy hat of yours.
He went on to accuse Obama of being “dedicated to the destruction of our economic system” and the “weakening” of America and the U.S. military. Boortz also called Obama a liar and a thief and claimed he gave “away enough to con a bunch of ignorant, stupid voters into giving him the power to carry out his anti-American schemes.”
News/Talk WSB in Atlanta, Boortz’s flagship station, reported on June 4 that Cain will replace Boortz as the host of his daily show when Boortz retires in January 2013.
Boortz, who has a history of inflammatory attacks against African-Americans, working-class Americans, andimmigrants, previously likened Obama to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and said that Obama “is a bigger disaster to this country than 9-11.” That comment drew harsh criticism from 9-11 victims’ families.
h/t: MMFA
