chloelikedolivia

But the tapes were, in no small part, a scam. They were, for example, misrepresented as an “ACORN child prostitution investigation” by O’Keefe and Breitbart to this day. They were anything but that. And they never, to either my knowledge or Harshbarger’s, included shots of O’Keefe actually dressed as a pimp in any of the offices. O’Keefe’s partner in the videos, Hannah Giles, was dressed as a fairly conservative looking prostitute, and was represented as such to ACORN employees. But O’Keefe represented himself to the ACORN employees as her college boyfriend who was considering a Congressional run someday, and who was now trying to help rescue Giles from an abusive pimp. The BRAD BLOG : Exclusive: New York Times Editor ‘Stands Behind’ Contested ‘Pimp’ Reporting on James O’Keefe (via robot-heart-politics)

reblogged from robot-heart-politics

abbyjean:

thecurvature:

robot-heart-politics:

equalitopia:

Nevada Taxi Authority Calls Gays “Diseased”

The Advocate reports that The Nevada Taxicab Authority, who monitors taxicabs, lists gay people with drug users and prostitutes, having a high risk of “communicable diseases.” The policy states that employees and the public are at risk.

The policy goes into detail about how to protect yourself when dealing with these individuals, and according to CBS:

“The policy spells out that TA officers should use protective gear and gloves in the event they need to take a high-risk suspect into custody.”

The Advocate reports that “the authority said it approved new language that is non-offensive to gays in 2007, the old manual is still being distributed to field officers. A Taxicab Authority board member plans to investigate.”

Uh, obviously this is messed up, but I’m not really cool with suggesting that sex workers and drug users are somehow inherently “diseased” either. It sounds like there’s a whole lot of prejudice and phobia going around here, and it’s not just homophobia. I mean, I guess the phrasing could be read more than one way, but instead of “and even worse, gay people aren’t the only one’s they’re stigmatizing!”, it seems they’re saying “oh my god, can you believe they would lump us in with hookers and junkies and treat us like them???” Which is not okay.

cosign Cara’s statement.

reblogged from abbyjean

GOP Sen. Kyl: Unemployment Benefits Make People Not Want To Get A Job

robot-heart-politics:

azspot:

Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican whip, argued that unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting “because people are being paid even though they’re not working.”

Unemployment insurance “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work,” Kyl said during debate over whether unemployment insurance and other benefits that expired amid GOP objections Sunday should be extended.

“I’m sure most of them would like work and probably have tried to seek it, but you can’t argue that it’s a job enhancer. If anything, as I said, it’s a disincentive. And the same thing with the COBRA extension and the other extensions here,” said Kyl.

Senator Kyl, with his background as a son of a congressman and his previous life as a corporate lobbyist, has no empathy for working folk.

Once, about 7 or 8 years ago, I collected unemployment benefits for a very short duration (about 2-3 weeks). I received about $200 per week (which was less than my father received back in the 1970s, during his bouts of unemployment when he worked in the steel mills of Pittsburgh). That paltry sum could not even cover the mortgage payment, let alone the cost of COBRA, which, for a family, amounted to almost as much as the monthly unemployment disbursement.

reblogged from robot-heart-politics

Megan, who has previously claimed she is bisexual, insists she is nothing like her sex siren image and is happy living a quiet life with former ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ star Brian Austin Green and his eight-year-old son, Kassius.

Shakesville: Important Announcement

Obviously, there is a ton of shit wrong with this, including slut-shaming and the virgin-whore dichotomy, but what I’m most interested in is the fact that Megan Fox is dating David Silver! How has this somehow missed my radar? Absolutely amazing. Does anyone else feel like Brian Austin Green makes Megan Fox watch VHS tapes of his favorite episodes of the old 90210 on a too-regular basis?

robot-heart-politics:

clingtomymouth:grands:

things martin kramer does not want:

palestinian babies

gonna reblog this and harp on this subject because it’s just fucking outrageous that the liberal establishment barely bats an eyelid when it comes to zionists advocating genocide. instead, the harvard crimson publishes an editorial defending this murderous shit, saying that he’s contributing to the “thriving marketplace of ideas” among harvard fellows. oh and it’s “unfair” to label him genocidal cuz it’s really for their own good. he’s just looking out for the stability of palestinian society. it has nothing to do with the zionist goal of eradicating and replacing the native population of palestine, i’m sure.

Summary: this dude wants to defund pronatal care for Palestinian refugees, because if there are no Palestinians, there is no terrorism.

In other words—wipe them out of existence, because it’s very inconvenient for Israel to have to dispossess thousands of people of their homes so Israeli “settlers” can move in, and then to slaughter all the Palestinians who are left because they have nowhere else to go.

reblogged from robot-heart-politics

I honestly hope that someone will correct me about this, but it seems to me that the objections to health care reform always come down to selfishness. People who enjoy good health care are worried that their own care might suffer if it were extended to a wider group, or else they resent that they might have to pay a bit more to allow for health care for the poor. Putting aside the fact that those with money will always be able to buy superior health care, and that insurance companies continue to raise costs on health care annually — with reform or without it — the religious objection to these arguments is that they are grounded in making self interest the priority at the expense of the well-being of others. This selfishness is the antithesis of the religious impulse. Those whom we identify as truly religious are those who live their lives not thinking how they can best arrange the world to serve their own interests, but who instead see the world through the lens of compassion and attempt to live in service to others. Again, speaking for the Christian tradition, it is clear that Jesus is especially concerned with those who were living in poverty, who were outcasts, or who were sick. Jesus never mandated his followers to seek the best they could for themselves, it was always through the lens of the ‘least of these.’ If we conveniently forget the plight of the millions who live without health care and who face the decision between paying for an operation or keeping a home, then we are not really considering the religious perspective on health care. It becomes a classic case of the powerful protecting their own interests while the weak suffer — an equation that must be repugnant to the religious sensibility. Paul Raushenbush (via azspot)

reblogged from azspot

proofmathisbeautiful:

scienceisbeauty:

Four knot

A 2-D Thue-Morse pattern where the symbols are replaced by a motif that visually connects all adjacent symbols. The pattern after a pi/4 rotation and coloring of connected elements (only those elements that are closed on this portion of the potentially infinite tiling)

Credit&Source: Mark Dow, link

reblogged from proofmathisbeautiful

robot-heart-politics:

clingtomymouth:astrangerdanger:

Israel to raze 200 Palestinian homes in Eastern Jerusalem

So I have an aunt living in East Jerusalem just outside of the Old City. A few weeks ago, we received word that her house is to be razed in order to construct more Jewish homes, converting yet another section of Palestinian land into a Jew-only zone. What’s to happen to the 200 families that are about to lose their homes as well as everything in them?

The IDF [Israeli Defense Force] told my aunt Bassima that her house is to be razed within the month due to her lack of an Israeli building permit. Want to know something funny?

The land the house is built on is owned by her husband [my uncle, duh], who still has the Palestinian deeds, seeing as to how East Jerusalem, although occupied, is still Palestinian territory. If he owns the land, and was given the ok by the Palestinian government, yet Israel is going to plow down this home 35 years after it was built, with no warning, because they lack an ISRAELI building permit?

They are currently trying to find some family to stay with and somewhere to keep their things- a wall of their home was smashed in this morning [their night] and a group of Israeli Settler extremists threatened my aunt, uncle, and their 14 year old daughter while going on to trash their belongings.

Isn’t it funny how if an Israeli trips and breaks a nail, it’s allll over the media with those “filthy Arabs” to blame, yet 200 families having their homes demolished against international law, with no where to go, hardly gets no western media coverage?

Grrrrrrrr

/rant

reblogged from robot-heart-politics

threeriversTUMBLR: Feminism, choice, point of reference, and objectification

You’ve heard the term “choice feminism” right? Usually used derisively by a person who is arguing: Just because a woman makes a choice does not make it a feminist choice, we have to be able to examine issues on a systemic rather than individual level, some choices that individual feels are good…

reblogged from amandaw

There’s a difference between the statements ‘America has the best health-care system in the world’ and ‘With enough money, you can purchase the best health care in the world in America.’ … People should ask themselves a very simple question: Do they think they are likelier to lose their job and fall into the health-care situation of the uninsured? Or are they likelier to become an influential politician and enjoy the health-care options available to the most powerful people in the world?

If you’re a United States senator, America may have the best health-care in the world. But if you’re an ordinary person with the same vulnerability to bad luck that we all have, you’re better off being in Canada, or France, or Japan, or somewhere that doesn’t take your insurance away when Wall Street causes the economy to crash. Ezra Klein (via savingpaper) (via brooklynmutt) (via newsweek)

reblogged from newsweek