December 14, 2011

This Is Awesome: Anti-gay Troy, MI, Mayor Schooled at City Council Meeting by Gay Family

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/13/1045085/-This-Is-Awesome

TUE DEC 13, 2011 AT 08:47 PM EST

This Is Awesome: Anti-gay Troy, MI, mayor schooled at City Council meeting by gay family

byChrisloveFollow

If you haven't heard about all the hub-bub in Troy, Michigan, check out Scott Wooledge's diary ( http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/02/1041908/-Troy,-MI-Mayor-Janice-Daniels-Is-A-Low-Class-Idiot-Should-Grow-Up?via=search ) on the subject. To summarize, a screenshot recently surfaced showing Troy Mayor Janice Daniels making (before she became mayor, not that it matters) some pretty nasty anti-gay remarks on Facebook after the New York marriage equality victory.

Daniels's response to the discovery was:

I may have said something like that. I probably shouldn’t have used that kind of language, but I do believe marriage should be between one man and one woman.
Needless to say, there has been quite the backlash in Troy. Daniels was absolutely ripped apart in the City Council meeting that took place after the Facebook remarks surfaced. There were calls for her to resign. She was featured by Keith Olbermann as the "Worst Person in the World." There have even been calls to boycott the city of Troy. Despite all of this, and despite the very real embarrassment she has caused the city, she has not stepped down.

Well, at last week's City Council meeting, a family paid a visit to Daniels during the public comments portion of the meeting. A gay family. A lesbian couple and their two daughters. The result? Daniels was schooled in the most awesome possible way.

MORE AT LINKS[p]

December 12, 2011

Glenn Beck Finally Gets Around To Denouncing Bruce Springsteen

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/12/glenn-beck-finally-gets-a_n_497360.html

Jason Linkins

Glenn Beck Finally Gets Around To Denouncing Bruce Springsteen

First Posted: 05/12/10 06:12 AM ET Updated: 05/25/11 04:50 PM ET

You wouldn't think this was possible, but Glenn Beck had apparently never actually sat down and listened to Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The USA," never heard the lyrics, never formed a familiarity with the song's storied history in American politics, until this week, I guess? Anyway, now that he's heard that the song isn't some glorious tongue-bath to American exceptionalism, he's denouncing it on the radio. Per Lindsay Beyerstein:

Twenty-six years after the release of Bruce Springsteen's hit song, "Born in The USA," conservative talk show host/performance artist Glenn Beck finally got around to listening to the lyrics.

Beck was shocked, shocked to discover that for all these years he'd been rocking out to a song about a bitter down-and-out Vietnam vet who has been kicked to the curb by the aforementioned USA.

Via Spencer Ackerman, here's what Beck had to say about it:

VIDEO AT LINK

BECK: You get filled with patriotic pride, and then you find out that Bruce Springsteen's 'Born In The U.S.A.' is anti-American. 'Born down in a dead man's town/ the first kick I took is when I hit the ground/ you end up like a dog that's been beat too much/ so you spend half your life just covering up...' (He reads the entire lyrics in an incredulous tone of voice; manages to mispronounce 'Khe Sanh') Hmm. Yeah! (crosstalk) ... It's time for us to wake up out of our dream state. Out of the propaganda... This is the thing that people who come from the Soviet bloc or Cuba, they're all saying, 'How do you guys not hear this? How are you not seeing this?' Well, because we don't ever expect it.

December 12, 2011

Children of OWS Post Paper Hearts, Cops Rip Them Down

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/11/children-of-ows-post-paper-hearts-cops-rip-them-down

Children of OWS post paper hearts, cops rip them down

By Muriel Kane
Sunday, December 11, 2011

An anti-bullying march by parents and children directed against the New York Police Department’s arrests of peaceful protesters encountered a first-hand taste of what they were protesting against when police ripped down the paper hearts the children were attempting to post at City Hall.

As described by Margaret Flowers at October2011.org, “Parents for Occupy Wall Street, a collective community of parents & organizations in support of Occupy Wall Street met in Union Square Park on Saturday, December 10th (The International Day of Human Rights) to create 5,000 paper hearts to be delivered to Mayor Bloomberg. Each paper heart represented a peaceful protester that has been wrongfully arrested since the emergence of Occupy Wall Street movement.”

“We marched down to City Hall with our children eager to deliver our hearts and our message,” the account continues. “As we were not allowed onto the steps of City Hall due to renovations underway, we decided to tape the hearts onto the gates in front. We as parents watched in disbelief and disgust as the NYPD tore down the children’s artwork, ripped their hearts, and broke the children’s signs over their knees.”