Friday, March 07, 2014

Rand Paul's Spaceship Lands At CPAC

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Freep This AFA Poll

Even though most of us probably wouldn't know who Jason Collins is either, we're going to say "YES" just to fuck with them again. (Tipped by JMG reader Bill)

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Lyin' Ryan Busted Lyin' At CPAC

"The left is making a big mistake here. What they’re offering people is a full stomach and an empty soul. The American people want more than that. This reminds me of a story I heard from Eloise Anderson. She serves in the cabinet of my buddy, Governor Scott Walker. She once met a young boy from a very poor family, and every day at school, he would get a free lunch from a government program. He told Eloise he didn’t want a free lunch. He wanted his own lunch, one in a brown-paper bag just like the other kids. He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown-paper bag had someone who cared for him. This is what the left does not understand." - GOP Rep. Paul Ryan, speaking yesterday at CPAC.

Calling Ryan's claim "a story too good to check," the Washington Post reveals that the whole thing is a big ole lie that was probably lifted from the 2011 book, The Invisible Thread, a suspicion first voiced by Wonkette. The Post then gives Ryan "Four Pinocchios" - its lyingest rating for liars. Ryan has apologized in a Facebook post.
Today at CPAC, I shared a story I heard from Eloise Anderson, the secretary for children and families for the state of Wisconsin. She mentioned it in her testimony for a House Budget Committee hearing last year. I have just learned that Secretary Anderson misspoke, and that the story she told was improperly sourced. I regret failing to verify the original source of the story, but I appreciate her taking the time to share her insights.
Of course the lie already has legs on wingnut sites like the National Review.
It should be noted that the author of the book is actually an advocate of school lunch programs who works with a group called No Kid Hungry.

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PUERTO RICO: Anti-Gay GOP Pol Comes Out Three Years After Grindr Scandal

Longtime JMG readers might remember the above post from three years ago. Well, that douchebag has finally come out after having led the unsuccessful campaign to place a ban on same-sex marriage into the Puerto Rican constitution. Video via Andres Duque at Blabbeando:

RELATED:  According to a 2011 JMG source, Arango not only supported that failed constitutional ban, he once mocked another legislator by squeezing a rubber duck at him on the Senate floor. In Puerto Rico, the Spanish word for duck means "queer" or "faggot." In 2009, Arango defended an attempt to ban gay adoption.

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INDIANA: Marriage Lawsuit Filed

Add Indiana to the list.
Four couples from southern Indiana are asking a federal judge to force the state to recognize same-sex marriages from other states and issue marriage licenses to gay couples. The couples are suing the state of Indiana in a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in New Albany that seeks to overturn an Indiana law that declares same-sex marriages void, even if another state recognizes the union. The plaintiffs and their attorneys met with reporters Friday afternoon in Louisville, Ky., and said the recent debate over a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage in Indiana spurred their suit.
That leaves eight states without an active marriage lawsuit: Alaska, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

UPDATE: More about the lawsuit.
Louisville law firm Clay Daniel Walton & Adams announced the lawsuit today at its offices. The lawsuit was filed in Southern District of Indiana, which has a courthouse in New Albany. The couples are from Clark and Floyd counties and it's the only such federal case involving Indiana. Attorney Daniel Canon said during a media conference Friday that Indiana is now under leadership that says his clients do not deserve the same rights, responsibilities and privileges provided to opposite-sex couples, simple because they are in a same-sex relationships. “All of these couples that we represent are like any other opposite-sex couples in the state of Indiana,” he said. “They live as married couples. They raise their kids together. They work and go to church in Indiana. They pay their taxes in the state of Indiana.”

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Film Critic Michael Medved At CPAC: Gay Marriage Has Never Been Banned

I'm watching the live-stream on CSPAN and almost fell out of my chair when he said that. Medved made news in 2010 when he declared that lesbian sex is better than gay male sex because it hurts to take it in the ass.

UPDATE: Here's the video. It's a liberal lie!

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Porno Pete: The Hot Bods On Those Juicy Muscular Circuit Boys Are Simply Ridic!


(Via Towleroad)

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Ted Cruz At CPAC: Some People Wish Justin Bieber And I Would Self-Deport

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Huckabee At CPAC: God Will Destroy America Like Sodom & Gomorrah

Huckabee says that since God himself created the United States, he will certainly murder all 300 million of us if we don't repent. Because he loves us so fucking much.

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CPAC M4M #4

"Me: masculine, 6ft, 235, curly short blonde, hzl eyes, German Irish, 7.5 thick cut 6 around. You: trim 18-29, no older, no experience needed. Must send pic, yours gets mine. Love cum. Hottub. I can host, have parking, near King and Braddock metros." - Craigslist DC M4M.

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MICHIGAN: Marriage Case Concludes

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Oliver North At CPAC: Fighting Gay Marriage Is Like Fighting Against Slavery

With a slam at the repeal of DADT: "The members of our armed forces and their families deserve better than to be treated like laboratory rats in some social experiment." So says the guy who secretly sold US weaponry to Iran.

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Brian Brown: No More Marriage #Fails

"Despite being grammatically incorrect, our culture has officially made the verb 'fail' into a noun, and the expression seems here to stay. It pops up on social media all the time: a major political gaffe or celebrity embarrassment, for example, is labeled a major #fail, as occurred at the recent Oscar ceremony with John Travolta's unfortunate pronunciation of artist Idina Menzel's name. Well, just a few days ago we witnessed a huge #fail of much more consequence in our national public discourse on marriage and religious liberty. Over the past two weeks media elites, politicians, activists, and opinion writers were climbing over one another to reach the heights of histrionics in their expression of hatred for a bill in Arizona: SB 1062, a bill that aimed to clarify the state's existing statutory religious liberty protections. We deserve better from our public officials — and we must demand it. The time has come to stand up and speak out. Write a letter to the editor, call your local station's news hotline, visit your federal legislator's local district offices. Most importantly, ask your elected officials what their position on marriage is and then hold them accountable! These are the grassroots actions we need more and more citizens to start doing so that we can turn our public discourse from a major #fail to a big #win!" - Hate group leader Brian Brown, posting today to NOM's blog.

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Barber On Gay Marriage Consummation

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How Seattle Pastor Mark Driscoll Bought His Way Onto The NYT Bestsellers List

Via the Christian site World Magazine:
Seattle’s Mars Hill Church paid a California-based marketing company at least $210,000 in 2011 and 2012 to ensure that Real Marriage, a book written by Mark Driscoll, the church’s founding pastor, and his wife Grace, made the New York Times best-seller list. According to a document obtained by WORLD, ResultSource Inc. (RSI) contracted with Mars Hill “to conduct a bestseller campaign for your book, Real Marriage on the week of January 2, 2012. The bestseller campaign is intended to place Real Marriage on The New York Times bestseller list for the Advice How-To list.” The marketing company also promised to help place Real Marriage on the Wall Street Journal Business, USA Today Money, BN.com (Barnes & Noble), and Amazon.com best-seller lists.
More from Warren Throckmorton, who has the contract:
Note that RSI uses “over a thousand different payment types” to evade detection. Somehow RSI knows that the NYT bestseller list “requires a minimum of 90 geographically disperse (sic) addresses.” Apparently, the publisher must be on board with this arrangement as well since the contract requires the publisher to supply the proper number of books. I have asked Harper Collins Christian for comment but they have not replied as yet. The names and addresses are apparently very important in making sure that these purchases escape detection by those who compile the best seller lists.
Mars Hill defends its cheating this way: "We want to tell lots of people about Jesus by every means available."

PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: In Januaray, Driscoll declared that all non-Christians are going to hell. Last November, Driscoll was busted for plagiarizing other pastors in his latest book in a scandal that was heavily covered on Christian websites. In 2011 Driscoll declared that male masturbation is a form of homosexuality because it is sex with a man.

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Rick Perry Rants At CPAC Day Two

Outgoing Texas Gov. Rick Perry opened today's CPAC session with an eleven minute rant that got rantier and rantier as he ranted, in an obvious move to set the stage for his 2016 presidential bid. Start near the end at 10:00. And the crowd goes wild.

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BRITAIN: Queen Elizabeth Congratulates Gay Charity On Its 40th Anniversary

Gay Star News reports:
Queen Elizabeth II has praised a gay charity, in what is believed to be her first ever comment about the LGBTI community. In her 62-year reign of the UK and the Commonwealth, she has never once visited or become a patron of a charity for gay rights. And even in reforming laws for the community, such as when homosexuality was decriminalized or same-sex marriage in England and Wales passed into law, the words ‘gay’, ‘lesbian’, ‘bisexual’, and ‘transgender’ have never been reported as crossing the lips of the reigning monarch. But in a first, the Queen has praised the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard on its 40th birthday. She said: ‘Best wishes and congratulations to all concerned on this most special anniversary.’
Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson also congratulated the charity.

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CPAC M4M #3

"Patriots! What an incredible day today was! Christie and Jindal and some great sessions. I am ready to unwind and have some fun. I am looking to make one of my biggest fantasies come true. Me: Police Uniform. You: Army Uniform. I want you to bring a couple other guys for this fantasy too! We begin by you storming into my room with the other guys. The other guys will proceed to beat me (paddles, whips, floggers is up to them! or be creative ;-)  After I have been beaten, I want you to threaten my life and tell me that I am going to die for what I did. I got a nerf gun for this fantasy and I want you to blindfold me and place a garbage can next to me. Here is the most important part...  Shoot the nerf gun at the garbage can and NOT me. I want to feel like you are going to shoot me but at the last moment you do not. It may seem like a crazy fantasy but we all have our kinks. Afterwards we can hj, bj and a2m." - Craiglist DC M4M.

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Young Turks Vs Pastor James Manning

"He's all about that frontal assault."

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WASHINGTON: Fired Catholic School Vice President Mark Zmuda To File Lawsuit

The Seattle-area Catholic high school vice president who was fired for marrying his partner will file a lawsuit today.
Mark Zmuda alleges, in his filing, that the decision to terminate his employment at the Sammamish prep school was made by Catholic Archbishop J. Peter Sartain. The school acknowledges that Eastside Catholic president Sr. Mary Tracy discussed the case with Sartain. “Our attorneys will immediately file a motion to dismiss the compaint,” Tom Padilla and Brad Bastion, acting chairs of the Eastside Catholic board, said in a letter to the school community. The Catholic Church opposes marriage equality and has a provision in educators’ contracts that provides for adherence to church teachings. According to filings from both sides in the case, Eastside Catholic knew in January of 2013 that Zmuda was gay.
According to Zmuda, the school told him that he could keep his job by getting a divorce. Which is also against Catholic teachings. His firing resulted in an outpouring of support from the school's students.

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MICHIGAN: Marriage Lawsuit "Expert Witness" Says Gays Are Going To Hell

Testimony in Michigan's marriage equality finished yesterday, but not before one "expert witness" told the court that gays are going to hell.
"Is it accurate that you believe the consequence of engaging in homosexual acts is a separation from God and eternal damnation?” Mogill asked the state’s expert, then added, “in other words, they’re going to hell?” “Without repentance, yes,” answered the expert, Canadian economist Douglas Allen, the last witness to testify on behalf of the state in a trial that could make Michigan the 18th state to legalize gay marriage. A spokeswoman for Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, who is defending the voters’ decision in 2004 to define marriage as being between one man and one woman, said Allen’s religious beliefs do not taint his testimony. “The trial ended on Dr. Allen’s comment that the science on this remains unsettled,” said Joy Yearout. “He was very clear that his personal beliefs have no impact on his research or the data it produces.”
I wrote about Allen last November.
Another familiar name on Michigan's list of defense witnesses is Professor Douglas Allen, of Canada's Simon Fraser University. Allen sits on the board of directors of NOM's hate-satellite, the Ruth Institute. Allen is a supporter of Mark Regnerus and claims to have analyzed a 2000 census and come to the conclusion that "children being raised by same-sex couples are 35% less likely to make normal progress through school."
Last month the SPLC added the Ruth Institute to its list of hate groups. Closing arguments in the Michigan case will take place today. The judge is not expected to rule immediately.

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Trump: I Was Joking About Jimmy Carter

Uh huh. Yeah.

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TRAILER: Stage Fright

"A horror musical set at drama camp."

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Thursday, March 06, 2014

Super Cool WTC Interactive Panorama

TIME Magazine has posted a ridiculously cool interactive panorama photo taken from above the World Trade Center. Using your cursor and the on-screen controls, you can spin around in all directions and zoom in on midtown, Brooklyn, New Jersey, even the Statue of Liberty. I'm finding it works best on Chrome so far. There goes the next hour of your evening.

Here's how they did it.
Time said it got exclusive access to the tower's spire from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site. It took eight months to design and construct a 13-foot rotating arm to which a camera with a 100-millimeter lens was mounted, the magazine said on its website. It worked on the project with Portland, Ore.-based GigaPan Systems, mechanical engineers and welders. "Over a five-hour span of orbital shooting on Sept. 28, 2013, the camera produced 567 pictures that were then stitched together digitally into a single massive — and zoomable — image of everything the eye can see in all directions," according to the website. According to GigaPan, its panoramic photography equipment is based on the same technology employed by NASA's Mars rovers to capture the images of the red planet. The panoramic image also is featured as a wrap-around cover of Time's issue hitting newsstand Friday. The issue includes an article about the 12-year construction of the building, formerly called the Freedom Tower.

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CPAC Flyer For Red-Caped Catholic Loons Depicts GOProud As Rainbow Beaver

The red-caped Catholic loons of Tradition, Family, & Property are handing out a flyer at CPAC that depicts GOProud as a rainbow-hued beaver gnawing at one of the supporting legs of conservatism. Or something. Via Peter Montgomery at Right Wing Watch:
TFP’s flyer says it protests against GOProud’s efforts to “cast itself as a bone fide member of the conservative movement.” TFP believes: "To be true to itself, the conservative movement must battle on all three conservative fronts (defense, fiscal, and social). That individuals and organizations who subscribe to only one or two of the conservative movement’s three legs are still welcome to join the coalition, but should refrain from publicly opposing the rest of the movement’s efforts on the leg or legs they disagree on." TFP says welcoming GOProud into the conservative movement would be like a communist or socialist organization seeking admittance to the conservative movement by claiming to be against abortion. As part of the evidence that TFP marshals to prove that GOProud is not conservative, it notes that the group’s website says it encourages “committed stable, relationships between two people, regardless of sexual orientation, that promote healthy families and create value within our society.” Mercy!
After two years of being banned, this year GOProud was able to buy regular tickets to attend, but they were not allowed to speak on any panels or have a booth. 

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Minority Outreach Panel At CPAC

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Donald Trump Kills Jimmy Carter


UPDATE: Zombie Jimmy Carter is pissed.

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IRS Posts Help Video For Married Gays

Via press release from the White House:
The Internal Revenue Service released a new YouTube video designed to provide useful tax tips to married same-sex couples. The new video, less than two minutes long, is available in English, Spanish and American Sign Language and can be accessed via IRS.gov. It joins an array of online products, including answers to frequently-asked questions, designed to help same-sex couples file their federal income tax returns. Following last summer’s Supreme Court decision invalidating a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act, the IRS ruled that same-sex couples, legally married in jurisdictions that recognize their marriages, are now treated as married for federal tax purposes. The ruling applies to all federal tax provisions where marriage is a factor, including filing status, claiming personal and dependency exemptions, taking the standard deduction, employee benefits, contributing to an IRA and claiming the earned income tax credit or child tax credit.

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OHIO: Cops Help Church Stage Arrests Of Pastors Because Religious Liberty

Via the Associated Press:
The staged arrests of pastors in front of their congregations in northeast Ohio got a surprising reaction for one sheriff. Videos of the mock arrests posted online brought a wave of criticism for the Summit County Sheriff’s office from people who thought the deputies really were interrupting church services to make arrests. Sheriff Steve Barry says his deputies took part in the mock arrests Sunday at a couple churches around Akron after the pastors approached his office and asked it to participate. The churches staged the arrests as part of their “Defending the Faith” sermons. Videos showed deputies handcuffing pastors while they preached and placing them in patrol car.
Via Friendly Atheist:
Do you have any idea how oppressed and persecuted American Christians are? So oppressed and persecuted that in order to prove it, pastors in Ohio called the local cops and requested to be taken into custody in front of their congregations. You heard right. The histrionic clergymen staged mock arrests — with the help of publicly funded police officers no less — to drive home how severely their Jesus faith has come under attack.Putting on a stage play is one thing. But that church officials are reduced to staging arrests by bad-guy cops (who clearly represent the long arm of government) is the best illustration yet of how absolutely deranged the Christian persecution narrative has become.
Needless to say, no American pastor has ever been arrested except for the usual reasons. You know, child fucking, child porn, rape, murder, drug dealing, domestic abuse, and stealing shitloads of money. And those links are just from the last month.

From the Ohio church's YouTube channel.

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NIGERIA: Four Men Lashed In Court After Sharia Conviction Of Homosexuality

The Associated Press reports that four men were lashed in a Nigeria courtroom today after a Sharia tribunal convicted them of homosexual acts.
The four were among dozens caught in a wave of arrests after Nigeria strengthened its criminal penalties for homosexuality with the new Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act in January. The men could face further violence in prison if human rights organizations do not come up with an additional fine of 20,000 naira ($120) each meted out Thursday by a judge in Bauchi city, Dorothy Aken’Ova, convenor of the Coalition for the Defense of Sexual Rights Network, told The Associated Press. The four were sentenced to 15 strokes plus a year’s imprisonment if they cannot pay their fines. Aken’Ova said the men, aged between 20 and 22, should not have been convicted because their confessions were forced by law agents who beat them. She said they had to lie on the floor of the court to be whipped on their backsides.
The Sharia court system runs parallel to civil courts in northern Nigeria, where Islamic law decrees that gays can be sentenced to death by public stoning. Such executions have not yet been reported.

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Freep This AFA Poll

The American Family Association wants the top result to be "religious liberty," of course. So let's all just click on "other" to fuck with them. The last three times we freeped an AFA poll, they changed the words, reset the numbers, and eventually just took the polls down.

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Sarah Silverman: Religion Kills

And Twitchy goes nuts.

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Chris Christie At CPAC: Democrats Are The Party Of Intolerance, Not The GOP

Chris Christie just told a squealing CPAC audience that Democrats are intolerant because they don't allow pro-life speakers at their conventions. Brian Tashman rips this apart at Right Wing Watch:
“Tell me, sir, the last pro-life Democrat who was allowed to speak at a Democratic convention – and by the way, don’t strain yourself because there’s never been one,” Christie continued. “They’re the party of intolerance, not us.” Even if we accept Christie’s definition of “tolerance,” his claim is still false: the 2012 and 2008 Democratic conventions included speakers who opposed abortion rights, while 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin refused to share the stage with pro-choice Republicans.

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NOM Is At CPAC

The little standee on the left promotes NOM's coming anti-gay hate march in DC. You might recall that last year's hate march drew a humiliatingly small crowd.

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CPAC M4M #2

"Radical libertarian would like to tie up and abuse proglodyte and leftover journalists. Boys who look like Sally Kohn or Chris Hayes who need to be tied up, slapped around and fucked.  Also any Rick Santorum supporters in the closet or younger versions of Lindsey Graham or John McCain.  Or if you are just a decent constitutionalist type, we can have regular non-hate sex, or even a drink. Your place. - Craigslist DC M4M.

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Pastor James Manning: All Homosexual Demons Are Under Obama's Direct Control

Harlem Pastor James Manning earned national headlines last week by posting a billboard which declared that President Obama has unleashed white homo demons on America's black women. Manning took to the pulpit on Sunday to talk about the resultant "media firestorm" and to let everybody know that all of those homosexual demons are under the direct control of President Obama and that he released them on inaugural day in 2013. That bit starts at about 9:30.

PREVIOUSLY ON JMG:  Manning claimed in November that DC police murdered a black motorist because she was carrying President Obama's love child. Manning has previously claimed that President Obama had Andrew Breitbart murdered and that Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are secretly black.  Manning also says that preachers should feel free to use the word "faggot" because it gets people's attention.

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Facebook Twins In Space

From the Winklevoss twins' blog:
Humans have a long tradition of exploring and forging new frontiers, both physically and metaphorically. In the Middle Ages, Marco Polo’s writings - which recounted his 24 years of travel and trade on the Silk Road – built a new and lasting level of economic and cultural awareness between Europe and Asia. 200 years later, they would inspire 15th century explorer Christopher Columbus to search for a shorter route to the Far East by sea. While Columbus did not achieve his original goal, he did manage to bring word of a new landmass back to Europe, which planted the seeds of hope and possibility in the minds of persecuted Pilgrims, who fled to and settled North America 100 years later. Such stories of inadvertent and iterated accomplishment are all too familiar in the spheres of exploration and innovation. They demonstrate how the building blocks of human discovery are not necessarily brilliance and perfection, but rather, the courage to fail and persistence to keep on trying.
Also reportedly booking seats on Virgin Galactic: Ashton Kutcher, Angelina Jolie, Katy Perry, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Russell Brand. The $250,000 ticket price converts to 374 Bitcoins. For today at least.

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Randy Rainbow - Adele Dazeem

"A Travoltafied musical tribute to Idina Menzel and John Travolta's flub at the 2014 Oscars."

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BROOKLYN: Two Williamsburg Artists Are Living In A Giant Hamster Wheel

Via Animal New York:
“A lot of people associate it with 2001: A Space Odyssey. Others think of a hamster wheel,” artist Ward Shelley tells ANIMAL, standing 25 feet above ground, perched on top of a large wooden wheel where he has been living for four days. Inside the wheel is partner artist Alex Schweder. For six days, the artists are eating, sleeping and pissing in/on the installation they’ve constructed at Williamsburg’s Pierogi Gallery. This is the fourth collaboration between Shelley and Schweder in a series they call “The Social Relationship Architecture Project.” Each time they’ve built a different dwelling space that requires them to work together in order to live. This time, they’ve arranged the various components and furnishings of a home on a giant wheel. “In Orbit is a two bedroom apartment, in a sense,” Schweder says. “One is on the inside and one on the outside.”
And you said art is dead.

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CPAC M4M

"It is that time again and I want to have some NSA fun after the speeches.  I want to fuck your mouth while I sign you up on the health care market place. I want you to be the gipper and go down on my jelly beans. I want to be discrete." - Craigslist DC M4M. He had me until "discrete." Link may not be office-friendly.

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Canadian Immigrant Opens CPAC

Sen. Ted Cruz opened CPAC 2014 today by urging support for the GOP's 50th attempt to repeal Obamacare. Via Politico:
“There are a lot of D.C. consultants who say there’s a choice for Republicans to make: We can either choose to keep our head down, to not rock the boat, to not stand for anything, or we can stand for principle,” he said. “They say if you stand for principle you lose elections. The way to do it — the smart way, the Washington way — is don’t stand against Obamacare, don’t stand against the debt ceiling, don’t stand against nothing. I want to tell you something — that is a false dichotomy.” The crowd for Cruz’s speech, which came first in the conference, was fairly small at first as attendees waited in line to get in. But it grew throughout the speech — and the biggest applause for Cruz came when he said the GOP needs to “repeal every word of Obamacare.”
Cruz' opening line: "Good morning! God Bless CPAC! I have some bad news for you today. By virtue of your attendance here at CPAC, every one of you will be audited by the IRS."

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Sen. Mitch McConnell Takes Stage At CPAC While Waving A Rifle

McConnell then presented the rifle to retiring Sen. Tom Coburn. If you can stand it, CPAC is being live-streamed on CSPAN3.

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RuPaul Trolls Download Pirates: Girl, You Don't Want To Pay A Bitch? Fuck You!

RuPaul is fighting the pirating of her new album, Born Naked, by posting fake versions to BitTorrent in which she disses music stealers with hilarious rants. Via Gizmodo:
Every single track on the album features RuPaul admonishing would-be pirates for not paying up. The decoy version of "Freaky Money" starts off with 30 seconds of what sounds like the build-up to a crazy dance track, when all of a sudden the music fades to the background and RuPaul interjects: "Girl, you just stole my album!" What follows is two minutes and 30 seconds of free association and sass from the drag superstar. It's pretty special. The decoy leak is a creative strategy for adapting to some of the unfortunate realities of digital music to your benefit. Artists should pay attention, and start doing a little trolling of their own.
Listen to one of the spoofed tracks. (Tipped by JMG reader Jeff)

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Adam Lambert To Tour With Queen

ABC News reports:
Singer Adam Lambert, who gained fame when he appeared on “American Idol,” will join the classic rock band, Queen, in a North American tour this summer, Lambert and original band members Brian May and Roger Taylor announced today in an appearance on “Good Morning America.” “Queen is one of the quintessential rock bands of all time…they’ve influenced bands for years to come,” Lambert said today in a live appearance on “GMA,” adding that it’s a dream come true “to be able to bring these songs to life on stage” with “rock royalty members.” The legendary British band has performed with Lambert on a number of occasions in recent years, both in the U.S. and overseas, but the band has never actually toured with the former “American Idol” finalist in North America.

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TRAILER: Grace Of Monaco

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NEW YORK: Trump Files $100M Libel Suit Against State Attorney General

Last August, New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sued Donald Trump, allegedly that his Trump University real estate school was a fraudulent get-rich-quick scheme that charged seminar attendees thousands of dollars for useless training.  Yesterday Trump sued Schneiderman for $100M, saying that the state has damaged his reputation. Yeah. Reputation.
In legal papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Trump says that his name, brand and reputation have been damaged by Schneiderman’s “malicious prosecution.” The attorney general “is using the publicity of a lawsuit . . . to further his political aspirations,” Trump lawyer Jeffrey Goldman charges in the legal papers, demanding “well in excess” of $100 million in damages. Schneiderman’s office filed suit last summer claiming that Trump University promised to make students rich but instead steered them into costly and mostly useless seminars. The suit claimed that Trump U.’s free seminars were often nothing more than sell jobs to get people to sign up for a $1,495, three-day seminar and eventually an “elite” program costing as much as $35,000 a person. Trump has been on the warpath against Schneiderman ever since, filing ethics complaints against him and denouncing the attorney general as a “lightweight” on Twitter.
In January a judge tossed some of the charges in Schneiderman's suit, but allowed the case to proceed.

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Santa Fe Elects Gay Mayor

Santa Fe has elected its first openly gay mayor.
With his two young daughters and other family members by his side, Javier Gonzales, 47, was greeted by a mob of cheering supporters when he walked into a packed ballroom at the Hotel Santa Fe, many of whom he hugged and kissed as he made his way to the stage. “This campaign was never about me. It was about us,” he told a jubilant crowd. Gonzales made history as the city’s first openly gay mayor and will preside over a City Council on which two of the eight members are openly gay women — mayoral opponent Patti Bushee and newly elected Signe Lindell. He said the race was won by a grass-roots campaign that brought together a cross section of Santa Fe.

(Via Think Progress)

CORRECTION: In my first draft of this post, I moved Santa Fe to Arizona. My excuse is shut up.

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Log Cabin To CPAC: Let Us Speak

"Any official participation from Log Cabin Republicans at CPAC needs to be meaningful, and in our estimation meaningful participation does not begin and end with buying a ticket to CPAC. We asked for a seat at the table — quite literally — at the 'Reaching Out' panel at this year’s conference. It seemed a natural fit for LCR, while also giving CPAC the benefit of showing their inclusion of gay conservatives at an event in which the focus was not specifically about gay issues. We were rebuffed. Like all good conservatives, we want conservatives to win. With a preponderance of Americans in support of equal rights for gay Americans, Log Cabin Republicans’ mantra that 'inclusion wins' has never been more relevant. It’s not too late for the ACU to embrace that, allow us formal participation on the 'Reaching Out' panel, and welcome Log Cabin Republicans as meaningful participants at this year’s CPAC." - Log Cabin head Gregory Angelo, writing for the Daily Caller.

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Headline Of The Day

Details. (Tipped by JMG reader Blair)

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Gog + Magog + Ukraine = End Times

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Today At CPAC

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Open Thread Thursday

The Obamacare deadline is approaching. Are you ready?

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Perkins: Send Money To Stop ENDA

"When the Senate last year passed this dangerous bill, we worked with conservatives in the House of Representatives to stop it. The bill has not moved out of committee. Victory! Except that there's no 'quit' in liberal efforts to radically transform America -- and, therefore the Left is fanatically committed to passage of ENDA. So I'm sorry to report: it's back and we cannot sit back in silence. Under ENDA, homosexual activists would have a government-funded legal weapon to target and intimidate Christian employers and conservative businesses. The good news? If we act, we can keep defeating ENDA at the federal level and prevent a nationwide nightmare. What's more, we can even make progress against state and local ENDA-style policies. But for that to happen, I need to hear from you!" - KKK-affiliated hate group leader Tony Perkins, in today's money beg.

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Wednesday, March 05, 2014

WYOMING: Marriage Lawsuit Filed

Via press release from the NCLR:
On March 5, 2014, four same-sex couples and Wyoming Equality filed a lawsuit in state court in Cheyenne challenging Wyoming’s laws that prohibit same-sex couples from marrying and refuse to respect the legal marriages of same-sex couples who married in other states. The couples include a university professor, a Major in the Army Reserve, a sheepherder, and an attorney. Many of the Plaintiffs were born and raised in Wyoming. The lawsuit challenges Wyoming’s statute barring same-sex couples from marrying and the state’s refusal to recognize the marriages of same-sex couples who married in other states, arguing that they violate the Wyoming Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and due process. The couples are Cora Courage and Wyoma “Nonie” Proffit of Evanston, Carl Oleson and Rob Johnston of Casper, Anne Guzzo and Bonnie Robinson of Laramie, and Ivan Williams and Chuck Killion of Cheyenne. Wyoming Equality is the state’s largest civil rights organization dedicated to securing full equality for Wyoming’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Its members include same-sex couples throughout the state.
The couples are represented by two local law firms and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. I think that leaves eight states without an active marriage lawsuit: Alaska, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

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White House Announces Gene Therapy Is Safe For Drug-Free Treatment Of HIV

The White House tonight issued a press release declaring that the National Institutes of Health has found that initial studies show gene therapy to be "generally safe" as a drug-free alternative for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Here is the press release in full.
Scientists today report initial results from humans on the safety and tolerability of a novel strategy to curb HIV disease by removing key cells from HIV-infected individuals, genetically modifying the cells to resist HIV infection and returning them to those people. The basic and pre-clinical research on this strategy, which eventually might help people control the virus without drugs, was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. The Phase I clinical trial was funded by Sangamo BioSciences and was led by NIAID grantee Carl H. June, M.D., with co-investigators Bruce L. Levine, Ph.D., and Pablo Tebas, M.D., all of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

The trial built on the observation that people who naturally have a genetic modification in a protein called CCR5 are resistant to HIV infection, and when infected with HIV, progress to AIDS more slowly. CCR5 is a cell-surface molecule, or receptor, that most HIV variants must use to enter their primary target: the CD4+ T cell. In the trial, CD4+ T-cells were collected from each of 12 HIV-infected volunteers whose virus was controlled by anti-HIV therapy. These cells were then treated in the laboratory with molecular tools called zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs). The ZFNs were designed to snip the DNA within the gene that codes for the CCR5 receptor. This process introduced a genetic mutation rendering CCR5 receptors non-functional. Subsequently, the cells were stimulated to multiply, and each patient received an infusion of 10 billion of their own CD4+ T-cells, with roughly a fifth of the CCR5 genes now mutated.

Four weeks later, in a planned interruption of anti-HIV therapy, half the study participants stopped taking their antiretroviral drugs for 8 to 12 weeks. Investigators found that the experimental treatment was generally safe, and that the genetically modified cells appeared to be protected from HIV infection. In one volunteer who naturally had the desired mutation in half of his CCR5 genes, HIV replication was controlled during the entire 12-week treatment interruption. Future research will include evaluating this experimental treatment in more volunteers, as well as maximizing the frequency of CCR5 disruption by ZFNs and increasing the persistence of the genetically modified cells in the body to achieve a therapeutic effect.
Should further studies demonstrate that the result is long-lasting, it will be interesting to learn how the cost of such a procedure will compare to the cost of traditional drug therapies. My guess is that it will be prohibitive at the start, but cost effective in the long run. It certainly is a better prospect than a lifetime of pill-popping. Experts (and I know you are here) please weigh in.

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