kpete
kpete's JournalBoy Scouts in New York hire openly gay Eagle Scout in spite of national rules
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Pascal Tessier receives his Eagle Scout badge at his weekly troop meeting at the All Saints Church in Chevy Chase on February 10, 2014. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post)
On his 18th birthday last year, Pascal Tessier wrote an open letter to the Boy Scouts of America. He was saying goodbye to an institution that, he said, taught him the “morals and values” that shaped the man he had become. He was saying goodbye because, although the organization had recently done away with a policy keeping gay kids out of the group, it still banned gay adults — which, now, included him.
“Today is my 18th birthday, a milestone on my path to becoming an adult and the day I am no longer eligible to be a Boy Scout because I am gay,” he wrote in August 2014. “Despite the Boy Scouts’ historic decision last year to open its ranks to gay youth, the Scouts still ban gay adults. And as of today, that means me.”
Tessier already had become a warrior in the battle against the Boy Scouts policy. In 2013, he stood on a street corner and protested its policy against gay youth. The organization later agreed to lift that ban. In 2014, he earned the Eagle Scout ranking he coveted nearly all of his life. From that moment on, he has been called the nation’s first openly gay Eagle Scout.
On Thursday, the Boy Scouts’ Greater New York Councils announced another pivotal moment: It hired Tessier as a summer camp leader — in direct defiance of the national organization’s rules. By many, it was seen as yet another victory for an 18-year-old Kensington, Maryland, man challenging a system that, by policy, excludes him.
MORE:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/03/boy-scouts-in-new-york-hire-openly-gay-eagle-scout-in-spite-of-national-rules/?tid=hp_mm&hpid=z3
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Karl Rove tells Iraq veteran: ‘Sorry for what you went through,’ but I won’t apologize for the war
An Iraq war veteran confronted former White House advisor Karl Rove during a speaking engagement on Tuesday and demanded he apologize for the war, the Hartford Courant reported.
“I have taken responsibility for my actions and dealt with my demons while advocating for a peaceful resolution of a war that was an act of aggression with no clear goal,” said the former soldier, who identified himself as Ryan Henowitz. “Can you take responsibility and apologize for your decision in sending a generation to lose their humanity and deal with the horrors of war, which you have never had the courage to face? Will you apologize to the millions of fathers and mothers who lost their children on both sides of this useless war?”[/blockquote
Henowitz said he served as a Medic in the 2nd Battalion of the Army’s 7th Infantry Regiment.“I saw my friends torn apart and Iraqi children screaming for their parents as indiscriminate shrapnel scarred them and us in ways that we will never know,” he told Rove. “We were exposed to more questions about life and death then any 20 year old should have. These scars stay with me and other veterans who are now one of the highest demographics to commit suicide at a rate of 22 suicides per day, and over thousands disabled.”
Rove, who served as deputy chief of staff for then-President George W. Bush, said removing Hussein was the right thing to do because he had “thumbed his nose at the international community.”“I appreciate your service for our country. I’m sorry for what you went through but it was the right thing to remove Saddam Hussein from power,” he said. “The United States government and the United States military was right to do so. We should be proud of what we were able to do in Iraq and we should be sorry that we left them alone, because when we left them, things deteriorated.”
More:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/04/karl-rove-tells-iraq-veteran-sorry-for-what-you-went-through-but-i-wont-apologize-for-the-war/
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Landlord Sends Man $1,200 Bill To Cleanup His Roommate’s Blood, Who Was Shot Dead By Police
Last month, a Madison, WI, police officer shot and killed Tony Terrell Robinson Jr., an unarmed 19-year-old. The city’s chief of police has compared the case to death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO.
On Wednesday, the Wisconsin-based Devil’s Advocates Radio Network reported that Robinson’s surviving roommate, Anthony M. Limon, had received an eviction notice, giving him five days to vacate their Madison apartment or pay their three-days-late rent and $1,192.15 for “bio-hazard cleanup” for removal of Robinson’s blood from the apartment. The notice was addressed to Limon and his mother, whose name also appears on the lease.
The notice was sent by landlord Ray A. Peterson. Peterson told Devil’s Advocates co-host Mike Crute that he believed it appropriate to bill Limon for the bio-hazard removal because Robinson’s name did not appear on the lease.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/04/02/3642252/madison-police-shooting-eviction-landlord/
Sen Nancy Detert (R) to Koch's AFP: "Obviously you're for prosperity for yourself & not anyone else"
In a Senate committee hearing of her film incentive bill Thursday, Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, took Koch brothers-backed, ultra-conservative political action committee Americans for Prosperity to task:
"You're all on the Koch brothers' payroll. Good for you. I'm glad you're all employed ... I hope you're getting paid a lot of money to show up to these meetings and say meaningless things.
"Obviously you're for prosperity for yourself and not anyone else ... You people serve absolutely no purpose."
More plus video:
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/sen-detert-to-afp-you-people-serve-absolutely-no-purpose/2223886
Neil deGrasse Tyson: "If the Pledge of Allegiance told the truth....."
ouch, this will hurt some folks:
https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/583643304983564290
How do you raise awareness about population explosion? Show People These Pics:
How do you raise awareness about population explosion?
One group thought that the simplest way would be to show people
off to cry some more.....
More, plus descriptions
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/gallery/2015/apr/01/over-population-over-consumption-in-pictures
Media Inflate Threat With ‘ISIS Plots’ That Don’t Actually Involve ISIS
Media Inflate Threat With ‘ISIS Plots’ That Don’t Actually Involve ISIS
By Adam Johnson
CNN: Suspects 'Accused of ISIS Support'
Contrary to Fox News, these suspects were not lured by ISIS, but by the FBI.
Actually, the suspects were accused of conspiring to support ISIS–a significantly different legal charge.
Last Friday, the FBI announced another harrowing, 11th-hour capture of Americans plotting to join “ISIS” and launch attack within the United States. The case of two Illinois men, Army National Guard Specialist Hasan Edmonds and his cousin Jonas Edmonds, ostensibly involved the former going to Syria to join ISIS there while the latter stayed in the US, plotting to attack “scores” at a military base.
Right on cue, the American media publish dressed-up FBI press releases about the “disrupted” plot, complete with balaclava-wearing stock photos: “FBI Disrupts Plot to Kill Scores at Military Base on Behalf of Islamic State” was the Washington Post‘s headline (3/26/15).
These outlets, as usual, omitted the rather awkward fact that this “ISIS plot” did not actually involve anyone in ISIS: At no point was there any material contact between anyone in ISIS and the Edmond cousins. There was, as the criminal complaint lays out, lots of contact between the Edmond cousins and what they thought was ISIS, but at no point was there any contact with ISIS–the designated terror organization that the US is currently launching airstrikes against.
This distinction may seem like semantics, but it’s actually quite important when trying to accurately inform the public–only 40 percent of whom read past the headlines–about the reality of the ISIS threat vs. the fear-inducing media spectacle that so often inflates it.
MORE:
http://fair.org/blog/2015/04/01/isis-plots-that-dont-actually-involve-isis/
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