A US pastor who leads a church which preaches against homosexuality has been arrested for sexually harassing a man at a lake.
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The victim alleges that 59-year-old Gaylard Williams – who leads The Praise Cathedral Church of God in Seymour, Indiana – approached him in his parked car, before grabbing and sqeezeing his genitals and asking him to perform oral sex.

After telling the pastor he was “barking up the wrong tree”, the victim called police, who later found pornography in his vehicle.

The pastor has denied the allegations, telling police in a separate statement that he was at the lake to look for a friend who fishes there, and that he was taking the pornography back to someone else.

The five biggest movie chains in America might have backed out of showing The Interview, but there's at least one theater owner who's not afraid of the Guardians of Peace: George R. R. Martin.

The Game of Thrones author owns the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and announced he'd be happy to screen the North Korea-skewering comedy any time, no matter if it's actually any good or not.

Posting on his LiveJournal (current mood: a "pissed off" alien avatar), Martin railed against the theater chains for "declining to show a film because Kim Jong-un objects to being mocked," and against Sony for canceling the movie's theatrical release, even though many independent cinemas would still show the movie.

"The level of corporate cowardice here astonishes me. It's a good thing these guys weren't around when Charlie Chaplin made THE GREAT DICTATOR. If Kim Jong-Un scares them, Adolf Hitler would have had them shitting in their smallclothes."

Martin wrapped up his post by inviting Seth Rogen and James Franco to host their premiere in sunny New Mexico instead of any big-name theater: "Come to Santa Fe, Seth, we'll show your film for you."

U.S. considers putting North Korea back on terror list, re-listing country as state sponsor of terror http://wsj.com

During a year-end press conference, Obama said Sony made a mistake by canceling the premiere of the film "The Interview," a comedy about an assassination attempt on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco.

"I am sympathetic to the concerns that they faced," Obama said. "Having said all that, yes, I think they made a mistake."

"We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States," Obama said. "If somebody's able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary they don't like, or news reports they don't like. Or even worse, imagine if producers and distributors and others start engaging in self-censorship because they don't want to offend the sensibilities of someone whose sensibilities probably need to be offended."

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday warned that a major trade deal being negotiated by the Obama administration could hamstring Wall Street reform efforts.

Warren raised the issue in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, which was also signed by Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.). The correspondence highlighted a broadening rift between President Barack Obama and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party over economic policy, less than a week after Warren and Obama squared off over a budget deal that provided government subsidies for risky derivatives trading.

"We are concerned that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) could make it harder for Congress and regulatory agencies to prevent future financial crises," the letter reads. "With millions of families still struggling to recover from the last financial crisis and the Great Recession that followed, we cannot afford a trade deal that undermines the government's ability to protect the American economy."

The Obama administration has been negotiating the TPP -- a pact with 11 other Pacific nations -- for several years. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has strongly favored the pact, while many traditionally liberal organizations have been critical of the deal, citing concerns that it will exacerbate income inequality and undermine a host of public-interest regulations. The government has been negotiating the deal in secret. The public has only learned of potential provisions through leaked drafts of the negotiation text.

Warren, Baldwin and Markey are particularly concerned with a process called "investor-state dispute settlement," which grants foreign corporations the political power to challenge the laws and regulations of a government before an international tribunal. This nongovernmental court has the power to levy trade sanctions against offending nations. The investor-state dispute settlement regimen differs from those used in World Trade Organization treaties, which allow only sovereign governments to bring trade challenges.

The effort to draft Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren into the 2016 presidential race received a major boost Wednesday evening, as the Howard Dean-founded group Democracy for America formally joined MoveOn.org’s “Run Warren Run” campaign and announced it would invest $250,000 in the effort.

DFA will announce the move at the campaign’s Iowa kickoff rally, slated to be held in Des Moines at 5:30 p.m. local time. The decision comes one week after MoveOn members voted overwhelmingly in favor of the organization’s $1 million campaign to draft Warren. Last week, the one million-member DFA announced its intention to join the campaign, but waited for its members to vote on the matter before formally doing so. The group said on Wednesday that 88 percent of members voted in support of the plan.

The MoveOn/DFA campaign will involve opening field offices in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first states to vote in the presidential primary season; running advertisements in support of Warren; cultivating small donors; and mobilizing grassroots supporters.

According to DFA, its focus in the Run Warren Run campaign will be on training volunteers and campaign staff and developing a nationwide strategy to rally support behind the freshman senator, who has galvanized progressives with her fierce criticism of Wall Street and income inequality. The group’s “50-state strategy” echoes Dean’s effort as chairman of the Democratic National Committee to field competitive candidates in every state.

Democrats made sport of decrying, vilifying and crucifying the billionaire Koch brothers for injecting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Republican-boosting “dark money” into the 2014 elections.

But newly minted Federal Election Commission Chairwoman Ann Ravel — a left-leaning Democrat and campaign finance reformer, by most any political measure — has no appetite for such theater. Even if, as chairwoman of the California Fair Political Practices Commission last year, she helped levy massive penalties on Koch-backed groups caught circumventing state political disclosure laws.

A pox on both parties’ houses, as far as she’s concerned, for using secretive cash to influence elections.

“The Kochs, they are not a problem to me, nor are their activities specifically anything I want to address,” Ravel said. “Dark money is a broader problem — a much broader problem. It’s a problem for those on the Democratic side as well as the Republican side. It’s not a partisan question for me.”

Expect Ravel, who this morning won the FEC’s top job by a 5-0 vote of her commission colleagues, to evangelize campaign transparency and disclosure for all political players during her upcoming term as chairperson. Her target audience: outside-the-Beltway folks who aren’t election lawyers or political practitioners, but are nevertheless concerned about big money’s influence in politics.

Bella the German shepherd is alive, but her unnamed Cincinnati owner recently passed away. Normally Bella would go to the loving home of a new owner, where she could live out the rest of her days chasing squirrels and sleeping on the couch. But Bella's dead owner has a particularly selfish clause in her will: Kill my dog and bury her with me, please!

Portland-area news station KATU reports that the woman's lawyer claims the dog must be put down and its ashes buried with the owner, as it's the only way to truly carry out the will's request. Others argue that it's kind of wrong to kill a happy, healthy dog, and instead they should wait until Bella dies of natural causes before burying her with her owner.

Bella was reportedly scheduled to be put down yesterday morning, but that's been put on hold while lawyers work out what, exactly, her fate should be. We're rooting for you, Bella!