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Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is being sent back to Washington from Louisiana where he has been overseeing aid work. Meanwhile, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) displayed a poster-size photo of Bush playing a guitar handed to him during a tour of a San Diego military base Aug. 30, after broken levees had caused New Orleans to flood. "
"The president was enjoying the day, he was strumming a guitar," Lautenberg said. "I don't deny him the pleasures of office, but people were drowning."
It is telling that in times of crisis, Bush is always clearing brush, rolling tumbleweed, reading children's books or playing guitar. We can only assume he was playing "Smoke on the Water".
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According to The Washington Post, five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
FEMA's top three leaders -- Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler -- arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative.
Welcome to Bush's Faith Based World. I suppose they were going to get in a circle and try to pray away the hurricane, since they had no other expertise. What a disgrace and embarrassment. I wonder if anyone will resign, or will they all get promoted by Bush?
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I just watched Round Trip Ticket, an entertaining travel show on the new gay cable network Logo. Round Trip takes viewers to hot gay travel destinations around the world. But even hotter than the trips is the host Will Wikle. Heck, I'd even travel to a wheat field in central Kansas if Wikle were my tour guide. Check out the schedule to see when Round Trip visits Amsterdam.
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It might come as a surprise to many that the Supreme Court justice with the worst record on issues of importance to gay Americans is not Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas, but the dearly departed chief justice, William Rehnquist.
It's also hard to imagine that Bush’s nominee to replace Rehnquist, John Roberts, will be anything but a major improvement. And if the president bows to political pressure and appoints a more moderate woman or Hispanic to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, now that her post is again vacant, then the Supreme Court might actually prove friendlier to gay rights in the future. (The Washington Blade)
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Richard Hatch, who won $1 million on the first season of the reality show "Survivor," may be headed back to an island, but this time it might be Rikers. The scheming reality queen was indicted Thursday for failing to pay taxes on his winnings from the CBS show.
Hatch faces 10 charges, including tax evasion, filing a false tax return,wire fraud, bank fraud and mail fraud. U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente said Hatch, 44, did not pay taxes on his "Survivor" prize, income from a radio show and rental income. The Newport resident also allegedly used donations to his charity, Horizon Bound, to cover personal expenses.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger said this afternoon that he will veto the same-sex marriage bill passed by the California Legislature last night by a vote of 41-35. His press secretary, Margita Thompson, issued the following statement at just before 5:30 p.m.:
"In Governor Schwarzenegger's personal life and work in public service, he has considered no undertaking to be more noble than the cause of civil rights. He believes that gay couples are entitled to full protection underthe law and should not be discriminated against based upon their relationship. He is proud that California provides the most rigorous protections in the nation for domestic partners. Five years ago the matter of same-sex marriage was placed before the people of California. The people voted and the issue is now before the courts. The Governor believes the matter should be determined not by legislative action -- which would be unconstitutional -- but by court decision or another vote of the people of our state. We cannot have a system where the people vote and the Legislature derails that vote. Out of respect for the will of the people, the Governor will veto AB 849."
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's actions are shameful and a permanent stain on his legacy. He could have stood for equality, but instead he sided with bigotry. He is a disgrace to his office and is clearly on the wrong side of history. Please take a minute and call the Governor's office to tell him what you think of his awful actions. He needs to hear from you, and calling 916-445-2841 or e-mailing him at, governor@governor.ca.gov is safer than expressing your displeasure to his face, becasue he can probably beat you up.
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Beverly A. Grubb said she went to a Brentwood, Tenn. therapist to be cured of homosexuality but instead ended up in an intimate relationship with the therapist.
Grubb, 59, is now suing her former therapist-turned-domestic-partner and TrueHope for the Best Alternative, the Brentwood counseling center she went to for treatment.
This is the latest example of "ex-gay" fraud and predatory behavior. These groups have a zero percent success rate and victimize innocent people who are told they need to change or they are going to Hell. Take a look at this lawsuit. It is the future of the "ex-gay" ministries. I beleive that more people are going to come forward and talk about the awful abuse at the hands of these sham groups. At some point, they will be rightfully sued out of existence for fraud and malpractice.
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The California Legislature made history Tuesday as the Assembly passed a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. With no votes to spare, California's lawmakers became the first in the United States to act without a court order to sanction gay marriages. The measure was approved after three Democratic lawmakers who abstained on a similar proposal that failed in June changed their minds under intense lobbying by bill author Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and gay and civil rights activists.
While touring the Houston Astrodome, where thousands of Hurricane Katrina refugees have been surviving, Barbara Bush said they didn't have it so bad because they were poor to begin with.
"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas," she was quoted as saying in an interview on National Public Radio. "Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."
I hear that the Bush's mansion in the posh River Oaks section of Houston is very roomy, not to mention comfy. I suggest that since condidions are so nice in the Astrodome, the Bush's give up their massive home to the stranded Americans, and they can live in the Astrodome for a while.
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New reports reveal that the government's disaster chief Michael Brown waited until hours after Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security workers to support rescuers in the region - and gave them two days to arrive, according to internal documents.
Is there any doubt that Brown should resign or be sacked for incompetence? The joke is that Bush or Homeland Security head Mike Chertoff would wield the ax, even though both also failed America during this crisis. Maybe they all should step down?
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This may be politically incorrect, but I'm having serious qualms about writing a check for Hurricane relief. The way I see it, I already gave my fair share for the effort on April 15. This is Tax Day, the painful moment where we surrender a large chunk of our hard earned change to the federal government, so they can fix levees and plan for national emergencies.
President George W. Bush, however, decided to squander this money on tax breaks for Cappuccino Conservatives and attacking a nation in the name of 9-11 that had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks. Make no mistake about it, this is not charity, this is a backdoor tax and the privatization of disaster relief. Americans are reaching into their wallets to write checks to generously pay for what the federal government should have unquestionably funded in the first place.
It is amazing that President George W. Bush, who took four days to rescue Hurricane victims in the sinking city of New Orleans, took only one day to nominate John G. Roberts for Supreme Court Chief Justice.
Is it not clear that Bush and guru Karl Rove want to change the news, to get Katrina off the front page and off the lead story on cable? I'm sure the cable networks will dutifully comply and push Katrina out of the news cycle soon. After all, covering real victims - especiually minorities - in a hurricane costs money and is a lot of work. But bringing in a few talking heads to endlessly bloviate on Roberts is in-studio and free!
I can only hope that the public sees through this dirty trick of distracting by changing the news cycle. Of course, it is a strategy that has worked and got Bush reelected even though he is one of the worst presidents in American history.
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