Wait – What just happened? A roundup of the week in news, May 19, 2013
Oh, you crazy Catholics
After boycotting Boston College’s graduation ceremony because they dared invite Ireland’s Prime Minister Enda Kenny to give the commencement address, Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley threatened the college that it’s him or me…and they went with Kenny.
Why the boycott? Because Kenny is trying to be a responsible human being by advocating for the passage of a bill that would allow abortions for women whose lives are in danger due to their pregnancy. This bill comes on the heels of a woman who was refused an abortion and died of blood poisoning because her dying fetus still had a heartbeat.
Bonus scandal! Kenny two years ago stunned Ireland by publicly blasting the Vatican for its cover-up of sexual abuse by Irish priests.
Fair Labor Standards Act? What Fair Labor Standards Act?
The House this week voted to allow employers to replace overtime pay with comp time with their shiny new Working Families Flexibility Act. Where the FLSA actually guarantees minimum wage, overtime pay and recordkeeping, the WFFA makes it easier for employers to schedule as much overtime as they want without paying for it, giving workers far less flexibility in their lives as well as denying overtime pay to low-wage earners who frequently have no other way to make ends meet. And we continue further down our new American path of eroding workers’ rights. At least there are still child labor laws right?
Another movie theatre shooting this week…oh wait…
In a brilliant marketing move, Capital 8 Theaters in Jefferson City, Missouri hired actors to portray gunmen at the “Iron Man 3″ premier. John Molock, a retired Army war veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, told ABC 17 News the Capitol 8 Theaters stunt triggered memories he never wanted to relive.
To quote National Atheist Party member Ron Millam, “We have Concealed Carry in Missouri. The dude is lucky that half a dozen theater patrons didn't blow his ass away...while also killing and wounding who knows how many others in the chaos. So tell me, Mr. manager Bob Wilkins – does THAT qualify as "entertaining people," as you put it???
Oh, guns aren't allowed in theaters, you say? If it helps you sleep better, go right on believing the "No Weapons Permitted" sign has magic powers.”
This week in guns don’t kill people, people kill people...
Kevin Sayre, 26, of Tullahoma Tennessee shot his 1-year old daughter in the chest while field stripping two handguns for guests. The child was listed in stable but critical condition.
Anastasia Adair, a new gun enthusiast out of Colorado, fatally shot herself in the head on Thursday when she decided to show off her newly purchased assault rifle to friends. Ms. Adair had apparently been drinking, and while handing the weapon to her husband, she slipped and the gun went off, striking her in the head. She was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
Facts, shmacts. It’s Benghazi!
On Wednesday, The White House released 100 pages of official Benghazi emails. But CBS News reported on Thursday that leaked versions of these emails circulated by the GOP last Friday had visible differences than Wednesday's official batch.
What could possibly be the purpose of the GOP disseminating false information? Ah, no harm, no foul, right?
Religion + Public Schools = oh no you didn’t.
A public school in Arkansas cancelled a grade school graduation after a parent requested that, you know, with that whole separation of church and state thing, that prayers were not said during the ceremony. Rather than allow a (gasp) non-religious graduation, the school district just cancelled it. Feeling their rights were taken away, Christian parents decided to hold the graduation in their local church. As for the non-religious or non-Christians of the bunch, parent Kelly Adams offered that all kids and parents were invited to the now fully religious ceremony, assuring them that, “We’re not trying to be pushy or ugly to anybody, we just want them to know there is a God who loves them.”
Also in Arkansas, a school district in Little Rock canceled their graduation speaker once the principal found out he was gay. It didn’t matter that Bryant Huddleston (producer of E! News and Access Hollywood) graduated from the same high school, that his sister was a graduating senior, or that his father was President of the School Board. Oh, Arkansas, where the guns are free, god is rampant; you can kill a homosexual, but keep your hands off our fetuses.
In Oklahoma, led by Atheist high school student, Gage Pulliam, Atheist and Christian students alike protested the “Ten Commandments” displays in all of their classrooms. While they won the battle, with the school board reluctantly removing the plaques rather than spending taxpayer money for costly legal fees that would be incurred fighting to keep them, Gage and his family are still receiving threats of physical harm. To support Gage and let him know you stand behind him, you can easily friend him or send him a message through his Facebook account.
While I’m still putting my shampoo in 2oz bottles…
A report Thursday stated that the U.S. government gave Witness Protection to known and suspected terrorists. U.S. marshals have lost track of several of them.
Meanwhile at least 86 innocents are still living at Guantanamo prison, something the Bush administration knew about and the Obama administration has turned a blind eye to.
Who’s that on the phone honey? Oh, it’s just the government.
Two months of telephone records of reporters and editors of the Associated Press were secretly obtained by the Justice Department. These records may include those of over 100 journalists on a wide variety of stories about governmental and other matters.
AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt stated, “There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.”
So what happened to those Shield Laws that Obama swore to support when he was just a congressman begging our votes?
Hey, it’s a lot of work to close out a contract for a completely avoidable war.
KBR Inc., a former Halliburton subsidiary, told the U.S. Army this week that it will cost another $500 million over 13 years to finish its work stemming from the Iraq war. KBR aided almost all military support operations as part of the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (pdf) (LOGCAP) III in Iraq. When the U.S. Defense Dept. tried to change the contract (given that we’re trying to pull out combat units,) KBR took them to court.
Short on cash? Just have a wizard make you invisible.
Back in January, an Iranian man trusted a fake sorcerer (as opposed to a “real” one), paying him $500 to make him invisible. The man’s reason for desiring invisibility? He was an aspiring bank robber.
Surprisingly, the spell only seemed to work in his own mind, and the bank’s customers overpowered him with a quickness.
Umbrella-gate!
The right-wingnut media machine went on high alert the other day when President Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan didn’t hold their own umbrellas during a rainy press conference.
Sarah Palin was insightful as always, “Mr. President, when it rains it pours, but most Americans hold their own umbrellas”
Contradict much?
“A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.” – H. L. Mencken