Month: October 2009

… like the family photo – from the 19th century.

In case anyone thought that the president's studied vagueness at the HRC dinner was accidental, try finding the words "Maine" or "Washington State" in this statement. Maybe the campaigns can use this as if the president were actually putting his weight behind these specific campaigns. But he isn't.

A reader writes:

Here is another example of DADT consequences that I haven’t seen mentioned. I was in the Navy from 1985-1995, 10 years of service, keep in mind that is half way to retirement.  I finally admitted to myself in 1987 I was gay but kept it hidden from all except my closest friends.  In 1992, after 4 years of shore duty and getting ready to be rotated back to a ship command, I found out that I was HIV+ and with the exception of how the Navy went about telling me I was HIV+ (another horror story in itself) the Navy treated me very well.  But when you are HIV+, you are kept on shore based commands, as the Navy wants you within a certain amount of miles to a Military Hospital. 

But my job entailed for me to keep going up in rank I needed to be ship based to continue to progress in my rate (job).  My peers were always asking how I kept getting shore duty year after year.

I obviously couldn’t tell them that I was HIV+ (being HIV+ in those days = that you were gay) and would be station on a shore command the rest of my Navy career.  I decided that after 3 years of lying to my shipmates, and that I could not live the double life any longer I decided, to the dismay of my family, who at the time did not know I was gay or HIV+ and because I was only 10 years away from retirement, it was time that I give up my military career and become a civilian. 

But the remarkable part of ending the leading this double life was that my CD4 count went from being consistently around 250 during the time I was in the Navy, to within 6 months of being discharged to having a CD4 count over 900 without medication changes.  The stress of living a double life the constant fear that I was going to be found out was killing my immune system.

Readers chime in:

My parents watch Glenn Beck religiously. When I watch this man, my stomach turns in knots because of three things: 1) He's wrong. 2) My parents adore him. 3) They that think I look just like him, only 20 years younger, and seize every opportunity to bring it up. (I actually do look like a 28 year old Glenn Beck).

Another:

I think the real question is: "Do you remember what life was like before Glenn Beck?"

Another:

Ahhh, the good old days, when we were all gleefully ignorant to the tooth decay, obesity and adult on-set diabetes caused by mass consumption of soda pops.

And finally:

I saw this at the gym yesterday and almost fell off the treadmill laughing. I am so glad you posted it. You know what the best part is? That Mean Joe Green commercial was from 1979. That means Glenn Beck is harking back to those simpler times when America was better…when Carter was President. Does he not have a research staff?

Bruce Bartlett argues against a payroll tax cut:

But the biggest problem with cutting the payroll tax is that it isn't really a tax at all. A tax, by definition, is a compulsory payment for which no specific benefit is received in return. This is not true of Social Security. The vast bulk of workers get back all the money they put into Social Security in the form of a cash benefit in retirement and most get a substantial return. (See this Congressional Budget Office study.) That's why Franklin D. Roosevelt always insisted that the money withheld from workers' paychecks for Social Security was not a tax but a "contribution."

That is not just a politically convenient semantic difference. To a large degree, Social Security is a forced saving program in which there is a real and tangible connection between what one puts in and what one gets out.

He also thinks such a tax cut would create minimal economic benefit because "the problem for employers isn't that labor costs are rising excessively, but rather that there is no demand for their output."

Tehran Bureau writes:

Iran's post-election turmoil and the ensuing human rights crisis entered a new phase this week,  after authorities announced death sentences for four defendants following the mass trials held for more than a hundred people accused of fomenting unrest and challenging the election results. It has raised the specter of further political executions in Iran. Most ominously, the death sentences were announced on October 10th, the International Day Against the Death Penalty. On the same day, Iran put to death Behnoud Shojaii, a juvenile offender, continuing Iran's distinction as the only country to execute juvenile offenders since 2008. The harsh sentences signaled a determination by the Revolutionary Guard commanders and hard-line supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to extend their consolidation of power to the judicial branch.

The four defendants sentenced to death are not guilty of any violent actions and their indictments clearly state that the Intelligence Ministry arrested them "before they could engage in any action." Even under the existing laws, they could not be sentenced to death in fair trials. However, by using them as a front in a public relations ploy to justify death sentences in post-election trials, the government is pursuing two goals. First, the government is aiming to instill fear among reform-oriented Iranians, and raising the cost of participation in further protests, by signaling its power and determination to apply the death penalty at will. The second intent is to lay the groundwork for further political executions by desensitizing the broader population to state-sponsored violence.

Some details on the victim:

Behnoud Shojai, who was due to be hanged today, was just 17 when he stabbed a a boy with a shard of glass three years ago and sentenced to death. But charity Amnesty International say the killing was in self defence after Shojai, now 20, intervened to stop a fight between a friend and another boy and was threatened with a knife. And on Sunday the EU's presidency urged Iran "to immediately halt the execution and of all other juvenile offenders on death row."It's believed that the fundamentalist state has executed at least 28 child offenders since 1990 and that at least 86 are currently on death row.

The Dish's previous coverage of this here.

Conor F. investigates.

Obama’s favorable ratings return to where they were … last election day:

Pareene goes in for the kill. Matt Cooper rubber-necks.

Glenn Beck gets better and better in a weird twisted immensely amusing way. Yes, there are tears!