Well, the more appropriate question is “Do Killer Whales enjoy the same legal rights in the US judicial system as humans?” I suppose it could be granulated even further. However one phrases it, we may get the answer before too long. A federal court in California is going to decide the question in the context of a lawsuit brought by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.) It has to be said that taking the legal route is one of PETA’s milder strategies. The lawsuit is attempting to prove that Sea World’s holding of five killer whales in captivity (at two different parks) constitutes slavery. My, what of rats’ nest of interesting questions immediately pops up.

To take the most curmudgeonly one first, if Killer Whales have legal rights comparable to those of humans (or at least natural born US citizens), do they have legal responsibilities as well—and can Tilikum thus be prosecuted for murder or manslaughter for the death of Sea World trainer Dawn Brancheau? Or will his plea be self-defense? Full story »

As if we needed still more evidence that financial authority over national political campaigns is increasingly wielded by fewer and fewer really rich people, consider this exhibit:

Super PACs raised about $181 million in the last two years — with roughly half of it coming from fewer than 200 super-rich people.

That’s the news from a study called “Auctioning Democracy” jointly conducted by Demos, an organization that says it practices “advocacy to influence public debate and catalyze change,” and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Both groups seek to strengthen, if not compel full disclosure and expenditure rules.

Super PACs’ power stemmed from the U.S. Supreme Court’s July 2010 SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission decision. The Court’s Citizen United decision further strengthened corporations’ claim to personhood and weakened the requirement for full disclosure of donations to super PACs.

Politico’s Ken Vogel and Abby Phillip’s analysis of the study noted that

A relatively few wealthy backers are keeping super PACs afloat — and they’re saying so. Last year alone, individuals gave super PACs $63 million.

The news only worsens.
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Corporate sponsorship is important for a great many of America’s non-profits, and that’s certainly true of the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Of course, any time you strike an alliance with another entity, you can’t help assuming some of their risk. Your partner jumps the tracks, all of a sudden people are looking at you even though you didn’t do anything wrong.

I tend to believe that Komen’s sponsors had nothing but the best intentions in donating their time and money to supporting a worthy cause. However, I also can’t help noticing that I haven’t heard a peep out of any of them regarding the foundation’s appalling decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood, an entity that doesn’t harness its public health mission to partisan prerequisites. Full story »

The Komen Foundation VP at the center of the Planned Parenthood firestorm, Karen Handel, has resigned.

A few days ago I predicted on Facebook that she’d be gone within a week, but  then retracted the prediction when I learned more about the heavy-Right political leanings of the rest of the board (and the involvement of Ari Fleischer in their strategy development).

On Friday, just before America took its collective brain offline for Super Bowl Weekend, Komen offered up a fake apology that encouraged the public to believe that it had changed its mind and was going to continue funding Planned Parenthood after all, even though its release actually said nothing of the sort. It isn’t clear how many average citizens the ploy fooled, but as I explained on Saturday, it sure as hell clowned the copy desk editors of just about every major news outlet in the country. Full story »

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the official beginning of the reign of Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, otherwise known as Queen Elizabeth II—the day she ascended to the throne of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It was exactly 60 years ago that her father, King George VI, died. The Princess (as she was at the time) was in Kenya with her husband, Prince Philip, on their way to Australia. She’s been at this for 60 years, nearly as long as I’ve been alive. This is not quite as long as Queen Victoria’s reign, which was 63 years and seven month—but at this rate, Elizabeth looks likely to pass her. Her mother lived to be 101, after all. I have this vague childhood memory of her coronation, which actually took place in 1953—the first time a coronation was televised. Actually the last time, too, since she’s been here ever since.
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by Robert S. Becker

If he wins, risk-averse, calculating Mitt Romney won’t name a firebrand V.P. Not noxious Newt, who’s way too grandiose to play second fiddle to anyone. Thus, short of a Black Swan event, we can expect two safe national tickets, thus reversing the election pyrotechnics the last time around, with its high drama and gaseous eruptions.

Too bad for media frenzy, late-night comics, or pundits amused by theatrics — who all relish barking-mad, headline-grabbing mavericks. On pre-emptive invasions alone, will the two top dogs compete with the bellicose tirades spewing from Bush, Cheney or McCain, let alone Perry or Bachmann? Full story »

When you come down to it, we’re surrounded by morons and fools, many of whom are our leaders–political, cultural, media, whatever. Opening a newspaper or turning on the television in modern America often is like diving into an oil spill. So it’s time once again to remind ourselves of their transgressions, which we have the Buffalo Beast to do for us, so we don’t have to waste time trying to keep track ourselves. Once again, here is their annual list of the 50 Most Loathsome Americans in 2011. It’s got Megyn Kelly (pictured, number 45) on it, and all the Repubican presidential candidates, and Rupert Murdoch is way up there at number 2, bless his heart. And The Donald, of course.

Yesterday I attempted to shed a little light on the PR crisis strategy behind the Komen Foundation’s sudden Planned Parenthood “backtracking.”

Contrary to what Komen’s highly-paid PR crisis hacks and gullible headline writers at newsdesks around the nation would ask you to believe, The Susan G. Komen Foundation does NOT promise to fund Planned Parenthood in the future. They promise to let PP APPLY for grants in the future. Applying and receiving are different things, as anyone who ever applied and got rejected for a job ought to know. Full story »

Read. The language. Closely.

Contrary to what Komen’s highly-paid PR crisis hacks and gullible headline writers at newsdesks around the nation would ask you to believe, The Susan G. Komen Foundation does NOT promise to fund Planned Parenthood in the future. They promise to let PP APPLY for grants in the future. Applying and receiving are different things, as anyone who ever applied and got rejected for a job ought to know. Full story »

During their 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama and John McCain both claimed the support of the people, citing evidence of small donors who gave to their campaigns. Both used that as a claim to be the true inheritors of the populist mantle.

We were so naive back then about purchasing power financing campaigns. How times have changed despite the continuing fiction of claims by candidates of “popular” support. Our small $201 checks no longer matter. Other people write bigger checks. Corporations can write indescribably large checks.

A report from the Campaign Finance Institute following the 2008 election refuted their claims. Looking at small donors (at least $201), mid-range donors ($201-$999) and large donors ($1,000 and up), the CFI concluded that nearly half of the 450 million donations to President Obama’s campaign committee came from the $1,000-and-up donors.

Both Obama’s and McCain’s campaign made use of bundlers (fundraisers who package checks from other donors), a practice perfected by President George W. Bush. Each raised tens of millions of dollars through the bundled checks of large donors.

Well, presidential candidates are populists no more. Super PACs, organizations freed by the Supreme Court to raise unlimited amounts of money for electioneering communications, have killed that lingering civics-class fantasy.
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One of the many factual errors, misunderstandings, and misleading claims (I counted at least six) in a Wall Street Journal commentary denying human-caused climate disruption was that only four of the 16 co-signers had published on climate science, and only one has published anything significant on the topic recently. Many of the others were not even scientists (including celebrity aerospace engineer Burt Rutan), but rather engineers or physicians who were misidentified as scientists by the Journal‘s editorial page editor.

Today, the Journal published a response by 38 climate scientists to the commentary as a letter to the editor. This continues a pattern at the Journal of refusing to grant equal space and prominence to refutations of factually deficient commentaries. Full story »

Actress and lesbian Cynthia Nixon has caused a firestorm in the gayosphere by saying that for her, sexual orientation was a choice.

Obviously, this view undermines the arguments of gay political orthodoxy, and gives the right wingnuts who run “gay rehabilitation prayer camps” support that they were right all along–”See Harold, I told you he was just doing it to be ornery.”  Of course, the truth is  probably like most things: The truth is somewhere in between. It may be for her, but it isn’t for most gay people.

At any rate, this becomes pretty scary when coupled with another news item from the week, news that conservatives are conservative because they are stupid. Full story »

by Marti Smith

“If all we feel is outrage, then we have not found a remedy.”- Jim Geringer, Governor, State of Wyoming, following Matthew Shepard’s death

Since I was a young girl and old enough to understand who I was, I have known discrimination. It hardens your heart and dampens your soul until you conquer the fear. Some don’t make it and commit suicide. To have the media, family, co-workers and friends tell jokes and make hurtful remarks is the life of a GLBT person. Unless you are a person of color, you likely don’t know what it is like to live a life of separation. As a GLBT person you are not allowed to do basic things like date, or attend the prom. You can’t hold hands or show affection in public for fear of retribution, or get relationship advice, or bring your boyfriend or girlfriend home to meet the parents. If you do, then you risk abandonment, ridicule, or even physical harm. There are churches who condemn us, and even reject us from attending. We are made to seem sub-human, and even demonic. You can’t experience the life you were born to live….freedom to choose, freedom to live, freedom to marry.

I had to leave a job I loved in my early career for fear of being found out. Full story »

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I’m in my second term in the U.S. House of Representatives. I’m a Republocrat. I like the job. It pays $174,000, has great medical benefits, provides a really nice private gym to use, and lots of people have to be nice to me. And there are those $110,000 in taxpayer-funded fringe benefits I get (including plush retirement plans, paid time off, and contributions to Social Security and Medicare taxes). I’ve got a staff to answer the phone and email, run my Twitter and Facebook stuff, and deal with those damned constituents. And I’m in a relatively safe district, thanks to that Republocrat-friendly redistricting bill passed in my state last year. Hey, sometimes people let me use their corporate jets! (Well, as long as I keep quiet about those trips and pay commercial airfare for it.)

Yeah. This is a sweet gig. I want to stay here. In fact, I want to … move up. Be in the leadership. Be a mover and shaker. Now how am I gonna do that beyond kissing the speaker’s ass (and those of his damn deputies, too) and voting however he (or she) tells me to?

It will take money for that Republocrat to ascend higher in the House’s toadying ladder of leadership. Lots of money. And as we know, House members (and senators) have a vehicle to collect and dispense money to other House members — the leadership political action committee. A principal reason for the existence of leadership PACs to is buy friends and influence on Capitol Hill. Apparently, hard work and intelligence are insufficient.
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Nope.

I predicted Romney to win and I am sticking to it. Let the kids at the Tea Party sleepover have their fun, sooner or later the grown ups are going to come upstairs, turn off the music, make everyone get back into bed and cut out the lights, just like they always do. Post-Eisenhower, the Republican Party has worked on the principle that the great unwashed should just shut up and do what their betters tell them to do. And when push comes to shove, they will.

So what do the results really tell us?

Three things, I think.

First, the average IQ of any large group of randomly selected people should be a hundred, but it may be quite a bit lower than that in South Carolina. Full story »

New trouble is brewing at Penn State, though the school is operating within the state’s Right to Know law. ABC News has reported that the five current and former Penn State employees enmeshed in the Sandusky abuse scandal are all still on the school’s payroll.

The five are fired football coach Joe Paterno, former president Graham Spanier (who remains a tenured faculty member, as does Paterno), assistant coach Mike McQueary (who is on paid leave), former vice president for finance Gary Schultz (who resigned), and former athletic director Tim Curley (who is also on leave). The latter two are facing criminal charges of perjury and failure to report alleged sexual abuse. Penn State is reportedly paying for their legal defense, as well. Full story »

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