More Christian love from the jesus freaks of America.  How many of you want to wager that the perpetrators of this crime will try to defend themselves by claiming Marcellus Andrews came on to them?

Now, following this line of defense, how many women would be justified in shooting the millions of sexist bastards that whistle and catcall them every day in this country?

Per Americablog Gay:

The latest this afternoon from the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier:

Officials with the Iowa Medical Examiner’s Office determined Marcellus Andrews, 19, of Waterloo, died of blunt force trauma to his head, police said Tuesday.

No arrests have been made, and officers are still investigating the incident.

Witnesses had told The Courier that people involved in the fight had taunted Andrews with anti-gay slurs, but police said none of the witnesses mentioned the slurs in interviews with detectives.

Police also said that anti-gay sentiment wasn’t behind the assault.

That’s an interesting piece of information from the police. Yesterday, Jeff Reinitz from the Waterloo Cedar-Falls Courier was the first to report this detail, “They ran back and found a truck stopped in the street, and the occupants were taunting Andrews, calling him ‘faggot’ and ‘Mercedes,’ a feminization of his first name, Simpson said.” That lead to speculation we are dealing with an anti-gay hate crime. I hope and expect we’ll hear more from the Waterloo police as to why they think otherwise.

Iowa Independent has more coverage of the vigils being held to honor Marcellus Andrews:

Of the numerous vigils and demonstrations being planned, one is taking place in Cedar Rapids, a community roughly midway between the location of the attack and Andrews’ later death.

“In this time of political knashing and fighting for human rights … I think it’s time that our community says we are not going to stand by and watch this happen ever again … and mainly to stand in solidarity with our community to the north and most of with friends and family of Marcellus,” wrote the organizer of the Cedar Rapids Thursday evening candlelight vigil. The vigil, which will include a few brief statements, is slated for 8:30 to 10 p.m. at the Tree of the Five Seasons, near the 1st Avenue Bridge in downtown Cedar Rapids.

Another Facebook posting by Iowa Gay Advocacy asks for porch lights throughout the state and nation to be left on in memory of Andrews Thursday evening.

A third page devoted to the memory of Andrews holds messages of condolences and shock.

It is a shame for Jeffs that he is not a Catholic, where he’d simply get a transfer or a very pricey and spirited defense, no questions asked, and at no personal financial cost to himself.

It’s also a shame he’s not a Muslim, where you can fuck a nine year old girl and still be declared a virtuous prophet.

Suffice it to say, I’m glad this bastard’s going to prison.

Per CNN:

Warren Jeffs’ nephew and niece testified Saturday during his sentencing phase about the alleged abuse they suffered at his hands.

The polygamist sect leader was convicted this week on two counts of sexual assault on a child.

Brent Jeffs, 28, told jurors that his uncle raped him when he was 5 years old.

“He began to tell me that we were going to do God’s will,” he said Jeffs told him. “This is between me, you and God.”

Three jurors wiped tears from their eyes as Brent spoke, his voice breaking with emotion.

Several also cried during the niece’s testimony, in which she described an incident that allegedly occurred between her and Jeffs when she was 7 years old.

“He made me sit on his lap,” she testified, and did “inappropriate things to me.”

We’re about to get another example of the inequity of justice between the haves and have nots, what with the FBI supposedly investigating the illegal hacking perpetrated by Rupert Murdoch’s cronies.

As much as I’d love to be an optimist, I think we all know that the 42 billion dollar man is not going to take a fall for the criminal enterprise he ran, but these small-time hackers for Anonymous, they’ll have the book thrown at them without so much as a second thought.

Per Alternet:

According to CNN, a federal government official said at least 14 people connected to the activist hacker group ‘Anonymous’ were arrested today in a nationwide bust that stretched from California to New Jersey. Early this morning, the FBI executed search warrants that, according to CNN, federal officials expected to result in at least 15 arrests. 

Strong supporters of Julian Assange, Anonymous has hacked websites for Visa,Mastercard, Church of Scientology, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America. Anonymous has also been linked to cyber attacks at the CIA, Sony, Fox News, and the Arizona Department of Corrections.

We will be seeing much more of this if the debt ceiling talks result in even greater tax breaks, because our country only has so many ways to increase revenue, and our overlords have decided that said revenue may only come from the middle and poor class.

However, in the end, it’s just another broken campaign promise from a man that promised us a better way of doing things.

Per Alternet:

The medical marijuana movement is reeling after the Obama Justice Department released a memo last week declaring that it might prosecute large-scale medical marijuana cultivation operations and dispensaries even in states where they are operating in compliance with state laws. Advocates reacted with dismay and disappointment, even as they plotted strategies about what to do next.

The memo, written by US Deputy Attorney General James Cole, “clarifies” the October 2009 memo from then-Deputy Attorney General David Ogden that told federal prosecutors not to focus their resources on patients and providers in compliance with state laws. The earlier memo gave some substance to President Obama’s campaign promise not to persecute medical marijuana patients and providers in states where it is legal.

But after the 2009 memo, federal officials watched aghast as a veritable medical marijuana cultivation and dispensary boom took off in places such as Colorado and Montana, where dispensaries went from near zero to hundreds of operations, and as localities in California began considering huge commercial grows. The Justice Department responded with increased federal raids — now at twice the rate of the Bush administration, according to Americans for Safe Access, the nation’s largest medical marijuana advocacy organization — and earlier this year, sent threatening letters from US Attorneys to governors and legislators in states considering or implementing medical marijuana distribution programs.

It’s stories like this that make me want to leave this country.  For all of our high-minded ideals, there are too many places in this country where people have no crisis of conscience at the starvation and death of our fellow man, and every election season, we are reminded of the xenophobic hate our country has for people that don’t fit the mold.

And, these same bastards demonize atheists for reminding them of their hypocrisy every December.

Per Alternet:

This headline could be a question in the “Real or Onion?” quiz. It is also heartbreaking and maddening.

Three arrested, accused of illegally feeding homeless

Members of Orlando Food Not Bombs were arrested Wednesday when police said they violated a city ordinance by feeding the homeless in Lake Eola Park….

The group lost a court battle in April, clearing the way for the city to enforce the ordinance. It requires groups to obtain a permit and limits each group to two permits per year for each park within a 2-mile radius of City Hall.

Arrest papers state that Cross, Markeson and McHenry helped feed 40 people Wednesday night. The ordinance applies to feedings of more than 25 people.

They were arrested for providing much-needed food to too many people, too often.

The last time I heard from right-wing fraud and geeky white pimp James O’Keefe, he was he was begging his supporters for a $50,000 bailout. (Like most right wingers, he’s perfectly cool with socialism when it’s his ass on the line.

Given the fact that these bastards eliminated opportunities for low-income communities to receive the services ACORN provided, and millions of voters’ voices were silenced in the process, I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for O’Keefe’s bankruptcy or the fact that his crimes may put him on the hook for another $75,000.

I only wish the judge could take more out of those bastards’ pockets.  It’s the only way to keep lying shills like this from polluting our political system with their garbage.

Via BradBlog:

Rightwing activists and propagandists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, employees of con-artist and propagandist Andrew Breitbart, may not use the First Amendment as an excuse for breaking the law in California, according to a federal judge’s ruling this week.

Judge M. James Lorenz rejected the defendants’ argument and motion for summary judgment in federal court, as part of the civil lawsuit filed against them by former San Diego ACORN worker Juan Carlos Vera.

The following should be emphasized in ANY conversation about ACORN, as wingnuts still falsely claim that ACORN was a criminal organization:

O’Keefe and Giles were sued by Vera last summer, after an investigation by California’s Attorney General found that the pair had likely violated the CA Privacy Act by secretly taping workers at ACORN. The duo were spared criminal charges for violation of the same law after bargaining for immunity in exchange for finally providing law enforcement with the unedited videos of their secretly taped meetings with ACORN employees.

After examining the unedited video tapes, the CA AG echoed all other independent investigations of the tapes published by Breitbart, to determine that they had been “severely edited” to present a false portrait of ACORN and of the meetings with workers there.

The AG found the CA ACORN workers “committed no violation of criminal law”. Previously, a New York District Attorney investigation also found “no criminality” in the “highly edited” video tapes of ACORN workers there.

Let us not forget that just four months ago, Republicans were trying to pass bills that would make the defense of a fetus justifiable homicide.  Actions like this have social and cultural consequences, ergo, making it seem a-okay, perhaps even noble, to attack abortion providers.

We have to hope that the FBI is paying attention this time, and the doctors in question are wearing their kevlar and checking under their cars before they go to work.

Per JSOnline:

A Marshfield man planned on taking a handgun into a Madison Planned Parenthood clinic Thursday “to lay out abortionists because they are killing babies,” according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court.

Ralph Lang, 63, was charged with attempting to injure, intimidate and interfere with persons providing reproductive health services, according to the complaint.

According to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Madison, Lang was arrested at a Motel 6 in Madison Wednesday night after his handgun accidentally discharged as he loaded it. The bullet went through the door and into a room across the hall that was rented but not occupied.

Police were called when Lang told a motel clerk that the gun went off, and he was worried that the bullet might have struck someone.

When an officer asked him why he had the gun, he replied with the statement about shooting abortion providers at the Planned Parenthood clinic.

Lang also said he traveled to Madison last week with the gun but did not shoot anybody because he “was not 100% in sync with God.”