Bobservations

I am, generally speaking, a positive person, and try not to dwell on the negative and hateful, unless it’s the _____’s or Michael Elizabeth Pence. But, where Carlos is concerned, my mind always goes there when things don’t happen as planned.

Back when Carlos used to drive, and he worked in Columbia, about forty minutes from our house, he’d call at 5PM to say he was on his way home.it was usually a forty-minute drive, maybe forty-five, but if the clock stretched to an hour and he wasn’t home, my mind went to ‘Car Wreck.’ If it stretched out to an hour-and-fifteen minutes and he wasn’t home, my mind went to ‘Lying Dead In The Street.’

I only tell this story because while I was at work one morning this week, helping a client, a co-worker motioned to me that I had a phone call, and mouthed the word, ‘Carlos.’ As I went to the phone another co-worker apologized to me, saying, “I meant to tell you, he called earlier.”

I picked up the phone:

“Hello.”

There was noise on my end and noise on his, but I heard this:

“I’m at the hospital  phumpher-phumph-phumpity-phump.”

My mind began to run to, what I needed to pass off to co-workers, where was my boss, so I could get to the hospital; but first I said:

“I can’t hear you.”

“I said …I’m at the hospital  phumpher-phumph-phumpity-phump.”

He’s having a heart attack, a stroke, a seizure, and the last words he’ll ever say to me are:

“Phumpher-phumph-phumpity-phump.”

I nearly shout:

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

“I’m doing a translation at the hospital and have no reception on my phone if you’re trying to reach me.”

Um, I wasn’t trying to reach him, and I wasn’t planning on trying to reach him, and now I’m crawling back from the edge of Carlos Is Dead, to say:

“Next time, lead with ‘I’m doing a translation’ so my mind doesn’t go straight to death!”

He laughed; I didn’t.

I missed it, but during the Grammy telecast a few weeks ago, there was a new ad for Gay Haterz, Chick-fil-A, that featured the Jefferson Starship‘s 1986 hit “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.” Had I heard it, I would have been shocked because Starship, and it’s precursor Jefferson Airplane, were one of the bands of choice during the free-loving, psychedelic San Francisco music scene during the 60’s and early seventies, and I figured they would be the last band to allow their music to be used to fund hate. And I was right, because Starship singer Grace Slick explained the “sellout” allegations from fans with this:

“Chick-fil-A pisses me off. [They have] a well-documented history of funding organizations, through their philanthropic foundation WinShape, that are against gay marriage. In interviews, CEO Dan T. Cathy has critiqued gay-rights supporters who ‘have the audacity to define marriage’ and said they are bringing ‘God’s judgment” upon the nation.’ I firmly believe that men should be able to marry men, and women women. I am passionately against anyone who would try to suppress this basic human right. So my first thought when ‘Check’-fil-A came to me was, ‘F**k no!’”

But then Slick devised a plan that would  help the cause rather than merely showing her ceremonial support by declining Chick-fil-A’s  offer:

“I am donating every dime that I make from that ad to Lambda Legal, the largest national legal organization working to advance the civil rights of LGBTQ people, and everyone living with HIV. Admittedly, it’s not the millions that WinShape has given to organizations that define marriage as heterosexual. But instead of them replacing my song with someone else’s and losing this opportunity to strike back at anti-LGBTQ forces, I decided to spend the cash in direct opposition to ‘Check’-fil-A’s causes—and to make a public example of them, too. We’re going to take some of their money, and pay it back.”

Thanks, Grace, for standing with us and giving Chick-fil-A money to The Gays. I’m sure they love the idea!

Last week, the United Methodist Church Worldwide Conference voted to ban same-sex marriage and openly gay clergy in their churches.

This week, the Open Table Methodist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, is saying Oh Hell no:

"I was just broken. I felt almost sick inside because I knew that for so many of our LGBTQ friends this was yet another voice, another church saying that we close our doors. [So] let us not rest until all people can be welcome to worship God in any space that they choose. That is what we will fight for.”— Reverend Jason Butler 

Butler says no law is higher than the law of love and his church will fight until this new ruling is reversed.

Before same-sex marriage was legal anywhere, Richard John “Jack” Baker and Michael McConnell got married in Minnesota … in 1971! I posted their story HERE.

Baker and McConnell applied for a marriage license in Hennepin County, Minnesota in 1970 and were denied; and although the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the county’s refusal, Baker and McConnell applied to be married in another county, Blue Earth, and were approved because the county clerk didn’t realize it was a same-sex marriage. Baker had changed his legal name to the gender neutral “Pat Lyn,” to get their marriage certificate, and after one Methodist pastor backed out of the ceremony, another, Roger Lynn, agreed to marry the two men who have been together ever since.

In 2019 the Social Security Administration has recognized that the 1971 marriage as legal.

Ain’t love grand, and ain’t same-sex marriage, too?

I love the hypocrisy of Draco Malfoy, er, former South Carolina GOP Congressman Trey Gowdy, the man who led an 11-hour public congressional hearing on the Benghazi consulate attack, saying now—now that the Democrats are in charge and are investigating the Criminal-In-Chief—that he believes such hearings are “utterly useless”.

Fuck off, Gowdy, you pandering, goose-stepping traitorous hack.

Well, maybe it’s a beautiful Rainbow flag day in the neighborhood, because according to a recent biography Fred Rogers, of the PBS children’s show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, was bisexual. In the book, Rogers was asked by an interviewer if he was gay and he said:

“I’m not gay, but I suppose if you look at attraction as a kind of line…I would probably be somewhere in the middle.”

So, apparently Mister Rogers liked all of his neighbors?

There’s a new show, The Enemy Within, starring Jennifer Carpenter, and I just had to watch it because she also played Dexter’s sister. I know, that makes no sense, but there you have it.

Carpenter plays Erica Shepherd, one of the CIA's most brilliant operatives until she became one of the greatest traitors in American history by giving a terrorist the names of three other operatives. She is serving a life sentence in a Supermax prison but is recruited to help find the terrorist she helped.

Anyway, you know it’s about the men, like Morris Chestnut, who plays FBI agent Will Keaton … and former male model turned actor, Noah Mills, who plays fellow agent Jason Bragg … along with Raza Jeffery who plays Daniel Zain.

A triple dose of Man Candy and Dexter’s sister? I’m in …

Bobservations

Jason Katims, right, the co-creator of Rise, a new show on NBC this March, changed the sexual orientation of the main character in order to connect with the story.

Cuz, you know, connecting with gay people is so hard to do.

Katims adapted the true story of an openly gay high school drama teacher, Lou Volpe, who put on a production of Spring Awakening, but Katims decided to depict the teacher as heterosexual because, as he says, it makes it easier for him “to connect with the story.”

Oh, but never fear, there are some minor gay characters and storylines, you know, the “less than” kind, and Katims has given the no longer gay teacher a “son with a drinking problem” to better connect with audiences.

So, um, I guess having an underaged alcoholic is more acceptable than a gay lead character?

Pass.

Asshatted South Carolina Republican Congressman, Trey Gowdy, is stepping down from his role on the House Ethics Committee because of, ahem a “challenging workload.”

Gowdy faced criticism last year after it was revealed that he used $150,000 in taxpayer dollars to settle a dispute with a former aide, who had accused him of firing him after the man refused to focus his work on investigating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Ethics. Gowdy has none.

And while searching for a photo of him for this piece, I realized he doesn’t have a stylist because gurl really needs help with her hair.

In High-larious news, the _____ brand is getting hit hard after the Fat Bastard’s shithole comments about Africa, Haiti, and El Salvador.

_____ hotels across the country are being targeted by Yelp users leaving one–star reviews and describing the facilities as shitholes.

In fact, these new shithole reviews caused the _____ International Hotel in Washington, DC, to temporarily drop to a two–star rating, down from its average of four stars. One David K. from San Antonio said:

“A real shithole. Owned by a malignant racist. Pee on the sheets. KKK in the lobby. Russians all over the place. Sad! Steaks over cooked with ketchup. Bibles in the rooms are missing lots of commandments. Mini-bar only has diet coke and Big Macs. Fourth rate shithole.”

Like I said, high-larious … especially when you add it that artists around the world are using lights to project the word “shithole” onto facades of _____ hotels.

Loving it!

In good news … the chances of _____ facing impeachment are going up with the idea that the Democrats will take back the House this year.

A House Democratic takeover is now highly likely. It would take a flip of just 24 seats for Democrats to take over, and the average loss for the president’s party in his first midterm is about 32 seats; but rumor has it the GOP could lose upwards of 40 seats.

But, and pay attention, this won’t happen unless you register and vote, and get your friends to register and vote.

Send the Fat Bastard packing.

In Stupid News … Paul Ryan—see what I did there—stood on his tippy-toes to announce that in just 20 days, Americans have seen more than 2 million workers getting raises and bonuses.

He forgot to mention that in 20 days, many corporations announced layoffs of employees:

Carrier fired 215 workers

Walmart laid off more than 3,000 workers

Sam’s closed 63 stores, laying off 9,000 people GE laid off 12,00

AT&T 1,300 workers

Tenet Healthcare 2,000 employees laid off

Pfizer 300

Wells Fargo will close 800 branches by 2020

Lyin’ Paul Ryan forgot to mention that.

In more Stupid News … when racist white supremacists Joe Arpaio accepted a pardon from _____ after his conviction for violating a court order, he didn’t realize that by accepting the pardon meant that he admitted the wrongdoing, because, why accept a pardon over something you didn’t do?

When MSNBC’s Ari Melber broke the news to Arpaio, who recently announced his candidacy for United States Senate, Arpaio insisted he did nothing wrong, only for Melber to inform him that he’s already said otherwise.

Asshat.

Last week figure skater Adam Rippon because the first openly gay male athlete to qualify for the Winter Olympics, but now another out gay man is joining him, though he’s competing for Canada.

Eric Radford—who publicly came out in 2014—says he was teased mercilessly as a child, not only because figure skating was considered “gay” but because he had a lisp. Still, he says that being gay in figure skating pairs had its advantages:

 “A lot of pairs end up dating one another. It can become risky because your on-ice training can be affected by your off-ice relationship. If you have a fight at home, it makes that training difficult. I used to joke around that I’m the ultimate pair-boy. I never had to worry about developing an off-ice relationship.”

Radford and his boyfriend had been together four years, are raising a daughter together and now they’re engaged.

Congrats on all fronts!

More Shithole News … a Zambia tourism website appears to have been inspired by _____’s racism and has launched that ad inviting tourists to:

"Visit shithole Zambia ... Where the only stars and stripes you'll have to see are in the sky and on a zebra." 

Suh-nap!

Okay … Hot men.

We had a trifecta of them when we watched The Girl on the Train, a murder mystery that was not so mysterious as I figured out the ending about a third of the way through.

Yet that did not keep me from enjoying the sights of Luke Evans, and his beautiful rear-end—and it doesn’t hurt that Evans is openly gay—along with the always steamy Justin Theroux and new crush Edgar Ramirez. There were women in the movie, too, I mean, the girl on the train, but it was these three that captured my attention.

Just sayin’

The Funny Papers

John Cole, Randy Bish, Clay Bennett, Darrin Bell, Mike Lucovich, Adan Zyglis, Bill Day

Who Do I Hafta F**k To Get A Decent Politician For South Carolina? Part Five: Congressman Trey Gowdy

Down here in South Carolina, where it not the heat, it’s the stupidity, we have had our share of asshatted politicians, like, well, y’all remember Congressman Joe Wilson? He’s the guy who shouted “You lie” when President Obama spoke about health care reform during a State of the Union address.

But we’ve had Governor Mark Sanford who actually disappeared from the state for several days and we were told he was “hiking the Appalachian Trail” when all that really meant was he was schtupping his mistress in South America.

South Carolina. South America. Perhaps he was just confused.

Of course, Sanford was replaced as governor by Nikki Haley who faced her own cheating scandal during her first run at the Governor’s Mansion, and we also endured the wingnuttiness of Senator Jim DeMint, a Tea Party darling a la Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, and Christine O’Donnell.

And the queen — no pun intended, maybe — of all our wingnuts here in South Carolina is Senator Lindsey Graham, who is still trying, after seven other unsuccessful attempts, to blame Obama for the attacks on the embassy in Benghazi even though he sat on his hands and said and did nothing during all of embassy attacks that occurred under George W. Bush.

Yeah, not the heat, the stupidity and then came this ….

Last week Congressman Trey Gowdy, the Republican, of course, from South Carolina, of course, who leading the House Select Committee on Benghazi, warned his colleagues not to use this issue as a fundraising ploy while actually using the issue as a money-raising tool.

Well, of course, it was an attack, and people died, why use that to raise money? Except …

But right before he asked Republicans to not use the attacks to make a little extra cash for their campaign chests, the National Republican Congressional Committee [NRCC] sent out a fundraising email featuring Trey Gowdy and his committee as the hook:

“You’re now a Benghazi Watchdog. Let’s go after Obama and Hillary Clinton.”

And then it asks for money.

Later on, when his own hypocrisy came to light, Gowdy said the NRCC should stop the campaign, though it has not. But this is apparently nothing new, because Gowdy has raised money on the backs of those dead Americans before, so, yeah, his Please stop doesn’t seem genuine.

Last September, Gowdy attended a “barbecue fundraiser” for Congressman Mick Mulvaney, another South Carolina Republican, and spoke at length about Benghazi to those in attendance. he talked about the “phony scandals” — a phrase used by the Obama Administration — involving the IRS and NSA, but then, referring to the scandal surrounding the murders of four Americans in Benghazi, Gowdy said this is not the case:

“It is a scandal. But it is not a phony scandal. … There is nothing phony about (citizens) not trusting the people they put in positions of leadership.”

Ka-ching went the Mulvaney coffers.

And a few weeks later, Trey spoke at a campaign fundraising event for Lindsey Graham — the ringleader of Benghazi conspiracy theories — where he praised Graham on Benghazi:

“There is no one in Congress who has done more on the issue of Benghazi than your senior senator.”

Ka-ching went the Graham coffers.

Trey Gowdy also praised Utah GOP wingnut Congressman, Jason Chaffetz, saying he has done more than anyone else in the House to hold Obama accountable on Benghazi at a private fundraiser for Chaffetz.

So, Trey Gowdy, pot, kettle, black. And when this latest investigation into Benghazi, and any attempt to blame the whole thing on Obama and/or Hillary Clinton, come up empty again I wonder how long it will take before Trey Gowdy and his ilk use the deaths of Americans as a fundraising issue all while decrying the very idea.

Seriously, who do I hafta f…….

source