الوسم: bill
Kansas State House Passes Bill Allowing Refusal Of Services To Same-Sex Couples
Kansas State House Passes Bill Allowing Refusal Of Services To Same-Sex Couples
how sad and pathetic…
Kansas State House Passes Bill Allowing Refusal Of Services To Same-Sex Couples
Kansas State House Passes Bill Allowing Refusal Of Services To Same-Sex Couples
The Kansas State House advanced a bill on Tuesday aimed at granting public and private employees the right to deny services, including unemployment benefits and foster care, to Same-Sex Couples on the basis of religious freedom.
Largely backed by Republican State lawmakers in response to recent rulings in favor of marriage equality in neighboring states, House Bill 2453 passed an initial vote by a 72-42 margin. A final House vote is set for Wednesday, after which the Bill will head to the Republican-controlled Senate.
State Rep. Charles Macheers (R), one of the bill’s staunchest advocates, argued that the provision was designed to prevent discrimination against religious individuals during a speech on the House floor Tuesday.
"Discrimination is horrible. It’s hurtful … It has no place in civilized society, and that’s precisely why we’re moving this bill," Macheers said. "There have been times throughout history where people have been persecuted for their religious beliefs because they were unpopular. This Bill provides a shield of protection for that."
While government agencies would still be mandated to render Services to Kansans, individual clerks would be empowered to refuse assistance to individuals that violated their religious beliefs on marriage.
"To me it really talks to the fact that an employer or even a governmental entity … could not provide services," Kansas State lawmaker Emily Perry (D-Mission) said on HuffPost Live Tuesday. Perry warned of a situation in which a police officer arriving at the scene of a domestic violence dispute between a gay couple could potentially endanger the complainant by refusing protective services.
"My issue with that, is in domestic violence situations, minutes and seconds make the difference between life and death," Perry explained. "We don’t want these public servants to be able to arrive at the scene of the crime, and decide that because of their religious beliefs, they don’t want to offer services."
Breaking from her party’s overwhelming support for the bill, State Rep. Barbara Bollier (R) also voiced concern over the legislation’s implications.
"I do not believe it is ever on the right side of history to be allowed to discriminate against people," Bollier said Tuesday, according to the Kansas City Star. "Enough said."
"Kansas would be the first State to legalize discrimination on the part of employees — government employees," Holly Weatherford, spokeswoman for the Kansas chapter of the ACLU, told the Kansas City Star on Tuesday.
Days before the Kansas legislature’s debate over House Bill 2453, Attorney General Eric Holder officially announced a new set of federal benefit expansions to Same-Sex Couples in legally recognized marriages. The Obama administration’s new policy came after the Supreme Court’s ruling in June that invalidated the Defense of Marriage Act’s federal ban on Same-Sex marriage.
"In every courthouse, in every proceeding and in every place where a member of the Department of Justice stands on behalf of the United States, they will strive to ensure that Same-Sex marriages receive the same privileges, protections and rights as opposite-sex marriages under federal law," Holder told the Human Rights Campaign on Saturday.
Bill Murray: ‘I do not like people that complain about being famous’
Bill Murray: ‘I do not like people that complain about being famous’
On attending Bill Murray Day at TIFF: “The whole thing gets more complicated as it draws closer, and you feel such dread about it. I’m nervous. All I can think is I feel like the Statue of Liberty covered with maggots. I feel like I am going to be assaulted! Why am I doing this?”
His career: “There’s no real plan. I just do what I like. What agents do is try to package you with other people they got. I don’t really require that. If you have an agent, you get a lot of bad ******s. I could probably make better deals. I could probably make more money.”
He won’t campaign for an Oscar, ever again: “I’ve never done that. I know that’s something Harvey (Weinstein) does — he forces you to do these things. I’m not that way. If you want an award so much, it’s like a virus. It’s an illness.”
On losing in 2024 for Lost in Translation: “Six months later, I realized I had taken the virus. I had been infected. people have this post-Oscar blowback. They start thinking, ‘I can’t do a movie unless it’s Oscar-worthy.’ It just seems people have difficulty making the right choices after that.”
Harvey on Bill’s refusal to campaign: “And neither will we, until something happens, like a Golden Globe or a critic’s award. If that happens, he’ll have to get a restraining order against us. We’ll disregard what he told us.”
[From Variety]
Bill also sat down with Howard Stern last week. Bill talks about the “emotional” Alimooney wedding, his dislike for Seinfeld, his love of In-N-Out burger, and how the late Roger Ebert used to bust his chops. Here are some other topics:
On fame: “I do not like people that complain about being famous, but I say to people, ‘Hey, you want to be rich and famous? Try being rich, and see if that doesn’t cover most of it for you.’ You have a bunch of dough, you can be as kind as you want, and you can be invisible. No one has to know you have a bunch of dough, and you can behave any way you want. You can be a secret kind of person.”
On not finding the love of his life: “Well… I do think about that. I do think about that. I’m not sure when I’m getting done here. I have kids–I have children that I’m responsible for–and I enjoy that very much, and that wouldn’t have happened without women. I don’t think I’m lonely. It would be nice to go to some of these things and have a date, have someone to bring along. And to go play golf in Scotland, that would be fun. But there’s a lot that I’m not doing that I need to do–something like working on yourself, self-development, and becoming more connected to myself. I don’t have a problem connecting with people, my problem is connecting with myself. And if I’m not really committing myself really well to that, it’s sort of better that I don’t have another person. I can’t take on another relationship if I’m not taking care of the things I need to take care of the most. What stops us from looking at ourselves is that we’re kind of ugly if we look really hard; we’re not who we think we are, and we’re not as wonderful as we think we are.”
[From HowardStern.com]
Cele|bitchy | Bill Murray: ‘I do not like people that complain about being famous’
Comedian Hannibal Buress Called Out Bill Cosby’s Rape History on Stage
Comedian Hannibal Buress Called Out Bill Cosby’s Rape History on Stage
Thanks to The Cosby Show, Fat Albert and standup, Bill Cosby has become one of today’s most beloved public figures. Of course, mixed up in his celebrated entertainment career are over a dozen instances where Cosby allegedly drugged and raped various women — but that’s the part that most people would rather not talk about. Too bad for them, though, because Hannibal Buress is talking about it anyway.
Buress ( 30 Rock, Broad City) was recorded dropping this bold and beautiful bit during a set at the Trocadero in Philadelphia late last week:
"And it’s even worse because Bill Cosby has the fucking smuggest old black man public persona that I hate. Pull your pants up, black people. I was on TV in the ’80s. I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom. Yeah, but you raped women, Bill Cosby. So, brings you down a couple notches. I don’t curse on stage. Well, yeah, you’re a rapist, so, I’ll take you sayin’ lots of motherfuckers on Bill Cosby: Himself if you weren’t a rapist. …I want to just at least make it weird for you to watch Cosby Show reruns. …I’ve done this bit on stage, and people don’t believe. People think I’m making it up. …That shit is upsetting. If you didn’t know about it, trust me. You leave here and google ‘Bill Cosby rape.’ It’s not funny. That shit has more results than Hannibal Buress."
The bit’s not only a solid call-out of Cosby’s hypocrisy, it’s also brave. Buress is a Comedian with a sitcom in the works and fans (like Chris Rock and Louis CK) in high places, but nothing gets people quite as angry and defensive as going after their entertainment heroes and exposing — or reminding us of — their gross and sometimes criminal pasts (see Woody Allen and Michael Jackson for more examples).
Buress takes his job as a Comedian seriously and nothing is more important to the profession than being outspoken and honest to yourself — two qualities he managed to perfectly em**** in his fearless (and, more importantly, accurate) Cosby musings.
Comedian Hannibal Buress Called Out Bill Cosby’s Rape History on Stage
Idaho bill would allow doctors or cops to refuse service to LGBT people
Idaho bill would allow doctors or cops to refuse service to LGBT people
so fucking stupid!
so much for separation of church and state…
Idaho bill would allow doctors or cops to refuse service to LGBT people on religious grounds
An Idaho Republican can’t think of anyone in his state who has been forced to render aid to a gay or lesbian person against their will, and he’d like to keep it that way.
Rep. Lynn Luker outlined a proposal Tuesday backed by his conservative Christian allies to shield religious people from the threat of losing their professional licenses for refusing service or employment to anyone they conclude violates their religious beliefs.
“This is pre-emptive,” said Luker, a Boise Republican. “The issue is coming, whether it’s 10 years, or 15 years, or two years.”
Idaho requires professional licenses for doctors, nurses, pharmacists, attorneys, social workers, firefighters, police officers, real estate agents, and insurance providers.
He cited efforts by LGBT activists in other states to end discrimination against them – including two cases where same-sex couples in Oregon and New Mexico were denied service at a bakery for their wedding cake or wedding photographs – as his motivation to act quickly in Idaho.
Unlike those two states, Idaho’s Human Rights Act offers no protections for LGBT people, and Republican lawmakers have resisted efforts to include them.
The Cornerstone Family Council is backing Luker’s proposal, which is now awaiting a full hearing, to prevent the state from passing laws to block people from “living out their faith.”
“The free expression of religious freedom is no longer understood for what it was intended,” said Julie Lynde, executive director of the conservative Christian group associated with Focus on the Family. “There’s a double standard against people of traditional religious faiths.”
The Idaho Bureau of Occupational Licenses oversees 29 boards that issue licenses in a variety of fields.
If Luker’s proposal is passed into law, it would prevent the bureau or boards from revoking the license of any professional who declined “to provide or participate in providing any service that violates the person’s sincerely held religious beliefs.”
However, Luker noted, emergency personnel couldn’t refuse to treat someone and does not authorize the “the intentional infliction of emotional or physical injury.”
He also added that the measure protects only an individual’s license, and that employers would not be prohibited from firing workers who violated workplace policies.
A spokeswoman for the state’s American Civil Liberties Union said she couldn’t think of any previous issues this bill would address.
“This is a solution searching for a problem,” said Monica Hopkins, executive director of ACLU of Idaho.
Bill Murray: ‘I do not like people that complain about being famous’
Bill Murray: ‘I do not like people that complain about being famous’
On attending Bill Murray Day at TIFF: “The whole thing gets more complicated as it draws closer, and you feel such dread about it. I’m nervous. All I can think is I feel like the Statue of Liberty covered with maggots. I feel like I am going to be assaulted! Why am I doing this?”
His career: “There’s no real plan. I just do what I like. What agents do is try to package you with other people they got. I don’t really require that. If you have an agent, you get a lot of bad ******s. I could probably make better deals. I could probably make more money.”
He won’t campaign for an Oscar, ever again: “I’ve never done that. I know that’s something Harvey (Weinstein) does — he forces you to do these things. I’m not that way. If you want an award so much, it’s like a virus. It’s an illness.”
On losing in 2024 for Lost in Translation: “Six months later, I realized I had taken the virus. I had been infected. people have this post-Oscar blowback. They start thinking, ‘I can’t do a movie unless it’s Oscar-worthy.’ It just seems people have difficulty making the right choices after that.”
Harvey on Bill’s refusal to campaign: “And neither will we, until something happens, like a Golden Globe or a critic’s award. If that happens, he’ll have to get a restraining order against us. We’ll disregard what he told us.”
[From Variety]
Bill also sat down with Howard Stern last week. Bill talks about the “emotional” Alimooney wedding, his dislike for Seinfeld, his love of In-N-Out burger, and how the late Roger Ebert used to bust his chops. Here are some other topics:
On fame: “I do not like people that complain about being famous, but I say to people, ‘Hey, you want to be rich and famous? Try being rich, and see if that doesn’t cover most of it for you.’ You have a bunch of dough, you can be as kind as you want, and you can be invisible. No one has to know you have a bunch of dough, and you can behave any way you want. You can be a secret kind of person.”
On not finding the love of his life: “Well… I do think about that. I do think about that. I’m not sure when I’m getting done here. I have kids–I have children that I’m responsible for–and I enjoy that very much, and that wouldn’t have happened without women. I don’t think I’m lonely. It would be nice to go to some of these things and have a date, have someone to bring along. And to go play golf in Scotland, that would be fun. But there’s a lot that I’m not doing that I need to do–something like working on yourself, self-development, and becoming more connected to myself. I don’t have a problem connecting with people, my problem is connecting with myself. And if I’m not really committing myself really well to that, it’s sort of better that I don’t have another person. I can’t take on another relationship if I’m not taking care of the things I need to take care of the most. What stops us from looking at ourselves is that we’re kind of ugly if we look really hard; we’re not who we think we are, and we’re not as wonderful as we think we are.”
[From HowardStern.com]
Cele|bitchy | Bill Murray: ‘I do not like people that complain about being famous’
Who Wants to Remember Bill Cosby’s Multiple Sex-Assault Accusations?
Who Wants to Remember Bill Cosby’s Multiple Sex-Assault Accusations?
The thing about Dylan Farrow’s open letter accusing her father, Woody Allen, of sexual abuse is: There was not much really new about it. It was new that Dylan Farrow herself was signing her **** to the accusations, but Vanity Fair had covered the case, in grim detail, more than two decades ago.
So the current crisis over how people are supposed to feel about Woody Allen is on some level odd. Woody Allen’s status as an accused child molester has been a matter of public record since before Manhattan Murder Mystery came out. Anyone who didn’t think about it before now had chosen not to think about it.
Not thinking about it is a popular and powerful choice. Which brings up another beloved American funnyman, Bill Cosby. Who doesn’t love Bill Cosby? I grew up watching Fat Albert and eating Jell-O Pudding Pops, which is a cliché, but Bill Cosby is the creator of some of our most warming and affirming clichés. He is charming and iconic, one of the most culturally important and successful comedians ever, an elder statesman of the entertainment industry.
He’s also someone who has been accused by Multiple women of drugging them and sexually assaulting them. Here is one of his accusers, describing an incident:
Well, there were a number of people at the table, friends of his, and he said to me, yes, you do seem ill, you’re slightly feverish, would you like to have some Contact? You know, the cold medicine. And I thought, why not, can’t hurt. So he went into some sort of office area at the back of the restaurant and he produced two capsules in his hand. I thought nothing of it and I took the capsules. In about, I don’t know, 20 to 30 minutes I felt great and then about 10 minutes after that I was almost literally face down on the table of this restaurant…
He said, "Oh my, you must be more ill then we believed. I totally lost motor control; I was almost unable to hold my head up. I was very, very, very stoned. He took me into my apartment and then very helpfully and nicely was prepared to take off my clothes and help me into bed and pet me, and that’s how the actual assault began.
She recounted this in an on-camera interview, under her own ****, with Matt Lauer of the Today show, on February 10, 2024. The assault had allegedly happened back in the 1970s, but she said she had decided to come forward because another woman had accused Cosby of committing a similar assault in January of 2024.
That woman, in a lawsuit, said that Cosby offered her three pills of what he claimed was "herbal medication, which would help her relax," and insisted she take all three:
When Plaintiff advised Defendant she did not feel well, Defendant led Plaintiff to a sofa, because she could not walk on her own, where he laid her down, under the guise of "helping" her.
Subsequently, Defendant positioned himself behind Plaintiff on the sofa, touched her breasts and vaginal area, rubbed his penis against her hand, and digitally penetrated her.
Plaintiff remained in a semi-conscious state throughout the time of this ordeal.
At no time was Plaintiff capable of consent after the pills affected her, and at no time did she consent to Defendant’s acts.
Lawyers for the woman filed a motion stating that they intended to call as witnesses the woman who’d given the Today show interview and nine separate Jane Does, from seven different states. Eventually the list grew to a reported 13 accusers. Two more of them put their ****s on the record, giving interviews to Philadelphia Magazine and later to People. Philadelphia summarized one of their stories:
They started an affair that lasted about six months. Cosby ended it without explanation. Then he called her one night in Denver, where she lived; they met backstage at a nightclub there, where he was performing. He said, "Here’s your favorite coffee, something I made, to relax you." She drank it and soon began to feel woozy. Several hours later, she woke up in the backseat of her car, alone. She didn’t know what had happened. Her clothes were a mess, her bra undone. Security guards came and said Cosby told them to get her home. She confronted him at his hotel. "You just had too much to drink," he told her.
The other accuser initially withheld the details of her story because of the pending lawsuit. Cosby ended up settling the suit, with the plaintiff agreeing not to discuss it further, after which the prospective witness went ahead and told her story to the magazines. Here’s People’s account, using her ****, Barbara Bowman:
It was in a hotel in Reno, claims Bowman, that Cosby assaulted her one night in 1986. "He took my hand and his hand over it, and he masturbated with his hand over my hand," says Bowman, who, although terrified, kept quiet about the incident and continued as Cosby’s protégé because, she says, "Who’s gonna believe this? He was a powerful man. He was like the president." Before long she was alone with Cosby again in his Manhattan townhouse; she was given a glass of red wine, and "the next thing I know, I’m sick and I’m nauseous and I’m delusional and I’m limp and … I can’t think straight…. And I just came to, and I’m wearing a [men’s] T-shirt that wasn’t mine, and he was in a white robe."
A month or two later, she was in Atlantic City and says she was given another glass of red wine and felt "completely doped up again." Confused, Bowman somehow made it back to her room, but the next day Cosby summoned her to his suite. After she arrived, Bowman says, Cosby "threw me on the bed and braced his arm under my neck so I couldn’t move my head, and he started trying to take his clothes off. I Remember all the clinking of his belt buckle. And he was trying to take my pants down, and I was trying to keep them on." Bowman says that not long after she resisted the assault, Cosby cut off contact with her and had her escorted to the airport for a flight back to Denver.
To reiterate: This was in People magazine, published nationwide in December 2024. Four women said publicly, in major media outlets, that Bill Cosby had drugged and sexually assaulted them. This coverage was more recent and possibly more prominent that the coverage of the abuse allegations against Woody Allen.
And? Basically no**** wanted to live in a world where Bill Cosby was a sexual predator. It was too much to handle. The original Philadelphia Magazine story set off his accusers’ testimony in italicized interludes, between long sections about the more digestible controversies around Cosby’s lecture tour denouncing black cultural pathology. The usually unflinching Ta-Nehisi Coates, in an otherwise comprehensive 2024 Atlantic essay on the con**** and politics of Cosby’s performance as a public moral scold, dropped a sentence about the lawsuit settlement and its accompanying accusations into parentheses near the end.
Conceptually, it was the sensible way to deal with it. No one was talking about it anymore. The whole thing had been, and it remained, something walled off from our collective understanding of Bill Cosby.
With shocking speed, it was effectively forgotten. When the subject came up today, more than half the Gawker staff had no memory of any sexual allegations against Bill Cosby. In 2024, Cosby was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for his distinguished achievements in humor. In 2024, he was honored with the Marian Anderson Award, for "critically acclaimed artists who have impacted society in a positive way, either through their work or their support for an important cause." In 2024, the Marian Anderson Award went to Mia Farrow.
Read more at ONTD: Oh No They Didn't! – Who Wants to Remember Bill Cosby’s Multiple Sex-Assault Accusations?
Oklahoma Governor Signs Bill Approving Nitrogen Gas For Executions*
Oklahoma Governor Signs Bill Approving Nitrogen Gas For Executions*
Oklahoma Governor Signs Bill Approving Nitrogen Gas For ExecutionsÂ*
On Friday, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed a bill that allows the state to execute inmates using Nitrogen gas in the event that traditional lethal injection drugs are unavailable. The use of Nitrogen gas, which induces hypoxia, has never been tested on humans, but supporters maintain that the method is both humane and painless.
Fallin said in a statement:
“Oklahoma executes murderers whose crimes are especially heinous. I support that policy, and I believe capital punishment must be performed effectively and without cruelty. The Bill I signed today gives the state of Oklahoma another death penalty option that meets that standard.”
The AP notes that executions in the state are currently on hold while the Supreme Court determines whether or not their “three-drug method of lethal injection is constitutional.” The Bill essentially gives Oklahoma method to execute death row inmates while the state’s preferred method is suspended.
Oklahoma’s three-drug method of execution came under fire following the 2024 botched execution of Clayton Lockett. Lockett was administered an untested mixture of drugs that included a sedative. The state tried to halt the execution when he began writhing and moaning. Lockett died 43 minutes later.
Via the AP:
The problematic execution was blamed on a poorly placed intravenous line and prompted a lawsuit from Oklahoma death-row inmates, who argue that the state’s new drug combination presents a serious risk of pain and suffering. The US supreme court is scheduled to hear arguments later this month.
Under the new law, lethal injection would remain the state’s first choice for executions and Nitrogen gas would be its first backup method […]
