Tweak to NC law protected Duke’s coal ash pits
Cantor: House Committees Must ‘Punish’ Russia
Did Social Security Cost Democrats a Seat In Florida?
TOPEKA, Kan. — Anti-gay extremist Fred Phelps, founder of the Westboro Baptist Church and the “Gods Hate Fags” fundamentalist movement, is near death in a local hospice, according to a Facebook post Saturday night by his son Nathan Phelps. UPDATE: AND…HE’S DEAD!
The younger Phelps, who left the church and his family’s compound in 1976 when he was 18-years-old, writes:
“I’ve learned that my father, Fred Phelps, Sr., pastor of the “God Hates Fags” Westboro Baptist Church, was ex-communicated from the “church” back in August of 2013. He is now on the edge of death at Midland Hospice house in Topeka, Kansas.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. Terribly ironic that his devotion to his god ends this way. Destroyed by the monster he made.
I feel sad for all the hurt he’s caused so many. I feel sad for those who will lose the grandfather and father they loved. And I’m bitterly angry that my family is blocking the family members who left from seeing him, and saying their good-byes.”
Nathan Phelps noted that he is “not clear” as to why his father was ex-communicated. “I only have hearsay on the reason, and two different versions, so I won’t comment at this point other than to say he was moved into another house and watched over so he wouldn’t harm himself.”
Fred Phelps, 84, founded the Westboro church in 1955, but it has been involved in actions against gays since at least 1991, when it sought a crackdown on homosexual activity at a local park six blocks from the church.
The group came into the national spotlight in 1998, when it picketed at the funeral of Matthew Shepard, an openly gay student at the University of Wyoming who was tortured near Laramie, Wyo., in October 1998, then tied to a fence and left to die.
In 2011, the church stated that it had about 40 members.
Kentucky coal-ash dumping tracked by hidden cameras
Environmental groups announced their intent to sue a Kentucky coal-ash plant for “unabated” dumping into the Ohio River on Monday, after a hidden camera they set up captured alleged illegal discharges of chemicals by the company.
“We deserve clean water,” Thomas Pearce, regional organizer for the Sierra Club in western Kentucky, told Al Jazeera. “We’re calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to put forward more stringent guidelines for coal ash because states aren’t policing it. Look at North Carolina and the Duke spill.”
The allegations against Louisville Gas & Electric (LG&E) are the latest in a series of controversies over coal-ash dumping. Last month, Duke Energy, the country’s largest electricity provider, spilled 35 million gallons of toxic coal-ash slurry into the Dan River in Eden, N.C. Coal ash contains high levels of arsenic, lead, selenium and other heavy metals that the EPA says can cause cancer, birth defects and respiratory problems.
The Sierra Club and EarthJustice say their soon-to-be-filed lawsuit against LG&E is based on time-lapse photography from a camera they strapped to a tree. The camera captured a year’s worth of images showing “dangerous” coal ash wastewater being dumped continuously into the Ohio River
Report: Fred Phelps, founder of Westboro Baptist Church, near death
TOPEKA, Kan. — Anti-gay extremist Fred Phelps, founder of the Westboro Baptist Church and the “Gods Hate Fags” fundamentalist movement, is near death in a local hospice, according to a Facebook post Saturday night by his son Nathan Phelps.
The younger Phelps, who left the church and his family’s compound in 1976 when he was 18-years-old, writes:
“I’ve learned that my father, Fred Phelps, Sr., pastor of the “God Hates Fags” Westboro Baptist Church, was ex-communicated from the “church” back in August of 2013. He is now on the edge of death at Midland Hospice house in Topeka, Kansas.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. Terribly ironic that his devotion to his god ends this way. Destroyed by the monster he made.
I feel sad for all the hurt he’s caused so many. I feel sad for those who will lose the grandfather and father they loved. And I’m bitterly angry that my family is blocking the family members who left from seeing him, and saying their good-byes.”
Nathan Phelps noted that he is “not clear” as to why his father was ex-communicated. “I only have hearsay on the reason, and two different versions, so I won’t comment at this point other than to say he was moved into another house and watched over so he wouldn’t harm himself.”
Fred Phelps, 84, founded the Westboro church in 1955, but it has been involved in actions against gays since at least 1991, when it sought a crackdown on homosexual activity at a local park six blocks from the church.
The group came into the national spotlight in 1998, when it picketed at the funeral of Matthew Shepard, an openly gay student at the University of Wyoming who was tortured near Laramie, Wyo., in October 1998, then tied to a fence and left to die.
In 2011, the church stated that it had about 40 members.
Koch Group Abandons Obamacare ‘Horror’ Stories After Fact-Check Backlash
Have we heard the last Obamacare “horror” story? If new ads from the Koch Brothers-backed group are any indication, we might have.
Americans for Prosperity, the well-funded conservative group that has been attacking Democrats in battleground states over the health care reform law, put out TV ads Monday against Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Mark Udall (D-CO).
But what’s notable about the ads is what they aren’t: A personalized story of someone who’s been negatively affected by Obamacare, the kind of verifiable set of facts that can be checked — and rebutted, as happened with a recent AFP ad that led to significant backlash from the fact-checking community.
“People don’t like political ads. I don’t like them either,” a woman tells the camera to start AFP’s new ads, announced Monday by the group. “But health care isn’t about politics. It’s about people.”
She then criticizes the law for canceled health plans, narrow provider networks and higher premiums while linking Landrieu and Udall to those problems — but she speaks in general talking points. The new ad buy is $1.7 million across the two states, and the spots will run for three weeks.
It’s a notably different style after the group incurred the wrath of fact-checkers over an ad released last month in the Michigan Senate race. That ad told the story of a cancer patient who had her plan canceled because of Obamacare. But the spot didn’t mention that the subject would save at least $1,200 for a new health plan under the law, as TPM and numerous other-fact-checkers reported.
Another AFP ad featuring a Medicare recipient earned a “Two Pinocchios” rating from the Washington Post. The Huffington Post called out a third ad, featuring a couple whose policy had been canceled, in the Arkansas Senate race last week.
GOP Lawmaker Says Businesses Should Be Allowed To Deny Services To Black People
State Sen. Phil Jensen (R-S.D.) doesn’t believe governments should interfere in the private sector’s ability to engage in race-based discrimination, according to an interview published in the Rapid City Journal on Sunday.
“If someone was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and they were running a little bakery for instance, the majority of us would find it detestable that they refuse to serve blacks, and guess what? In a matter of weeks or so that business would shut down because no one is going to patronize them,” Jensen told the Journal, advocating for the free market’s role in promoting civil rights.
His comments come after a recently failed attempt to advance controversial anti-LGBT legislation, which he introduced in January. Under the auspices of freedom of speech, the bill, SB 128, sought to permit South Dakota businesses and residents to refuse services to customers based on their sexual orientation.
Three weeks later, the state Senate Judiciary committee voted 5-2 to kill Jensen’s proposal, which state Sen. Mark Kirkeby (R) called a “mean, nasty, hateful, vindictive bill.”
Hillary team won’t work with Mark Penn: No Fuckin’ Way!
In recent weeks, I’ve talked to several Washington politicos close to Bill and Hillary Clinton, and when I’ve asked if they will be joining Hillary’s presidential machine, should she run, I’ve received a variant of this (understandably) not-for-citation reply: If Mark Penn is involved, no f-ing way.
Penn is famous—or infamous—for being the chief strategist for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign of inevitability that turned into a colossal failure. That effort was marked by hubris, lousy messaging, poor strategic planning, and legendary internal tensions—including back-biting, leaks, and fierce inside politics—that many within the politerati blamed, fairly or not, on Penn. In the book Game Change, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin described the campaign as “a simmering cauldron of long-held animosities—most of them directed at Penn.” It was personal: “[T]he rest of Hillaryland detested Penn personally. They thought him arrogant and amoral, a detrimental force whose perniciousness was amplified by his inexplicably tight bond with the Clintons.”
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