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Hershey’s launched it’s HER for SHE campaign for international women’s day featuring trans woman Fae Johnstone and the internet brought out it’s blow torches and pointy hoods. People were so disturbed by the campaign that they took to twitter to do what people do on twitter, engage in constructive conversation. The Federalist, editor-in-chief, Mollie Hemingway, tweeted: “So @Hersheys is featuring a male in costume as a woman for its international women’s day ad campaign.” Conservative commentator, John Cardillo, tweeted: “This to me is the biggest problem. Women remain silent as they’re reduced to a costume theme.” The Federalist, co-founder and...

State health leaders confirmed Tuesday the first death in Texas of a person who was diagnosed with monkeypox, and it could be the first in the United States. The Texas Department of State Health Services said the person — an adult from Harris County — was “severely immunocompromised.” The death is being investigated to learn what role monkeypox played. State health leaders explained that for most people, monkeypox is painful but not life-threatening. “Monkeypox is a serious disease, particularly for those with weakened immune systems,” Dr. John Hellerstedt, DSHS commissioner, said in a news release. “We continue to urge people...

Transportation Secretary nominee Pete Buttigieg suggested raising the federal gas tax in order to fund infrastructure initiatives during his confirmation hearing Thursday before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott asked the former South Bend mayor if he would favor a federal gas tax increase to pay for the Highway Trust Fund. The fund is mostly financed by revenue from federal gas taxes but has become less financially solvent in recent years, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. “Well, I think all options need to be on the table,” Buttigieg responded. “As you know,...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WLS) -- The Illinois General Assembly has voted to name a portion of Interstate 55 for a former president.

Friday marked a major milestone for same-sex marriage in the U.S. – and ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's is among those celebrating the landmark Supreme Court decision. The beloved brand's classic Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream has a new name to honor marriage equality. Relabeled "I Dough, I Dough," the carton depicts interlocking wedding bands, a red heart, rainbow flag and two cows with their tails linked. "With this ruling, the SCOTUS recognizes the bond of love and commitment between two people, and protects the fundamental rights and freedoms that come with it," Ben & Jerry's said in...

In what may be California's last chance to build a "hydrogen highway," lined with thousands of high-tech vehicles emitting nothing but water vapor from their tailpipes, Gov. Jerry Brown has approved a plan to construct 100 hydrogen fueling stations across the state by 2024. Only a year ago, the California Air Resources Board required Big Oil to pay for the new stations. But after oil companies threatened to sue, Brown agreed to a compromise in which the costs of building hydrogen stations will be shifted to car owners through existing vehicle registration fees.

Just how in the hell would a high-profile, ho-bustin' politician like Eliot Spitzer ever expect to get away with his pay-for-play D.C. side piece? "It's so easy not to not get caught," reformed Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss tells Radar, adding that she provided service to many a well known politician her day. "I saw many famous people—more famous than Eliot Spitzer—and you know what, you pay people right, you treat them right, you don't have a problem." The devil, she says, was in Spitzer's particular freak, which left the gals who are alleged to have serviced him describing the governor...

We need to go back for one more bite of that Snickers Super Bowl ad. Monday a blogstorm kicked up over the ad that showed two mechanics fighting over a Snickers bar and inadvertently kissing, with the largest gay civil rights group calling on the Mars Inc., the candy company, to pull several alternative endings and related material from its Web site. And before the day was done, the material had been pulled, as were plans to show one of the alternate endings during the Daytona 500 telecast. Here was Ameriblog's mid-day headline: "Snickers Superbowl Web site promotes violence against...

How to address a bitter, war-torn but still somehow giddy and deeply horny nation. My fellow Americans, we're not as royally screwed as everything Bush has done during his miserable term in office would have you believe.

CENSORS in China have banned the screening of Brokeback Mountain because they object to its homosexual content. The film is directed by the hugely popular Taiwanese director Ang Lee, whose 2000 Oscar-winning film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon helped to raise the profile of Chinese cinema internationally. But a report by the official Xinhua News Agency said that the film's "sensitive topic" of gay love meant that it could not be screened. World Trade Organisation rules require China to screen a minimum of 20 foreign films a year. Gay activists in China have regularly complained of harassment and discrimination. Last month,...

What do the bitter neocon nominee and the amazing Oscar-bound film have in common? There is this theory, more of a truism really, tossed about like a fuzzy beach ball by the gurus and the masters and the mystics since Jesus was but a lint ball of possibility in the Great Belly Button of Time. . . .

In a further clarification of yesterday’s remarks that a rebuilt New Orleans would be a “chocolate” city, Mayor Ray Nagin today said he’s planning to recruit Hershey Foods to establish a candy manufacturing plant in the hurricane-ravaged region. The Democrat mayor’s latest clarification builds on yesterday’s explanation that his remarks are not racist because chocolate is made with dark chocolate and white milk forming “a delicious drink.” “We’re in the very, very early stages of discussions with Hershey,” Mr. Nagin said, “It’s still in the pre-meeting, pre-phone call stage. But that’s what this chocolate city concept is all about. It’s...

I am a Gay Republican but I almost never chime in on political issues. I believe in small government, which the Bush administration has not been good at, as well as low taxes and the free market. I don't believe in manmade global warming and I think environmental activism is mostly a cover for people who want to make more rules to control our lives. Social issues don't get me very excited and I know I should be more grateful to my gay forefathers for all their sacrifices, but I've never encountered homophobia in my entire life so gay rights...

'Sir' Elton's gay partner is no 'Lady'! Washington | December 23, 2005 7:11:25 PM IST Sir Elton John and his longtime partner David Furnish may have finally united in a civil ceremony on Dec 21, but the latter will not be referred to as a Lady, even though his partner is a Knight, according to etiquette authority Debrett's. In Britain, it is customary for wives of knights of the realm to take the title of Lady in place of Mrs, but the rule will not extend to gay civil unions, which became legal in the UK this week. "Even though...

In many ways, the U.S. is now just as inhumane and brutal as any Third World regime. Oh well? "We do not torture." Remember it, write it in red crayon on the bathroom wall, tattoo it onto your acid tongue because those very words rang throughout the land like a bleak bell, like a low scream in the night, like a cheese grater rubbing against the teeth of common sense when Dubya mumbled them during a speech not long ago, and it was, at once, hilarious and nauseating and it took all the self-control in the world for everyone in...

The astonishing collapse of the Bumbling One surely means healthy change is imminent, right? Here's the good news: It really can't get much worse. We cannot afford any more wars. The environment has been sold to the bone. The national spirit has been beaten like an Alaskan baby seal and the GOP has worked our last nerve, passed through the karmic blood-brain barrier, reached saturation to the point where even moderate Repubs and gobs of intelligent Christians are finally saying, Oh my God, what have we done, and how did it all go so wrong, and how much Prozac and...

Many argue that communism will never be possible because of "human nature". The essence of this false argument is the belief that a communist society would consist of an all-powerful central government that would tell everybody what to do--and would therefore undermine the creative initiative of individuals and the search for happiness. • This argument is based on two false assumptions: (1) It assumes that a communist society will look like the former Soviet Union, or the current China, North Korea, etc (ie: corrupt police states with a feudal-style ruling class) (2) It assumes that people will only work in...

No Name Calling Week?     1/12/2005By Warren Throckmorton, Ph.D.Yes, name-calling is wrong. But this event’s sponsors reveal the agenda behind banning it. “There is a special place in hell for people like you!” These words were directed at me by a teacher during this past summer’s National Education Association (NEA) convention in Washington, D.C. This delegate to the NEA convention made his prediction in response to my presence at the NEA’s Ex-Gay Educators’ Caucus booth in the convention exhibit hall. His cheery salutation caught me off-guard given the message of tolerance and acceptance I had been hearing around the exhibit hall....

What happens when habitual warmongering and BushCo lies become part of our daily diet? And then you read the appalling little story about how BushCo is now "taking steps" to further the investigation into why their original intelligence on Iraq was so painfully, treasonously, colon-clenchingly wrong, why they thought Saddam had giant Costco-sized warehouses stacked to the rafters with snarling nukes and nasty biotoxins and active warheads when, in fact, he had nothing but a couple Dumpsters full of rusty 20-year-old shell casings and a bucket of stale glue.

We kill millions of pets every year Who cares if a few get posh shelters and humane laws? OK. So I tend to think people who insist on calling themselves pet "guardians" instead of "owners" are exasperating and a bit wrongheaded, and that such uber-PC thinking does almost nothing to change or improve the behavior of the thousands of animal abusers in this country. And I tend to agree with fabulous dog writer Jon Katz that such semantic sidestepping does more harm to the animals than good, and leads to naive treatment, lack of decent training and an outright ignorance...