An English bishop who denies the holocaust has been ordered to leave Argentina.Related:Bishop Richard Williamson has been give ten days to leave the country or face expulsion after global controversy over his views and the Vatican's attitudes towards them.
The Argentine Interior Ministry said Bishop Williamson's statements on the Holocaust "profoundly insult Argentine society, the Jewish community and all of humanity by denying an historic truth".
...Guillermo Oliveri, the government's secretary for religious affairs, said: "I absolutely agree with the expulsion of a man residing in our country following his statements [denying] one of the greatest human tragedies."
...Tonight the Vatican said it had no comment on the Argentine decision. Bishop Williamson is thought to still be in Argentina and it is unclear where he might go.
* Papa Ratzi's Holocaust denier: I'll review evidence - but I won't visit Auschwitz
* Bill Donohue: leave Papa Ratzi alone - Germans reek with guilt over Holocaust
* Pope Benedict lifts excommunication of Holocaust denier
This is the gay GOP Minn. State Senator who is voting against the marriage equality bill.
In response to my email, I received a reply. I will redact the guy's home phone number but read the highlighted sections (emphasis added). On one hand, the guy give out his home telephone number. On the other hand, the email is really obnoxious so why bother?
Dear David,
My name is Ken Swecker, Senator Koering's Legislative Assistant. Senator Koering and I both would like to respond to the e-mails we've been receiving regarding his intention to not vote in favor of Senate File 120. I am currently responding to the e-mails to give you the Senator's home phone number so that you might call him over the weekend and speak with him personally on the matter. This much he asked me to do.
To add to that, as a personal statement, is to say that SF 120 is something that the majority of the People of Senate District 12, the People that he was elected to represent, do not favor this piece of legislation. In case you have forgotten, we are a government of the People, by the People, and for the People. He was not elected serve his personal interests. I personally believe that instead of sending e-mails full of threats and hateful words you should take his example to heart and congratulate him on being a legislator who cares more about what the People of his district want than what he may want personally. You and I both know that this is a rare quality to find, and just because this is contrary to how you wish for him to vote, you must remember and respect he is here to represent the interests of his rural Minnesota constituents who voted him into office. As a constituent of his myself, I am happy to see him take non-personal votes on several issues. After all, I would not want another politician taking another vote that would serve his or her personal interests more so than the People's, would you?
I can testify all day long about how much Senator Koering cares for the People of Senate District 12. He ran three consecutive times, being defeated the first two, and why did he put himself through so much hard work? Do you think it was because he needed another job? Absolutely not! He did it because he believed he was the best person to serve the People that he calls neighbors, friends, and family. And especially now, in a time like this, we are being bogged down with this completely pointless issue. There are People in Morrison and Crow Wing Counties, and across the State who are losing their jobs, their homes, their insurance, and were you to ask them if this is an issue that should take one second of precedent over these conditions they're facing every day, do you believe, do you honestly believe that they would say to you, 'Yes, please, waste the time of the State Legislature with a piece of legislation that will not help, but in fact, overshadow the current situation we're living in? Please, waste their time with this piece of legislation while I tell my son and daughter that mom and dad aren't hungry tonight?'
I know very well that you will respond to this e-mail of mine with some probably quirky, snide, and very thoughtless comment that will make me out to be a bad person and threaten the Senator even more just as most of the absolutely tactless and disrespectful e-mails we've received have been written, but really, don't waste your time. We'll just put your e-mail where it belongs, in the trash.
The Senator's home number is 218xxxxxxxxxx
He's free on the weekends.
Very Sincerely, every word of it,
Ken Swecker
P.S.
I hope you do not believe that this e-mail was written specific to the one that you sent, this is a blanket e-mail, being sent to everyone who has e-mailed us on this issue and I've already wasted too much time in responding to you. Good day.
Senator Paul Koering
District 12
131 State Office Building
St. Paul, MN 55155-1206
NOTE FROM PAM: OMG. Jesus' General wrote a delicious letter to Koering. A snippet:
The state does face bigger problems than providing equal protection to all of its citizens, and you are sponsoring bills to address those problems.
Take SR15 for instance. Nothing is more important to the well-being of the citizens of Minnesota than passing your resolution honoring Mary J. Brenny. She owned both her town's ambulance service and mortuary, thus providing one stop service to the good citizens of Morrison County. You have to honor that kind of service.
The same holds true for SF3557. If you don't make English the official language, the brown people win. The whole state would be speaking Mexican and eating spicy foods by 2015. These are both important bills. Thank God you had the courage to vote against marriage equality so you could devote more energy to their passage.
But I still have to wonder why someone who is the gay would do that? It's about as self-hating an act as I can imagine. Are you absolutely sure you're the gay and not just another heterosexual conservative who enjoys putting another man's little soldier in your mouth from time to time? You might consider giving that a little thought. Maybe you could talk to Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, and Bob Allen about it. They might be able to help you out with your sexual confusion.
Chuck McCullough, a Republican member of Allegheny County Council who has been very vocal in his opposition to the county's pending LGBT rights law, has been arrested on more than 20 counts of bilking a 90 year old widow whose $14.5 million trust fund he was paid to administer.
It's not clear exactly how much McCullough got away with. But he is alleged to have made $10,000 campaign contributions to several Republican candidates with part of the money, plus an additional $10,000 to Catholic Charities, of which his sister Kathleen was director. She has been arrested too.
NOTE FROM PAM: Coverage by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is here.
A county grand jury today handed up a 52-page presentment that alleges Mr. McCullough, an attorney, and his sister, Kathleen A. McCullough, bilked money from the $14.5 million trust fund of an Upper St. Clair widow, Shirley H. Jordan, 90.
The investigation began after an article appeared in the Post-Gazette in April 2007 in which Mrs. Jordan denied that she donated $10,000 to each of four political candidates the year before, according to an affidavit that accompanied the arrests of Mr. McCullough and his sister.
The affidavit said Kathleen McCullough had been paid "the exorbitant rate of $60 per hour to be a companion" to Mrs. Jordan. Ms. McCullough was paid more than $4,500 as Mrs. Jordan's companion, the affidavit said.
The story has just broken within the last three hours, so details are still coming in. But this is sure to get juicy. With luck it will shed a lot of light on the inner workings of the Republican anti-gay machine here and may ultimately serve to reveal some interesting facts about the Catholic diocese's lobbying machine. (There has been no definite confirmation, but it has been widely speculated that McCullough has been the point man for the Catholic Diocese's opposition to LGBT equality in Western Pennsylvania. His donation to Catholic Charities makes such speculation hard to avoid.)
McCullough's nominal reason for opposing the LGBT law is that the county can't afford it. Would it be ungracious to suggest that he could dip into his ill-gotten gains and fund the measure for the next several decades?
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