AMERICAblog Weekly Update - January 9, 2013

By John Aravosis

It's been a while, I'm back to emailing. So here are a few of our top "do not miss them" posts of the week:

1. Walmart refuses to meet with VP Biden to talk guns post-Sandy-Hook because they're vewy vewy busy people, then change their mind when people get ticked.
Walmart is having a bad PR day. The nation's #1 gunseller refused an invite from Vice President Biden to come to the White House and join other interested in parties in a discussion about how we can all come together and help stop more six and seven year olds from being shot to death, multiple times, while in English class.  Walmart initially said it was just too busy to meet with the second most powerful man in the country. Then people got really ticked, and suddenly Walmart's schedule opened up like Moses parting the Red Sea (if Moses had a semi-automatic rifle instead of a snake-cane, and the Jews were actually a bunch of rednecks who think the framers of the Constitution intended them to be able to kill 45 Redcoats a minute without reloading).

See how much we can get done when American companies stop acting like an appendage of the Republican party, Fox News, and the NRA? (That would be you, Taco Bell and Wendy's.)

2. The Pentagon, through neglect or intent, has been banning gay and progressive Web sites while giving similar Republican sites a pass.

This story got a rise out of folks.  It seems that some Defense Department computers, but not others, have for years now been banning gay and progressive Web sites like AMERICAblog, Towleroad, Pam's House Blend, Daily Kos, the Human Rights Campaign and the Advocate, but not conservative sites like Red State, Breitbart, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, or the Family Research Council. First the Pentagon claimed they weren't banning sites because they were gay or progressive, but rather because those sites risked "operational security" of Pentagon operations - in other words, AMERICAblog and DailyKos were threats to national security. You can imagine how well that excuse went over.  Within a few hours the Pentagon changed its mind, and its tune, and admitted that maybe something was awry, and that they would look into it.

Isn't it more fun when we all just get along?

3. House Republicans kill Hurricane Sandy Relief bill in spite for passing the fiscal cliff deal.

It seems the House Republicans were in a sour mood after the GOP-controlled House passed the Boehner-Obama fiscal cliff deal (which basically screwed the Republicans by forcing them to raise taxes and establish a parity between Defense and domestic spending cuts).  So, they all went home and refused to even vote on legislation to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy.  That didn't go over too well with the congressional delegations from NY and NJ - including a prominent GOP congressman who told his constituents to stop donating to Republicans - or with NJ Governor Christie. Boehner quickly reversed himself and let half the bill be voted on two days later, with the rest of the legislation to come up in mid-January.

It seems someone doesn't realize that they lost the election, by a lot. 

4. Have you ever asked yourself which dwarf in "The Hobbit" is the hottest?

It's apparently Kili, by a landslide.  (I'm partial to Fili, myself.)

5. Biden swears in one year old boy to be Senator. (Probably can't hurt.)

Well, okay, it's not entirely clear if the kid is really going to be our next Senator from Connecticut as there's some legal uncertaintly around whether spitting-up counts as the equivalent of an "I do."  But incoming CT Democratic Senator Chris Murphy has the most adorable son, who got utterly confused as to why daddy, who was holding him in one arm, kept lifting his hand in front of the funny man with the white hair.  So, the son lifted his hand too.  Beyond adorable.

6. If that chair giving me a vaginal search or are you just happy to see me?

Yes, they now have chairs that search your anus and vagina, and they're using them at the British embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.  (Nobody knows how to say "howdy" like those Brits.) How long until the rape chairs become popular in American airports?  Counting down 3, 2, 1...

7. Tell Blue Coat to stop helping its customers ban gay and trans Web sites.

GLAAD and AMERICAblog are teaming up on a campaign to pressure the Blue Coat Web filtering company to do the right thing and stop permitting its customers, like the Pentagon, to censor non-sexually explicit gay content.

Please sign our joint petition to Blue Coat.

As I’d reported last week, Blue Coat includes in its filtering package a category of sites that you can either block or permit. One such category is “LGBT.” It's a rather innocuous category of sites to be blocking - it includes “anti-bullying” and “suicide prevention" Web sites, and does NOT include explicit sexual sites.  Not to mention, Blue Coat adds that the sites “are generally suitable for viewing by all age groups”, then why provide a means in which to ban them? Blue Coat doesn’t have categories set up for other minority/civil rights communities. No category for African-Americans, or Latinos, or Jews. But there is a category for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender focused Web sites. 

It needs to stop. Please sign our joint petition to Blue Coat telling them to stop giving their customers a way to censor gay and trans Web sites.

8. And finally, thank you for a successful donor drive.

I had written a rather honest post about our financial situation, and the financial situation of really all the progressive blogs.  And it ain't great. Advertising revenue died when Lehman Brothers collapsed, and while you might see a lot of ads on all of our sites, the revenue is stll a pittance of what it was once.  It's not coming back ever.  Advertising, sadly, seems to be a dying model for financing online media.  That's why DailyKos is moving towards seeking donations and building their email list, and it's why TPM and Andrew Sullivan are moving towards a subscription-based service.  We too are considering our options, and the ad revenue problem is one of the main, if not the main, reason we finally moved the blog to WordPress and changed the format so dramatically.  It's going to be another difficult year for everyone.

But I just want to thank those of you who donated during our Christmas donor drive.  Your donations will mean that I can finally buy a new computer (mine is a 4.5 year old laptop that I've upgraded as much as I can to prolong its life), so thank you, sincerely, for thinking of us and for helping us out.

That's it for this week.  I'm going to try to get back to writing these emails again on a more regular basis.  Hope folks are enjoying the absurdly warm winter, at least here in Chicago and over in DC it's absurdly warm (we're looking towards 66F weather in DC this weekend, and in Chicago today it's almost 50F).

Till next week, JOHN

PS And here's the cutest puppy ever.

Did you receive this email from a friend, and want to subscribe yourself?  Go here.

Follow AMERICAblog, AMERICAblog Gay, and subscribe to my personal page on Facebook.
Follow AMERICAblog, AMERICAblog Gay, and me on Twitter.

---

Paid for by AMERICAblog (www.AMERICAblog.com) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Contributions to AMERICAblog are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.