An update on things famous assholes are doing to wreck your life. First – more on the GOP being assholes to poor people:
Republicans block child nutrition bill
WASHINGTON – House Republicans have temporarily blocked legislation to feed school meals to thousands more hungry children. Republicans used a procedural maneuver Wednesday to try to amend the $4.5 billion bill, which would give more needy children the opportunity to eat free lunches at school and make those lunches healthier.
House Democrats said the GOP amendment, which would have required background checks for child care workers, was an effort to kill the bill and delayed a final vote on the legislation rather than vote on the amendment.
Because the nutrition bill is identical to legislation passed by the Senate in August, passage would send it to the White House for President Barack Obama’s signature. If the bill were amended, it would be sent back to the Senate with little time left in the legislative session.
And while that’s going on, our old friend William Donohue is up to his old anti-gay hatred:
VIA NPR – Smithsonian Under Fire For Gay Portraiture Exhibit
The Smithsonian Institution is under fire for an exhibition called Hide/Seek that is being touted as the “first major exhibition to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture.”
There are some very famous artists represented in the show: Andy Warhol, Walt Whitman and Jasper Johns, among many others. But the work that so far has been the most controversial is a provocative video from 1987 by the late artist David Wojnarowicz called A Fire In My Belly.
Martin Sullivan, director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, says the artist created the piece as a response to the “agony and suffering” of his partner who at the time was dying of AIDS. Using “vivid colors, and some fairly grotesque scenes, it’s more a meditation on the fragility of the human flesh,” Sullivan says.
But included in that meditation is a crucifix — a cross bearing the body of Christ — crawling with ants. The image, according to Catholic League President Bill Donohue, is offensive. He calls the video “hate speech” and says that “the Smithsonian would never have their little ants crawling all over an image of Muhammad.”
Donohue says he complained to members of Congress and the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents. “My principle is very simple,” he says, “If it’s wrong for the government to take the taxpayers’ money to promote religion, why is it OK to take taxpayers’ money to assault religion?”
We don’t need taxpayer money to assault Donohue’s religion – I’ll do it for free! Leave the arts alone, you noxious windbag of hate.