Dating Confessions by You "I'm wearing sexy underwear while talking to you online so that I feel confident enough to tell you that I'm into you."
Scanner by Emily Farris Today on Hooksexup's culture blog: We bring you more Dita Von Teese from the German Playboy.
Screengrab by Various Today in Hooksexup's film blog: Holiday special - 35 people, places and movies we're thankful for.
The Remote Island by Bryan Christian Michael Phelps indulges Anderson Cooper in some watersports and Dexter makes a 'bitch move.' Plus: the secret of Tina Fey's scar, revealed!
Rep. Jerrold E. Nadler (D-NY) Reuniting bi-national same-sex partners.
He became a national figure as one of President Clinton's most fervent defenders during the impeachment of 1998, loudly citing from the House floor everything from the Fifth Amendment to the Magna Carta in condemning the partisan snowjob (ahem). Since then, the Representative from New York City has relentlessly campaigned for sexually progressive causes. The ACLU, NARAL and Planned Parenthood all rate him at 100%, and he's a member of Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus as well as the NAACP. One of his most poignant contributions: writing the Uniting American Families Act, a bill that would give same-sex bi-national couples the same access to green cards as married couples. "Keeping loving families separated is gratuitous cruelty that serves no constructive purpose," he said.
Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) A decent man, a decent cause.
Sanders is perhaps Congress's most reliable crusader against indecency laws. Last year, he introduced a bill called the Stamp Out Censorship Act in response to the FCC's attempt to regulate the internet and pay cable. He also sought to clarify what exactly the FCC means by "indecency." "If Americans want to watch The Sopranos, The Daily Show, or other programs targeted to adult audiences, the FCC should not be able to stop them," he said. "If we start regulating cable for 'indecency,' where will it end? Will it soon be 'indecent' for people on television to criticize the President?" He's also the House's longest serving Independent, bucking the two-party system and turning down millions of dollars in PAC contributions. Beholden to as few people as possible, he's built a career upon being free to make the right choices.
Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) A friend to responsible, unbiased media and Muppets everywhere.
Lowey has been ad-free media's most reliable champion in Congress, taking the lead in stopping Republican efforts to kill public broadcasting (she brought Ernie and Bert to the Congressional hearing on funding, just to remind everyone who they were fighting for). She's also been a stalwart supporter of the ever-embattled NEA, and is the former chairwoman of both the Congressional Women's Caucus and the House Pro-Choice Caucus; the Washington Post once called her "the most prominent abortion-rights advocate in Congress." At age sixty-nine, she's got three kids, seven grandkids and, if her enthusiastic advocacy for women and sexual minorities is any indication, years of fighting for progressive causes ahead.
Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) Our ace in the hole.
We just love a saboteur. Senator Chafee has infiltrated the Republican majority while consistently voting against it. He's outspokenly pro-choice and a committed environmentalist. He's the only Republican Senator (and one of very few Senators at all) who supports gay marriage. He was the only Republican to vote against the Alito nomination, against authorizing the war in Iraq, and for a non-binding timetable for troop withdrawal. He was one of only three Republicans to vote against a bill that would have created a Constitutional amendment banning flag burning. And you can bet your ass he was the only Republican who didn't vote for President Bush in 2004, which he's publicly declared is the case. Representing a heavily Democratic state, he's still managed to siphon millions of dollars from the GOP, who feel they have no choice but to support him lest his seat go Democrat. Conservative author Hugh Hewitt said he's one of the biggest roadblocks to creating a permanent Republican majority because he won't fall in line.
Barbara Lee (D-CA) Combating fear, reducing stigma, loving tough.
As an African-American woman representing her Oakland/Berkeley district since 1998, Lee knows the disproportionate toll that HIV/AIDS has taken on blacks in the United States and globally. She's an especially fierce champion of common-sense, let's-not-beat-around-the-bush strategies to reverse the epidemic. Domestically, Lee constantly urges all Americans, especially black Americans, to learn their HIV status. Against tremendous resistance from the right, she has sponsored legislation to make condoms and comprehensive sex-ed available inside federal prisons, where HIV and STD rates are higher than average. When California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed such a bill in his state, Lee blasted him, saying, "The governor's head-in-the-sand approach to AIDS in prison poses a serious public-health risk for the general population." She's also launched a bill that would strip the federal law requiring that one-third of all U.S. money for global HIV prevention go to abstinence-only programs. And in 2001, despite enormous pressure from her colleagues and much of the country, she was the only member of Congress in either house who did not vote to authorize the president to attack Afghanistan.
Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) Our ally in the middle.
In the fly-over states, few politicians stand out in royal blue. Perhaps none with such aplomb as Diana DeGette, a former civil-rights lawyer who's represented the Denver area since 1997. She convinced the Republican-controlled House to pass a bill lifting Bush's stem-cell funding restrictions, and has crusaded for laws mandating more efficient cars. As co-chair of the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, she pushed for FDA approval of Plan B, and when it finally came, said this: "For once, the Bush Administration actually listened to scientists and not to their extremist base when making a decision. It's just a shame it took them so long . . . I guess they had to wait until Karl Rove went on vacation to finally get it approved." DeGette also supports gay marriage while representing a place once nicknamed "the Hate State" for its harsh anti-gay laws. To us, that's progress.
Nancy Johnson (R-CT) A conservative with a passion for reproductive rights.
We definitely don't embrace all of Johnson's views — she's brutal on criminals, soft on Bush's tax cuts for the rich and unsettlingly hawkish. But when it comes to reproductive- and gay-rights issues, this grandmother who's been serving in Congress for nearly a quarter century is often a trustworthy ally. Perhaps her open-armed Unitarian faith and her husband's former career as a OB-GYN are why she was one of only eleven Republicans to earn a 100% rating from NARAL. Though nearly her entire party — and even a large number of Democrats — voted for it, she staunchly opposed Congress' 2003 ban on so-called partial-birth abortions, defending doctors' rights to perform the procedure they thought best for their patients. "Is there no limit to your willingness to impose your concept of when life begins on others?" she asked her colleagues. And because she's opposed initiatives from her party's far-right wing to ban both same-sex marriage and gay adoptions, she's earned kudos from that most masochistic of groups, the Log Cabin Republicans.
Henry Waxman (D-CA) Refuting the abstinence-only-education myth.
No one has fought the Bush Administration's $200 million funding of abstinence-only sex education — which only mentions condoms in declaring that they don't work — more fiercely than this Los Angeles Congressman. As ranking member of the investigative Government Reform Committee, he spearheaded the explosive 2004 GAO report that found that eighty percent of federally funded abstinence-only programs were teaching young people false or distorted information about sexual health. (One taught that HIV could be spread through sweat or tears; another claimed that condoms failed to prevent pregnancy one in seven times.) "Something is seriously wrong when federal tax dollars are being used to mislead kids about basic health facts," said Waxman. Two years later, funding for abstinence-only programs is still flowing like holy water, but Waxman continues to push back. This spring, he publicly blasted the Secretary of Health for censoring from a conference a stinging critique of abstinence-only education as bogus science.
Jim Webb (Dem. challenger, VA Senate) Reviving an endangered species: the great Southern Democrat.
We'll say this about Virginia's tight Senate race between Republican incumbent George Allen and his Democratic challenger, Jim Webb: Yes, Webb used to be a conservative Republican. Yes, he questioned the usefulness of women in the military in the 1970s. Yes, he served in as Reagan appointee over twenty years ago. But twenty years ago, we were wearing neon-green tin foil in our hair as a fashion statement. Point is, people make bad decisions and change, and Webb demonstrates a true commitment to the Democratic Party. He's a highly decorated veteran and has had a family member serve in every American military conflict (Allen got a deferment, went to law school and was a politician by twenty-nine). Webb is pro-choice, Allen's not. Webb opposes a Constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, will vote against Virginia's amendment to ban same-sex unions in November and supports civil unions; Allen voted for the U.S. Constitutional ban, has said that he'll do the same for Virginia's state Constitution in November and opposes civil unions. A Webb victory would prove that Dems can still get elected in the South, just as certain Republicans are still viable in New England. Of his Southern voters, he recently told The Nation, "If we can get them to come back to the Democratic Party based on economic populism and fairness rather than the way they've been maneuvered on issues like flag-burning, God, guts, guns, gays . . . I think a lot of them will."
Kinky Friedman (I-TX) Somewhere up there, Ann Richards is smiling.
We'd be remiss not to mention the country singer with the heart of gold who's running for governor of Texas. Whether it started as a gimmick or not, Kinky's campaign has become a force to be reckoned with. Several recent polls show him running second in a four-way race, with incumbent Republican governor Rick Perry's lead steadily winnowing. Why is he running? "Why the hell not?" his campaign website asks. "Texas politics stinks." His "common-sense priorities" platform is lucid and practical: promote renewable energy and wean us off oil; pay teachers more; fund stem-cell research. Plus, he's pro-choice and pro-gay-marriage. And he looks better in a cowboy hat than Bush ever did.
Endorsements written by Tim Murphy, Kristin Gangwer and Cord Jefferson.
, featuring curious yet marvelous infusions of cucumber and rose petal.
