News/Politics

by

News/Politics 6-1-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. I’m sure they have the same restrictions in mind for all religions….. not. 

From Politico  “A U.S. attorney in Tennessee is reportedly vowing to use federal civil rights statutes to clamp down on offensive and inflammatory speech about Islam.

Bill Killian, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, was quoted by the Tullahoma News this week suggesting that some inflammatory material on Islam might run afoul of federal civil rights laws.

“We need to educate people about Muslims and their civil rights, and as long as we’re here, they’re going to be protected,” Killian told the newspaper.”

“Killian, along with the FBI special agent that runs the Knoxville office, are set to speak next week to a special meeting with the local Muslim community, informing them about their rights under federal law.

“This is an educational effort with civil rights laws as they play into freedom of religion and exercising freedom of religion,” Killian said about the meeting. “This is also to inform the public what federal laws are in effect and what the consequences are.””

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2. Child sex abuse claims continue to hit the UN. While they act shocked, the rest of us are wondering what took so long to address it. 

From TheAP/MSN  “United Nations investigators heard such stories of sexual abuse from several boys in May and June 2014 in Central African Republic, where French soldiers were protecting a sprawling displaced persons camp in the conflict-torn capital, Bangui.

One year later, revelations about how the U.N. handled the boys’ accounts have horrified people both inside and outside the world body. Statements marked “strictly confidential” have shown that its top human rights officials failed to follow up for several months on the allegations their own office had collected.

No arrests have been announced, and it’s not clear where the accused soldiers, who were supporting a U.N. peacekeeping force, are now. The U.N. seems unable to say when the abuses stopped, or how long it continued to investigate.

On Friday, more documents were released by a non-governmental organization run by two former U.N. staffers that’s calling for an independent investigation into the case. The documents show U.N. officials scrambling not so much to help a French inquiry into the allegations but to investigate the human rights staffer who told French authorities in the first place.

A separate report with the children’s allegations, obtained by The Associated Press, says the first account was heard May 19 by a human rights staffer and a UNICEF child protection officer. The interviews continued through June 24. A Geneva-based human rights staffer shared the report with French authorities in July.”

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3. It’s a family tradition. 

From NationalReview  “New records reviewed by National Review show Sharpton’s daughter and her boyfriend, Marcus Bright, together run a shadowy nonprofit that shares corporate donors, board members, and office space with Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, and they won’t answer any questions about it.

In tax filings, Education for a Better America (EBA) states that its mission is “to build a bridge between policy makers and the classroom by supporting innovations in the delivery of education and disseminating information and findings that impact our schools.” The nonprofit’s publications show the group hosting or participating in education-focused assemblies, speeches, summits, and events in New York City, Miami, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., among other cities.

“It’s all a scam,” says one source close to the Sharpton family. “It’s a cover for money, basically, to subsidize [Dominique] Sharpton and Bright to do what they do. . . . They put it all on their Instagram and their Facebook. Most of the time, it’s like they’re on vacation. . . . One could argue, being totally objective, that some of what [Al] Sharpton has done in terms of advocacy has helped black people and civil rights. Tell me one thing that Education for a Better America has done to help education.””

“EBA’s precise origins remain murky. The entity was incorporated in Delaware in June 2011, registered to the Corporation Trust Company at 1209 Orange Street in Wilmington — the listed legal address of at least 285,000 other companies. The New York Times focused on that address in a 2012 report on how some “big corporations, small-time businesses, rogues, scoundrels and worse” had flocked to Delaware “in hopes of minimizing taxes, skirting regulations, plying friendly courts or, when in need, covering their tracks.”

But the nonprofit’s tax records show that instead of calling an obscure Delaware shell office home, EBA operates on the 14th floor of 561 Seventh Avenue in New York City. That just so happens to be the same address as the corporate offices of Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.”

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4. It looks like the Clinton’s are starting some similar traditions too. 

From FoxNews  “The newly released financial files on Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s growing fortune omit a company with no apparent employees or assets that the former president has legally used to provide consulting and other services, but which demonstrates the complexity of the family’s finances. 

Because the company, WJC, LLC, has no financial assets, Hillary Clinton’s campaign was not obligated to report its existence in her recent financial disclosure report, officials with Bill Clinton’s private office and the Clinton campaign said. They were responding to questions by The Associated Press, which reviewed corporate documents. 

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to provide private details of the former president’s finances on the record, said the entity was a “pass-through” company designed to channel payments to the former president. 

Under federal ethics disclosure rules, declared candidates do not have to report assets worth less than $1,000. But the company’s existence demonstrates the complexity of tracking the Clintons’ finances as Hillary Clinton ramps up her presidential bid. 

While Bill Clinton’s lucrative speeches have provided the bulk of the couple’s income, earning as much as $50 million during his wife’s four-year term as secretary of state in the Obama administration, the former president has also sought to branch out into other business activities in recent years. Little is known about the exact nature and financial worth of Bill Clinton’s non-speech business interests.”

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by

News/Politics 5-29-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. I always wondered why the arms supply operation the White House and State Dept. were running to arm Islamic extremists in Libya didn’t get more attention from Republicans. Well now we know why, at least one top Republican was in on it, which is why Republicans left it alone.

From FoxNews  “Another email released by the State Department shows that five days earlier, on April 3, 2011, Bill Clinton said he would not rule out arming the Libyan opposition. The story was circulated by Cheryl Mills, Hillary Clinton’s principal personal adviser at the State Department, to “H.” While it’s not clear who “H” is, based on the message traffic it is likely Hillary Clinton or possibly adviser Huma Abedin. Later that same year, a Sept. 10, 2011 email with a subject line “Rogers” said, “Apparently wants to see you to talk Libya/weapons.”

At the time, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee was Mike Rogers, who abruptly announced he would not seek re-election in the spring of 2014. Rogers did not immediately respond to questions seeking comment. Fox News also filed its own Freedom of Information Act request for the documents in October 2012.

Current and former intelligence and administration officials consistently have skirted questions about weapons shipments, first documented by Fox News in October 2012, one month after the Benghazi terrorist attack, and what role the movement played in arming extremist groups the U.S. government is now trying to defeat in Syria and Iraq.

Through shipping records, Fox News confirmed that the Libyan-flagged vessel Al Entisar, which means “The Victory,” was received in the Turkish port of Iskenderun — 35 miles from the Syrian border — on Sept. 6, 2012, five days before the Benghazi terrorist attack. The cargo reportedly included surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles, RPG’s and Russian-designed shoulder-launched missiles known as MANPADS.

On the movement of weapons, in an interview broadcast May 11, former acting CIA director Mike Morell said the CIA and U.S. government “played no role. Now whether we were watching other people do it, I can’t talk about it.”

Heavily redacted congressional testimony, declassified after the House intelligence committee’s Benghazi investigation concluded in 2014, shows conflicting accounts about the movement of weapons from Libya to Syria were apparently given to lawmakers.”

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2. Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert has been indicted on federal charges. 

From Reuters/MSN  “Former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert was indicted on Thursday on federal charges including making false statements to the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago said.

The Illinois Republican, who left office in 2007, was charged with structuring the withdrawal of $952,000 in cash in order to evade the requirement that banks report cash transactions over $10,000, and lying to the FBI about his withdrawals, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

Each count of the two-count indictment carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Hastert, 73, was not immediately available for comment.

According to the indictment, the misconduct involved payments to an unnamed individual who had been a Yorkville, Illinois, resident and had known Hastert for most of the person’s life.

Around 2010, Hastert met with the person several times and discussed past misconduct by Hastert. Eventually, Hastert agreed to pay the person $3.5 million in compensation and to conceal unspecified misconduct, the indictment said.”

Rumor has it that the misconduct involved blackmail and happened during Hastert’s stint as a wrestling coach before running for elected office. 

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3. Hypocrites. So typical.

From TheLATimes  “Labor leaders, who were among the strongest supporters of the citywide minimum wage increase approved last week by the Los Angeles City Council, are advocating last-minute changes to the law that could create an exemption for companies with unionized workforces.

The push to include an exception to the mandated wage increase for companies that let their employees collectively bargain was the latest unexpected detour as the city nears approval of its landmark legislation to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020.

For much of the past eight months, labor activists have argued against special considerations for business owners, such as restaurateurs, who said they would have trouble complying with the mandated pay increase.

But Rusty Hicks, who heads the county Federation of Labor and helps lead the Raise the Wage coalition, said Tuesday night that companies with workers represented by unions should have leeway to negotiate a wage below that mandated by the law.”

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4. More waste, fraud, and abuse. 

From TheFreeBeacon  “The State Department has undertaken the costly construction of new embassies across the globe.

The new embassy in London is estimated to cost around $1 billion. Glass for the London build was shipped back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean for cutting and framing. The new Afghanistan embassy exceeded $150 million.

The current embassy in Mexico City is currently crumbling, unsafe, and overcrowded. The build was supposed to cost $600 million but has increased at least a third, all before the start of construction. The new site for the embassy was bought four years ago for $120 million and was in a former industry area that was once site to a Colgate Palmolive factory that left hazardous waste.

Colgate Palmolive has been in the process of cleaning site for the past three and a half years, and the land is still not ready. The cost of construction rose from $577 million to $763 million. With the cost of the land and the cost of the new embassy, the project will cost well over $939 million, making it one of the most expensive embassies in the world.

‘The State Department changed the way that they build these,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah). “They went from standard embassy designs, which were coming in under budget. They were coming in swifter. They are now to the point where they’ve got a new process and it’s much more expensive and a lot slower.””

Here’s the CBS report. 

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5. How sad. So much potential lost at the altar of selfishness. 

From CNSNews  “The number of American babies who have been aborted in the years since the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision has already exceeded the entire population of the United States as recorded in the 1880 Census.

This is according to numbers published by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Guttmacher Institute.

In 1880, according to the Census Bureau, there were 50,189,209 people in the United States. These included, the Census Bureau notes, Mark Twain, who had not yet written The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Thomas Edison, who would start his electrical company two years later; and Booker T. Washington, who would open the Tuskegee Institute the next year.

The Guttmacher Institute has estimated the number of abortions in the United States in each year from 1973 through 2011. They add up to 51,376,750—or 1,187,541 more than the entire population of the nation as of 1880. In each of the last 36 straight years for which Guttmacher has published an estimate of the number of abortions, the number has exceeded 1 million.”

Our nation should hang it’s head in shame, but especially those who support/endorse this atrocity. 

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6. Maybe the coach should change the team name to the Clemson Cowards. 

From TruthRevolt  “Under pressure from LGBT groups and the South Carolina House minority leader, Clemson University Head Football Coach Dabo Swinney has announced that he will no longer attend a fundraiser held by a Christian nonprofit organization.

The June 2 fundraiser will be hosted by the Palmetto Family Council, a South Carolina-based Christian nonprofit which describes itself as dedicated to promoting “biblical principles,” particularly “the values and virtues of marriage, the traditional family model, and sexual purity.”  The group supports traditional marriage, endorsed the state’s partial birth abortion law, and is dedicated to promoting religious freedom.

Swinney was to be honored at the fundraiser for his work with his own All In Foundation, which focuses on raising awareness around the state about health issues. Though Swinney explained that he had not official association with the Palmetto Family Council and was attending on behalf of all involved in the work of his foundation, the uproar from gay rights activists had made attending too much of a “distraction.” 

“I appreciate the recognition of my and the foundation’s efforts,” Swinney said. “However, after much thought, in order to avoid a distraction for the team and the entire football program, I’ve decided it is in the best interests of all involved that I not attend the event on June 2.”

“It was my understanding that the nomination and selection for this award was based on the work done by our All In Foundation and the difference it is making in our community,” explained Swinney. “My acceptance of this award was to be on behalf of all the volunteers that make our foundation a success. The work of our foundation is intended to build a better community and be a positive influence.”

“Recently, my scheduled participation in this event has been perceived incorrectly as an endorsement of certain viewpoints and has entered the political arena. I have been out of town since last Thursday and am disappointed that this has become a distraction for me, my team and many others. I have been and continue to be very open about my personal beliefs. However, I do not inject those beliefs or the work of the foundation into the political process.””

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by

News/Politics 5-28-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. Obama is attempting to expand federal control of America’s waterways. 

From TheWashingtonTimes  “President Obama’s administration on Wednesday claimed dominion over all of America’s streams, creeks, rills, ditches, brooks, rivulets, burns, tributaries, criks, wetlands — perhaps even puddles — in a sweeping move to assert unilateral federal authority.

The Environmental Protection Agency, along with the Army Corps of Engineers, says it has the authority to control all waterways within the United States — and will exercise that authority.

“We’re finalizing a clean water rule to protect the streams and the wetlands that one in three Americans rely on for drinking water. And we’re doing that without creating any new permitting requirements and maintaining all previous exemptions and exclusions,” EPA head Gina McCarthy told reporters Wednesday.”

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2. I must admit, I found this a little surprising. But don’t think for a minute this is the end of it. 

From Breitbart  “The Obama administration revealed today that it will not take the fight over executive immigration amnesty to the Supreme Court, essentially admitting defeat in its fight to lift a court-ordered stay placed by a Texas judge.

Obama’s executive actions still have to be settled in court, but yesterday’s decision prevented the administration from moving forward in its efforts to sign up illegal immigrants for the amnesty programs.

“The department believes the best way to achieve this goal is to focus on the ongoing appeal on the merits of the preliminary injunction itself,” said Patrick Rodenbush, a spokesman for the Justice Department to the New York Times. “Although the department continues to disagree with the Fifth Circuit’s refusal to stay the district court’s preliminary injunction, the department has determined that it will not seek a stay from the Supreme Court.””

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3. I’m sure muslim countries will welcome him with open arms, if they even have the guts to send him to any. 

Plus, a terminology update. I is for Intersex, whatever that is. 

From CNSNews  “Randy Berry, the State Department’s first envoy for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) persons, said on Tuesday he is leaving on a 15-country, five-week trip to encourage foreign governments to include protection for homosexuals in their constitutions.

Speaking at the United States Institution of Peace in Washington, D.C., ahead of a panel of gay rights activists from around the world, Berry said gay rights and human rights are “issues we hold very, very dear.”  Civil conflict around the globe that leads to constitutional change offers a “unique opportunity” to advance those rights, he added.

“Constitutional change has provided a unique opportunity for groups to mobilize for their members’ rights and for recognition,” Berry said.

He did not say which countries he will be visiting.”

Gee, I wonder why? 🙄

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4. Ever wonder why convenience store clerks discriminate against schizophrenic LGTBI’s? Me neither. Yet our govt is wasting tax dollars to find out.

Also from CNSNews  “The National Institutes of Health through its National Institute of Mental Health has awarded $52,293 in taxpayer funding to the Toronto-based Centre for Addiction and Mental Health to study how to reduce discrimination of lesbian, gay and transgender people with schizophrenia by members of the community they are in frequent contact with, like the “convenience store clerk.”

“Inquiry will extend from individuals with schizophrenia to include family members and service providers of participants as well as community members with whom they are in frequent contact (e.g., convenience store clerk),” the grant, titled “Defining Community for LGBT People with Schizophrenia,” stated.

“Sexual and gender minority individuals with severe mental illness (SMI) are amongst the most marginalized individuals in North American society,” the grant stated. “They face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination that compound the effects of having a major mental illness, hampering recovery and frustrating efforts to meaningfully participate in our communities.”

“Our work will lay the groundwork for our developing a better understanding about how we can reduce that discrimination in community contexts and develop interventions to facilitate community participation among sexual and gender minority individuals with severe mental illness,” it stated.”

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5. What does the Liberty Bell have to do with LGTBI’s? Nothing, but that’s not what they’re teaching the children.

This is disgusting on so many levels……..

From Conservativebyte  “My neighbor was telling me about how his daughter took her kids to see the Liberty Bell and how they had redone the history signs there. It is now all about civil rights with the founding of our country barely touched upon. I’ve been trying to find a news story about this and am not seeing anything.

I did find the Nation Park Service website basically endorsing the LBGT movement. While their curriculum is nothing but a list of modern civil rights lessons.

You mean to tell me that the founding of our nation isn’t an exciting enough story that you have to ignore it and try to somehow connect civil rights? This sad rewriting of our national history is wrong and should not be ignored. We have let liberals take over teaching our children and our society.”

Sounds crazy, right? But a check of the National Park Service curriculum materials shows the author is correct. 

From NationalParkService  “Overview

Students will learn the connection between the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and the GLBT Civil Rights Movement.

Objective(s)

There is something very wrong with the leadership of this country. 

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by

News/Politics 5-27-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. Hillary’s Jedi mind trick. These are not the emails you’re looking for………

Which means they are. 

From TheDailyCaller  “Sidney Blumenthal emailed Hillary Clinton at least two intelligence reports about Libya which were not included in the trove of 296 emails released by the State Department on Friday.

Clinton has claimed that in December she turned over all official government emails she sent or received from her personal account while in office. In turn, the agency has claimed it turned all Clinton emails related to Libya or Benghazi over to the House Select Committee investigating the Benghazi attack.

But a screenshot of Blumenthal’s email inbox, which the Romanian hacker Guccifer published in March 2013, shows two reports about Libya emailed to Clinton which were not released in Friday’s batch.”

“The State Department release — which was published on the agency’s Freedom of Information Act portal — does not include those two reports. It does, however, include some 20 other intelligence reports Blumenthal sent Clinton about Libya and Benghazi between March 2, 2011. and Dec. 18, 2012.

The discrepancy suggests that the system that Clinton and the State Department have in place to account for her emails failed in some regard. It also raises questions over whether other emails are unaccounted for.”

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2. This is why activities like this should be illegal for current office holders/appointees. Even if it’s all legit, it now appears questionable. 

From InternationalBusinessTimes  “Even by the standards of arms deals between the United States and Saudi Arabia, this one was enormous. A consortium of American defense contractors led by Boeing would deliver $29 billion worth of advanced fighter jets to the United States’ oil-rich ally in the Middle East.”

“But now, in late 2011, Hillary Clinton’s State Department was formally clearing the sale, asserting that it was in the national interest. At a press conference in Washington to announce the department’s approval, an assistant secretary of state, Andrew Shapiro, declared that the deal had been “a top priority” for Clinton personally. Shapiro, a longtime aide to Clinton since her Senate days, added that the “U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army have excellent relationships in Saudi Arabia.”

These were not the only relationships bridging leaders of the two nations. In the years before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia contributed at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, the philanthropic enterprise she has overseen with her husband, former president Bill Clinton. Just two months before the deal was finalized, Boeing — the defense contractor that manufactures one of the fighter jets the Saudis were especially keen to acquire, the F-15 — contributed$900,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to a company press release.

The Saudi deal was one of dozens of arms sales approved by Hillary Clinton’s State Department that placed weapons in the hands of governments that had also donated money to the Clinton family philanthropic empire, an International Business Times investigation has found.

Under Clinton’s leadership, the State Department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation, according to an IBTimes analysis of State Department and foundation data. That figure — derived from the three full fiscal years of Clinton’s term as Secretary of State (from October 2010 to September 2012) — represented nearly double the value of American arms sales made to the those countries and approved by the State Department during the same period of President George W. Bush’s second term.

The Clinton-led State Department also authorized $151 billion of separate Pentagon-brokered deals for 16 of the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation, resulting in a 143 percent increase incompleted sales to those nations over the same time frame during the Bush administration. These extra sales were part of a broad increase in American military exports that accompanied Obama’s arrival in the White House.”

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3. Sure Barry, it’s the 3 judges in 2 courts who are “misinterpreting” the law. It couldn’t possibly be the “constitutional scholar” who always seems to be wrong. 🙄

From Breitbart  “The White House reacted to the news that the Fifth Circuit court of appeals denied an appeal from the Obama administration to lift a stay on his executive amnesty plan, accusing two judges in the decision of interpreting the law incorrectly.

“Today, two judges of the Fifth Circuit chose to misinterpret the facts and the law in denying the government’s request for a stay,” White House spokesperson Brandi Hoffine said in a statement to Breitbart News.

The court ruled against Obama administrations appeal with a 2-1 vote.

In response Hoffine cited the dissent from Judge Stephen Higginson, who was appointed by President Obama.”

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More here from Reuters/MSN  “The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday in favor of 26 states challenging President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration, potentially paving the way for a Supreme Court decision on the issue.

Two judges on the three-judge panel ruled that the executive action, which would grant an estimated 4.7 million undocumented immigrants relief from deportation, should remain on hold while the government appeals its blocking.

The immigration order was first put on hold by Texas Judge Andrew Hanen in February after the states, all led by Republican governors, alleged that taking in migrants would be overly burdensome.

“The President’s attempt to bypass the will of the American people was successfully checked again today,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said in a news release.”

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4. Cowards, every last one of them.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The United Nations said Tuesday that Boko Haram is responsible for an “alarming spike” of suicide bombings in Nigeria that have been carried about by women and children.

Girls between the ages of 7 and 17 years have been used for three-quarters of all such attacks in the region since 2014, the U.N. children’s agency reported. There have been 27 suicide bombings in the region over five months, compared to 26 in all of 2014.

“Children are not instigating these suicide attacks; they are used intentionally by adults in the most horrific way. They are first and foremost victims — not perpetrators,” said Jean Gough, UNICEF representative in Nigeria.

UNICEF estimates that 743,000 have been displaced over the past six years because of Boko Haram’s campaign of terror.”

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by

News/Politics 5-26-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. The tolerant jeweler and his impure thoughts……

From NationalReview  “In the American Conservative yesterday, Rod Dreher related the following story:

So, a Canadian Christian jeweler custom-made a pair of engagement rings for a lesbian couple, Nicole White and Pam Renouf, at their request. Later, when they found out that the jeweler personally opposes same-sex marriage, they went to pieces and demanded their money back. The couple now believes the rings they ordered will have been tainted by having been fashioned by jeweler Esau Jardon’s hands, given what impure thoughts he holds in his mind.

One could be forgiven for wondering how we are all supposed to keep up. Last month, as Indiana’s rather tame religious-freedom legislation was being torched by the mob, America’s more devout dissenters were informed that the price of participation in the marketplace was the subjugation of one’s conscience to one’s Caesar. “You can’t opt out of the law,” the agitators explained. “This isn’t the Jim Crow South!” Their core message? That if we all keep quiet about our views — and if we treat commercial transactions as commercial transactions — nobody will end up getting hurt. Or, put another way: “Cater my wedding, you bigot.”

In Dreher’s story, alas, the opposite case appears to obtain. “We can’t be expected to honor our contracts with companies that disagree with us,” the outraged couple is arguing, “for that might taint our nuptials.” The new message? That we can’t all get along by keeping quiet, but instead need to positively affirm one another or face the consequences. Or, put another way: “Even if I ask you to, don’t cater my wedding, you bigot.”

Would that the agitators could settle on a strategy.”

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2. Disarming the PC police with a pre-apology. 

From HotAir  “It seems ever since #GamerGate kicked off last August the PC police have begun lashing out in every direction as if to compensate for their inability to cower gamers back into line.  Just a few days ago Jazz covered how an implied rape scene in the most recent Game of Thrones episode created an uproar, even though the show is full of nudity, sex, and of course, gratuitous and graphic violence against everybody.  “Never mind all that brutal murder, off-screen rape is where I draw the line!”

Just a couple weeks earlier there was a backlash against Avengers: Age of Ultron because Black Widow’s desire to have children apparently undermines her character in a way the skin-tight leather suit never did.  There was so much vitriol sent Joss Whedon’s way for this that when he left Twitter, everyone assumed angry feminists drove him off.  He later told BuzzFeedthat was not the reason despite his explanation sounding quite a bit like it was.” “And it goes on and on. Scientists wear unacceptable shirts. Star Wars fans are racist for wondering about that black Stormtrooper. Yahoo even has people complaining that the new Supergirl series’ trailer is too girly and therefore sexist.

“Well, Jurassic World star Chris Pratt decided he’s not waiting to be accused of some kind of -ism for a comment during the upcoming press junket for that film.  Instead, he issued a terribly amusing pre-apology on his Facebook page:

I want to make a heartfelt apology for whatever it is I end up accidentally saying during the forthcoming ‪#‎JurassicWorld‬ press tour. I hope you understand it was never my intention to offend anyone and I am truly sorry. I swear. I’m the nicest guy in the world. And I fully regret what I (accidentally will have) said in (the upcoming foreign and domestic) interview(s).

Has it really come to this?

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3. Cutting member benefits while spending big on politics/politicians.  

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The Teamsters have begun informing retirees and current workers that their pension benefits may soon be cut, the final ironic twist to a lobbying campaign that saw the union spend its own members’ dollars to win the right to shrink their retirement pay.

The somber notifications began going out from the Teamsters Central States Health and Welfare Pension Fund this spring, a decision that could ultimately affect 410,000 current pension participants and a total of more than 10 million U.S. workers nationwide. Cuts could begin as early as next year.

The cuts were made possible after the lame-duck Congress late last year passed the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act (MPRA), enabling any multiemployer pension fund to cut benefits to workers and current retirees if the plan is underfunded by at least 20 percent.”

“The Teamsters pension fund has been struggling with severe shortages for years, even as the union continued to pour millions of dollars into political election efforts and Washington lobbying.

In 2014 alone, the union and its affiliates spent nearly $5.9 million on lobbying and political contributions, and one of its main legislative targets was passage of the pension reform law that finally gave it the right to start reducing benefits, according to the lobbying reports it filed with Congress.”

How convenient! 

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by

News/Politics 5-21-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. An impartial judiciary…… Not.

From NationalReview  “Since there was no bride to be the “belle” at the ritzy D.C. wedding of Shakespeare Theater Company artistic director Michael Kahn and Manhattan architect Charles Mitchem this weekend, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who officiated, was happy to play the part. And she did so with panache, says Maureen Dowd:

The most glittering moment for the crowd came during the ceremony. With a sly look and special emphasis on the word “Constitution,” Justice Ginsburg said that she was pronouncing the two men married by the powers vested in her by the Constitution of the United States. . . . The guests began applauding loudly.

For a sitting Supreme Court justice facing a case on precisely this divisive issue, her remark seems — let’s put it mildly — injudicious. But Ruth Bader Ginsburg is not just some Supreme Court Justice. “

“When the feminist outlet Jezebel reported this remark, it worried in passing that Ginsburg might be “hesitant to pass anything broad-sweeping when it comes to marriage equality rulings.” Precious. Not only is Ginsburg the go-to justice for same-sex-wedding officiating, but she is currently featured in advertisements by the Human Rights Campaign. “Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg [sic] agrees Americans are ready for marriage equality,” the ad declares.”

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2. I’ll Ginsburg credit, at least she’s honest about it. Unlike this guy. 

From Politico  “One of the authors of a recent study that claimed that short conversations with gay people could change minds on same-sex marriage has retracted it.

Columbia University political science professor Donald Green’s retraction this week of a popular article published in the December issue of the academic journal Science follows revelations that his co-author allegedly faked data for the study, “When contact changes minds: An experiment on transmission of support of gay marriage.””

“In an email to POLITICO, Green said he spoke with LaCour by phone on Tuesday and that he “maintained that he did not fabricate the data but told me that he could not locate the Qualtrics source files for the surveys on the Qualtrics interface or on any of his drives.”

Qualtrics was the survey platform that was purportedly used, though a company spokesman clarified to POLITICO that it did not collaborate with LaCour or anyone else on the study.

“I asked him to write a retraction, and he indicated he would do so, but when it did not appear last night, I sent off my own retraction,” Green wrote.

The investigation into the paper began when graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley, were initially impressed with the work and wanted to do an extension of it, according to a timeline of their probe posted Tuesday. When the students started a similar study, they found they were not getting the large response rate that Green and LaCour received in theirs.”

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3. The media has been using an Iraq question to try to trip up Republicans seeking the nomination. Here’s an Iraq question for Democrats, but don’t expect the media to actually ask it. 

From TheDailyBeast  “The Iraq Question Democrats Don’t Want the Media to Ask

It goes to Clinton and Kerry, and it’s simple: If they knew then what they know now, would they have backed Obama’s decision to leave Iraq?

Some 16 months away for the election to choose the 45th President of the United States, many in the mainstream media have come up with a new parlor game to amuse themselves. The latest obsession is to corner a Republican running for president and ask them a variation of the following: “If you knew then about what you know about Iraq now, would you have agreed with President George W. Bush to invade Iraq?”

Let’s be honest, shall we? No reasonable person would agree to invade Iraq today based on what we know now about weapons of mass destruction being stored in the country. Hindsight some 12 years later will always appear to be 20/20. At the time, President Bush and many foreign leaders around the world strongly believed in the threat Saddam Hussein posed to the Middle East as well as the United States and acted, accordingly.

No, this latest media ploy is not about asking a legitimate question of a contender for the nomination about his views on American military/foreign policy. Instead, this is an effort to bring up their favorite bogeyman, former President George W. Bush, and continue with a variation of the “Bush lied, troops died” trope they hope will trip up Republicans and ostensibly help former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on her presumed path toward coronation to the presidency.”

But don’t worry, the press is still totally unbiased as always……. 🙄

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by

News/Politics 5-20-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. Are atheists their own worst enemies? Sure looks like it. It turns out when you get people thinking about death, their no hope for an afterlife approach isn’t really appealing. And their so-called values don’t have any foundation that people can relate to. 

From LiveScience  “Atheists consistently rank among the lowest of the low in the court of American public opinion. Now, research suggests one reason why: Thinking about atheists reminds people of death.

In fact, prompting people to think about atheism triggered death-related thoughts just as strongly as, well, directly prompting people to think about death, a new study finds. These death thoughts help trigger a subconscious dislike of atheists, said study leader Corey Cook, a social psychologist at the University of Washington, Tacoma. Not only do thoughts of death put people in a negative frame of mind, Cook told Live Science, but they also prompt people to hold more tightly onto their own values.

“There’s a little circular thing going on where encountering atheism will make people grasp their values closer and then become more negative because atheists are perceived as not having values,” Cook said.”

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2. Another secret email.

From TheNYPost  “A second secret email address used by Hillary Rodham Clinton while she was secretary of state was revealed Monday.

The email address, published by The New York Times, was used in exchanges between Clinton and longtime adviser Sydney Blumenthal, and is from the same private email server that was uncovered earlier this year.

“Fyi. The idea of using private security experts to arm the opposition should be considered,” Clinton wrote Blumenthal from the ­email address HRod17@clintonemail.com.

The two were discussing strategies to help the opposition rebels oust Moammar Khadafy in Libya as that country descended into chaos in 2011.

Clinton’s office insisted just two months ago that the only private email address used by the former secretary of state during her tenure was hdr22@clintonemail.com.”

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3. So now we have proof that the Ferguson protest and others weren’t really grass-roots at all. Just more paid agitation from Soros and company. 

From WeaselZippers  “More Proof Of Paid Protesters: Ad Asking For Protesters To Travel To Protest, List Of Payouts To #Ferguson Protest Organizers”

“MORE and OBS, two groups funded by George Soros, advertised money available for people willing to travel to protest.”

“After protesters protested not getting their checks from MORE on May 14th, MORE allegedly distributed the following list as to who was paid to protest in Ferguson and elsewhere, to show where the money had been going.”

“You can see money paid out to Lisa Fithian, $1,127.75 for ‘visit expenses’.

For those who do not know, Lisa Fithian is an infamous leftist organizer. She organized at Occupy, but has been used as a training organizer for many years before that. She spent time in Ferguson in 2014 training people to ‘simulate chaos’.”

A real President and AG would be coming down hard on these people for the damage their agitation and “chaos” caused. But we have a President and AG that agree with them, so they’ll ignore their jobs yet again.

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