Duck Dynasty

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News/Politics 12-19-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Some good news to start. A very nice story. 🙂

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2. And then it goes downhill……

Meet the new tone, which oddly enough, sounds just like the old tone.

From RollCall  “Newly minted White House counselor John Podesta has apologized for a remark that likened House Republicans to a “cult worthy of Jonestown” after getting called out by Speaker John A. Boehner’s spokesman.

“They need to focus on executive action given that they are facing a second term against a cult worthy of Jonestown in charge of one of the houses of Congress,” Podesta told Politico’s Glenn Thrush earlier this fall, before the former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton was named to the White House post.”

“Brendan Buck, spokesman for Boehner, had suggested the quote was a bad omen for 2014.

“For those who’ve forgotten, a Democratic member of Congress was murdered in Jonestown and a current one, Rep. Jackie Speier, was shot five times during the same incident,” Buck noted.”

Yeah, classy as ever eh John? 🙄

Although I guess being called a cult is better than being called terrorists. Maybe…

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3. More waste that could be cut instead of troop pensions. And you just gotta love the “shocking” findings. 🙄

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4. Plenty more here to cut. And a CONTENT WARNING!!! for some adult (and duck?) material.

From TheNYPost  “While the White House and Congress griped this year about the pain of automatic budget cuts, the federal government still managed to spend billions of dollars on seemingly frivolous projects – from a $384,989 grant for Yale University to study the duck penis to $1.9 million for “lifestyle” lessons for Senate staffers.

Nearly $30 billion in questionable federal spending is detailed in the “Wastebook” that was released Tuesday by the Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who annually compiles the report.”

“$10 million for National Guard advertising tie-ins with the “Soldier of Steel” movie, despite budget cuts reducing the Guard’s strength by 8,000 soldiers.

$7 billion for the Pentagon to destroy vehicles and other military equipment used in wars in the Middle East rather than sell or ship the items home.

$17.5 million for special tax exemptions for Nevada brothels, including tax deductions for groceries, wages for prostitutes, rent and utilities.”

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5. Is this in every Democrat up for re-election’s future?

Yes please! 🙂

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6. I have to say, Phil shoulda seen this coming. Publicly speaking out against homosexuality is not tolerated.

With a CONTENT WARNING!!! for adult subject matter.

From MSNTV  “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson has been  suspended from the A&E reality series, following anti-gay remarks he made in  an interview with GQ magazine.  

In a statement, A+E Networks said he had been placed on indefinite hiatus.”

“We are extremely disappointed to have read Phil Robertson’s comments in GQ,  which are based on his own personal beliefs and are not reflected in the series  ‘Duck Dynasty,'” the company said. “His personal views in no way reflect those  of A+E Networks, who have always been strong supporters and champions of the  LGBT community. The network has placed Phil under hiatus from filming  indefinitely.”

Robertson caused controversy with his comments, in which he grouped gays with  “drunks” and “terrorists,” and said that they won’t “inherit the kingdom of  God.”

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7. By now you’ve probably seen the commercial with the guy in the pajamas pushing ObamaCare. I think 12 year olds are making these commercials, and they seem geared toward children. They’re just awful. This one however, is a new low. This one features adult (supposedly gay) men in their underwear celebrating ObamaCare and being gay.  And remember folks, we’re paying for this garbage. Military pensions are being cut, but the President and Democrats can find the cash (400 million + so far ) to pay for the making and the advertising of this nonsense. It’s pathetic.

With a CONTENT WARNING!!! for adult subject matter and men in their underwear.

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by

News/Politics 9-3-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

We have tons to choose from today.

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First up, a disturbing couple of stories. Many of us have warned of the “Slippery Slope.” We were assured it was all in our heads, and that it didn’t really exist. And yet we continue to slide down, and to a new and disturbing low. And a new low for the Post too. It will get worse too, if this is the type of opinion writing the new liberal owner is going to allow.

CONTENT WARNING!!!!

From TheWashingtonPost  “There is a painfully uncomfortable episode of “Louie” in which the comedian Louis C.K. muses that maybe child molesters wouldn’t kill their victims if the penalty weren’t so severe. Everyone I know who watches the show vividly recalls that scene from 2010 because it conjures such a witches’ cauldron of taboo, disgust and moral outrage, all wrapped around a disturbing kernel of truth. I have similar ambivalence about the case involving former Montana high school teacher Stacey Dean Rambold. Louie concluded his riff with a comment to the effect of “I don’t know what to do with that information.” That may be the case for many of us, but with our legal and moral codes failing us, our society needs to have an uncensored dialogue about the reality of sex in schools.

As protesters decry the leniency of Rambold’s sentence — he will spend 30 days in prison after pleading guilty to raping 14-year-old Cherice Morales, who committed suicide at age 16 — I find myself troubled for the opposite reason. I don’t believe that all sexual conduct between underage students and teachers should necessarily be classified as rape, and I believe that absent extenuating circumstances, consensual sexual activity between teachers and students should not be criminalized. While I am not defending Judge G. Todd Baugh’s comments about Morales being “as much in control of the situation” — for which he has appropriately apologized — tarring and feathering him for attempting to articulate the context that informed his sentence will not advance this much-needed dialogue.”

“The point is that there is a vast and extremely nuanced continuum of sexual interactions involving teachers and students, ranging from flirtation to mutual lust to harassment to predatory behavior. Painting all of these behaviors with the same brush sends a damaging message to students and sets the stage for hypocrisy and distortion of the truth. Many teenagers are, biologically speaking, sexually mature. Pretending that this kind of thing won’t happen if we simply punish it severely enough is delusional. If anything, to return to Louis C.K., the indiscriminate criminalization of such situations may deter students struggling with sexual issues from seeking advice from a parent or counselor.”

More here with links to other stories by media outlets attempting to normalize pedophilia, from NationalReview  “The Guardian and the Atlantic have published columns aimed at normalizing pedophilia. Scientific American and the BBC have publishing articles normalizing polyamory. Now the Washington Post publishes an opinion piece that advocates decriminalizing student-teacher sex.”

“How is society “damaged” by protecting children from predatory teachers? Karasik doesn’t actually say, other than to imply that Morales might not have committed suicide had the criminal case not been pending. Despicable. Oh, and maybe students would be more likely to discuss sexual issues with school counselors. 

I repeat, this was published in the Washington Post. How low can we go? I am afraid we are going to find out.”

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This one doesn’t surprise me. Snowden has struck again.

From YNetNews  “Individuals with connections to al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations repeatedly tried to obtain jobs in US intelligence community; ‘One of five CIA applicants has connections to hostile groups’.”

“The CIA found that among a subset of job seekers whose backgrounds raised questions, roughly one out of every five had “significant terrorist and/or hostile intelligence connections,” according to the document, which was provided to the Washington Post by former National Security Agency contractor.”

So how many made it thru?

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Next up, oh the Horror! 🙄

From NationalReview  “Fantastic news for angsty progressive-ish 15-year-olds everywhere: Finally — finally! — after a wait that must have seemed interminable, this readership has gotten its very own Ayn Rand, thanks to Frederic C. Rich and his debut novel, Christian Nation, a story with all the subtlety of a Slipknot video and artfulness of a Chick tract.”

“The basic gist of the story is thus: John McCain wins the 2008 election and then promptly dies from a brain aneurysm. Then Sarah Palin becomes president (the Sarah Palin character in this book puts Tina Fey to shame, by the way) and, in cahoots with those scary homeschool leaders and Evangelicals, sets America on the track to becoming a brutal theocracy where homosexuality, adultery, masturbation, and a bunch of other things are banned. The book’s protagonist, Greg; his best friend Sanjay (a gay man from India who is the new gold standard for one-dimensional characters); and Mike Bloomberg (now the governor of New York) try to stop them before it’s too late. Suspense!”

“Rich’s book suggests that he’s very, very worried that Westboro Baptist Church or their ilk will win the House, the Senate, and the presidency and then proceed to kill all the gays. In fact, above the book’s title on its cover is written “it could happen here . . . ,” suggesting that the book isn’t so much a novel as a progressive doomsday prophecy. Rich goes out of his way to intimate that conservative Evangelicals are currently doing what the Nazis were doing in the 1930s. “This isn’t the first time the world didn’t listen,” he writes after a quick discussion of dominionism. “In college I read Hitler’s Mein Kampf.” He prefaces one chapter with a quotation from Dr. James Luther Adams, an anti-Nazi dissident, which reads, “Repeatedly I heard anti-Nazis say, ‘If only 1,000 of us in the late twenties had combined in heroic resistance, we could have stopped Hitler.’”

Good grief. 🙄

More here from Townhall  “They said what they would do, and we did not listen. Then they did what they said they would do.”

Sounds frightening, doesn’t it? Who could “they” be? A 1984-like government? A terrorist organization? An alien force? Well, according to the author who wrote those words, the “they” are big bad Christians.”

Be afraid. Be very afraid. 😯

Or not.

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I bet the author above would be OK with this though.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “With high-ranking Democratic officials listening reverently in the Iowa state capitol, a liberal activist and union official on Wednesday led a prayer for increased funding for abortions, for greater access to abortions, for doctors who perform abortions, and for what she called “the blessing of choice.”

Midge Slater, an organizer for the Iowa Alliance for Retired Americans, part of the Iowa Federation of Labor and the AFL-CIO, spoke to about 80 people who came to the capitol to protest a proposal that the State Board of Medicine end a program that allows doctors to prescribe an abortion pill for a woman after a video chat, rather than an in-person consultation.”

“In her invocation at the rally, which was attended by Jack Hatch and Tyler Olson, two Democratic candidates for governor of Iowa, Slater prayed that elected officials “may always support a woman’s right to make her own medical decisions.” She prayed for “increased financial support for low income women” to have abortions. She prayed that “women in developing nations” have greater access to abortion. She prayed to “give thanks and celebrate that abortion is still safe and legal.” And she prayed that families may know “the blessing of choice.””

Pretty sick if you ask me. But she’s not the only one. Sick seems to be a theme among abortion supporters.

From LifeNews  “The BroChoice campaign — which pushes the notion that supporting abortion is a good thing for men to do because it allows them to get out of the responsibility of becoming a parent by pressuring their partner to have an abortion — is getting worse.

Now, a writer at a popular blog called Return of Kings has written a manual on “How To Convince A Girl To Get An Abortion.” The column is as sick as the headline sounds.”

This one I agree with them on. At least be honest and just admit it. Safe, legal, and rare has always been a lie.

From TheNation  “When did so many feminists get polite on abortion? I cannot take hearing another pundit insist that only a small percentage of Planned Parenthood’s work is providing abortions or that some women need birth control for “medical” reasons. Tiptoeing around the issue is exhausting, and it’s certainly not doing women any favors.

It’s time resuscitate the old rallying cry for “free abortions on demand without apology.” It may not be a popular message but it’s absolutely necessary. After all, the opposition doesn’t have nearly as many caveats. They’re fighting for earlier and earlier bans on abortions, pushing for no exceptions for rape and incest, fighting against birth control coverage—even insisting that they have the right to threaten abortion providers. The all-out strategy is working; since 2010, more than fifty abortion clinics have stopped providing services.

The anti-choice movement isn’t pulling any punches—why should we?”

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After that, I need some good news. And a shower. 😦

From Stripes.com  “Gary Sinise, the actor who played Lt. Dan in the 1993 movie “Forrest Gump,” has been named an Honorary Marine.

Gen. James F. Amos, the Marine Corps commandant, said Sinise earned the recognition because of his efforts to support military veterans.

“There is little I can say to enhance the rich reputation Gary Sinise has earned,” Amos said during a ceremony at the Marine Corps Barracks in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. “What I can do, what I am privileged and proud to do, is to recognize this humble patriot’s selfless service by making him an Honorary Marine.”

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I liked this one too. 🙂 If you haven’t checked them out, you really should. 🙂

From TheChristianPost  “Silas Merritt Robertson, who’s best known as “Uncle Si” on A&E’s most  watched reality television show “Duck Dynasty” spoke with The Christian Post  about his new book, Si-Cology 1: Tales and Wisdom from Duck Dynasty’s Favorite  Uncle that will be available on Sept. 3.”

“Si’s mastery of storytelling runs throughout his descriptions of the Vietnam War  and how he met his wife, Christine. The always-jovial Uncle Si also speaks  candidly about the difficulties he and Christine have faced, and how God has  blessed and sustained them throughout their 43 years of marriage. He also shares  their unexpected blessing of having two children, Trasa and Scott, and eight  grandchildren.”

“According to Si, marriage is a union between two imperfect people who are  destined to make mistakes. But at the end of the day, their love for each other  and faith in Jesus Christ will bring them through every hardship and enrich the  most joyous times of their lives.”

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And this last one asks a question. Free speech, or treason?

From TheBlaze  “Since the U.S. has started serious discussions about taking military action against Syria, many have publicly spoken out against a possible military strike. And now it appears that some of our uniformed service personnel have come forward to express their disagreement with an attack, any attack on Syria.”

“More than 2,000 people have “liked” this image that was posted on Sunday.”

“There were also photos posted from people wearing the uniforms of the Marines, Navy and Air Force. These have also received Facebook “likes” in the thousands.”

“Is this kind of behavior allowed? Well, there are rules concerning what uniformed military personnel can and cannot do, especially when it comes to making a political statement.”

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