This blog is mainly about the spectacular train wreck at The Sacramento Bee and its parent company, the McClatchy Company. But I also post about current events, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, politics, anything else that grabs my attention. Take a look around this blog, hope you enjoy it.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Saturday December 12 -- Got news or an update?
If you have news or an update, leave it in comments. . . .
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Fistgate VI: Obama’s Safe Schools Czar’s Teen Conference Literature Pushed Anal S*x in Parks With Strangers(GatewayPundit) (Warning on Content)
In March 2000 the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) organization of Massachusetts held its 10 Year Anniversary GLSEN/Boston conference at Tufts University.
This conference was fully supported by the Massachusetts Department of Education, the Safe Schools Program, the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, and some of the presenters even received federal money.
During the 2000 conference, workshop leaders led a “youth only, ages 14-21″ session that offered lessons in “fisting” a dangerous sexual practice.
During the same workshop an activist asked 14 year-old students, “Spit or swallow?… Is it rude?” The unbelievable audio clip is posted here.
Barack Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings is the founder of GLSEN. He was paid $273,573.96 as its executive director in 2007.
Jennings was the keynote speaker at the 2000 GLSEN conference. Unfortunately for GLSEN, undercover journalists with Mass Resistance recorded these outrageous sessions at Tufts University. The audio was later leaked to a local radio station.
This created such an uproar that GLSEN leaders were forced to apologize for their disgusting behavior.
Despite the controversy, Barack Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings and his GLSEN organization did nothing to clean up their act.
In fact in 2001 activists handed out “fisting kits” to the children and teachers who attended the GLSEN conference.
But that’s not all. The children who attended Kevin Jennnings’ GLSEN 2005 Conference also left with their own “Little Black Book –Queer in the 21st Century”.
Here’s one page from that Black Book for teens: The entire Little Black Book is posted here. And, here’s the transcript from item #3 above:
“No Dookie On Your Noodle! Nobody knows better than queer men that sh*t happens.
It’s just a fact of life…and butts*x. While there are steps to take to avoid a mess, they’re not always practical for the boy on the go.
Condoms allow you a certain freedom that can be a great selling point if you’re cruising the park and don’t want stray spunk on your new polyester shirt…”
So, basically, in the crudest language imaginable, GLSEN recommended that “boys” go out cruising for anonymous anal sex in public parks with strangers.
Thanks to a reader for pointing this out.
Today Kevin Jennings, the founder of GLSEN, is Barack Obama’s Safe Schools Czar.
There’s more to come.
UPDATE: Grassroots Nation has started a petition to fire Kevin Jennings.
—Please think of your kids and go sign it now!
UPDATE 2: Monte Kuligowski at the American Thinker says the Kevin Jennings appointment will hurt Obama immeasurably once the story breaks through the double-bolted door of the “mainstream” newsroom.
Cruising gay bars with the 'safe schools czar' (Washington Times)
Teenagers shouldn't drink alcohol.
That's the policy of the United States government, which spends billions to enforce laws backing the policy, and it also is the position of pretty much every respectable organization in the nation, including the Department of Education.
So naturally, when looking to fill the post of the nation's top school-safety official at the Education Department, President Obama chose a guy who founded and led an organization that allowed bar guides to be handed out to high school students.
Once again, "safe schools czar" Kevin Jennings has been involved in making schools less safe. As always, this one was, whoops, a mistake. It is always a mistake.
Whoops, while a teacher, he enabled a teenager to continue a sexual relationship with an older man whom the student had met in a bus-stop bathroom.
Whoops, he praised one of the North American Man/Boy Love Association's most vociferous defenders.
Whoops, the group Mr. Jennings founded, the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, recommended books for children as young as 13 that present sex between minors and adults in a positive light.
The new whoops is a safe-sex guide distributed in a Massachusetts high school in 2005.
Included in the book are the addresses and phone numbers of Boston-area gay bars to make it easier for teens to find the businesses that cater to homosexual men over the age of 21.
The guide's descriptions of what goes on in these bars is explicit.
Over here, there's "dancing, young guys and those who like young guys."
Over there, the ambience is "old school, cruisy, sex-charged late at night." At another hot spot, there's "porn on the television, the old, the young. Something for everyone."
Media Matters Defends Kid Fisting Lectures and Children Sex Books as Non-Scandal (GatewayPundit)
The Soros-linked far left Media Matters today announced that the Kevin Jennings GLSEN scandal reported here on this blog and at Big Government is a non-scandal that was rightfully ignored by the state-run media.
Here’s a question: If it is such a non-scandal then why did Media Matters write 18 different articles on the non-scandal this week?
Why would Media Matters focus so much attention on a non-scandal?
Could it be that they are afraid of what Americans would think if this was reported responsibly by the state-run media?
Could it be that their arguments defending pushing porn on kids don’t pass the sniff test?
Could it be that pointing out pedophilia books and children sex booksis not the same as being homophobic?
Could it be they are afraid of what is going to be reported about Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings next?
Try as they might, Media Matters still has not been able to convince those following this story that pushing anonymous gay sex in parks on children is a healthy practice.
Media Matters still hasn’t convinced Americans that lectures on fistingto 14 year-olds are educational.
Media Matters still has not been able to explain how p*ssing on your partner breaks new ground in intimacy?
Media Matters still has not been able to explain how the absolute filth pushed on children in Kevin Jennings’ selected pornographic books is good for kids?
Media Matters may hope that Americans will avert their eyes as some deviant leads our children astray.
They would be wrong. Rep. Michael Burgess called for Kevin Jennings to resign yesterday on the House floor.
The Washington Timeswrote another editorial on the childrens sex scandal today.
Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkindiscussed this sexual assault on children two days ago.
For any of you out there who haven’t been following this story,
I suggest you go back here and read for yourself what Kevin Jennings’ organization GLSEN has been pushing on children in America.
Then ask yourself if this man should be the “Safe Schools Czar.”
If you still think he should keep his job you should probably seek help.
This scandal isn’t about left or right. It’s not about being a good Democrat or Republican. It’s not about gay versus straight.
This story is about keeping America’s children safe.
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) Calls For Removal of Dangerous School Czar Kevin Jennings
Rep. Michael C. Burgess M.D. (R-TX) delivered a 1-minute speech on the House floor calling on the Obama Administration to immediately fire the so-called “Safe Schools” Czar Kevin Jennings, calling him “dangerous for our schools and children.
The Hill reported: Republican Congressman Michael Burgess (R-Texas) on Thursday renewed his call for White House “safe schools” czar Kevin Jennings to resign his post.
In a tweet this morning, Burgess asked followers, “Do we really need this office?” He also shared a link to his one-minute speech on the House floor Wednesday, in which he called for Jennings’ to step down immediately.
“Kevin Jennings needs to be replaced, he needs to be replaced today,” Burgess stressed in that speech.
“The so-called safe schools czar appointed by the Obama administration to the Department of Education is dangerous for our school children.”
According to Burgess, the danger Jennings poses students is best summed up by a recent Washington Times editorial, published on Wednesday.
Wrote the newspaper’s editorial team: “The Obama administration is stonewalling serious inquiries about sexual filth propagated by a senior presidential appointee who is responsible for promoting and implementing federal education policy.”
The Times specifically charged Jennings gave sexual advice to minors — an inappropriate decision, they added, that is “part of a consistent pattern by some homosexual activists to promote underage homosexuality.”
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen an editorial in a major newspaper that came with a bolded warning, just like an FDA drug,” Burgess later said, referencing the lengthy warning about explicit material that begins the Times’ piece.
The Washington Times published another editorial today on Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings.
Teenagers shouldn’t drink alcohol. That’s the policy of the United States government, which spends billions to enforce laws backing the policy, and it also is the position of pretty much every respectable organization in the nation, including the Department of Education.
So naturally, when looking to fill the post of the nation’s top school-safety official at the Education Department, President Obama chose a guy who founded and led an organization that allowed bar guides to be handed out to high school students.
Once again, “safe schools czar” Kevin Jennings has been involved in making schools less safe. As always, this one was, whoops, a mistake. It is always a mistake.
Whoops, while a teacher, he enabled a teenager to continue a sexual relationship with an older man whom the student had met in a bus-stop bathroom.
Whoops, he praised one of the North American Man/Boy Love Association’s most vociferous defenders.
Whoops, the group Mr. Jennings founded, the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, recommended books for children as young as 13 that present sex between minors and adults in a positive light.
The rest of the state-run media remains silent on the recent revelations involving Jennings which would be another glitch on the Obama Administration – an administration that already is suffering record low polling numbers.
Do safe schools require an iron fisting? (Hot Air)
I’ve received a lot of e-mail asking why I haven’t written about the controversy over Kevin Jennings, Barack Obama’s “safe schools” czar.
To be honest, the story is so shocking that I haven’t quite grasped how to approach it.
Jennings ran an outfit called Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) from its inception in 1995 until last year.
During that time, as Jim Hoft at Big Government has detailed, GLSEN offered sex education seminars to young teenagers within the framework of public education that went way, way beyond explanations of human biology and disease transmission.
According to multiple sources, GLSEN discussed “fisting”, oral sex etiquette, and other techniques to 14-year-olds, until the program got exposed by local Massachusetts media, and the instructor got fired as a scapegoat.
Jim has the audio from one of the seminars, discussing the proper hand position for “fisting”
Court tosses Prop. 8 ruling on strategy papers (CA against gay marriage) (San Francisco Chronical)
SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court in San Francisco has reversed a judge's order that backers of Proposition 8, the state initiative that banned same-sex marriage, give their campaign strategy documents to opponents trying to overturn the measure.
In a unanimous ruling today, the Ninth U.S. Circuit of Appeals tossed out the order that Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker issued in October against backers of Prop. 8, which state voters approved in November 2008.
Walker had said lawyers for two same-sex couples and a gay-rights group were entitled to see internal memos and e-mails between Yes on 8 strategists to look for evidence that the campaign had exploited prejudice against gays and lesbians.
The plaintiffs are trying to show that the measure was discriminatory and thus unconstitutional.
Prop. 8 sponsors argued that their discussions were constitutionally protected and that Walker's order would discourage candid communications in political campaigns.
The three-judge appeals court panel unanimously agreed. "The freedom to associate with others for the common advancement of political beliefs and ideas lies at the heart of the First Amendment," Judge Raymond Fisher wrote for the court.
Prop. 8 proponents, he said, had shown that turning over the documents "would likely have a chilling effect on political association and the formulation of political expression."
The court had suspended Walker's order last week and signaled that it intended to reverse it.
The trial over the lawsuit is still scheduled to begin Jan. 11
GLSEN's toxic reading list eroticizes children (Santa Claus is Coming Out Now) (Dallas News)
If you ask me, nothing says Merry Christmas quite like a stage comedy about Santa Claus' gay relationship with toymaker Geppetto, a descendant of Pinocchio.
Alas for Santa Claus Is Coming Out, now showing to Off Broadway audiences, a play about a gay Santa tormented by his clandestine same-sex canoodling is bound to have limited appeal.
But the ho-ho-homosexual comedy has been embraced by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, a national gay organization dedicated to fighting anti-gay bullying in schools.
Who can be against that? Decent people are appalled by instances of gay children subjected to physical abuse or verbal torment.
If stopping that were what GLSEN – a mainstream activist organization with major corporate, philanthropic and teachers union sponsors – were really about, it would be difficult to object to its work.
What GLSEN (pronounced "glisten") really does, though, is to mouth slogans about the (laudable) need to stop anti-gay bullying as a pretext for sexualizing schoolchildren.
Take, for example, the recommended reading list on GLSEN's Web site (www.glsen.org), listing volumes that have been pre-screened by GLSEN staff. The investigative team at Breitbart TV, the crew behind the ACORN sting, ordered 11 books from GLSEN's list for kids in grades 7 through 12 and posted scanned pages to the Web.
You can see the revolting results at gatewaypundit.firstthings.com.
~snip~
If moral sanity in defense of children qualifies one as a bigot, gay-rights extremists should not be surprised if fed-up parents wear the smear as a badge of honor.
Nor should President Barack Obama be blindsided by voter disgust over the company he keeps
Egypt Builds Apartheid Wall on Gaza Border (GatewayPundit)
Egypt is erecting their own APARTHEID WALL? Obviously, the young leftists (at McClatchy, Editor and Publisher and the NY Times) won’t be protesting or mentioning this barrier in thier "news".
The Guardian reported: Work has begun on Egypt’s northern border to dig the foundations for what reports say will be a vast underground metal wall in the latest effort to prevent weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip.
Egyptian security officials have said they are digging steel tubes into the ground on their side of the border and are paving a road that will have devices along its route to monitor smuggling.
The US Army Corps of Engineers, which is reportedly involved, has worked with the Egyptians on preventing smuggling along this border for at least two years.
Palestinian smugglers in Gaza have built dozens, perhaps hundreds, of underground tunnels through the sand to bring a wide range of goods into the small territory, from food to fuel to cattle, to skirt Israel’s economic blockade.
Armed groups, notably Hamas, also operate more secret tunnels to bring in weapons and these are often targeted by Israeli jets.
After Israel’s three-week war in Gaza last January the US said it would provide technical and intelligence assistance to Egypt to stop weapons smuggling into the strip.
NY Times Reporter Implicated in Climategate Emails Quits (Wattsupwiththat and Gawker)
Revkin is a supreme enabler of the AGW crowd. The fire got too hot apparently, as he crossed the line from reporter to liberal cheerleader. But then, what’s the difference?
Gawker reporting that environmental shill Revkin Quits NY Times Moves Jolt Copenhagen http://gawker.com/5420766/the-new-york-times-buyout-list Andy Revkin - Science Reporter/Dot Earth. (Described as "possible," not confirmed).
NY Times prepares to cut two dozen positions (New York Post)
New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller and Chairman/Publisher Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger are both gearing up to play the Grinch who stole Christmas and lay off a couple dozen staffers.
That didn't keep them from stopping by the paper's front-page conference room Tuesday night, where the latest round of downsized journalists had gathered for a final goodbye.
Neither addressed the crowd, but instead milled around and made small talk, according to one of the disappeared. The employees, who had accepted buyout packages, left the company by yesterday, many with two years of severance.
The two executives will be making hard choices in the next few weeks, deciding which employees to whack just before Christmas in order to fulfill the corporate edict to lay off 100.
Thanks to a last-minute surge of buyout volunteers before the Dec. 7deadline, fewer will have to be fired than was feared.
Late yesterday, the Newspaper Guild said that the Times had accepted 74 buyout applications, including 60 from the unionized ranks and another 14 from the non-union staff and management.
"That leaves the possibility of as many as 26 involuntary reductions in staff," said the Guild in a memo to members yesterday.
The company also said it has accepted 42 buyout applications from the business side of the paper, but they do not count in the newsroom target of 100 cuts.
The next part of the process gets a little touchy. Apparently, the Times must turn over to the union in advance the names of people it intends to fire.
The union frequently raises objections on the basis of seniority.
As if to dramatize the crisis facing the newspaper industry, the owner of the 125-year-old Editor & Publisher magazine announced it is shutting down the title.
The venerable trade magazine was the unwanted child in a deal between Nielsen Business Media and e5 Global Media Holdings, LLC involving the sale of eight brands in Nielsen’s Media and Entertainment Group.
The closing was announced in a one-sentence mention in a memo from Nielsen Business Media President Greg Farrar.
AFP has the facts and Huffington Post, considered by some to be the standard-bearer for the new breed of publishers that will succeed daily newspapers, adds detail.
snip
It’s perhaps fitting that we learned of E&P’s demise the way an increasing number of readers consume their news these days: it was posted on Twitter.
Live Chat Today: Are Journalists Giving Up on Newspapers? (poynteronline) (“We shall overcome...someday” Sing it with me!)
As the newspaper industry continues to look for ways through financial and existential turmoil, several recent high-profile departures raise new questions about its future.
While layoffs, buyouts and staff changes at newspapers seem to limit opportunities, new ways to practice journalism outside newspapers are growing. And they may be growing in appeal.
Amid these changes, I wonder: Are journalists giving up on newspapers?
Jennifer 8. Lee accepted a buyout this week from The New York Times. Lee, a former member of Poynter's National Advisory Board, was at the Times for eight years and in the memo announcing her departure, metro editor Joe Sexton credited Jenny "as one of the creative and daring and agile brains behind City Room ... her instincts and inventiveness have helped make it the second most popular blog in our empire."
This month, Anthony Moor started a new job as Lead Local Editor at Yahoo, after a half-dozen years managing newspaper Web sites, most recently at The Dallas Morning News. Moor is on the boards of ONA and ASNE.
When his Dallas departure was announced, Moor told EDITOR AND PUBLISHER, "Part of this is recognition that newspapers have limited resources, they are saddled with legitimate legacy businesses that they have to focus on first.
I am a digital guy and the digital world is evolving rapidly. I don't want to have to wait for the traditional news industry to catch up."
Also in Texas, the online startup Texas Tribune attracted some journalists from newspaper newsrooms. Emily Ramshaw, 28, left the Dallas Morning News for the Tribune and told Poynter, "I feel, and still feel, that the newspaper business is in serious crisis.
I'm not content to cling to a deck chair and go down with a sinking ship. ... We're trying to prepare for the next incarnation of journalism."
The next incarnation appears to be online to many, including Jim Brady, whose new job is with Politico publisher Allbritton, starting a local news site in Washington, D.C.
After some former Washington Post colleagues lost positions on the Web site where he was executive editor, Brady wrote on True/Slant, "As hard as it is for some to believe, it's actually possible for great journalism to come in a form other than a newspaper."
Is an increasing impatience with newspapers, matched with a certainty that the future of journalism is online, another cause for concern? Can newspapers do more to keep digital thinkers? Should they?
We want to know what you think, so Poynter is hosting a live chat today at 1 p.m. eastern to discuss this topic. Panelists will be Matt Stiles from the Texas Tribune and from Poynter we'll have Kelly McBride and Regina McCombs.
We hope to hear from journalists who have recently decided to leave newspapers and from those who plan to stay.
You can TWEET (why not write them a letter?) questions ahead of time to #leavingpapers and join us during the chat to share your thoughts and hear from others.
Sounds like these no-talent hacks who are fired will disperse amongst the various publications across the country, getting hired as editors and assistants.
They’ll buy freelance articles from other recently fired no-talent hacks.
The magazines end up looking like the garbage publications they were fired from.
The result is biased articles subscribers don’t want to read and a consequent falling readership.
After that publication is destroyed, the hacks will move on to other publications. It’s like a perpetual motion machine of leftist destruction.
This is happening all across the print media. None are immune.
Owners need to step in, fire these leftists and hire professionals.
Classy Dems Compare Climate Change Deniers to “Teabaggers”(GatewayPundit)
Stay classy democrats…Democrats on Thursday compared climate change deniers to “teabaggers”- a vulgar sexual term.
The Hill reported:
House Democrats said Thursday that denying humans were causing climate change is like denying smoking causes lung cancer.
Reps. Edward Markey (Mass.), Jay Inslee (Wash.) and Earl Blumenauer (Ore.) also compared climate change “deniers” to “teabaggers” who spread the false rumor about death panels and swift boaters who attacked Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) war record during the 2004 presidential race.
The three members of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming called a news conference on Thursday in response to the controversy over the hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, which has now become known as Climategate.
Markey, who is the chairman of the select panel, said climate change skeptics were “engaging in a policy of distraction” by promoting the hacked emails.
But he said the emails do nothing to refute the overwhelming evidence that humans are causing global warming.
“There is no magician trying to trick his audience,” Markey said. “Our world is getting hotter, faster.”
ObamaCare: Those awful, obstructionist… Democrats? PATTERICO
Savor. The. Irony:
A deal between the White House and the pharmaceutical industry is holding up a bipartisan amendment to allow the importation of cheaper prescription drugs from abroad, according to a member of the Senate Democratic leadership. The Senate has been debating the amendment, sponsored by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), since Tuesday but has not held a vote, which is contributing to a stall in the floor action on healthcare reform.
But wait… there’s more:
As a result, the Senate health care debate has come to a standstill: Carper has placed a “hold” on Dorgan’s amendment and in response, Dorgan tells HuffPost, he’ll object to any other amendments being considered before he gets a vote on his.
Could it get better?
Yes, it could: Democrats from states with major drug companies strongly oppose the amendment. One of them, Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), offered an alternative to address the safety concerns.
In the past, supporters of easier importation have seen similar amendments as “poison pills” — effectively neutering the proposal by requiring U.S. officials to certify in advance that imported drugs would be safe and effective. (Emphasis added.)
Doesn’t the White House — and selected Democratic Senators — realize that their obstructionism is this close to supporting slavery?
Throw in the story that Sen. Maj. Ldr. Reid is doing the bidding of evil insurance companies, and you have the makings of a very Frowny Friday for the netroots.
Confirmed, Obama Sending Terrorists to America (Illinois) (Publius Forum)
In a shocking news flash, BigGovernment.com has published a Department of Justice Memo that authorizes the Obama Administration to send terrorists into Illinois!
TIME's Person of the Year Announced on 'Today' Show Wednesday (TV Newser) OMG Gee, I hope Obama gets it. He’s been ignored so by the press.
Beginning Monday, the "Today" will begin three days of "Person of the Year" coverage with Time magazine's announcement set for Wednesday's show.
Time managing editor Richard Stengel will discuss this year's top candidates and the selection process.
On Wednesday, Stengel will reveal the 2009 Person of the Year.
Let me guess: Barack Obama? He’s only graced Time’s cover more times in the last year than any other person in history.
TIME Man of the Year Past Winners: mmmm, mmmm, mmmm, Let’s see if we can’t extrapolate?
1937 Generalissimo & Mme Chiang Kai-Shek 1938 Adolf Hitler 1939 Joseph Stalin 1942 Joseph Stalin 1957 Nikita Krushchev 1958 Charles De Gaulle 1976 Jimmy Carter 1979 Ayatullah Khomeini 1989 Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev 1992 Bill Clinton 2007 Vladimir Putin 2008 Barack Obama
2009 Well Arafat’s dead? Chaz Bono? Well I’ll go out on a limb and guess they will double down on failure, two years in a row!
It sounds like the lead in to a bad joke: What do a Chicago-based dinner cruise company, a study of libidinous female college students and a former Hillary Clinton advisor have in common?
But the joke is on us, because each of the above has been awarded hefty doses of taxpayer-funded stimulus money since February.
In his “jobs speech” this week, President Obama implicitly acknowledged that last February’s $1.2 trillion stimulus package has failed.
Then he demanded another one in order to bolster his plan to “spend our way out of this recession.”
But given the failure of the first stimulus highlighted by wasteful spending unearthed in the new report, as well as the stifling deficits the Obama administration is already running, more government spending will mean more debt, more waste and more unemployment.
Titled “Stimulus Checkup,” the report exposes 100 projects paid for by February’s stimulus package they claim wasted at least $7 billion.
Some of the most egregious items include $5 million for alternative energy in a mostly empty shopping mall in Tennessee, and $1.6 million for fossil research in Argentina for Penn State University.
A dinner cruise company based in Chicago received nearly $1 million in funds to combat terrorism, and $100,000 was spent for a socially conscious puppet shows in Minnesota.
The State University of New York at Buffalo won $390,000 to study young adults who drink malt liquor and smoke marijuana, and the National Institutes of Health got $219,000 in funds to study whether female college students are more likely to “hook up” after drinking alcohol.
There’s even $30,000 to study how methamphetamines affect the sex drive of female rats.
Obama Administration Announces Stalinist Environmental Tactics (The New American )
The Obama Administration plans to bypass Congress to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
According to Fox News, a top White House economic official warned Tuesday the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will not wait for Congress to pass legislation on climate change.
The official said that if Congress does not take action, "the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area.
And it is not going to be able to regulate in a market-based way, so it's going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way."
He explained that legislation would provide compensation for small businesses hit hard by new rules, which EPA action alone could not provide.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson confirmed the threat at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen on Wednesday, saying regulators would frame new rules to complement cap-and-trade legislation pending in Congress.
During her speech, she also bragged about the Obama Administration's new environmental policies.
The New York Times quoted her saying, "In less than 11 months ... we have done more to promote clean energy and prevent climate change than happened in the last eight years."
She highlighted the EPA's recent declaration that six greenhouse gases are a menace to public health and welfare, a move allowing the agency to tighten emissions restrictions on automobiles and industries.
Soros: Will No One Rid Me Of This Troublesome Congress? (IBD)
George Soros, the billionaire left-wing philanthropist and convicted inside trader, joined the caravan of elites at the international climate summit in Copenhagen this week.
He used the opportunity to explain that he had a solution to financing the fight against global warming. It would require about $100 billion to pay for projects in the developing world.
There was just one barrier: The U.S. Congress.
"It is possible to substantially increase the amount available to fight global warming in the developing world,” he said.
“All that is lacking is the political will. Unfortunately the political will will be difficult to gather because of the mere fact that it requires congressional approval in the United States."
An Obituary for Obituaries (Pajamas Media/Edgelings)
What Americans need right now is a good Government-subsidized obituary.
You probably didn’t read the story – because what red-blooded American reads a newspaper anymore? – but apparently the nation’s newspapers, having already lost their editorial dominance to cable news and the Web, their sports coverage to fan sites, their classifieds to Craigslist, and their editorial pages to the blogosphere, are now under heavy assault on their last profitable redoubt: the obituary page.
Woods scandal a boon to Internet publications (AP) Even McClatchy is capitalizing on it...oops never mind!
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The Tiger Woods sex scandal has been a boon for online publications, even though it hasn't generated the same amount of Internet traffic as Michael Jackson's death or President Barack Obama's inauguration.
Provocative remarks by Yahoo Inc. CEO Carol Bartz at an investor conference in New York this week illustrate how major Internet channels and niche publications are benefiting from the Woods controversy.
Known for her off-color commentary, Bartz told financial analysts Tuesday that the Woods story is "better than Michael Jackson dying" for helping Yahoo make money, because it is easier to sell ads against salacious content than morbid stories.
"It's kind of hard to put an ad up next to a funeral," she said.
Stewart Mocks Obama's Nobel Speech: 'Rambo - Ixnay on the Waray' (NewsBusters)
While most of the Obama-loving media predictably gushed and fawned over the President's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo Thursday, comedian Jon Stewart mocked the obvious absurdity of a man receiving such an honor while he's sending more troops to Afghanistan.
"Let's see how Mr. Europe balances accepting a peace prize while overseeing one war and escalating another war," said "The Daily Show" host before showing some clips of Obama's speech.
"My guess is he's going to be drinking from a big mea culpa."
When his prediction proved false, and the President said war can be "morally justified," the Comedy Central star quipped, "Hey Rambo - ixnay on the waray" (video embedded below the fold courtesy our friend Story Balloon, partial transcript):
US media positive on Obama's Oslo speech (AFP via Google News)It’s lies like this is why you are all going bankrupt) But then why wouldn't the MSM like his speech ? They created him.
WASHINGTON — US media and leading opinion makers on Friday had largely positive views of Barack Obama's Nobel Peace award speech in Oslo, with conservatives especially delighted with his choice of words.
"We've said before ... that awarding President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize after so short a time in office and so few concrete accomplishments was a mistake," wrote the Los Angeles Times in its newspaper editorial.
However the acceptance speech was "a blockbuster even by Obama's lofty standards."
Al Gore Refuses to Discuss 'Climate Crisis' with John Stossel (NewsBusters)
Despite appearing on CNN and MSNBC Wednesday, Nobel Laureate Al Gore was apparently too busy to discuss global warming on the premiere episode of John Stossel's new Fox Business Network program.
To kick off his new show Thursday, Stossel chose the controversial subject of climate change, and invited on a number of guests to address the issue in great detail.
According to an e-mail message sent to Stossel's producers on November 23, "the growing influence of the climate crisis message and the demand on Mr. Gore's time" made it impossible for the former Vice President to attend.
Of course, Gore's busy schedule didn't prevent him from being interviewed by CNN and MSNBC on Wednesday, nor did it stop him from appearing on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" just two days before he declined Stossel's invitation.
I guess even an esteemed Nobel Laureate has to understand his limitations (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):
JOHN STOSSEL, HOST: I wish that Al Gore were here to debate him (Jerry Taylor, Energy Analyst for the Cato Institute) and me. We asked Vice President Gore, and his office sent this e-mail saying:
"It's very difficult to decline invitations such as yours, but it's an unfortunate inevitability of the growing influence of the climate crisis message and the demand on Mr. Gore's time. (Boos from audience) We do apologize, but thank you for your interest."
(Via email 11/23/09).
Come on, Mr. Gore. The idea that you don't have time is pretty silly.
You have time to go on programs like "Saturday Night Live." It's not a time issue. (Applause)
Truth is, you won't debate anyone.
You've been asked lots of times, but you always say no. But if you do ever want to debate, we'd love to offer you the air time. We will give it to you.
I'll give you a special phone number that goes to this phone.
Glenn Beck has that red phone that goes to the President. For you Mr. Gore, the green phone. I await your call.
Of course, Stossel was quite right: despite claiming to be an expert on this subject, Al Gore refuses to debate anyone.
And, he only goes on television programs where he knows he can say whatever he wants, regardless of accuracy, and never get challenged.
Such is what happened when he appeared with CNN's John Roberts and Kiran Chetry Wednesday morning, and with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Wednesday afternoon.
That media not only comply with Gore's ability to present unchallenged falsehoods to the nation, but also let him get away with never being on the air with anyone that disagrees with his views, is nothing less than appalling.
That said, Stossel shouldn't hold his breath waiting for this charlatan's call.
Gore's got the media in his back pocket, and he'll never voluntarily relinquish control.
His position is too weak to defend. Stossell could make a fool of him and he can't risk that.
Why wouldn't the best scientists (not Gore) want to go on a show like Stossel to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt man made global warming?
Why don't they bring their charts and computer programs and lay everything on a table and teach us and the skeptical scientists the truth of what their best thinking has to offer?
Why do they denigrate us rather than teach us?
We are open minded and willing to learn.
However we sense something is wrong with each passing day.
We might not know everything about climate science but we all know when a salesman is pushing us to make up our mind and commit our money to what he wants.
We know this whole thing reminds us of things that have not worked well for us in the past. Is this too hysterical and unreasonable?
TODAY Congress voting to nationalize finance industry, give President permanent bailout authority! WLS Radio Chicago
The House of Representatives will vote today, perhaps as early as noon, on a 1,300-page bill proposed by Barney Frank that would nationalize the financial services industry and give the President permanent bailout authority without additional congressional input.
The bill was described by US Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-MN), who was a guest on the Don Wade and Roma morning radio show on WLS Radio, Chicago.
According to Bachman, the bill would nationalize the entire financial system, representing nearly 20 percent of the US exonomy, and would give the economic Czar the power to regulate salaries down to the level of a bank clerk in Peoria, Illinois.
Bachman said she believed it was a deliberate Democrat strategy to introduce this 1,300-page bridge on a Friday when the nation is focussed on the healthcare legislation being debated in the US Senate.
She urged concerned citizens to contact their representatives this morning to demand that they vote against the Barney Frank bill.
Fed Workers Enjoy Boom Time– Average Pay Now at $71K Compared to $40K in Private Sector
Just because its the “greatest recession since the Great Depression” does not mean that everyone is hurting.
Government workers are enjoying a boom time since the democrats took over Congress. The average pay of a federal worker jumped to $71,206, compared with $40,331 in the private sector.
USA Today is reporting that the number of federal workers making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months — and that’s doesn’t include overtime pay and bonuses are counted.
Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.
The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.
The trend to six-figure salaries is occurring throughout the federal government, in agencies big and small, high-tech and low-tech.
The primary cause: substantial pay raises and new salary rules. The growth in six-figure salaries has pushed the average federal worker’s pay to $71,206, compared with $40,331 in the private sector.
For the record...Congressional raises topped insurance company profits last year.
Max Baucus gave girlfriend $14K raise, taxpayer funded trips (The Politico)
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, gave a nearly $14,000 pay raise to a female staffer in 2008, at the time he was becoming romantically involved with her, and later that year took her on a taxpayer-funded trip to Southeast Asia and the Middle East, though foreign policy was not her specialty.
Report: Baucus' Girlfriend Worked on His Divorce While on His Staff (FoxNews.com)
Melodee Hanes, Baucus' former state director and now his live-in girlfriend, reportedly met at least twice with the Montana Democrat's divorce attorney to talk about the Baucuses' divorce eight months before the senator and his wife separated.
The last person to know that Sen. Max Baucus wanted a divorce may have been his wife of 25 years.
It appears that Wanda Baucus was in the dark even as a member of Baucus' staff -- Melodee Hanes, the woman who is now his live-in girlfriend -- was plotting out the senator's life without a wife.
Hanes, Baucus' former state director, reportedly met at least twice with the Montana Democrat's divorce attorney eight months before the senator and his wife separated.
Worse Than the Public Option (Wall Street Journal)
It's hard to imagine a better illustration of the panic and recklessness stringing ObamaCare along in the Senate than the putative deal that Harry Reid announced this week.
The Majority Leader is claiming that a Medicare "buy-in" for people from ages 55 to 64 has overcome the liberal-moderate impasse over the "public option."
But if anything, this gambit is an even faster road to government-run health care.
The public option—an insurance program open to everyone, financed by taxpayers and run like Medicare—is intended as a veiled substitute for "single-payer" Canada-style insurance. Under the cover of "choice" and "competition," the entitlement would quickly squeeze out private insurance as people gravitated to "free" coverage and the government held down costs via price controls the way Medicare does now.
Mr. Reid's buy-in simply cuts out the middle man.
Why go to the trouble of creating a new plan like Medicare when Medicare itself is already handy?
A buy-in is an old chestnut of single-payer advocate Pete Stark, and it's the political strategy liberals have tried since the Great Society:
Ratchet down the enrollment age for Medicare, boost the income limits to qualify for Medicaid, and soon health care for the entire middle class becomes a taxpayer commitment.
In the case of Medicare, this means expanding a program that is already going broke.
Medicare reimburses doctors and hospitals at rates 70% to 80% below those of private insurers, which means below the actual treatment costs in many cities and regions.
Providers either eat these losses—about half of U.S. hospitals are running a deficit or close to it—or they raise prices for private payers.
ObamaCare: Air leaking out of Reid’s trial balloon? PATTERICO
The supposed healthcare deal cut by Harry Reid is a “non-starter,” Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said today.
***
“I think when we get the score back from CBO that it’s going to be too costly,” Nelson told Fox News Live today.
Nelson is not even among the usual “moderate” suspects waiting for a CBO score. And Nelson is probably right.
Reid’s current trial balloon is a Kennedy retread — and Ted was not exactly focused like a laser on fiscal responsibility.
According to the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Reid’s version of ObamaCare would make the US healthcare system more expensive than if we simply did nothing — and render 20 percent of providers to Medicare’s hospital insurance program unprofitable to boot.
Going further Left is unlikely to change that analysis.
So the hissing sound you hear may be the air leaking out of Reid’s trial balloon.
Or it may be Reid himself, lashing out at the GOP for forcing to work this weekend, instead of flying off to a Saturday fundraiser in New Orleans with Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Democratic consultant James Carville:
“I think that this debate has really come to a point that I’ve rarely seen in the Senate — in fact, I’ve never seen it — to have my friends on the other side of the aisle come to the floor and in some way try to embarrass or denigrate me,” Reid said, according to a transcript.
“But they should understand, any events I had scheduled this weekend have been canceled.
Events I had last weekend had been canceled. Four or five of them.”
Reid said he would never admonish a fellow senator for holding a fundraiser. “I would never, ever intentionally come to the floor and try to talk to somebody about having had a fundraiser and that’s why they’re trying to get out of here,” he said.
About taking the weekend off, Reid added, “I thought it would be appropriate because we’ve worked pretty hard here to have a day or two off.”
Maybe Reid was being mocked because Reid started the week comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.
Given that the Senate has been working at a breakneck pace on his bill, asking for time off to raise money while cravenly accusing the GOP of obstructionism does not seem to have been a winning strategy for the majority leader.
Or the hissing sound may be the public reaction to this increasingly unpopular bill, which Reid is bent on cramming down the throats of the American people. — Update: Majority Whip Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, claims he does not know the details of the trial balloon.
A cynic might suggest he’s leaving himself room to jump out of the way of the Hindenburg, and perhaps stay in position for the top job if Reid gets ousted by Nevada voters in 2010.
Men who force wives to wear Burka 'not welcome in France' (The Telegraph)
Muslim men who force their wives to wear the full Islamic veil should not be granted French citizenship, Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said on Thursday.
Wading into the debate over whether to ban the burka, Mr Alliot-Marie said the government would await the recommendations of a parliamentary panel considering possible legislation to bar Muslim women from wearing the full veil.
But the minister went on to say that "there are a certain number of basics on which we must stand firm".
"For instance, someone who would be seeking French citizenship and whose wife wears the full veil is someone who would not appear to be sharing the values of our country," she told LCI television.
"Therefore in a case like that one, we would reject his request," she said.
The justice minister said the wearing of the niqab or burka was a "problem that affects our ability to live together, the values of the republic and in particular human dignity."
A French court last year denied citizenship to a veiled Moroccan woman on the grounds that her "radical" practice of Islam was incompatible with French values.
Gates foresees 'significant' new sanctions on Iran (Breitbart)ROFLMAO
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday that he expects "significant" new sanctions" to be imposed on Iran over its controversial nuclear programme.
"I think that you are going to see some significant additional sanctions imposed by the international community, assuming that the Iranians don't change course and agree to do the things they agreed to at the beginning of October," Gates told a group of US soldiers in Kirkuk, Iraq.
Gates arrived in Iraq on a suprise visit on Thursday, following a trip to Afghanistan where Washington is ramping up its military commitment.
Copenhagen: tongue lashing for already miffed business leaders (The Telegraph)
Tensions are boiling up at the Copenhagen Business Day, a parallel event to the main intergovernmental summit on climate change.
I pitched up this morning expecting some self-congratulatory platitudes about how businesses are “stepping up to the carbon challenge” and was met with simmering frustration about the fact that companies have been edged out of the summit by bossy civil servants.
It all kicked off when Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations, began his address by attacking companies for failing to come up with specific financial proposals to help politicians raise the funding to tackle climate change.
“While you’re doing a lot of talking about what you want and what governments have got to do, I’m hearing less about what you’ve got to offer,” he berated business leaders.
“I’m really happy to be your salesman but I have no idea what you’re trying to sell.”
Executives are affronted by the bluntness of this suggestion – especially as they are already sore about feeling sidelined from the conference iself.
Vaclav Havel on Obama: Soiling Your Pants Prematurely Will Not Gain You International Respect(GatewayPundit)
Foreign Policy interviewed Former Czech President, political prisoner and playwright Vaclav Havel on Barack Obama and the costs of moral compromise.
Question: How, as president, do you decide when these small compromises are worth it and when they might lead to something more dangerous?
Havel: Politics, it means, every day making some compromises, and to choose between one evil and another evil, and to decide which is bigger and which is smaller.
But sometimes, some of these compromises could be very dangerous because it could be the beginning of the road of making a lot of other compromises, which are results of the first one, and there are very dangerous compromises.
And it’s necessary, I think, to have the feeling which compromise is possible to do and which, could be, maybe, after ten years, could be somehow very dangerous.
I will illustrate this with my own experience. Two days after I was elected president, I invited the Dalai Lama to visit. I was the first head of the state who invited him in this way, directly.
And everybody was saying that it was a terribly dangerous act and issued their disapproving statements and expressions.
But it was a ritual matter. Later, the Chinese deputy prime minister and the foreign minister came for a visit and brought me a pile of books about the Dalai Lama and some governmental documents about what good care they have taken of Tibet, and so on.
They were propagandist, fabricated books, but he felt the need to explain something to me.
I had a press conference with this minister of foreign affairs. And he said, “It was wonderful, meeting, because we were speaking openly. Mr. Havel gave me his opinion, and I explained the opinion of our government. I gave him this book, and he thanked me for it.”
This was unbelievable! Why did they feel the need to explain their point of view to the leader of such a small nation?
Because they respect it when someone is standing his ground, when someone is not afraid of them.
When someone soils his pants prematurely, then they do not respect you more for it.
Copenhagen climate summit: Carbon trading fraudsters in Europe pocket €5bn (Telegraph, UK)
Carbon trading fraudsters may have accounted for up to 90pc of all market activity in some European countries, with criminals pocketing an estimated €5bn (£4.5bn) mainly in Britain, France, Spain, Denmark and Holland, according to Europol, the European law enforcement agency.
Except for our far-right paid lobbyist Big Business anti-administration spammer (3:43 a.m. through 4:30 a.m.), apparently nobody cares. (MW says: "Profanity, personal attacks, and spam will be deleted." Apparently doesn't apply to Big Business spam.)
10:24 hey... if you can't dispute the message, attack the poster. Good strategy for brain dead leftists who know their hero Obama is bringing us hoax and change in a way they could never have anticipated.
Oh... you lefties are right about one thing. Teaching little children fisting in public schools will probably be quite effective in breaking their thumb sucking habit.
Gee, I guess the Lame Stream media didn’t take note: In Kentucky, a GOP just won a special election against a DEM in a district that has registered Dems 2 - 1. A sign of the times? You betcha!
If "big business, anti administration" is the best you can do you need a new game. Why would anyone be against an administration who is losing favor faster with the american people faster than any in history? Why would someone oppose a far left, free sepending, America hating administration who is discouraging our friends, encouraging our enemies and selling the souls of our grandchildren to the Chinese? Why would any one oppose an administration devoted to union thuggery and congressional buggery? Can't imagine.
Troll calls poster, “far-right paid lobbyist” and that is soooooo lame. How many times has the troll posted that now? It has to be right up there with ‘Sweetie’ and his show me proof garbage. It makes me wonder why a troll that hates every post here, still reads every word? Sick, man, sick.
10:24 is a typical unsupported leftie attack on the integrity of the owner of this sign. when they can't keep up with the issues, they attack the integrity of the other side. Not a shred of evidence...some made up accusation...an attempt to distract...name calling. Not much power...but a good bit of gas.
Millions of people already regret voting for Obama. Our troll is not quite ready to admit his mistake, so he hangs out here. At least here he has a chance to read the truth.
Just like our early-morning paid lobbyist spammer.
-------------
If I didn't know better I would think you were some conservative just trying to make liberals look stupid. Keep up the good work spanky. You're killing yourself.
54 comments:
Fistgate VI: Obama’s Safe Schools Czar’s Teen Conference Literature Pushed Anal S*x in Parks With Strangers(GatewayPundit)
(Warning on Content)
In March 2000 the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) organization of Massachusetts held its 10 Year Anniversary GLSEN/Boston conference at Tufts University.
This conference was fully supported by the Massachusetts Department of Education, the Safe Schools Program, the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, and some of the presenters even received federal money.
During the 2000 conference, workshop leaders led a “youth only, ages 14-21″ session that offered lessons in “fisting” a dangerous sexual practice.
During the same workshop an activist asked 14 year-old students, “Spit or swallow?… Is it rude?” The unbelievable audio clip is posted here.
Barack Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings is the founder of GLSEN. He was paid $273,573.96 as its executive director in 2007.
Jennings was the keynote speaker at the 2000 GLSEN conference.
Unfortunately for GLSEN, undercover journalists with Mass Resistance recorded these outrageous sessions at Tufts University. The audio was later leaked to a local radio station.
This created such an uproar that GLSEN leaders were forced to apologize for their disgusting behavior.
Despite the controversy, Barack Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings and his GLSEN organization did nothing to clean up their act.
In fact in 2001 activists handed out “fisting kits” to the children and teachers who attended the GLSEN conference.
But that’s not all. The children who attended Kevin Jennnings’ GLSEN 2005 Conference also left with their own “Little Black Book –Queer in the 21st Century”.
Here’s one page from that Black Book for teens: The entire Little Black Book is posted here. And, here’s the transcript from item #3 above:
“No Dookie On Your Noodle! Nobody knows better than queer men that sh*t happens.
It’s just a fact of life…and butts*x. While there are steps to take to avoid a mess, they’re not always practical for the boy on the go.
Condoms allow you a certain freedom that can be a great selling point if you’re cruising the park and don’t want stray spunk on your new polyester shirt…”
So, basically, in the crudest language imaginable, GLSEN recommended that “boys” go out cruising for anonymous anal sex in public parks with strangers.
Thanks to a reader for pointing this out.
Today Kevin Jennings, the founder of GLSEN, is Barack Obama’s Safe Schools Czar.
There’s more to come.
UPDATE: Grassroots Nation has started a petition to fire Kevin Jennings.
—Please think of your kids and go sign it now!
UPDATE 2: Monte Kuligowski at the American Thinker says the Kevin Jennings appointment will hurt Obama immeasurably once the story breaks through the double-bolted door of the “mainstream” newsroom.
Cruising gay bars with the 'safe schools czar' (Washington Times)
Teenagers shouldn't drink alcohol.
That's the policy of the United States government, which spends billions to enforce laws backing the policy, and it also is the position of pretty much every respectable organization in the nation, including the Department of Education.
So naturally, when looking to fill the post of the nation's top school-safety official at the Education Department, President Obama chose a guy who founded and led an organization that allowed bar guides to be handed out to high school students.
Once again, "safe schools czar" Kevin Jennings has been involved in making schools less safe. As always, this one was, whoops, a mistake. It is always a mistake.
Whoops, while a teacher, he enabled a teenager to continue a sexual relationship with an older man whom the student had met in a bus-stop bathroom.
Whoops, he praised one of the North American Man/Boy Love Association's most vociferous defenders.
Whoops, the group Mr. Jennings founded, the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, recommended books for children as young as 13 that present sex between minors and adults in a positive light.
The new whoops is a safe-sex guide distributed in a Massachusetts high school in 2005.
Included in the book are the addresses and phone numbers of Boston-area gay bars to make it easier for teens to find the businesses that cater to homosexual men over the age of 21.
The guide's descriptions of what goes on in these bars is explicit.
Over here, there's "dancing, young guys and those who like young guys."
Over there, the ambience is "old school, cruisy, sex-charged late at night." At another hot spot, there's "porn on the television, the old, the young. Something for everyone."
Media Matters Defends Kid Fisting Lectures and Children Sex Books as Non-Scandal (GatewayPundit)
The Soros-linked far left Media Matters today announced that the Kevin Jennings GLSEN scandal reported here on this blog and at Big Government is a non-scandal that was rightfully ignored by the state-run media.
Here’s a question: If it is such a non-scandal then why did Media Matters write 18 different articles on the non-scandal this week?
Why would Media Matters focus so much attention on a non-scandal?
Could it be that they are afraid of what Americans would think if this was reported responsibly by the state-run media?
Could it be that their arguments defending pushing porn on kids don’t pass the sniff test?
Could it be that pointing out pedophilia books and children sex booksis not the same as being homophobic?
Could it be they are afraid of what is going to be reported about Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings next?
Try as they might, Media Matters still has not been able to convince those following this story that pushing anonymous gay sex in parks on children is a healthy practice.
Media Matters still hasn’t convinced Americans that lectures on fistingto 14 year-olds are educational.
Media Matters still has not been able to explain how p*ssing on your partner breaks new ground in intimacy?
Media Matters still has not been able to explain how the absolute filth pushed on children in Kevin Jennings’ selected pornographic books is good for kids?
Media Matters may hope that Americans will avert their eyes as some deviant leads our children astray.
They would be wrong. Rep. Michael Burgess called for Kevin Jennings to resign yesterday on the House floor.
The Washington Timeswrote another editorial on the childrens sex scandal today.
Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkindiscussed this sexual assault on children two days ago.
For any of you out there who haven’t been following this story,
I suggest you go back here and read for yourself what Kevin Jennings’ organization GLSEN has been pushing on children in America.
Then ask yourself if this man should be the “Safe Schools Czar.”
If you still think he should keep his job you should probably seek help.
This scandal isn’t about left or right. It’s not about being a good Democrat or Republican. It’s not about gay versus straight.
This story is about keeping America’s children safe.
Unfortunately, Media Matters doesn’t get that.
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) Calls For Removal of Dangerous School Czar Kevin Jennings
Rep. Michael C. Burgess M.D. (R-TX) delivered a 1-minute speech on the House floor calling on the Obama Administration to immediately fire the so-called “Safe Schools” Czar Kevin Jennings, calling him “dangerous for our schools and children.
The Hill reported: Republican Congressman Michael Burgess (R-Texas) on Thursday renewed his call for White House “safe schools” czar Kevin Jennings to resign his post.
In a tweet this morning, Burgess asked followers, “Do we really need this office?” He also shared a link to his one-minute speech on the House floor Wednesday, in which he called for Jennings’ to step down immediately.
“Kevin Jennings needs to be replaced, he needs to be replaced today,” Burgess stressed in that speech.
“The so-called safe schools czar appointed by the Obama administration to the Department of Education is dangerous for our school children.”
According to Burgess, the danger Jennings poses students is best summed up by a recent Washington Times editorial, published on Wednesday.
Wrote the newspaper’s editorial team: “The Obama administration is stonewalling serious inquiries about sexual filth propagated by a senior presidential appointee who is responsible for promoting and implementing federal education policy.”
The Times specifically charged Jennings gave sexual advice to minors — an inappropriate decision, they added, that is “part of a consistent pattern by some homosexual activists to promote underage homosexuality.”
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen an editorial in a major newspaper that came with a bolded warning, just like an FDA drug,” Burgess later said, referencing the lengthy warning about explicit material that begins the Times’ piece.
The Washington Times published another editorial today on Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings.
Teenagers shouldn’t drink alcohol. That’s the policy of the United States government, which spends billions to enforce laws backing the policy, and it also is the position of pretty much every respectable organization in the nation, including the Department of Education.
So naturally, when looking to fill the post of the nation’s top school-safety official at the Education Department, President Obama chose a guy who founded and led an organization that allowed bar guides to be handed out to high school students.
Once again, “safe schools czar” Kevin Jennings has been involved in making schools less safe. As always, this one was, whoops, a mistake. It is always a mistake.
Whoops, while a teacher, he enabled a teenager to continue a sexual relationship with an older man whom the student had met in a bus-stop bathroom.
Whoops, he praised one of the North American Man/Boy Love Association’s most vociferous defenders.
Whoops, the group Mr. Jennings founded, the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, recommended books for children as young as 13 that present sex between minors and adults in a positive light.
The rest of the state-run media remains silent on the recent revelations involving Jennings which would be another glitch on the Obama Administration – an administration that already is suffering record low polling numbers.
Do safe schools require an iron fisting? (Hot Air)
I’ve received a lot of e-mail asking why I haven’t written about the controversy over Kevin Jennings, Barack Obama’s “safe schools” czar.
To be honest, the story is so shocking that I haven’t quite grasped how to approach it.
Jennings ran an outfit called Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) from its inception in 1995 until last year.
During that time, as Jim Hoft at Big Government has detailed, GLSEN offered sex education seminars to young teenagers within the framework of public education that went way, way beyond explanations of human biology and disease transmission.
According to multiple sources, GLSEN discussed “fisting”, oral sex etiquette, and other techniques to 14-year-olds, until the program got exposed by local Massachusetts media, and the instructor got fired as a scapegoat.
Jim has the audio from one of the seminars, discussing the proper hand position for “fisting”
Court tosses Prop. 8 ruling on strategy papers (CA against gay marriage) (San Francisco Chronical)
SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court in San Francisco has reversed a judge's order that backers of Proposition 8, the state initiative that banned same-sex marriage, give their campaign strategy documents to opponents trying to overturn the measure.
In a unanimous ruling today, the Ninth U.S. Circuit of Appeals tossed out the order that Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker issued in October against backers of Prop. 8, which state voters approved in November 2008.
Walker had said lawyers for two same-sex couples and a gay-rights group were entitled to see internal memos and e-mails between Yes on 8 strategists to look for evidence that the campaign had exploited prejudice against gays and lesbians.
The plaintiffs are trying to show that the measure was discriminatory and thus unconstitutional.
Prop. 8 sponsors argued that their discussions were constitutionally protected and that Walker's order would discourage candid communications in political campaigns.
The three-judge appeals court panel unanimously agreed.
"The freedom to associate with others for the common advancement of political beliefs and ideas lies at the heart of the First Amendment," Judge Raymond Fisher wrote for the court.
Prop. 8 proponents, he said, had shown that turning over the documents "would likely have a chilling effect on political association and the formulation of political expression."
The court had suspended Walker's order last week and signaled that it intended to reverse it.
The trial over the lawsuit is still scheduled to begin Jan. 11
GLSEN's toxic reading list eroticizes children (Santa Claus is Coming Out Now) (Dallas News)
If you ask me, nothing says Merry Christmas quite like a stage comedy about Santa Claus' gay relationship with toymaker Geppetto, a descendant of Pinocchio.
Alas for Santa Claus Is Coming Out, now showing to Off Broadway audiences, a play about a gay Santa tormented by his clandestine same-sex canoodling is bound to have limited appeal.
But the ho-ho-homosexual comedy has been embraced by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, a national gay organization dedicated to fighting anti-gay bullying in schools.
Who can be against that? Decent people are appalled by instances of gay children subjected to physical abuse or verbal torment.
If stopping that were what GLSEN – a mainstream activist organization with major corporate, philanthropic and teachers union sponsors – were really about, it would be difficult to object to its work.
What GLSEN (pronounced "glisten") really does, though, is to mouth slogans about the (laudable) need to stop anti-gay bullying as a pretext for sexualizing schoolchildren.
Take, for example, the recommended reading list on GLSEN's Web site (www.glsen.org), listing volumes that have been pre-screened by GLSEN staff. The investigative team at Breitbart TV, the crew behind the ACORN sting, ordered 11 books from GLSEN's list for kids in grades 7 through 12 and posted scanned pages to the Web.
You can see the revolting results at gatewaypundit.firstthings.com.
~snip~
If moral sanity in defense of children qualifies one as a bigot, gay-rights extremists should not be surprised if fed-up parents wear the smear as a badge of honor.
Nor should President Barack Obama be blindsided by voter disgust over the company he keeps
Egypt Builds Apartheid Wall on Gaza Border (GatewayPundit)
Egypt is erecting their own APARTHEID WALL? Obviously, the young leftists (at McClatchy, Editor and Publisher and the NY Times) won’t be protesting or mentioning this barrier in thier "news".
The Guardian reported: Work has begun on Egypt’s northern border to dig the foundations for what reports say will be a vast underground metal wall in the latest effort to prevent weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip.
Egyptian security officials have said they are digging steel tubes into the ground on their side of the border and are paving a road that will have devices along its route to monitor smuggling.
The US Army Corps of Engineers, which is reportedly involved, has worked with the Egyptians on preventing smuggling along this border for at least two years.
Palestinian smugglers in Gaza have built dozens, perhaps hundreds, of underground tunnels through the sand to bring a wide range of goods into the small territory, from food to fuel to cattle, to skirt Israel’s economic blockade.
Armed groups, notably Hamas, also operate more secret tunnels to bring in weapons and these are often targeted by Israeli jets.
After Israel’s three-week war in Gaza last January the US said it would provide technical and intelligence assistance to Egypt to stop weapons smuggling into the strip.
NY Times Reporter Implicated in Climategate Emails Quits (Wattsupwiththat and Gawker)
Revkin is a supreme enabler of the AGW crowd. The fire got too hot apparently, as he crossed the line from reporter to liberal cheerleader. But then, what’s the difference?
Gawker reporting that environmental shill Revkin Quits NY Times Moves Jolt Copenhagen
http://gawker.com/5420766/the-new-york-times-buyout-list Andy Revkin - Science Reporter/Dot Earth. (Described as "possible," not confirmed).
NY Times prepares to cut two dozen positions (New York Post)
New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller and Chairman/Publisher Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger are both gearing up to play the Grinch who stole Christmas and lay off a couple dozen staffers.
That didn't keep them from stopping by the paper's front-page conference room Tuesday night, where the latest round of downsized journalists had gathered for a final goodbye.
Neither addressed the crowd, but instead milled around and made small talk, according to one of the disappeared. The employees, who had accepted buyout packages, left the company by yesterday, many with two years of severance.
The two executives will be making hard choices in the next few weeks, deciding which employees to whack just before Christmas in order to fulfill the corporate edict to lay off 100.
Thanks to a last-minute surge of buyout volunteers before the Dec. 7deadline, fewer will have to be fired than was feared.
Late yesterday, the Newspaper Guild said that the Times had accepted 74 buyout applications, including 60 from the unionized ranks and another 14 from the non-union staff and management.
"That leaves the possibility of as many as 26 involuntary reductions in staff," said the Guild in a memo to members yesterday.
The company also said it has accepted 42 buyout applications from the business side of the paper, but they do not count in the newsroom target of 100 cuts.
The next part of the process gets a little touchy. Apparently, the Times must turn over to the union in advance the names of people it intends to fire.
The union frequently raises objections on the basis of seniority.
R.I.P. Editor & Publisher(NewspaperDeathWatch)
As if to dramatize the crisis facing the newspaper industry, the owner of the 125-year-old Editor & Publisher magazine announced it is shutting down the title.
The venerable trade magazine was the unwanted child in a deal between Nielsen Business Media and e5 Global Media Holdings, LLC involving the sale of eight brands in Nielsen’s Media and Entertainment Group.
The closing was announced in a one-sentence mention in a memo from Nielsen Business Media President Greg Farrar.
AFP has the facts and Huffington Post, considered by some to be the standard-bearer for the new breed of publishers that will succeed daily newspapers, adds detail.
snip
It’s perhaps fitting that we learned of E&P’s demise the way an increasing number of readers consume their news these days: it was posted on Twitter.
Live Chat Today: Are Journalists Giving Up on Newspapers? (poynteronline) (“We shall overcome...someday” Sing it with me!)
As the newspaper industry continues to look for ways through financial and existential turmoil, several recent high-profile departures raise new questions about its future.
While layoffs, buyouts and staff changes at newspapers seem to limit opportunities, new ways to practice journalism outside newspapers are growing. And they may be growing in appeal.
Amid these changes, I wonder: Are journalists giving up on newspapers?
Jennifer 8. Lee accepted a buyout this week from The New York Times. Lee, a former member of Poynter's National Advisory Board, was at the Times for eight years and in the memo announcing her departure, metro editor Joe Sexton credited Jenny "as one of the creative and daring and agile brains behind City Room ... her instincts and inventiveness have helped make it the second most popular blog in our empire."
This month, Anthony Moor started a new job as Lead Local Editor at Yahoo, after a half-dozen years managing newspaper Web sites, most recently at The Dallas Morning News. Moor is on the boards of ONA and ASNE.
When his Dallas departure was announced, Moor told EDITOR AND PUBLISHER, "Part of this is recognition that newspapers have limited resources, they are saddled with legitimate legacy businesses that they have to focus on first.
I am a digital guy and the digital world is evolving rapidly. I don't want to have to wait for the traditional news industry to catch up."
Also in Texas, the online startup Texas Tribune attracted some journalists from newspaper newsrooms. Emily Ramshaw, 28, left the Dallas Morning News for the Tribune and told Poynter, "I feel, and still feel, that the newspaper business is in serious crisis.
I'm not content to cling to a deck chair and go down with a sinking ship. ... We're trying to prepare for the next incarnation of journalism."
The next incarnation appears to be online to many, including Jim Brady, whose new job is with Politico publisher Allbritton, starting a local news site in Washington, D.C.
After some former Washington Post colleagues lost positions on the Web site where he was executive editor, Brady wrote on True/Slant, "As hard as it is for some to believe, it's actually possible for great journalism to come in a form other than a newspaper."
Is an increasing impatience with newspapers, matched with a certainty that the future of journalism is online, another cause for concern? Can newspapers do more to keep digital thinkers? Should they?
We want to know what you think, so Poynter is hosting a live chat today at 1 p.m. eastern to discuss this topic. Panelists will be Matt Stiles from the Texas Tribune and from Poynter we'll have Kelly McBride and Regina McCombs.
We hope to hear from journalists who have recently decided to leave newspapers and from those who plan to stay.
You can TWEET (why not write them a letter?) questions ahead of time to #leavingpapers and join us during the chat to share your thoughts and hear from others.
Sounds like these no-talent hacks who are fired will disperse amongst the various publications across the country, getting hired as editors and assistants.
They’ll buy freelance articles from other recently fired no-talent hacks.
The magazines end up looking like the garbage publications they were fired from.
The result is biased articles subscribers don’t want to read and a consequent falling readership.
After that publication is destroyed, the hacks will move on to other publications. It’s like a perpetual motion machine of leftist destruction.
This is happening all across the print media. None are immune.
Owners need to step in, fire these leftists and hire professionals.
Classy Dems Compare Climate Change Deniers to “Teabaggers”(GatewayPundit)
Stay classy democrats…Democrats on Thursday compared climate change deniers to “teabaggers”- a vulgar sexual term.
The Hill reported:
House Democrats said Thursday that denying humans were causing climate change is like denying smoking causes lung cancer.
Reps. Edward Markey (Mass.), Jay Inslee (Wash.) and Earl Blumenauer (Ore.) also compared climate change “deniers” to “teabaggers” who spread the false rumor about death panels and swift boaters who attacked Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) war record during the 2004 presidential race.
The three members of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming called a news conference on Thursday in response to the controversy over the hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, which has now become known as Climategate.
Markey, who is the chairman of the select panel, said climate change skeptics were “engaging in a policy of distraction” by promoting the hacked emails.
But he said the emails do nothing to refute the overwhelming evidence that humans are causing global warming.
“There is no magician trying to trick his audience,” Markey said. “Our world is getting hotter, faster.”
ObamaCare: Those awful, obstructionist… Democrats? PATTERICO
Savor. The. Irony:
A deal between the White House and the pharmaceutical industry is holding up a bipartisan amendment to allow the importation of cheaper prescription drugs from abroad, according to a member of the Senate Democratic leadership.
The Senate has been debating the amendment, sponsored by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), since Tuesday but has not held a vote, which is contributing to a stall in the floor action on healthcare reform.
But wait… there’s more:
As a result, the Senate health care debate has come to a standstill: Carper has placed a “hold” on Dorgan’s amendment and in response, Dorgan tells HuffPost, he’ll object to any other amendments being considered before he gets a vote on his.
Could it get better?
Yes, it could: Democrats from states with major drug companies strongly oppose the amendment. One of them, Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), offered an alternative to address the safety concerns.
In the past, supporters of easier importation have seen similar amendments as “poison pills” — effectively neutering the proposal by requiring U.S. officials to certify in advance that imported drugs would be safe and effective. (Emphasis added.)
Doesn’t the White House — and selected Democratic Senators — realize that their obstructionism is this close to supporting slavery?
Throw in the story that Sen. Maj. Ldr. Reid is doing the bidding of evil insurance companies, and you have the makings of a very Frowny Friday for the netroots.
Confirmed, Obama Sending Terrorists to America (Illinois) (Publius Forum)
In a shocking news flash, BigGovernment.com has published a Department of Justice Memo that authorizes the Obama Administration to send terrorists into Illinois!
Obama National Job Approval INDEPENDENTS ONLY: -6 (41%A; 47%D) (Pollster.com)
Obama poll with Independents sinks farther.
Can't Hide the Decline: Obama Hits New Polling Lows (RCP Average 48.9%) (Real Clear Politics) CBS must be polling 80% dems to keep that 50%.
Excluding the Rasmussen and Gallup overnight tracking polls, there have been seven major national surveys released this week.
President Obama has recorded an all-time low job approval rating in six of the seven:
Quinnipiac 46% Marist 46% CNN/Opinion Research 48% Ipsos/McClatchy 49%
CBS News/NY Times
50% Bloomberg* 54%
Only one poll - FOX News/Opinion Dynamics - showed in increase in President Obama's job approval rating over the last month.
In the current survey, FOX has Obama at 50% approval, up from his all-time low of 46% recorded in last month's poll.
TIME's Person of the Year Announced on 'Today' Show Wednesday
(TV Newser) OMG Gee, I hope Obama gets it. He’s been ignored so by the press.
Beginning Monday, the "Today" will begin three days of "Person of the Year" coverage with Time magazine's announcement set for Wednesday's show.
Time managing editor Richard Stengel will discuss this year's top candidates and the selection process.
On Wednesday, Stengel will reveal the 2009 Person of the Year.
Let me guess: Barack Obama? He’s only graced Time’s cover more times in the last year than any other person in history.
TIME Man of the Year Past Winners: mmmm, mmmm, mmmm, Let’s see if we can’t extrapolate?
1937 Generalissimo & Mme Chiang Kai-Shek
1938 Adolf Hitler
1939 Joseph Stalin
1942 Joseph Stalin
1957 Nikita Krushchev
1958 Charles De Gaulle
1976 Jimmy Carter
1979 Ayatullah Khomeini
1989 Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
1992 Bill Clinton
2007 Vladimir Putin
2008 Barack Obama
2009 Well Arafat’s dead? Chaz Bono? Well I’ll go out on a limb and guess they will double down on failure, two years in a row!
Obama Doubles Down on Failure (Human Events)
It sounds like the lead in to a bad joke: What do a Chicago-based dinner cruise company, a study of libidinous female college students and a former Hillary Clinton advisor have in common?
But the joke is on us, because each of the above has been awarded hefty doses of taxpayer-funded stimulus money since February.
In his “jobs speech” this week, President Obama implicitly acknowledged that last February’s $1.2 trillion stimulus package has failed.
Then he demanded another one in order to bolster his plan to “spend our way out of this recession.”
But given the failure of the first stimulus highlighted by wasteful spending unearthed in the new report, as well as the stifling deficits the Obama administration is already running, more government spending will mean more debt, more waste and more unemployment.
Titled “Stimulus Checkup,” the report exposes 100 projects paid for by February’s stimulus package they claim wasted at least $7 billion.
Some of the most egregious items include $5 million for alternative energy in a mostly empty shopping mall in Tennessee, and $1.6 million for fossil research in Argentina for Penn State University.
A dinner cruise company based in Chicago received nearly $1 million in funds to combat terrorism, and $100,000 was spent for a socially conscious puppet shows in Minnesota.
The State University of New York at Buffalo won $390,000 to study young adults who drink malt liquor and smoke marijuana, and the National Institutes of Health got $219,000 in funds to study whether female college students are more likely to “hook up” after drinking alcohol.
There’s even $30,000 to study how methamphetamines affect the sex drive of female rats.
Obama Administration Announces Stalinist Environmental Tactics
(The New American )
The Obama Administration plans to bypass Congress to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
According to Fox News, a top White House economic official warned Tuesday the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will not wait for Congress to pass legislation on climate change.
The official said that if Congress does not take action, "the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area.
And it is not going to be able to regulate in a market-based way, so it's going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way."
He explained that legislation would provide compensation for small businesses hit hard by new rules, which EPA action alone could not provide.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson confirmed the threat at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen on Wednesday, saying regulators would frame new rules to complement cap-and-trade legislation pending in Congress.
During her speech, she also bragged about the Obama Administration's new environmental policies.
The New York Times quoted her saying, "In less than 11 months ... we have done more to promote clean energy and prevent climate change than happened in the last eight years."
She highlighted the EPA's recent declaration that six greenhouse gases are a menace to public health and welfare, a move allowing the agency to tighten emissions restrictions on automobiles and industries.
Soros: Will No One Rid Me Of This Troublesome Congress? (IBD)
George Soros, the billionaire left-wing philanthropist and convicted inside trader, joined the caravan of elites at the international climate summit in Copenhagen this week.
He used the opportunity to explain that he had a solution to financing the fight against global warming. It would require about $100 billion to pay for projects in the developing world.
There was just one barrier: The U.S. Congress.
"It is possible to substantially increase the amount available to fight global warming in the developing world,” he said.
“All that is lacking is the political will. Unfortunately the political will will be difficult to gather because of the mere fact that it requires congressional approval in the United States."
An Obituary for Obituaries (Pajamas Media/Edgelings)
What Americans need right now is a good Government-subsidized obituary.
You probably didn’t read the story – because what red-blooded American reads a newspaper anymore? – but apparently the nation’s newspapers, having already lost their editorial dominance to cable news and the Web, their sports coverage to fan sites, their classifieds to Craigslist, and their editorial pages to the blogosphere, are now under heavy assault on their last profitable redoubt: the obituary page.
Woods scandal a boon to Internet publications (AP) Even McClatchy is capitalizing on it...oops never mind!
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The Tiger Woods sex scandal has been a boon for online publications, even though it hasn't generated the same amount of Internet traffic as Michael Jackson's death or President Barack Obama's inauguration.
Provocative remarks by Yahoo Inc. CEO Carol Bartz at an investor conference in New York this week illustrate how major Internet channels and niche publications are benefiting from the Woods controversy.
Known for her off-color commentary, Bartz told financial analysts Tuesday that the Woods story is "better than Michael Jackson dying" for helping Yahoo make money, because it is easier to sell ads against salacious content than morbid stories.
"It's kind of hard to put an ad up next to a funeral," she said.
Stewart Mocks Obama's Nobel Speech: 'Rambo - Ixnay on the Waray' (NewsBusters)
While most of the Obama-loving media predictably gushed and fawned over the President's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo Thursday, comedian Jon Stewart mocked the obvious absurdity of a man receiving such an honor while he's sending more troops to Afghanistan.
"Let's see how Mr. Europe balances accepting a peace prize while overseeing one war and escalating another war," said "The Daily Show" host before showing some clips of Obama's speech.
"My guess is he's going to be drinking from a big mea culpa."
When his prediction proved false, and the President said war can be "morally justified," the Comedy Central star quipped, "Hey Rambo - ixnay on the waray" (video embedded below the fold courtesy our friend Story Balloon, partial transcript):
US media positive on Obama's Oslo speech (AFP via Google News)It’s lies like this is why you are all going bankrupt) But then why wouldn't the MSM like his speech ? They created him.
WASHINGTON — US media and leading opinion makers on Friday had largely positive views of Barack Obama's Nobel Peace award speech in Oslo, with conservatives especially delighted with his choice of words.
"We've said before ... that awarding President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize after so short a time in office and so few concrete accomplishments was a mistake," wrote the Los Angeles Times in its newspaper editorial.
However the acceptance speech was "a blockbuster even by Obama's lofty standards."
Al Gore Refuses to Discuss 'Climate Crisis' with John Stossel (NewsBusters)
Despite appearing on CNN and MSNBC Wednesday, Nobel Laureate Al Gore was apparently too busy to discuss global warming on the premiere episode of John Stossel's new Fox Business Network program.
To kick off his new show Thursday, Stossel chose the controversial subject of climate change, and invited on a number of guests to address the issue in great detail.
According to an e-mail message sent to Stossel's producers on November 23, "the growing influence of the climate crisis message and the demand on Mr. Gore's time" made it impossible for the former Vice President to attend.
Of course, Gore's busy schedule didn't prevent him from being interviewed by CNN and MSNBC on Wednesday, nor did it stop him from appearing on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" just two days before he declined Stossel's invitation.
I guess even an esteemed Nobel Laureate has to understand his limitations (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):
JOHN STOSSEL, HOST: I wish that Al Gore were here to debate him (Jerry Taylor, Energy Analyst for the Cato Institute) and me. We asked Vice President Gore, and his office sent this e-mail saying:
"It's very difficult to decline invitations such as yours, but it's an unfortunate inevitability of the growing influence of the climate crisis message and the demand on Mr. Gore's time. (Boos from audience) We do apologize, but thank you for your interest."
(Via email 11/23/09).
Come on, Mr. Gore. The idea that you don't have time is pretty silly.
You have time to go on programs like "Saturday Night Live." It's not a time issue. (Applause)
Truth is, you won't debate anyone.
You've been asked lots of times, but you always say no. But if you do ever want to debate, we'd love to offer you the air time. We will give it to you.
I'll give you a special phone number that goes to this phone.
Glenn Beck has that red phone that goes to the President. For you Mr. Gore, the green phone. I await your call.
Of course, Stossel was quite right: despite claiming to be an expert on this subject, Al Gore refuses to debate anyone.
And, he only goes on television programs where he knows he can say whatever he wants, regardless of accuracy, and never get challenged.
Such is what happened when he appeared with CNN's John Roberts and Kiran Chetry Wednesday morning, and with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Wednesday afternoon.
That media not only comply with Gore's ability to present unchallenged falsehoods to the nation, but also let him get away with never being on the air with anyone that disagrees with his views, is nothing less than appalling.
That said, Stossel shouldn't hold his breath waiting for this charlatan's call.
Gore's got the media in his back pocket, and he'll never voluntarily relinquish control.
His position is too weak to defend. Stossell could make a fool of him and he can't risk that.
Too many inconvenient truths to confront.
Why wouldn't the best scientists (not Gore) want to go on a show like Stossel to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt man made global warming?
Why don't they bring their charts and computer programs and lay everything on a table and teach us and the skeptical scientists the truth of what their best thinking has to offer?
Why do they denigrate us rather than teach us?
We are open minded and willing to learn.
However we sense something is wrong with each passing day.
We might not know everything about climate science but we all know when a salesman is pushing us to make up our mind and commit our money to what he wants.
We know this whole thing reminds us of things that have not worked well for us in the past. Is this too hysterical and unreasonable?
TODAY Congress voting to nationalize finance industry, give President permanent bailout authority! WLS Radio Chicago
The House of Representatives will vote today, perhaps as early as noon, on a 1,300-page bill proposed by Barney Frank that would nationalize the financial services industry and give the President permanent bailout authority without additional congressional input.
The bill was described by US Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-MN), who was a guest on the Don Wade and Roma morning radio show on WLS Radio, Chicago.
According to Bachman, the bill would nationalize the entire financial system, representing nearly 20 percent of the US exonomy, and would give the economic Czar the power to regulate salaries down to the level of a bank clerk in Peoria, Illinois.
Bachman said she believed it was a deliberate Democrat strategy to introduce this 1,300-page bridge on a Friday when the nation is focussed on the healthcare legislation being debated in the US Senate.
She urged concerned citizens to contact their representatives this morning to demand that they vote against the Barney Frank bill.
Fed Workers Enjoy Boom Time– Average Pay Now at $71K Compared to $40K in Private Sector
Just because its the “greatest recession since the Great Depression” does not mean that everyone is hurting.
Government workers are enjoying a boom time since the democrats took over Congress. The average pay of a federal worker jumped to $71,206, compared with $40,331 in the private sector.
USA Today is reporting that the number of federal workers making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months — and that’s doesn’t include overtime pay and bonuses are counted.
Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.
The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.
The trend to six-figure salaries is occurring throughout the federal government, in agencies big and small, high-tech and low-tech.
The primary cause: substantial pay raises and new salary rules. The growth in six-figure salaries has pushed the average federal worker’s pay to $71,206, compared with $40,331 in the private sector.
For the record...Congressional raises topped insurance company profits last year.
Max Baucus gave girlfriend $14K raise, taxpayer funded trips
(The Politico)
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, gave a nearly $14,000 pay raise to a female staffer in 2008, at the time he was becoming romantically involved with her, and later that year took her on a taxpayer-funded trip to Southeast Asia and the Middle East, though foreign policy was not her specialty.
Report: Baucus' Girlfriend Worked on His Divorce While on His Staff
(FoxNews.com)
Melodee Hanes, Baucus' former state director and now his live-in girlfriend, reportedly met at least twice with the Montana Democrat's divorce attorney to talk about the Baucuses' divorce eight months before the senator and his wife separated.
The last person to know that Sen. Max Baucus wanted a divorce may have been his wife of 25 years.
It appears that Wanda Baucus was in the dark even as a member of Baucus' staff -- Melodee Hanes, the woman who is now his live-in girlfriend -- was plotting out the senator's life without a wife.
Hanes, Baucus' former state director, reportedly met at least twice with the Montana Democrat's divorce attorney eight months before the senator and his wife separated.
Worse Than the Public Option (Wall Street Journal)
It's hard to imagine a better illustration of the panic and recklessness stringing ObamaCare along in the Senate than the putative deal that Harry Reid announced this week.
The Majority Leader is claiming that a Medicare "buy-in" for people from ages 55 to 64 has overcome the liberal-moderate impasse over the "public option."
But if anything, this gambit is an even faster road to government-run health care.
The public option—an insurance program open to everyone, financed by taxpayers and run like Medicare—is intended as a veiled substitute for "single-payer" Canada-style insurance. Under the cover of "choice" and "competition," the entitlement would quickly squeeze out private insurance as people gravitated to "free" coverage and the government held down costs via price controls the way Medicare does now.
Mr. Reid's buy-in simply cuts out the middle man.
Why go to the trouble of creating a new plan like Medicare when Medicare itself is already handy?
A buy-in is an old chestnut of single-payer advocate Pete Stark, and it's the political strategy liberals have tried since the Great Society:
Ratchet down the enrollment age for Medicare, boost the income limits to qualify for Medicaid, and soon health care for the entire middle class becomes a taxpayer commitment.
In the case of Medicare, this means expanding a program that is already going broke.
Medicare reimburses doctors and hospitals at rates 70% to 80% below those of private insurers, which means below the actual treatment costs in many cities and regions.
Providers either eat these losses—about half of U.S. hospitals are running a deficit or close to it—or they raise prices for private payers.
ObamaCare: Air leaking out of Reid’s trial balloon? PATTERICO
The supposed healthcare deal cut by Harry Reid is a “non-starter,” Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said today.
***
“I think when we get the score back from CBO that it’s going to be too costly,” Nelson told Fox News Live today.
Nelson is not even among the usual “moderate” suspects waiting for a CBO score. And Nelson is probably right.
Reid’s current trial balloon is a Kennedy retread — and Ted was not exactly focused like a laser on fiscal responsibility.
According to the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Reid’s version of ObamaCare would make the US healthcare system more expensive than if we simply did nothing — and render 20 percent of providers to Medicare’s hospital insurance program unprofitable to boot.
Going further Left is unlikely to change that analysis.
So the hissing sound you hear may be the air leaking out of Reid’s trial balloon.
Or it may be Reid himself, lashing out at the GOP for forcing to work this weekend, instead of flying off to a Saturday fundraiser in New Orleans with Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Democratic consultant James Carville:
“I think that this debate has really come to a point that I’ve rarely seen in the Senate — in fact, I’ve never seen it — to have my friends on the other side of the aisle come to the floor and in some way try to embarrass or denigrate me,” Reid said, according to a transcript.
“But they should understand, any events I had scheduled this weekend have been canceled.
Events I had last weekend had been canceled. Four or five of them.”
Reid said he would never admonish a fellow senator for holding a fundraiser. “I would never, ever intentionally come to the floor and try to talk to somebody about having had a fundraiser and that’s why they’re trying to get out of here,” he said.
About taking the weekend off, Reid added, “I thought it would be appropriate because we’ve worked pretty hard here to have a day or two off.”
Maybe Reid was being mocked because Reid started the week comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.
Given that the Senate has been working at a breakneck pace on his bill, asking for time off to raise money while cravenly accusing the GOP of obstructionism does not seem to have been a winning strategy for the majority leader.
Or the hissing sound may be the public reaction to this increasingly unpopular bill, which Reid is bent on cramming down the throats of the American people.
—
Update: Majority Whip Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, claims he does not know the details of the trial balloon.
A cynic might suggest he’s leaving himself room to jump out of the way of the Hindenburg, and perhaps stay in position for the top job if Reid gets ousted by Nevada voters in 2010.
Men who force wives to wear Burka 'not welcome in France' (The Telegraph)
Muslim men who force their wives to wear the full Islamic veil should not be granted French citizenship, Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said on Thursday.
Wading into the debate over whether to ban the burka, Mr Alliot-Marie said the government would await the recommendations of a parliamentary panel considering possible legislation to bar Muslim women from wearing the full veil.
But the minister went on to say that "there are a certain number of basics on which we must stand firm".
"For instance, someone who would be seeking French citizenship and whose wife wears the full veil is someone who would not appear to be sharing the values of our country," she told LCI television.
"Therefore in a case like that one, we would reject his request," she said.
The justice minister said the wearing of the niqab or burka was a "problem that affects our ability to live together, the values of the republic and in particular human dignity."
A French court last year denied citizenship to a veiled Moroccan woman on the grounds that her "radical" practice of Islam was incompatible with French values.
Gates foresees 'significant' new sanctions on Iran (Breitbart)ROFLMAO
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday that he expects "significant" new sanctions" to be imposed on Iran over its controversial nuclear programme.
"I think that you are going to see some significant additional sanctions imposed by the international community, assuming that the Iranians don't change course and agree to do the things they agreed to at the beginning of October," Gates told a group of US soldiers in Kirkuk, Iraq.
Gates arrived in Iraq on a suprise visit on Thursday, following a trip to Afghanistan where Washington is ramping up its military commitment.
Copenhagen: tongue lashing for already miffed business leaders
(The Telegraph)
Tensions are boiling up at the Copenhagen Business Day, a parallel event to the main intergovernmental summit on climate change.
I pitched up this morning expecting some self-congratulatory platitudes about how businesses are “stepping up to the carbon challenge” and was met with simmering frustration about the fact that companies have been edged out of the summit by bossy civil servants.
It all kicked off when Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations, began his address by attacking companies for failing to come up with specific financial proposals to help politicians raise the funding to tackle climate change.
“While you’re doing a lot of talking about what you want and what governments have got to do, I’m hearing less about what you’ve got to offer,” he berated business leaders.
“I’m really happy to be your salesman but I have no idea what you’re trying to sell.”
Executives are affronted by the bluntness of this suggestion – especially as they are already sore about feeling sidelined from the conference iself.
Charles Krauthammer: New Socialism Planning Heist In Copenhagen (Investors.com)
--snip--
The raid on the Western treasuries is on again, but today with a new rationale to fit current ideological fashion.
With socialism dead, the gigantic heist is now proposed as a sacred service of the newest religion: environmentalism...
Politically it's an idea of genius, engaging at once every left-wing erogenous zone: rich man's guilt, post-colonial guilt, environmental guilt.
Vaclav Havel on Obama: Soiling Your Pants Prematurely Will Not Gain You International Respect(GatewayPundit)
Foreign Policy interviewed Former Czech President, political prisoner and playwright Vaclav Havel on Barack Obama and the costs of moral compromise.
Question: How, as president, do you decide when these small compromises are worth it and when they might lead to something more dangerous?
Havel: Politics, it means, every day making some compromises, and to choose between one evil and another evil, and to decide which is bigger and which is smaller.
But sometimes, some of these compromises could be very dangerous because it could be the beginning of the road of making a lot of other compromises, which are results of the first one, and there are very dangerous compromises.
And it’s necessary, I think, to have the feeling which compromise is possible to do and which, could be, maybe, after ten years, could be somehow very dangerous.
I will illustrate this with my own experience. Two days after I was elected president, I invited the Dalai Lama to visit. I was the first head of the state who invited him in this way, directly.
And everybody was saying that it was a terribly dangerous act and issued their disapproving statements and expressions.
But it was a ritual matter. Later, the Chinese deputy prime minister and the foreign minister came for a visit and brought me a pile of books about the Dalai Lama and some governmental documents about what good care they have taken of Tibet, and so on.
They were propagandist, fabricated books, but he felt the need to explain something to me.
I had a press conference with this minister of foreign affairs. And he said, “It was wonderful, meeting, because we were speaking openly. Mr. Havel gave me his opinion, and I explained the opinion of our government. I gave him this book, and he thanked me for it.”
This was unbelievable! Why did they feel the need to explain their point of view to the leader of such a small nation?
Because they respect it when someone is standing his ground, when someone is not afraid of them.
When someone soils his pants prematurely, then they do not respect you more for it.
Copenhagen climate summit: Carbon trading fraudsters in Europe pocket €5bn (Telegraph, UK)
Carbon trading fraudsters may have accounted for up to 90pc of all market activity in some European countries, with criminals pocketing an estimated €5bn (£4.5bn) mainly in Britain, France, Spain, Denmark and Holland, according to Europol, the European law enforcement agency.
Dems Compare Climate 'Deniers' to 'Tea Baggers'
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True bottom feeders are in charge, they must be defeated in the next election.
Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
(-16!) (Rasmussen Reports ) All time low alert
Except for our far-right paid lobbyist Big Business anti-administration spammer (3:43 a.m. through 4:30 a.m.), apparently nobody cares.
(MW says: "Profanity, personal attacks, and spam will be deleted." Apparently doesn't apply to Big Business spam.)
10:24 hey... if you can't dispute the message, attack the poster. Good strategy for brain dead leftists who know their hero Obama is bringing us hoax and change in a way they could never have anticipated.
Oh... you lefties are right about one thing. Teaching little children fisting in public schools will probably be quite effective in breaking their thumb sucking habit.
Gee, I guess the Lame Stream media didn’t take note: In Kentucky, a GOP just won a special election against a DEM in a district that has registered Dems 2 - 1. A sign of the times? You betcha!
If "big business, anti administration" is the best you can do you need a new game. Why would anyone be against an administration who is losing favor faster with the american people faster than any in history? Why would someone oppose a far left, free sepending, America hating administration who is discouraging our friends, encouraging our enemies and selling the souls of our grandchildren to the Chinese? Why would any one oppose an administration devoted to union thuggery and congressional buggery?
Can't imagine.
Troll calls poster, “far-right paid lobbyist” and that is soooooo lame. How many times has the troll posted that now? It has to be right up there with ‘Sweetie’ and his show me proof garbage. It makes me wonder why a troll that hates every post here, still reads every word? Sick, man, sick.
10:24 is a typical unsupported leftie attack on the integrity of the owner of this sign. when they can't keep up with the issues, they attack the integrity of the other side.
Not a shred of evidence...some made up accusation...an attempt to distract...name calling.
Not much power...but a good bit of gas.
Good news: congressman introduces legislation to fire Kevin Jennings
1:30 this guy posts the same comment almost every day.
No game. No imagination.
Millions of people already regret voting for Obama. Our troll is not quite ready to admit his mistake, so he hangs out here. At least here he has a chance to read the truth.
***1:30 this guy posts the same comment almost every day.***
Just like our early-morning paid lobbyist spammer.
Just like our early-morning paid lobbyist spammer.
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If I didn't know better I would think you were some conservative just trying to make liberals look stupid. Keep up the good work spanky. You're killing yourself.
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