Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Screen Actor's Guild Awards Show SAGed

by Rev. Austin Miles

It was a silence heard around the world. At least the awards show proved effective in staging a tragedy. It was so bad that nobody even mentioned it in the press. The critics refused to draw their pens to write a review of the Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) effort. Instead they slipped away quielty into the night following the worst presentation ever to fill a television screen. Somebody's got to report on it...somebody not involved in Hollywood's liberal causes. That's us. And this is one time that MilesTones is serious.

The Screen Actor’s Guild Awards Program that aired this last weekend, absolutely SAG-ed. Uneven,badly produced with actors who looked like a deer caught in the headlights as they accepted their ‘awards’ and who peppered their speechis with “um..uh…anduh….um..um..um.”

Betty White received the lifetime achievment award and was funny, but she just had to add in some crude sexual inuendos that were not becoming. Drew Barrymore did a complete melt down, and for the first couple of minutes could not put a sentence together; On the verge of panic, she stammered uncomfortably and could only stutter, um…um, uh,um, um….uh. It was not an act .It was a true melt down. Other actors shown in the audience displayed an incredible attitude during the show.

Then the “actors” couldn’t read the teleprompter which they obviously were dependant upon. One FEMALE ACTOR, realized that she couldn’t read the teleprompter without her glasses which she had failed to bring and asked the male cohost to read her part. Absolutely amateurish. Perhaps all the present day “actors” should attend Obama’s Teleprompter Reading Class. Now that would be a positive contribution to our country.

But the most annoying thing of all, was the reference to women as “actors.” instead of actresses. This is ridiculous. We can thank organizations like NOW for blurring gender lines, so that all sexes are now one. In more sensible times, an actor was male and an actress was female…period. No explanation was necessary.

Now, women insist upon being referred to in men’s terms. That, they think, makes them equal in standing. To show how insane this is, the participants of the award show had to be explained as a “male actor,” or a “female actor.” So these misguided femmes who have assaulted and mangled the English language to prove their point (that they are as good as men), still had to be divided by the terms, male and female, the very thing they were kicking about and wanted to change, which made the division of sexes even more obvious. This is nuts. AAAARRRRGH! That SAG awards night was awful! In biblical terminology, It Stinketh.

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Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Ed Schultz Reveals Liberal Strategy for Winning Elections

Satire By John W. Lillpop

Until now, everyone who has ever listened to lefty talker Ed Schultz has reached the same conclusion: The man is dumber than rat snot!

Only recently has the full extent of Schultz’s liberal insanity been made public.

As reported at the Huffington Post, in part (1), Schultz owes rat snot everywhere a public apology:

"On Friday, MSNBC host Ed Schultz proposed a radical path to a Democratic win in the unexpectedly close Massachusetts Senate race for the late Ted Kennedy's seat: cheating.

"If I lived in Massachusetts, I'd try to vote ten times," Schultz said on his radio show, The Ed Schultz Show.

"Yeah that's right," he went on. "I'd cheat to keep these bastards out. I would. Because that's exactly what they are."

The good news is that even if this dim wit were able to vote ten times, Martha Oaklely would still go down in flames, if current polls are to believed.

Even better is the news that Schultz has declined calls from Democrat Party leaders to run for the US Senate seat being vacated by North Dakota Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan who is not running for re-election.

Of course Democrat power players are bitterly disappointed by Schultz’s decision:

For example, Majority Leader Harry Reid said, "Ed’s decision is a real blow to the progressive agenda because of his unique understanding of Democrat Party winning strategies, and because he has no Negro dialect."

Editor’s Note: Ed Schultz has no Negro dialect because he is lily-white!

Meanwhile, House Shrieker Nancy Pelosi took time away from registering San Francisco illegal aliens as Democrats for the November elections to issue this profundity: "Ed Schultz is urgently needed in Washington to offset the culture of corruption that will surely embrace the Republican nominee, whoever that might be."

Well said, Madam Shrieker, and with your customary objectivity and lack of partisan bias.

Finally, President Obama weighed in on the Ed Schultz kerfuffel with this: "Ed Schultz? Who the hell is Ed Schultz? I listen to Rush Limbaugh!"

There you go: The best and the brightest of the Democrat Party worshipping at the public altar of corruption and dishonesty while claiming to be transparent, honest, and open!

(1)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/16/ed-schultz-on-ma-election_n_426068.html

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Top donors offered 'wide range of perks' since Obama took office...

Offered access to bowling alley, movie theater

By Matthew Mosk

During his first nine months in office, President Obama has quietly rewarded scores of top Democratic donors with VIP access to the White House, private briefings with administration advisers and invitations to important speeches and town-hall meetings.

High-dollar fundraisers have been promised access to senior White House officials in exchange for pledges to donate $30,400 personally or to bundle $300,000 in contributions ahead of the 2010 midterm elections, according to internal Democratic National Committee documents obtained by The Washington Times.

One top donor described in an interview with The Times being given a birthday visit to the Oval Office. Another was allowed use of a White House-complex bowling alley for his family. Bundlers closest to the president were invited to watch a movie in the red-walled theater in the basement of the presidential mansion.

Mr. Obama invited his top New York bundler, UBS Americas CEO Robert Wolf, to golf with him during the president's Martha's Vineyard vacation in August. At least 39 donors and fundraisers also were treated to a lavish White House reception on St. Patrick's Day, where the fountains on the North and South Lawns were dyed green, photos and video reviewed by The Times and CBS News also show.

Presidential aides said there has been no systematic effort to use the White House complex to aid fundraising, though they acknowledge the DNC has paid for some events at the presidential mansion.

Many guests at the White House not only had fundraising connections, but also have personal friendships with the president, Mr. Obama's aides said.

"Contributing does not guarantee a ticket to the White House, nor does it prohibit the contributor from visiting," said Dan Pfeiffer, deputy White House communications director.


White House response to story: White House touts ethics in rewards for fundraisers

Deputy White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer provided this response to Wednesday's Washington Times report on efforts by President Obama and the Democratic National Committee to court and reward his largest donors and fundraisers:

"President Obama has opened the doors of the White House to hundreds of thousands of Americans since the administration began, and for the first time in history, records detailing who visited the White House will be made public on a regular basis," Mr. Pfeiffer wrote in an e-mail.

"Many of the people mentioned in this story have been friends and associates of the Obamas for decades - including college roommates and family friends whose relationships predate and are separate from the President's career in public service. Given that nearly 4 million Americans donated to the campaign, it's no surprise that some who contributed have visited the White House, as have grass-roots organizers who didn't contribute financial support and people who actively opposed the President's candidacy," he said.

"As part of an effort to open up events at the White House to thousands of Americans, we have at times provided tickets to events to the DNC, among many other organizations. Our understanding is that those tickets have in turn been distributed to grass-roots supporters, contributors and elected officials. Contributing does not guarantee a ticket to the White House, nor does it prohibit the contributor from visiting.

"This Administration has across the board set the toughest ethics standards in history. As a result, we have reduced special-interest influence over the policymaking process to promote merit-based decision-making. We believe that is due in no small part to our insistence on strict adherence to the rules - an approach we intend to continue."

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Obama's War on Fox Is Liberalism's War on Dissent

by David Limbaugh

Can you imagine the outrage that would have ensued had former President George W. Bush declared off-limits those media outlets he thought (correctly) treated him unfairly?

Heck, the left declared him a dictator simply because he led a war on Iraq that Congress approved. He never tried to shut down his critics. He rarely even objected to their abuse.

But liberal politicians have been spoiled with mainstream media favoritism for so long that they believe anything other than sycophancy is mistreatment. Their selective outrage is as hollow as it is risible.

In fact, Fox News seems much more conservative than it is because no other television network over the past half-century has been anything but decidedly liberal. When the media norm is liberal, liberals equate liberalism with objectivity and deviations from it as bias, just as liberals preach tolerance toward all ideas -- except conservative ones. Their self-delusion is surreal.

Thus, Fox News Channel -- which has a number of liberal hosts, scores of liberal contributors, and nonstop liberal guests -- is painted as conservative because it is the only network that has more than one token conservative host.

Perhaps more of Fox's prominent hosts lean conservative than liberal, but unlike other networks, it scrupulously attempts to present both sides and to delineate its news from its editorializing.

But Obama's war against the network is about much more than Fox News. It is about his and his fellow liberals' intolerance for political dissent and their war on political criticism from any corner. Unless you shower Obama with adulation 24/7, you are ripe for targeting. They will abuse the power and prestige of the office of the presidency to "call you out." They have personally called out Rush Limbaugh and other media critics. They've targeted conservative talk radio for neutering, having assigned a Federal Communications Commission diversity czar that very task.

Unless you refrain from asking even marginally difficult questions of the administration, you are not only boycotted from access to interviews but demonized to boot. This way, Obama scores a twofer: He avoids almost all scrutiny from the mainstream media, scrutiny that even the Founders said is necessary to good government, and he discredits his political critics in the process.

What should alarm all First Amendment proponents is that so many liberals don't really champion the free and open expression of ideas; they only support the advancement of liberal policies, even if that means one-sided dominance to the point of indoctrination in our public schools and universities and in the media.

No bona fide conservative I have ever met would countenance for a millisecond the government suppression, in any way, of a certain political point of view just because it differs from his own. But I have talked with and received e-mails from many liberals who favor Obama's plan to emasculate conservative talk radio, who believe it's acceptable, nay, desirable for universities to present primarily the liberal worldview and for liberal politicians -- with the MSM's help -- to unilaterally declare a false consensus on such hotly disputed issues as man-made global warming.

A handful of liberals, to be fair, have criticized Obama for his war on Fox News and conservative talkers. But most aren't the least bit troubled by it and are probably secretly relishing it. Have you ever heard prominent liberal voices go after Keith Olbermann or other extremely liberal and biased MSNBC or CNN hosts as they have Fox and Sean Hannity?

Obama's approval numbers have cratered more rapidly than those of any other president in modern history, but can you imagine where they'd be and how much more his agenda would be stalemated (for the common good) if the MSM hadn't been covering for him but had been reporting the facts, not to mention the public's opposition to his agenda?

Where is the outrage over Obama's effort to turn this nation into a model of European socialism?

If it weren't for Fox News and conservative talk radio, think tanks, Web sites and blogs, this administration would be implementing its Draconian agenda unopposed, with no scrutiny of its march toward national bankruptcy, its rampant corruption (e.g., its Justice Department's dismissal of voter intimidation charges against New Black Panther members), its hyper-secrecy despite its pledges of transparency, its use of so-called stimulus money to enhance its re-election efforts, its failure to create jobs, its reckless indecision concerning added troops to Afghanistan, the rising death tolls in Iraq and Afghanistan -- which the MSM used as a daily bludgeoning tool against the Bush administration -- its refusal to respect the public's repeated rejection of socialized medicine, its lies about Obamacare's costs and features, its mistreatment of Israel, its appeasement of Third World dictators, its apologies for the United States, its consumption of large segments of the private sector, and its cap-and-tax scheme to destroy our economy based on politicized "science."

Just imagine.

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CNN Drops to Last Place Among Cable News Networks

By Bill Carter

CNN, which invented the cable news network more than two decades ago, will hit a new competitive low with its prime-time programs in October, finishing fourth – and last – among the cable news networks with the audience that all the networks rely on for their advertising.

The official monthly numbers will be finalized at 4 p.m. Monday and will include results from Friday. CNN executives conceded that will not change the competitive standing for the month. CNN will still be last in prime time.

That means CNN’s programs were behind not only Fox News and MSNBC, but even its own sister network HLN (formerly Headline News.) Three of its four shows between 7 and 11 p.m. finished fourth and last among the cable news networks. That was the first time CNN had finished that poorly with its prime-time shows.

The results demonstrate once more the apparent preference of viewers for opinion-oriented shows from the news networks in prime time.

CNN has steered opinion hosts like Nancy Grace to HLN, while maintaining more news-oriented shows on CNN itself. When news events are not being intensely followed, CNN executives acknowledge, viewers seem to be looking for partisan views more than objective coverage.

Individually, the CNN shows were beaten resoundingly by all the Fox News programs, but also lost to all of the MSNBC programs, including a repeat of Keith Olbermann’s 8 p.m. edition of “Countdown,” which beat the 10 p.m. hour of CNN’s signature prime-time program, “Anderson Cooper 360.”

Again that was a first.

Mr. Cooper had 211,000 viewers to 223,000 for Mr. Olbermann’s repeat. That meant Mr. Cooper finished fourth and last in the 10 p.m. hour because, besides being well behind the leader, Greta Van Susteren, who had 538,000 viewers, he was also beaten by a repeat of Nancy Grace’s 8 p.m. show on HLN, which averaged 222,000.

For the month, CNN averaged 202,000 viewers between the ages of 25 and 54 – the group that television news organizations use as their basis of success because of their advertising sales. That was far behind the dominant leader, Fox News, which averaged 689,000. But it also trailed MSNBC, which had 250,000 viewers in that group and HLN, which had 221,000.

The only CNN show from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. that did not finish last was Larry King, which was third, ahead of the new Joy Behar show on HLN. But Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News had a huge lead with 659,000 viewers in that age group. Second was Rachel Maddow on MSNBC with 242,000.

Mr. King averaged 224,000 and Ms. Behar 181,000.

At 7 p.m. CNN’s host, Lou Dobbs was fourth, barely beaten by Jane Velez Mitchell on HLN, 166,000 to 162,000. The big winner was Shepard Smith on Fox with 465,000 viewers. Second was Chris Matthews and “Hardball” on MSNBC, with 179,000 viewers.

CNN’s performance was worst in the 8 p.m. hour. Bill O’Reilly on Fox News continued his long dominance with the biggest numbers of any host, 881,000 viewers. Mr. Olbermann, with his first-run program, was second with 295,000. Close behind was the first edition of Ms. Grace’s show with 269,000. Campbell Brown on CNN trailed with only 162,000.

CNN executives emphasized that the network continues to draw more viewers than all its competitors except Fox News when all hours of the day are counted.

CNN released a statement Monday saying, “CNN’s ratings are always going to be more dependent on the news environment, much more so than opinion-based programming especially in prime time.”

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Sunday, October 25, 2009

Foxophobia, Triskaidekaphobia - Fickle Phantasms from the White House?

By Michael Bresciani

Triskaidekaphobia is the fear of the number 13, and while it may seem silly to some then we discover friggatriskaidekaphobia which is fear of Friday the 13th. Superstitious, silly perhaps, but some people are stricken with real trepidation over them both. Here comes Foxophobia, what is a nation to do?

President Obama’s persistence in singling Fox News out for scoffing and scolding has generated more disbelief than relief for most Americans. It is hard for anyone to imagine a President using the advantage of the office of the President to single out any one individual, corporation, state or even other nations who were not known to be our mortal enemies. It is unprecedented but it is also un-presidential according to anyone’s assessment of protocol.

The diagnosis modern psychiatry has used to explain phobias in general is that they are repressed anger. Some would say that the President is not fearful of Fox but he is angry with them for doggedly opposing almost all of his policies. To the rest of America the question is silly. We don’t care which came first, the chicken or the egg, we do care that the President seems to be whining.

We know the brave young soldiers overwhelmed by insurgents in Afghanistan are very angry with the enemy that wants to kill them. Do they have a phobia that needs diagnosis? You could say they fear that they will be killed while the President dilly dallies with Fox and leaves them in the lurch without reinforcements. Is it unreasonable to think that Obama’s anger at Fox is misdirected even as our troops have the anger of a vicious enemy directed squarely at them?

At the moment freedom of speech is still constitutional and the President will have to suffer the consequences of that. Fox still has a constitutional right to investigate and report what they find to the public. He doesn’t have to like it but we can give him the same advice the networks give us when we complain about the trash they offer for programming and the mire and muck we are afraid our kids might see: shut it off!

Most Americans cringe when their freedom of speech is questioned, curtailed or outright denied because it is the only way to get to the truth of a matter. If we are all required to speak only the ‘party line’ then we might want to stop calling it ‘the main stream media’ or even the ‘old media’ as some are now saying and rename it Pravda. Didn’t that already fail?

It is because of freedom of speech that we now know what Acorn has been doing with taxpayer’s money. It is the means by which we see that Obama’s unconstitutionally appointed czars have ideas and plans for America that read like the dark passages of Sartre. It is the reason we are given a chance to compare the findings of the budget office against the absurd projections of the Obama administration on the cost of health care. It is the reason that news organizations like Fox will always be listened to, loved and depended upon to break out the other side of the story. Fox is clearly the offspring of the constitution not an unwanted stepchild of the present administration and those who love the truth will never see it any other way.

Dare we say ‘grow up Mr. President?’ Yes we dare and in fact it may be long overdue. We tend not to trust the media that say Palin is a loop de-loop but are delighted with Michelle’s use of the Hula Hoop. We don’t think the regulatory czar’s idea of abolishing marriage is a reasonable answer to the question of protecting the sanctity of marriage and we don’t mind one bit that news outlets like Fox are warning us that your czar’s have these kinds of ideas. We welcome it.

We weren’t always labeled as republicans and democrats, liberals and conservatives we were once referred to only as Americans. We suspect that when our constitution was framed that was foremost in the minds of the framers.

We believed this through two centuries of history, two major wars and countless fears and calamities and we still believe it today. We welcome Fox into our homes daily because they remind us of this, we are Americans not socialists, health care reform rebels or Obama policy haters; we are still only Americans. We are no more ashamed of that than we are of Fox news and we are saddened to hear that you are.

http://www.americanprophet.org is the place for news, articles, movie and book reviews and other insights for life. Rev Bresciani is a columnist for online and print publications and has over three million readers and counting.

Keywords:

Fox,Fox News, Obama, regulatory czar,czars,Palin,Michelle,hula hoop,triskaidekaphobia,friggatriskaidekaphobia,Foxophobia,psychiatry,Afghanistan,constitution,freedom of speech,Pravda,Friday 13th,president,fearful,Sartre

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Friday, October 23, 2009

DEMS BLAST WHITE HOUSE ENEMIES LIST STRATEGY

White House attacks worry moderate Democrats

By JONATHAN ALLEN

A White House effort to undermine conservative critics is generating a backlash on Capitol Hill — and not just from Republicans.

“It’s a mistake,” said Rep. Jason Altmire, a moderate Democrat from western Pennsylvania. “I think it’s beneath the White House to get into a tit for tat with news organizations.”

Altmire was talking about the Obama administration’s efforts to undercut Fox News. But he said his remarks applied just the same to White House efforts to marginalize the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a powerful business lobby targeted for its opposition to climate change legislation.

“There’s no reason to gratuitously piss off all those companies,” added another Democrat, Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia. “The Chamber isn’t an opponent.”

POLITICO reported earlier this week on an all-fronts push by the White House to cut the legs out from under its toughest critics, whether it’s the Chamber, radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck and the rest of the Fox News operation.

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn has defended the push, saying the administration made “a fundamental decision that we needed to be more aggressive in both protecting our position and in delineating our differences with those who were attacking us.”

Congressional Republicans counterattacked Thursday. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the administration was “targeting those who don’t immediately fall in line” with “Chicago-style politics” aimed at “shutting the American people out and demonizing their opponents.”

Boehner’s No. 2, Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) complained that the nation’s problems are growing while the White House “bickers with a cable news network.”

Liberal Democrats have little heartburn over the administration’s attacks on Fox and Limbaugh. But the attacks make moderates uneasy — especially when they extend to the Chamber of Commerce.

While Limbaugh and Fox commentators like Beck make no secret of their dislike for Democrats, the Chamber’s Republican lean is partially counteracted by nominal and financial support for pro-business Democrats who need to win votes from pro-business Republicans. The campaign websites of moderate Democrats from across the country are filled with endorsements from the Chamber of Commerce.

Rep. Brad Ellsworth of Indiana, for example, has this testimonial from a Chamber official on his site: “On issues ranging from lowering taxes to increasing trade, Indiana’s businesses and workers have no better friend than Brad Ellsworth.”

Ellsworth got a $5,000 campaign contribution from the Chamber in the past election.

Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), another recipient of a Chamber contribution, said Thursday that he had no intention of stepping into the middle of a fight between the White House and the Chamber, but he did note that he had won an award for his voting record from the national Chamber of Commerce.

A senior House Democrat, speaking on the condition of anonymity while questioning the wisdom of the White House strategy, said: “I have no problem with [going after] Rush at all. I don’t have much of a problem with Fox. I think the Chamber’s another story.”

The Democrat took issue with Chamber leaders in Washington, who he said “do not do a good job of representing the interests of their members.” But he also acknowledged the benefits the Chamber’s goodwill can confer on certain segments of the caucus.

He said that the White House is trying to “take advantage of the discontent within the Chamber. Several flagship companies, including Apple and PG&E, have cut ties with the Chamber to protest its opposition to the climate change legislation that passed the House earlier this year.

Some Democratic critics of the White House attacks say it may strengthen the relationship between the Chamber and moderate Democrats in Congress, who will fast become the organization’s best hope for addressing its concerns if it is frozen out by the White House.

“I don’t think the White House’s relationship with the Chamber will have any effect on individual members’ relationships with the Chamber,” said Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, a centrist Democrat. “I think we’ll be judged on how we conduct ourselves.”

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Monday, October 19, 2009

To Sue or Not

by Thomas Sowell

To sue or not to sue? That is the question.

After racist statements were made up out of thin air and then attributed to Rush Limbaugh, these were the options he had.

It is easy for me to understand that these are not simple choices because I have faced those options as well. Recently there have been a number of columns made up by others and put on the Internet with my name on them. The things said in those bogus columns have nothing in common with anything that I have said, in my columns, in my books or anywhere else.

Years ago, CBS reporter Lem Tucker said in a broadcast on October 13, 1981 that my views "seem to place him in the school that believes that maybe most blacks are genetically inferior to white people."

Anyone interested in the facts could have discovered that I had argued directly against this idea in a number of writings, including a feature article in the New York Times Magazine on March 27, 1977.

An attorney I did not know, but who had read my writings and knew that what was insinuated in that broadcast was totally false, offered to represent me in a lawsuit against CBS. That was when I faced the kind of dilemma that Rush Limbaugh faces now.

When someone is considered to be a "public figure"-- and Rush Limbaugh is certainly that-- the Supreme Court has narrowed the grounds on which that public figure can sue for libel, to the point where even the most blatant lie can often go unpunished.

Worse yet, there may be millions of people who never heard the original lie but who will hear it repeated in the media as a result of news stories about the lawsuit. And when those who committed character assassination are let off the hook on a technicality, they can claim "vindication," as if what they said was true.

The question facing any public figure who has been the target of character assassination in the media is: Is it worth investing a large amount of time in a process that can make you worse off by spreading the very lie that you are suing to stop?

The down side of not suing is that it allows the lie to continue to be repeated in the media, with later repetitions being justified in terms of "just reporting" what someone else said.

No one can resolve this dilemma for someone else. My decision in 1981 was that I had too many other things to do for me to go into the exhausting and time-consuming process of suing CBS, with such dicey odds in the courts.

Every situation is different, so whether Rush Limbaugh should sue is a question that only he can answer.

The question for the media to answer is: Are lies to go unchallenged when they are lies against someone you disagree with? Worse yet, are they to be excused, rationalized or even repeated?

Already there are people on television saying that, although Rush didn't actually say the things that have been attributed to him, he has said other things that they choose to call "racist."

If those other things really are racist, why don't they quote them, instead of something that was made up out of whole cloth?

The Rush Limbaugh show has, after all, been broadcast for many years, three hours a day. There are thousands of hours of those broadcasts that people can go back through to look for things to quote.

If critics can't find anything racist in all that material, why should an outright lie about what the man said be given a pass?

As the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, you are entitled to your own opinion but not to your own facts.

Ultimately, this is not about Rush Limbaugh or anybody else who is smeared with impunity. It is about the whole climate in which issues are discussed.

Without a range of opposing opinions being available to the public, the basic concept of a self-governing democracy is a mockery. If views that some people don't like can be silenced or discredited by character assassination, the whole country loses.

The courts should not be the only line of defense. Common decency should be the first line of defense, so that people who smear others will pay a price in the outrage that their lies should provoke, even among decent people who do not agree with the target of their smears.

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Capitalism: A Big Fat Smelly Love Story

by Mike Adams

Michael Moore says he’s a Christian. I think he’s an ungrateful hypocrite who makes millions of dollars lying and defaming real Christians without blinking or, for that matter, shaving. He rarely checks his facts and, like John Edwards, has charged as much as $30,000 to speak out against capitalism and poverty for a whole hour. But at least he didn’t father an illegitimate child while his wife was suffering from cancer. Remaining perpetually un-bathed does have some advantages.

But enough about Michael Moore’s good qualities. One of Moore’s worst qualities is that he supports a 70% income tax rate, which would virtually destroy charitable giving in this country. Let me be clear: No man who would implement tax policies that would virtually destroy charitable giving can call himself a Christian. And few Christians can fulfill their duty to tithe when faced with a 70% tax burden.

Christian capitalists are the backbone of this great Christian nation. Take my good friend Jim Weaver. His wife quit a well-paying position last year to take care of their three small children. They are living off of one income now. But that hasn’t changed Jim’s commitment to using the money derived from the greatest economic system ever devised – capitalism, not socialism – to help others in need.

He gives 5% of his gross business profits to my friend Pastor Jackson from Kenya. You may know the story of Pastor Jackson. He felt a calling to build a mission seeking to take young boys off the streets of Kenya, to give them a home, and to teach them about the Gospel. He had an overwhelming sense that a small church in North Carolina was somehow supposed to help him fulfill that mission. So he sold his car to buy a plane ticket to go to America and visit these people he had never met.

The capitalists that run the church – mostly white males, I hear - decided to pledge 10% of their offerings to his mission. And now, driven by capitalist profits - and not a cent of government money - the mission is thriving. The man who sold his car to get to America has built a new school for the boys. They just bought a new school bus. They even decided to open up a new school for girls.

Around the time Pastor Jackson was taking his leap of faith, Michael Moore was harassing Charlton Heston – a Christian suffering from Alzheimer’s – with abrasive questions for an award-winning documentary. I think it was called “Bowling for the Special Olympics” but I could be wrong. I never check my facts when I’m writing about Michael Moore. I didn’t even take a shower today.

When Michael Moore did his “Fahrenheit 911” documentary he featured an anti-war group in Fresno that had been infiltrated by local police. Soon, the ACLU was teaming with Moore to come to the aid of the anti-war radicals. Imaging that: America’s biggest (literally) Christian teamed up with the organization that has done more to exclude Christians from the public square than any in our Christian nation’s history.

By contrast, my capitalist friend Jim Weaver also gives 5% gross profits to the Alliance Defense Fund – the greatest defenders of Christian legal rights in our Christian nation’s history. If Michael Moore doesn’t believe me here’s some evidence that not all capitalists are greedy and uncharitable.

While Michael Moore is teaming with the ACLU, the profits derived from my buddy’s capitalist risk-taking will defend another Californian who had his First Amendment rights violated. I wonder whether Michael Moore will give any of the millions made in his last (capitalist?) venture to help Jonathan Lopez.

Surely Michael Moore has heard of Jonathan Lopez. He was the student given a chance to speak on any topic whatsoever in his class at Los Angeles Community College (LACC). He decided to speak about God and miracles. In that speech, he quoted two Bible verses and expressed his support for traditional marriage. His instructor halted the speech, called him a “fascist b*stard,” and, remarkably, refused to give him a grade.

After his instructor wrote “ask God what your grade is” on his evaluation sheet – instead of actually giving Jonathan a grade in the class he paid for – he contacted the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). Lawyers for the ADF contacted the LACC administration. They tried to explain that a public school cannot ban as “offensive” the view that marriage should be reserved for one man and one woman. But the school brazenly stood behind its patently illegal speech code. LACC administrators then flippantly told ADF lawyers who they could call in order to serve papers.

In other words, LACC dared ADF to sue them. So ADF sued them. And, now, the LACC speech code has been nullified with a federal court injunction. This victory was made possible by small business men, like Jim Weaver, who take capitalist risks and use the profits to help fellow Christians in need.

If Michael Moore succeeds he will destroy the capitalist choice to give, which is necessary to qualify any act as charitable. Even liberals will lose the freedom to donate money to their favorite causes – such as saving the delta smelt and terminating their girlfriend’s pregnancies.

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Tolerance Gone Wild

by Rebecca Hagelin

"Of course I dislike the Nazis. But who is to say they're morally wrong?" The shocking statement was made by a college student in New York, as documented by author Kerby Anderson in a much-needed book, "Christian Ethics in Plain Language". The professor of the class, Anderson reports, "....said that he has never met a student who denied the Holocaust happened. But he also reported that 10 to 20 percent of his students cannot bring themselves to say that killing millions of people is wrong."

This is certainly an indictment of how modern society has made a false religion out of "tolerance" and how we adults have failed to teach that there are, indeed, moral absolutes. What evidence more strongly proves the dangerous folly of moral relativism than young people who can't distinguish between learning to "tolerate" what they merely "dislike" and recognizing what is, on its face, evil? We're in real trouble when even the most egregious evils can't be named as such.

Recent surveys that reveal a growing number of youth believe that lying and adultery are acceptable behaviors indicate that we are headed for serious trouble as a society. We've become so obsessed with what is "politically correct" and the need not to "offend" that we are failing to teach the principles that every civil society must uphold in order to survive. If basic relational concepts such as fidelity and honesty cannot be recognized as bedrock principles then how on earth do we expect the next generation to defend the principles of freedom and justice?

Some truths are supposed to be self-evident. Yet even our Founding Fathers saw the need to clearly state them as such. Dr. Jeff Myers, a recognized expert in leadership development who has trained some two million people in mentoring and world view understanding warns, "We live in what may be one of the first generations in Western Civilization that is not intentionally preparing to pass its values to the next generation."

One great resource to help you train the next generation are the materials from Dr. Myers' organization, Passing the Baton. At www.passingthebaton.org you can order a complete kit that will enable you to mentor and equip young people with the ability to develop a strong moral compass. As their website states, "The mission of Passing the Baton is to move leader development to the forefront of the cultural agenda by identifying and mobilizing one million adults to personally equip the next generation of culture-shaping leaders."You may also wish to explore other materials by Dr. Myers including his coaching curriculum, "Understanding the Times", which is used in many private schools around the nation.

Kerby Anderson's, "Christian Ethics in Plain Language," is also a terrific resource that provides the Judeo-Christian foundations on a variety of ethical issues.

The book is ideal for our time-pressed world. Take the chapter on abortion: In only 14 pages, Anderson gives us a history of this abhorrent practice, a brief description of the various abortion methods, and an array of arguments against the killing -- biblical, philosophical and medical. Readers also get a section titled "Answers to Pro-Abortion Rhetoric" to help them discern when someone is trying to deceive through the use of clever words.

Parents will find the chapter on sexual ethics particularly helpful. It includes information on teen sexuality, school based clinics, and sex education.

Anderson, the national director of Probe Ministries International, is well equipped to help develop the critical thinking skills that our young people desperately need. An accomplished writer and co-host of the popular radio show, "Point of View", Anderson knows how to communicate effectively and offers many resources at www.probe.org.

It takes but one generation for a nation to implode from believing lies and practicing moral relativism. Our children need us to deliberately guide and teach them the truth that will keep them free.

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Barack's Enemies List

by David Limbaugh

Sorry to disillusion those of you who are still in denial about President Barack Obama's true socialistic and dictatorial nature, but this guy's militancy against his perceived enemies puts Richard Nixon's White House to shame. His war on Fox News is just his latest salvo.

Obama's perceived enemies are all those who have the temerity not to roll over for his extreme agenda. They all must be demonized, marginalized and silenced by a president who has turned the Oval Office into a glorified street organizing headquarters to attack his opponents. Indeed, this self-described uniter is the most divisive president in memory, and his uncontrollable ego can't countenance legitimate dissent.

Consider:

--He has smeared medical doctors with reckless charges that they administer unnecessary courses of treatment for profit, e.g., tonsillectomies and limb amputations.

--He publicly berated Chrysler's senior creditors as a "small group of speculators" who "endanger Chrysler's future by refusing to sacrifice like everyone else," merely because they wouldn't acquiesce to his demands and insisted on asserting their contractual rights.

--He has demonized "big oil" and other energy producers, free market capitalists, corporate executives, pharmaceutical companies, Republicans who oppose his health care plan as dishonest and partisan, the wealthy, municipal policemen who dared arrest his Ivy League professor friend for disturbing the peace, pro-lifers, global warming skeptics, the CIA, the military, the best health care system in the world, and George W. Bush every time he needs cover for the inevitably negative consequences of his policies.

--He uses his White House blog to attack his political opponents.

--He condemned opponents of amnesty for illegal aliens as "demagogues."

--He foreshadowed his true nature in the campaign with his spontaneous denunciation of small-town Americans as bitterly clinging to their guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them.

--His administration has likened "tea party" protestors to an "angry mob" and "potential terrorists." His adviser David Axelrod has said they "are not in the mainstream and not in the majority" and represent "the angriest and most strident voices."

--In reference to opponents of his health care scheme, he said in a speech to a joint session of Congress, "I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it's better politics to kill this plan than improve it." He also said: "I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them just to get out of the way so (Democrats) can clean up the mess." And this: "If you misrepresent what is in this plan, we will call you out."

--He has targeted and vilified the entire insurance industry for daring to oppose his plan, describing them as "those who would bend the truth -- or break it -- to score political points and stop our progress as a country," and accusing them of "filling the airwaves with deceptive and dishonest ads ... designed to mislead the American people." Even the liberal New York Times acknowledged Obama's use of "unusually harsh terms" in attacking the industry as being "interested only in preserving their own 'profits and bonuses.'" And in a true Stalinesque intimidation move, he is threatening to repeal the industry's antitrust exemption.

--He has abused the office of the presidency to personally attack Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and conservative talk radio in general. As we speak, his "czars" are devising schemes to shut down that very medium.

--Now he has launched an orchestrated attack against the only television network that makes a sincere effort at offering balance, Fox News Channel, in an attempt to isolate, demonize and delegitimize the organization because it won't follow suit and join the state-run media. The administration is vacillating between boycotting and allowing some administration officials to appear on the network. Obama singled Fox out as "entirely devoted to attacking my administration." Rahm Emanuel said it's "not a news organization so much as it has a perspective." David Axelrod said, "It's really not news; it's pushing a point of view." Axelrod implored ABC's George Stephanopoulos and his network "not to treat (Fox) as a news organization." White House communications director Anita Dunn, who has bragged about her success at controlling the media, said Fox is "like a wing of the Republican Party" that "spouts Republican talking points."

The common denominator of all these vicious White House attacks is that their targets are those who oppose the administration's agenda. Instead of selling its agenda the old-fashioned way -- by convincing the unconvinced -- it attacks those who dare to articulate and air the opposing point of view. This is a totalitarian, bullying administration, which is revealing its heightened state of panic and desperation over the public's growing awareness of the dangerousness of its policy prescriptions for America.

Read more >>

White House Urges Other Networks to Disregard Fox News

Senior Obama administration officials took to the airwaves Sunday to accuse Fox News of pushing a particular point of view and not being a real news network.

FOXNews.com

The White House is calling on other news organizations to isolate and alienate Fox News as it sends out top advisers to rail against the cable channel as a Republican Party mouthpiece. 

Top political strategists question the decision by the Obama administration to escalate its offensive against Fox News. And as of Monday, the four other major television networks had not given any indication that they intend to sever their ties with Fox News. 

But several top White House officials have taken aim at Fox News since communications director Anita Dunn branded Fox "opinion journalism masquerading as news" in an interview last Sunday. 

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN on Sunday that President Obama does not want "the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox." 

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod went further by calling on media outlets to join the administration in declaring that Fox is "not a news organization." 

"Other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way," Axelrod counseled ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "We're not going to treat them that way." 

Asked Monday about another Axelrod claim that Fox News is just trying to make money, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that while all media companies fall under that description, "I would say sometimes programming can be tilted toward accentuating those profits." 

But by urging other news outlets to side with the administration, Obama officials dramatically upped the ante in the war of words that began earlier this month with Dunn's comments. 

So far, none of the four other major networks has given any indication that they wish to disinvite Fox News from the White House pool -- the rotation through which the networks share the costs and duties of White House coverage and the most significant interaction among the news channels. 

The White House stopped providing guests to "Fox News Sunday" after host Chris Wallace fact-checked controversial assertions made by Tammy Duckworth, assistant secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, in August. 

Dunn said fact-checking an administration official was "something I've never seen a Sunday show do." 

"She criticized 'Fox News Sunday' last week for fact-checking -- fact-checking -- an administration official," Wallace said Sunday. "They didn't say that our fact-checking was wrong. They just said that we had dared to fact-check." 

"Let's fact-check Anita Dunn, because last Sunday she said that Fox ignores Republican scandals, and she specifically mentioned the scandal involving Nevada senator John Ensign," Wallace added. "A number of Fox News shows have run stories about Senator Ensign. Anita Dunn's facts were just plain wrong." 

Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente said: "Surprisingly, the White House continues to declare war on a news organization instead of focusing on the critical issues that Americans are concerned about like jobs, health care and two wars. The door remains open and we welcome a discussion about the facts behind the issues." 

Observers on both sides of the political aisle questioned the White House's decision to continue waging war on a news organization, saying the move carried significant political risks. 

Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said on CNN: "I don't always agree with the White House. And on this one here I would disagree." 

David Gergen, who has worked for Democratic and Republican presidents, said: "I totally agree with Donna Brazile." Gergen added that White House officials have "gotten themselves into a fight they don't necessarily want to be in. I don't think it's in their best interest." 

"The faster they can get this behind them, the more they can treat Fox like one other organization, the easier they can get back to governing, and then put some people out on Fox," Gergen said on CNN. "I mean, for goodness sakes, you know, you engage in the debate. 

"What Americans want is a robust competition of ideas, and they ought to be willing to go out there and mix it up with some strong conservatives on Fox, just as there are strong conservatives on CNN like Bill Bennett." 

Bennett expressed outrage that Dunn told an audience of high school students this year that Mao Zedong, the founder of communist China, was one of "my favorite political philosophers." 

"Having the spokesman do this, attack Fox, who says that Mao Zedong is one of the most influential figures in her life, was not...a small thing; it's a big thing," Bennett said on CNN. "When she stands up, in a speech to high school kids, says she's deeply influenced by Mao Zedong, that -- I mean, that is crazy." 

Fox News contributor Karl Rove, who was the top political strategist to former President George W. Bush, said: "This is an administration that's getting very arrogant and slippery in its dealings with people. And if you dare to oppose them, they're going to come hard at you and they're going to cut your legs off." 

"This is a White House engaging in its own version of the media enemies list. And it's unhelpful for the country and undignified for the president of the United States to so do," Rove added. "That is over- the-top language. We heard that before from Richard Nixon." 

Media columnist David Carr of The New York Times warned that the White House war on Fox "may present a genuine problem for Mr. Obama, who took great pains during the campaign to depict himself as being above the fray of over-heated partisan squabbling." 

"While there is undoubtedly a visceral thrill in finally setting out after your antagonists, the history of administrations that have successfully taken on the media and won is shorter than this sentence," Carr wrote over the weekend. "So far, the only winner in this latest dispute seems to be Fox News. Ratings are up 20 percent this year." 

He added: "The administration, by deploying official resources against a troublesome media organization, seems to have brought a knife to a gunfight."

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Sunday, October 18, 2009

White House boasts: We 'control' news media (on camera, see the videos)

Communications chief offers shocking confession to foreign government

By Aaron Klein

President Obama's presidential campaign focused on "making" the news media cover certain issues while rarely communicating anything to the press unless it was "controlled," White House Communications Director Anita Dunn disclosed to the Dominican government at a videotaped conference.

"Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control," said Dunn.

"One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters," said Dunn, referring to Plouffe, who was Obama's chief campaign manager.

"We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it," Dunn said.

Continued Dunn: "Whether it was a David Plouffe video or an Obama speech, a huge part of our press strategy was focused on making the media cover what Obama was actually saying as opposed to why the campaign was saying it, what the tactic was. … Making the press cover what we were saying."

Video of Dunn's remarks at the conference can be seen below:

Dunn was speaking at a Jan. 12, 2009, event focusing on Obama's media tactics and hosted by the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development, which seeks to promote collaboration between the U.S. and the Dominican Republic. The event was held in Santo Domingo and was attended by the country's president.

Dunn has been facing some criticism since she led a White House campaign last week against Fox News, slamming the top-rated network as an "arm of the Republican Party" and "opinion journalism masquerading as news."

Fox hit back this past Friday, releasing a video of Dunn speaking to high school students last June in which she lists her two "favorite political philosophers," including Communist Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung, whose draconian policies are blamed for the deaths of tens of millions of people.

Video of Dunn's speech, broadcast during a segment of Glenn Beck's evening show on the Fox News Channel, can be seen below:

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Barack Obama versus the Law of Sooner or Later

By Michael Bresciani

Everyone knows that in America we cannot honestly convict a person for a crime as long as there is a ‘reasonable doubt’ that they are innocent. It is a facet of our system of jurisprudence that is unique to America and was born out of repulsion for past tyrannies.

In spite of living in a land that thinks positive thinking is the only kind of thought that is PC legal, doubt can be and always will be a good thing. It is not only what can free the innocent but it can also keep us from falling headlong to our own demise.

Unfortunately today we live in a fast paced world where sometimes we are willing to accept applause as the proof that something is true or worthy.

‘Everybody’s doing it’ or ‘all that is hot’ become substitutes for the truth. A crowd chanting ‘string em up’ can hardly be expected to pause and wait for a court of law to decide a person’s guilt or innocence. Certainly no one in a lynch mob would dare ask the mob to pause and listen to this verse from the Bible. “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment.” (Ex 23:2)

Reasonable doubt works fairly well in the courtroom and it is a pretty good tool when applied to practical politics.

The reasonable doubt about a candidate is one of the reasons we accept the vetting or investigation of a candidates past before we allow them a position of authority. Policemen, firemen, officials on any level even home owners are vetted to assure us that we are dealing with someone who is on the level.

It is this common practice that serves to protect us and provide at least some small measure of assurance that people who want to be in positions of authority are who they say they are. Having said that can we continue to mock the ‘birthers’ as they are called who want to see both Barack Obama’s birth certificate and another fifteen or so documents about his past that remain locked up like the gold in Fort Knox?

Is chanting Obama’s name in a crowd the new kind of vetting in America?

It isn’t a childish thing on the level of ‘show and tell’ it is rather a serious thing on the level of ‘what have you got to hide.”  It is an insulting thing on the level of ‘what’s good for the goose (John Q. Public) is not good for the gander. (Barack Obama)

It is Obama’s unwillingness to reveal the documents that is fueling the fire and producing an even greater sense of urgency. It is what is producing more lawsuits daily and more doubters exponentially. If it keeps up like this even the main stream media will not be able to suppress the emerging backlash.

It is not a mere lack of courtesy or ignoring strict adherence to protocol that cause some to liken the meteoric rise of a virtual unknown (Obama) to that of say Hitler, Mao or Mussolini, it is doubt based on civilizations past mistakes. This healthy doubt could have saved countless lives in our past history had more people been willing to act upon it. Kudos to the birthers for being willing to endure the insults the rest of us don’t want any part of.

Is it mean spirited to say that justices have been spineless, media has been dishonest and attorneys general have been lax in Obama’s vetting? Take a careful look at the names and descriptions that are being laid on the birthers before you answer because you will see that you have no answer.

Only recently another great doubt has been put on the American people from Kenya. An article in the Sunday Standard newspaper in Kenya dated June 27, 2004 is titled Kenyan-born Obama all set for US Senate.The archived copy of the article was apparently pulled from the paper’s files but a cached copy can still be found through the website called Way Back Machine.  More doubt!

This President may have been able to circumvent Constitutional law as it pertains to the ‘natural born citizen’ clause but he will find it harder to circumvent the common law of the people known as the law of sooner or later. The American people will eventually know the whole truth of the matter, sooner or later.

http://www.americanprophet.org is the place for news, articles, movie and book reviews and other insights for life. Rev Bresciani is a columnist for online and print publications and has over three million readers and counting.

Keywords:

Obama,Kenyan,US Senate,Way Back Machine,Sunday Standard,Fort Knox,birthers,attorneys general,justice,doubt,common law,Kenyan-born,vetting,home owner,policemen,firemen,authority

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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Here We Go Again: Gays Misleading With Statistics

Bradley Sears, Executive Director of the Williams Institute at UCLA, testified in favor of ENDA (H.R. 3017) on September 23, 2009 in the House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor.

The Williams Institute is described as a “national research center on sexual orientation and gender identity law and policy.” It is named after gay millionaire Charles R. Williams and LGBT agenda financier, who has given the institute more than $11 million since 2001.

In reality, the Williams Institute is a propaganda arm of the lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender (LGBT) movement designed to use research to push forward LGBT political and cultural objectives. It’s goal is to legalize gay marriage nationwide, pass ENDA, force acceptance of the LGBT agenda in public schools, and overturn the ban on gays serving openly in the military and more.

Its research is deliberately biased and designed to achieve these goals. It cannot be trusted to give legislators an accurate picture of the lifestyle or employment problems encountered by gays, lesbians, bisexuals, cross-dressers, drag queens or transsexuals.

In 2008, the Williams Institute participated in a National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) conference. Leaders from the institute led workshops, which included “Using Research to Pass LGBT Anti-Discrimination Laws.”

The NGLTF also sponsored a workshop titled “Using the Thinking: How research has a role to play in the fight for LGBT equality.”

Clearly, the Williams Institute exists to push the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender agenda by using “research” as a weapon for cultural change.

Sears’ Vacuous Testimony

At no point during Sears’ testimony, did he bother to define what “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” actually mean. And, no legislator challenged him to define these terms.

Lesbian Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) also avoided defining “sexual orientation” when she was pushing for passage of so-called “hate crime” legislation back in May 2009. Like Baldwin, Sears doesn’t want to be pinned down by a clear definition of terms.

By ignoring clear scientific definitions of these terms, legislators are simply permitting themselves to be used by LGBT activists to impose a radical sex agenda on all businesses, schools and non-profits with more than 15 employees.

A gender identity is actually a Gender Identity Disorder (GID), a mental condition still listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR).

There is Gender Dysphoria, where the person believes he is trapped in an opposite sex body; then there is Transvestic Fetishism, where the person dresses in opposite sex clothing, but doesn’t necessarily want to undergo a so-called sex change.

Will ENDA cover cross-dressers (heterosexuals who dress in opposite sex clothing); drag queens (gays); transsexuals (those who have undergone a sex change); and she-males (those who undergo a partial sex change but keep their male sex organs?

The Williams Institute treats homosexual behaviors as safe and GID as merely self-expression instead of a mental condition. Homosexuals are, as a group, far more likely to suffer from serious diseases than their heterosexual counterparts. The evidence is overwhelming. And, individuals who think they are trapped in opposite sex bodies, are truly troubled and clearly mentally disordered. They need professional psychiatric help not surgery. 

Sears’ Plays With Statistics

During his testimony, Bradley Sears made the following claims:

  • A survey of more than 646 transgender employees found that 70% faced workplace discrimination against their gender identity.

  • 13% of 1,900 LGBT employees at state universities had experienced discrimination or harassment during 2008.

  • Eleven state government agencies provided 430 cases of administrative complaints of sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination between 1999 and 2007. Requests for data were made to 20 state agencies and 203 local agencies. Most did not respond. Of the 430 cases, approximately 265 were filed by employees of state and government agencies.

  • Wage gaps between heterosexual men and gay men is between 10% to 32%.

  • Studies show that gay men, bisexuals and lesbians who are government employees earn 8% to 29% less than their heterosexual counterparts.

  • Gay men who have partners and work for state governments earn 8% to 10% less than their heterosexual counterparts.

  • The Williams Institute found more than 380 examples of workplace discrimination in state and local governments over the past 20 years.

From this brief summary,  Sears claims there is widespread and systematic discrimination against LGBT individuals in state and local governments – and only ENDA can solve the problem.

Out of 20 states, there were a mere 265 discrimination cases between 1999 and 2007. Were these name-calling? And, during a 20-year period, the institute found 380 examples of workplace discrimination in state and local governments. Bradley Sears claims that these statistics show “that discrimination is widespread in terms of quantity, geography, and occupations.”

Sears is wrong. These statistics show that discrimination against LGBT individuals is minor in state and local agencies and that there is no need for federal intervention in every business in America with more than 15 employees.

In the Williams Institute report, it is claimed that a 2009 survey of 646 transgender employees, 11% of whom were public sector employees, 70% of them “had experienced workplace discrimination related to their gender identity.” What does this mean? What kind of workplace discrimination? There were 71 public sector transgenders and 70% of these experienced workplace discrimination. So, 49 transgenders were victims of workplace discrimination in public sector jobs. If this is true, then why were they discriminated against and who were these people?

Were they transsexuals, drag queens, she-males or cross-dressers? We don’t know. Were they men using women’s restrooms? Were they wearing women’s underwear or engaging in obscene sex talk at work? Were they sexual predators? Were they called names? In short, these Williams Institute factoids are meaningless.  They tell us nothing of value.

In his written testimony, Sears hedged on the completeness of his research report, saying that “we have concluded that these examples represent just a fraction of the actual discrimination.” That’s a convenient way of avoiding the fact that his research findings are minor and his conclusions are questionable. Any reputable researcher analyzing this information would conclude that his samplings are too small to reach any conclusion about “widespread” discrimination.

Poverty-Stricken Gays & Cross-Dressers?

One of the main goals of the Williams Institute report is to portray LGBT individuals as being denied gainful employment or advancement in the work place – especially in state and local governments. The underlying assertion is that LGBT individuals are being treated like African-Americans in the South before the Civil Rights Movement. As such, they earn less than heterosexuals and are promoted less frequently.

Chapter 11 of the Williams Institute report purports to analyze the “Wage Gap between LGB Public Employees and Their Co-Workers.”

The Institute claims to have discovered a significant pay gap for gay men when compared to heterosexual men who have the “same productive characteristics.” According to the Institute, “Depending on the study, gay and bisexual men earn 10% to 32% less than similarly qualified heterosexual men. Lesbians generally earn the same or more than heterosexual women, but lesbians earn less than either heterosexual or gay men.”

Yet, these statistics don’t seem to square with gay or gay-supportive marketing studies that have shown how well educated and affluent LGBT people are:

  • The National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce notes that LGBT individuals were likely to spend $800 more on business and leisure travel during the summer of 2009 than their heterosexual counterparts.

  • The National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce claims there are 1.2 million LGBT business owners in the U.S.

  • Market researchers state that the LGBT consumers have “deep pockets” and their buying power “is growing.”

    • In 2006, lesbian and gay travelers took a projected total of 53.2 million leisure trips, spending an estimated $40 billion.   Another GLBT travel study says that the GLBT population is 5% and its estimated travel market is $65 billion annually. 

    • Gays & lesbians are spending between $40-$65 billion year on travel. (harrisinteractive.com, 2007 & ASTAnetwork, Summer 2007)

    • Gay Wired Media claims that gay adults are 6-7% of the population with total buying power of $723 billion.

  • 14% of gay and lesbian adults are planning overseas travel compared to only 7% of heterosexual adults (harrisinteractive.com, 2007)

  • Annual household income for gays and lesbians for 2007-2008 is $80,000. (communitymarketinginc.com)

Gay Incomes Don’t Justify ENDA

Compare the household income of gays and lesbians of $80,000 a year to the median income of blacks, Asians and Hispanics. U.S. Census statistics for 2008 (published on September 11, 2009) show that the median income for blacks was $34,218; for Hispanics it was $37,913; for Asians it was $65,637. Median income for non-Hispanic white households was $55,530.

The Williams Institute would have us believe that LGBT men and women are homeless, living in refrigerator boxes and eating out of dumpsters at the back of restaurants in our inner cities.

The Bottom Line

The Williams Institute was created to use research to push the LGBT agenda. It is partisan, biased, and non-scientific. Its work cannot be trusted.

For accurate, science-based information on issues involving gays, lesbians, bisexuals and so-called “transgender” persons, access the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality web site. It’s latest report, “What Research Shows” is a survey of 125 years of research on homosexuality.

Access TVC’s ENDA Report, Special Reports, Homosexual Urban Legends, and our searchable database for accurate information on the gay and transgender agenda.

Read more >>

GOV'T VS. PRESS: White House Escalates War of Words With FOXNEWS...

Anita Dunn, White House communications director, calls Fox News a "wing of the Republican Party," after the White House began using its government blog to criticize "Fox lies."

Calling Fox News "a wing of the Republican Party," the Obama administration on Sunday escalated its war of words against the channel, even as observers questioned the wisdom of a White House war on a news organization. 

"What I think is fair to say about Fox -- and certainly it's the way we view it -- is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party," said Anita Dunn, White House communications director, on CNN. "They take their talking points, put them on the air; take their opposition research, put them on the air. And that's fine. But let's not pretend they're a news network the way CNN is." 

Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente, who likens the channel to a newspaper with separate sections on straight news and commentary, suggested White House officials were intentionally conflating opinion show hosts like Glenn Beck with news reporters like Major Garrett. 

"It's astounding the White House cannot distinguish between news and opinion programming," Clemente said. "It seems self-serving on their part." 

In recent weeks, the White House has begun using its government blog to directly attack what it called "Fox lies." David Gergen, who has worked for President Bill Clinton and three Republican presidents, questioned the propriety of the White House declaring war on a news organization. 

"It's a very risky strategy. It's not one that I would advocate," Gergen said on CNN. "If you're going to get very personal against the media, you're going to find that the animosities are just going to deepen. And you're going to find that you sort of almost draw viewers and readers to the people you're attacking. You build them up in some ways, you give them stature." 

He added: "The press always has the last barrel of ink." 

Gergen's sentiments were echoed by Tony Blankley, who once served as press secretary to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. 

"Going after a news organization, in my experience, is always a loser," Blankley said on CNN. "They have a big audience. And Fox has an audience of not just conservatives -- they've got liberals and moderates who watch too. They've got Obama supporters who are watching. So it's a temptation for a politician, but it needs to be resisted." 

Nia Malika Henderson, White House correspondent for the Politico newspaper, also questioned the White House offensive against Fox. 

"Obama's only been a boon to their ratings and I don't understand how this kind of escalation of rhetoric and kind of taking them on, one on one, would do anything other than escalate their ratings even more," she said. 

Dunn used an appearance on CNN's "Reliable Sources" over the weekend to complain about Fox News' coverage of the Obama presidential campaign a year ago. 

"It was a time this country was in two wars," she recalled. "We'd had a financial collapse probably more significant than any financial collapse since the Great Depression. If you were a Fox News viewer in the fall election, what you would have seen would have been that the biggest stories and biggest threats facing America were a guy named Bill Ayers and something called ACORN." 

Ayers was co-founder of the Weather Underground, a communist terrorist group that bombed the Pentagon and other buildings in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1995, Ayers hosted Obama at his home for a political function and the two men later served together on the board of an anti-poverty group known as the Woods Fund. 

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which once had close ties to Obama, has been accused by a variety of law enforcement agencies of voter fraud. In recent weeks, the Democrat-controlled Congress moved to sever funding to ACORN after Fox News aired undercover videotapes of ACORN employees giving advice on how to break the law to a pair of journalists disguised as a pimp and prostitute. 

As for Dunn's complaint about Fox News' coverage of the Obama campaign, a study by the Pew Research Center showed that 40 percent of Fox News stories on Obama in the last six weeks of the campaign were negative. Similarly, 40 percent of Fox News' stories on Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, were negative. 

On CNN, by contrast, there was a 22-point disparity in the percentage of negative stories on Obama (39 percent) and McCain (61 percent). The disparity was even greater at MSNBC, according to Pew, where just 14 percent of Obama stories were negative, compared to a whopping 73 percent of McCain stories -- a spread of 59 points. 

Although Dunn accused Fox News of being a "wing of the Republican Party," she said the network does not champion conservatism. 

"It's not ideological," she acknowledged. "I mean, obviously, there are many commentators who are conservative, liberal, centrist -- and everybody understands that." 

Still, Obama refused to appear on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace on Sept. 20, the day he appeared on five other Sunday shows. At the time, the White House characterized the snub as payback for the Fox Broadcast Network's decision not to air an Obama prime time appearance. But last weekend, Dunn blamed Fox News Channel's coverage of the administration for Obama's snub of Fox News Sunday. 

"Is this why he did not appear?" Dunn said. "The answer is yes." 

Wallace has called White House officials "the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington." 

Dunn was asked by CNN's Howard Kurtz whether Obama would grant an interview to Fox News by the end of the year. 

"Obviously, he'll go on Fox, because he engages with ideological opponents and he has done that before, he will do it again," Dunn replied. "I can't give you a date, because frankly I can't give you dates for anybody else right now." 

But last week, Fox News was informed by the White House that Obama would grant no interviews to the channel until at least 2010. The edict was relayed to Fox News by a White House official after Dunn discussed the channel at a meeting with presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs and other Obama advisers. 

"What I will say is that when he (Obama) goes on Fox, he understands he's not going on it really as a news network, at this point," Dunn said on CNN. "He's going on to debate the opposition. And that's fine. He never minds doing that." 

Dunn also strongly implied that Fox had failed to follow up on a New York Times story about a scandal swirling around GOP Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, although Fox News broadcast the stories on numerous shows, including Special Report with Bret Baier. 

Clemente questioned the motives of the White House attack, which comes in the wake of an informal coffee last month between Fox chairman Roger Ailes and Obama adviser David Axelrod. 

"Instead of governing, the White House continues to be in campaign mode, and Fox News is the target of their attack mentality," he said. "Perhaps the energy would be better spent on the critical issues that voters are worried about." 

Blankley suggested the war on Fox News is unpresidential. 

"It lowers the prestige," he said. "If you're president or speaker, at a certain level, you don't want to be seen to be engaging that kind of petty bickering. If you're just a congressman, maybe you can do it." 

In an interview over the summer, Obama made clear that Fox News has gotten under his skin. 

"I've got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration," he told CNBC's John Harwood. "You'd be hard pressed if you watched the entire day to find a positive story about me on that front." 

At the White House Correspondents Dinner in May, Obama even mocked the media for supporting him. 

"Most of you covered me; all of you voted for me," Obama said, spurring laughter and applause from the assembled journalists. "Apologies to the Fox table." 

Gergen said the White House should delegate its attacks to outside support groups. 

"Why don't they take this over to the DNC, over to the Democratic National Committee, and have their struggles like that fought out over there and not out of the White House?" Gergen said. "I have real questions about that strategy." 

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Sunday, October 11, 2009

Celebrity Justice in a Just Society

by Ken Connor

"The vices of the rich and great are mistaken for error; and those of the poor and lowly, for crimes." 
-Lady Marguerite Blessington

Cynics say the term "celebrity justice" is an oxymoron.  They point to the cases of O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson as examples; but most recently they point to Roman Polanski as the reason for their cynicism.  However, after 30 years of evading justice, the notorious director—indicted in 1977 for drugging, raping, and sodomizing a 13-year-old girl—may finally be required give an account for his actions. 

In the meantime, Hollywood's crème de la crème (which, ironically, had gathered in Switzerland to present him with a lifetime achievement award) has come to Polanski's defense.  This elite group—which apparently finds nothing criminal or perverse about Polanski's behavior—has acted as an apologist for Polanski, and attempted to use its celebrity influence to prevent his extradition to the United States. 

This case is a classic example of a gross double standard of justice at work between the average citizen and the rich, powerful, and famous.  Polanski's supporters are, in effect, arguing that he should receive a free pass because of his brilliance and talent.  Swiss filmmaker Otto Weisser's comment says it all:

"I am ashamed to be Swiss, that the Swiss is doing such a thing to brilliant fantastic genius, that millions and millions of people love his work....  He's a brilliant guy, and he made a little mistake 32 years ago. What a shame for Switzerland."

Nevermind that what Roman Polanski did was morally repugnant (not to mention illegal).  Nevermind the fact that he is a man who has exhibited no qualms about taking advantage of young, impressionable girls.  As far as the artistic community is concerned, Polanski's brilliance as a filmmaker trumps his responsibilities as a member of the human race and immunizes him from the need for accountability before the law.  Using this same train of logic one can only assume that if Polanski were a mere pedestrian filmmaker, his fellow artists might be less willing to give him a pass.

This same warped mindset has infiltrated other parts of our society—a society increasingly obsessed with the antics and peccadilloes of the rich and famous.  Consequently, securing justice in situations involving criminal accusations against giants of the entertainment industry is often difficult.  So too in the political arena, where elected officials at every level of government routinely engage in reckless conduct with an arrogance possessed only by those convinced that they are above the law.

Imagine the consequences for the average Joe if he admitted to engaging in sexual relations at the workplace with a variety of female subordinates.  He would be fired on the spot.  What if he were exposed for tax evasion?  Jail time and heavy fines, no doubt.  And finally, what if our average Joe were indicted for drugging a 13-year-old girl and performing lewd sex acts upon her semi-conscious body?  If convicted, he could count on a stiff jail sentence followed by a conspicuous spot on the national database of sex offenders, no job prospects, and little chance of regaining respectable standing in the community.

For celebrities like David Letterman, Charles Rangel, or Roman Polanski, however, none of these consequences appear to apply.  Letterman's primary worry in the aftermath of his on-air confession seems to be with his ratings—which, by the way, have skyrocketed.  Charles Rangel continues to preside over the appropriation of our tax dollars as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Roman Polanski receives a lifetime achievement award for excellence in filmmaking.

Exempting the rich and famous from the need to conform to the moral norms and prevailing laws of society makes a mockery of the principle of justice.  As history has demonstrated, a just society cannot exist if the rule of law is not applied equally to all.  Roman Polanski may be a brilliant filmmaker.  His work may be admired the world over.  He may be an inspiration to his peers.  But none of this vitiates his obligations under the law.

Polanski should be extradited to the United States and made to answer for his actions.  As the saying goes, justice delayed is justice denied.  Thankfully, after more than three decades of thumbing his nose at the Lady Justice, for Mr. Polanski the chickens are finally coming home to roost.

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