Anti-Gay Protest in DC
Turns out yesterday there was a big anti-gay demonstration right here in our back yard, in front of the Human Rights Campaign's building on Rhode Island Avenue. And by "big," I mean that approximately six to eight people turned out for it, according to observers. Some of the biggest names in the anti-gay movement spoke at it, including the founder and president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality "Porno Pete" LaBarbera, Liberty Counsel's Matt Barber, and Mission America's Linda Harvey.
Here's the video of their speeches. Below is the rollicking commentary offered by Truth Wins Out.
TWO's comments are priceless:
I wonder how long the funding will hold up for this sort of thing.
Here's the video of their speeches. Below is the rollicking commentary offered by Truth Wins Out.
TWO's comments are priceless:
0:10 Porno Pete says the “escalation of homosexual power” is bad for America.
0:45 Porno Pete also says that you could fill a small book with the hate crimes that have been “faked” over the years. Apparently the FBI and other organizations compiling statistics on hate crimes are part of the conspiracy?
1:00 ”Nature itself discriminates against homosexuality.” This is true, because in the thousands of species were homosexuality has been observed, there are also thousands of Porno Petes Of Land And Sea, with webbed feet and cloven hooves, flippers and prickly fur, standing by themselves in a corner, communicating by whalesong, howling at the moon and everything in between, about how gross their species-mates are for being gay.
1:40 Gay activists “meanly dismiss” the “reality” of ex-gay people. Usually, when we do that, it’s because we caught them in gay bars, etc.
2:00 Matt “Bam Bam” Barber speaks. He is quite boring.
2:55 Linda Harvey claims that there is only one standard for what is and what isn’t “sin,” which must be why the entirety of Christendom agrees on absolutely everything.
3:00 She then claims that we want people to “celebrate” the “stress and anxiety” of “gender confusion,” adding, “how wicked!” Actually, we want people to be able to live as they are, without fear, and when confronted with said anxiety, be met by a chorus of supportive voices, rather than the voices of fundamentalists like Linda Harvey telling them that what they are feeling is something they should be ashamed of and change.
3:15 Diane Gramley of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania with some boring, recycled words about “unnatural homosexual sex.”
3:57 Here is something truly insane. We are used to anti-gay activists claiming that there are thousands of “former homosexuals,” but yet they never can produce anyone for an interview who isn’t currently on the payroll of an anti-gay organization. It seems being “free from homosexuality” only sort of works when there is a paycheck attached. But Patrick Mangan of Citizens for Community Values of Indiana makes a truly insane claim when he suggests that “it is estimated that there are more that have come OUT of [homosexuality] than are in it.” Really? Estimated by whom, please?! Please provide source material for this suggestion that there are millions of straight people walking around the suburbs who “used to be gay.”
4:57 Finally, we have Eric Holmberg of Apologetics Group, doubling down on the crazy. You see, Americans are being sold a “bill of goods” on homosexuality. Listing off standard fare talking points about how gays aren’t born that way, Holmberg suddenly lists as a “fallacy” the idea that “homosexuals are not attracted to straight people.” Um, what? People are attracted to people. Sometimes straight people are attracted to gay people. (Raise your hand if you are a straight woman who dated a gay guy before he came out of the closet.) Sometimes gay people are attracted to straight people. I suspect that his statement is related to the Religious Right freak-outs over things like communal showers in the military, though, and the underlying suggestion that gay people are predators. The truth, of course, is that people have nothing to worry about in communal showers, as the same standards still apply: trying to have sex with someone who doesn’t want it is assault. It does not matter if the perpetrator is gay or straight. Otherwise, normal, well-adjusted people see people they think are hot all the time, and somehow refrain from trying to force sex on them. It is always strange to me, though, that the people who freak out over such things tend not to be very attractive, themselves.
I wonder how long the funding will hold up for this sort of thing.
136 Comments:
My favourite line from the bigots is "It's not hate to disagree".
Right. And when a husband wants to kill his wife, its not hate, its just a disagreement over whether she should be allowed to live, LOL!
Hey Bozos we never said disagreement automatically equates to hatred. We're not saying if we think coffee ice cream is the best and you say "No, vanilla is." that that is hate because you're disagreeing with us.
What determines whether a disagreement is hateful depends entirely on the content of the disagreement. When you oppose gayness which is harmless that is hate. Its dishonest to assert as you do that because we think one specific disagreement is hate on your part that we are claiming disagreement in general is hate. That's the sort of dishonesty your side is forced to rely on to promote your hate because you haven't got facts or ethics on your side.
The next to the last male speaker in this video said:
"...This is not a civil right. What is being asked for are special rights. And the immediate argument that comes back, "No, these are the same rights as everyone else." Everyone else's rights are based on being male and female, not based on what kind of sex you have. When you give special status for the type of sexual behavior you have created, what in the legal profession, you would call, it is proceeding from that poison tree. So here is where we are."
Where this man ended up is in a state of confusion.
He seems to be saying when people marry according to God's laws, the sex between the couple DOES NOT HAVE A SPECIAL STATUS.
That's preposterous! The married couple's sexual relations becomes "exclusive" to one another and if not, there are both moral and legal grounds (which vary by State) for the aggrieved party to sue for a variety of remedies to be made whole again, from divorcing the spouse to suing the lover for alienation of the spouse's affections.
Whether the parties to a marriage are gay or straight makes no difference. Marriage gives the expectation of a mutually exclusive sexual relationship between the spouses, and whatever your gender or orientation, does not change that expectation of the "special status" of sexual monogamy one bit.
When people care about the issues, they protest.
"A day after a large protest at North Carolina's General Assembly flooded into the halls of the state Senate and led to more than 150 arrests, Gov. Pat McCrory (R) called for an end to the "Moral Monday" demonstrations that have become a serial feature in Raleigh.
"We welcome feedback, we welcome lawful demonstrations, however, we don't welcome unlawful demonstrations, and that should not be accepted," McCrory said on Tuesday, according to WTVD.
The governor went on to say he was ***not interested*** in meeting with the organizing groups, which include the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, student unions and environmental organizations, that have gathered to air their grievances with the direction of the GOP-controlled legislature. While McCrory praised the peaceful nature of the demonstrations, he also told reporters that they were "unlawful" and therefore "unacceptable."
McCrory took office in January, becoming North Carolina's first Republican governor in 20 years. His win came on a wave of GOP victories that gave the party control of both chambers of the state legislature. The Republican control has quickly driven divisions in the traditionally moderate state, prompting activists to gather for the "Moral Monday" events on at least five occasions in opposition to what they've called the GOP's "extreme agenda." Protesters have spoken out specifically against the legislature's moves on voter ID legislation, hydraulic fracking, cuts to education spending and the rejection of Medicaid expansion under Obamacare.
About 300 people have so far been arrested in the demonstrations, though this week's event -- which attracted somewhere between 1,000 and 1,600 people -- attracted the most police activity. Almost all have been arrested for trespassing or other misdemeanors and won't face jail time.
While McCrory may not be a fan of the civil disobedience, the movement appears to be growing. On Tuesday, the Charlotte NAACP held its own version of the protest in the city, where the chapter's president, Kojo Nantambu, called Gov. Pat McCrory "one of the most wicked people I’ve ever met."
Organizers with the NAACP also said that protesters would be present in Raleigh again next Monday to continue their fight despite the opposition."
1,000-1,600 people makes a protest! Six to eight makes almost enough for two bridge tables!
A Republican group has put out a report on the problems the party has had attracting young voters over the last few election cycles and it’s about as blunt as it could be. Based on survey data and focus groups with voters aged 18-29, the report shows that the party has a serious problem going forward.
Uncommitted young voters may not be enamored with the Democratic Party but they have a terrible opinion of the GOP.
“In the focus group research conducted in January 2013,” the report said, “the young ‘winnable’ Obama voters were asked to say what words came to mind when they heard ‘Republican Party.’ The responses were brutal: closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned.”
“We’ve become the party that will pat you on your back when you make it, but won’t offer a
hand to help you get there. This has to change in order to have a shot with young voters.”
The GOP’s focus on low taxes and pro-business policies has left young voters thinking “they will only reap the benefits of Republican policies if they become wealthy or rise to the top of a big business.” The GOP is at risk of being seen as the “fend for yourself” party.
Latino voters in particular “tend to think the GOP couldn’t care less about them,” the report said…
“The ‘intelligent’ brand (among other positive attributes) is seriously undercut by outrageous statements made by errant Republican voices that are inevitably repeated over and over in the media,” the report said…
In terms of being seen as “open-minded,” the report found, “we will face serious difficulty so long as the issue of gay marriage remains on the table.”
The 2011 repeal of the U.S. military's controversial "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy has received almost unanimous praise from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights advocates, but one pundit isn't having any of it.
Responding to what appears to be a disturbing spike in sexual assault allegations within the U.S. military, Family Research Council Vice President Jerry Boykin linked the trend to the DADT repeal, suggesting the “sexualization of our military with social engineering” was partly responsible.
"One of the things that most of the people don’t realize is in a recent survey there are actually more men that have been sexually assaulted than women," Boykin told former Arkansas Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee. "We are trying to violate the laws of nature, failing to recognize that these young men and women are at the peak of their sex drive when we try to mix the genders for reasons that to me are illogical and in doing so what we are doing is we are inviting this kind of behavior, it’s not acceptable and it has to be punished and dealt with."
Of course, Boykin isn't the first pundit to link the DADT repeal to the U.S. military's sexual assault surge. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins has expressed similar sentiments.
"President Obama is finally admitting that sexual assault is a serious problem in the military--but what he hasn’t conceded is that his policy on homosexuality helped create it," Perkins wrote, according to the report. "How could this happen? Well, for starters, the Obama administration ordered military leaders to embrace homosexuality -- completely dismissing the concerns that it could be a problem to have people attracted to the same sex, living in close quarters."
countries where homosexual "marriage" is widely tolerated, are declining in population
those with little tolerance for homosexuality, have booming populations
you don't have to be Einstein to figure out where this is going:
"The fight for marriage equality continues to dominate global headlines, but a new survey reveals a surprising divide on the acceptance of homosexuality around the world.
Part of the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project, the "Global Divide on Homosexuality" poll found generally broad acceptance of homosexuality in North America, Europe and much of Latin America, while Russia, much of Asia and predominately Muslim nations were more inclined to reject it.
Researchers found that a staggering 88 percent of participants in Spain felt that homosexuality should be accepted, followed by 87 percent in Germany, 80 percent in Canada and 60 percent in the United States. On the flip side, a mere two percent of Pakistani participants felt homosexuality should be accepted, followed by just one percent in Nigeria.
“We’ve been polling all over the world and we’ve polled on every issue, from foreign policy issues to other social issues," researcher Juliana Horowitz told the Toronto Star. "I can’t think of any question that was polled on that we see this level of global polarization, with some countries so firmly on one side and other countries so firmly on the other side.”
The study surveyed a total of 37,653 people in 39 countries."
Rock Hudson tacitly admitted that homosexuality was unnatural:
"Actor Rock Hudson's gay confession to his wife, a conversation that was recorded more than 50 years ago, has been revealed as part of a secret file release by the family of Detective Fred Otash.
Back in 1958, Hudson's wife, Phyllis Gates, confronted the Hollywood legend about being gay, according to The Hollywood Reporter. That confrontation was secretly tape-recorded by Detective Fred Otash, a private eye who had dirt on everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Judy Garland. Gates had hired him to keep tabs on her husband.
"Rock, your great speed with me, sexually. Are you that fast with boys?" Gates asked Hudson, according to a transcript of the discussion obtained from Otash's family.
"Well, it's a physical conjunction," he replied. "Boys don't fit. So, this is why it lasts longer.""
"a recent survey there are actually more men that have been sexually assaulted than women"
Just curious anon, what survey was that?
it's a survey done by the Pentagon
there will be an article in the NY Times tomorrow morning about it
not only are there more sexual assaults on men, the level of male-on-male assault has increased since the end of DADT
excerpt:
"WASHINGTON — The problem of sexual assault in the military leapt to the forefront in Washington on Tuesday as the Pentagon released a survey estimating that 26,000 people in the armed forces were sexually assaulted last year, up from 19,000 in 2010.
The study was based on a confidential survey sent to 108,000 active-duty service members.
At a White House news conference, Mr. Obama expressed exasperation with the Pentagon’s attempts to bring sexual assault under control.
“The bottom line is, I have no tolerance for this,” Mr. Obama said in answer to a question about the survey.
The president said he had ordered Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to prevent sex crimes and said he wanted military victims of sexual assault to know that “I’ve got their backs.”
In a separate report made public on Tuesday, the military recorded 3,374 sexual assault reports last year, up from 3,192 in 2011, suggesting that many victims continue not to report the crimes for fear of retribution or a lack of justice under the department’s system for prosecution.
Pentagon officials said nearly 26,000 active-duty men and women had responded to the sexual assault survey. Of those, 12,100 of the women on active duty and 13,900 of the men on active duty had experienced some form of sexual assault. In 2010, a similar Pentagon survey found that 4.4 percent of active-duty women and fewer than 0.9 percent of active-duty men had experienced sexual assault."
Ah, I see, anon, because there are six times as many men in the military, 1.2% of males is a larger number than 6.1% of women. Very clever. According to the survey, whose numbers almost certainly contain a lot of measurement error, reported sexual assaults of males -- assailants' sex is not given -- "jumped" from 0.9% to 1.2% between 2010 and this year. That is less than half a percentage point, and is almost certainly within the margin of error for the question. Meanwhile, reported sexual assaults of women jumped, without quotes, from 4.4% to 6.1%, nearly two percentage points.
Everyone is concerned about sexual assault in the military. Nobody blames DADT. Except you.
"Ah, I see, anon, because there are six times as many men in the military, 1.2% of males is a larger number than 6.1% of women. Very clever."
well, more than merely clever, it's also significant
almost 14,000 men who voluntarily signed up to serve their country are sexually assaulted and the numbers have increased since the end of DADT
you never hear much about that, do you?
"According to the survey, whose numbers almost certainly contain a lot of measurement error,"
well, they're self-reported
however, the liberal line about such surveys , when they don't cast doubt on the gay agenda, is usually that the numbers must be even higher
"reported sexual assaults of males -- assailants' sex is not given -- "jumped" from 0.9% to 1.2% between 2010 and this year."
don't know why you're putting "jumped" in quotes
I didn't use the term
"That is less than half a percentage point, and is almost certainly within the margin of error for the question."
you're playing games with words and concepts
this is a direct survey and going up from .9 to 1.2 percent signifies an 33% increase in actual numbers
say they were 1,000 males
.9 is 90
1.2 is 120
120 is 33% higher than 90
since DADT was lifted, actual assaults on males have increased 33%
"Meanwhile, reported sexual assaults of women jumped, without quotes, from 4.4% to 6.1%, nearly two percentage points."
and that's an increase of 34%, about the same as assaults on male
"Everyone is concerned about sexual assault in the military."
yes, but you seem to feel it's fine as long as the victim is male
"Nobody blames DADT."
well, I pasted a couple of spokesman for pro-family groups that say repeal of DADT is partly to blame
obviously, women have a higher rate of victimization
no one is saying that isn't so
or that nothing should be done
still, the end of DADT seems to correlate with an uptick in sexual assault and seem to reinforce the theories of pro-family groups
facts are facts
Some men in the military are the victims of sexual assault -- according to this survey, approximately one in a hundred. It might be a little less than one in a hundred, and it might be a little more. There is absolutely no evidence here that sexual assaults of males have increased in any way beyond ordinary random variation and measurement error.
Family Research Council Vice President Jerry Boykin linked the trend to the DADT repeal, suggesting the “sexualization of our military with social engineering” was partly responsible.
And in 2003, when he was a working for the Pentagon during the Bush administration, ended up apologizing for some of his other of hateful words.
General Apologizes for Remarks on Islam, Says He's No 'Zealot'
THE NATION
October 18, 2003
"WASHINGTON — A senior Pentagon official under fire for his comments about Islam said Friday that he never intended to denigrate the Muslim faith, and that he is not a "zealot or an extremist."
In his first comments on the controversy, Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin, deputy assistant secretary for intelligence, said that his earlier statements had been misconstrued. He said he did not believe that the Bush administration's "war on terrorism" was a conflict between Christianity and Islam.
"For those who have been offended, I offer a sincere apology," he said in a statement.
A highly decorated Special Operations specialist and born-again Christian, Boykin has spoken about his faith and Islam in a series of appearances before Christian groups. The comments, first reported this week by The Times and NBC, appeared to undermine President Bush's arguments that the American anti-terrorism effort is not aimed at Islam.
Last year, for example, relating how he had fought a Somali warlord, Boykin told an audience: "My God was bigger than his ... I knew that my God was a real God and that his was an idol."
In another speech, he said some Muslims hated the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian ... and the enemy is a guy called Satan."
Boykin also told a gathering that Bush was in the White House although "the majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? He's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this."
But Boykin said Friday that he had been misunderstood...."
The FRC also employs Peter Sprigg, who would like to criminalize the sexual orientation of some of God's creations.
How good of you to point out for Vigilance readers that the FRC is now happy to recycle an old has been hater from the good old Bush by-gone days!!
"countries where homosexual "marriage" is widely tolerated, are declining in population (North America, Europe and much of Latin America)
those with little tolerance for homosexuality, have booming populations (Russia, much of Asia and predominately Muslim nations)
you don't have to be Einstein to figure out where this is going"
Look who is touting his preference for non-Christian countries!
Don't let the door hit you on the way out!
"Some men in the military are the victims of sexual assault -- according to this survey, approximately one in a hundred."
you don't one in a hundred is much?
"It might be a little less than one in a hundred, and it might be a little more."
except there a lot more than 100 men in the military
just from this survey, the 13,900 is up from 10,692
3,208 extra sexual assaults on men in the military since DADT was repealed
"There is absolutely no evidence here that sexual assaults of males have increased in any way beyond ordinary random variation and measurement error."
an increase of 33% is not an ordinary random variation, fool
forget DADT, we need to ban homosexual from the military
"an increase of 33% is not an ordinary random variation, fool"
In a Poisson distribution it almost certainly is normal variation.
Sociopathanon: "countries where homosexual "marriage" is widely tolerated, are declining in population"
Good! If a couple’s decision to have kids or not hinges on whether or not a certain demographic can wed, I think it’s safe to say they’d make REALLY crappy parents.
--
"those with little tolerance for homosexuality, have booming populations"
The study wasn’t correlating tolerance with population growth, but feel free to move to the Mid East or Africa, no one’s stopping you.
--
‘pathanon: "Rock Hudson tacitly admitted that homosexuality was unnatural:"
Hudson: "Well, it's a physical conjunction," he replied. "Boys don't fit. So, this is why it lasts longer."
Semantics, obviously it was natural for him.
--
"the level of male-on-male assault has increased since the end of DADT"
2010 … 4.4 percent of women and … 0.9 percent of … men had experienced sexual assault.
2012 … 6.1 percent of women and 1.2 percent of men said they had experienced sexual assault…
So, since the repeal of DADT, sexual assaults on men have "risen" by 0.3 percent, and women by 1.7 percent. Clearly the gays are WAY more interested in getting straight men to assault women.
It’s just sickening how much power they wield.
"So, since the repeal of DADT, sexual assaults on men have "risen" by 0.3 percent, and women by 1.7 percent"
no, they went up 33 and 38 percent, respectively
the increase on the sample size in the study was 3475 more men and 3332 more women assaulted
for once, why don't you guys be honest and admit there are victims of DDT?
"Rock Hudson tacitly admitted that homosexuality was unnatural"
The Gipper disagreed with Rock on that point and told his daughter this simple truth: “some men are born wanting to love another man.”
Ronald Reagan’s Daughter On The Time Her Dad Outed Rock Hudson
"Though Ronald Reagan remains an icon of the Republican Party, his daughter Patti Davis claims he would have supported gay marriage.
In a New York Times profile, Davis remembers growing up up in an “era where your parents’ friends were all called aunt and uncle” and having an “aunt and an aunt” they saw “on holidays and other times.”
“We never talked about it, but I just understood that they were a couple,” Davis said.
Especially interesting is an anecdote Davis relates from her youth:
Once when she and her father were watching a Rock Hudson movie, Ms. Davis said, she remarked that the actor “looked weird” kissing his female co-star. She said her father explained that Mr. Hudson “would rather be kissing a man,” and conveyed, without using the words homosexual or gay, the idea that “some men are born wanting to love another man.”
Davis sings an all-together different tune from her older brother Michael, who made headlines earlier this week when he compared gay marriage to bestiality and murder.
However, she does concede that her father “did not believe that gayness was a choice” because “as a straight man and an old-fashioned man, it’s not like he understood it.”
As governor of California, Reagan joined President Jimmy Carter and other Democrats in opposing a ballot measure to bar gays and lesbians from working in public schools. But as president, he was heavily criticized for his slow response to the AIDS epidemic, even after his friend, Hudson, died from it in 1985."
good news!
Americans aren't stupid after all:
"Most Americans regardless of party believe political reasons drove the Internal Revenue Service to single out for burdensome and unnecessary scrutiny some conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll out Thursday.
Sixty-eight percent of respondents- 80 percent of Republicans, 60 percent of Democrats and 66 percent of independents - said they think the IRS targeting was motivated by politics, rather than adherence to the tax code policy."
also, the unemployment figures released today show unemployment on the rise again
too bad Americans weren't smart last November
"why don't you guys be honest and admit there are victims of DDT?"
There were lots of victims of DDT, and that's why its use is banned in most of the world via the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants
Hip Hip Hooray for GOP Latino Outreach!!
House Republicans vote to deport DREAMers
No doubt Hispanic voters, so grateful for this GOP vote aimed at deporting their children, will now flock to vote to send more Republicans to Washington in 2014!!
actually, I've heard DDT kills the AIDS virus
you guys should try it!!
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) advised embattled Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday to consider resigning amid controversies over the Justice Department's investigations into leaks involving the Associated Press and Fox News.
The nation's first atheist monument to be erected on public land is to be unveiled this month in staunchly Christian north Florida.
The monument — a granite bench, engraved with secularist quotes — is to be dedicated June 29 outside the Bradford County Courthouse in Starke. The bench will stand in contrast to a display of the Ten Commandments put up last year on the same patch of land, Time reports.
"We'd rather there be no monuments at all, but if they are allowed to have the Ten Commandments, we will have our own," said monument designer Ken Loukinen, the director of regional operations for American Atheists.
Last year, Bradford County established a Free Speech Forum outside the courthouse, which permitted private groups to erect monuments at their own expense. Following the ruling, the Community Men’s Fellowship, a local Christian group, placed a 5-foot, 6-ton slab engraved with the Ten Commandments.
American Atheists sued the county, arguing that the Ten Commandments statue violated separation of church and state.
A settlement allowed the Ten Commandments slab to stay and allowed the atheists to put up their own monument, a 1,500-pound granite bench engraved with quotes from prominent secular thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.
The monument also will include a quote from the Treaty of Tripoli, a 1796 pact between the United States and North African Muslims. The treaty is a seminal document for atheists because of its declaration that "the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion," reports The Huffington Post.
"We have maintained from the beginning that the Ten Commandments doesn't belong on government property," American Atheists President David Silverman said in a news release. "There is no secular purpose for the monument whatsoever, and it makes atheists feel like second-class citizens. But if keeping it there means we have the right to install our own monument, then installing our own is exactly what we’ll do."
The atheists' monument will feature Biblical quotes listing harsh punishments for breaking the Ten Commandments. The inclusion is designed "to make it clear that the Ten Commandments are not the 'great moral code' they're often portrayed to be," Dave Muscato, American Atheists public relations director, said.
The Community Men’s Fellowship fundamentally disagrees with the atheists' stance on religion, but it supports their right to express their beliefs freely, spokesman Ken Weaver told the Christian Post.
"God worked this out," the fellowship said in a Facebook statement.
""We'd rather there be no monuments at all, but if they are allowed to have the Ten Commandments, we will have our own," said monument designer Ken Loukinen, the director of regional operations for American Atheists."
in other words, their motivation is sheer hatred for anyone who believes is anything
the sad thing is they don't understand how all this plays into the hands of believers
believers have dealt with non-believers for millennia and always prevailed
they are usually stronger when opposed
keep it coming
I've met Peter at a couple of demonstrations. He was polite and friendly.
Robert, you have now committed heresy against the gay agenda and must be shunned
sorry, but you brought this on yourself
Peter is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He actually smiled and chuckled when he had the following conversation with Chris Matthews:
"Matthews: Let me ask you Peter, so you think people choose to be gay.
Sprigg: People do not choose to be have same sex attractions, but they do choose to engage in homosexual conduct. And that conduct also which incidentally is against the law within the military. It violates the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It doesn't make any sense for us to be actively recruiting people who are going to violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Matthews: Do you think we should outlaw gay behavior?
Sprigg: Well I think certainly...
Matthews: I'm just asking you, should we outlaw gay behavior?
Sprigg: I think that the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas which overturned the sodomy laws in this country was wrongly decided. I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions against homosexual behavior.
Matthews: So we should outlaw gay behavior?
Sprigg: Yes.
Matthews: Okay thank you much Peter Sprigg. We know your position. It's a clear one. Thank you."
Watch him for yourself at: Matthews Gets Family Research Council's Sprigg to Admit He Thinks Homosexuality Should be Outlawed
Me: "So, since the repeal of DADT, sexual assaults on men have "risen" by 0.3 percent, and women by 1.7 percent"
Not Me: "no, they went up 33 and 38 percent, respectively"
That’s my point, the incidences and reporting have gone up at similar rates, and by extension, the nearly 6 to 1 ratio has remained the same. Therefore, the repeal of DADT can’t reasonably be held responsible for the increase.
---
Speaking of math…
"pro-family groups that say [+] theories of pro-family groups [=] facts are facts"
Exsqueeze me, I baking powder?
---
Someone: "We'd rather there be no monuments at all, but if they are allowed to have the Ten Commandments, we will have our own," said monument designer Ken Loukinen, the director of regional operations for American Atheists."
Someone Else: "in other words, their [atheists’] motivation is sheer hatred for anyone who believes is anything"
That’s not fair. Just because someone doesn’t believe in a god doesn’t mean they don’t believe in morality -- knowing the difference between good and evil -- and acting accordingly by doing unto others what one would have done unto them, or is there more?
"the sad thing is they don't understand how all this plays into the hands of believers"
And what of believers who believe different than you?
"believers have … always prevailed … stronger when opposed"
If one believes in a god who is Love, why strengthen the idea of opposition? Didn’t Jesus say to pray for our enemies? If you’re a better believer then you should be praying for us, not goading us to "keep it coming."
I’m not suggesting there’s no evil to be fought, just that emphasizing the fighting part goes against the belief in a god who is Love and that It’s creation was designed to reflect that.
---
"Robert, you have now committed heresy against the gay agenda and must be shunned … sorry, but you brought this on yourself"
Yeah, Robert, we’re trying to destroy the world here.
I meant Peter LaBarbara. Of course, at one of those he had a poster of a little boy wearing a tutu, with a caption saying that's what I wanted to teach. Peter is a riot, but personable.
I've met Robert Knight, also. He wouldn't shake my hand.
the guy had a poster made up with your name on it, Robert?
no comments on this Jim - I think you would be horrified at your guy at this point....
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/06/nsa-whistleblower-obama-took-down-general-petraeus-by-illegal-surveillance-video/
the end of this interview is very interesting. Apparently what they used to do under Bush was encrypt folks personal identities so that you couldn't tell who they were and then run all the data through the computer and just save the data that exhibited patterns that were concerning - like calls to certain countries repeatedly, etc. The identities of folks was protected until the patterns identified probable cause - at which point you can go get a court order to target that person. But Obama is apparently saving ALL of the data unencrypted and that is why he is building the huge storage facility. I can even see the point in saving all the data, encrypted, because you might want to back up search for new parameters after something happens - like the boston marathon bombing would probably give you new key words to search for after the fact when you are trying to identify who did it..... this is all assuming of course that you don't have someone like Susan Rice who has clearly proved herself a liar running the NSA. but at the very end of the interview, the guy talks about what they USED to do - that he designed - and what they are doing now under Obama, which is much much worse.
"WASHINGTON -- Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Sunday suggested that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has lost his credibility in fighting global terrorism.
McCain argued on CNN's "State of the Union" that the government's vast surveillance program is not "necessarily wrong" because it operates under court oversight. Paul, who appeared on "Fox News Sunday," has taken the opposite position, calling the government's phone records monitoring program an "extraordinary invasion of privacy."
Asked to square the two positions by CNN host Candy Crowley, McCain said that Paul was wrong about the terrorism threat in the days before the Boston Marathon bombings. "Just prior to the Boston bombing, he said the battlefield was no longer in America," McCain told Crowley.
McCain was referring to a Paul appearance on Fox News in April. "It's different overseas than it will be here," Paul said in that appearance. "Which gets precisely to the argument I have with some other Republicans who say, 'Well, the battlefield is everywhere, there is no limitation.' President Obama says this. Some members of my party say the battle has no geographic limitations and the laws of war apply. It's important to know that the law of war that they're talking about means no due process."
McCain isn't the first to suggest that the Boston bombings should serve to chasten Paul. A post-bombings Wall Street Journal editorial also took issue with the Kentucky senator's April remarks.
"Boylston Street sure looked like a battlefield on Monday, and so did Watertown on Thursday night," The Journal wrote in its editorial. "The artificial distinction is Mr. Paul's focus on geography. The vital distinction for public safety is between common criminals, who deserve due process protections, and enemy combatants at war with the U.S., wherever they are."
McCain's disagreement with Paul on foreign policy and terrorism was previously highlighted by Paul's lengthy March filibuster of President Barack Obama's drone program, a move that McCain dismissed as "wacko."
"Americans' suspicions have been aroused by ... the IRS, Benghazi [scandals]," McCain acknowledged on Sunday.
But in an apparent reference to Congress, he said, "I don't think the government should be briefed on every program like this. That's why we have intelligence agencies. It's a balancing act.""
Since 1992 the GOP has lost the 18-29 vote in each presidential election. As the adage goes, “although people’s fundamental political views do not change much as they age, their propensity to vote does.” In other words, the GOP’s future could grow ever bleaker as today’s seniors and boomers are supplanted at the ballot box by Generations X, Y and Z.
The American Electorate Has Changed, and There's No Turning Back, which is realized by everyone except for those who choose to remain inside the bubble. Even the bubble dwellers will figure it out, eventually.
I don't recall if the poster had my name on it or if he were just using my name in his talking points. It was about me, though, yes. He recognized me, and introduced himself.
what a friggin hypocrite.
http://cnsnews.com/blog/bob-parks/obamas-2007-promise-no-more-illegal-wiretapping-american-citizens
http://www.humanevents.com/2013/06/07/review-of-obamas-homeland-security-stance/
And snowden apparently says that now they are targeting EVERYONE and listening to Everyone.
Jim, what would you be saying if this was a Republican president...
but it is okay because it is Obama ... really ?
wow, your hypocrisy knows no bounds.
It is a little surprising to see that I am an unbounded hypocrite for not commenting on a current event. I only have a minute but let me say what I think.
I think anybody who thought the government was not reading their email and Facebook posts and following their phone calls is an idiot. Yes it is horribly offensive, and I have very good reasons to loathe that kind of imposition on our privacy. Bush started it (remember Total Information Awareness?), Obama kept it going, I don't care what party is in the White House, this is abominable.
I am somewhat amused to see the right suddenly enthusiastic national security leaks of classified information. Now that you see the value of them, how about we free Bradley Manning and apologize to him? How about allowing donations to Wikileaks?
JimK
I must say that I agree with Jim that I always assumed the CIA had access to all this information. I actually never thought I myself would raise to their level of concern but it doesn't seem to be affecting my life either way.
I also think there are many other parties than the government with access to similar information. It's probably inescapable going forward.
Some problems with Obama:
First of all, why keep the program secret? If it's necessary and we all agree, don't prosecute people for simply saying it's happening.
Secondly, the Obama administration has squandered any benefit of the doubt they might have by using confidential tax information against their opponents.
So, if this monitoring is indeed necessary, Obama really can't be trusted with stewardship of it.
He has already demonstrated that he believes his ends justify any means.
btw, I think it's naïve to believe government surveillance began with W.
If you listen to this guy Snowden's comments, he says Obama doubled down on the surveillance to a level he was uncomfortable with... that is consistent with what the other retired NSA guy who apparently wrote one of the first programs said..
What both of them said was that the information of the identities of people USED to be encrypted, and only patterns were identified and the content of emails, calls, was not available. If a pattern was detected, than they would go get a warrant to hear the content because then we have probable cause. And that recently we have been allowing analysts to listen in on calls and look up people without probable cause, and that is the difference between what was done under Obama and what was done under Bush.
If you listen to the Snowden interview
http://freepatriot.org/2013/06/09/interviewing-the-nsa-whistleblower-i-dont-expect-to-see-home-again/?fb_source=pubv
and the Maxine waters interview :
http://gopthedailydose.com/2013/02/08/maxine-waters-obama-has-put-in-place-secret-database-with-everything-on-everyone/
and this says that is was started under Bush/Cheney
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PIPHNlAxY4&feature=player_embedded
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/06/nsa-whistleblower-obama-took-down-general-petraeus-by-illegal-surveillance-video/
this one says the Obama took the encryption out so that the data on everyone is public to all the analysts without a warrant.
Jim you have a technical background and you know they could very easily keep the identity of who they are probing separate, and hide that date in the database and have a separate database that you could only access with a warrant that then allows you to see who the person is that you are profiling if you have a warrant. That would not be hard. But it certainly sounds like those are just the protections Obama has removed.
This is pitiful. This is not the current whistleblower in this Breitbart video, this is a guy who resigned from the NSA more than twelve years ago. He doesn't know anything.
I listened to the Hong Kong interviews, and I did not hear Snowden say anything about Obama. Maybe I missed it, and maybe you are making it up. The technology for something like this has only existed for the past 10 or 15 years, whatever existed before GWB was relatively primitive. The idea might have been there, but I wouldn't dig much deeper than that, looking for the beginning of this.
Look, your cell phone constantly broadcasts your location, all your calls are logged for billing purposes, your car has GPS telling the world where you are driving, your Facebook pictures are undergoing face-recognition and matching to image databases, Google knows everything you search for and what's in your email and what you blog about. If you don't leave a clear enough trail, satellites can see the surface of the earth clearly enough. In this digital age, data about you is easily accumulated and easily analyzed. You would be crazy to think that the government isn't going to take advantage of that. You could get them to say they're not doing it, but I wouldn't expect that for a minute.
Honestly, the only way you will avoid the surveillance is to go off the grid. Throw away your phone, cancel cable, get back to nature, it's good for you anyway.
no, the guy was a current employee of BAH.... Booze Allen Hamilton.
I work in this industry.
BAH contractors are almost synonymous with NSA employees folks...
Not much difference in clearances or access to information as far as I could tell. Some of the highest up folks at NSA were BAH contractors -for defense companies where they had to go through the same clearances....
It was not the snowden interview but the second interview from the guy that claimed to have created the program at the backbone of this (he's the older one, retired in protest after his program that he created for targeting internationals was directed on us citizens....) he says they have taken the cryptography off the user's identification. So maybe he is wrong. But Snowden, who just left BAH in May of THIS YEAR, said the SAME thing.
I actually don't have a problem with their gathering the information and converting ALL the information to some profile where the users identity is removed. I am guessing (complete guess) that the reason that they started adding the direct user information back in was the algorithms were too difficult to run because you don't know if it is the same person... people switch user ids and cell phones numbers... so it would be harder to track each profile by a unique key.
But the older guy in link above towards the end of the interview does claim that they have removed hiding of the persons name/identity/email from the link.
Snowden certainly implied the same.
King is claiming that is not true, and generally I like Peter King but I don't trust this administration ... and honestly I wouldn't even be comfortable with this under a Republican president...
though I am okay with it if they manipulate and hide the users's identity from the profile they are developing and continue to require a court order to get access to the actual data.
And I would bet that the reason that they stopped trying to do that was the algorithms to try and do that were too time consuming compared to just copying all of it in whatever format the providers gave it..... (which of course would include the persons identity).
Jim, weigh in please. You have a technical background as I do and I would bet you know exactly what I am talking about.
Theresa
the twilight of global warming alarmism:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/06/global-warming-alarmism-in-twilight.php
The government (federal, state and local) used to infiltrate lgbt groups, both social and political, and create secret files on members. I wouldn't be surprised if in some places they still do.
I understand the need for investigating potential terrorists, but I wonder if this goes to far. I am much suspicious of what my governments determine to be seditious.
The contradictions at the heart of the Obama presidency are finally out in the open. As a result, a man who came into office hellbent on restoring faith in government is on the verge of inspiring a libertarian revival.
There have always been (at least) two Barack Obamas. There is the man who claims to be a nonideological problem-solver, keen on working with anybody to fix things. And there is The One: the partisan, left-leaning progressive-redeemer.
As E.J. Dionne, a columnist who can usually be counted on to make the case for Obama better than Obama can, recently wrote, the president "has been a master, as good politicians are, at presenting different sides of himself to different constituencies. In 2008, he was the man who would bring us together by overcoming the deep mistrust between red and blue America and the champion of progressive change, the liberal answer to Ronald Reagan."
The dilemma for Obama is that neither is panning out because both incarnations rely on trust. The president never had much trust among Republicans, and he lost what he had when he opted to steamroll the stimulus and, later, Obamacare, on a partisan basis.
Of course, that's not how most Democrats have seen things. They've seen the last five years as a tale of tea-party-fueled madness and racism. The conviction that conservatives are crazy, stupid and/or bigoted in their opposition to Obama is what has allowed the two Obamas to exist side by side. Both iterations could blame the Republicans for any shortcomings or failures.
Then came the Benghazi debacle. The president's base, according to polls and what little MSNBC viewing I could stomach, never wavered in its conviction that Benghazi was a nonscandal. But even if you don't think it was a scandal (as I do), many partisans admit the administration's response, politically and in real time, was a mess, casting the White House as deeply political and not exactly truthful.
Cue the Justice Department, which deployed the Espionage Act against a Fox News reporter and subpoenaed the records of more than 20 Associated Press phone lines. Obama tried to play the Janus game again, saying that he was "troubled" by the reports of his own administration's actions. The media have let him get away with this bystander act when it comes to things like the prison at Guantanamo Bay, but not necessarily when it comes to threats to themselves.
And then the floodgates opened. The IRS compromised the integrity of the domestic agency that is supposed to be the most immune to politics. Worse, the White House's best defense was that it was simply asleep at the switch as the agency went rogue — in ways that just happened to align with the president's oft-expressed ideological and political preferences.
The IRS scandal is a cancer because if you can't trust Obama to keep that agency from being politicized, you can't trust him to keep anything immune from politics — including healthcare and, more relevant, the National Security Agency.
I have some sympathy for Obama in that his support of these vast data-mining programs might be a sign that he has matured in office. He naively denounced the "false choice" of compromising our ideals for the sake of security in his 2009 inaugural speech. Now he's touting such trade-offs as essential.
Or it could be that, like so many presidents before him, Obama thinks there's nothing wrong with executive power when he's the executive. Either way, the NSA story undermines trust in both Obamas.
In late May, the president announced in a speech that the war on terror was essentially over. In early June, he's defending a data-mining operation even Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) — an author of the Patriot Act, which authorizes surveillance by the NSA — is denouncing as dangerous overreach he never intended.
The idealist wants credit for ending the war, while the alleged pragmatist wants to keep a surveillance apparatus that has no justification if the war on terror is truly over. Maybe he's right on the merits. The problem is that fewer and fewer people are willing to take his word for it.
Theresa asked:
“And I would bet that the reason that they stopped trying to do that was the algorithms to try and do that were too time consuming compared to just copying all of it in whatever format the providers gave it..... (which of course would include the persons identity).
Jim, weigh in please. You have a technical background as I do and I would bet you know exactly what I am talking about.”
My company has worked on equipment and software that has piqued the interest of the NSA and other government agencies. The throughput of these machines makes your desktop computer look like a 1980’s era calculator. The software is being optimized for better results and faster performance on a monthly basis.
There are lots of software engineers all around the country working on these things, as part of our “homeland security” budget. I doubt very much that any reasonable algorithm they can describe is to difficult or time consuming to implement.
Have a nice day.
Cynthia
Not content with holding 37 meaningless votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and seeking to avoid passing an actual policy that might fix a problem, the Republican-controlled House is planning to vote on not one but two separate bills to defund ACORN despite the fact that ACORN disbanded three years ago.
ACORN, also known as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, came under heavy fire in the fall of 2009 after conservative videographer James O’Keefe released a set of selectively edited videos that appeared to show its employees offering advice on tax avoidance related to prostitution and child smuggling. Independent investigations by the California attorney general, the Massachusetts attorney general and the Brooklyn, N.Y., district attorney would later clear ACORN of criminal wrongdoing, and an investigation by the Government Accountability Office would clear ACORN of charges that it mishandled federal funds.
There’s just two problems here. First of all, they already did this in 2009. Secondly, ACORN does not exist. It’s gone. It’s been gone for three years now.
In related news, the Republicans will also consider a bill to stop granting pay increases to Confederate soldiers and will introduce a constitutional amendment to allow women to vote.
Your Republican lawmakers: Making useless gestures to pose for its base rather than doing anything worthwhile.
In other (not) shocking news Fox news has lied again in its desperate attempt to find a "smoking gun" to bring down Obama.
Fox has been practically having an orgasm over its claim that the head of the IRS made 157 visits to the white house and that this proves a conspiracy.
Trouble for Fox and its credulous Republican viewers is that the claim has been debunked. Fox made the false claim about IRS visits to the white house 58 times last week and didn't stop even after it was debunked.
The reality is that as standard procedure the head of the IRS was cleared to attend 157 events at the white house if he chose to attend but actually only made 11 visits to the over the last 4 years.
Fox news - lying for Republicans since 1996
"Your Republican lawmakers: Making useless gestures to pose for its base rather than doing anything worthwhile"
"your" is right lazy-Priya
I know you have a lot of time on your hand while the Queen's government in the Great White North pays you to sit on your arse all day and surf the web
I also realize that Canadian politics is dull, and frankly, inconsequential
but it's really none of your business if lawmakers in some other country vote on laws you don't think are important enough
"Trouble for Fox and its credulous Republican viewers is that the claim has been debunked."
actually, no it hasn't
"The reality is that as standard procedure the head of the IRS was cleared to attend 157 events at the white house if he chose to attend but actually only made 11 visits to the over the last 4 years."
actually, the 11 is only the visits that were properly documented
most if the others probably happened as well
it's common to not always sign out when you leave
significantly, when the revelations first surfaced, they weren't denied by the IRS
instead, rationales for the many meetings were devised
that wouldn't make sense if the meetings didn't occur
"Fox news - lying for Republicans since 1996"
on the OPINION of an ignorant foreign socialist
FOX news- the highest rated news channel in America
by many miles
lazy, stupid and Canadian
"House Speaker John Boehner today called NSA leaker Edward Snowden a “traitor” who put Americans at risk by releasing classified information to the media.
“He’s a traitor,” the highest ranking Republican in the House of Representatives said in an extensive interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “The disclosure of this information puts Americans at risk. It shows our adversaries what our capabilities are. And it’s a giant violation of the law.”
Boehner endorsed President Obama’s characterization of two programs, which allow the NSA to gather information about phone calls made in the U.S. as well as information on foreign suspects collected from major internet companies, as critical to the government’s ability to fight terrorism. He said that there are “clear safeguards” built into the programs to protect Americans.
“The president outlined last week that these were important national security programs to help keep Americans safe, and give us tools to fight the terrorist threat that we face,” Boehner said. “The president also outlined that there are appropriate safeguards in place to make sure that there’s no snooping, if you will, on Americans here at home.”
Snowden, a 29-year-old contractor with the National Security Agency, admitted that he was the source of several leaks of top secret NSA documents to the British paper, The Guardian, and the Washington Post.
After the Guardian printed its first details of the program in which the government requested and received phone records from Verizon customers, Boehner initially called on Obama to explain to the program to the American people.
He now says that he is satisfied with the way the program is being administered.
“There is heavy oversight of this program by the House Intelligence Committee on a bipartisan basis and the Senate Intelligence Committee,” Boehner said. “And that’s why I feel comfortable that we can operate this program and protect the privacy rights of our citizens.”
It's funny that I find myself agreeing with Michael Moore and Jon Stewart. And AGREEING with the ACLU. Who both think the survelliance program is over the top..
I do too, if the identity of the person being profiled is NOT protected without a probable cause order. Wow, isn't TTF silent.
And I am on what is typically your side.
Friggin amazing the hyprocrisy of you all when it comes to this guy...
HEY NSA.
Don't want to make it hard for you.
My name is Theresa Rickman
I live at 4001 Glenrose Street, Kensington, MD
I usually defend you.
But in this CASE, NSA ... go to HELL.
Theresa :-)
and BTW. I am an American Citizen.
I have no criminal record.
I have worked my entire life.
I have never been on unemployment
I have ALWAYS supported myself and my children.
Not that this make a DAMN bit of difference to you.
SCREW YOU NSA.
Go TO HELL>
Arrest me I DARE YOU.
Find a reason, like you did with that army agent with anti-Obama stickers on his car... Just find one...
I would WELCOME the opportunity to see you in court.
UNLESS OF COURSE, OBAMA Decides that my attitude qualifies enough to put me on his KILL LIST and a UAV just takes me out.
JIM>
YOU ARE DEFENDING THIS GUY ?
WHAT THE HECK HAVE YOU BEEN SMOKING ANYWAY TO DESTROY YOUR SENSES TO THIS GUY.
the far left and the far right are in agreement on this issue.
I am the far right.
YOU, dear, are the far left.
What happened to your moral outrage ?????
Theresa
4001 Glenrose Street
Kensington, MD
20895
(don't want to strain your servers NSA)
For the first time since 2005, more Americans now view former President George W. Bush favorably than unfavorably, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday.
Forty-nine percent have a favorable view of Bush, while 46 percent view him unfavorably, the poll found. His ratings have risen by more than 10 points among both parties since he left office.
btw, the current RCP average has Obama's favorability rating at 47%
two points lower than George W Bush
and we're just getting started
No, you are not just getting started.
You've been seeing your coming victory for years now.
"A bill that discourages Russia's gay community, outlaws gay pride parades, and bans the distribution of information about homosexuality to children was overwhelmingly approved by the lower house of parliament Tuesday.
More than two dozen protesters were detained by police, hours before the State Duma approved the Kremlin-backed legislation in a 436-0 vote.
The bill banning "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations" still needs to be passed by the appointed upper house and signed into law by President Vladimir Putin, but neither step is in doubt.
The measure is part of an effort to promote traditional Russian values as opposed to Western liberalism, which the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church see as corrupting Russian youth and contributing to the protests against Putin's rule.
Before the vote, gay rights activists attempted to hold a "kissing rally" outside the State Duma, located across the street from Red Square in central Moscow, but they were attacked by hundreds of members of pro-Kremlin youth groups. The mostly burly young men with closely cropped hair pelted them with eggs while shouting obscenities and homophobic slurs.
Riot police moved in, detaining more than two dozen gay rights protesters. Some who were not detained were beaten by masked men on a central street about a mile away.
The legislation will impose hefty fines for providing information about the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, community to minors or holding gay pride rallies. Breaching the law will carry a fine of up to 5,000 rubles ($156) for an individual and up to 1 million rubles ($31,000) for media organizations.
After the bill was given preliminary approval in January, lawmakers changed the wording of "homosexual propaganda" to "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations," which backers of the bill defined as "relations not conducive to procreation."
Russia decriminalized homosexuality in 1993, but anti-gay sentiment remains high. Russia also is considering banning citizens of countries that allow same-sex marriage from adopting Russian children.
Earlier Tuesday, dozens of anti-gay activists picketed the Duma. One of them held a poster that read: "Lawmakers, protect the people from perverts!"
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov defended the bill in February, saying that Russia does not have any international or European commitment to "allow propaganda of homosexuality."
The widespread hostility to homosexuality is shared by much of Russia's political and religious elite.
Lawmakers have accused gays of decreasing Russia's already low birth rates and said they should be barred from government jobs, undergo forced medical treatment or be exiled.
An executive with a government-run television network said in a nationally televised talk show that gays should be prohibited from donating blood, sperm and organs for transplants, while after their death their hearts should be burned or buried.
The bill's adoption comes 20 years after a law punishing homosexuality with up to five years in prison was removed from Russia's penal code."
Russia would consider granting asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday.
Snowden fled the United States after leaking information about the NSA's secret surveillance of phone records and information collected by Internet providers. After revealing his identity to the public, he said that he fled to Hong Kong, and was hoping "to seek asylum in a country with shared values."
Snowden has not made any requests for asylum yet, but Peskov told Russian newspaper Kommersant, "If such an appeal is given, it will be considered."
"We'll act according to facts," he said. The Guardian reported Tuesday that the statement prompted other Russian officials to declare their support for Snowden.
Siberia might be a good place for Mr. Snowden.
Countries with diplomatic relations but no extradition treaty
"...Some places are pretty strict about immigration. Strict in ways you can't imagine. Skip China (People's Republic of China) and the Russian Federation, UNLESS you're willing to live in Siberia as an illegal Chinese. It's a hard life, but... it can be done.
How to get by on the Internet without PRISM companies
Where should a transgender schoolgirl be allowed to pee? To some, this may sound like a minor, insignificant question, but not to Nicole Maines, a 15-year-old transgender girl who attended Maine public schools. Born a boy biologically, Maines now self-identifies as a girl, dressing in girls’ clothing and sporting a typical 15-year-old girl’s hair and makeup. In addition to the harassment she faced from other kids, Maines also met intolerance by school officials, who refused to allow her to use the girls’ bathroom. Instead, in a remarkably insensitive decision, the school required her to use a staff bathroom after a grandparent of a male student complained that Maines shouldn’t be allowed in the little girls’ room.
Maines’ parents took her out of the school and sued the school, claiming their daughter’s potty segregation was a violation of Maine’s Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination against transgendered people on the basis of their gender identity. While Maine’s Human Rights Commission held that the transgendered girl was entitled to use the girls’ bathroom, a state court judge disagreed. Maine’s Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear her case, the latest evidence that the next frontier of the civil-rights movement is transgender and transsexual equality.
We often talk about “LGBT rights,” but many of the reforms to date, like civil unions and marriage equality, are primarily benefiting the Ls and the Gs (and, by extension, the Bs). The legal issues surrounding full acceptance of trans-people are likely to be messier and more confusing—and bathrooms are proving a familiar flashpoint. In Colorado, for instance, the parents of a 6-year-old girl have challenged their local school district’s refusal to permit their daughter to use the girls’ room because, biologically, the girl was born a boy and retains male genitalia. School authorities said she can use any other bathroom in the school—the boys’ bathroom, the staff bathroom, or the one in the nurse’s office—just not the one for girls. In Arizona, lawmakers have been considering a bill to prohibit transgendered people from using the biologically “wrong” bathroom. The Philadelphia City Council may go the other way, by requiring new city-owned buildings to include gender-neutral bathrooms.
Restrooms are one of the last explicit vestiges of segregation on the basis of sex. In a nation evolved enough to allow women to serve in combat and have women on the presidential ticket, we still maintain strict and outdated rules that discriminate in who can use which restroom. Even at liberal law schools like UCLA, where I teach, the bathrooms are all clearly marked for gender uses in a way that no one would accept for race: there are rooms labeled specifically for men and others specifically for women.
Most people don't question this form of separate-but-equal, perhaps because there don’t appear to be inequalities engendered by gendered bathrooms. (This, despite the fact that there often seem to be much longer lines to use women’s rooms.) The controversy over transgendered students, however, may force us to reconsider our sex-specific bathrooms. As our society becomes more tolerant of gender differences, especially in the context of transgendered people, the issue will continue to arise. More and more people, even children, are comfortable admitting their gender identity, even if it isn’t the one that matches their biological gender at birth, and parents are increasingly willing to fight school policies that prevent their children from using appropriate facilities.
We don’t necessarily need to eliminate gender-specific bathrooms to solve the problem—or even create a third (and fourth) category of bathroom. We can simply allow transgendered people to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. In the school setting, this can be easily accomplished by having parents with transgender children choose which bathroom their kids will use. Especially for underage schoolchildren, this shouldn’t pose a threat to anyone. (And if the idea of a transgender person using your bathroom makes you uncomfortable, consider that that you share a bathroom with gays or lesbians all the time—and probably don't even notice it.)
As these cases remind us, our tolerance for sexual difference still has a long way to go. We may pat ourselves on the back for ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” or supporting marriage equality (as Maine has done), but transgender and transsexual people are often left unaccounted for. Perhaps this is why a recent study by the National Center for Transgender Equality found that more than 40 percent of transgender Americans have attempted suicide—a staggering rate compared to the less than 2 percent of the population as a whole who’ve done so. Figuring out how to shape the law to provide equal citizenship to all members of the LGBT community is one of our nation’s greatest remaining social challenges.
Given the data, and our own commonsense understanding of the difficulties facing transgender children, it’s imperative that courts like the one in Maine see cases like Nicole Maines's for what they are: acts of discrimination no different from those that prohibited black people from entering white bathrooms until the 1960s. Even if we maintain our tradition of sex-specific bathrooms, we should swing open the bathroom stall doors to transgender people. Just as I feel the men’s room is the right place for me, Maines feels the women’s room is the right place for her. Denying her that accommodation does not merely inconvenience her. It treats her, in violation of our constitutional ideals, as unequal.
Jim.
there is a difference between Manning and Snowden.
Manning stuck hundreds of documents on wikileaks and no one was quite sure what the point was of opening them up. What was the point ? do you know ?
Snowden released just a few documents to prove that NSA was snooping, because he was ticked off about it.
there is a big difference between the behaviors.
"I don’t have to listen to your phone calls to know what you’re doing. If I know every single phone call you made, I’m able to determine every single person you talked to. I can get a pattern about your life that is very, very intrusive."
Joe Biden
HYPOCRITE.
Like you Jim.
while Snowden revealed the program, it is notable that he didn't reveal any specific use of it
at first, I thought that the general program should never been secret to begin with but, then, I started reading how other countries are reacting by planning to avoid U.S. internet companies
so, this revelation may eventually do significant damage to the U.S., far and away the most free land on the globe
there's a lot to discuss here and we should avoid jumping to conclusions
anyway, with a derecho closing in on Washington later today, this is good time for a global warming update
after the storm moves through, Jim Kennedy will, no doubt, be ranting on about another example of global warming gone amok
those of you who grew up in the sixties and seventies may remember that, back then, the common wisdom was that we were headed into an ice age
that's because the planet was not warming from 1945-1975
this morning, the NY Times, among the lead promoters of global warming alarmism, admitted that we are currently in another "warming plateau" and that the planet hasn't warmed significantly since 1998
this despite the fact that carbon emissions exploded during the entire period of 1945-2012
why was there only warming from 1975-1998?
their theory: in the mid-70s, environmental groups were successful in curbing pollution until the rise of China as an industrial power in the late 90s
more pollution blocks sunlight, cooling the planet
so, it turns out that Earth Day lead to global warming
when will they ever learn?
of course they could be wrong but there has to be some explanation because anthropogenic global warming is the one thing scientists have faith in, regardless of the evidence
everyone has to have a non-verifiable hypothesis to keep 'em going and, for scientists, it's global warming
the cloud banks are rolling in now
another sever weather event that couldn't possibly be caused by global warming
because there hasn't been any for 15 years!!
"carbon emissions exploded during the entire period of 1945-2012
why was there only warming from 1975-1998?"
only global warming for 23 out of 67 years?
in the words of Meat Loaf:
two outta three ain't bad!!!
Wow, the Legend of JimK seems to be growing, look out Paul Bunyon! I am a hypocrite for ... not sure for what, something about a topic that I have not really stated my position on, and now I am preparing my speech on global warming in advance of a storm that somebody says is coming.
I know exactly how I feel about government surveillance, and I am not its friend. I have heard people say for several years, "There is no privacy any more," and that's right, there is only privacy if you get off the grid. Google knows you better than your mama, and the NSA knows everything that Google knows, plus everything that Facebook knows, plus ... If you use a cell phone or the Internet or watch cable TV or drive a car, you are in a government database, and I can't believe that anyone is surprised by that.
Theresa's opinions are political. Because we have a Democratic president, this is all his fault and he is leading the country to a dictatorship and so on. Oh, and JimK must automatically support every bit of it, bein' a hypocrite and all. This slippery slope started with the Patriot Act of 2001, which was a dictatorial mandate that almost no elected official of any party had the huevos to oppose. Total Information Awareness was a government project designed in 2002 to create enormous databases of private citizens' behavior for the alleged purpose of fighting terrorism. They stupidly used cues that set off the paranoids, like the pyramid with the eye on top and stuff, and TIA was stopped, but the project never went away. Because we were under a Republican administration, we did not hear Theresa complaining about government surveillance. NSA's ECHELON project has its roots all the way back into the nineties, none of this is new.
Bradley Manning released video of Americans slaughtering innocent civilians on false pretenses. He was reacting to the same moral outrage while our government lied to us about it, in a situation that was even worse because actual lives were lost, it wasn't just pillow-talk stored in databases, it was unlawful mass murder and destruction of an entire society. His leaking was no different, except for the political party in control when he was arrested.
There was one smart observation here. Currently many countries refuse to eat American meat because of the drugs we give our animals, many countries refuse to import US grains because of the genetically-modified mutants that we allow without regulation. And next foreign countries are likely to stop using American IT products, now that they know it's all spyware on some level. America's greed will hurt it in the long run, and that is just the equilibrium of the marketplace at work. We could respond to market pressures and clean up our act, but I'm not holding my breath.
What? A derecho? Scuse me, I gotta move my car. (Does anybody remember me ever talking about global warming here???)
JimK
"Does anybody remember me ever talking about global warming here???)"
I do
unfortunately, the posting history is as complicated as the stuff NSA gets every day and I don't data mining software that is as good
Kennedy, you were first a hypocrite and then an alarmist and now a bully
and, I'm just kidding
get home before the derecho
Snowden learned a lot from Manning's treatment here in the states so he fled to Hong Kong and who know where after that. Manning tried to sell his data to the NYT and Wash Post first, and when they weren't interested, sent his files to Anonymous.
Snowden, rather than dumping all the data he holds illegally, is holding some of it back, probably because he hopes to use it in negotiating his surrender for the charges surely to be filed against him.
Here's what Snowden's documentary film maker, Laura Poitras, told Salon in a recent interview:
So how did this all begin?
I was originally contacted in January, anonymously.
By Edward Snowden?
Well, I didn’t know who it was.
What was the format?
Via email. It said, I want to get your encryption key and let’s get on a secure channel.
And he didn’t say what it was about?
He just said — that was the first, and the second was, I have some information in the intelligence community, and it won’t be a waste of your time.
Do you get a lot of those kinds of requests?
No, I don’t.
Did you immediately know what was the best, most secure protocol to go about it?
I actually did. I have a lot of experience because I’ve been working with — as you note in your thing, I’ve done filming with WikiLeaks, I know Jacob Appelbaum. I already had encryption keys but what he was asking for was beyond what I was using in terms of security and anonymity.
How did it proceed from there?
So that’s where I’m not going into a lot of details, but sort of ongoing correspondence. I didn’t know, I didn’t have any biographical details or where he worked, had no idea. He made claims and said he had documentation. At that point it was all completely theoretical, but I had a feeling it was legit.
Why do you think he contacted you? Were you the first person he contacted?
I can’t speak for him. Glenn and I just touched base about, what was your story, because we connected later in the spring. He, I think, got an email in February. But I didn’t know he’d gotten an email.
He told me he’d contacted me because my border harassment meant that I’d been a person who had been selected. To be selected –and he went through a whole litany of things — means that everything you do, every friend you have, every purchase you make, every street you cross means you’re being watched. “You probably don’t like how this system works, I think you can tell the story.” … Of course I was suspicious, I worried that it was entrapment, it’s crazy, all the normal responses you have to someone reaching out making, claims. He said he’d seen a piece that I’d done on Bill Binney in the Times.
I can say from conversations I had with him after that, I think he had a suspicion of mainstream media. And particularly what happened with the New York Times and the warrantless wiretapping story, which as we know was shelved for a year. So he expressed that to me but I think also in his choices of who he contacted. I didn’t know he was reaching out to Glenn at that point.
And you and Glenn were already colleagues, right, you sit on a board together?
At that point the foundation had just opened. So we knew each other and we were colleagues and friends.
How did it get to the point where you knew it was going to be a story, and how did you decide where it was going to be published?
Those are the details I’m not going to go into. What I can say is that once I had a few pieces of correspondence, I said, let me ask a couple of people about this, people who have experience, and I sat down with a couple of people, one of whom was Bart Gellman … and he said, it looks like this person could be legit. And that was probably February.
These disputes that have been played out on the internet about who got in touch with whom and who needed assurances –
...
...In a situation like this, this is a confidential source and has been until very, very recently, actually has been a person whose identity I did not know. To actually go on the record and talk about — it seems to be a violation of a lot of relationships with someone who’s trusted you. There’s partly that, so I’ve been hesitant. I’ve asked, you know, like, Bart, don’t go try and tell my story. I’ll tell my story, you know, about my reporting. I don’t need reporters reporting on my reporting. So maybe that stuff contributed to different timelines. But that seems now — I’m not quite sure, what makes the most sense. Because I don’t want to tell the whole story now, I don’t think it’s the right time. And I want to tell it in my own words. I’m a storyteller. I’ll tell it when I’m ready to tell it, in detail.
But it makes sense to go on the record to explain why I was attached to both of those stories.
So you ended up getting in touch with Bart and Glenn because you wanted their help to vet the claims in documents?
There weren’t documents yet … I wanted to know if this correspondent — it was possible something else would be entrapment or just crazy, that’s always an option. I had an instinct that it was legit. I wanted to talk to people who knew.
So then they said, my paper would be happy to publish it?
No, it was just colleagues saying, this was happening, what do you think. There was nothing to — it was just somebody wanting to start a conversation and claiming to have information … There was no material at that point.
So how did it then become two separate stories in the Washington Post and the Guardian?
The source also has a relationship with Glenn. Which I can’t speak to.
I know that Glenn said he had more stories to come. Do you have more footage you’re planning on using in your documentary?
Of course. I’m here working.
Are you still in touch with him?
I’m not going to comment on that.
Do you know where he is?
Not going to comment.
Are you going to be working on more stories in print before your documentary comes out?
I really can’t predict.
Are you going to be sticking around Hong Kong for awhile or do you think you’ll come to the U.S.?
I haven’t decided. I’m trying to figure that out right now. But I’m actually based right now outside the U.S.
Are you worried about retaliation in any investigation that goes forward?
You know what? I’m not. I’ve been harassed for a long time, I wouldn’t be surprised if that continues. Being here and seeing the kind of — actually, Glenn was really inspiring. Really incredible courage in journalism and just saying, we need to talk to him about these things. It’s not OK that we have a secret court that has secret interpretations of secret laws; what kind of democracy is that? I felt like, this is a fight worth having. If there’s fallout, if there’s blowback, I would absolutely do it again, because I think this information should be public. Whatever part I had in helping to do that I think is a service.
People take risks. And I’m not the one who’s taking the most in this case.
And you feel like the person who is taking the most risk — meaning Snowden — is aware of all the possible ramifications of it?
You can see it in the video, right? I think he is. I think he wanted to reveal his identity because he didn’t want to create a situation where he was anonymous and everyone would have been investigated. In these investigation cases, there are repercussions for many, many people. I think he wanted to take responsibility.
...Did he always plan to reveal his identity?
I don’t know. At some point I became aware of that but I don’t know what his intention was.
It’s this complicated situation because we have a source who decided to reveal himself. I still feel like I have journalistic obligations to the source even though they’ve made that choice … There’s something that Glenn said that I actually want to contradict. He said we began “working with” him. There was no working with. We were contacted. It was totally cold contact.
Since he contacted you before he started working at Booz Allen, the implication people were drawing was that he went to Booz Allen with the express intention of leaking this.
That’s completely absurd. I had no dialogue about what the information was — there were claims, that’s all I received.
So the implication that you sent him into Booz Allen to spy was incorrect.
Are you kidding? I didn’t know where he worked, I didn’t know he was NSA, I didn’t know how — nothing. There was no like, Oh do you think you …, no nudging. It’s like the crazy correlations that the NSA does. There’s no connection here. We were contacted, we didn’t know what he was up to, and at some point he came forward with documents.
"why was there only warming from 1975-1998
Warming continues to the present time. 2012 among the 10 warmest years on record, figures show
Nasa and NOAA scientists say 2012 global temperature records further consolidate a pattern of global warming
"2012 was among the 10 warmest years on record, rising above the long-term average for the 36th year in a row, according to data released on Tuesday.
Temperature records compiled separately by Nasa and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found global surface temperatures rose 1.03F above the long-term average last year, but did not match America's record-breaking heat. The average global temperature has risen about 1.4F since 1880.
By Nasa's records, that makes 2012 the ninth hottest year on record globally. NOAA's data set put it at the 10th hottest year. The agencies use different methods to analyse data.
In both cases, scientists said the 2012 global temperature records further consolidate a pattern of global warming. Each year of the 21st century has ranked among the 14 hottest since record keeping began in 1880.
"One more year of numbers isn't in itself significant," Nasa climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said. "What matters is this decade is warmer than the last decade, and that decade was warmer than the decade before. The planet is warming. The reason it's warming is because we are pumping increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere."
With 36 years of above-average temperatures, nobody born since 1976 has lived through a colder than average year.
By far, the most extreme heat for 2012 was in the contiguous United States, which smashed through all previous temperature records by 1F.
Tom Karl, director of NOAA's national climatic data centre, told a reporters' conference call the US temperatures were "remarkable".
Scientists said the rise in temperatures was due to carbon dioxide emissions.
"The planet is out of balance and therefore we can predict with confidence that the next decade is going to be warmer," James Hansen, a Nasa climate scientist, said.
Aside from the US, and South America, most of Europe, Africa, western, southern, and far north-eastern Asia experienced above-average temperatures.
Other parts of the world were unusually cooler than average, including most of Alaska, far western Canada, and central Asia, NOAA said. Britain also experienced slightly below average temperatures, at 0.2F below the 1981-2010 average, which was attributed to the cool summer and autumn. Britain also experienced its second wettest year since records began in 2010.
Other records highlighted by NOAA included the extreme drought across the mid-western United States, and other important farming regions including parts of Russia and Ukraine.
The Arctic experienced record low sea ice throughout the year, with sea ice cover dropping to 1.32m square miles, the lowest value ever recorded, in September 2012."
"Warming continues to the present time"
THAT'S AMAZING BECAUSE THE NEW YORK TIMES HAS A WHOLE ARTICLE ABOUT THE THEORIES SCIENTISTS HAVE COME UP WITH TO EXPLAIN WHY THE RISE IN TEMPERATURES HAS PLATEAUED
IT WENT UP FROM 1975 TO 1998 BUT HAS SINCE REMAINED AT ABOUT THAT LEVEL, YOU IDIOT!!
SO WE HAVE THE HIGHEST TEMPERATURES BUT THEM SEEMED TO HAVE REACHED THEIR LEVEL.
THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THERE WILL BE FURTHER WARMING AT THIS POINT, YOU FREAKIN' MORON!!!!!
Hysterical Anonymous said "SO WE HAVE THE HIGHEST TEMPERATURES BUT THEM SEEMED TO HAVE REACHED THEIR LEVEL.
THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THERE WILL BE FURTHER WARMING AT THIS POINT, YOU FREAKIN' MORON!!!!!".
Actually, there is reason to believe precisely that. If you look at global average temperaturs over the last several hundred years extrapolated from tree data, ice cores and so on you'll see there is a great deal of natural up and down temperature fluctuation over the years and decades that appears random but is determined by a large number of complicated natural factors that cause the rise and falls.
Pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and raising temperatures does not erase these natural up and down temperature fluctuations, it only modifies them to a degree. So, there are naturally still up and down termperature fluctuations despite global warming but the fluctuations upward in temperature tend to be higher than they had been prior to the industrial revolution and the 20th century in particular and the fluctuations downward in temperature tend to be not as great as they used to be.
This means that although global warming is taking place there are still going to be periods of time in the future that are cooler than things had been in the recent past. But those cooler periods are not as cool as they would have been if only natural factors were at play and the long term average temperature over several decades or longer is increasing in general.
We can't just look at a very short time period such as from from 1998 to 2013 and say global warming has plateaued, we have to examine the data over hundreds of years and then we can see a period of unprecedented warming starting with the industrial revolution and throughout the 20th century although always existing natural trends have (if I take your word for granted, and I shouldn't) caused a current pause in the warming trend.
If it weren't for global warming the period from 1998 to 2013 in which we see your alleged plateau should be cooler than normal, not steady. The normal ups and downs aren't erased, the ups are higher than they should be and the downs aren't down as much as they should be or what should be downs in temperature are temperatures holding steady.
Virtually every scientist on the planet agrees the evidence is overwhelming that man made global warming is real and things are going to keep getting worse despite natural temporary plateaus or temporary cooler periods.
first of all, let me say
wha' happened?
not that Priya is correct here but the tone lacks the manic stridency that generally characterizes her comments
I practically want to agree with her
it's like that old song from the Cinderella musical "impossible things are happening every day"
well, onward
"Actually, there is reason to believe precisely that. If you look at global average temperaturs over the last several hundred years extrapolated from tree data, ice cores and so on you'll see there is a great deal of natural up and down temperature fluctuation over the years and decades that appears random but is determined by a large number of complicated natural factors that cause the rise and falls."
first of all, the temperatures back past a certain point aren't not precise or reliable enough to justify your statement
secondly, your admission that the temperature is "determined by a large number of complicated natural factors" is exactly right and these factors are still not well understood
we really don't know whether human activity is affecting the climate
"Pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and raising temperatures does not erase these natural up and down temperature fluctuations, it only modifies them to a degree."
you really have no basis for that statement
"So, there are naturally still up and down termperature fluctuations despite global warming but the fluctuations upward in temperature tend to be higher than they had been prior to the industrial revolution and the 20th century in particular and the fluctuations downward in temperature tend to be not as great as they used to be."
assuming there is reliable data is establish that, it still doesn't mean that human activity is causing that
the last Ice Age was actually so recent is relative terms that it is accurate to say we are in the process of shifting out of it
if the indicators you mentioned earlier are in fact reliable, they seem to suggest the planet has been much warmer in the past
do you think the dinosaurs drove SUVs?
"This means that although global warming is taking place there are still going to be periods of time in the future that are cooler than things had been in the recent past."
of course that would also be true if there were no global warming at all
but non-verifiable hypotheses are what allow the global warming alarmist money mill to keep churning
"But those cooler periods are not as cool as they would have been if only natural factors were at play and the long term average temperature over several decades or longer is increasing in general."
yes, we're retreating from the Ice Age
"We can't just look at a very short time period such as from from 1998 to 2013 and say global warming has plateaued,"
well, we took 67 years, a fairly significant chunk of the time since the industrial revolution and found the temperature rising only a third of the time
moreover, there wasn't random bouncing around during this time
virtually all the increases were concentrated in a two decade period
this is the period when the industrial nations enacted sweeping environmental measures and lasted until about the time a new super economy arose that was disdainful of ecological concerns and began rampantly polluting
"we have to examine the data over hundreds of years and then we can see a period of unprecedented warming starting with the industrial revolution and throughout the 20th century although always existing natural trends have (if I take your word for granted, and I shouldn't) caused a current pause in the warming trend."
not unprecedented at all
scientists believe there were many past eras that were unindustrialized and much warmer than now
problem with you is that you choose the time span that supports your belief
and make no mistake, it's is nothing more than belief
no data or event could convince you it isn't true
it can all be explained within your non-verifiable hypothesis
"If it weren't for global warming the period from 1998 to 2013 in which we see your alleged plateau should be cooler than normal, not steady."
a meaningless statement
"The normal ups and downs aren't erased, the ups are higher than they should be and the downs aren't down as much as they should be or what should be downs in temperature are temperatures holding steady."
and how are we to judge what is "normal" on a planet that has varied in temperature so much over the eons that our current temperatures wouldn't make a blip on a graphed line?
"Virtually every scientist on the planet agrees the evidence is overwhelming"
it's the common wisdom but "virtually every" is false
as I said, virtually every scientist fifty years ago thought we were headed into a new ice age, that the Big Bang theory was ridiculous, and that eating too many nuts and olive oil raised your cholesterol
we could sweep through history and find more laughers
"that man made global warming is real"
no proof of that theory, and lots of holes in it
"and things are going to keep getting worse despite natural temporary plateaus or temporary cooler periods."
if, indeed, global warming ever resumes, which is likely when you consider that natural factors have tended toward a warmer planet many times before, mankind will adapt and there is no justification for saying it will be "worse"
most people will probably like it fine that way
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bad anonymous, your argument is akin to this:
Its March 1st and I tell you "Its getting progressively warmer and July is going to be much warmer than March.". It gets progressively warmer through the end of march and then from March 31st to April 7th the temperatures drop and are colder than the last week of March was. You then fatuously tell me "IT WENT UP FROM MARCH 1ST TO MARCH 24 BUT HAS SINCE GOTTEN COLDER, YOU IDIOT!! SO WE HAD THE HIGHEST TEMPERATURES BUT THEY HAVE SINCE DROPPED. THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THERE WILL BE FURTHER WARMING OVER THE SPRING INTO JULY, YOU FREAKIN' MORON!!!!!".
I said "Virtually every scientist on the planet agrees the evidence is overwhelming"
Bad anonymous said "it's the common wisdom but "virtually every" is false".
No, "virtually every" is bang on. A team of Australian and North American scholars examined 11,944 peer-reviewed climate papers written by some 29,000 climate scientists between 1991 and 2011.
Climate scientists agreed that humans cause global warming in 97.1 percent of the published papers that discuss the issue. There is no controversy on this issue amongst scientists, agreement is almost universal.
Bad anonymous said "as I said, virtually every scientist fifty years ago thought we were headed into a new ice age, that the Big Bang theory was ridiculous, and that eating too many nuts and olive oil raised your cholesterol we could sweep through history and find more laughers.".
Science is a progressive endeavor. There is no truth to your claim that virtually every scientist 50 years ago thought we were headed into a new ice age.
We know more know than we did 10 years ago, we knew more 10 years ago than we did 50 years ago, and we knew more 50 years ago than we did 150 years ago.
Science keeps improving its knowledge and accuracy and keeps adding to the evidence supporting the conclusion that man is causing global warming. That scientists were wrong about a minority of things they reported on 50 years ago is in no way evidence that they are wrong about this. The constant accumulation, self-correction and growing knowledge means there is increasingly smaller possibility that any of this is in error.
Virtually everyone who doubts global warming is completely devoid of the knowledge to make such a jugdment - people such as yourself. You're conned by your own unwillingness to accept bad news and a handful of unscrupulous people in the fossil fuel industry who have a vested interest in denying the reality of global warming.
Once again, between 1991 and 2011
climate scientists agreed that humans cause global warming in 97.1 percent of the published papers that discuss the issue.
Despite your predictable and pathetic denials there is overwhelming agreement amongst scientists that global warming is real and caused by human activities.
so I am no longer voting Republican.
I will vote libertarian.
between this and the immigration bill, I am done with the republican party...
a throw away vote ? appears that voting for republicans is also a throw away vote given their green light to once again granting millions and millions amnesty without securing the border first.
Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security” Ben Franklin.
and I just heard on the radio, apparently the NSA director ADMITTED that an analyst was fired for using the system to spy on his ex-wife.
Wow, just wow.
Jim, I still don't get how you can't wrap your head around why this is NOT OKAY. Yes, google, facebook use the information to develop profiles, they also agree to protect your privacy in their contracts !
this throws their contracts out the window. whether they are breaking their contracts or not, you still have RECOURSE against them.
You don't against the govt.
You do realize that this is what the revolution was fought over, yes ? the british was opening and reading our mail. I fail to see the difference in what our govt is doing now.
So, I have voted republican for the past 25 year and rarely missed an election.
and I am done with the republican party.
Theresa
You do realize that this is what the revolution was fought over, yes ? the british was opening and reading our mail.
Oh brother!
The American Revolutionary War was NOT fought over the British "opening and reading our mail."
And Paul Revere did NOT "warn the British, ringing his bells" either.
< eye roll >
We did NOT dump tea into Boston Harbor because the British were "opening and reading our mail!"
"There were more recorded deaths than births among non-Hispanic white Americans for the first time in 2012, according to a new analysis of Census Bureau estimates.
The difference was tiny — there were just 12,400 more deaths than births — but part of a significant trend toward greater diversity in the United States; demographers predict that white Americans will become a statistical minority by 2050.
Growing racial and ethnic diversity means that immigrants and young people of color will be in large part subsidizing America’s aging population, as USA Today notes:
William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, says the nation’s non-Hispanic white population inevitably will shrink.
He predicts that white retirees “will be on the receiving end of an economy which will be fueled largely by the efforts of Hispanics, blacks and Asians,” whose birth-to-death ratios are not headed in the same direction.
Frey sees the next few decades as “almost an inversion of the 20th century, when the white middle class was the engine of our demographic and economic growth.”
In this century, he says, the USA’s young people are “from Mexico and Guatemala and China and India — and I think that’s going to be one of our challenges this century, having a large part of the old Baby Boom understand it’s the young people who are really their benefactors.”
Obama's approval ratings are cratering
this morning, a FOX news poll has it at 44%
George W Bush is at 49%
polls show large majorities are opposed to NSA routine monitoring of citizens' internet activity
best case against the NSA is what the IRS pulled
no sign yet of those hypothetical rogue employees in Cincinnati that started the harassment of those opposed to Obama
the Attorney General will soon be impeached for lying to Congress if he doesn't resign first
health premiums are set to soar 25-35% to cover Obamacare
state and county government are making policies to cut back on part-time worker hours due to Obamacare
and Obama is busy planning his summer vacation
"this morning, a FOX news poll has it at 44%"
Are you citing Fox polling or Fox analyst Rove polling???
Apparently FOX's two polling sources got two different results on election night 2012.
"polls show large majorities are opposed to NSA routine monitoring of citizens' internet activity"
Large polls show citizens "overwhelmingly support expanded background checks for gun purchases" too.
It's too bad for both majorities of citizens that the Grand Obstructionist Party is opposed to expanded background checks AND stopping NSA from collecting all the data is has been since the changes we made to keep us safe after 9/11.
"no sign yet of those hypothetical rogue employees in Cincinnati that started the harassment of those opposed to Obama"
Keep living inside that bubble and ignoring these facts: "“This man was the manager of the Cincinnati group that reviewed the exemption process,” Cummings said. “Listen up now. He was a twenty-one year veteran of the IRS. He described himself as a conservative Republican. He is a conservative Republican working for the IRS. I think this interview and these statements go a long way toward showing that the White House was not involved in this.”
“This conservatve, twenty-one year veteran of the IRS,” Cummings continued, “is the same one who sent the initial case, the tea party case, up to the Washington technical office. It had not been requested by the Washington techincal office of the IRS.”
As Crowley pointed out, Cummings appearance was strangely reminiscent of Issa’s appearance on her show exactly one week before, when Issa used excerpts of his investigation’s transcripts to make his case that orders to scrutinize tea party groups had come from Washington. Crowley eviscerated his claim and faulted him for cherry-picking quotes. Cummings now arrived with excerpts of his own to make the opposite case.
Crowley asked Cummings if the full transcript of the investigation would ever be released.
“I want those transcripts to be released,” Cummings said. “But he’s the chairman of the committee. We’re not in power. Now, if he does not release them I will.”
A few days later:
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) is refusing to release transcripts of interviews with Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents that allegedly prove how political officials in the Obama administration directed the IRS to target conservative groups applying for 501 (c)(4) status.
"the Attorney General will soon be impeached for lying to Congress if he doesn't resign first"
Oh, I see you have given up on the idea of impeaching President Obama, for now.
Keep spinning!
"health premiums are set to soar 25-35% to cover Obamacare"
No they aren't, but that doesn't mean health insurance companies aren't still greedily trying to gouge us with ridiculous rate hikes.
"Maryland, under staunch Obamacare supporter Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), is one of 31 states with the authority to approve or reject health insurance rate increases and will negotiate with CareFirst to bring down next year's premiums, The Washington Post reported. ["The CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield plan must be approved by the state, and officials immediately indicated that there would be close scrutiny of the double-digit boost....CareFirst, which provides insurance to 70 percent of Marylanders with individual policies, said the rate increase is necessary because, under the law, it can no longer refuse coverage to people with preexisting medical conditions. The company expects a huge influx of sick people that will drive up costs, according to its filings with the Maryland Insurance Administration."] CareFirst covers 70 percent of state residents who purchase their own health insurance policies, according to the newspaper. CareFirst's [25%] rate-hike proposal is significantly larger than the 4.3 percent increase sought by Kaiser Permanente, according to the newspaper.
Two other states, Vermont and Rhode Island, recently disclosed proposed health insurance premium increases for next year that are smaller than CareFirst's request in Maryland. In Vermont, where state law already offers some of the guarantees included in Obama's health care reforms, the proposed increases are minor, according to Kaiser Health News. Rhode Island insurers asked for an average 18 percent increase, the Wall Street Journal reported.."
Kaiser may get their hike in MD, but CFBCBS probably won't.
of the 44% who approve of Barry Obama, apparently one of them is not Bill Clinton:
"Former President Bill Clinton offered a stinging critique of President Barack Obama's inaction in Syria this week, arguing that Obama's hesitance to get involved in the lengthy conflict would end up making him look like a "total fool" and a "wuss"
Clinton spoke Tuesday during a question-and-answer session alongside Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
Clinton warned that Obama would "look like a total wuss,” and he continued, “And he would be."
Clinton went on to say that he wouldn't provide cover for Obama if things got worse down the road. The president would just be left looking "like a total fool," he said.
McCain joined Clinton as the most persistent and outspoken proponent of U.S. intervention in Syria. The senator visited the wartorn nation last month to meet with rebel leaders. He's since made aggressive calls for the U.S. to provide the rebels with heavy weaponry to aid in their battle against Syrian President Bashar Assad."
"Keep living inside that bubble and ignoring these facts"
Elijah is a liar who is trying to mislead the public to take the heat off the investigations
the "conservative Republican" didn't initiate the review, he reported it to Washington
the lawyers in Washington did nothing
why?
we'll find out eventually by we still haven't got the name of the hypothetical rogue employee
if we found it out, we could ask where his directions came from and would likely find out his orders came from the Oval Office
so, the perpetrating paper-pushers are being hidden
"The Internal Revenue Service’s scrutiny of small-government groups didn’t begin in the Cincinnati office that examines applications for tax-exempt status, said Representative Dave Camp, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
“We know it didn’t originate in Cincinnati,” Camp, a Michigan Republican, told reporters today in Washington, citing interviews that committee staff members conducted with IRS employees.
Camp’s comments falsify statements by the partisan Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Cummings claims a self-declared “conservative Republican” IRS manager in Cincinnati said one of his employees identified the first Tea Party case and flagged it for further attention.
Transcripts released by Representative Darrell Issa of California, chairman of the oversight committee, however, show that IRS lawyers in Washington were involved at about the same time."
"Transcripts released by Representative Darrell Issa of California, chairman of the oversight committee, however, show that IRS lawyers in Washington were involved at about the same time." Emphasis added
Except that quote has been changed.
Here's the actual unaltered quote as published by BloombergNews.
"At the same time, those transcripts and others released by Republican Representative Darrell Issa of California, chairman of the oversight committee, show that IRS lawyers in Washington were involved soon afterward."
it was a needed to change considering the context
it doesn't mean they didn't know ahead of time
it just means there is documentation they knew right after
it's like when the Joker's henchmen return from a bank heist and tell him it's done
btw, has anyone here ever played Supreme Court Bingo?
if you keep track, you can often tell ahead of time who will write he decisions in Supreme Court cases
that's because they are divided evenly each month
for the month the gay marriage cases were argued, the liberals and Clarence Thomas have already written their allotment
that means either Roberts, Scalia, Alito or Kennedy is writing the majority opinion on gay marriage
doesn't sound good if you think the Constitution grants a right to have your sexual deviancy endorsed by the government
you best bet is probably Kennedy, but he didn't exactly sound like a rainbow during the questioning phase
oh well
you could always move to France
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
"Good morning and welcome to the White House.
Today, we take an essential step in defeating terrorism, while protecting the constitutional rights of all Americans.
With my signature, this law will give intelligence and law enforcement officials important new tools to fight a present danger.
I commend the House and Senate for the hard work they put into this legislation. Members of Congress and their staffs spent long nights and weekends to get this important bill to my desk. I appreciate their efforts, and bipartisanship, in passing this new law….
The changes, effective today, will help counter a threat like no other our nation has ever faced. We've seen the enemy, and the murder of thousands of innocent, unsuspecting people...
...one thing is for certain: These terrorists must be pursued, they must be defeated, and they must be brought to justice. And that is the purpose of this legislation.
Since the 11th of September, the men and women of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been relentless in their response to new and sudden challenges.
We have seen the horrors terrorists can inflict. We may never know what horrors our country was spared by the diligent and determined work of our police forces, the FBI, ATF agents, federal marshals, Custom officers, Secret Service, intelligence professionals and local law enforcement officials, under the most trying conditions.
They are serving this country with excellence, and often with bravery. They deserve our full support and every means of help that we can provide...
As of today, we're changing the laws governing information-sharing. And as importantly, we're changing the culture of our various agencies that fight terrorism. Countering and investigating terrorist activity is the number one priority for both law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Surveillance of communications is another essential tool to pursue and stop terrorists. The existing law was written in the era of rotary telephones. This new law that I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet, and cell phones.
As of today, we'll be able to better meet the technological challenges posed by this proliferation of communications technology. Investigations are often slowed by limit on the reach of federal search warrants. Law enforcement agencies have to get a new warrant for each new district they investigate, even when they're after the same suspect.
Under this new law, warrants are valid across all districts and across all states. And, finally, the new legislation greatly enhances the penalties that will fall on terrorists or anyone who helps them. Current statutes deal more severely with drug-traffickers than with terrorists. That changes today...
This bill was carefully drafted and considered. Led by the members of Congress on this stage, and those seated in the audience, it was crafted with skill and care, determination and a spirit of bipartisanship for which the entire nation is grateful. This bill met with an overwhelming -- overwhelming agreement in Congress, because it upholds and respects the civil liberties guaranteed by our Constitution.
This legislation is essential not only to pursuing and punishing terrorists, but also preventing more atrocities in the hands of the evil ones. This government will enforce this law with all the urgency of a nation at war. The elected branches of our government, and both political parties, are united in our resolve to fight and stop and punish those who would do harm to the American people.
It is now my honor to sign into law the USA Patriot Act of 2001."
REMEMBER WHEN BARRACKS OBAMA CAMPAIGNED AGAINST THIS?
WHAT A HYPOCRITE!!!
WASHINGTON (AP) — A massive storm system that started in the Upper Midwest and plowed across the country was hitting the Mid-Atlantic Thursday, causing widespread power outages and flash flooding, but still largely failing to live up to its fierce billing.
The Washington, D.C., area was being hit by storms and the National Weather Service issued severe thunderstorm watches and warnings for much of the region. Forecasters warned that the storms could produce damaging winds and large hail, and the the threat would run into at least early evening Thursday. A flash flood watch was in effect.
In Maryland and Delaware, officials reported trees down, roads closed, and tens of thousands of power outages after a line of heavy thunderstorms moved through. In the afternoon, the weather service said a tornado may have been reported near Colesville or Olney, just north of Washington, but there have been no reports of serious damage.
carefirst bc/bs is a truly awful insurance company.
I had the misfortune of dealing with them through the birth of three children.
they lose claims, they claim that "well your company is based out of CA so that claim is being handled out of MD and we don't know the status and we can't get you the status"
they are truly horrendous.
I was at a Christmas ornament party only to discover that a new mom - a year later - was just finally getting to the end of dealing with them - forcing them to process the claims by sending them certified mail, etc, etc.
which was exactly what I had to go through myself.
the folks that run that company should be in jail.
and I tried reporting them to the "govt oversight" committee and it was absolutely a waste of time.
what did work was contacting an attorney in CA. One letter from that attorney did wonders.
BusinessWeek reports: Darrell Issa's IRS Investigation Is Falling Apart
"When Republicans won control of the House of Representatives in 2010, Representative Darrell Issa of California was supposed to become a star. Issa, who made no secret of his ambition, took over the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, vowing to use the power of his chairmanship to stage hundreds of hearings and hold the Obama administration to account. Anticipating what he promised would be “constant battle,” the White House hired extra lawyers and braced for the onslaught.
But Issa wasn’t the force people expected him to be. His biggest investigation, into the botched anti-gun smuggling operation that left a Border Patrol agent dead, incited right-wing talk radio listeners. Beyond that, though, it barely registered. After two years in power, Issa seemed more bark than bite.
Then came last month’s revelation that IRS agents had singled out Tea Party groups for special scrutiny. Here was an issue that seized public attention and posed a legitimate threat to Obama. Since then, nobody in Congress has pushed harder than Issa to pin the scandal on the White House.
But after a burst of attention, Issa’s investigation appears to have stalled. Although he turned up embarrassing material—has any government official been humiliated quite like the IRS commissioner in the dorky video dressed up as Spock?—Issa hasn’t made the all-important connection to the White House. And he may not be able to. The news this week that he won’t release the full transcripts of his interviews with IRS officials—interviews he selectively quoted from to imply White House complicity—suggests that what they contain may in fact exonerate the administration of the very charge Issa is laboring so hard to prosecute.
“Your push to release entire transcripts from witness interviews while the investigation remains active was reckless and threatened to undermine the integrity of the committee’s investigation,” Issa wrote in response to a letter from his Democratic counterpart, Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, who himself had selectively quoted the transcripts and then called on Issa to publicize the whole thing.
In theory, Issa could be building a case against the White House to rival Watergate that he just isn’t quite ready to unveil. But that’s highly unlikely. Cummings has seen the transcripts and wouldn’t call for their release if they contained information that would fell his party’s president. Issa’s weak-tea defense of why he won’t comply—witnesses might be demoted or fired, he says—only buttresses this suspicion. So does the effort by Issa’s colleague, Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, to broaden the investigation’s scope to include donor audits. You don’t broaden an investigation if you’ve found the smoking gun and nailed the culprit.
“We’re not anywhere near being able to jump to conclusions,” Camp told reporters, including Bloomberg’s Richard Rubin, on Wednesday. So the IRS investigations will continue. But it’s getting harder to imagine that they’ll turn up evidence of a Nixonian plot, and if they don’t, Issa will have failed again."
REMEMBER WHEN YOU SUPPORTED GEORGE W. BUSH FOR ENACTING THIS?
WHAT A HYPOCRITE!!!
NO, I DON'T
BECAUSE IT DIDN'T HAPPEN!!!!
I ALWAYS THOUGHT THE EXTREMES THE GOVERNMENT WENT TO AFTER 9/11 WERE TOO FAR
SOUNDS LIKE BARRACK OBAMA WAS CONVINCED THOUGH!!
HE DOUBLED DOWN!!!!!
The IRS hadn’t spoken four sentences about its targeting of conservative groups before it blamed “our line people in Cincinnati.”
Those were the words of Lois Lerner on May 10, when she acknowledged the misconduct in an answer to a question planted at an American Bar Association conference. In a phone session with reporters later that day, she famously admitted that she is not good at math. It turns out that she is not good at geography, either.
The locus of the IRS scandal, it has steadily emerged, is not in Cincinnati but in Washington, where lawyers and supervisors were aware of and directed the special scrutiny for tea party groups applying for 501(c)(4) status. This has falsified a line of defense that the administration and its allies have held as assiduously as Lt. John Chard’s troops at Rorke’s Drift in the Anglo-Zulu War.
Jay Carney explained on May 20: “There were line employees at the IRS who improperly targeted conservative groups.” Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington state summed it all up at a Ways and Means Committee hearing by saying, “This small group of people in the Cincinnati office screwed up.” Just the other day on the “O’Reilly Factor,” James Carville held out the possibility that the whole mess was caused by — yes — “some people in the Cincinnati office.”
They have all made Cincinnati a byword for scandal. By their account, there’s no explaining Cincinnatians. They are a strange and foreign people, noted for their bristling hostility to the tea party and their cussed resistance to direction or oversight from above. It’s a wonder the IRS is even able to maintain an office in Cincinnati, given the inherent recklessness of workers in that remote southern Ohio city.
The Cincinnati explanation has many virtues. It serves to minimize the scandal by blaming it on what sounds like a bureaucratic backwater, and it throws lower-level employees — rather than their supervisors — under the bus. Most important, the Cincinnati IRS office is about 505 miles from the White House, 504.2 more miles than the IRS headquarters at 1111 Constitution Ave. N.W.
But the Blame Cincinnati First crowd should have had no credibility from the beginning. As my National Review colleague Eliana Johnson reported, the inspector general report, released right after the scandal broke, detailed in its chronology how Cincinnati employees constantly interacted with Washington. In May 2010, staff in the so-called Determinations Unit in Cincinnati were told to “send additional information request letters to the Technical Unit for review prior to issuance.” The Technical Unit is in Washington.
About a week later, the Technical Unit “began reviewing additional information request letters prepared by the Determinations Unit.” IRS lawyers in Washington approved intrusive questions of tea party groups and even wrote them. Staff in Cincinnati complained that all the micromanagement from Washington was gumming up the works.
The House Oversight Committee investigation has found the same thing. A Cincinnati employee named Gary Muthert said in an interview with committee investigators that he flagged tea party applications because his supervisor told him that “Washington, D.C., wanted some cases,” specifically it “wanted seven.”
Johnson reports that another Cincinnati employee, Elizabeth Hofacre, was shocked when Lerner initially blamed Cincinnati. She told committee investigators, “It was a nuclear strike on us.” For her, the motivation was obvious: “I just thought when Lois Lerner dropped that bombshell, ‘Oh, it was Cincinnati’s problem,’ she thought it would go away, but instead it exploded.”
In Hofacre’s telling, it’s impossible to have a rogue operation of a couple employees in Cincinnati “because of how we are organized.” She explained, “the managers, they have really tight inventory-control systems. I mean they get periodic prints of our inventory, so they know exactly what cases we had, how old they are, how long we have had them and stuff like that. So these two rogue agents running amok for three years, even for three months, it would never happen.”
Notwithstanding all this, the ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings has pronounced the IRS scandal solved. He cites the testimony of one Cincinnati manager who says he has no reason to believe that the White House was involved. The manager also says the focus on the tea party arose because someone in Cincinnati went to the Technical Unit with questions on how to handle an initial application in 2010.
Even if this account is correct, it’s a far cry from the Cincinnati-centric defense initially on offer. It means that Washington was involved from the very beginning. As director of Exempt Organizations, and someone who knew about the targeting and was involved in the targeting years ago, this shouldn’t have been a surprise to Lois Lerner. She, after all, works — or worked — in Washington.
The Obama administration’s scandal trifecta has recently become scandal overload. But the IRS is still the most portentous. For now, the initial line of defense at Cincinnati is in ruins.
Most Americans continue to support legalizing medical marijuana, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, and most think the federal government should refrain from prosecuting patients and dispensaries in states where it is legal.
According to the new HuffPost/YouGov poll, 60 percent of Americans say they favor allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana for their patients, while only 26 percent are opposed.
one consolation about the current NSA Big Brother revelations is that the government is so incompetent that they probably can't do much with the information they gather anyway
if an obvious case like the Boston bombers went undetected, it would seem everyone's secret life is likely safe
right?
actually, no
turns out that our Muslim-educated President has excluded the monitoring of mosques:
"Homeland Insecurity: The White House assures that tracking our every phone call and keystroke is to stop terrorists, and yet it won't snoop in mosques, where the terrorists are.
That's right, the government's sweeping surveillance of our most private communications excludes the jihad factories where homegrown terrorists are radicalized.
Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.
Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of the chairman, members and staff are kept secret.
We do know the panel was set up under pressure from Islamist groups who complained about FBI stings at mosques. Just months before the panel's formation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations teamed up with the ACLU to sue the FBI for allegedly violating the civil rights of Muslims in Los Angeles by hiring an undercover agent to infiltrate and monitor mosques there.
Before mosques were excluded from the otherwise wide domestic spy net the administration has cast, the FBI launched dozens of successful sting operations against homegrown jihadists — inside mosques — and disrupted dozens of plots against the homeland.
If only they were allowed to continue, perhaps the many victims of the Boston Marathon bombings would not have lost their lives and limbs. The FBI never canvassed Boston mosques until four days after the April 15 attacks, and it did not check out the radical Boston mosque where the Muslim bombers worshipped.
The bureau didn't even contact mosque leaders for help in identifying their images after those images were captured on closed-circuit TV cameras and cellphones.
One of the Muslim bombers made extremist outbursts during worship, yet because the mosque wasn't monitored, red flags didn't go off inside the FBI about his increasing radicalization before the attacks.
This is particularly disturbing in light of recent independent surveys of American mosques, which reveal some 80% of them preach violent jihad or distribute violent literature to worshippers.
What other five-alarm jihadists are counterterrorism officials missing right now, thanks to restrictions on monitoring the one area they should be monitoring?"
glad Obama's all in on making sequester cuts
here in the land of the free, an ordinary citizen can't tour the White House because of the exorbitant cost involved
but there's always money for His Excellency's overseas sightseeing trips
keeping up with the Queen, I suppose
"President Barack Obama's tour of sub-Saharan Africa this month was supposed to make history as his first extended stay in the region, but focus has shifted onto the trip's price tag, which could reach upwards of $100 million.
When the first family departs on June 26 for a weeklong visit to the continent that will bring them to Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania, they'll kick into motion an expansive security procedure.
The entire security apparatus is required to be present on the ground at each of Obama's stops, as his quick pace will leave little time for the entire detail to pack up and redeploy at the next location. This challenge has led to a requirement of 56 total support vehicles -- 14 of them limousines and three of them trucks carrying bulletproof glass panels to cover the windows where the first family is set to stay. All of these will be flown to their various positions by military jet.
Secret Service agents will also be flying to each of the African locations en-masse, ensuring that they have secured the premises prior to the first family's arrival. Hundreds of agents will be needed for the operation.
All said, the cost is expected to run the federal government somewhere between $60 million and $100 million. But the fact that the report comes amid sequestration, which took a toll on the Secret Service budget earlier this year, is likely to bolster critics who have questioned the real impact of the cuts."
Still spinning, looking for muck to stick!
"The Obama administration’s scandal trifecta has recently become scandal overload. But the IRS is still the most portentous. For now, the initial line of defense at Cincinnati is in ruins."
Oh, that Rich Lowry!
He jumped on last summer's Fast and Furious bandwagon too and ended up with egg all over his face, just like Issa did.
You GOPers keep getting excited every time Issa comes up with another boneheaded idea. You'd think one of you would notice -- every one of them has failed!
Obama got reelected over the GOPs chosen I-LOVE-THE-ONE-PERCENT! candidate.
Get over it.
"For almost 40 years, the group called Exodus International, widely considered one of the world's largest "ex-gay" organizations, claimed to offer a "cure" for homosexuality -- one that prescribed prayer, devotion and what leaders called "reparative therapy" to help gay people become straight. Lisa Ling explored the controversial practice in a 2011 episode of "Our America," during which she first encountered Exodus International's leader, Alan Chambers.
Back then, Chambers had said, "Change is possible. I stand by that phrase and I live by it. The opposite of homosexuality isn't heterosexuality; it's holiness." But now, Chambers has a new message: an apology.
Last year, Chambers decided to stop endorsing the denounced practice of gay "reparative therapy" and reached out to Ling for an opportunity in which he could formally apologize to those who felt adversely affected by Exodus' practices. Next week, he'll speak out in a special episode of "Our America with Lisa Ling," airing Thursday, June 20, on OWN. ["In a special episode, Lisa Ling is joined by a group of survivors of the condemned and damaging practice of "reparative therapy" as they confront Alan Chambers."]
In addition, a group of "reparative therapy" survivors will confront Chambers face-to-face with stories of their painful experiences in the "ex-gay" movement. Among them is Jerry, a former pastor who came out of the closet after a 26-year marriage; Sean, a Navy veteran who served three tours of combat before coming out in support of repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell;" and Christian, who Ling first met three years earlier when he was desperately trying to become straight.
With his wife Leslie at his side throughout, Chambers will face his critics and a pointed dialogue will emerge which brings the future of Exodus into question.
"Our America with Lisa Ling -- Special Report: God & Gays" airs Thursday, June 20, at 10 p.m. ET on OWN."
wow.
I knew it was bad but this is pretty damn stunning.
They are letting all the illegals in…everyone who has been here illegally will get automatic amnesty.
And xxx is probably one of the folks on food stamps
Do you think he works hard ? Personally I think he should starve until he gets off his ass and starts supporting himself and his children. And stops asking folks that are helping him to get him coffee while he sits on his ass. They will take more than ½ of your salary as a new lawyer to feed/support all those folks who weren’t born here and aren’t our responsibility.
Actually your take home pay will be : 69K from that 160K salary. The government and increased medical insurance (to pay for – you got it – Obama care) – will be taking the rest.
Nice to know you slaved to support a couple of those illegal immigrant families your entire life, because that, sweetheart, is exactly what you did.
I just ran the taxes for you…. Best pay attention in that tax class next year.
Mom
TaxYear 2013
For Maryland MONTGOMERY
Regular Pay 160,000.00
Additional Pay 0.00
Pay Frequency Bi-weekly
Marital Status Single
State Marital Status Single
# Federal Exemptions 1
# State Exemptions 1
Federal Tax 56,890.62
Social Security/Medicare 8,972.20
State Tax 13,168.00
Medical 10,000.00
Dental 2,000.00
Retirement: None 0.00
---------------------------
You're so right mom! I'm going to do it right now! Those gosh darn republicans trying to feed the hungry. Who do they think they are?!
------------------------
family -
http://www.elections.state.md.us/voter_registration/
Please go switch your registration to libertarian.
The republicans are voting for amnesty for illegals and ALSO voting to fund food stamps.
I have HAD IT with these folks that call themselves Republican and vote for food stamps and to legalize folks that have violated our borders.
Please do it immediately.
Thanks !
Mom.
And.
Had she will have 220K worth of loans to pay back after she graduates... over 20 years assuming interest 25K or so a year, which means she nets 44K a year after taxes. a 20.00 an hour job would pay about the same, once taxes have been taken into effect.
why is it worth getting an education any more ?
"By a vote of 221-198, House Republicans continued to destroy their party by passing a bill that would raise student loan rates.
Nine Republicans voted against the bill, and two Democrats voted for it. House Republicans tried to disguise their plan to raise student loan interest rates as saving the student loan program by making it a part of the “free market.” What House Republicans passed is a variable rate scheme where a student’s loan rate would be reset every year, so that the loan rate the student paid as a freshman would likely increase each year until they graduated.
The Washington Post reported that the bill would cause the interest rate on a Stafford Loan to double, “Students who max out their subsidized Stafford loans over four years would pay $8,331 in interest payments under the Republican bill, and $3,450 if rates were kept at 3.4 percent. If rates were allowed to double in July, that amount would be $7,284 over the typical 10-year window to repay the maximum $19,000.”
The point of this bill wasn’t to save the student loan program, but to kill it. The Republican goal is to turn student loans back over to the banks."
student loans should be turned back over to the banks.
it's the next big bubble to burst.
right now, if you have no income and no assets you can get a free ride - the minute you come off your parents assests - say 21 - you get almost as much money as you would like - 70k a year for law school let's say.
but while you are on your parents assests - you couldn't get a loan.... PERIOD. the most the govt will put out for a student loan is 7K. you are supposed to figure it out yourself.
So parents that haven't saved have to go pull equity or something else.
Meanwhile those with no assets and no money can get enormous loans...
so they will loan money to people where it is questionable whether they can pay it back and deny loans to people who clearly could pay it back.
seems a little backwards .....
next big bubble to pop.
"student loans should be turned back over to the banks."
Oh yeah, because banks are so honest and never screw over any of their own customers over!
< eye roll >
"Bank of America employees regularly lied to homeowners seeking loan modifications, denied their applications for made-up reasons, and were rewarded for sending homeowners to foreclosure, according to sworn statements by former bank employees.
The employee statements were filed late last week in federal court in Boston as part of a multi-state class action suit brought on behalf of homeowners who sought to avoid foreclosure through the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) but say they had their cases botched by Bank of America.
Six of the former employees worked for the bank, while one worked for a contractor. They range from former managers to front-line employees, and all dealt with homeowners seeking to avoid foreclosure through the government’s program.
When the Obama administration launched HAMP in 2009, Bank of America was by far the largest mortgage servicer in the program. It had twice as many loans eligible as the next largest bank. The former employees say that, in response to this crush of struggling homeowners, the bank often misled them and denied applications for bogus reasons.
Sometimes, homeowners were simply denied en masse in a procedure called a “blitz,”said William Wilson, Jr., who worked as an underwriter and manager from 2010 until 2012. As part of the modification applications, homeowners were required to send in documents with their financial information. About twice a month, Wilson said, the bank ordered that all files with documentation 60 or more days old simply be denied. “During a blitz, a single team would decline between 600 and 1,500 modification files at a time,” he said in the sworn declaration. To justify the denials, employees produced fictitious reasons, for instance saying the homeowner had not sent in the required documents, when in actuality, they had.
Such mass denials may have occurred at other mortgage servicers. Chris Wyatt, a former employee of Goldman Sachs subsidiary Litton Loan Servicing, told ProPublica in 2012 that the company periodically conducted “denial sweeps” to reduce the backlog of homeowners. A spokesman for Goldman Sachs said at the time that the company disagreed with Wyatt’s account but offered no specifics.
Five of the former Bank of America employees stated that they were encouraged to mislead customers. “We were told to lie to customers and claim that Bank of America had not received documents it had requested,” said Simone Gordon, who worked at the bank from 2007 until early 2012 as a senior collector. “We were told that admitting that the Bank received documents ‘would open a can of worms,’” she said, since the bank was required to underwrite applications within 30 days of receiving documents and didn’t have adequate staff. Wilson said each underwriter commonly had 400 outstanding applications awaiting review."
what do know? HAMP, another Obama program that didn't work
Obama screwed up the college loan situation in America as part of one of the stimulus packages
his idea was to save costs by having the government take over all student loan
that's a good one
whatever savings there were went to lower-income students, helping the average kid out, not at all, and reducing sources
Republicans are correcting an ineptitude of Obama
sounds like health insurance, where we'll all pay way more so we can the insurance Obama wants us to have and millions will have to switch to health exchanges and millions more will pay penalties because it will be cheaper than the insurance they're required to pay and employers will drop insurance and pay the cheaper penalties
unless it's repealed
WASHINGTON -- Mounting scandals at the Internal Revenue Service are jeopardizing critical funding for the agency as it gears up to play a big role in Barack Obama's health care law.
Obama sought a significant budget increase for the IRS for next year, when the agency will start doling out subsidies to help people buy health insurance on state-based exchanges. Congressional Republicans, however, see management problems at the IRS as a basis to limit the agency's funding just as it is trying to put in place the massive new law.
Republicans have been fighting the health care law ever since Democrats enacted it in 2010 without a single GOP vote. Unable to repeal the law, some Republicans hope to starve it by refusing to fund its implementation.
"I think it's safe to say they're not going to get the kind of increase they're asking for," said Rep. Crenshaw, chairman of the House subcommittee that funds the IRS.
"based on their bad behavior, they are going to end up with less money." Crenshaw said.
Last month, the IRS was rocked by revelations that agents had targeted tea party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny when the groups applied for tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 elections. A few weeks later, an inspector general's report said that the agency had spent lavishly on employee conferences during the same time period.
From 2010 through 2012, the IRS spent nearly $50 million on employee conferences. In 2010, the agency used money that had been budgeted to hire enforcement agents to instead help pay for one conference that cost $4.1 million.
All this is happening as the agency works to implement the health law that includes some of the most sweeping changes to the tax code in a generation.
"The IRS needs to repair the plane while it's in flight right now," said Paul Cherecwich, chairman of the IRS Oversight Board. "Should the current budget environment continue, the IRS will have to continue to have to do more with less while rebuilding taxpayer trust. It has no choice."
About $440 million would go toward implementing the health care law. That would include hiring nearly 2,000 employees.
Starting next year, the IRS will administer subsidies to help millions of individuals buy health insurance. The subsidies, technically tax credits because they are administered through the tax code, will help low- and middle-income families buy health insurance through the state-based exchanges.
Under the new law, nearly everyone in the U.S. will be required to have health insurance starting in 2014, or face penalties. The IRS will collect those penalties.
"The bottom line here is that the IRS can barely manage what it already has to do, and that's a generous characterization given the targeting of conservative groups," said Sen. Orrin Hatch.
"Adding Obamacare under the IRS, that can only be described as a looming disaster," Hatch said. "And now the Democrats are saying we need to give the IRS more money. I'm not sure I'm willing to do that."
"WHAT A HYPOCRITE!!!"
"Personally I think he should starve until he gets off his ass and starts supporting himself and his children."
"The republicans are voting for amnesty for illegals and ALSO voting to fund food stamps"
"What happens when a little girl decides to set up a lemonade stand for peace outside the Westboro Baptist Church headquarters in Kansas? Members of the community step out in droves to show support, even as the hate group tries to quash it.
Five-year-old Jayden, the daughter of Jon Sink, founder of the philanthropic arts group FRESHCASSETTE - Creative Compassion, decided to set up a stand selling pink lemonade at The Equality House on Friday afternoon. The Equality House is a rainbow-colored building directly across the street from Westboro's Topeka compound. The house, which was painted the colors of the pride flag in March, was bought by Aaron Jackson, one of the founders of Planting Peace, a multi-pronged nonprofit set up in 2004 and aimed at spreading goodwill and equality around the globe.
Jayden, who is from Kansas City, decided to set up her stand at the Equality House after her parents explained to her the significance of its construct. After being told that the church across the street had a message of hate, she set a goal of raising money to go towards a message of love and peace.
So she painted a banner for the event reading, "Pink Lemonade for Peace: $1 Suggested Donation." She put the stand in the grass and waited. But the waiting didn't take long. Supporters came in by the droves and $1 turned into hundreds of dollars.
During the day, Westboro sent representatives outside to try and find a way to stop the event. They apparently attempted to call the local police and stooped to yelling profanities when that didn't work, like calling a group of soldiers who rode out on their motorcycles to suport the event "bastards."
Westboro's hate couldn't stop Jayden. She not only raised $400 during the day on Friday, but she has also collected over $1000 with an online campaign set up through Crowd Rise. Some people donated as little as $10 and as much as $230. One person gave $26 for every person killed six months ago in the Newtown, Conn., massacre.
"As we all know, the Westboro Baptist Church puts a lot of hate into the world," Jackson told HuffPost in an email Friday. "Since we cannot stop them, the next best thing is to smother it with love. That is what 5-year-old Jayden accomplished today! Jayden set up a lemonade stand in front of the church. Not only did she quench the thirst of a lot of loving supporters, the money she raised was donated to Planting Peace so she could help Planting Peace promote a more peaceful world."
“Jayden represents the natural humanity we are born with," Davis Hammet, Director of Operations at Planting Peace, added. "We come into this world compassionate, caring beings and only become hateful if we are taught to be.”"
"In general, the children of public figures are off-limits. But with the recent remarks from Tanner Flake, son of Sen. Jeff Flake (R–Arizona), it’s worth relaxing that rule for a moment.
First, the details. On Wednesday, BuzzFeed’s John Stanton uncovered the Twitter feed of Senator Flake’s 15-year-old, Tanner, who used the social-networking service to threaten the “faggot” who stole his bike and broadcast his scores in an online game, where he went by the moniker of “n1ggerkiller.” His comments on YouTube contained similar language, calling Mexicans the “scum of the earth.”
Senator Flake has issued an apology on behalf of his son, saying: “I’m very disappointed in my teenage son’s words, and I sincerely apologize for the insensitivity. This language is unacceptable, anywhere. Needless to say, I’ve already spoken with him about this, he has apologized, and I apologize as well.” There’s no reason to think that apology isn’t sincere or that Flake is somehow responsible for his son’s comments.
What we do know, however, is that when he was a member of the House, Flake represented, and lived in, an area that was overwhelmingly entirely white, 76.6 percent white, according to the latest release from the Census Bureau. In all likelihood, and like many other Americans, he lives a racially homogeneous personal and professional life.
For many people—including Senator Flake, I think—that doesn’t preclude an ability to see and empathize with the experiences of people with different racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. For others, it does, and Tanner Flake’s comments are what it looks like when homogeneity leads to isolation, lack of compassion, and a blinkered view of the world.
The GOP’s lack of diversity has left it in a place where there’s no one to shame its lawmakers into silence or reflection.
That may be worth noting because it’s also a fair diagnosis—and explanation—of what’s happening in the Republican Party. Over the last year, we’ve seen a parade of Republican lawmakers, activists, and donors who can’t seem to avoid offensive language. If it’s not Rep. Trent Franks (R–Arizona), who claimed that the rate of pregnancies from rape is “very low,” despite reams of proof to the contrary, then it’s a GOP official in Kansas who casually refers to “n----r rigging” a home, or an Alaska congressman who uses the term “wetbacks” to refer to Hispanic migrant workers....
"...Indeed, it’s not at all hard to assemble a long list of these remarks (and subsequent apologies). On Wednesday, for instance, Rep. Steve King (R–Iowa) complained that “illegal aliens have invaded my D.C. office,” after a group of young immigrant activists came to protest his immigration stance. Even if you oppose comprehensive immigration reform, there’s no reason to reach for dehumanizing language.
My hunch is that the insensitive comments on sexual assault and racial slurs are a product of the GOP’s overwhelming homogeneity. It’s a political party dominated by a single demographic of people: older whites, with middle to high incomes, socially conservative beliefs, and a deep attachment to the America of the past. And more important, until the last five years the demographic has been a reliable source of election victories. While Democrats have had to build relationships with diverse communities of people to create a national majority, or something close to it, Republicans have been able to rely on their advantage with the American “mainstream” to win elections and hold power.
The mainstream is changing, but for all the talk of outreach and messaging, Republicans haven’t made an effort to change with it. Instead, the GOP has cloistered itself among its supporters, with an entire branch of the party—its congressional wing, more or less—operating in its own reality, where President Obama is an unpopular tyrant, his policies are bound to fail, and the public is eager to see Republicans return to prominence. This despite the GOP’s abysmally low approval rating among a large majority of Americans and Obama’s continued popularity.
In much the same way that a closed world, online and off, almost certainly enabled Tanner Flake to say offensive things without reprimand, the GOP’s lack of diversity has left it in a place where there’s no one to shame its lawmakers into silence or reflection. There was no one to tell Rand Paul that he would be ill-served by giving a lesson in black history to students at Howard University, just as there was no one to tell Todd Akin that he should educate himself about rape before talking about it.
If Republicans need diversity, it’s so they can stop making stupid claims about other people’s experiences. And once they climb that hurdle, they’ll be better placed to appeal to new groups of voters and win their support. It’s why we should hope for success for politicians like South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. A Republican Party that recruits and promotes minorities and others is one that can potentially learn to talk to them. And a GOP that can talk to all Americans, and not just their narrow demographic slice, is good for the country."
Happy Father's Day to everyone out there who isn't gay!!
President Barack Obama's approval rating dropped eight points from last month, according to a CNN poll released Monday.
The survey found that 45 percent of respondents approve of the president, while 54 percent disapprove. In mid-May, the numbers were essentially reversed -- 53 percent approved and 45 percent disapproved. Americans under 30 flipped by 17 points against Obama, according to the poll. Half of the respondents said they do not feel that he is honest and trustworthy -- a nine-point drop from last month.
The public disapproves of surveillance, and 43 percent of people think the administration has gone too far in sacrificing civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism, the CNN poll found. A recent HuffPost/YouGov poll found that 45 percent of Americans feel Obama is doing a poor job when it comes to protecting constitutional rights. The CNN poll found that 61 percent of people disapprove of surveillance efforts, while 35 percent said they approve.
The numbers suggest that the president's approval level has been damaged by the revelations that the NSA is surveilling Americans' phone and Internet activities, and the president's support for such programs.
people who voted for Obama are funny!!!
they probably sit around at night, looking in the mirror...
and slapping themselves silly!!
that's a nice big period for the end of the TTF era!!
Meanwhile, Romney voters....
"Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) warned that his party is facing a “demographic death spiral” that can only be stopped by comprehensive immigration reform, during a Sunday appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Graham, a member of the Senate “Gang of Eight” and arguably his party’s most vocal advocate for immigration reform, argued that the GOP is doomed to fail in the 2016 presidential election unless Congress passes the bill that he co-sponsored.
“[I]f we don’t pass immigration reform, if we don’t get it off the table in a reasonable, practical way, it doesn’t matter who you run in 2016,” Graham told host David Gregory. “We’re in a demographic death spiral as a party and the only way we can get back in good graces with the Hispanic community in my view is pass comprehensive immigration reform. If you don’t do that, it really doesn’t matter who we run in my view.”"
personally, I favor some type of immigration reform
but this new common wisdom that Hispanics hold veto power over Republican presidential is preposterous and has been debunked
models concluding this assume that voting patterns among different groups will be the same in the future as in 2012
unlikely
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
THANKS FOR REVEALING THE TRUTH, REP. CUMMINGS!
WASHINGTON -- In a rebuke to House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) has released the full transcript of a key interview with an IRS employee at the heart of the agency's scandal.
The 200-page transcript sheds additional light on the decision by the IRS to screen out tea party groups applying for tax-exempt status during the months and years leading up to the 2012 elections.
Republican and Democratic committee staffers interviewed IRS official John Shafer on June 6 about the agency's decision to scrutinize a tea party group's application for tax-exempt 501(c)(4) status. Shafer, who identified himself as "a conservative Republican" and said he'd worked for the IRS since 1992, said that he and a fellow screener initially flagged a tea party group and continued to do so with subsequent applications in order to maintain consistency in the process.
Throughout much of the interview, Shafer describes the mundane bureaucratic challenges of dealing with incoming applications for nonprofit status. He said his team flagged the first tea party application because it appeared to be a high-profile case, and he wanted to make sure all high-profile cases received similar attention.
"What I'm talking here is that if we end up with four applications coming into the group that are pretty similar, and we assign them to four different agents, we don't want four different determinations," he said. "It's just not good business. It's not good customer service."
Asked plainly, "do you have any reason to believe that anyone in the White House was involved in the decision to screen Tea Party cases?" Shafer replied, "I have no reason to believe that."
"Do you have any reason to believe that anyone in the White House was involved in the decisions to centralize the review of Tea Party cases?" he was asked. "I have no reason to believe that," he replied.
Asked if he had "ever communicated with [then IRS] Commissioner Shulman about the screening of Tea Party cases?" he replied, "I have not."
Interviewers also asked Shafer if he told his screeners to specifically pull Tea Party cases.
"Again, I was not asking them for those kind of cases," he said. "[I]f i would have directed them to pull our Tea Party cases, little Susie's Tea Party would have been pulled and it wasn't."
Read the transcript
Okay.
I am just going to make one quick comment addressing someone quoting a couple of my quotes and implying I have been inconsistent - because I do not believe I have.
I indicated that I was horrified at my brother's behavior and he should starve to death if he didn't get off his butt and start providing for his kids, I also expressed displeasure with the republicans voting for the farm bill (which includes funding for food stamps).... I have also in the past indicated that I am very very unhappy with the taxes taken from those who work to provide for those who choose not to...
and I have advocated personal responsibility and the govt getting out and letting you live with the consequences of your own behavior in all cases.
I have been very consistent.
but what I have come to realize recently is that my positions are not republican ones (I do not espouse a mccain or a graham position).... they are libertarian ones.
but I believe that my positions are quite consistent.
wanting to cut off foodstamps and saying my own brother should starve if he doesn't work is .... well, consistent.
you might not like it but is consistent. with an anti tax personal responsibility position.
Scandal: A D.C.-based supervisor in the IRS's tax-exempt status division has indicated during interviews with congressional investigators that the targeting was deliberate and not run by rogue agents in Cincinnati.
Holly Paz, who until recently was a top deputy in the IRS division that handles applications for tax-exempt status, told congressional investigators she was personally involved in reviewing Tea Party applications for tax-exempt status as far back as 2010, reviewing as many as 30.
The involvement of Paz thickens the plot considerably and shatters the theory that two rogue agents in Cincinnati got bored in their cubicles one day and decided to target for special scrutiny Tea Party and other conservative groups.
Paz's supervisor was Lois Lerner, who headed the tax-exempt division. It was on May 22, the day after Paz was interviewed by investigators, that Lerner refused to answer questions from lawmakers at a congressional hearing, citing her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself.
Was Lerner worried about what Paz had told investigators and that her testimony would contradict Paz's?
The full transcript of Paz's interview has not been released. Democrats say that's because the full transcript would reveal no vast left-wing conspiracy, with Elijah Cummings, a Democrat, proclaiming the investigation over.
But Chairman Darrell Issa says it's only just begun, with enough of the interview being released to demolish the big lie about Cincinnati without tipping off those being investigated.
By the fall of 2010, Carter Hull, an IRS legal expert in Washington, was working on about 40 Tea Party applications, Paz said. She added that for several months that year, Hull worked closely with Elizabeth Hofacre, one of the "rogue" agents in Cincinnati, to review the Tea Party cases. In Hofacre's interview, she complained that Hull micromanaged her work.
Paz, who gave $2,000 to Barack Obama's presidential campaign in 2008, was allowed to sit in on 36 of 41 interviews that the Inspector General's office conducted with IRS employees — an arrangement brokered by Paz and Lerner.
"I can't remember if I made the request or Lois Lerner made the request," Paz told congressional investigators. "But we discussed that in order for the IRS to be able respond to the report, we had to understand what information TIGTA (Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration) had and what they were being told."
It is unseemly and unusual for potential targets of an investigation to sit in on the investigation. If Paz and Lerner were not only orchestrating the Tea Party scrutiny but also monitoring the investigation of that action, were these among the things discussed when former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman made 157 visits to the White House?
Paz insists that when agents were told to target "tea party" groups, it was intended to be a generic term for politically active groups of all stripes. Paz said "tea party" could mean any political group, just like Coke is used as a generic term for soda, or people refer to tissues as Kleenex.
Not so, says highly supervised "rogue" agent Hofacre, who told investigators she kicked out any liberal groups that other agents tried to put in with the Tea Party cases. She said she understood the term to mean conservative or Republican groups. "I was tasked to do Tea Parties, and I wasn't ... equipped or set up to do anything else."
Indeed, a USA Today analysis of IRS data shows that dozens of liberal groups received tax-exempt approval in the 27 months that Tea Party groups sat in limbo, even though the liberal groups were engaging in similar activity.
The targeting of Tea Party groups formed by their opposition to ObamaCare by an Internal Revenue Service with the task of enforcing it is no accident and was directed from high in Washington, D.C.
The closing of Exodus and Alan Chambers' apology are truly significant events in the history of anti-lgbt politics.
Gallup Reports
"PRINCETON, NJ -- President Barack Obama's job approval rating thus far in 2013 has averaged 24 percentage points higher than Americans' satisfaction with the direction in which the country is going. This gap is typical for the Obama presidency, but represents a much greater presidential job approval premium than most other presidents since Ronald Reagan have enjoyed.
More specifically, so far this year, an average of 50% of Americans have approved of the job Obama is doing as president. At the same time, an average of 26% have been satisfied with the direction of the country. Similarly, since the start of his presidency in 2009, Obama's average job approval rating has been running 26 points higher than Americans' average level of satisfaction with the nation, and has ranged from 22 to 30 points higher each year.
By contrast, the average gap in approval vs. satisfaction for George W. Bush across the eight years of his presidency was 12 points. For Bill Clinton and for Ronald Reagan, it was 10 points. The only other president who consistently logged much higher job approval ratings than the prevailing level of U.S. satisfaction was George H.W. Bush during his one-term presidency from 1989-1993. However, even his average 21-point job approval premium falls short of Obama's.
Obama Much Better Rated Than Congress
Obama is also faring better than Congress in the court of public opinion, as his overall job approval rating averages 35 points higher in 2013 -- 50% vs. 15% -- and 30 points higher since 2009.
Obama's yawning advantage over Congress in popularity compares favorably with George W. Bush's 12-point lead between 2001 and 2008, an 18-point lead for Clinton from 1993 to 2000, and a 13-point lead for Reagan between 1981 and 1988 (with no congressional ratings in 1984 and 1985). In this case, however, George H.W. Bush's lead over Congress in job approval -- 39 points -- exceeds Obama's, a finding that can partly be attributed to Bush's surge in popularity around the time of the 1991 Gulf War.
Putting both comparisons together underscores the degree to which Obama is performing above par relative to Americans' satisfaction with the direction of the country, while, since 2012, Congress has actually performed below par.
The only other times Gallup found the president's job approval rating running 20 points or more above U.S. satisfaction, and congressional approval running significantly below it, were in 1990 and 1991. Unlike today, however, in those years, satisfaction with the country was in the 40s and George H.W. Bush's approval rating averaged 60% or better, while congressional approval lagged, possibly stemming from the "Keating Five" and House banking scandals.
Bottom Line
President Obama's job approval rating has been sagging of late, consistently registering below 50% in Gallup Daily tracking in June. Nevertheless, it is well above Americans' overall satisfaction with the direction of the country, now in the mid-20s, and remains far ahead of Congress' job rating. All of this suggests Obama does not receive the full brunt of Americans' blame for the nation's economy and other factors that may be contributing to their general dissatisfaction with the country's direction. Obama's "likability" could play a role, in that his favorable rating is averaging about five points higher than his approval rating, potentially lifting it. However, at 55%, his current favorable rating is not unusually high for recent sitting presidents. Perhaps more important may be Obama's ability to appear above the fray of the intense partisan debates that have defined Washington in recent years and that appear to be tarnishing the image of a politically divided Congress."
in other words, he's good at blaming others and evading responsibility
basically, he has succeeded in dumbing down the expectations of Americans for the presidency
people just don't expect much of him, so he hasn't disappointed
one other factor that is not generally considered is the historic nature of his presidency
simply put, most Americans want the first black President to succeed
I do too but wishing doesn't make it so, unfortunately
it's so telling that the second worst President of modern times, H.W., is also second in the popularity gap behind Obama
apparently the things you do to be popular don't make you a great President
a truth is most other arenas of life as well
thanks for the data
President Obama did not vote in the Gallup poll. The Gallup polling results include the opinions of US citizens. They are the ones who assign blame for the direction the nation is heading on Congress more so than on the President, and I'm sure if the data were collected and broken down, Congressional GOP obstructionism would be most poll respondent's number one reason for doing so.
The closing of Exodus and Chamber's apology are great news, indeed Robert!
Read Chamber's full statement of apology at:
http://exodusinternational.org/2013/06/i-am-sorry/
Excerpt:
"I am sorry for the pain and hurt that many of you have experienced. I am sorry some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt when your attractions didn’t change. I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatized parents.
I am sorry I didn’t stand up to people publicly “on my side” who called you names like sodomite — or worse. I am sorry that I, knowing some of you so well, failed to share publicly that the gay and lesbian people I know were every bit as capable of being amazing parents as the straight people that I know. I am sorry that when I celebrated a person coming to Christ and surrendering their sexuality to Him, I callously celebrated the end of relationships that broke your heart. I am sorry I have communicated that you and your families are less than me and mine.
More than anything, I am sorry that so many have interpreted this religious rejection by Christians as God’s rejection. I am profoundly sorry that many have walked away from their faith and that some have chosen to end their lives."
Cervical cancer vaccines cut rates of HPV infections: U.S.
"(Reuters) - The U.S. introduction of a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer in 2006 has reduced infections with the human papillomavirus or HPV - the sexually transmitted virus that causes the disease - by more than half among girls and young women, U.S. health officials said on Wednesday.
The results were better than expected and may even suggest that unvaccinated individuals are benefiting because of a drop in the number of infections circulating, the team reported in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
"This report shows that HPV works well, and the report should be a wake-up call to our nation to protect the next generation by increasing HPV vaccination rates," Dr Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a statement.
Frieden said only a third of U.S. girls aged 13-17 have been fully vaccinated with HPV vaccines, which include Merck's Gardasil and GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix.
That compares with far higher vaccination rates in other countries such as Rwanda, where more than 80 percent of teenage girls have been vaccinated.
"Our low vaccination rates represent 50,000 preventable tragedies - 50,000 girls alive today will develop cervical cancer over their lifetime that would have been prevented if we reach 80 percent vaccination rates," Frieden said.
In the study, a team led by the CDC's Dr. Lauri Markowitz used data from a large health survey to compare rates of infection with certain strains of the HPV virus among girls and women aged 14-19 in the four-year period before the introduction of the vaccine (2003-2006) and after its introduction (2007-2010).
The study largely reflects the impact of Merck's Gardasil. In 2006 it became the first HPV vaccine to win U.S. approval.
Gardasil protects against four HPV strains known to cause cervical cancer and genital warts. Glaxo's Cervarix won U.S. approval in 2009 and protects against two of the most common cancer-causing strains of HPV.
The researchers found the vaccine worked even better than expected, reducing by 56 percent the number of infections caused by strains of HPV covered by the vaccine among women and girls aged 14 to 19.
Markowitz said the higher than expected response rate could be the result of so-called "herd immunity," in which the vaccine is also reducing infections among those who are not vaccinated. Or it could mean that the vaccine was working even among women who had not received the full three doses, which included about 49 percent of women in the study.
The CDC recommends routine HPV vaccination for boys and girls at age 11-12. But only about half of all U.S. girls have gotten at least one of the three recommended shots, and far fewer boys have gotten the first dose of the vaccine.
According to the CDC, HPV infections cause about 19,000 cancers each year among women in the United States, of which cervical cancer is the most common. HPV infections also cause about 8,000 cancers a year in U.S. men, of which throat cancers are the most common"
And unlike what GOP Rep. Bachmann seems to believe, no evidence of the HPV vaccine causing mental retardation was found.
Breaking news:
Exodus International, the world's largest "exgay" organization is shutting down. Exodus was devoted to spreading the lie that people can change same sex sexual attractions into opposite sex sexual attractions. In 2012 the head of Exodus, Alan Chambers, admitted that he had never seen anyone change sexual orientation.
Yesterday the Exodus board of directors announced that they had taken a vote and decided to shutdown exodus due to all the harm it caused. Alan chambers issued a long and genuine apology for all the harm he had caused, the people who committed suicide due to Exodus, and for not being truthful about the fact that he has never stopped having same sex attractions.
Its clear American religious bigots have lost their war on innocent gays and lesbians although they will continue to fight pointless battles to avoid admitting their obvious defeat. The arc of history is long but it bends towards justice.
breaking news?
I guess a lazy person might think so
Chambers' interview aired last weekend and everyone here was alerted to it by a commenter last week
in all honesty, there is no documentation of "all the harm" caused
you mean stress or anxiety from trying to change their inclinations
why is this any different from Alcoholics Anonymous, Weight Watchers, or programs to stop smoking?
homosexuality is immoral and a sin according to every major world religion
those who venture into sin are always haunted by it, temptation will never go away in this life
homosexuality isn't in a different category
Alan Chambers himself doesn't appear to have suffered any harm
Maybe there is "no documentation of "all the harm" caused" by reparative therapy inside your bubble head, but there's plenty of evidence out here in the real world:
The Ex-Gay Survivor's Survey Results
Report of the American Psychological Association Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation
Psychologists Reject Gay ‘Therapy’
Changing sexual orientation: A consumers' report.
if is far more compassionate to teach folks to work and insist that they do so than to constantly hand them money.
it leads to better self esteem.
And we have a prime example of that on this blog.
It is hateful to hold a person in such disregard that you don't believe they are capable of working, or capable of supporting themselves.
To insist that they do support themselves is "tough love".
You do your children no favors but not insisting that they work.
The mother that allows her son to sit in the basement and does not force them out in the world is quite selfish and harms the child.
our Newton bomber is a great example.
It is far more difficult to force a child and help them with homework and help them with essays and encourage them and push them then it is to allow them to sit around and play video games.
The compassionate non hateful person is the one that takes the appropriate steps to teach someone to be self sufficient.
That is not hateful behavior. It is the far harder task.
Theresa
"The compassionate non hateful person is the one that takes the appropriate steps to teach someone to be self sufficient."
And what do you imagine you were "teaching" when you organized petition drives to overturn a law unanimously passed by the County Council to "prohibit discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, cable television service, and taxicab service on the basis of gender identity?"
Did you expect MoCo transfolk would be able to become "self-sufficient" because of your personal efforts to ensure they would continue to be legally discriminated against for employment and housing, cable and cabs?
Did you feel "compassionate" while you were doing all that petitioning work in your attempt to keep transgender county residents as legal targets for discrimination?
it was compassionate to the little kid in the changing room when a cross dresser comes in.
and it was compassionate to the cross dresser who sure as heck should find another hobby.
the intent was never to discriminate.
the bill did not have exclusions for the following things :
1) religious exemption
2) places of shared nudity
3) elementary schools, pre-schools and middle school teachers.
It still doesn't. my rights and my children's rights are trampled on my the gay and trans rights.
but I am straight, so I will always lose that battle.
It's unbelievable, and we will retire in Texas. and you can have this state.
PS .... we will take our estate with us.
it was compassionate to the little kid in the changing room when a cross dresser comes in.
What kid? Have you got an example of a kid in MoCo being in a changing room when a cross dresser came into the room and disrobed, exposing their private parts to any child?
No, actually. You don't.
You are simply spreading your own "hate and fear among the churches throughout the State of Maryland," which CRW has proudly done since the very beginning of the sex ed curriculum fight here in Montgomery County.
You and your fellow hate and fear spreaders were afraid of teaching 90 minutes of facts about sexual orientation in a multi-week class on Human Sexuality.
Fear isn't good for you, T. It's why you drink and post your SCREAMING ANGRY COMMENTS semi-regularly here in the comments sections on Vigilance.
You are not alone in spreading hate and fear, T. Far from it.
You should look what years of spreading hate and fear have done to the CRW's spokesperson, Don Dwyer.
"....Delegate Don Dwyer left court upset and not talking as his lawyer vowed to fight the 30-day jail sentence and $1,000 fine the judge gave him for operating his boat while drunk.
He collided with another boat on the Magothy River last August. Toxicology reports showed his blood alcohol content was three times the legal limit.
Anatasia Moore wept in court as she recounted what she called “nightmare” injuries her children suffered in the accident.
“It’s appalling. I’m appalled and I’m very hurt that when he apologized to the families, he looked straight at the judge and not once looked at us,” Moore said...."
Take Don Dwyer with you. He might turn out to be a fun drinking buddy for you in Texas.
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