Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Chick Fil-A CEO Changes His Tune

This is just a heartwarming story, all the way around. You remember a couple of years ago when Chick Fil-A was donating millions of dollars to anti-gay causes. When gay people complained, straight people lined up around the block to demonstrate their support for the homophobic restaurant chain. I think a lot of them thought it was funny. It was an eye-opener for a lot of gay people, when they saw their friends and family and neighbors cheerfully denouncing them.

This just in: the CEO has changed his mind.
March. 18 (UPI) -- Two years after making headlines by publicly opposing gay marriage, Dan Cathy, CEO of Chick-fil-A, admits it was a mistake for he and his company to take a position on the issue.

“Every leader goes through different phases of maturity, growth and development and it helps by (recognizing) the mistakes that you make,” Cathy said. “And you learn from those mistakes. If not, you’re just a fool. I’m thankful that I lived through it and I learned a lot from it. Chick-fil-A CEO admits it was a 'mistake' to oppose same-sex marriage
I have the feeling the guy still doesn't like gay people marrying each other, but you know what -- that doesn't bother me in the least. There are lots of things I don't like, too, and my friends have to hear me complain about them. It doesn't mean I am contributing money to oppose, say, people who don't pull out into the intersection to turn left, and so everybody behind them gets stuck at the red light.
In an interview with Leon Stafford for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Cathy doesn’t apologize for his previous public stance against gay marriage and, in fact, confirms that his personal position on same-sex marriage remains unchanged.

“I think the time of truths and principles are captured and codified in God’s word and I’m just personally committed to that,” he said. “I know others feel very different from that and I respect their opinion and I hope that they would be respectful of mine.”
That is almost frighteningly reasonable-sounding, coming from him. Is he up to something?

It is not unusual for a CEO or monkey-monk somewhere to hold conservative or bigoted views. If you boycotted every place that had an, er, a jerk running the company you would have a really hard time shopping for anything.

The problem was that Chick Fil-A gave more than five million dollars to anti-gay groups during the first decade of the twenty-first century. The company itself was funding hate groups, pray-the-gay-away organizations, and anti-gay groups of many sorts.
Rather, Cathy concedes that his public opposition of gay marriage was bad for business.

“Consumers want to do business with brands that they can interface with, that they can relate with,” Cathy said. “And it’s probably very wise from our standpoint to make sure that we present our brand in a compelling way that the consumer can relate to.”
How about that for a good idea? If you sell chicken sandwiches, then use your corporate money to sell chicken sandwiches, not to promote discrimination against one part of your possible customer base.

And I remember seeing a number of gay bloggers and writers going, oh, man, and I liked those sandwiches. I have never had one, but apparently they are addictive. It's tough when you have to boycott something you like, but you just can't give your money to somebody who is going to use it to make your life miserable.
Cathy was also in the news for a controversial tweet lamenting the Supreme Court's decision to strike down DOMA as a “sad day” for our country.

When asked his thoughts about the continuing gay marriage debate and surrounding legislation, Cathy said, “I think that’s a political debate that’s going to rage on and the wiser thing for us to do is to stay focused on customer service.”

Even though Cathy has admitted it was a mistake to conflate his personal beliefs with business, Chick-fil-A will remain the only major fast food chain that isn’t open for business on Sundays.
It is not important if somebody doesn't like some group of people, they are free to feel that way. And if they want to get vocal about it, well people who disagree with them will probably try to stop them, and so it goes. If they begin investing money in hateful activities then their victims are compelled to try to stop them, they have to stand up for themselves. So this guy created his own problems.

It is smart for him, as a businessman, to concentrate on business. He might not recognize that gay people can love one another and that their families are just like his family, but he doesn't need to spend millions of dollars opposing his own potential customers. Especially if he's smart enough to realize he is going to lose in the long run.

95 Comments:

Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The company tried to extricate itself from the controversy by repeatedly asserting it does not discriminate against customers or employees on the basis of sexual orientation.

“Probably the elements that were stressful for me most is from our internal staff and from operators and how this may be affecting them,” he said. “The bottom line is we have a responsibility here to keep the whole of the organization in mind and it has to take precedence over the personal expression and opinion on social issues.”


Cathay realized there's no such thing as "hate the sin, love the sinner". Gayness is a core aspect of who a person is. If you hate gayness you hate the gay.

March 19, 2014 12:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The company tried to extricate itself from the controversy by repeatedly asserting it does not discriminate against customers or employees on the basis of sexual orientation."

it is obvious that Chik-Fil-A never discriminated against homosexuals in either employment or service

indeed, when homosexuals tried to have a "kiss-in" to protest, and few attended, Chik-Fil-A employees brought out free drinks to the homosexuals standing in the hot sun to protest

Cathay's big "offense" was to support organizations that opposed the redefinition of marriage to include same gender relationships

homosexual advocates badly misjudged that they could categorize that viewpoint as hateful and ostracize and banish those who hold that viewpoint

Americans made clear then and later in the Duck Dynasty controversy that they will not endorse this categorization by homosexual advocates

"“Probably the elements that were stressful for me most is from our internal staff and from operators and how this may be affecting them,” he said. “The bottom line is we have a responsibility here to keep the whole of the organization in mind and it has to take precedence over the personal expression and opinion on social issues.”"

simply saying he should leave the company out of the controversy and speak in an individual capacity

"Cathay realized there's no such thing as "hate the sin, love the sinner"."

I don't see anything Cathay said that would support this stupid statement by lazy Priya

"Gayness is a core aspect of who a person is."

this is a hedonistic viewpoint and few would agree

"If you hate gayness you hate the gay."

if you hate gluttony, you hate the glutton?

if you hate drug addiction, you hate the drug addict?

If you hate drunkenness, you hate the drunk?

you don't really think before you type, do you?

March 19, 2014 1:03 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The company tried to extricate itself from the controversy by repeatedly asserting it does not discriminate against customers or employees on the basis of sexual orientation."

it is obvious that Chik-Fil-A never discriminated against homosexuals in either employment or service

indeed, when homosexuals tried to have a "kiss-in" to protest, and few attended, Chik-Fil-A employees brought out free drinks to the homosexuals standing in the hot sun to protest

Cathay's big "offense" was to support organizations that opposed the redefinition of marriage to include same gender relationships

homosexual advocates badly misjudged that they could categorize that viewpoint as hateful and ostracize and banish those who hold that viewpoint

Americans made clear then and later in the Duck Dynasty controversy that they will not endorse this categorization by homosexual advocates

"“Probably the elements that were stressful for me most is from our internal staff and from operators and how this may be affecting them,” he said. “The bottom line is we have a responsibility here to keep the whole of the organization in mind and it has to take precedence over the personal expression and opinion on social issues.”"

simply saying he should leave the company out of the controversy and speak in an individual capacity

"Cathay realized there's no such thing as "hate the sin, love the sinner"."

I don't see anything Cathay said that would support this stupid statement by lazy Priya

"Gayness is a core aspect of who a person is."

this is a hedonistic viewpoint and few would agree

"If you hate gayness you hate the gay."

if you hate gluttony, you hate the glutton?

if you hate drug addiction, you hate the drug addict?

If you hate drunkenness, you hate the drunk?

you don't really think before you type, do you?

March 19, 2014 1:03 PM  
Anonymous When will they ever learn? said...

"An Arkansas school is being fiercely criticized for its decision to ban a yearbook profile of an openly gay student. The superintendent of the school district has responded to calls to reinstate the story by calling censorship “consistent with the mission of our school,” while the principal has said that keeping the profile out of the yearbook will prevent bullying.

As John Lyon at the Arkansas News Bureau reports, Sheridan High School cut seven student profiles in the yearbook after officials learned that a profile on high school junior Taylor Ellis, written by a fellow classmate and yearbook editor Hannah Bruner, addressed Ellis’ coming-out story and experiences with his fellow students.

It was a decision that shocked Brunner and Ellis, particularly because the profile was so positive.

“I personally I do not think there’s a risk of that because everyone in the school already knows. It’s not a secret,” Bruner told KLRT. “He did come out last year and he did it over a social networking site so everyone knows already, and the story, like I said, is talking about how accepting everyone has been toward him.”

Ellis also wants his story in the yearbook. “I think that it’s a good thing for people like me to see that it’s OK to be openly gay in school,” he said. “[The principal] said that it was personal, but it’s really not that personal because everybody knows. It’s not that big of a deal. … It’s just showing other people that it’s OK to be who you are.”

Superintendent Brenda Haynes defended the decision to censor Ellis’ story as leading the school in the “proper direction.”

ADVERTISEMENT
“We must make decisions that lead in the proper direction for all of our students and for our community,” Haynes said in a Tuesday statement. “We must not make decisions based on demands by any special interest group. The seven profiles will not be published in the yearbook.” Haynes also called censoring the profile “consistent with the mission of our school.”

Ellis doesn’t see it that way. “It’s not something I’m ashamed of,” he said. “In fact, I’m proud of who I am. That’s why I can’t understand why my school was trying to force me back into the closet.”"

March 19, 2014 3:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't see any difference between the statements Cathy was making then and the statements Cathy is making now...

sounds pretty similar.



and chick fil-a was packed that day, had to wait 45 minutes for lunch.

which we did.
happily !

March 19, 2014 6:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

the difference is Boston's Mayor and Chicago's mayor got a lesson in free speech back then...

unbelievable the statements they were making...

you can't have a building permit, etc, etc.

wow talk about an overbearing intrusive govt. kind of like the cake shop ...

March 19, 2014 6:35 PM  
Anonymous Bassackwards, as usual said...

"I don't see any difference between the statements Cathy was making then and the statements Cathy is making now...

...the difference is Boston's Mayor and Chicago's mayor got a lesson in free speech"


Oh brother.

You *are* delusional!

It's ChikFilA CEO Cathy who finally learned the lesson in how not to offend potential customers you want to come into your stores to buy your sandwiches.

Unlike ignorant you, successful businessman, ChikFilA CEO Cathy wants to grow his business in gay friendly cities like Boston and Chicago so he has decided to step out of the funding hate groups sideline he used to allow himself to engage in.

ChikFilA CEO Cathy is now eating crow.

The Atlantic Journal-Constitution reports:

"...Pasadena City College in California recently opposed Chick-fil-A’s plans for a location near campus because of concerns the chain contributes to “anti-gay” groups.

For Cathy, who is in a cutthroat business where no player can afford alienating market segments, the lingering identity is troubling.

“Consumers want to do business with brands that they can interface with, that they can relate with,” Cathy said. “And it’s probably very wise from our standpoint to make sure that we present our brand in a compelling way that the consumer can relate to.”

For Cathy, there is lots to talk about other than gay marriage.

Chick-fil-A, like a lot of fast-food companies, is being forced by an increasingly better-educated consumer to review every aspect of its menu, from calorie counts to genetically modified ingredients to where it gets its chicken. Bowing to changing consumer tastes, it set a goal last month to serve chicken raised without antibiotics at all stores nationwide within five years.

And Burger brands such as McDonald’s are developing more chicken products to capture market share among Americans who see poultry as a healthier alternative.

The company is one of the most successful in the industry, with sales in 2012 of $4.6 billion. To maintain growth, Chick-fil-A wants to move beyond its Bible Belt base into northeast and midwest cities such as New York, Boston and Chicago.

...Cathy said he decided to step back from the gay marriage debate after prayer and conversations with co-workers and friends, including Shane Windmeyer, a gay supporter of marriage equality who helped Cathy understand why marriage was important to the gay community.

...Asked his thoughts on legislation proposed in several states, including Georgia, that would allow people of faith to refuse service to some customers because of their religious beliefs — laws that opponents say are designed to allow discrimination against gays — Cathy demurred.

“I think that’s a political debate that’s going to rage on,” he said. “And the wiser thing for us to do is to stay focused on customer service”"

March 19, 2014 9:33 PM  
Anonymous Robert said...

Tolerance is good business, and the business of America is business.

March 20, 2014 7:58 AM  
Anonymous Demographics said...

Fred Phelps’ Death Won’t End Anti-Gay Hate, But Luckily the Tide Is Already Changing

"Being a Kansas native and general supporter of progressive causes, my social media platforms are a-buzz with news of Fred Phelps’ impending demise. That’s right. THE Fred Phelps of the homophobic, funeral-picketing Westboro Baptist Church.

The church spokesperson hasn’t confirmed anything, but Nathan Phelps, the elder Phelps’ estranged son, made a statement on Facebook:

'I’ve learned that my father, Fred Phelps, Sr., pastor of the “God Hates Fags” Westboro Baptist Church, was ex-communicated from the “church” back in August of 2013. He is now on the edge of death at Midland Hospice house in Topeka, Kansas.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. Terribly ironic that his devotion to his god ends this way. Destroyed by the monster he made.

I feel sad for all the hurt he’s caused so many. I feel sad for those who will lose the grandfather and father they loved. And I’m bitterly angry that my family is blocking the family members who left from seeing him, and saying their good-byes.'

When it all came out, my Facebook feed kind of exploded with suppressed glee. Or at least ambivalence. Which is understandable. Fred Phelps and the WBC has become a symbol of pure hate and a point of embarrassment for Kansas progressives. And it’s not as if the WBC will go away when Fred Phelps dies. Nothing will really change.

However, even if the death of an 80-year-old man isn’t exactly groundbreaking news, the death of avowed homophobes is notable. It serves as a reminder that things are, indeed, changing.

Despite the impression that prominent members of the Republican party make, support for LGBT rights isn’t just the domain of the political left anymore, especially among the young. A recent Pew poll bears that out.

Democrats are still way more likely to support same-sex marriage. Seventy-seven percent of Democrats 18-29 support marriage equality, but it’s also high for the 65+ set; in that case, support dips but is around 62 percent. Republican support for marriage equality is predictably weaker. Of Republicans 65 and older, only 22 percent support marriage equality. But, among 18-29-year-olds, that support jumps to 61 percent. That is also much higher than the Republican party as a whole. And it’s not just marriage equality. According to the Pew Research Center:


'The relative liberalism of young Republicans on issues of homosexuality goes beyond their support for gay marriage. Just 18% of Republicans under 30 say “more gay and lesbian couples raising children” is a bad thing for American society, while 26% say it is a good thing (56% either say it doesn’t make a difference or they don’t know). By comparison, majorities or pluralities of older Republicans say this trend is a bad thing for society.'

This isn’t really something we didn’t already know. We know that, generally, young people are more supportive of marriage equality than older people. But this is a party that a decade ago thought that a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality was a political winner. Now it’s becoming clear that the future of the Republican party will be gay-friendly, at least relative to what it is today.

As callus as it may be, this is what I think of when I hear of the ill-health of powerful homophobes. Anti-LGBT bigotry is still a real problem, but the generation gap on this issue is also a real reason to hope for a better future."

March 20, 2014 8:40 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Tolerance is good business, and the business of America is business"

as I've tried to explain to you before, Robert, discrimination laws are superfluous in a capitalist society

and superfluous laws are, by definition, evil

March 20, 2014 11:29 AM  
Anonymous Robert said...

I don't know, China is a capitalist society, the South Africa of apartheid was a capitalist society. You could argue that the American South of the Jim Crow was a feudalistic society, that I would buy.

Capitalism can be dysfunctional, as can democracy. Unfettered power in the hands of the wealthy is, in my opinion, not the best way to run the world. Didn't Jesus say that?

Still, I would wish folks wouldn't sue about cakes.

rrjr

March 20, 2014 12:18 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

I said "Gayness is a core aspect of who a person is."

Bad anonymous said "this is a hedonistic viewpoint and few would agree".

Nonsense. There is nothing hedonistic about recognizing that who we are attracted to is a fundamental aspect of our personality and one of the central features of who we are. The vast majority of people would agree that who they are attracted to is one of the most important aspects of their lives as it dictates who will eventually become their special someone - something virtually universally acknowledged to be one of, if not the most important things in a person's life.


Bad anonymous said "if you hate gluttony, you hate the glutton? if you hate drug addiction, you hate the drug addict? If you hate drunkenness, you hate the drunk?".

Yes, yes, and yes. Actions are not divorced from who we are as people. If you hate a person's actions then it necessarily follows you hate (at least part of) that person. When what you hate is a core aspect of who a person is, such as their sexual orientation, you hate that person at a fundamental level.

Bad anonymous said "as I've tried to explain to you before, Robert, discrimination laws are superfluous in a capitalist society".

Nonsense. If such laws are superfluous then there is no harm whatsoever in having them. You only oppose them because they mean gays and lesbians will be treated equally and you are opposed to justice and fairness. As we've seen from history, if people are allowed to discriminate it will inevitably lead to situations that are virtually, if not totally intolerable for the victim in many instances.

If discrmination against gays is permitted it will certainly lead to situations in small towns where there is only one supplier of a critical service and that person will refuse to do business with a gay person thus putting the victim in a terrible situation where he or she must go far out of their way to get a necessary service, or may not even be able to get it as he or she doesn't own a car or cannot afford to travel. This is not a case of "if" such situations will occur, its a case of when they will occurr.

Bad anonymous is too self-centred to see that not everyone lives in an area where there are multiple choices for every service.

If the public grants you the ability to own your own business you are morally (and hopefully legally) obligated to serve all of the public. If you don't like following the rules required to operate a business you are welcome to get out of business and do something that doesn't require you to deal with the unwashed masses.

These business owners are not they themselves reaquired to engage in sex they find immoral or to be limited to only marrying a same sex partner. Their complaint is that it is immoral for others to do so. Therefore the restriction on their freedom is trivial or inconsequential and does not in any way interfere with their religious beliefs or practice of religion.

As Anton Scalia, the hero of the religious right, says:

“Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. … Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.”

“To make an individual’s obligation to obey such a law contingent upon the law’s coincidence with his religious beliefs, except where the State’s interest is “compelling” — permitting him, by virtue of his beliefs, “to become a law unto himself,” Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. at 167 — contradicts both constitutional tradition and common sense.”

Robert, if I go to a bakery and they won't bake me a cake because I'm transgendered, you're damn right I'm going to sue - its the right thing to do.

March 20, 2014 12:56 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Psychologist John Gonsiorek noted that those who seek to oppress gays often attempt to “re-pathologize” homosexuality by making the following argument: Because certain subsets of the lesbian and gay population have higher rates of certain problems, it must mean there’s inherent pathology.

In response to this ploy, Gonsiorek notes that: “In reality, every group that is treated as second class has higher rates of both mental and physical health problems. If you treat people badly, they get messed up. You don’t need a PhD to figure that out. Yet we don’t say that women are inherently pathological because they have a higher rate of depression and eating disorders. Neither do we say that Native Americans are inherently pathological because they have higher rates of alcoholism.”

The “real issue,” says Gonsiorek, “is that if you can find anyone at all in the given population who is not pathological, then that disproves that the group is pathological. If you have a 20 percent higher base rate of a particular problem within a population, and if there are people within that population for whom that particular problem is not an issue, than it’s clear that something else is going on other than inherent pathology.”

Some "ex-gay" "therapists" insist that in recommending and/or offering conversion or reparative therapy they are merely giving people a choice as consumers to meet their personal health goals. This argument, says Gonsiorek is “specious and borders on malpractice.” Healthcare providers, he insists, “should not just do what consumers want but offer services that are based on established standards of care. And if the consumer wants something that is flakey, the answer is ‘No.’ To give them what’s flakey is malpractice.

Gonsiorek also noted an “obvious sexism associated with the ex-gay movement.” “Most of the change efforts are focused on men,” he says. “Women are not so important to the "ex-gay" ministers and "therapists".”

March 20, 2014 1:21 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

March 20, 2014 1:22 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

And there is yet another issue: If women marry supposedly ex-gay men and the marriage fails, it’s these women and any children produced by the marriage that suffer. The Regnerus study which was undertaken to show that the parents of gay children didn't do as well ironically didn't show that, but showed it is the children of heterosexuals who marry gays or lesbians who do poorly. “There’s a lot of this type of ‘collateral damage,’” says Gonsiorek, “but it’s rarely talked about by NARTH and the wider "ex-gay" establishment.”

Exploring the issue further, Gonsiorek noted that: “What often happens with people who are maneuvered into reparative therapy is that they’ve been trashed for years by churches and communities – even by their own families. As a result, they’re often depressed and anxious. That’s what the problem is, and that’s what requires treatment. So the "reparative" "therapy" is often done instead of what needs to be done – which is to undo the damage caused by harassment, ostracism, and disparagement.”

One psychologist offered the following insight: “The repression of sexual desire actually makes the idea of acting them out more titillating, makes a person more likely to think sexual thoughts. For those struggling to suppress their homosexual feelings, this repression actually leads to an increase in the acting out of unsafe sexual behaviors – behaviors that might not occur if they were more accepting of their homosexuality.”

One young man interviewed confirmed this, saying that: “I never really dated anyone – male or female – until I made the choice to accept my sexuality.” That acceptance allowed him to start dating, an experience that he describes as “fantastic.” “I was no longer meeting men in dark places having anonymous sex,” he said, “but actually having a relationship for the first time.”

Contrary to the oft-asserted claim of anti-gay christianists, promiscuity doesn't go hand in hand with gayness, its the rejection of one's sexuality that usually causes the promiscuity and anonymous sex. Those who positively accept their sexuality are happier and better adjusted than those who do not.

March 20, 2014 1:26 PM  
Anonymous Amen! said...

"Fred Phelps Sr., the 84-year-old founder of noted hate group the Westboro Baptist Church, died late Wednesday night, according to his son.

Phelps’ rabid homophobia inflicted a lot of pain and anguish on a lot of people. And despite reports that he was ex-communicated by his own children for advocating “kindness” in the years before he died, he never made public amends for the hate that he made his life’s work."

March 20, 2014 2:16 PM  
Anonymous I'm with the 71% said...

Poll: Most Md. Residents Support Transgender Rights Bill

"A new poll found that Maryland residents overwhelmingly support a proposed bill that would ban discrimination against transgender individuals.

The Goucher Poll, conducted by the politics center at Goucher College, found that 71 percent of those surveyed supported legislation that would include gender identity in Maryland's anti-discrimination laws, reports The Baltimore Sun. Of those, 39 percent strongly supported the legislation.

Twenty percent of respondents were opposed.

The bill, dubbed the Fairness for All Marylanders Act, was approved by Maryland's Senate earlier this month and is under consideration by the House of Delegates.

The legislation bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and sexual identity but includes an exemption for religious groups, educational institutions, private clubs, small businesses and ­owner-occupied rentals with five or fewer units, reports The Washington Post.

It defines gender in terms of a person’s consistent and sincere expression of sexual identity based on appearance, expression or behavior, regardless of biological sex at birth.

Three-quarters of Maryland women support the bill (75 percent in favor to 16 percent opposed), while two-thirds of Maryland men support it (67 percent in favor to 24 percent opposed), according to MetroWeekly.com. The measure also enjoys bipartisan support, with Republicans supporting it by a 60-27 spread, Democrats supporting it by a 79-15 spread, and independents supporting it by a 68-23 spread..."

March 21, 2014 8:11 AM  
Anonymous "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" said...

Judge rules against creationist teacher who called Buddhist student’s faith ‘stupid’

"The parents of a Buddhist student in Louisiana ridiculed by a creationist teacher won their lawsuit against the school district, the American Civil Liberties Union revealed Friday.

The student, known as C.C., was asked by sixth-grade teacher Rita Roark to answer the following question on a test: “ISN’T IT AMAZING WHAT THE _____________ HAS MADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” When C.C. failed to respond “Lord,” Roark responded “you’re stupid if you don’t believe in God.” She also frequently denigrated his Buddhist faith, as well as the Hindu faith, referring to both as “stupid.”

When his parents complained to Sabine Parish Superintendent Sara Ebarb, they were told that “this is the Bible belt,” so they should expect to find the Christian God in the classroom. Ebarb advised them that if they wanted an ungodly classroom, they should transfer C.C. to a school where “there are more Asians.”

Judge Elizabeth Foote of the U.S. District Court, Western District of Louisiana sided with C.C. and his parents, citing that Roark’s behavior — and the school’s decision to defend it — clearly violated “the Free Exercise and Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.”

With regard to the specific behavior of Roark, Judge Foot wrote that “[t]he District and School Board are permanently enjoined from permitting School Officials at any school within the School District to promote their personal religious beliefs to students in class or during or in conjunction with a School Event.” Furthermore, “School Officials shall not denigrate any particular faith, or lack thereof, or single out any student for disfavor or criticism because of his or her particular faith or religious belief, or lack thereof.”

She also ordered that all members of the school board, as well as all faculty — both current and incoming — be trained by an attorney approved by the ACLU and the ACLU of Louisiana as to their responsibilities with respect to the First Amendment. The training will emphasize the “the psychological and developmental impact of religious discrimination on students.”"

March 21, 2014 8:33 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Australia's largest "ex-gay" organization to close.

Living Waters, has announced it will close its doors, partially due to lack of interest.

‘For the last fifteen years "ex-gay" "ministries" have been in decline in this country,’ Venn-Brown, a former Pentecostal pastor and ‘ex-gay’ therapy survivor, told GSN.

‘Living Waters Australia (LWA) closure means we are near the end. The tipping point was reached some time ago but some of these organizations have been flapping and floundering, refusing to go under. What is particularly significant is that LWA has been one of Australia’s most prominent and long lasting organizations. In many ways LWA’s closure is equivalent to Exodus International in the US shutting down last year.’

March 21, 2014 11:43 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Judge rules against creationist teacher who called Buddhist student’s faith ‘stupid’"

this reminds of when the judge ruled against the TTF curriculum that ridiculed Baptists

the county had to rewrite their whole curriculum because of the Fishback constitutional violations

btw, the Buddhist religion is based on achieving enlightenment by eschewing sensual pleasures

doesn't TTF think that is stupid?

lazy priya, the ultimate TTFer, thinks your lusts define you

March 21, 2014 2:20 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bad anonymous pretends to think who they are attracted to is unimportant to people.

No one believes you bad anonymous, not even you believe you.

March 21, 2014 2:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Bad anonymous pretends to think who they are attracted to is unimportant to people.

No one believes you bad anonymous, not even you believe you."

it's not a matter of attraction

it's a matter of sexual attraction

that's what homosex is and you have said you think it defines people

rational people don't

one can be attracted to people without sexual desire

it's the sexual desire for someone of the same gender that is homosex, and it's a deviance from which a person who experiences it needs deliverance

it's not their identity

March 21, 2014 3:35 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

" judge ruled against the TTF curriculum that ridiculed Baptists"

A single brochure about different religions' views of homosexuality was not part of the curriculum. It was a hand-out available to teachers.

The word "Baptists" did not appear in the actual curriculum.

Easy enough to check. You know how to use Alt F, don't you?

http://www.teachthefacts.org/Grade8_Field_Test_Revised.pdf

http://www.teachthefacts.org/Grade_10_Field_Test_Revised.pdf

Nine years ago, way back In 2005, here's what Judge Williams granted the homophobes:

"It is in the public interest for the Court to guard against any chipping away at Plaintiffs’ First Amendment freedoms, particularly where Plaintiffs have shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits. As such, for the aforementioned reasons, the Court will grant Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order [2]."

Judge Williams' decision was wrong.

That 2005 TRO Judge Williams granted was the homophobes' only win, ever.

That "strong likelihood of success" Judge Williams saw did not exist.

Every other Maryland court, board, and committee the homophobes have brought legal action against MCPS in their efforts to overturn the inclusive and medically accurate sex education curriculum ruled against the homophobes and in favor of MCPS.

In 2008, the highest court in Maryland ruled against the homophobes after they morphed into shower nuts in their effort to rescind the unanimous vote of the Montgomery County Council's addition of Gender Identity and Expression to MoCo's non-discrimination law.

The State of Maryland is poised to enact similar non-discrimination protections on a statewide basis.

Personally, I hope the homophobes sue again so they will continue to waste their money on their post-2005 losing streak.

March 21, 2014 5:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

2005 was a long time ago.

Progress marches forward

Michigan Gay Marriage Ban Ruled Unconstitutional By Federal Judge

March 21, 2014 5:40 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

bad anonymous said "it's not a matter of attraction it's a matter of sexual attraction".

Nonsense. Not all attraction is sexual and there is nothing wrong with attraction that is sexual. You obviously think your gayness is something to be ashamed of and that's why you're still single. You need to get over your sexual hangups and start accepting yourself. Then you won't feel the need to hide your sexuality and pursue self-loathing promiscuous and anonymous sex. You can then start dating and feeling fulfilled and secure rather than ashamed.

Bad anonymous said "that's what homosex is and you have said you think it defines people rational people don't".

That's what hetero sex is. There is no difference between heterosexuality or gayness in terms of attractions. If you hold that gayness is only about sexual attraction then it necessarily follows that heterosexuality is only about sexual attraction and hedonism. I never said only one's sexual orientation defines a person, I said it is a core aspect of a person and virtually everyone agrees with that. Virtually everyone acknowledges that one of the most important, if not the most important, facets of their lives is who they are attracted to. That is never a trivial thing for anyone that can be casually discarded as you so absurdly suggest.

Bad aonymous said "one can be attracted to people without sexual desire".

I never said they couldn't - you did.

Bad anonymous said "it's the sexual desire for someone of the same gender that is homosex, and it's a deviance from which a person who experiences it needs deliverance".

Then it necessarily follows that heterosexuality is only sexual desire for the opposite sex. As gayness harms no one, no one needs "deliverance" from it. All major mental and physical health organizations agree that gayness is a normal, natural, and healthy variant for a minority of the population. There is no difference in the way gays relate to their same sex partner than there is in the way a heterosexual relates to their opposite sex partner. Gayness and heterosexuality are equals in the same way that men and women are equals.

Bad aonymous said "it's not their identity".

Just as virtually every heterosexual acknowledges who they are attracgted to is central to who they are, virtually every gay or lesbian acknowledges who they are attracted to is central to who they are.

If who we are attracted to wasn't a core aspect of who we are no one would seek to marry and by doing so declare "This is the most important relationship in my life, all others are secondary."

My husband has brought me an overflowing bounty of happiness, I've never been happier in my entire life, I often literally jump for joy. To suggest that my attraction to him isn't a core aspect of who I am is insanity. To suggest our relationship is defined by lust any more than any other heterosexual couple's relationship is is beyond stupid. If you hate my deep and complex attraction to my husband then you hate the core of my being - the two cannot be seperated.

Just because your self-loathing drives you to frequent anonymous sexual encounters with other men doesn't mean everyone feels the same as you. As we discussed earlier, those "ex-gays" who came to accept their sexual orientation stopped feeling the need for such empty sexual encounters and started dating and feeling fullfilled for the first time in their lives. You should give it a try/

March 21, 2014 6:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

so, what the MD bill doesn't include is an exemption for places of shared nudity.

I haven't delved into it, but Virginia's recently passed law (which I have been searching for a link on line too) specifically says that unless someone has had a sex change operation they cannot enter places of shared nudity.... ie, highschool gyms and showers.

But I did call my Allstate agent today and asked if I had my son claim he was female if I could get the rates that were previously offered to my "good student" females. Hey, 200.00 difference every 6 months for the next 3 years is the difference between what I paid for my daughters insurance and what I am now paying for my sons insurance. so that's what, 1200 in expense over the next 3 years ?

No worries, my son said "no way am I doing this mom" though it does make a very interesting test case doesn't it ?

MD charges a very very different rate on young drivers when the driver is under I think 25, and it is based on sex. If you change the definition of sex, what does that do to your ability to charge males more than females ?

can you challenge it ?

Does that mean I am spoiling him Priya ? No, he works as a lifeguard and counselor and teaches swimming during the summer, and given that he 6'1 and 180 lbs and in perfect shape, well he could actually save someone out of the ocean, not just the pool. I could digress into the idiocy of having different rules for females and males in combat ... ie, pull yourself out of ditch, number of pull-ups, etc. complete craziness.



March 21, 2014 9:51 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

oh and my insurance bill is 1600 every six months.
or 3800 a year, to support 5 working and productive adults.
and outrageous inflated teenage male driver teenage rates... (he's 1100 of that 3800 bill for liability only on a very old car).


and you know what, having raised teenage boys and teenage girls, I don't disagree with their actuaries.

He should cost more. He has always been fearless where the girls are cautious, and there is a complete difference between my male children and my female children. He takes more risks. In general, men do....

So, how does your gender bill hit those concerns ?


what is to prevent Marylanders by the score from claiming this ?

So, when you add transgenders to the insurance model, does that automatically mean

actually it is kind of funny.
you can't advertise for a male or a female roommate in college park because you are then discriminating against sex.

UDM roommate finder will not allow this as a selection criteria.

but md insurance most definitely adds sex as a criteria.

my 20 year old female liability only policy is more than 1/2 less than the same policy for my 18 year old son.

Yes, Priya, I shouldn't be paying for either. But I will launch them, because my parents launched me....

Just because your parents didn't pay for your college, does that mean you think that all parents shouldn't cover their kids education ?

what are you working for, if not to see that your children and grandchildren have a better life than you do ? and I though I can

March 21, 2014 10:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sorry stupid question.

If you WERE working, wouldn't you be working for your children ?

Or is it because your parents NEVER provided for you, that you are determined, like Obama, to collapse the US with profligate spending ?

Because you never undersood the value of working for yourself ????
(well that's a stupid question).

Theresa

March 21, 2014 10:57 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nice bender!

March 22, 2014 8:09 AM  
Anonymous KKK Christians said...

KKK Leader Disputes Hate Group Label: 'We're A Christian Organization'

"The leader of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is tired of “a few rogue Klansmen” ruining the group’s reputation, and argues that the group is a non-violent Christian organization.

“We don’t hate people because of their race, I mean, we’re a Christian organization,” Frank Ancona, the group's Imperial Wizard, told Virginia's NBC 12 on Thursday. "Because of the acts of a few rogue Klansmen, all Klansmen are supposed to be murderers, and wanting to lynch black people, and we're supposed to be terrorists. That's a complete falsehood.”

Ancona’s group has come under fire from residents of Chesterfield County, Va., about 20 miles south of Richmond, for distributing KKK recruitment fliers in people's yards since January.

"We picked ours up out of our driveway and threw it in the trash," Sarah Peachee told NBC 12. "We weren't interested in even reading about it."

Ancona defended the strategy, however, citing a boom in KKK membership across the country since 2008. [GOLLY. WHAT HAPPENED IN 2008 TO PRECIPITATE BOOMING MEMBERSHIP IN THE KKK??? AND THE TEA PARY??]

"In the last six years that I've been president of this organization I've seen the numbers probably triple," Ancona told NBC 12. "The funny thing is the same neighborhoods where you're saying there are people who don't want the flier are neighborhoods where our members live, and neighborhoods where people are sympathetic to our cause and are glad to hear from us.”

Although Ancona insisted that the KKK is not a hate group, he added that “We just want to keep our race the white race."

"We want to stay white,” Ancona said. “It's not a hateful thing to want to maintain white supremacy."

Similar activity by the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was reported in Tinley Park, a suburb of Chicago, in December, after promotional fliers were found in several driveways throughout the town.

“You can sleep tonight knowing the Klan is awake!” the fliers said, according to the Chicago Tribune."

March 22, 2014 8:45 AM  
Anonymous And now there are 18 states said...

"MASON, Mich. (AP) — Two women were the first gay couple to marry in Michigan on Saturday, one day after the state's ban on gay marriage, approved by voters in a landslide in 2004, was scratched from the state constitution by a federal judge.

Glenna DeJong, 53, and Marsha Caspar, 51, both of Lansing, were married by Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum in Mason just after her office opened at 8 a.m. Saturday. Byrum said it was an honor to marry same-sex couples who have waited too long for this day.

"I figured in my lifetime it would happen," Caspar said. "But now, when it happens now, it's just overwhelming. I still can't believe it. I don't think it's hit me yet."

DeJong and Caspar have been together for 27 years. DeJong called it a day of "sheer joy," adding that Michigan should not "waste taxpayer dollars and cause more turmoil" by pursuing a stay on gay marriage as Attorney General Bill Schuette did immediately after Friday's ruling."

March 22, 2014 10:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's almost impossible to have any kind of meaningful discussion with a liberal because while you're trying to come up with logical points to support your position, he’s trying to come up with new ways to convince people you're Hitler. Modern liberalism has turned into a willful embrace of stupidity. It's all about setting reason and intellect aside in order to take an emotionally-satisfying position that makes a liberal feel better about himself. This is how people who are undeniably intelligent can feel good about taking brainless positions that hurt a lot of people. While liberals have emotionally blinded themselves so totally that they believe they're taking compassionate, intellectual, well-crafted stands, this is how they sound to everyone who's not a liberal.

1) Everyone who disagrees with a liberal is racist! The Tea Party? Racist! Republicans? Racist! Fox News? Racist? Black conservatives? Racist! Barack Obama's grandma? Racist! Do I think Social Security is solvent? My position on that is that "You're a racist!" What do I think about flattening the tax code? Sarah Palin is a racist! Do I like potatoes? Well, Republicans eat potatoes sometimes; so potatoes are racist! Racist, racist, racist!

2) We're all going to die because man is causing global warming! Proof? It's science! Granted, no one can explain the science that proves global warming. But, science isn't about science, it's about repeating the word “science” over and over again like a magic incantation. Science, science, sciencey, sciencey science! See? It's science and scientists agree that it's science! Why do you hate science so much? Why do you want polar bears to die? Oh, and science!

March 22, 2014 11:02 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

3) (Before Obamacare was passed) Everyone should support Obamacare because it will cover all of the uninsured, it'll save you money on health care, you'll get to keep your doctor and it'll be super convenient! It's going to be the greatest thing ever! (Now) Sure, Obamacare mostly insures people it knocked off of their existing insurance, it costs a lot more, you can't keep your doctor and the website is insanely difficult to deal with, but it's the greatest thing ever!

4) Guns cause crime and if we take guns away from people who haven't broken the law yet, then criminals will also not have guns somehow. Gun-free zones also protect people from criminals, who we're sure won't enter "gun-free zones" for some reason. Unless they do…. Which proves the problem is actually law abiding gun owners somehow or another. And that's why we need more and more gun laws until all the people who obey gun laws can't have guns any more, which will save us from criminals and crazy people who don't care about the law.

5) You can't expect black people to get voter ID. I mean, white guys? Sure. Hispanics? No problem. Asians and Jews? Obviously. But, have you met any black people in your life? You really think they're capable of going to a government office with the proper paperwork and coming out with identification with their name on it? These guys? Seriously? Seriously? Okay, well, right after you run across a black American who can figure out how to get his own ID, why don't we set up classrooms to teach cats how to do Algebra. Hey, Mr. Kitty, 3x + 10 + 2x = 12 + 4x? Black people getting IDs? Geeze....

6) Republicans are waging a war on women! You can tell because they oppose killing female babies and think women should buy their own birth control, just like men! Also, they're so mean to women! For example, they oppose Hillary Clinton becoming President -- obviously because she's a woman. All criticism of women from conservatives is based on gender. Not like criticism of that @%$#^ Sarah Palin, who is so incredibly, unbelievably stupid that she only managed to become a mayor, a governor, a VP candidate, put out best selling books, had a successful TV show and became a wealthy, sought-after speaker while getting married and having 5 kids. She's almost as bad as those @#$%!*$ -- Michelle Malkin, S.E. Cupp, and Dana Loesch, although a little more evil than Ann Coulter and Megyn Kelly and more of a @#%@^$%^ #@$%^&(*^ @#$%^ than Laura Ingraham and Jan Brewer! Also, conservatives call women names!

March 22, 2014 11:03 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Theresa, I'm still waiting to hear where you stand on bad anonymous switching the republican and Democrat blame numbers in polls on the government shutdown. Do you want to offer some admonishment to your teamate for lying or is lying fine with you if it is used to promote a conservative agenda?

March 22, 2014 1:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

lazy Priya, this incident on which you dwell seems to have occurred a while ago

why don't you carefully and slowly go through the precise details, so everyone can know what you're talking about, and understand why you're so obsessed?

also, why has the heat absorbed in the oceans not seeped into the atmosphere for the last 16 years?

as you recall, you were lying about this not long ago and saying that global heating was continuing unabated

March 22, 2014 1:57 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

lazy Priya, this incident on which you dwell seems to have occurred a while ago

why don't you carefully and slowly go through the precise details, so everyone can know what you're talking about, and understand why you're so obsessed?

also, why has the heat absorbed in the oceans not seeped into the atmosphere for the last 16 years?

as you recall, you were lying about this not long ago and saying that global heating was continuing unabated

March 22, 2014 1:58 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Nonsense bad anonymous, I never lied. It is true the global heating has continued unabated. The overall warming of the entire climate system has continued rapidly over the past 15 years, even faster than the 15 years before that. You've been repeatedly presented with this proof, stop falsely accusing me of lying, no one is buying it.

I don't lie, you do. Over and over and over. You are a pathological liar. You admitted as much when you said you'd change news stories however you feel like as long as you don't attribute them to the source you got them from.

Theresa, how about showing you are not like the integrity free bad anonymous? Condemn his dishonesty now and show you don't deserve to be lumped in with him.

March 22, 2014 2:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Nonsense bad anonymous, I never lied. It is true the global heating has continued unabated. The overall warming of the entire climate system has continued rapidly over the past 15 years, even faster than the 15 years before that."

No one cares about some warming of the ocean or land undetectable by the ordinary senses if there is no effect on the weather, which has not changed in sixteen years. Your disingenuousness is lying. And it took you a while to come up with it. You were lying.

"You've been repeatedly presented with this proof, stop falsely accusing me of lying, no one is buying it."

you have repeatedly been referred to this concession by mainstream scientists

"I don't lie, you do. Over and over and over."

if so, why do you keep dwelling on one single long passed example?

tell us about all my lies this week

"You are a pathological liar. You admitted as much when you said you'd change news stories however you feel like as long as you don't attribute them to the source you got them from."

if not attributing a source, I feel free to pull the facts and use them without repeating the PR spin that the media always feels responsible for creating

everyone does that if they read widely

unlike you

March 22, 2014 2:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

March 22, 2014 3:04 PM  
Anonymous Another message stands out said...

"Members of the notorious Westboro Baptist Church staged their first protest Friday night after the death of the church’s founder Fred Phelps on Thursday.

According to Kansas City’s KSHB Channel 41, the stridently anti-LGBT demonstrators were met with a counter-protest outside a concert by New Zealander pop sensation Lorde. The counter-protesters held up a banner that said, “Sorry for your loss,” a message of condolence to the church members, many of whom are relatives of the late Rev. Phelps.

Westboro members — who reportedly ousted Phelps from his own congregation earlier this year — pretended to not understand the message.

“I don’t even know what they’re saying,” said longtime WBC member Steve Drain.

Watch video here."

March 23, 2014 11:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"It's almost impossible to have any kind of meaningful discussion with a liberal because while you're trying to come up with logical points to support your position, he’s trying to come up with new ways to convince people you're Hitler."

Oh yeah.

I guess he means liberals like a big GOP donor, Mike Huckabee, the GOP innovation lab, Ted Nugent, a GOP House candidate, and a GOP state party official.

< eye roll >

GOP Donor: U.S. Is 1933 Germany

Mike Huckabee Might Want to Rethink That Allusion to Nazis

The GOP Just Named its Hot New Innovation Lab After a Nazi Pistol

The GOP, Race and Ted Nugent: If you won’t Denounce Nazi Insults, What does that Say about You?

Why Is This GOP House Candidate Dressed as a Nazi?

Arizona shooter was neo-Nazi and former GOP official

March 23, 2014 12:30 PM  
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March 23, 2014 3:35 PM  
Anonymous let it go said...

In the 1950s, a cult attached itself to a Chicago housewife called Dorothy Martin. She convinced her followers to resign from their jobs and sell their possessions because a great flood was to engulf the earth on 21 December 1954. They would be the only survivors. Aliens in a flying saucer would swoop down and save the chosen few.

When 21 December came and went, and the Earth carried on as before, the group did not despair. Martin announced that the aliens had sent her a message saying that they had decided at the last minute not to flood the planet after all. Her followers believed her. They had given up so much for their faith that they would believe anything rather than admit their sacrifices had been pointless.

This is similar to global warming alarmists.

They warned a couple of decades ago that human activity was warming the globe and that the point of irreversibility was imminent. Since, the atmospheric temperature has stabilized and predicted intense and frequent hurricanes have not materialized. Glaciers still exist in the Himalayas and the polar ice cap has not disappeared. Ice is growing in Antarctica, winter won't let go in the U.S., and Al Gore has bought beachfront property where he can store his Oscar and Nobel Prize for warning that rising sea levels will soon overtake coastal communities.

And the true believers are now saying the aliens have given us a short reprieve.

March 24, 2014 10:29 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Projection - a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings, beliefs, or emotions. Psychological projection involves projecting one's own undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with one's own unwanted feelings, beliefs or emotions.

The overwhelming scientific concensus that global warming is happening was derived from facts and overwhelming evidence. It is the global warming deniers that base their beliefs on wishful thinking alone.

While its true that the rate of atmospheric temperature increases have slowed over the last 15 years, the overall warming of the entire climate system has continued rapidly over the past 15 years, even faster than the 15 years before that. If you look at this graph you can see that while the rate of temperature increase in the atmosphere has slowed, the atmospheric heating represents only 2% of the overall warming of the global climate. The rates of temperature increase for the remaining portions of the global climate such as upper and deep ocean temperatures, and land and ice temperatures have increased at a far greater rate.

Right wing climate change deniers like to point to the increase in antarctic ice to try to mislead people into thinking the planet is cooling.

The truth is that Arctic sea ice is being lost 5 times as fast as Antarctic ice is growing
. The Arctic ice cap was predicted to disappear by the year 2100 and since then has declined at a much faster rate than the most pessimistic computer climate change models have predicted.


While a few glaciers in the Himalayas have resisted global warming most are in retreat and the much more massive glacier on Greenland has been melting at a rate faster than predicted resulting in sea levels also rising faster than predicted.

While parts of the U.S. have been colder than normal, other parts have been wamer than normal and the other 98% of the planets surface area not represented by the U.S. has warmed dramatically with 2013 being one of the hottest years on record. Over the past decade the U.S. has experienced about two daily record high temperatures for every record low The ten warmest years in the 132-year record have all occurred since 1998, and the last year that was cooler than average was 1976. The hottest years on record were 2010 and 2005.

Once again, the people trying to deceive the world point to isolated and localized trends and ignore the bigger global picture the long term to create the false impression that the planet is not warming - it most certainly is.

Bad anonymous has been well educated on these facts but he continues to lie about them because he doesn't care about the truth or what sort of disasters he leaves to future generations. His only concern is to avoid admitting he's wrong because he's too small a man to do so. He'd rather destroy the planet than admit the truth.

March 24, 2014 1:13 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"a great flood was to engulf the earth on 21 December 1954."

Wikipedia has a page that might interested you: List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events

They start at 634 BCE and have only been updated through 23 August 2013 and include such folks as:

Harold Camping
Jerry Falwell
Louis Farrakhan
Pat Robertson
Charles Manson
Jim Jones
Cotton Mather
Christopher Columbus
Martin Luther
Pope Innocent III

They all relied on faith to make their predictions, not science, and they were all wrong.

March 24, 2014 5:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

sounds like Al Gore

Gore-Al believes he is channeling Jor-el and wanted to send his infant son up in a rocket to escape our dying planet

most global warmist alarmists originally thought our planet was doomed to a new ice age, overpopulation, robots turning on us, depletion of fossil fuels, disappearance of the ozone layer, mutant viruses, aliens finding us by our radio waves, nuclear power plants leaking, fluoride side effects, genetic engineering, fierce incessant hurricanes, insecticides killing all the bugs, et al

now they just know it will be a snowballing of all those factors... and caused by climate change

they all based it on their cool, savvy interpretation of scientific data, and their faith in materialism

btw, some of those people listed above qualified their predictions more than your propaganda site indicates and are included unfairly

March 24, 2014 6:55 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Just bad anonymous's standard lies. None of the climatoligists that concluded global warming is happening ever said we were going into an ice age. That is just climate change deniers propaganda.

The scientific consensus on overpopulation is near universal, it is an obvious fact that a finite planet cannot support an infinitely growing human population. Humans and their feed animals make up the vast majority of the animal biomass on the planet - nature is seriously out of balance.

The scientific community as a whole has not made any case that robots will take over the world and the vast majority of them believe that while aliens must exist it is virtually impossible that we will ever encounter any.

The development of genetically modified foods is a potential problem and research has demonstrated that these genetically modified crops are squeezing out ancient strains of grains and threatening the bio-diversity of the planet and the overuse of pesticides has resulted in dramatic drops in bee populations that are required to pollinate all manner of plants.

Bad anonymous is just throwing any B.S. he can at the wall hoping some of it will stick when he really has no idea of the scientific validity of any of these things he brings up - its just desperation.

March 24, 2014 10:40 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

March 24, 2014 10:53 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Contrary to bad anonymous's tiresome claims that scientists were wrong about global warming causing more frequent and severe storms that's exactly what has happened.

Bad anonymous is now well aware of this but he's afraid to let go of one of his favourite bits of rhetoric and isn't going to let the truth get in the way of his repeating it.

And as far as scientists being wrong about the problems with the ozone layer, they had that dead on as well as this previous post from good anonymous shows:

guess you missed the Montreal Protocol, which banned ozone depleting chlorofluorocarbons and hydrochlorofluorocarbons.

The Montreal Protocol is "the most successful international environmental agreement to date. In a 2001 report, NASA found the ozone thinning over Antarctica had remained the same thickness for the previous three years, however in 2003 the ozone hole grew to its second largest size.

And now we know why.

New scientific study has found more man-made ozone-depleting chemicals that we need to add to the Montreal Protocol.

Loopholes in CFC ban pose new threat to ozone layer, say scientists

"Four new man-made, ozone-destroying chemicals have been discovered in the upper atmosphere, and appear to be slowing the recovery of the ozone hole, according to a new report.

The ozone hole over Antarctica has been gradually healing ever since an international treaty known as the Montreal Protocol began limiting the production of ozone-depleting chemicals in 1989. These chemicals, known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), were commonly used in refrigerators, air conditioners and aerosols until they were found to react with and break down ozone molecules in the Earth's protective ozone layer. The treaty was created to significantly cut CFC emissions and allow the ozone hole to completely close, potentially by 2050.

In 2010, a total ban on CFCs was put in place, but certain loopholes still exist in the Montreal Protocol that allow trace amounts of the chemicals to be used in the production of certain products, including some types of insecticides and solvents used to clean electronic equipment.

Now, researchers based at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom have calculated that these loopholes — previously thought to be relatively insignificant — have actually allowed more than 74,000 metric tons (about 82,000 tons) of three previously unknown CFCs, and one related compound known as an HCFC, to be released into the atmosphere. While this quantity is far smaller than peak CFC emissions in the 1980s, it is still a significant quantity that could slow the recovery of the ozone hole, the team reports today (March 9) in the journal Nature Geoscience.

"In comparison to the 1980s, it is minor — it is not a threat to the ozone layer just yet," said study co-author Johannes Laube.

But emissions of two of the compounds appear to have accelerated in recent years, which could result in more serious degradation of the ozone layer within a decade, Laube told Live Science.

To quantify the emissions of the new compounds, the researchers compared modern air samples with nearly century-old air samples trapped in old, compacted snow (known as firn snow) from Greenland. The team did not detect any of the four new compounds in snow from before the 1960s, which suggests that the compounds were man-made...."

March 24, 2014 10:55 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

the point is secularists predict the world's end as frequently as anyone and have always been wrong to date

"Contrary to bad anonymous's tiresome claims that scientists were wrong about global warming causing more frequent and severe storms that's exactly what has happened."

so, THIS is what they were warning about?

if so, it goes to show there is nothing happening that is worth the drastic actions suggested by alarmists

btw, young people are deserting the Dem Party as it becomes clear those policies won't get them a job out of college and that Obama has designed a healthcare system where they bear most of the burden

Nate Silver, the big Dem hero of 2012, says the Repubs will take over the Senate in 2014

the failure of the Obama socialist experiment is now complete

New York Times reporter James Risen, who is fighting an order that he testify in the trial of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer accused of leaking information to him, says the Obama administration is “the greatest enemy of press freedom that we have encountered in at least a generation.” The administration wants to “narrow the field of national security reporting,” Risen said, to “create a path for accepted reporting.” Anyone journalist who exceeds those parameters, Risen said, “will be punished.”

The administration’s aggressive prosecutions have created “a de facto Official Secrets Act,” Risen said, and the media has been “too timid” in responding.

March 25, 2014 9:33 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bad anonymous said "the point is secularists predict the world's end as frequently as anyone and have always been wrong to date".

No non-religious person has predicted the worlds end with a date and been wrong about it. That is solely the province of religious people. Christians in particular have been predicting the world would end soon for nearly two thousand years. You of course are well aware of that but have no use for the truth.

I said "Contrary to bad anonymous's tiresome claims that scientists were wrong about global warming causing more frequent and severe storms that's exactly what has happened."

Bad anonymous said "so, THIS is what they were warning about?
if so, it goes to show there is nothing happening that is worth the drastic actions suggested by alarmists".

That is only one of many serious consequences likely to be caused by global warming.

Starvation, poverty, flooding, heat waves, droughts, war and disease already lead to human tragedies. They're likely to worsen as the world warms from man-made climate change, a leaked draft of an international scientific report forecasts.

"Throughout the 21st century, climate change impacts will slow down economic growth and poverty reduction, further erode food security and trigger new poverty traps, the latter particularly in urban areas and emerging hotspots of hunger," the report says. "Climate change will exacerbate poverty in low- and lower-middle income countries and create new poverty pockets in upper-middle to high-income countries with increasing inequality."

For people living in poverty, the report says, "climate-related hazards constitute an additional burden." The report says scientists have high confidence especially in what it calls certain "key risks":

—People dying from warming- and sea rise-related flooding, especially in big cities.

—Famine because of temperature and rain changes, especially for poorer nations.

—Farmers going broke because of lack of water.

—Infrastructure failures because of extreme weather.

—Dangerous and deadly heat waves worsening.

—Certain land and marine ecosystems failing.

March 25, 2014 11:39 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...


Even corporations are starting to recognize the threat of climate change.

Coca-Cola has always been more focused on its economic bottom line than on global warming, but when the company lost a lucrative operating license in India because of a serious water shortage there in 2004, things began to change.

Today, after a decade of increasing damage to Coke’s balance sheet as global droughts dried up the water needed to produce its soda, the company has embraced the idea of climate change as an economically disruptive force.

“Increased droughts, more unpredictable variability, 100-year floods every two years,” said Jeffrey Seabright, Coke’s vice president for environment and water resources, listing the problems that he said were also disrupting the company’s supply of sugar cane and sugar beets, as well as citrus for its fruit juices. “When we look at our most essential ingredients, we see those events as threats.”

Coke reflects a growing view among American business leaders and mainstream economists who see global warming as a force that contributes to lower gross domestic products, higher food and commodity costs, broken supply chains and increased financial risk. Their position is at striking odds with the longstanding argument, advanced by the coal industry and others, that policies to curb carbon emissions are more economically harmful than the impact of climate change.

In Washington, the World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, has put climate change at the center of the bank’s mission, citing global warming as the chief contributor to rising global poverty rates and falling G.D.P.’s in developing nations. In Europe, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Paris-based club of 34 industrialized nations, has begun to warn of the steep costs of increased carbon pollution.

March 25, 2014 11:39 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

In another win for the pro-family side, a Michigan judge has struck down its ban on gay marriage.

The Reagan-appointee to the Federal bench heard testimony in the case two weeks ago which featured Mark Regnerus, the author of the widely discredited report alleging that children of same-sex parents have poorer outcomes, as the state’s star witness. His testimony didn’t hold up well under cross examination. What’s more, his own sociology department at the University of Texas issued a statement distancing themselves from Regnerus on the very morning he was set to testify. All that had Judge Freidman devoting two pages of his thirty-one page opinion to Regnerus’s testimony:

The Court finds Regnerus’s testimony entirely unbelievable and not worthy of serious consideration. The evidence adduced at trial demonstrated that his 2012 “study” was hastily concocted at the behest of a third-party funder, which found it “essential that the necessary data be gathered to settle the question in the forum of public debate about what kinds of family arrangement are best for society” and which “was confident that the traditional understanding of marriage will be vindicated by this study.” See Pls.’ Motion in limine to Exclude Testimony of Mark Regnerus, Ex. 9. In the funder’s view, “the future of the institution of marriage at this moment is very uncertain” and “proper research” was needed to counter the many studies showing no differences in child outcomes. Id. The funder also stated that “this is a project where time is of the essence.” Id. Time was of the essence at the time of the funder’s comments in April 2011, and when Dr. Regnerus published the NFSS in 2012, because decisions such as Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 704 F. Supp. 2d 921 (N.D. Cal. 2010), and Windsor v. United States, 833 F. Supp. 2d 394 (S.D.N.Y. 2012), were threatening the funder’s concept of “the institution of marriage.”

March 25, 2014 12:40 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The primary funder was the $the anti-gay Witherspoon Institute, which provided $695,000 for the study. The Bradley Institute kicked in another $90,000. Anti-gay activist Robert George sits on the board of directors of both organizations, as well as the editorial advisory board of the LDS-owned Deseret News, which was the only paper to receive an advance copy of the study. The study had been fast-tracked to publication by the conservative editor of the journal Social Science Research. Judge Friedman found the study’s funding source was at least partly behind the study’s appalling methodology:

While Regnerus maintained that the funding source did not affect his impartiality as a researcher, the Court finds this testimony unbelievable. The funder clearly wanted a certain result, and Regnerus obliged. Additionally, the NFSS is flawed on its face, as it purported to study “a large, random sample of American young adults (ages 18-39) who were raised in different types of family arrangements” (emphasis added), but in fact it did not study this at all, as Regnerus equated being raised by a same-sex couple with having ever lived with a parent who had a “romantic relationship with someone of the same sex” for any length of time. Whatever Regnerus may have found in this “study,” he certainly cannot purport to have undertaken a scholarly research effort to compare the outcomes of children raised by same-sex couples with those of children raised by heterosexual couples. It is no wonder that the NFSS has been widely and severely criticized by other scholars, and that Regnerus’s own sociology department at the University of Texas has distanced itself from the NFSS in particular and Dr. Regnerus’s views in general and reaffirmed the aforementioned APA position statement.

March 25, 2014 12:41 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Regernus’s testimony was part of a larger argument that the state of Michigan tried to make in support of the ban on same-sex marriage. Attorneys for the state based much of their case on what they called the “optimal environment” for raising children. Judge Friedman found that position “absurd”:

[T]he state defendants’ position suffers from a glaring inconsistency. Even assuming that children raised by same-sex couples fare worse than children raised by heterosexual married couples, the state defendants fail to explain why Michigan law does not similarly exclude certain classes of heterosexual couples from marrying whose children persistently have had “sub-optimal” developmental outcomes. According to Rosenfeld’s study, children raised by suburban residents academically outperformed those children raised by rural and urban residents. Likewise, “middle class and poor families are ‘sub-optimal’ compared to well-off families, and couples with less formal education are “sub-optimal” compared to couples with more formal education.” Pls.’ Ex. 31 at 5. A child’s racial background is another predictive indicator of future success, as the study showed that “the probability of making good progress through school is greater in the U.S. for children of Asian descent than for children of all other racial groups.” Id. Taking the state defendants’ position to its logical conclusion, the empirical evidence at hand should require that only rich, educated, suburban-dwelling, married Asians may marry, to the exclusion of all other heterosexual couples. Obviously the state has not adopted this policy and with good reason. The absurdity of such a requirement is self-evident. Optimal academic outcomes for children cannot logically dictate which groups may marry.

March 25, 2014 12:42 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

All of which brings to mind one of bad anonymous's hilarious greatest hits:

Bad anonymous at July 20, 2008 12:53 says "Problem is, you guys are at a disadvantage because of the side you're on. Arguing for the gay agenda, you've got an uphill battle on your hands. Me, I just coast on common sense and I look really smart.".

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahha!

You sure didn't see the inevitable tide of victory for justice coming - you don't look so smart now.

What a fool! Common sense was all on the marriage equality side and logic dictated that with time our win was inevitable and bad anonymous was too stupid and full of himself to see it coming!

Bad anonymous: a long and sordid history of making predictions that come true less often than would be expected if he was making his predictions by flipping a coin. What a maroon!

March 25, 2014 12:47 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Here's another one of bad anonymous's greatest hits from 2008:

"Priya, since you brought up the Huckster, I'll let you in on a secret. There's a conspiracy to make him the next President of the United States.

Don't worry, McCain's in on it.

Here's how it will go down:

McCain nominates Huck. They win the election after more of Obama's friends from the violent, militant radical 60s left emerge. The courts rule after November that McCain is ineligible for the office because he was born outside the United States.

Oila! President Huckabee.

Huckabee's first act as President is to negotiate a gay NAFTA with Canada and Mexico making same sex marriage illegal anywhere in North America.

Keep it on the downlow.

No one is to know.".

Who knew bad anonymous could predict the future with such accuracy?

Hahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha!

March 25, 2014 1:02 PM  
Anonymous Bassackwards again! said...

"btw, young people are deserting the Dem Party as it becomes clear those policies won't get them a job out of college and that Obama has designed a healthcare system where they bear most of the burden"

Wow -- either a moron or a liar posted that BS.

Pew Research reported earlier this month on Millennials in Adulthood found exactly the opposite.

Pew found young people are optimistic about the future (maybe that's because Obama is their President) and they vote more heavily Democratic.

Here's what Pew said about their research findings:

"The Millennial generation is forging a distinctive path into adulthood. Now ranging in age from 18 to 331, they are relatively unattached to organized politics and religion, linked by social media, burdened by debt, distrustful of people, in no rush to marry— and ***optimistic about the future.***

They are also America’s most racially diverse generation. In all of these dimensions, they are different from today’s older generations. And in many, they are also different from older adults back when they were the age Millennials are now.

Pew Research Center surveys show that half of Millennials (50%) now describe themselves as political independents and about three-in-ten (29%) say they are not affiliated with any religion. These are at or near the highest levels of political and religious disaffiliation recorded for any generation in the quarter-century that the Pew Research Center has been polling on these topics.

At the same time, however, ***Millennials stand out for voting heavily Democratic and for liberal views on many political and social issues***, ranging from a belief in an activist government to support for same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization.... "

March 25, 2014 1:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Democrats More Popular As GOP Gets Whiter

"A year after the Republican National Committee released its GOP “autopsy,” the Growth and Opportunity Project (which encouraged the party to appeal more to minorities), data released by Gallup shows that the party is still getting whiter.

Using yearly aggregates of its own poll data since 1995, Gallup finds that over the past five years, party partisanship has increasingly reflected racial polarization, with more whites leaning to the right and a majority of minority voters – defined as blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and “all other races combined” — continuing to lean left.

Though party preferences have long reflected racial divides – Gallup’s trend lines, for example, show elevated racial polarization immediately after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks – this most recent trend is the first time Gallup reports a “61-point racial and ethnic gap in party preferences,” the largest gap measured in the past 20 years. Gallup also notes that prior to 2008, the racial gap reached only as high as 55 percentage points – in 1997 and again in 2000 – but since 2008, racial gaps have reached that level or higher every year.

Minority voters’ party alignment remains a consistent trend. Between 1995 and 2013, 69 percent of minority voters, on average, have either aligned with the Democratic Party or reported leaning left; only 21 percent, on average, aligned with the Republican Party or reported leaning right.

While the Democratic Party boasts majority support from non-white voters, the GOP has moved in the other direction. On average, 49 percent of whites have aligned with the Republican Party or leaned right in the past 18 years, unlike the majority of minority voters who report the same about their relationship to the Democratic Party. Additionally, 42 percent of white voters, on average, align with the Democratic Party or lean left.

Under President Barack Obama, a larger percentage of white voters – 50.3 percent – align with the GOP or lean right, the largest number to do so since 1995, when Bill Clinton was in office.

There could be various explanations for white voters’ shift to the right in recent years — Gallup does not have evidence that the president’s race could be a reason, but does not rule out the possibility, either — but understanding why minority voters continue to stick to the left is a bit easier. Minority voters, on average, face a wider range of social and economic problems on which Democrats often focus.

Unlike the solid Democratic base, the Republican base of white voters is not overwhelmingly aligned with the Republican Party. Thus, even as the GOP enjoys a 10-point advantage among white voters, the Democratic Party remains the more popular party, nationally.

As Gallup concludes, the GOP would need to secure a stronger advantage among white voters or appeal to a greater percentage of minority voters in order to meet the amount of support shared by Democrats."

March 25, 2014 2:19 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The congressional Budget Office has released figures that show the cost of insurance under Obamacare has declined by 15%. And as to the claim that Obamacare is a job killer, 8.5 million new jobs have been created since it was passed 4 years ago.

March 25, 2014 2:53 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

yeah, Obamacare is great

that's why the Dems are going to lose control of Congress in the fall (see Nate Silverman)

they've done such a great job fixing up health care and the economy that they aren't needed any more

yeah, that's it

While a majority of Americans (56 percent) support U.S. sanctions against Russia, they are less than pleased with President Obama's handling of the situation between Russia and Ukraine overall. Only 38 percent approve of how Mr. Obama is handling these events.

Looking more broadly at the president and the United States' image in the world, more Americans now say the image of the U.S. has grown worse since Mr. Obama became president, rather than better. Only 32 percent think it has gotten better.

March 26, 2014 12:23 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Obamacare is great, its just that the Republicans have greatly outspent Democrats with ads that lie about it and Democrats haven't set the record straight.

For example, in battleground states the right wing Koch group American's for prosperity have put out ads such as a woman who claims her insurance was canceled as a result of Obamacare and now because of her out of pocket expenses she can't afford her cancer treatment. Politifact checked into it and the truth is that while her insurance was canceled and her out of pocket expenses increased she got a new plan under Obamacare with premiums that cost half as much and overall her total expenses had gone down under Obamacare. Americans For Progress was asked to respond to this and refused and continues to run the same ad.

Politifact fact checked some 13 or so ads Americans For Prosperity ran against Obamacare and only two were rated as half truths while the rest were rated as mostly or completely false.

When Americans are polled and asked about the specific features of Obamacare like no exclusions for pre-existing conditions, children being able to stay on their parents plans until 26, no one being able to be thrown out of their plan because of caps on spending and so on Americans overwhelmingly support it.

But you've got to hand it to Repulicans, they've lied loud and long about Obamacare and the public has largely believed them and doesn't realize Obamacare has all the features they want in a healthcare law and virtually none of the problems Republicans falsely claim it has.

And not to let Democrats off the hook, they've allowed Republicans to lie about the health care law without repercussions. Part of this is due to the fact that Republicans being the party of the rich have multi-billionaire backers like the Kochs pumping money into false adverstising and the Democrats can't match it but for the most part they haven't even tried.

March 26, 2014 1:08 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

And let's not forget, Obamacare was a Republican plan from the start. The only reason Republicans now are condemning their own plan is because of who implemented it. If George Bush had done the exact same thing they'd be bragging about it until the cows come home.

Say what you will about the Democrats but when George Bush introduced the Medicare drug benefit program when it became clear they could not stop it Democrats got on board and helped implement it and make it the best it could be. Republicans of course have no such integrity when it comes to their plan Obama implemented.

March 26, 2014 1:16 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The top 16 myths about Obamacare

March 26, 2014 1:24 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bad anonymous said "While a majority of Americans (56 percent) support U.S. sanctions against Russia, they are less than pleased with President Obama's handling of the situation between Russia and Ukraine overall. Only 38 percent approve of how Mr. Obama is handling these events.

Looking more broadly at the president and the United States' image in the world, more Americans now say the image of the U.S. has grown worse since Mr. Obama became president, rather than better. Only 32 percent think it has gotten better.".

You've got a long history of changing the stories you read to say the exact opposite of what they originally did. You didn't post a source for these claims and have said in the past that if you don't post a source you'll feel free to change the story however you like. There's no reason for anyone to believe your claims here.

Although America’s stature worldwide slipped last year, its favorability was still much higher than during the last year of the George W. Bush administration.

March 26, 2014 2:02 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

79% of Amercians want new imigration reforms. Republicans have taken 54 useless votes to repeal Obamacare so they can pose for their base but have blocked every attempt to bring to a vote proposals for imigration reform.

Americans have overwhelmingly said they don't want the former status quo on healthcare but Republicans have no proposals of their own for what they'd replace Obamacare with.

Republicans sole goal in congress is to oppose progress for the American people.

March 26, 2014 2:52 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Democrats have plenty of money to respond to criticism of Obamacare, that's not their problem

they know there is no way to defend a plan to insure all Americans that the CBO estimates will leave the same number uninsured in ten years as now

the poll, lazy Priya, was conducted by CBS News

yeah, real tough to find

here's the link:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-disapprove-of-obamas-handling-of-ukraine-crisis/

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld slammed President Barack Obama on Monday, saying "a trained ape" would have better foreign policy skills.

Rumsfeld criticized the White House for not securing a status of forces agreement with Afghanistan.

“We have status of forces agreements probably with 100, 125 countries in the world," Rumsfeld said. "This administration, the White House, and the State Department, have failed to get a status of forces agreement. A trained ape could get a status of forces agreement. It doesn’t take a genius.”

March 26, 2014 2:52 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Rumsfeld is one of the morons that got the States into Iraq in the first place and said it would be a cakewalk. He has no credibility on foreign policy.

Its well documented that virtually all of the anti-obamacare ads Republicans have put out are mostly or completely false. Since Citizens United when corporations were declared people Democrats have had no chance to compete with Republicans in election funding.

The republican party is the party of the rich and republicans are bought and paid for buy the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Addlesons of the U.S. Republicans have proven the old addage that a lie can go twice around the world before the truth gets its shoes on.

The Republicans have no suggestions for anything they'd have done differently than Obama in Crimea because there isn't any good options that Obama hasn't already taken. Republicans try to B.S. Americans by saying Russia was emboldened to invade Crimea because they saw Obama as weak but they can't explain how Russia similarly invaded Georgia during the Bush administration and somehow that's not supposed to be because Bush was weak.

Republicans can't have it both ways. If Russia invaded crimea because Obama was weak then Russia invaded Georgia because Bush was weak. If Russia invading Georgia had nothing todo with how they perceived Bush then their invading Crimea had nothing to do with how they perceived Obama.

Republicans sat on their hands when Russia invaded Georgia during the Bush administration and acted like it didn't matter. They have no credibility now when they claim the invasion of Crimea is a disaster for the U.S.

March 26, 2014 3:26 PM  
Anonymous boo! said...

t’s been years in the making, but all the hard work has paid off: “Koch,” as in the surname of the energy-billionaire brothers David and Charles, has become the liberal “abracadabra” of 2014 — the magic word that mesmerizes liberals into parting with their money and giving it to Democrats.

What’s especially interesting about it is how conscious Democrats appear to be that they’ve helped create this two-headed monster to scare their own people into coughing up dollars they might not give otherwise.

“Koch” now joins “Rove” and “Newt” in the Liberal Fund-raising Hall of Fame — in the very exclusive Demons of the Right-Wing Wing.

The Kochs give a lot of money to Republican candidates, and have helped organize others to give as well. But they’re far from the largest GOP donors; indeed, the leftist magazine Mother Jones in 2012 acknowledged that they are “significant, but not extraordinary, conservative donors.”

Certainly, they gave a lot less in that year than, say, Sheldon and Miri Adelson, who donated nearly $100 million in their effort to unseat President Obama and get Republicans into the Senate.

Nonetheless, it’s the Koch name that rings cash registers. The political writer Dave Weigel has produced serious evidence that if you mention the Kochs in an e-mail requesting campaign dollars, you may triple your haul.

He reports in Slate that one Democratic campaign sent out 24 fundraising e-mails from mid-January to mid-March. The ones with Koch in them produced “an average of $6,533.74 per e-mail.” The non-Koch ones? A mere $2,534.02 per e-mail.

This means the invocation of “Koch” is sheer fund-raising gold, in an entirely negative way. “Koch” is used as a threat, a warning — only if you give to me can you stop the Kochs from taking over the Senate, the country, the known universe.

These e-mails go out to the Democratic Party faithful — an overwhelming percentage of whom have donated to politicians in the past. And they are clearly scared witless by the mere sight of the Koch name.

In one sense, it’s odd that they’d even know who the Kochs are — unless they live in New York, in which case they’d have reason to be grateful for David’s patronage of the arts (he is the largest single giver to Lincoln Center) and his $100 million contribution to New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

The Koch family mining and energy business is privately held. The brothers don’t seek the limelight. They give few interviews. And they don’t fit the standard-issue leftist profile of the evil right-winger, as David is libertarian in outlook.

So how did this happen? It dates back to a 2010 hit job in The New Yorker by Jane Mayer, a veteran liberal slimer of the Right who tried to make the preposterous case that the Tea Party was a sinister creation of these malign oil-covered plutocrats. David Koch insisted that “no one representing the Tea Party ever even approached me,” and his claim has never been rebutted.

By 2012, the liberal commentariat was muttering constantly about the threat of the Koch brothers. Now, in 2014, the four years of Koch-bashing has become a paying proposition for Democratic candidates.

It’s a wildly successful Democratic tactic of longstanding, the fleshing-out of a hostile caricature into a full-fledged Satanic figure whose shadow then comes to seem amazingly large and threatening and must be counteracted, lest all humanity be plunged into Stygian darkness.

Generally speaking, Republicans go right at their political enemies. In the 1990s, they raised money off Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton and HillaryCare and Whitewater. In the Obama years, it’s been . . . Obama. And ObamaCare.

But liberals, it seems, just can’t get enough of the bogeymen they keep creating for themselves.

March 26, 2014 4:32 PM  
Anonymous anyone got a problem with that? said...

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, on Tuesday mocked the latest move by the Obama administration to delay the implementation of the health care law.

The administration has made two dozen adjustments to the law, including one Monday that would allow people to sign up for health insurance two weeks past the March 31 deadline.

“What the hell is this, a joke?” Boehner exclaimed to a room full of laughing reporters at his weekly press conference.

Republicans and critics of the law have denounced the president’s decision to delay parts of his signature reform plan, saying it circumvents the law.

Boehner called the latest change “another deadline made meaningless” and added that the Obama administration is relying on “an honor system” to enforce it.

The administration is desperate to enroll as many people as possible before the deadline, in particular the young and healthy who are needed to help keep insurance premiums stable.

The latest change allows additional time for consumers who have not finished applying for health insurance but by March 31.

As Boehner was criticizing the move, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., denounced it in a Senate floor speech, saying the individual mandate may not even be viable because Obama has granted so many different waivers.

“It’s basically become the equivalent of Swiss cheese,” McConnell said.

“The law says that enrollment stops at the end of March,” Boehner said. “That's what the law says. You know, I've got to live by the law. You've got to live by the law. The American people have to live by the law. And guess what? The president needs to live by the law as well.”

March 26, 2014 4:41 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Republicans won't score any more points from the Obamacare extension than they scored from ranting endlessly about Bhengazi conspiracies.

The public, to the degree that it cares about it, is happy to see an extension to the sign-up deadline. No one is troubled by the extension.

March 26, 2014 4:49 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Shorter Republicans:

"Its a deadline! Holy Smokes they're moving the deadline! This is going to save lives across the United States, this is a terrible thing!"

Hahahahahahahahahahah!

March 26, 2014 5:06 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

When Bush introduced the Medicare drug benefit and enrollment started to surge Bush suggested they extend the enrollment deadline and you didn't hear any Republicans opposing that, they supported it and so did the Democrats.

Republicans have villified Obamacare just like they villified social security. They called social security a mockery and a sham. Newt Gingrich said medicare should wither on the the vine and Bob Dole bragged about voting against it. Republicans have a long history of opposing programs that have improved the lives of Americans.

After the first 33 days of Obamacare only 100,000 people have signed up and now five months later there's over five million. Boehner is just mad that so many people have signed up and he's losing his talking point that its a failure and no one wants it.

March 26, 2014 5:36 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Republicans won't score any more points from the Obamacare"

IKR

other than control of Congress, this whole Obamacare thing isn't gonna help Repubs a whit

hahahahahaha!!

March 26, 2014 6:31 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

You missed a word: "extension".

But then you can't really argue against my specific statements, you've got to distort them to pretend you're rebutting them.

I agree, Republicans have benefited from lying loud and long about Obamacare, but as I said, they won't score any points by complaining about the Obamacare deadline extension.

Republican lies have succeeded so far, if you ask most people if they like Obamacare they say no, but if you ask them if they like the specific features of Obamacare:

80% support letting young adults stay on their parents plan

77% support free preventative care

74% support the medicaid expansion

70% support ending insurance discrimination based on pre-existing conditions

March 26, 2014 6:51 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Before you go bad anonymous, here's your ass.

**hands over ass**

March 26, 2014 7:23 PM  
Anonymous lazy Canadians are obsessed said...

"I agree, Republicans have benefited from lying loud and long about Obamacare, but as I said, they won't score any points by complaining about the Obamacare deadline extension"

the extension is irrelevant except that it is yet another opportunity to remind people about Obamacare, which they despise

Republicans benefit greatly by the continual reminders

"Republican lies have succeeded so far, if you ask most people if they like Obamacare they say no, but if you ask them if they like the specific features of Obamacare:

80% support letting young adults stay on their parents plan

77% support free preventative care

74% support the medicaid expansion

70% support ending insurance discrimination based on pre-existing conditions"

how ironic that you accuse others of lying and yet, at the same time, you lie

there are, as you know, because you're lying, many more features of Obamacare than these things

if Obamacare was repealed, these features would remain for most because insurance have discovered they can get away with charging for them

Obamacare takes away freedom, raises costs, lowers quality and doesn't achieve its purpose

its days are numbered

just like the Dem control of congress, which will soon be gone

just ask NATE SILVERMAN

hahahahaha!!

hohohohoho!!!

hee-hee!!!!

wheeeeeee!!

March 27, 2014 12:04 AM  
Anonymous just ask Nate Silver said...

One of the nation's leading Democratic pollsters and strategists is urging embattled House and Senate incumbents to abandon their defense of Obamacare and instead pledge to “fix it.”

Celinda Lake, whose firm Lake Research Partners provided the Democratic analysis of the new George Washington University Battleground Poll released Tuesday morning, summed up her advice to Democrats when it comes to Obamacare: “Don't defend it.”

In unveiling the poll, she said that the new Democratic strategy should be for candidates to promise to fix the troubled system.

“In terms of Obamacare, don’t defend it, say it was flawed from the beginning, and we’re going to fix it,” said Lake.

March 27, 2014 6:07 AM  
Anonymous picked a poll said...

The AP-GfK poll shows 59 percent of Americans now disapprove of Obama -- a point higher than the previous high set in December.

Part of Obama's problems appear to be related to foreign policy: The poll shows Americans disapprove of his handling of the situation in Ukraine 57-40 and disapprove of how he handles relationships with other countries 58-40.

The poll was conducted Thursday through Sunday

March 27, 2014 7:16 AM  
Anonymous just ask Nate Silver said...

In Sept. 2010, six months after signing the Affordable Care Act and just weeks before his party’s massive losses in the midterm elections, President Obama wondered whether the law’s unpopularity might be due to a communication failure on his part. “Sometimes I fault myself,” he told an audience in Virginia, “for not having been able to make the case more clearly to the country.”

There was nothing wrong with the president’s communication skills. The case he made for his sweeping health care overhaul was straightforward and appealing: It would make health insurance available to every American, especially the more than 40 million people who were uninsured. It would significantly reduce insurance premiums for individuals and families. It would guarantee that Americans who already had a health plan they liked, or a doctor they liked, would be free to keep them.

The case for Obamacare was perfectly clear. But those claims rang false even before the law was passed. Nothing is left of them now — and another midterm election season is underway.

The Affordable Care Act turned four this week, as unpopular as ever. It has been underwater in hundreds of national polls, frequently by double-digit margins. Americans don’t like it any better now than they did back when Democrats muscled it through Congress over unified Republican opposition.

By its proponents’ own empirical benchmarks, Obamacare has been a debacle. The rosy promises about no one being forced to change doctors or health plans have been ditched. So has the enticing prospect of $2,500 premium reductions for every family. Instead, the “Affordable” Care Act in most states is driving up underlying premiums, even doubling them in some parts of the country.

March 27, 2014 7:24 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Voters rewarded the GOP for standing fast against the law four years ago, and there is a growing sense that they’re going to do so again this fall. Obama has been warning Democrats for months that they are likely to “get clobbered” at the polls this November. It’s not just widespread disapproval of the president’s signature legislation that makes his party so vulnerable — it’s the intensity of that disapproval. “The people who favor Obamacare, which is a minority, aren’t really that enthusiastic about it even if they favor it,” says political analyst Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia. “But the majority who oppose Obamacare are much more charged up, and they’re the people who tend to turn out” for midterm elections.

It had been widely assumed on both sides of the debate that as the Affordable Care Act was implemented, the law’s frontloaded benefits and subsidies would quickly become such sacred cows that repealing the law would soon be a political impossibility.

So far it hasn’t worked out that way. Most Americans haven’t come around to accepting the massive law and its unprecedented mandates as a permanent feature on the landscape. Ardent liberals, such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, have been telling Democrats to run as unabashed defenders of Obamacare, insisting “it’s a winner” of an issue for them. But it proved a losing issue for Democrat Alex Sink, who was beaten in Forida’s special congressional election this month by Republican David Jolly. Obamacare was a key issue in the race, which pitted Jolly’s “repeal and replace” message against Sink’s “don’t nix it, fix it” theme. The pro-repeal candidate won.

A single special election doesn’t prove a GOP sweep is coming, but the outcome in Florida wasn’t lost on Scott Brown, who knows better than most what it’s like to win a special election on the strength of an anti-Obamacare refrain. “A big political wave is about to break in America, and the Obamacare Democrats are on the wrong side of that wave,” Brown told a Republican crowd in Nashua three days after Sink’s defeat. “If we don’t like Obamacare, we can get rid of it. Period.”

That was overstating it. Politics is the art of the possible, and even with a slew of midterm pickups, it would be impossible for opponents of Obamacare to “get rid of it — period.” But there is nothing impossible about replacing the Democrats’ unpopular monstrosity of a law with alternatives that expand freedom and competition in health insurance, rather than suppressing them. Four years of Obamacare have shown what arrogance, deception, and top-down control can accomplish. No wonder voters want to see if Republicans can do better.

March 27, 2014 7:25 AM  
Anonymous just ask Nate Sliver said...

As his sinking poll ratings have demonstrated, a lot of Americans are unhappy with President Obama. Weak leadership abroad, ObamaCare, and various scandals have all combined to send his popularity into a tailspin from which he is not likely to recover before the end of his term in office. But perhaps the ones who should be most angry with him are his biggest fans in the media rather than his conservative antagonists. Like the World War Two era pop classic teaches us, Obama is demonstrating that “you always hurt the ones you love.”

A new study from the Pew Research Journalism Project that incorporates Nielson ratings data shows that MSNBC is bleeding viewers and revenue at a pace that outstrips the rest of the cable news market. While Fox and CNN have both lost ground as the television market becomes more fractured by the vast number of choices available to viewers, in 2013 the left-wing network lost a staggering 24 percent of its prime-time audience and 15 percent of those who watch during the day. That is double the losses experienced by CNN and four times those of Fox. On the revenue side of things, while Fox and CNN are growing, MSNBC is losing income.

The reason for this is obvious. The network established itself as a liberal destination by being the place where viewers knew to go for criticism of George W. Bush and then celebrations of Barack Obama. But as Obama slides into irrelevance, left-wingers are no longer finding it entertaining to tune in to watch talking heads parrot administration talking points and trash Republicans. Like fans of a sports team that is playing out the string in a season where they won’t make the playoffs, liberals are giving up and tuning out.

All cable stations are hurt by the digital revolution that has transformed television watching and diminished the clout of all stations on the dial. But MSNBC is in a particularly tight spot because of the nature of their political bias.

Last year, the previous Pew report on the media showed that MSNBC was the most biased of all the networks. While the majority of commentary on Fox is conservative, they still run a respectable amount of straight news and generally always provide a liberal foil to their right-wing talkers even if the sole left-winger is always outnumbered. But on MSNBC, the liberal mindset is uniform with few of their shows even bothering to interview stray conservatives, let alone let alone feature them on a regular basis even as tokens. Just about everyone on their network lineup is a reliable font of left-wing conventional wisdom.

Their time is short.

March 27, 2014 8:31 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Voters rewarded the GOP for standing fast against the law four years ago, and there is a growing sense that they’re going to do so again this fall. "

Nice bubbly burp there, avoiding the 2012 US election when Obama/Biden beat Romney/Ryan while the GOP lost eight seats in the House and two seats in the Senate.

March 27, 2014 8:34 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The AP-GfK poll shows 59 percent of Americans now disapprove of Obama -- a point higher than the previous high set in December."

Well golly. It's too bad for you Obama-haters that Obama is not running again in 2014.

Meanwhile, the Generic Vote Average at RCP is moving more in the Democratic direction. Currently Rasmussen shows Democrats up by 4% while CBS shows both parties tied.

March 27, 2014 8:43 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

yeah, well, one of the reasons I thought repubs were stupid to nominate Romney was because he created the original Obamacare, in Massachusetts, and couldn't use the issue

no one else will have that problem

March 27, 2014 8:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Well golly. It's Well golly. It's too bad for you Obama-haters that Obama is not running again in 2014."

too bad for you America-haters that Dems voted unanimously for and Repubs against Obamacare

"Meanwhile, the Generic Vote Average at RCP is moving more in the Democratic direction. Currently Rasmussen shows Democrats up by 4% while CBS shows both parties tied"

tell that to Nate Silver

hahahaha!!!!!

hee-hee!!

ho-ho-ho!!!!!!!

March 27, 2014 8:49 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

remember how Harry Reid's fixed Repub's wagon by eliminating the filibuster

what a laugh!

Even with more than two years left in his term, President Obama’s ability to fill many of his administration’s most important jobs is rapidly diminishing.

White House officials are scrambling to reassess their confirmation strategy in the wake of two major setbacks this month: the Senate’s rejection of lawyer Debo P. Adegbile to head the Justice Department’s civil rights division and signs that surgeon general nominee Vivek H. Murthy could go down in defeat as well. On Tuesday, the administration appointed Karl Remón Thompson as acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel — bypassing the Senate confirmation process.

But as the White House begins recalibrating its approach, it is grappling with an even broader problem: A number of its executive-branch nominees may not ever get their posts, and the appeal of a Senate-confirmed job is plummeting as a result.

“My advice to people is, don’t change your mailing address at this point,” said New York University public policy professor Paul C. Light, who studies presidential appointments. “The door has pretty much closed on the appointments process.”

A number of factors have contributed to the administration’s predicament. Senate Democrats took the unusual step in November of eliminating filibusters for most presidential nominations, but now some of their own members facing reelection are reluctant to approve nominees who have sparked outrage among influential voting blocs.

And Democrats after this coming November are unlikely to retain control of either chamber of Congress.

March 27, 2014 9:05 AM  
Anonymous Proud to be a Marylander! said...

BIG NEWS: MARYLAND LEGISLATURE PASSES GENDER IDENTITY ANTIDSCRIMINATION PROTECTIONS

BILL HEADED TO GOVERNOR O’MALLEY FOR SIGNATURE

March 27, 2014 5:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

glad they have time to play games with meaningless legislation while the health care exchange goes to hell and honors kids in the state can't pass their finals and the flagship university had to cut half its sports programs and then join the Big Ten to survive because of financial mismanagement

March 27, 2014 5:47 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

If the legislation was meaningless you wouldn't be freaking out about it passing, Wyatt.

Meanwhile, over 6 million people have signed up for Obamacare. Boehner is freaking out and trying to make a big deal out of the deadline extension because he can see Obamacare is going to succeed despite the Republican's best efforts.

March 27, 2014 5:55 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Reminds me of the summer of 2008 when bad anonymous was guaranteeing us that the referendum to repeal montgomery counties implementation of an anti-transgender discrimination law would collect enough signatures and the law would be repealled for sure.

Hahahahahahaha, what a loser!

Back then the out of touch fool said "Problem is, you guys are at a disadvantage because of the side you're on. Arguing for the gay agenda, you've got an uphill battle on your hands. Me, I just coast on common sense and I look really smart.".

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahha! How's that working out for you Wyatt? You didn't see your inevitable loss comining but it slapped you upside the head like a cold mackerel.

And then there was this one of Bad anonymous's greatest hits:

"Priya, since you brought up the Huckster, I'll let you in on a secret. There's a conspiracy to make him the next President of the United States.

Don't worry, McCain's in on it.

Here's how it will go down:

McCain nominates Huck. They win the election after more of Obama's friends from the violent, militant radical 60s left emerge. The courts rule after November that McCain is ineligible for the office because he was born outside the United States.

Oila! President Huckabee.

Huckabee's first act as President is to negotiate a gay NAFTA with Canada and Mexico making same sex marriage illegal anywhere in North America.

Keep it on the downlow.

No one is to know.".

Who knew bad anonymous could predict the future with such accuracy?

Hahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha!

March 27, 2014 6:02 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

WTF Is ‘Natural Marriage?’

Today’s Politics 101 pop quiz: In the course of a fierce ideological battle, when it becomes clear that one side is getting its butt kicked, what are leaders of the losing team expected to do? A. Double down. B. Scare the crap out of their followers. C. Beg for money. D. All of the above.

No one really needs help with this one, do they?

So with public acceptance of gay marriage growing faster than Justin Bieber’s rap sheet, the culture warriors at the Family Research Council have been hawking their National Campaign in Defense of Natural Marriage. In multiple email calls to arms, FRC president Tony Perkins is urging people of “character and values” to “take a stand” by signing an on-line petition and, while they’re at it, donating a little something to this “counteroffensive.” By March 31, FRC wants—nay, “needs”—250,000 signatures and $1.1 million to “fund this demanding work of behalf of America’s families.” At that point, the e-petition will be deposited at the feet of the group’s latest hero, Sen. Ted Cruz, “in a public display of support for natural marriage.” Perkins pleads/warns/threatens: “I want to encourage you: natural marriage is not a lost cause in America—unless we give up and let the same-sex ‘marriage’ advocates have their way because we failed to stand up for what is right.”

Now, as a political obsessive subscribed to an unhealthy number of email lists, I receive a daily flood of overwrought solicitations from across the spectrum. Most I toss after a quick glance. But Perkins’s latest entreaties stopped me, not because of their tone or topic but because of their language. Specifically, I somehow missed the moment when “natural marriage” became the preferred term of anti-gay-marriage crusaders. (Sadly, despite several interview requests, the folks at FRC were unavailable to discuss this matter.)

March 27, 2014 6:40 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

It makes perfect sense when you think about it. As political rhetoric goes, “natural marriage” is ever so much more evocative—and, better yet, provocative—than the more commonly employed term “traditional marriage.” After all, plenty of folks would be amenable to, or perhaps even charmed by, the idea of an untraditional marriage. An unnatural marriage, by contrast, brings to mind all manner of unsavory couplings—like, for instance, the man-on-dog action that keeps Rick Santorum up at night. And, indeed, defenders of “natural marriage” talk a lot about how gay marriage is an affront to God’s “natural law.”

The folks at FRC did not, it should be noted, come up with the phrase on their own. The Catholic Church, for instance, tends to refer to “natural marriage” in contrast to “sacramental marriage”—the former being an exclusive, lifetime covenant between a man and a woman of no particular religious backgrounds, while the latter is specifically the union of a man and woman baptized within the Church. In this context, a natural marriage, while good and legitimate, is nonetheless spiritually inferior to a sacramental one.

Less canonically, “natural marriage” is also at times used as a rough synonym for “common-law marriage.” Even if limited to the hetero variety, such non-ceremonial arrangements, recognized by only a handful of states, would seem to be a far cry from the super-stable family environments that natural-marriage advocates are ostensibly seeking.

March 27, 2014 6:41 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Not that any of this much matters now, as “natural marriage” has become a rallying cry for those looking to beat back, as Perkins puts it, “the agenda of the Progressive Left and radical homosexual lobby.” Back in 2004, a FRC pamphlet promoting hetero-only unions was all about “traditional marriage,” as were many of the group’s other communiques up through 2012. More recently, however, its commentary has been increasingly all “natural,” so to speak. Similarly, conservative groups like the Liberty Counsel (the legal nonprofit that takes up conservative causes pro bono) and Americans for the Truth about Homosexuality are solidly on the “natural” bandwagon.

As conservative spin doctor Frank Luntz taught us, if you don’t like the way a debate is going, you need to change the terms. Literally. Trying to rally a nation against the estate tax is a tough lift. But a “death tax”? Now there’s rhetorical gold. “Global warming” = scary and bad; “climate change,” not so much. In some cases, the differences may amount to no more than a couple of letters—say, the Democratic party vs. the Democrat party. And when it comes to firing up the faithful, not to mention separating them from their cash, “natural marriage” certainly seems to pack more gut-level oomph than its more “traditional” cousin.

The debate in question, however, may be beyond the point of such rhetorical retrofitting. These days, not even the veiled threats of bestiality, polygamy, and other comparably “unnatural” acts seem likely to derail the marriage equality train. Which may explain why, with less than a week left in its petition drive, FRC had yet to crack 10,000 signatories. Only 240,000 to go.

March 27, 2014 6:41 PM  

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