GOP On The Prowl Picks Napolitano As New Target While Security Failures Outside The U.S. Were The Cause In Detroit

Janet Napolitano has become the latest target by conservatives for a statement she had made after the attempted attack on an airliner in Detroit. The statement in question was taken after the attempted attack where Napolitano said "the system worked," but later she added that her comments were taken out of context and that she was describing the coordination of efforts after the failure that allowed the bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, to make it as far as he did. The attack on her comments are reminiscent of the attack on John McCain during the presidential campaign, where he said the economy was "fundamentally sound." The only difference I can see is that one statement was made during a crisis while the other after one, and I would have to say that I agree with Napolitano. Tom Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey and co-chairman of the independent commission that investigated September 11th said that Napolitano "had an unfortunate press statement, that's all," and that the real problem was with the sharing of terrorism related information, which is the job of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, headed up by Dennis C. Blair, not Napolitano.

One problem that I see with the cries from the right is that the security failures occurred outside the United States. While many argue that full body scanners could have prevented this attack, previous concerns regarding privacy has prevented their installation, with some countries believe they violate the law in certain circumstances, such as minors passing through, because the scanner's depiction of genitalia would violate child pornography laws. Since the Christmas Day attack, the Dutch have made statements that they plan on installing such scanners for U.S. bound flights and Washington has changed it's position on these scanners, believing that they are now necessary, but I still cannot see how a security failure in the Netherlands is a job failure for Napolitano, unless you are the minority party and looking for any way to combat the administration.

On many conservative sites, Napolitano has already captured the headlines, along with attacks on Islam, the bomber, and now Yemen, where former Gitmo detainee Said Ali al-Shihri is said to have helped plan the attack. While it may be pointed out that he was released from custody in 2007, during the Bush administration, conservatives still find away to blame Democrats. From a Big Government article, Andrew Marcus discusses the connections between the bomber, al-Shihri, and Yemen, as well as the president's release of the detainee, and asks the question: "Does anyone seriously believe [Bush] would have ever [released al-Shihri] if not for the constant pressure applied by the American Progressive Left?"

When you hate the president and the majority party so much, I guess it makes it easier to prove your point, no matter how ridiculous it is. Attack a current government official for a failure that occurred outside the country, involving former Gitmo detainees who aided Abdulmutallab, or blame the current ruling party, and majority, for pressuring the then president to release the detainee? Either way you look at it, in the conservative view, Democrats are to blame for this year's Christmas Day terrorist attack. Can we maybe throw in their how culpable the Bush administration was for ignoring memorandums regarding what would culminate in the September 11th attacks, or is that also derived from Democratic actions?

War Hawk Dick Cheney Rebutted By White House

Dick Cheney, the previous administration's war hawk vice president, has been making news recently criticizing the current president's approach to handling the recent terrorist attack on America - the attempted bombing of a Detroit flight. With comments made stating that Obama is ignoring the fact that we are at war and is making America unsafe - his typical spiel - Cheney has solidified is place in the GOP as that cantankerous old uncle every body has but can't seem to forget or stop inviting to family functions.

According to Dick Cheney, Obama "seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won't be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won't be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of Sept. 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won't be at war."

White House communications director Dan Pfieffer responded dismissing Cheney's remarks as nothing more then political rhetoric, even using Cheney's own opinions against him. Of Obama's response to the terrorist attack, Cheney said it was "the typical Washington game of pointing fingers and making political hay." Pfieffer's response to Cheney is that he is playing the "same old Washington blame game."

Maybe Dick Cheney has a bit more to be worried about, like the upcoming trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammad and four other September 11th conspirators, which may highlight his, as well as former president George W. Bush's and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice's, negligence, both gross and criminal, that allowed the terrorist attack to occur. Maybe he is worried that this time around the press will actually focus on the role he played in one of the largest attacks on American soil.

Pfieffer continued to push back at the former vice president, stating the comparison between this administration and the last, pointing out Dick Cheney's hawkish nature:

"The difference is this: President Obama doesn't need to beat his chest to prove it, and — unlike the last administration — we are not at war with a tactic ("terrorism"), we (are) at war with something that is tangible: al-Qaida and its violent extremist allies. And we will prosecute that war as long as the American people are endangered."

I would hope that higher up officials would speak out in much harsher terms against Cheney, but in the same breath, doing so could possibly help validate his statements, at least to some, and right now Cheney does not even dignify a response (which brings me to question why I am even writing this).

Also related, I had found this article from The Seattle Times, which compares this attempted terrorist attack to the one attempted by Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. At that time, president George W. Bush was on vacation and failed to make a comment for 6 days, receiving no criticism from the media or the Democrats. Democratic National Committee spokesman Hari Sevugan said "this hypocrisy demonstrates Republicans are playing politics with issues of national security and terrorism" and that "they would use this incident as an opportunity to fan partisan flames ... tells you all you need to know about how far the Republican Party has fallen and how out of step with the American people they have become." In 2001, on the following day of the attack, a meeting with the president lasted 25 minutes with zero questions of the shoe bomber, although a comment was made in passing. Bush's response:

"The shoe bomber was a case in point, where the country has been on alert. A stewardess on an American Airlines flight — or a flight attendant on an American Airlines flight — was vigilant, saw something amiss and responded. It's an indication that the culture of America has shifted to one of alertness. And I'm grateful for the flight attendant's response, as I'm sure the passengers on that airplane. But we've got to be aware that there are still enemies to the country. And our government is responding accordingly."

For additional reading regarding Dick Cheney and his abuse of power, check out:
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President

Big Government's Dan Mitchell Believes Universal Health Care A Detriment But Ignores The Facts

I was almost surprised when I had come across an article on Andrew Breitbart's Big Government, which appeared to be discussing how America is overpaying for healthcare and not reaping any of the rewards, mainly an extended lifespan, but my doubts were correct.  The website quickly went on the attack.

Using a graph Andrew Sullivan posted on the Atlantic's website from National Geographic, the graph illustrates how the United States of America pays roughly twice the average costs for health care but has a lower then average lifespan, especially when compared to nations with universal health coverage.  The author of the article, Dan Mitchell, who is of the CATO Institute, attempts to make the point that chart is misleading, not taking into account the reasons why American's lives are shorter then those with universal coverage, most notably citing car crashes, homicides, and obesity, although I would believe the latter to be increasingly related to health expenditures.  If you consider the scope of it all, Mitchell proposes that our lives are cut short by a couple years not because of inadequate care but because we crash our cars, kill each other, and eat way too many cheeseburgers and fries, but would those things also occur in other nations, effectively balancing out the figure?

Countries with universal coverage below America on the chart are former Soviet states, with the only other nation without universal coverage on the graph being Mexico, which pays roughly 11% of what America pays for health care but with Mexicans living only 4 years less.  They are joined below America with Poland, Hungary, Slovak Republic, and South Korea.  A better argument against this chart would be that the illustration does not represent enough nations without universal coverage but maintain high life expectancies, but that is not the point of the Mitchell article.  Instead, it argues that the graph is inaccurate and that the reason why American health care costs are out of whack are because of the increase of third-party payers. Mitchell states that "when people are purchasing something with (what is perceived to be) other people’s money, it’s understandable that they don’t pay much attention to cost." He accompanies this thought with a homemade graph showing the rise of third-party payers, showing that because consumers only directly pay for 12 percent of health care costs, consumers obviously don't care where the remaining 88 percent come from. The only problem with this thought process is that if reforming health care under the Obama administration means higher costs and adopting universal health care would be detrimental to the American system, then why are our European counterparts paying less and getting more for their money? How come costs didn't explode under their system?

Mitchell cites as reference a YouTube video of his as proof he is right (reminiscent of fellow Big Governmenter Jim Hoft), but it seems as if he is bashing the figures on the right of the chart while completely ignoring those on the left - I guess some more of that deceptive conservative journalism, right?

Anti-Gay Marriage Supporter, Karl Rove, Gets 2nd Divorce

Karl Rove, former senior advisor and deputy chief of staff under the Bush administration, is getting a divorce - for the second time.  Rove and his wife, Darby, are getting a divorce after 24 years of marriage.  Rove's family spokesperson response to the media coverage of his impending divorce: "There will be no further comment and the family requests that its privacy be respected."

Karl Rove has been a constant figure in the anti-gay marriage scene, using gay marriage as a political tool to benefit the Republicans by invigorating the religious and social conservative base, but apparently, the sanctity of marriage in the Rove household is no more.  Rove has continually campaigned against gay marriage, claiming any court decision in favor of extending marital rights to homosexual couples are invalid because they are made by "activist judges".  Karl Rove stated the following back in 2004:

Well, marriage is a very important part of our culture and our society. If we want to have a hopeful and decent society, we ought to aim for the ideal. And the ideal is that marriage ought to be and should be a union of a man and a woman. And we cannot allow activist judges to overturn that. We cannot allow activist local elected officials to thumb their nose at 5,000 years of human history and determine that marriage is something else.

Homosexual couples apparently do not fall into his vision of a decent society, and being a hypocrite himself, Rove has decided to get divorced, which is essentially the same as one "thumb[ing] [ones] nose at 5,000 years of human history."  To add to Rove's hypocrisy, it has became clear that Rove's own stepfather, Louis Rove, who raised the young Karl as his own, came out as homosexual later in his life.  Salon's Glenn Greenwald tweeted the following: "This is Rove's second 'traditional marriage' to end without death doing them part -- his next one will be his third traditional marriage."  Greenwald had gone on to write about Rove in his blog posting:

Texas, needless to say, is one of the states which has constitutionally barred same-sex marriages, and has a Governor who explicitly cites Christian dogma as the reason to support that provision, yet the overwhelming majority of Texan citizens make sure that there's nothing in the law making their own marriages binding or permanent -- i.e., traditional. They're willing to limit other people's marriage choices on moral grounds, but not their own, and thus have a law that lets them divorce whenever the mood strikes. That's the very permissive, untraditional and un-Christian law that Rove just exploited in order to obtain his divorce....

If Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and their friends and followers actually were required by law to stay married to their wives -- the way that "traditional marriage" was generally supposed to work -- the movement to have our secular laws conform to "traditional marriage" principles would almost certainly die a quick, quiet and well-deserved death.

What does the Conservative media have to say about Rove's divorce?  While on Fox News, Karl Rove spent 11 minutes discussing things other then his marriage and the conservative slanted Politico had only pleasant things to say about the couple, reiterating the Rove's spokesperson statement and comments from family friends that say it is a shame but that Karl and Darby will remain on good terms, with zero mention of his stance on gay marriage, or the simple fact that it was his second marriage to fail.  There also seemed to be an unrelated plug for his upcoming memoir, "Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight," which must be a reference to his fight with conservativeideals such as traditional marriage and his failure to meet those conditions.

A Comparitive View Of DirectTV's Business Practices And The Methods Of The Sand Lake Hills Homeowners Association

This week, Washington state has filed a lawsuit against DirectTV for maintaining a business model based on deception.  This lawsuit had made me consider the workings of a particular homeowners association, the Sand Lake Hills Homeowners Association, Inc. (SLHHOA).  I continue to focus on the SLHHOA for many reasons, but mostly to illustrate the problems with private government and the lack of actual government oversight that tends to allow abuses to occur.  The SLHHOA just happens to have numerous problems that I enjoy pointing out to help educate my fellow homeowners, especially those who live in the neighborhood, but do not want to get involved for fear that they will incur a financial burden.  These homeowners are willing to sacrifice their rights just so that they are not to be bothered and so I try my best to inform them, despite their reluctance, hoping that one day they see the light and fight for their rights.

The lawsuit against DirectTV involves 16 different causes of action, some of which I will highlight for the purpose of comparison below:

• The sales scripts used by telemarketers include nothing about the terms and conditions on the discount plan.

The SLHHOA had made a push to amend the covenants and restrictions a couple years back, sending volunteers throughout the neighborhood.  Those volunteers asked homeowners to sign a joinder and consent form, accepting the rewritten covenants for their property.  Those volunteers did not have the rewritten covenants for homeowners to review, and the HOA had actually failed to send them out to every homeowner.  If a homeowner refused to sign the joinder and consent form, the volunteer simply threatened that one day they will be forced to pay.  According to the DirectTV article, this practice is called "layering", or hiding the conditions in various places.  The SLHHOA had actually split up their rules, with some being outlined in the covenants and restrictions while others in the by-laws or articles of incorporation, with each referencing only a portion of the rules and directing the homeowner to the various other documents, with some requiring the homeowner to actually purchase them from the state because those documents are not available in digitial format.

• Consumers who buy a DirecTV unit at an electronics store like Best Buy have been unknowingly enrolled in a lease agreement. Even thought the units are purchased like any other electronic equipment -- often for around $100 -- the consumers don’t own them. If they fail to activate DirecTV service, they can face a $150 "activation failure" fee. If they turn off the service early, they can face a $480 early-termination fee and must return the unit to DirecTV.

The SLHHOA had written into their new set of illegal covenants that if a homeowner joins the association, they are forced to be members forever, making their property subject to regulation by the association forever, even if ownership changes.  The SLHHOA had also wrote that even if you are not a member, if you sell your home, the future homeowner would be a member of the association and be required to pay the association assessments.  This is similar to purchasing a unit at the store but later discovering they are not owned by the consumer.  The association has created these roach motel contracts to trap homeowners into their corporation so that they can collect money and force the homeowner to be legally liable to the corporation.

• Consumers who are given "Free HBO" stations for a trial period are often rolled into a paid subscription without their express consent.

The SLHHOA allows homeowners the option to not pay the maintenance assessment if they join and pay the membership to the association, to appear as if the homeowner is not incurring extra costs.

• Customers who refuse a credit check or have bad credit face "hundreds of dollars" in extra fees.

Homeowners who refuse to pay the SLHHOA's assessments face legal action, regardless if they are not liable to the corporation.

Obviously, this is not everything the association has done wrong, and maybe this comparison will seem as a bit of a stretch, but for some this will hit home.  How would you feel if you were required to purchase a service because your neighbors have decided that you have to pay because they are, regardless of if you actually use the service?  This is what the SLHHOA is doing.  They are trying to force homeowners, regardless of membership to their corporation, pay for their expenses...

Maybe it is late and my mind is going in too many directions, but to me, this makes sense!

Michele Bachmann, Chuck Grassley, Sam Brownback, and Max Baucus Collect Government Subsidies For Family Farms

An article on Truthdig had pointed out that Republican elected officials Representative Bachmann of Minnesota, Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa, Senator Sam Brownback from Kansas, and Democratic Senator Max Baucus from Montana have been collecting farm subsidies for a long time now, despite their free market talk and attempts to derail health care (at least for the Republican senators and congressmen).
 
When discussing health care, Senator Grassley had stated that "whenever the government does more ... that’s a movement toward socialism," yet he is been more then willing to collect government welfare for his family farms.

I had found this article interesting and decided to share it. 

Rick Geller on Law and Local Government: Florida Senate Vote Removes Last Barrier to Rail Transit

I believe Rick Geller says it best.  Florida's infrastructure needs to advance and putting off mass transit projects will only negatively impact the region.  With construction sprawling out of control across the landscape, the state's roads are now gridlocked, but nobody is willing to look to the future.  As Geller writes, nobody questions money for road projects, but rail projects have gotten plenty of scrutiny.  I believe that it is vital to not only the transit system, but to the economy of the state that adequate mass transportation is developed. 

Read Rick Geller's article here:

Rick Geller on Law and Local Government: Florida Senate Vote Removes Last Barrier to Rail Transit

Schwarzenegger Calls Palin's Boycott Stance "Nonsense Talk"

Sarah Palin has called for the Prseident Obama to boycott Copenhagen.  When asked about it, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called it "nonsense talk." Palin pushed back with her facebook, writing the following:

Why is Gov. Schwarzenegger pushing for the same sorts of policies in Copenhagen that have helped drive his state into record deficits and unemployment? Perhaps he will recall that I live in our nation's only Arctic state and that I was among the first governors to create a sub-cabinet to deal specifically with climate change.  While I and all Alaskans witness the impacts of changes in weather patterns firsthand, I have repeatedly said that we can't primarily blame man's activities for those changes.

Does Sarah Palin know how to go into details about anything?  Her response to Schwarzenegger sounds very familiar and that is because she said the same thing in her Washington Post op-ed piece on December 9th.

I saw the impact of changing weather patterns firsthand while serving as governor of our only Arctic state. I was one of the first governors to create a subcabinet to deal specifically with the issue and to recommend common-sense policies to respond to the coastal erosion, thawing permafrost and retreating sea ice that affect Alaska's communities and infrastructure.

She goes on to say that "while we recognize the occurrence of these natural, cyclical environmental trends, we can't say with assurance that man's activities cause weather changes."

When is Sarah Palin going to stop reminding people that she was the governor of Alaska, the nation's only arctic state, or that she was wonderful?  After all, she created a sub-cabinet to battle climate change, which she probably has no clue what it is about, considering she likes to reference her sub-cabinet only for climate credentials while at the same time attacking one of its purposes.

Sarah Palin also went on the attack, claiming policies like the ones being discussed in Copenhagen are to blame for California's deficits and unemployment.  When did Sarah Palin become an expert on the economics and employment of California?  While Schwarzenegger was only commenting on the climate comments made by Palin, Palin's response was pretty childish.  She pointed her finger at California and said "Look at me!  I know what I'm talking about.  Do you?"

I wish there was a television show around called Debate Palin.  The purpose would be to go on the show and hold debates with her.  Every week would feature a different subject, but the conclusion would always be the same - Palin loses.

The Right's Obsession With Homosexuality

I took a trip over to Andrew Breitbart's Big Government and noticed that out of the top fourteen headlines, six of them are written by Jim Hoft and carry the "Fistgate" moniker.  I had already written about a couple of Hoft's previous articles, pointing out that he seemed to cite his own articles published on other websites or websites that reference his own website, but it surprised me to see so much space dedicated to his anti-homosexual articles.

As listed on Big Government's homepage, there is Fistgate I, "Jennings Conference Promoted Dangerous 'Fisting'"; Fistgate II, "Jennings Conference Distributes 'Fisting' Kits"; Fistgate III, "'Little Black Book: Queer in the 21st Century'"; Fistgate IV, "Gay Bar Guides for Teens"; Fistgate V, "Teacher Laments, 'Fisting...often Gets a Bad Rap'"; and Fistgate VI, "'No Dookie On Your Noodle".

Reading all the "fistgate"s, I noticed a few things, other then author Jim Hoft's resesmblence to Michael McDonald's recurring character on MadTV, Stuart Larkin.  I had already read the first two Hoft articles, and was surprised when I noticed he had 4 more today.  In Fistgate III, the smear focuses on material given to teens and young adults at a GLSEN conference, which discusses the safety of particular sexual activities, use of a condom, and a list of area gay bars.  The material, a pamphlet titled "The Little Black Book: V 2 Queer In The 21st Century," it is written in street vernacular.  While the right believes it to encourage homosexuality, it discusses the the risks involved in various sexual acts, such as "fuckin'", "suckin'", "rimming", and "watersports (piss play).  Hoft uses as a source for his argument Mass Resistance, an anti-gay website and blog (their blog features a picture of newly married male couple with the title "'Sodomy' Marriage" and a caption "Made in heaven?".

In the Fistgate IV article, Jim Hoft starts off with referencing his own articles again. He writes "Earlier today it was reported that Kevin Jennings’ Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) organization was distributing gay bar directories to high school students at the 2005 Massachusetts GLSEN conference," linking to his own Gateway Pundit article for Fistgate III.  The article also references a World Net Daily article from 2000, referencing the "recent arrest of a Chicago GLSEN leader for soliciting sex with an underage boy", but failed to mention that the article was from 2000, making the event appear all the more recent and quotes Peter LaBarbera of the Americans for Truth Project, a dedicated "organization devoted exclusively to exposing and countering the homosexual activist agenda."  In the article, LaBarbera states that "GLSEN has claimed to protect ‘at-risk’ kids" but are instead "helping put young teenage boys at risk" by giving them guides to anonymous sex clubs and leather bars.  Apparently, there are particular children who are "at risk" of becoming homosexual, and GLSEN is helping them become gay.  According to LaBarbera, homosexual organizations aim to "criminalize Christian opposition to behavior that most Americans believe is wrong," and GLSEN just happens to be one of them.  The Americans for Truth Project categorizes homsexuality as a lifestyle that is learned, and is inherently wrong.

Fistgate IV is pretty much a reprint of Fistgate III, and Fistgate V states that Kevin Jennings, the Safe School Czar, was aware of this material at the GLSEN conference almost a decade ago.  Fistgate VI focuses on a passage from "The Little Black Book", which discusses condom use.  The Jim Hoft transcript is as follows:

“No Dookie On Your Noodle! Nobody knows better than queer men that sh*t happens. It’s just a fact of life…and butts*x. While there are steps to take to avoid a mess, they’re not always practical for the boy on the go. Condoms allow you a certain freedom that can be a great selling point if you’re cruising the park and don’t want stray spunk on your new polyester shirt…”

Understanding that the entire pamphlet was written in slang, Hoft makes the connection that the sex act is to take place in the park.  Hoft states that GLSEN is basically reccommending boys go out "cruising for anonymous anal sex in public parks with strangers".  According to Wikipedia, cruising is the following:

In a specifically sexual context, the term "cruising" originally emerged as an argot "code word" in gay slang, by which those "in the know" would understand the speaker's unstated sexual intent, whereas most heterosexuals, on hearing the same word in the same context, would normally misread the speaker's intended meaning in the word's more common (and presumably less threatening) nonsexual sense. This served (and in some contexts, still serves) as a protective sociolinguistic mechanism for gay men to recognize not only each other, but those who may wish to do them harm in broader societies noted for their homophobia.

Jim Hoft's interpretation of this word is from an outsider looking in, and would be similar to a white person looking at the usage of the word "nigger" and taking it to mean something completely different when spoken between African-Americans.  Instead of looking at this booklet as a guide to safe sex, Hoft looked at the entire "fistgate" scenario as one who is disgusted with homosexuality, and has chosen to dedicate his most recent articles in attacking Kevin Jennings, GLSEN, and homosexuality in general by citing prominent anti-gay organizations in his quest to rid the Obama administration of someone not like him.  What is even scarier then Hoft's articles is that he is given a pulpit to preach his hatred, and given the popularity of Big Government among the new ultra conservative wing, Hoft's anti-gay views are inching their way into the fractured GOP, where it was once unpopular to gay bash.  Check out the comments on Hoft's various articles:

ConcernedVet123:
Remember where this SICKO is from and where he got to promote his PERVERTED PROGRESSIVE AGENDA! Massachusetts! WOW, WHAT A SURPRISE!. The place where Ted Kennedy and Barney Frank have spewed their libRETARD agendas for decades! It's almost impossible to believe that Massachusetts was the birthplace of the American Revolution! Now the birthplace of HIGH TAXES, PERVERTS, GUN CONTROL, and PROGRESSIVES hell bent on destroying this great country. PEOPLE OF MASSACHUSETTS, WAKE UP!

I RECOMMEND THEY TEACH THIS IN SCHOOL. It's real simple! Put up a poster showing the posterior end of a human being, male or female! Then have an ARROW POINTING TO THE ORAFICE, and IN BIG LETTERS the caption: EXIT ONLY!

Isn't it disturming enough that we have communists, marxists, socialists, anarchists, and racist POLITICALLY ABSURD types in this administration. Now I guess we need to add PERVERTS too! For God's sake alreaday!


gilleysuited:
How long are we going to put up with this? WAKE-UP America. What ever it takes, and I mean WHAT EVER it takes we have to put these degenerated demons back in the ****hole they crawled out of. We can not tolerate it another second. I want some person with the presence to stand-up and denounce this scum. He will have the backing of 90% of the population. We can not let these queers ruin our culture. I will not standby any longer. Who is going to stand-up for the decent people of this country? Please people let's respond to these satanic reprobates!

Dooney:
What Jennings continues to emphasize, however, as also Barack Obama by naming Jennings to this position he maintains, is that there is direct correlation and association between homosexuality, child abuse and child sexual abuse (pedophilia).

That the U.S. government (which includes public schools by any/all associated with them) would IN ANY CAPACITY be fascilitating this is beyond disgusting, is utterly contemptible and outright hideously vile.

stacy:
Why we aren't rioting in the streets and forcibly removing everyone in the Congress and the Senate and the White House as is our guaranteed right in the Constitution, I don't know. But I do know that if we don't start and start soon, then I guess we have no one but ourselves to blame for the loss of our Freedom, the greatest Country this world has ever seen and our children. I for one, don't want to have to explain to my children why I didn't make the stand for their future and freedom, why I wasn't willing to make the sacrifices that our founders made for their children and their future and ours. I am willing to fight, bleed and die to preserve this country and all that it stands for and has stood for since our founders fought, bled and died for it because it IS worth the sacrifice. We have all known in or hearts and souls that we might have to be the ones who would find it necessary to "water the tree of liberty", just like our founders knew it would have to be from time to time, because as you know Freedom isn't Free.

Cowboy Logic:
Truthfully, I don't know how many days of this fisting Brokeback Mountain action I can take before my head explodes. I would be curious as to what Ned Beatty would think about all of this............

On a serious note, the last sentence in your thread, "Do you feel safe now?". Yes, I do. Surrounded by my guns and ammo with my family close by. I feel safe.

and

Mr. Hoft,
When is it considered politically correct to PI$$ on your partner?
When is it considered socially correct to PI$$ on your partner?

Do these circumstances ever intertwine and overlap?
Do Barry and MoShelle PI$$ on each other in front of the children, and are the First Daughters taught these techniques at Private Prep School in Foggy Bottom? Enquiring minds want to know. Please inform US......

Sunshine Connie:
That creature is a pervert of humanity. Tar and feathers would be too kind. By his words he should be institutionalized.

To quote Jim Hoft, "Do you feel safe now?"

Palin Supported Cap-And-Trade Before Against It.

Sarah Palin recently wrote an op-ed piece for The Washington Post regarding the conservative manufactured controversy of "Climate-gate."  Believing that climate "experts" fudged some data, Palin calls for Obama to boycott the climate change conference in Copenhagen.  "I've always believed that policy should be based on sound science, not politics," Palin wrote, which I found interesting because she does not seem to take her own advice, especially when you apply it to other areas that Palin had delved into, such as the "birther" conspiracy or "death panels".  I did not realize that Sarah Palin had the ability to gauge the expertise of climatologists, but apparently she does seeing that she had placed the word "expert" in quotation marks.

One particular part of her op-ed piece that I found interesting was where she references her experience with climate change and how she acted in the interest of real science, not politics, like when she sued the Federal government for placing polar bears on the threatened species list or when she formed a subcabinet in Alaska to deal with climate change.

First, I would just like to mention that the Palin administration in Alaska sued the Federal government along with the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the National Mining Association (NMA), so Palin wasn't just crusading on behalf of the common man, she was accompanied by industry against the Federal government.  I would think that siding with big business over the little guy would be very political in nature...

Secondly, I found interesting her reference of the subcabinet she created because she was so concerned with climate change.  Palin had publicly denounced Obama and his support of cap-and-trade, calling it in a July 14th op-ed piece for The Washington Post an "enormous threat to our economy," yet according to the very subcabinet she credits herself for creating, the subcabinet would develop recommendations for dealing with the "opportunities for Alaska to participate in carbon-trading markets, including the offering of carbon sequestration."  As a side note, it is interesting that the API also lobbies against cap-and-trade, so either Palin understands nothing about her administrative orders as Governor of Alaska, or she is a damn good maverick.  Funny, because that very subcabinet would also have been responsible for establishing a climate change strategy regarding the polar bears, but because saving the polar bears would be detrimental to industry, Palin sided with industry, completely ignoring the purpose of the subcabinet in her suit against the Federal government. 

All this is proof that Sarah Palin is nothing but a shell.  She claims to be in the game because she was governor of an arctic state and was familiar with all things, from energy production and natural resources, to foreign policy, but when you chisel away at her public persona, you discover that there is no real substance; only contradictions.

Fistgate II? Big Government Obsesses With What They Call "Homosexual Sex Practices"; Cites Own Work As Proof

Like any good ultra-right blogger, Jim Hoft seems to have found a smear and is sticking to it.  Building on his previous "fisting" article, Hoft trickles out some new information on his Big Government page describing how GLSEN and Planned Parenthood handed out "fisting kits", which consisted of lubrication, a glove, and instructions.

It seems Jim Hoft must have been digging for some dirt on what he deems as wrong, or so it seems.  Hoft's blog is interesting because he cites a couple websites such as Mass Resistance, Founding Bloggers, Gateway Pundit, and Massachusetts News.  Massachusetts News published a story 8 years ago by Ed Oliver titled "Fistgate II Teaches More Homosexual Activity For Young 'Homosexuals'".  Founding Bloggers seemed to cut and paste parts of the Oliver's article, which they claim was sent by an "interesting reader."  The Founding Bloggers blog also links to Big Government and Gateway Pundit for more information.  Gateway Pundit featured an audio clip and transcripts Mass Resistance, which claims the tapes were made to combat the homosexual agenda in our schools.  Did I mention that the Gateway Pundit article was also written by Jim Hoft?  According to Wikipedia, there was a gag order placed on the tape of the meeting, but the tapes have been made public in the middle of this year, which is about when Mass Resistance posted their audio clip.

So essentially, Jim Hoft heard this audio clip, wrote an article for Gateway Pundit on December 6th, then cited his own article for another one he wrote for Big Government on December 8th, which in turn cited Founding Bloggers from December 8th as well, which references back to Hoft's Big Government and Gateway Pundit articles.  Where is the research?  Where are the independant sources backing up or strengthening his argument?  Essentially, Hoft goes to a single source for his information, then uses other websites which he writes for or who cite his articles to back up his original article.  Maybe Jim Hoft should try to investigate something new instead of rehashing an 8 year old story.

Breitbart's Big Government Comes Up With "Fistgate"

Andrew Breitbart's website Big Government has not given up the fight against Obama's Safe School Czar Kevin Jennings.  Apparently, Jennings is guilty of promoting "fisting" to 14 year-olds at a conference in 2000.  The moral crusaders over at Big Government must have too much time on their hands.

For proof, they point out that Kevin Jennings founded the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, or GLSEN, in 1990, and was their executive director a couple years ago.  By association, they also cite several books reccommended on the GLSEN website for promoting sexuality in children.  The nail in the coffin for what they dub "fistgate" is an audio clip from a 2000 GLSEN conference in which a woman asks what exactly "fisting" is.  The speaker, David LaFontaine, chairman of the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth explained what the act is, with the woman adding to his explanation.  Apparently this is proof that Jennings promotes adolescent sex, but not just any sex, but "fisting".

The author of this Big Government article, Jim Hoft, makes the accusation that all gay and lesbian organizations are about sex based on this "proof", but what I think is the underlying issue is the hatred the ultra-right feels towards homsexuality.  Hoft uses an audio clip of David LaFontaine from this conferance with voice over from another conservative website, Mass Resistance, claiming that LaFontaine was showing 14 year-olds how to insert a hand into a rectum, insinuating that LaFontaine, and by association, Kevin Jennings, are promoting acts they deem immoral.  He also inserts a Scott Baker, co-founder of Breitbart.tv, post from a Gateway Pundit blog attacking the "reccommended" reading list of GLSEN.

Considering the past attacks against Kevin Jennings, it is very clear that the ultra-right hates homosexuals, and their hatred seems to come out of the closet as they vigourously attack their targets.

Nobody Loves Obama

It seems The Wall Street Journal has nothing better to write about these days.  An article by Peggy Noonan, titled "He Can't Take Another Bow", insists that nobody really loves Obama.  She claims that Obama has lost the support of those who elected him into power.  Her article's name is a reference to his recent bowing to the Emperor of Japan, and she claims that Obama's administration is void of "wise men" to help get him out of trouble.  She states that even Richard Nixon or George W. Bush had their core 20% that still loved them, but she questions whether Obama still has that group of people.  She compares Obama to Gerald Ford, and uses the image of Ford stumbling on the steps of Air Force One to imply that Obama's policies are not rock solid and that the presidency is bigger then he is.  For Peggy Noonan, Obama is destined to become the next Jimmy Carter, which the right seems to love to hate.

Noonan question's Obama's bow, saying he does not have a firm grasp on protocol, but then she continues to say that a bow may have been appropriate if accompanied by the appropriate headline or that the status of the nation determines the message of the bow.  She states that the Obama photograph paint a picture of an "incompetent" man.  Apparently the Democrats are engaging in the same thought processes that the Republicans have had for the past several years, and that is to ignore criticism because history will prove otherwise.  She had apparently assessed this all from ten months of the presidency.

Noonan writes her piece as if it is fact, but it is all based off of assumptions.  In the beginning of her article, she cites a journalist from a Politico piece, who is often a "sympathetic chronicler of Democratic figures," who states that before, many people held Obama in an unrealistically high view, but have now come to the conclusion that Obama is not "the person of integrity and even classiness they had thought."  Noonan does not really come out and say she hates Obama and he is failing, but she comes pretty close.  She uses the new journalism of the right, which basically is a statement followed by a question: "It is reported that nobody loves Obama, right?" 

Wrong.