Last Thursday and Friday, the Washington Post’s Express tabloid showed a major contrast between a GOP elephant waving a white flag, and then Vice President Joe Biden triumphantly handing out muffins at the post-shutdown EPA.
Another, even stronger contrast emerged on the news stands of DC on Tuesday and Wednesday after it became apparent to absolutely everyone that the Obamacare website was a fiasco. Obama was a cheerleader on Tuesday; on the next day, the Republican elephant was dead or dying.
On Tuesday, the cover headline was “Commander Performance: The president delivers a spirited sales pitch for Obamacare as criticism of its deeply flawed rollout mounts.” Inside, the headline was “Search for a Cure: Obama says the health-care site will be fixed, as problems mount.”
The story began began “President Barack Obama gave a consumer-friendly defense [?] of the health-care law Monday” and the event “had the feel of a health-care pep rally.” They cited ABC-Washington Post poll numbers that 56 percent believe the website’s tech problems reflect a larger problem with Obamacare, but “more Americans also support the law despite the enrollment issues, with 46 percent saying they support the law now, compared with 43 percent who said so last month.”
On Wednesday, the cover headline was “Free Fallin’: Who suffered the most from the government shutdown? Poll results show the biggest loser is the Republican Party. Inside, the headline was “GOP Feels Shutdown Hangover: Poll finds major damage to the party as it wrestles with its future direction.”
As Scott Whitlock noticed in the regular paper, the Post wants readers to know “just how badly the GOP hardliners and leaders who went along with them misjudged the public mood,” while “President Obama’s overall ratings have held steady. Almost half of all Americans approve of the way he has handled his job.” It left out that more disapprove: it’s 48 percent approve to 49 percent disapprove among all adults, and among registered voters, it’s 46 percent approve to 51 percent disapprove.
Just what Savage feels he is accomplishing by using obscenity about the Bible at a journalism conference for high school students is beyond me. But what I do know is that the answers to homosexuality and faith do not lie either with religious haters like Fred Phelps who insult God by hating gays, nor with secular fanatics like Dan Savage who insult homosexuals by falsely portraying them as angry bigots. ~ RABBI SHMULEY BOTEACH
I wasn’t going to post on this, but, since the refutation of WaPo spread to the very leftist magazine, the New Republic, I will post NewsBusters pices on the topic.
One wonders — before posting the stories below — the outrage level WaPo would show if in the fictitious conversation taken from Savage’s book, were Jesus cussing about gays and the gay lifestyle WHILE putting Peter in his place, how “healing” the book would be considered. Will they ever use the term of books like What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense, or, Clash Of Orthodoxies: Law Religion & Morality In Crisis? Somehow I doubt it. It is only “healing” when you expressly attack Christianity, I guess “salvation” in WaPo terms would be the gas chambers? But of course the Obama Admin supports this stuff with tax-payer funds.
First is the original post by by Tim Graham, followed by his follow up article noting the editorial from the left:
The Washington Post occasionally must enjoy sounding completely preposterous. In a Tuesday book review, we’re told in the headlines that gay activist and sex columnist Dan Savage is “on a healing mission” and underneath his “wit,” he only “wants reconciliation.”
[….]
The Post doesn’t apparently require its book reviewers to read the book in question — or at least acknowledge what’s in it. You don’t have to go too far in the publisher’s online excerpt to find him condemning the Family Research Council as an “anti-gay hate group” and its leader Tony Perkins as “full of shit.” He laments the religious right this way:
Whenever someone asks me why the United States is such a mess about sex and everything that touches on sex—why the United States, out of all Western industrialized nations, will never stop fighting about abortion, sex education, birth control, the sex lives of politicians, the existence of gay people—I shrug and say, “Canada got the French, Australia got the convicts, the United States got the Puritans.” [Thank God!]
The New Republic has easily demonstrated just how ridiculous The Washington Post’s book review of the new Dan Savage is to claim that “reconciliation is at the heart of everything Savage writes and says.”
In “The Waning Power of Dan Savage,” Daniel D’Addario dismisses the new book as “a very public act of self-love.” Later, he explained “The nadir of American Savage comes when Savage prints a one-act play called ‘Jesus and the Huge A–hole,’ about religious objectors to Obamacare.”
[….]
This sounds like a rerun of last October’s column attacking conservative Christian blogger and activist Peter LaBarbera, who had tweeted about the founder of Jimmy John’s sandwich shops saying Obamacare would cost him 50 cents a sandwich:
JESUS: “You are an asshole.”
PETER: “Excuse me, Jesus?”
JESUS: “Are you deaf? I said, ‘YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.’ You’re seriously standing there bitching about having to pay a little bit more for a sandwich?”
PETER: “You don’t understand, Jesus, why should I have to pay for—”
JESUS: “Shut the fuck up. I was crucified for your sins and all I asked in return was for you people to be nice to each other—”
PETER: “But—”
JESUS: “Shut the fuck up, Peter. All I asked was for your people to be nice to each other. And you’re telling me that you’re not willing to pay fifty cents more for a fucking sandwich so that the guy who made it for you—and his kids—can go see a doctor? You’re not a Christian.”
PETER: “But I go to church, Jesus, and I hate gay people so hard!”
JESUS: “Not good enough, Peter, not nearly good enough. Stop bothering me and go worship Thor or Mars or Zeus instead, okay? I don’t want you calling yourself a Christian. You’re a dick.”
PETER: “I can’t believe Jesus just called me a dick.”
JESUS: “Yeah, well, you are a dick. I sacrificed my life for you and you can’t sacrifice a bag of chips for the sandwich guy? Or scrounge up the extra fifty fucking cents? Dick.”
PETER: “But Jesus!”
JESUS: “Love one another as I have loved you, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, take care of the poor, take care of the sick, give away all that you have and follow me—does any of this shit ring a bell, you stupid asshole?”
PETER: “Okay! Okay! I’m sorry! I’ll go worship Thor!”
In fact, the above shows that it is sooo “politically-correct” in the rooms at the Washington Post that one couldn’t even mention in the review that this (the above) was not healing. Freedom of press? Yeah right!
Junkscience.com reports this is what the print copy looks like today for this article by Eugene Robinson. Note what looks like black unfiltered pollutants spewing skyward [is steam]
This is what it looks like during the day, in color, with the sun light coming from another direction (to the right).
Again, this is steam!
Which reminds me of a great article I wish to recommend — it is only 25-cents for Pete’s Sake (here) — in which it’s author Charles Cooke recounts seeing the infamous seven chimneys seen in many documentaries by activist environmentalists:
After half an hour’s drive, the incessant stretch of virgin land comes to an end and, over the shallow hills, we see white smoke billowing into the sky. A few more miles and an industrial plant comes into view. Against the green-and-white landscape, it is a shock. I recognize it immediately as belonging to heavy-oil giant Syncrude, and as the favorite subject of the myriad anti-oil-sands photographs that are currently circulating around the Web. It is without doubt an ugly thing to see amid so much beauty, and the Tolkienesque distaste for the “scouring” of the countryside that informs the “green” zeitgeist is born of a noble instinct. Yet not all is what it seems. To a layman, the seven sets of white clouds look baleful, but, I learn, six of these chimneys are emitting just harmless steam. Our host, Cheryl Robb, jokes that she prefers conducting summer tours because then “the steam is invisible.” She gives us the details of an ongoing $1.6 billion project that will reduce the emissions from the one offending chimney by 60 percent. (National Review, “The Quite Gold Rush,” by Charles C. W. Cooke)
It’s all about perspectives… one is a misuse of lighting and facts, the other is more honest.
In the article, Eugine Robinson laments a Co2 milestone than WUWTmakes a point that even Al Gore called for a solemn day of prayer over:
So please, take this day and the milestone it represents to reflect on the fragility of our civilization and and the planetary ecosystem on which it depends. Rededicate yourself to the task of saving our future. Talk to your neighbors, call your legislator, let your voice be heard. We must take immediate action to solve this crisis. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next year. Now.
Shirts are available:
However, the PPM were revised, much to the chagrin of the religious believers (beliebers?) like Al Gore:
It seems we didn’t reach 400PPM last week after all. The data has been revised. Ooops.
‘Carbon dioxide measurements in the Earth’s atmosphere did not break the symbolic milestone of 400 parts per million at a Hawaiian observatory last week, according to a revised reading from the nation’s climate observers.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) revised its May 9 reading at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, saying it remained fractions of a point below the level of 400 ppm, at 399.89′
Oh well, there’s always next week…or maybe not, since spring in the Northern Hemisphere tends to reduce CO2 as plants suck up all that CO2 that some claim is not plant food.
During the campaign, the president could just get away with claiming he said “act of terror,” since he did use those words — though not in the way he often claimed. It seemed like a bit of after-the-fact spin, but those were his actual words — to the surprise of Mitt Romney in the debate.
But the president’s claim that he said “act of terrorism” is taking revisionist history too far, given that he repeatedly refused to commit to that phrase when asked directly by reporters in the weeks after the attack. He appears to have gone out of his way to avoid saying it was a terrorist attack, so he has little standing to make that claim now.
Indeed, the initial unedited talking points did not call it an act of terrorism. Instead of pretending the right words were uttered, it would be far better to acknowledge that he was echoing what the intelligence community believed at the time–and that the administration’s phrasing could have been clearer and more forthright from the start.
What many Democrats seem to forget is that the reason for Big Business to join forces with Big Government, is to run any threat of competitiveness out of the market. To MONOPOLIZE. Obama’s policies are proving that these Big Businesses are not altruistic in their reasoning for pursuing such causes like Obama-Care and raising of taxes and more regulatory conditions. From over Obama-Care 2,000 waivers, to the stories below, Obama’s policies are filling the rolls of LARGE insurance carriers and forcing small companies who cannot compete with large “Warren Buffett” type firms to move many of their full-time workers to part time. FAILED policies.
What is funny — to give one more example — a family member of one of the Gay Patriots told him he was voting for Obama because he thought Republicans wanted to cut Pell Grants. Sorry Charlie:
This cut in eligibility was never mentioned by President Obama during the campaign, and when he boasted about increasing funding to the Pell Grant program, CNN fact-checked his claim as true. While the amount of government funding to the program is going up in future years, CNN failed miserably by not pointing out the cuts in eligibility to students. The cuts could be a rude awakening to students who thought President Obama was expanding their educational opportunities.
Hollywood is another example of this hypocrisy of avoidance, proving, yes PROVING, the Republican position. Hollywood and most in it campaign for higher taxes. But what is wrong with this is that after these taxes hit, they leave California to shoot movies in other states with lower tax-rates. Here Adam Corolla and Dennis Prager talk about this:
Another example of what Democrats voted for, unlike Bill Clinton who, yes, raised taxes but REFORMED social programs and CUT spending at the time. Obama is offering another stimulus (more government spending) that is about equal to any forecast gain in tax increases/revenue — the exact opposite of Clinton!
Like medical giant, Stryker, one of Obama’s biggest financial backers, laying off almost 1,200 workers to prep for Obama-Care, and the falling revenue (33%) of the Californian government showing in the the micro what higher taxes and more regulation does to the engine of the economy. Here are more stories of failure, and how these higher taxes will hit the retired folks that worked hard their whole lives, just to see it disappear. Google and Microsoft are two of Obama’s largest financial backers (Bloomberg):
The company avoided about $2 billion in worldwide income taxes in 2011 by shifting $9.8 billion in revenue into a Bermuda shell company, almost double the total from three years before, filings show.
Governments in France, the U.K., Italy and Australia are probing Google’s tax avoidance as they seek to boost revenue. Schmidt said the company’s efforts around taxes are legal.
We pay lots of taxes; we pay them in the legally prescribed ways,” he said. “I am very proud of the structure that we set up. We did it based on the incentives that the governments offered us to operate.”
The company isn’t about to turn down big savings in taxes, he said.
“It’s called capitalism,” he said. “We are proudly capitalistic. I’m not confused about this.”
[….]
Google’s overall effective tax rate dropped to 21 percent last year from about 28 percent in 2008. That compares with the average combined U.S. and state statutory rate of about 39 percent.
Costco also was a huge supported of Obama and is borrowing money to avoid paying higher taxes on it now (WSJ):
When President Obama needed a business executive to come to his campaign defense, Jim Sinegal was there. The Costco COST +1.92% co-founder, director and former CEO even made a prime-time speech at the Democratic Party convention in Charlotte. So what a surprise this week to see that Mr. Sinegal and the rest of the Costco board voted to give themselves a special dividend to avoid Mr. Obama’s looming tax increase. Is this what the President means by “tax fairness”?
Specifically, the giant retailer announced Wednesday that the company will pay a special dividend of $7 a share this month. That’s a $3 billion Christmas gift for shareholders that will let them be taxed at the current dividend rate of 15%, rather than next year’s rate of up to 43.4%—an increase to 39.6% as the Bush-era rates expire plus another 3.8% from the new ObamaCare surcharge.
More striking is that Costco also announced that it will borrow $3.5 billion to finance the special payout. Dividends are typically paid out of earnings, either current or accumulated. But so eager are the Costco executives to get out ahead of the tax man that they’re taking on debt to do so.
[….]
To sum up:Here we have people at the very top of the top 1% who preach about tax fairness voting to write themselves a huge dividend check to avoid the Obama tax increase they claim it is a public service to impose on middle-class Americans who work for 30 years and finally make $250,000 for a brief window in time.
If they had any shame, they’d send their entire windfall to the Treasury.
Other companies as well that bundled, supported money (and press time to) Obama are doing the same (Townhall):
One of the people who will benefit from this deal will be Costco’s co-founder and former CEO Jim Sinegal who owns more than two million shares of its stock and will collect about $14.4 million from the special dividend. Had he taken that next year, he could be slapped with a tax rate of 43.4 percent if Obama’s proposed tax increases become law (boosting the tax rate on dividends to over 20 percent and adding a surcharge tax on millionaires).
Instead, Costco decided to pay its stockholders before Dec. 18 so that the special payoff plus a regular quarterly cash dividend of 27.5 cents will be taxed at the current 15 percent rate under the investment tax cuts wisely enacted under President George W. Bush in 2003.
This means Sinegal, who gave a prime-time speech in behalf of Obama’s re-election at this summer’s Democratic national convention, would avoid paying about $4 million in higher taxes next year.
Costco is not alone in its early tax-avoidance payouts. Many American businesses, from Wynn Resorts to Tyson Foods, have also declared special dividends to avoid the higher tax rate if the Bush rates expire.
One of the most notable Fortune 500 companies to join the pack is the Washington Post who endorsed Obama for a second term and has warmly embraced his tax increase plans. The media conglomerate has announced it will pay its 2013 dividends “before the end of this year to try to spare investors from anticipated tax increases,” reports the Associated Press.
Among those who stand to benefit from the Post’s beat-the-tax-deadline — and pocket a bundle of money — will be stock tycoon Warren Buffet and his Berkshire Hathaway firm, the newspaper’s biggest shareholder.
How can governments stop people from doing this, besides the right thing and lowering taxes to increase the amount of businesses staying in our country and wanting to move their operations here? Why, enforce the law with threat of prison and fines! Here is an example from France, whom, you’ll remember, raised the top rate to 75%, here is a story from Libertarian Republican (“stopped at the border… ‘papers please'”):
The President of France, François Hollande, announced today the possibility of reviewing the existing tax treaties with Belgium to prevent welthy people from moving to the neighboring country in order to evade taxes. One of the most recent cases was that of the famous actor Gerard Depardieu, who decided to set his house in the Belgian town of Néchin, where other wealthy French citizens live in order to benefit from a more lenient tax regime. “Everyone should have and ethical behavior, regardless of his job,” Hollande told reporters. The tax exile of the highest paid actor in France was described as a lack of patriotism, especially since he always boasted of its popular origins and occasionally denounced social inequities.
What other option is there? If you are Big Government that is!
1) On a dark street, a man draws a knife and demands my money for drugs;
2) Instead of demanding my money for drugs, he demands it for the Church;
3) Instead of being alone, he is with a bishop of the Church who acts as the bagman;
4) Instead of drawing a knife, he produces a policeman who says I must do as he says;
5) Instead of meeting me on the street, he mails me his demand as an official agent of the government.
If the first is theft, it is difficult to see why the other four are not also theft.
NewsBusters rightly points out the left leaning bias of major news outlets with this — one of many — examples:
The Washington Postfilm review of the new conservative documentary 2016 mocked the movie as a “fear-mongering” “infomercial” that is too opinionated. The same paper, however, gushed over the “emotional power” of liberal filmmaker Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, praising it as a “cultural juggernaut.”
2016 reviewer Michael O’Sullivan knocked the “slick infomercial,” deriding, “As these things go, the movie seems destined to irritate the president’s supporters while mobilizing his detractors, even as it is doomed to win precious few converts. It’s a textbook example of preaching to the choir.” In contrast, Fahrenheit 9/11 critic Desson Thomson defended, “Documentaries aren’t news articles; they’re subjective points of view, which is why Moore has almost endless fun at the president’s expense.”
Thomson explained away the hard-left tilt of Moore’s movie this way:
What counts is the emotional power of Moore’s persuasion. With a combination of events and facts that we have already learned, and some that we haven’t, Moore puts it all together. You can understand the thread of his argument, even if you disagree.
In comparison, O’Sullivan huffed that 2016 is “anything but crude. The best infomercials rarely are.”
Women like this, feminists that are pro-life, are not welcomed in the Democratic Party:
NewsBusters has a great article that show the Washington Post’s bias in reporting “what is” and “what is not” inclusive in regards to the coming Democratic convention.
“Democrats aim to be inclusive,” blurts the headline in Amy Gardner’s 5-paragraph item on how the Democratic convention “will feature a long list of female speakers and a slew of activities designed to make it the most inclusive convention in history, organizers announced Wednesday.”
Gardner went on to note that Sandra Fluke and “women from many other walks of life” will take to the podium, such as NARAL Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan, Caroline Kennedy, and actress Eva Longoria. Gardner left out that Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood was also announced as a speaker, and that Keenan served on this year’s platform drafting committee, which shot down an effort by Democrats for Life of America to add “big tent” language to the platform. Somehow a handful of pro-choice speakers addressing contraception and abortion is diversity to the Washington Post.
Perhaps that’s not so surprising, however, since, aside from Post columnist Melinda Henneberger, there’s been no print coverage of the group’s work to change the platform. There was also an August 18 guest entry by Sarah Kliff on the matter at Ezra Klein’s Wonk Blog, but that’s about it.
Democrats for Life notes that roughly a third of Democrats nationwide are pro-life and noted in an August 10 press release that:
61% of Democrats support parental consent for minors seeking abortion (Gallup, 2011); 60% of Democrats support a 24-hour waiting period for women seeking abortion (Gallup, 2011); 84% of Democrats support informed consent (Gallup, 2011); 49% of Democrats support an ultrasound requirement (Gallup, 2011); 59% of Democrats support a ban on partial-birth abortions (Gallup, 2011).
This leads me to my next point, and it is made by Ashley Herzog in her great book (which I highly recommend for girls between 16 and 20 years of age), Feminism vs. Women. The point is two-fold. The heroes of feminism were pro-family and pro-life, secondly, the cultural left (progressives) are more dogmatic and ideological in their litmus tests than any fiery-eyed-Baptis-preacher.
“They [the women] are never allowed to look at the ultrasound because we knew that if they so much as heard the heart beat, they wouldn’t \want to have an abortion.” – Abortion doctor quoted in New Dimensions magazine, 1990
Invariably, the feminist position on abortion is portrayed as the “pro-woman” position—mostly because feminist leaders have convinced their followers that this procedure is essential to women’s liberty. As Gloria Feldt, former president of Planned Parenthood, said, “‘abortion’ became a symbol of our independence, because reproductive freedom is fundamental to a woman’s aspirations.”
This is also known as the “pro-choice” position. But how do feminists feel about women who don’t choose abortion—and, more importantly, the women who assist them in making that choice?
Don’t be fooled by the deceptive labels and euphemisms. When it comes to “reproductive rights,” feminists have a very specific agenda—one that involves a lot more abortions, but not necessarily more choice.
At Temple University in Philadelphia, Serrin Foster, president of Feminists for Life of America, faced a tough crowd. As Crisis magazine described the scene, “The 40 or so students gathered to hear Foster are mostly women. Not even the pro-lifers are smiling. The student who introduced her asked those with differing opinions to be respectful. It set an ominous tone. Would they start chanting soon? Blowing whistles? Would they get violent?”
But then, somehow, Foster performed a miracle. She threw the cover off “the dirty little secret of women’s studies departments” — America’s earliest feminists were anti-abortion. In the words of courageous suffragette Susan B. Anthony, abortion was “child murder,” and “no matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!”
Foster then asked the crowd, “If women were fighting for the right not to be considered property, what gives them the right to consider their baby property?”
It was something to think about. From that moment on, even students who had showed up to protest couldn’t help but nod in agreement.
That night, Foster raised a point that feminists dare not discuss: before the women’s movement was hijacked by leftists in the 1960s, abortion was never viewed as a good thing for women. In fact, the practice was unthinkable to individuals like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the mastermind behind the historic Seneca Falls Convention and mother of seven children. (If Stanton applied for a teaching position in a women’s studies department today, she would be labeled a “Jesus freak” and promptly dismissed.)
“When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit,” Stanton wrote to her friend Julia Ward Howe in 1873.
She wasn’t the only one.
Victoria Woodhull, the first female stockbroker on Wall Street, also became the first woman to run for President in 1870. An early suffragette with a flair for the outrageous, Woodhull epitomized the modern feminist slogan “well-behaved women rarely make history.” (She was repeatedly arrested for her political activities.) And she too hated abortion.
“A human life is a human life and equally to be held sacred whether it be a day or a century old,” Woodhull wrote. “Wives…to prevent becoming mothers…deliberately murder [children] while yet in their wombs. Can there be a more demoralized condition than this? “
Alice Paul, who authored the original Equal Rights Amendment, was willing to face arrests, harassment, and physical assaults in order to win the right to vote. Later, when 1960s feminists began advocating the repeal of abortion laws, Paul asked, “How can one protect and help women by killing them as babies?” She considered abortion “the ultimate exploitation of women.”
Who are the modern descendents of Anthony, Stanton, Woodhull, and Paul? They can be found at Feminists for Life of America, whose founder, Pat Goltz, was kicked out of NOW for her anti-abortion views. On its website, FFL issues a challenge: “If you believe in the strength of women and the potential for every human life…If you refuse to choose between women and children…If you reject violence and exploitation, join us in challenging the status quo. There is a better way.”
FFL reaches out to women facing crisis pregnancies and opposes any legislation that might make it harder for them to keep their children—much of which has been proposed by Republicans, proving that FFL hardly deserves the “right- wing” label assigned to it by pro-abortion feminists. In 1996, FFL attempted to dissuade President Clinton from signing a Republican-backed welfare reform bill that eliminated additional assistance for babies born to girls under 18. Their rationale? If a pregnant girl couldn’t afford to raise her child, she would have no choice but to abort.
FFL also pressures universities to provide special resources for pregnant and parenting students, a move opposed by many conservatives on the principle that pregnant women aren’t entitled to handouts. But FFL refuses to compromise its mission: to make motherhood a viable option for women facing unwanted pregnancies.
FFL is not actively involved in efforts to outlaw abortion. Instead, the group is interested in “systematically eliminating the root causes that drive women to abortion — primarily lack of practical resources and support — through holistic, woman-centered solutions.”
This is a truly “pro-choice” position—the one that groups like NOW and NARAL claim to uphold. But evidently a lot of feminists do not believe that women deserve better than abortion.
“Who are the Feminists for Life? In a word, dangerous,” began an article in the online magazine Nerve.
“Feminists for what?” the author gasped. “Not a typo: Feminists for Life. As in, against abortion.” The horror!
As the article explained, the women of FFL “aren’t really feminists—a feminist could not force another woman to bear a child.”
Feminist hysteria over FFL indicates that the only “choice” they deem acceptable is the decision to terminate a pregnancy. The way FFL was treated by the Lilith Fair, a feminist music festival organized by singer Sarah McLachlan in the late 90’s, proved that different views on abortion will not be tolerated.
“Women are everywhere. Walking in groups, laughing and talking. Sitting on the grass. Playing the guitar. Reading pamphlets on women’s issues picked up from booths in the Village area,” a reporter described Lilith Fair’s stop in my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. “There is also a woman with a gag in her mouth standing in front of one of the booths, wearing a T-shirt reading, ‘Peace begins in the womb…‘“
That woman was Marilyn Kopp, the director of Ohio Feminists for Life. Lilith Fair, despite its stated mission of “raising consciousness of women’s issues,” denied booth space to any group that did not wholeheartedly support abortion as the ultimate catalyst of gender equality.
Naturally, Lilith Fair’s feminist organizers were outraged that FFL had the gall to show up at their concert.
“This isn’t a democracy. This is a tyranny,” fumed singer Sheryl Crow, justifying Lilith’s ban on pro-life groups.
However, some ordinary concertgoers were unimpressed with the notion of tyranny in the name of women’s advancement.
“As Kopp’s friend Denise Mackura stands gagged in front of the NOW booth, a group of teenage girls walk up to her. When they find out what’s going on, they’re shocked,” reporter Laura Demarco wrote. “They see the situation as a violation of civil rights, not a defense of women’s rights. ‘This is wrong,’ says Casey Patton, 17.”
The sight of FFL members standing in front of NOW’s booth with gags in their mouths spoke volumes about the authoritarian nature of the modern feminist movement. As DeMarco observed, “It’s hard to miss the hypocrisy of feminists censoring other women like this… they patronizingly assume women aren’t smart enough to hear all sides on an issue and decide for themselves.”
The prospect of women deciding for themselves is terribly threatening to the feminist establishment—which might also explain their fanatical opposition to Crisis Pregnancy Centers.
NewsBusters has this update to the “Mitt Romney Tortures Gay Kids for Fun… Released Alongside Obama’s ‘Evolution’ Announcement”
Washington Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton touted the Post’s Romney-haircut “scoop” as a “deeply reported story” that “holds up to scrutiny.” But the family of the haircut victims told ABC it was “factually inaccurate” and it shouldn’t be used as a political football. Pexton said nonsense: the Post has received “no specific complaint of inaccuracy.”
Perhaps more shocking is that the Post shamelessly admits they timed this story precisely to echo on the day after President Obama’s big pro-gay announcement. They actually waited a day long than planned to let Obama have the front page to himself when he was being “historic.” Pexton’s only nod to the right: he panned the sneaky update that’s still not a “correction”:
Stu White was portrayed in the original story as being “disturbed” by the alleged haircut incident for decades, and then it was amended to a couple of weeks. That’s embarrassing, but not to the shameless Post:
Kevin Merida, national editor of The Post, said on Friday that “We should have updated it with a note.” I agree with Merida. I would have used strike-through text online to make it clear to readers that that part of the online story was changed. I think that’s just the better part of candor. There is now an editor’s note at the very bottom of the story. The Post is not calling it a correction. I think it is a correction, but not germane to the central theme of the story.
Here’s how Pexton dismissed the family’s complaint:
“Mr. Lauber’s family said in a statement that they were ‘aggrieved that John would be used to further a political agenda,’ Parker wrote in her story. In a tweet she also wrote that the family said “ ‘The portrayal of John is factually incorrect,’ but they would not elaborate on how it was inaccurate.”
Jason Horowitz talked to all three of John Lauber’s sisters for the story and carefully explained to them what the story was about, Merida said.
The Post has received no specific complaint of inaccuracy from the Lauber family, Merida said. “We stand by the story. It’s a full portrait. It’s the story of Mitt Romney’s years at Cranbrook.”
This is certainly not a “full portrait.” It’s a hit piece that’s helped liberal journalists, talkers, and bloggers to assault Romney as someone who “tortured gay kids” for fun. If in 2004, the Post had done a long story on how John Kerry didn’t deserve his medals, they wouldn’t be able to tell liberals with a straight face that it was a “full portrait.” ….
The Washington Post, a liberal rag that never investigated anything on the radical communist-mentored youth of Barack Obama, published a story today on Mitt Romney’s high school days. Apparently, Mitt picked on a kid once. It was a horrific crime. The Washington Post reported:
Meanwhile, In September 2008 abortion survivor Gianna Jessen joined Born Alive Truth in an illuminating ad that attacked Barack Obama for voting to snuff the life out of newborn survivors of abortion:
(See Gianna’s interview here) Barack Obama voted 4 times to support infanticide. Boy, that Mitt Romney sure is a horrible person, huh?
Not only that, but it appears Obama shoved girls in school. While it is innocent playground antics, the point is that the Washington Post (who just “happened” to release this story to the day of Obama coming out for gay marriage — such a coincidence) doesn’t do the same investigation into Barry’s background! (NewsBusters asks, and rightly so, If “The WashPost Report a 5,000-Word Expose on Obama’s Cocaine Use In the Last Cycle?” They answer: Of Course Not!) Badger Pundit does a great job in piecing together the event — in Obama’s own words — and his “anti-bullying” appearance:
On Saturday, the Washington Post’s religion page inside the Metro section highlighted a pro-life cause: what may be the only Jewish crisis-pregnancy center in the country, Erica Pelman’s group In Shifra’s Arms (ISA). Debra Rubin’s story for the Religion News Service relayed both sides and noted both Jewish law and Jewish public opinion. Liberal rabbis have railed against ISA, even for using the term “baby” instead of “fetus.
Rabbi Peter Stein of Temple Sinai in Cranston, R.I., is among ISA’s detractors, criticizing the group for its use of the term “your baby,” rather than the medical term “fetus.” That’s too narrow a perspective of Jewish law, he said.
“It doesn’t seem to recognize the challenges and reasons why some women would choose to end an unwanted pregnancy,” said Stein, who’s active in the Washington-based Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. He and others point to an ISA link to an abortion information page provided by the traditionalist group Aish HaTorah, which Rabbi Bonnie Margulis (who also is affiliated with RCRC) describes as an organization that “tries to convince non-Orthodox to become Orthodox.”
Aren’t liberals funny? It’s controversial to try to talk someone into keeping a baby, or getting more conservative in your approach to God. But advocate for abortion, or homosexuality, and try to tear conservatives away from ancient moral tradition? That’s apparently just another day at the synagogue.
