Saturday, September 08, 2012 5:23:56 AM
Shape-Shifting Mitt: From Blue Blood to Blue Collar. That's a Laugh.
Well, the tie's blue anyway.
By Jim Schutze
Fri., Aug. 31 2012 at 11:07 AM
Categories: Get Off My Lawn [ http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/get_off_my_lawn/ ]
I had a private little laugh and moment of startled disbelief while my wife and I were watching Mitt Romney's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention last night. Romney described his father as having started out in life as an apprentice "lath and plaster carpenter [ http://blogs.ajc.com/jamie-dupree-washington-insider/2012/08/31/text-of-mitt-romneys-gop-convention-speech/ ]," a term so arcane in the age of Home Depot building materials that Fox News actually recorded it in their transcript as "laugh and plaster carpenter [ http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/30/transcript-mitt-romney-speech-at-rnc/ ]."
More on laughing plaster in a moment. That wasn't what I personally was laughing about.
I knew Romney's father just a little bit, only as a reporter knows a politician, but I did a fair amount of research on the old boy and his family back many years ago when I was a reporter for The Detroit Free Press and he was a kind of returning hero, coming back to Bloomfield Hills to retire after serving in the Nixon White House.
George Romney's parents were monogamy-practicing Mormons, Gaskell Romney and Anna Amelia Pratt, who sat at the head of Utah's most prosperous Mormon family. George Romney bragged to me that his father made and lost several fortunes in the construction business. These were rich people, justifiably proud of their achievements.
I'm sure Gaskell Romney did struggle. The Romney family story is one of genuine courage and audacity. The part where I laughed last night, however, was when Mitt Romney tried to paint his dad, George Romney, as a blue-collar Detroit guy.
The Fox transcript has Romney saying, "My dad never made it through college, and he apprenticed as a laugh (ph) and plaster carpenter. He had big dreams. He convinced my mom, a beautiful young actress, to give up Hollywood to marry him. And moved to Detroit."
What a tale. Sort of hard to believe, eh? What did he tell her? I beg you, leave this meaningless dross of Hollywood glamor, come with me to Detroit, and we shall lead the life of laugh and plaster.
It's lath and plaster, of course, the stuff they used to make wall coverings out of before Sheetrock. And I'm sure George Romney did work for his dad's construction company at some point. But after college and his missionary stint, young George went straight to Washington where he made a brilliant career as a Senate staffer and lobbyist.
George Romney was never a car guy. American Motors brought him out to Detroit from the Automobile Manufacturing Association, the industry's lobbying arm, to be a sort of figurehead chief executive and super-salesman, heading up the innovative "gas-guzzling dinosaurs" ad campaign for the Rambler. He got all kinds of ink and TV exposure through the ad campaign, building the name recognition that later propelled into him into the governor's office in Michigan.
Am I saying there was something fake about George Romney? Oh, no, quite the contrary. What people loved about George Romney was that he was absolutely straight-on, what you see is what you get.
His candor eventually undid him in his 1968 presidential bid: Romney told the truth about Vietnam, saying he (and by implication all of us) had been brainwashed by the Washington establishment to believe it was a good war that we were going to win. The truth was that it was a bad war that we were going to lose.
That finally was too much truth for America at the moment. We still haven't come to grips with losing that war. George Romney was out of the 1968 presidential race, but it was an entirely honorable exit.
Look, George Romney, like his son Mitt, was a rich kid. The point about George Romney was that he took his advantages as a challenge to work even harder, reach even farther. He was proud of who and what he was, and I do not believe it would ever have occurred to him to try to pose as something else.
It looks to me like his son did the same thing -- worked as hard as any poor kid with rat-in-the-belly ambition -- and that's a thing for a rich kid to be proud of. But to deny it and pose as something he is not is just flat disturbing, every bit as much as if he really were a poor kid trying to take on airs as an aristocrat. It is not a thing old George would have gone along with a bit.
That's why the laugh and plaster thing really wasn't funny. It's a window into the soul of a shape-shifter, the being the Indians called a nagual. He can be anything. Just show him what animal you want him to be, and he will appear to you as that creature.
The entire theme of the Republican convention was, "No matter what you see on your TV screen, we are not rich white people." They even had Ann Romney up there talking about how, "We walked to class together, shared the housekeeping, ate a lot of pasta and tuna fish ... our dining room table was a fold down ironing board in the kitchen [ http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/28/transcript-ann-romney-speech-at-republican-national-convention/ ]."
Yeah. At Harvard.
But I guess some posing and exaggeration are to be expected at a political convention, but that's not supposed to include the guy who wants us to to elect him president. Last night Mitt Romney tried to tell me he was from some kind of blue-collar Detroit "car-guy" stock. I hope he tries it again in the debates. I have the rebuttal line right here: "Governor, you're no Joe the Plumber."
© 2012 Dallas Observer, LLC
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2012/08/shape-shifting_mitt_from_blue.php [with comments]
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Republican Convention Delegates Spurred By Fear Will Fight For Man They Don't Like
By Michael McAuliff
Posted: 09/01/2012 11:09 am Updated: 09/04/2012 6:18 pm
TAMPA, Fla. -- The conservative faithful who make up the base of the Republican Party still don't like Mitt Romney very much, but Democrats are kidding themselves if they think that will matter at all in November.
The reasons have very little to do with Romney, a former pro-choice governor of Massachusetts who nevertheless managed to emerge from his party's fractious field of White House aspirants, backed by deeper pockets than his opponents.
So why will people -- grassroots conservatives who know Romney's past -- work hard for a man who once described himself as a progressive?
"That's a real good question," said Peggy Dau, of Bartlesville, Okla., who spoke to The Huffington Post at a "Patriots for Romney" rally organized by someone they really do like -- Rick Santorum.
The answers given by Dau and other staunch conservatives who would have preferred a different standard-bearer offer a glimpse into a mindset that, though liberals might find it somewhat disturbing, is nevertheless built on a foundation of faith, family, loyalty, community spirit and all-around decency. Their perception is that they are under assault, that other people want to destroy the world they have built, or take it away.
Bolstered in their belief by relentless persuasion of the right's paid political professionals, they are afraid they will lose the "fight." That fear is focused squarely on President Barack Obama. And it doesn't matter that Mitt Romney might not be a genuine conservative in their eyes.
"At the end of the day, we're still Republicans and we've gotta get Obama out of there," said Donna Cosmello, of New Milford, Pa.
"Anybody's better than Obama," said Rosie Gaetano, of Scranton, Pa. "Obama must go. OMG. Not 'Oh my God.' Obama. Must. Go!"
It's not just partisan fervor. It's bone-deep. They truly believe they're under siege.
Still, faced with a reporter employed by one often caricatured as a demon of the left, Arianna Huffington, they are not hostile. They are open and friendly and frank. And they neatly delineate the world into the broad factions that they see engaged in the battle.
"I heard a poll that said married, white, family values, spiritual values, are the people more going for Romney," said Peggy Dau, of Bartlesville, Okla. "On the other side -- and this is just the way it is -- are single parents, more minorities, more non-religious people who want Obama."
Dau, who backed Michele Bachmann before settling on Santorum, puts herself solidly in the values camp, which makes her and others like her motivated Romney voters.
"People who followed Rick Santorum were probably very strong on family values, on faith values, and Obama is at the opposite in his legislation," she said, careful to not make her opposition personal. "I will give him credit, he's got a family and they are intact."
But she still believes the president is ruining the country.
"Women want to be secure in how their kids are going to have a better education, they want to know if they can get jobs, they want to know that their country is going to keep growing," Dau said. "They don't want to live in a country that's going toward the Bangladeshian. I mean, I feel sorry for those people, but we don't want to be them. And Obama is going in that direction in every way."
Those ways, she said, include everything from divisiveness, racial tension, and the political climate to the economy and even the price of gas.
"It's double, more than double," said Gaetano, nodding her head at Dau's assessments.
"We are going down," Dau said. "Everything is going down."
No wonder it doesn't matter that Mitt isn't really their man.
Team Romney has managed to take some steps to help the base like him better. One was the deft performance by Ann Romney at the Tampa Bay Times Forum on Tuesday.
"Oh, she hit one right out of the park. She made him human," said Cosmello. "I think as the days go on and the people get to know more about Mitt Romney, he's going to appeal more."
Another step that's working for Romney is his false charge that Obama has gutted the work requirements for welfare -- an assertion that plays well with people who are suspicious of those getting government assistance.
"If you look at the Asian population after Vietnam, a lot them came over here, and they worked like crazy," Dau said.
"They wanted freedom," Gaetano said.
"Not the people that are born here, that live on the system, perpetuate it," continued Dau. "And we can't sustain it."
Larry Gallow, of Tulsa, Okla., predicted that the surge in people needing food stamps and other aid since the start of the financial meltdown in 2007 and 2008 would make Obama especially unpopular.
"One of the things that's going to really hit Obama bad is that with the welfare, all of this, so many people in entitlements right now -- the middle class, who he terms as the middle class, who are out there working every day, they're resentful of the fact that they are put into this class, and they're resentful that there are a lot of people who could be working who are not working," said Gallow, who believes the president has deliberately swelled the ranks of the needy.
"So that's going to backfire on him," Gallow said. "There are actually a whole lot of people out here who are working very hard to take care of themselves and their family, and he said here's free cell phones, here's free food stamps. They don't want that. These people have pride, and that's what that man is trying to take away from these people -- pride. They are taking away pride from the American citizen."
"He wants to give these entitlements because the more entitlements you get, the more he controls, the more the government controls you, and that's his goal," Gaetano said.
The pick of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as a running mate has also helped: a point made at the Romney rally held by longtime evangelical activist Ralph Reed.
"I believe that he has provided as big a booster rocket to this ticket as Sarah Palin did four years ago in Minneapolis," Reed said. "I think it's deeply revealing of Mitt Romney's character. It says a lot about who Mitt Romney is that he had the judgment, the guts, and the intestinal fortitude to pick somebody like Paul Ryan."
Cindy Frich, a Santorum delegate from Morgantown, W.Va., said she liked the fact that the former Pennsylvania senator was now pushing for Romney. But after that, she had to think hard about whether she liked anything about the man himself.
"Anything about Mitt Romney? Besides Paul Ryan?" She said. "I'm hoping he will support fiscally conservative policies."
But it doesn't really matter that conservatives aren't crazy about Romney, because his opponent is Obama.
"All presidents -- we don't agree with them all the time -- but deep down, they all loved this country. I don't think this man even likes this country," Gaetano said, referring to Obama.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/01/mitt-romney-convention_n_1846625.html [with comments]
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Republicans Imagine The Day After Obama's Reelection: A GOP Convention Survey
Among the survey respondents (clockwise from upper left) were Newt Gingrich, John Kasich, Allen West and Grover Norquist.
(Photos: Getty Images)
By Sam Stein and Amanda Terkel
Posted: 09/03/2012 12:06 am Updated: 09/03/2012 12:06 am
TAMPA, Fla. -- Should President Barack Obama win reelection this November, anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist pledges that he would immediately begin working on the 2014 midterm elections, foreshadowing the same type of adversarial approach that conservatives adopted after Obama's 2008 victory.
He won't have Dr. Ada Fisher to help him, however. The North Carolina Republican national committeewoman and member of the North Carolina Women for Mitt leadership team said she would move to Israel if Obama wins a second term.
"Number one, I'm Jewish," she explained. "And number two, I don't believe Obama will support the nation of Israel. Israel will have to defend itself alone, and they are going to need all hands on deck."
Others promised to join Fisher in her post-election exodus. Lori Hatch, a convention-goer from Oregon, said she would move to the Czech Republic. Sheila, a convention attendee from Tampa who would only reveal her first name, said she would basically disengage from normal society, "get out of the mainstream of all the things I do for the community and business and all of the charitable things I would do."
Then there was Newt Gingrich, who wouldn't even consider the hypothetical. "That's a thought so terrible I can't contemplate it," said the former House speaker.
These are just a sampling of the answers that The Huffington Post received in its very informal survey of delegates, lawmakers, operatives and other attendees at last week's Republican National Convention. The goal was to ask the same four questions of 100 convention-goers. But things got complicated.
For starters, we ran out of time. Attendees were eager to chat at length, and the convention was shortened by one day. In the end, we conducted 61 interviews. Along the way, we encountered other problems. Some people gave more than one answer to the same question. Others didn't address the question at all. Still, the responses were illuminating, if unscientific.
Of those interviewed, a full 16 believe that Obama is putting the country on a path toward socialism or is a socialist himself. (That may not seem like a large number, but only 34 people answered the question.)
"Garbage policies are socialistic policies, yes," said Jeff Johns, a Wisconsin alternate delegate, when asked if the president was a socialist.
Several supporters of Texas Rep. Ron Paul believe that the president is the polar opposite of a socialist, in the pocket of financial titans rather than the working masses.
"Unfortunately, I think Obama's major donors are the big bankers, and I think that his policies have benefited them the most, at the expense of most American people," said Scott Shock, a Washington state delegate.
Others offered vague replies when asked to identify Obama's ideological leanings.
"I just watched the movie '2016.' I've seen it three times. That tells you what Barack Obama is all about," said Roxanne Lewis, 54, of Oregon, in a reference to conservative intellectual [cough, hack] Dinesh D'Souza's anti-Obama film [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/22/anti-obama-2016-obamas-america-release_n_1821520.html ] about the president's allegedly anti-colonial roots.
"He is Santa Claus," said Ryan Davenport, 22, of College Station, Texas, "handing out free things to everybody all the time."
The socialist question was, more often than not, the last of the four questions asked survey respondents, many of whom were grabbed in the hallways of the Tampa Bay Times Forum, on the streets of Tampa or at other events around the city. It was also the one that solicited some of the most colorful responses.
Another question posed to attendees was what they would change about the Republican Party if they were granted complete and unquestionable authority. Eleven people said they wouldn't make a change.
"When Republicans act like conservatives, they win," said Rep. Allen West of Florida. "When they try to act like a lesser version of Democrats, they get their butts handed to them. So just be who you are."
Another 11 suggested improving the party's image (which, when one thinks about it, is more a make-over than a change). Two respondents wanted the party to focus less on social issues; one wanted it to focus more on religious issues. The Paul-ites (eight were interviewed) sought changes to the party rules or opposed the changes that were approved during the convention. One top Republican congressional aide, who would only speak on condition of anonymity, said he wanted "better musical acts." One person said the party should support gay marriage. Two respondents (one being Norquist) wanted the party to rally around a comprehensive immigration platform.
"The party is a bit fractured when it comes to immigration policy, depending on whether you are a border state or a Midwestern state like I am," said Rep. Aaron Shock of Illinois. "I think if our party was unified on an immigration reform bill ... it would go a long way towards helping us with the Hispanic and Latino demographic, who I think is with us on every issue but our inability to rally around a comprehensive immigration reform package."
Former Florida Sen. Mel Martinez refused to disclose what he would change with supreme authority over the GOP.
"I have to think about that," he said. "I'm not going to tell The Huffington Post today."
HuffPost granted respondents complete power over the Republican Party again for another of the four questions: If they could have anyone accept the nomination on Thursday night, who would it be?
Thirty-one people said they would still choose Mitt Romney. Two said Paul Ryan, Romney's running mate; two said New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; eight said Ron Paul; three said former Sen. Rick Santorum; two said Gingrich; one said Winston Churchill; one said her husband; two said former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; and one suggested Obama's secretary of transportation, Ray LaHood (who is a Republican).
"I think he'd make a great president," said Chris Guidry, a Louisiana alternate delegate. "He'd work with both sides of the aisle, and I think people in America would be receptive to his ability to get things done."
The fourth question required convention-goers to contemplate the unthinkable: If Obama won a second term, what would they do?
For many attendees, this amounted to asking how they would react when face to face with personal ruin. Six respondents said they would be in some form of tears, mourning or sadness.
"Other than cry, I'm not sure what I'd do at this point," said Christine Sutton, 62, of Honolulu. "Canada is just as bad," she added, dismissing a move up north.
Unlike Sutton, 10 respondents said they would move or at least contemplate moving. Five said they would begin prepping for the next election. Three said they would move their money because of economic fears. One, Sue Cosgrove, who declined to reveal where she's from, can't do that.
"I will pray and cry," she said. "I already moved my money."
Two other people chose prayer as a remedy for an Obama win, while one suggested major changes to the family finances.
"Maybe I'll have to take my son out of college at the rate things are going," said Pam Raygor, an Alaska delegate.
But for all the acute trepidation, there were many cooler heads. Thirteen attendees said life would go on. "It's not going to be an apocalypse," conceded Phil Johasz, 25, of Midland, Mich.
"I just do my job," said Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio).
"I get up and go to work," said Ann Clanton, executive director of the Rhode Island Republican Party. "What am I going to do, roll over and die?"
Sabrina Siddiqui contributed reporting.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/03/republican-convention-obama_n_1850846.html [with comments]
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Chuck Norris
Walker,
Texas Bedwetter
([linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79116017 and preceding and following)
Video: Obama Reelection Will Bring '1,000 Years Of Darkness'
By Cavan Sieczkowski
Posted: 09/04/2012 11:36 am Updated: 09/05/2012 11:45 am
Chuck Norris has offered a dire warning to America, claiming that U.S. citizens face "1,000 years of darkness" if President Obama is reelected for a second term in November.
In a two-minute video posted on his official YouTube channel, which also includes work-out tutorials and promotional appearances for "The Expendables 2," Norris and his wife Gena warn of a "growing concern" that the America we know can be lost forever if Obama is reelected.
“If we look to history, our great country and freedom are under attack,” Norris says. “We’re at a tipping point and, quite possibly, our country as we know it may be lost forever if we don’t change the course in which our country is headed.”
Gena then cites the statistic that in 2008 more than 30 million Evangelical Christians stayed home on Voting Day and Obama won.
She quotes President Ronald Reagan, saying, "You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into 1,000 years of darkness [ http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1964reagan1.html ]. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”
Reagan gave his "A Time For Choosing Speech" in 1964 on behalf of then-Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, who eventually lost to Lyndon B. Johnson [ http://www.kennesaw.edu/pols/3380/pres/1964.html ]. Goldwater's campaign was hurt by a lack of support from his own party as well as the unpopularity of his politically conservative positions. Divided Republican party followers decided to stay home rather than vote for a candidate they did not like.
In January, Norris endorsed Newt Gingrich for president [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/20/chuck-norris-endorses-newt-gingrich_n_1220171.html ]. In May, after Gingrich dropped out of the race, the "Walker, Texas Ranger" actor offered his support to Romney in an article penned for NewsBusters.
"I believe that Mitt has the skills and organization to defeat Obama and stop his fundamental transformation of America," Norris wrote in an anti-Obama article which invoked the ideals of Abraham Lincoln [ http://newsbusters.org/blogs/chuck-norris/2012/05/01/how-romney-and-our-republic-can-win-part-1 ]. "We all know what four more years of increased socialistic decisions would do to our country."
Norris joins other celebrities who have publicly endorsed Romney, including Clint Eastwood [ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/80505.html ], Jeff Foxworthy [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2012/03/09/jeff-foxworthy-endorses-romney.html ] and possibly Nicki Minaj [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/nicki-minaj-romney_n_1853797.html ].
(H/T Raw Story [ http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/03/chuck-norris-threatens-1000-years-of-darkness-if-obama-wins/ ] for the find.)
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/chuck-norris-obama-reelection-1000-years-of-darkness-mitt-romney_n_1854309.html [with Walker, Texas Bedwetter's referenced video, next below, embedded, and comments]
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Chuck Norris' dire warning for America - 2012
# READ THE DESCRIPTION #
Chuck Norris Fact No. 39: "Chuck Norris stared evil in the eye and it went into hiding."
America's favorite action star is doing just that this election -- calling on evangelical Christians across the nation to join him in crushing the creep of socialism under President Obama.
Norris and his wife, Gena, have filmed a public service announcement, unveiled exclusively at WND, wherein the two urge Christians to help save the country in November.
"We are here to talk about a growing concern we all share," Chuck Norris explains. "If we look to history, our great country and freedom are under attack. We're at a tipping point and, quite possibly, our country as we know it may be lost forever if we don't change the course in which our country is headed."
Gena warns that voter apathy among evangelicals in 2008 may have contributed to Obama's election in the first place.
"With our country at a crossroads, Chuck and I have asked ourselves what we can be doing to help support this great country we're blessed to live in and how we can encourage our like-minded American brothers and sisters to unite and let their voices be heard," she said. "It is estimated that in the 2008 election, 30 million evangelical Christians stayed home on voting day and Obama won the election by 10 million votes."
Chuck cautions Christians about the cost of doing nothing while the nation spirals into a state of socialism from which there will be no return.
"We know you love your family and your freedom as much as Gena and I do," he says in his appeal to Americans. "And it is because of that we can no longer sit quietly or stand on the sidelines and watch our country go the way of socialism or something much worse."
Gena urged Christians to register and cast their votes on Election Day to ensure "our voices will be heard."
Chuck recalled the cautionary words of great patriots on the subject of preserving liberty:
"As Edmund Burke said, 'All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men and women do nothing.'
"Our great president, Ronald Reagan said, 'Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same.'"
Likewise, Gena noted, "President Reagan went on to say that 'You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.'"
Chuck Norris concludes the announcement by encouraging Americans to close ranks and defend their great nation "for God and country."
"Please stand with us," he urges. "Let's unite for God and country. And may God continue to bless the United States of America. See you at the polls."
Norris has been writing a weekly column exclusively for WND since Oct. 23, 2006. The star of "Walker: Texas Ranger" and some of the biggest action pictures ever, Norris has also reached a new generation as part of the Internet craze for one-liners usually labeled not as jokes but as "facts."
In "The Official Chuck Norris Fact Book," Norris gives readers not only his favorite "facts," roundhouse-kicked by the man himself, but also the stories behind the facts and the code by which he lives his life.
In his bestselling book, "Black Belt Patriotism: How to Reawaken America," Norris provides real solutions for solving the nation's problems, moving the country forward and changing its course for the better.
Read more: http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/chuck-norris-dire-warning-for-america/
Don't forget to visit:
@ http://www.chucknorris.com
@ http://www.facebook.com/officialchucknorrispage
@ http://www.kickstartkids.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ud3pK5Wa90
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Hank Williams Jr. Blasts Obama Again, Says President Is Muslim, 'Hates Cowgirls,' 'Loves Gays'
09/04/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/03/hank-williams-jr-obama-gays_n_1852739.html [with embedded videos, and comments]
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Alec Baldwin: Hank Williams Jr. Is 'A Broken-Down, Senile, Racist Coot'
09/05/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/alec-baldwin-hank-williams-jr-racist_n_1854791.html [with comments]
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Commentary: Glenn Beck, Hank Williams Jr. are bellyaching all the way to the bank
By Bud Kennedy
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Posted Friday, Sep. 07, 2012
Only a month ago, Texas hosted "Restoring Love."
Looks like it didn't take.
In a week when national TV viewers watched an 82-year-old man verbally assail an innocent chair, musician Hank Williams Jr. unleashed a Stockyards harangue against gays and "Love" host Glenn Beck himself blew up at a cranky flight attendant.
Beck acknowledged to his radio audience Tuesday that "I lost my cool" Monday at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport after an American Airlines attendant "barked" at him, banged down his soft drink can and otherwise snubbed him on a flight from New York.
Beck said the flight attendant made him feel "subhuman." He used his show to blast "liberal American Airlines" for the personal slight.
A young Southlake passenger on the same flight saw it differently.
Beck "threw the most immature hissy fit I've ever seen," Colton Hess wrote on Twitter.
Beck, 48, moved to Westlake from New York last year and hosts daily radio and Web shows from a former movie production studio in Las Colinas.
He told radio listeners how he was mocked by strangers and servers on a weekend visit to New York.
For no apparent reason, Beck noted that one offending barbecue shop was "minority-owned."
Already in full victim mode, Beck boarded the flight home, only to encounter a flight attendant who ignored him while fussing over other passengers.
According to Beck, the attendant bragged about his time in the Israeli army and said he was "so proud of the very liberal cities in America."
For that, Beck blamed the airline and "the kind of people that American Airlines likes to hire."
In one fleeting moment of humility, he added: "I shouldn't have lost my temper."
This airport drama came after Williams treated the Stockyards Music Festival to a complaint about "queer guitar-pickers."
In the middle of what is billed as his "Taking Back the Country 2012" tour, the 63-year-old musical malcontent added convention commentary.
According to The Dallas Morning News, Williams said: "We've got a Muslim for a president who hates cowboys, hates cowgirls, hates fishing, hates farming, loves gays, and we hate him!"
Like Beck, he's bellyaching all the way to the bank.
Copyright 2012 The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/09/07/4232557/commentary-glenn-beck-hank-williams.html [with comments]
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Donte Jamar Sims Arrested For Alleged Obama Threats On Twitter
09/06/12 07:31 PM ET
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A 21-year-old Charlotte man has been arrested by the Secret Service for allegedly posting threats to kill President Barack Obama on Twitter.
Authorities said Donte Jamar Sims was detained Wednesday. The Secret Service says Sims posted messages including one that said, "Ima Assassinate president Obama this evening!" on Monday morning, two days before Obama arrived in Charlotte for the Democratic National Convention.
Investigators say Sims told them he hated the president and was high on marijuana when he made the posts. When he found out he was being arrested, he wrote a written apology.
It wasn't immediately known if Sims had a lawyer. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/06/donte-jamar-sims-obama-threat_n_1863065.html [with comments]
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'White Graduates Only' Party Planned For 1973 Class Reunion In Louisiana Sparks Outrage (VIDEO)
By Dominique Mosbergen
Posted: 09/02/2012 3:23 pm Updated: 09/04/2012 7:17 pm
A letter that lists a "white graduates only" party as one of the activities planned for a class reunion [ http://www.katc.com/news/st-martinville-class-of-1973-reunion-letter-causes-a-stir/ ] has sparked outrage after it was leaked online.
For nearly 40 years, graduates from the St. Martinville, La., Senior High School Class of 1973 have been holding racially segregated class reunions.
But this year, ABC affiliate KATC reports that the graduates decided to change that tradition, making the reunion a non-segregated affair [id.].
However, a letter announcing the change included an after party for "white graduates only."
Michael Kreamer, who is the principal of the Louisiana school, said he found the letter distressing.
"I'm just a little disappointed that something like this comes up," he told KATC. "I don't think that it looks good for the school, but again as I said it has nothing to do with St. Martinville Senior High [id.]. So I hope people don't take that the wrong way."
According to reports, a reception is going to be held at the school at the end of September, followed by the homecoming football game. The letter notes that "all graduates are welcome to attend [ http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/09/class-reunion-letter-lists-white-graduates-only-party/ ]" those events.
After the game, however, "white graduates only [id.]" have been invited to gather at a classmate's home. Invitees are encouraged to bring a "food dish to share."
Liza Chance, one of the organizers of the event, told KATC that she was bewildered by this backward step.
"This is just a start it's a beginning, it needs to go forward. I don't understand why this went the way it did [ http://www.katc.com/news/st-martinville-class-of-1973-reunion-letter-causes-a-stir/ ]," she said.
The letter has caused quite a "stir" [ http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/09/02/Reunion-letter-causes-stir/UPI-64231346600541/ ] after making headlines this week, UPI notes.
People have been taking to social media platforms like Facebook to express their displeasure.
"'We've been doing this for the last 30 years,' totally excuses three decades of discrimination and the burden of inequality. I'm glad that they found a way to fix this terrible indiscretion in 2012 and finally decide to integrate like it's 1960, or was that the mistake? I can't think of an intelligent person I know who would ever think it was okay to write or plan anything exclusively for 'White People,'" commented one man from Lafayette, La [ http://www.katc.com/news/st-martinville-class-of-1973-reunion-letter-causes-a-stir/ ].
This is not the first "white only" event that has caused a furor in recent months.
According to a July report by the Huffington Post, Pastor William J. Collier and his Church of God's Chosen were planning on holding a "white only" Christian conference in Alabama [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/05/whites-only-christian-conference-alabama-william-collier_n_1651268.html ].
"We don't have the facilities to accommodate other people [id.]. We haven't got any invitations to black, Muslim events. Of course we are not invited to Jewish events and stuff," Collier said in way of explanation.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/02/white-graduates-only-party-class-reunion-louisiana-1973_n_1850568.html [with comments]
===
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) On Student Loans (Full Clip)
Roscoe Bartlett discusses student loans and compares them to the Holocaust.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhCvqQOldcg [via/embedded in/more at "Roscoe Bartlett, Maryland Representative, Links Student Loans To The Holocaust [UPDATED]", http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/06/roscoe-bartlett-holocaust-student-loans_n_1862184.html (with comments)]
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Karl Rove Apology Issued To Todd Akin Over 'Murder' Remark
By Paige Lavender
Posted: 09/01/2012 3:31 pm
Karl Rove has apologized [ http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/08/akin-camp-says-rove-apologized-for-murder-joke-134026.html ] to Congressman Todd Akin (R-Mo.) after he joked about killing the senate candidate.
“We should sink Todd Akin," Rove told top GOP donors at a an exclusive breakfast in Tampa, according [ http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-31/exclusive-inside-karl-roves-billionaire-fundraiser ] to Bloomberg Businessweek. "If he’s found mysteriously murdered, don’t look for my whereabouts!"
Rick Tyler, Akin's campaign adviser, told the AP Rove called the senate candidate Friday to apologize. Akin, who was publicly bothered [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/31/todd-akin-karl-rove_n_1847318.html ] by Rove's comment, accepted his apology.
The AP reported earlier [id.]:
Akin's office issued a statement calling the quote deeply disturbing, given that the FBI has been investigating threats against Akin after his comments that women's bodies can shut down pregnancy in cases of what he called "legitimate rape."
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/01/karl-rove-apology_n_1849180.html [with comments]
===
Todd Akin's Remarks: The Broader Meaning
By Jay Sterling Silver
Posted: 08/31/2012 4:52 pm
Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin's vile remarks about "legitimate rape" and women's natural resistance to pregnancy from forcible intercourse disturbingly parallel the views of many in law enforcement and recall the sorry history of the crime of rape in American jurisprudence.
The notion of "legitimate rape" -- or "real rape," as police often refer to it -- is often bandied about by police officers and even some prosecutors to distinguish four loosely defined classifications of rape accusations. In descending order of "legitimacy," the belief goes, they are: "real" rapes in which depraved perpetrators spring from bushes or climb through bedroom windows to victimize our wives and sisters; "date rape" in which the alleged victim assumed the risk by consenting to the date; "deserved" rape, as in "she-got-what-was-coming-to-her," for dressing "provocatively," visiting a seedy bar, traversing a dangerous street, or being flirtatious; and utterly false accusations of rape conjured up to explain to boyfriends or husbands discovered acts of infidelity, or to punish partners when love turns to loathing.
Although police departments have improved markedly in the handling of rape accusations over the last three decades, the tendency to blame the victims or turn a blind eye to violence against women persists within these bastions of machismo and, as Akin's remarks and his remaining support attest, within our society.
While the bizarre myth of a biological defense against pregnancy from rape has not entered the discussion of the crime of rape, similarly outrageous claims have masqueraded as medical fact in the evolution of the elements of the offense in American jurisprudence. Marching in lockstep with the proponents of Freud who posited a tendency of women to fantasize rape, predominantly male legislatures have adopted the requirement that a rape victim's testimony be independently corroborated by other evidence. That requirement, nearly nonexistent outside of a crime usually committed by men against women, ensures that a man cannot be convicted of a crime as serious as rape solely on the testimony of a female victim. A corroboration requirement for any other heinous offense, be it kidnapping or arson or armed robbery, would be an unthinkable affront to the victims.
Akin's sponsorship, along with Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, of a bill to limit the definition of rape-intrinsically a crime of force and violence-to instances of "forcible rape" is reminiscent of another unfortunate chapter in the evolution of the offense. The requirement that the victim of a rape, despite the attendant dangers, must have "resisted to the utmost" discounted the credibility of women. If the victim didn't fight back, the act wasn't sufficiently forcible in the eyes of the law. The "prompt-outcry" requirement, -- the rule that the victim of rape must report the crime within a relatively brief period of time, -- was yet another indignity aimed at women.
As with the medieval belief that divine intervention would assure justice in trial by battle and ordeal, Akin and his ilk proclaim a natural defense against pregnancy from rape that assures that an absolute ban on abortion is just.
Akin, however, is not the real problem, so his seemingly inevitable exit from the national scene is not the solution. Indeed, his "misspoken" remarks, as he now calls them, are yet another sore reminder of the distance we have yet to travel -- inside and outside of the law and law enforcement -- in confronting insensitivity to violence against women.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-sterling-silver/todd-akins-remarks-the-br_b_1827869.html [with comments]
===
Judge To Woman Sexually Assaulted By Cop: ‘When You Blame Others, You Give Up Your Power To Change’
Judge Jacqueline Hatch
By Ian Millhiser on Sep 7, 2012 at 9:00 am
Last summer, a drunk Arizona police officer named Robb Gary Evans drove himself to a bar, flashed his badge to avoid paying cover at the door, and then walked up behind a woman, put his hand up her skirt, and ran his fingers over her genitals [ http://azdailysun.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_0aa8be56-f7a3-11e1-b804-0019bb2963f4.html ]. A jury convicted him of sexual abuse, a felony with a maximum sentence of 2 and a half years in prison, and Evans was fired from the police force after an internal investigation.
Nevertheless, Arizona trial Judge Jacqueline Hatch, who was appointed to the bench by Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) [ http://azdailysun.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/article_bb519bc7-bde1-5c35-9e54-308cfa80802f.html ], decided that Evans’ actions did not warrant jail time — sentencing him probation and 100 hours of community service. Evans also will not have to register as a sex offender. Yet, while Judge Hatch apparently did not view the disgraced former cop’s actions as particularly serious, she had some very harsh words for the woman he assaulted [ http://azdailysun.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_0aa8be56-f7a3-11e1-b804-0019bb2963f4.html ]:
Bad things can happen in bars, Hatch told the victim, adding that other people might be more intoxicated than she was.
“If you wouldn’t have been there that night, none of this would have happened to you,” Hatch said.
Hatch told the victim and the defendant that no one would be happy with the sentence she gave, but that finding an appropriate sentence was her duty.
“I hope you look at what you’ve been through and try to take something positive out of it,” Hatch said to the victim in court. “You learned a lesson about friendship and you learned a lesson about vulnerability.”
Hatch said that the victim was not to blame in the case, but that all women must be vigilant against becoming victims.
“When you blame others, you give up your power to change,” Hatch said that her mother used to say.
The victim, who has not been identified by the press, called for Judge Hatch to apologize for her offensive comments, adding that if she had not been at the bar to be assaulted by Evans, “it probably would have happened to someone else [ http://azdailysun.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/victim-calls-for-judge-to-apologize/article_f5ae588e-f85c-11e1-9652-0019bb2963f4.html ].”
© 2012 Center for American Progress Action Fund (emphasis in original)
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/09/07/809861/judge-to-woman-sexually-assaulted-by-cop-when-you-blame-others-you-give-up-your-power-to-change/ [with comments]
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Victoria Jackson Sounds Off On Todd Akin's Rape And Abortion Comments (AUDIO)
Posted: 08/31/2012 4:50 pm Updated: 08/31/2012 5:10 pm
Reacting to the controversy surrounding Rep. Todd Akin's controversial comments regarding rape and abortion [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/19/todd-akin-abortion-legitimate-rape_n_1807381.html ], former "Saturday Night Live" star and conservative activist Victoria Jackson said on Wednesday that if she were raped she would have the baby because it "would be a blessing," noting that the baby "has its own DNA" and is "not the father's DNA."
And responding to a HuffPost Gay Voices blog post [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-steadman/kirk-cameron-victoria-jackson_b_1703587.html ] from a former friend who said he ended their friendship because of her views on homosexuality, Jackson said she doesn't "think people should identify themselves by their sexual life."
"The Todd Akin thing was so blown out of proportion -- it's a joke," Jackson said at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., when interviewed for my SiriusXM OutQ radio program [ http://www.siriusoutq.com/ ]. "How many times do people get pregnant from rape? It's point zero zero one percent. It's a joke. I read lots of articles. I know people, because I'm 53. I've know a lot of people, and I've actually never known anyone who got pregnant from being raped."
"And guess what?" she continued. "If I got raped, I would have the baby. And if I didn't want to keep it because I had these [mocking tone] horrible nightmares, I would adopt it out. But I think that God can turn a bad thing into a good thing. And that, if I got raped and a beautiful baby who was innocent was born out of it, that would be a blessing. The DNA of a baby is individual. It's not the mother's DNA. It's not the father's DNA. And that's why I believe abortion is murder, because it's not the woman's body. It has it's own DNA. If there's a boy baby inside of me, he has a penis. That's not my body."
In response to Gay Voices blogger Dan Steadman's post [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-steadman/kirk-cameron-victoria-jackson_b_1703587.html ], in which he wrote about ending his friendships with both Jackson and Kirk Cameron because of their views on homosexuality, Jackson discussed her gay friends.
"I didn't see [the post] but I love my gay friends," she said. "My best friends who are gay, I've actually never seen them with a boyfriend. It's like -- we've never talked about sex. I don't think people should identify themselves by their sexual life. My identity is in Christ. Some people's identity is in what country they come from. But I don't think people should make their identity about their sex life. That should be private. Why are they in the middle of the street in a parade? Why don't they just have sex in their bedroom alone?"
Listen to the full interview:
[audio embedded]
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/31/victoria-jackson-todd-akin-rape-abortion_n_1847852.html [with comments]
===
U.S. Marines Arrested For Attack On California Gay Man In Possible Hate Crime
09/05/12 09:56 PM ET
LONG BEACH, Calif. -- The beating of a gay man outside a bar resulted in the arrest of four Camp Pendleton Marines and was being investigated as a potential hate crime, Marine Corps and police officials said Wednesday.
Long Beach police said a preliminary investigation found that the four Marines attacked the man just after leaving the bar. Two other men who tried to help the victim were also attacked, police told the newspaper.
Long Beach police Cmdr. Joe Stilnovich said at least one of the suspects used derogatory terms regarding the victim's sexual orientation, U-T San Diego ( http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/sep/05/marines-identified-possible-hate-crime/ ) reported.
The Marines were arrested just after the incident. They have since made bail and returned to their units, Camp Pendleton spokesman Maj. Manuel J. Delarosa said. Military officials were assisting Long Beach police and the Marine Corps was conducting its own probe, he said.
"This is an isolated incident," Delarosa said. "Committing any hate crime is unacceptable behavior and is not tolerated in the Marine Corps."
The victim was treated at a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries, Long Beach police spokeswoman Lisa Massacani said. The two others who tried to help the victim suffered minor injuries.
Neither Massacani nor Delarosa gave specifics on why it was being considered a possible hate crime.
Arrested were Lance Cpl. Lewis Serna; Pfc. Thomas Pentek; Pfc. Sean Miller and Lance Cpl. John O'Leary. Authorities were trying to determine each person's role in the assault, Stilnovich said.
The four Marines could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/05/us-marines-arrested-california-gay-hate-crime-_n_1858718.html [with video "Only on CBS2: Man Claims 4 Marines Brutally Beat Him For Being Gay" video embedded, and comments]
===
Alabama's Spanish Fort High School Slammed For 'Man, That's Gay' Football Banner
09/06/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/06/alabama-spanish-fort-high-school-man-thats-gay-sign_n_1861855.html [with embedded video, and comments]
===
Mark Craddock, Christian Sect Doctor, Banned For Prescribing 'Gay Cure' Drug Used For Castration
By Cavan Sieczkowski
Posted: 09/05/2012 11:45 am Updated: 09/05/2012 5:06 pm
An Australian doctor and member of a conservative Christian sect has been banned from practicing medicine after he prescribed a teenager a chemical castration drug to be used as a "gay cure."
Dr. Mark Craddock of Sydney, who is also a member of the Exclusive Brethren Christian Fellowship sect, prescribed an 18-year-old man who was also part of the sect with the drug after he came out as gay [ http://m.smh.com.au/nsw/exclusive-brethren-gp-banned-for-prescribing-gay-cure-20120904-25cnu.html ], according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
In a letter to the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, the unnamed man, who is now 24, said that when he came out as gay, a church leader told him ''there's medication you can go on." He continued, ''He recommended that I speak to Dr Craddock on the matter with a view to my being placed on medication to help me with my 'problem','' the New Zealand resident said, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
The teen went to visit the 75-year-old doctor who then prescribed him with a "gay cure" [ http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8527657/doctor-banned-for-prescribing-gay-cure-to-teen ]: the anti-androgen therapy cyproterone acetate, sold under the brand name Cyprostat, along with five repeats, according to ninemsn. He said the doctor did not refer him to a psychologist or discuss the drug's side effects.
Cyprostat is a form of hormone therapy [ http://prostatecanceruk.org/media/11702/cyproterone.pdf ] used to treat prostate cancer. The drug will "work by stopping testosterone from reaching the cancer cells. Without testosterone the prostate cancer cells are not able to grow," according to the UK's Prostate Cancer Charity. Hormone suppressants have been used to "chemically castrate" sex offenders [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2012/mar/13/prisons-and-probation-criminal-justice ], the Guardian notes.
A hearing by the Medical Council of the Australian State of New South Wales determined, "Dr Craddock failed to adequately assess the patient and failed to provide appropriate medical management of the patients therapeutic needs," in an excerpt obtained by Gay Star News [ http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/christian-sect-doctor-banned-practicing050912 ]. The committee found that Craddock was guilty of "unsatisfactory processional conduct. He was severely reprimanded and practice restrictions were placed on his registration."
There are more than 40,000 Exclusive Brethren [ http://www.theexclusivebrethren.com/exclusive-brethren.html ] around the world, according to the sect's official website. They "believe strongly in the traditional family unit. Marriage is held in the greatest [honor], as one of God's original thoughts of blessing for the human race."
Some doctors, like Craddock, have taken somewhat dangerous steps in an attempt to "cure" homosexuality. In 2010, Dr. Maria New of New York City's Mount Sinai was reportedly experimenting with injecting fetuses with steroids to potentially make girls "more feminine" and reduce odds they turn out gay, the Oregonian reported at the time [ http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/anna_griffin/index.ssf/2010/07/northeast_portland_couples_tv.html ].
The American Psychiatric Association has condemned the "treatment" of homosexuality [ http://www.glaad.org/reference/exgays ], according to GLAAD, saying, "The potential risks of 'reparative therapy' are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient."
Activists have championed against "gay cures" [ http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/gary-spedding/dangerous-world-of-gay-cures_b_1723431.html ] in the United Kingdom, which includes Conversion Therapy. Last year, Apple pulled Exodus International's "Gay Cure" app [ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20046162-37.html ] from its collection.
Below, see 11 horrific "cures" for homosexuality:
[photos and videos embedded]
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/05/mark-craddock-christian-doctor-gay-cure-prostate-cancer_n_1857571.html [with comments]
===
Note To [GOP] Candidates: 'Woman' Does Not Equal 'Mom'
By Lisa Belkin
Posted: 08/31/2012 1:18 pm
In his speech to the Republican convention last night [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/mitt-romney-speech-text_n_1826619.html?utm_hp_ref=elections-2012 ], Mitt Romney used some version of the word "mom" 14 times.
That was one more time than he said the word "Obama" or "future" and ten more times than the word "economy."
Even more striking than how often we came up was the reverence he had for us. "I knew that her job as a mom was harder than mine," he said of his wife, Ann. "And I knew without question, that her job as a mom was a lot more important than mine."
The speech dripped with such reverence for women who have children that one of the most popular tweets last night was this one from @dweinberger [ https://twitter.com/dweinberger/status/241367628743073793 ].
David Weinberger
@dweinberger
"So tonight I'm proud to announce I'm running to be your Mom." #Romney
30 Aug 12
Coming as it did the night after Paul Ryan's own ode to motherhood [ http://www.npr.org/2012/08/29/160282031/transcript-rep-paul-ryans-convention-speech ] ("to this day, my mom is my role model") which, in turn, came the day after Ann Romney's [ http://www.npr.org/2012/08/28/160216442/transcript-ann-romneys-convention-speech ] ("It's the moms who always have to work a little harder, to make everything right), mothers can feel pretty smug in their own importance this quadrennial cycle.
Hold on, you say, haven't mothers always been a group wooed by politicians? Why else have they spent all those decades kissing babies?
Yes. But this year feels different. A word count alone hints at what's changed. John McCain used the word "mother" twice [ http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/conventions/videos/transcripts/20080904_MCCAIN_SPEECH.html ] in his acceptance speech four years ago and didn't use "mom" once. George W. Bush thanked his own mother [ http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=123214&page=1&singlePage=true ], briefly, in 2004, then only used the word once or twice again. Sarah Palin's official acceptance speech included only three "moms [ http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/conventions/videos/transcripts/20080903_PALIN_SPEECH.html ]," though she famously added a fourth with her off-the-prompter comment about hockey moms and lipstick. Obama [ http://www.zimbio.com/Democratic+National+Convention+Speech+Transcripts/articles/17/2008+Barack+Obama+Convention+Speech+Transcript ], at his last convention, didn't say "mom" at all.
But this is a good thing, right? A reflection of politicians' long overdue realization that mothers deserve consideration and attention?
It would be good if it were true. As has long been the case, both parties this year know that they cannot win without women. And their embrace of mom-without-the-apple-pie is just the latest example of campaigns reducing us to shorthand rather than addressing all of our dimensions. The elder George Bush did it in 1988, choosing the handsome Dan Quayle to appeal to the ladies (after Walter Mondale arguably chose Geraldine Ferraro for a version of the same reason four years earlier). John McCain did it with Palin last time around, assuming we would vote for one of our own.
But those choices, patronizing to women as they might have been, were decidedly less direct than the ones we saw in Tampa this past week. In earlier years, candidates assured us that they liked women, or were attractive to women, or were women. Now they are turning the lens and telling women that we ourselves are wonderful -- mostly because we are moms.
In part what rankles is their overuse of the shorthand, nickname version -- mom, not mother. When I hear it, I sense tones of "honey" or "dear." Add to that the fact that the March of the Moms through political rhetoric nowadays eliminates men -- including many of the men giving these speeches -- from the equation. Parents = mothers. It is interesting that candidates have chosen this tack now, because it is several years behind the Zeitgeist, at a time when men are steadily becoming more invested in their identities as dad [ http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/26/health/kerner-stay-home-dads-sexy/index.html ].
But mostly what makes me want to snap back at my TV [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-belkin/ann-romney-praises-mothers_b_1840762.html ] during these odes to motherhood is the corollary calculation that women = mothers. By reducing the votes of all women to those of a subset, by assuming the concerns we share (or don't) are exclusively about children, candidates diminish and dismiss us. They assume that just by praising us as parents we won't notice that they haven't mentioned what they plan to DO for us, as parents, or as women.
We have noticed. And we vote.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. (emphasis in original)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-belkin/mom-voters_b_1846936.html [with comments]
===
Fault Lines: The abortion war
Fault Lines [ http://www.youtube.com/show/faultlines ] investigates the forces behind the so-called war on women in the US. Why is a medical procedure being reframed as a deeply divisive moral issue in the US?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E0oMN2oJj8 {original Al Jazeera story and video embed at http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/faultlines/2012/08/20128288841399701.html (with comments); see also "Exploring the Roots of 'The Abortion War'", http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laila-alarian/exploring-the-roots-of-the-abortion-war_b_1834214.html (with comments)]
===
Mitt Romney Has Won Over All the Women Yay!
Photo by Scott Olson/Staff/Getty Image News/Getty Images
Aug 31, 2012 05:50 PM by Lisa Beth Johnson
The main goal for Republicans at this week's RNC was to woo the women, and man did they do it. Mission accomplished! There were soooo many women who attended and spoke at the event. Democrats may whine that giving so many speaking slots to women and minorities smacks of "tokenism," but Republicans know the DNC are the ones with loosest slots in town (pssst: Sandra Fluke). So cross your legs and sit up straight, ladyvoters, because here's proof that Mitt Romney is gonna close that gap…
The recent blowup in the Missouri Senate race, in which Republican candidate Todd Akin asserted that women rarely get pregnant in cases of "legitimate rape," hardly helped the GOP’s image.
Oh darn. Sorry. I must have copied the wrong quote. Here we go…
Ms. Brickley, like just about everyone else, brings up Romney’s not-so-secret weapon: Ann. "She was sincere and spoke from the heart," Brickley says, noting her emphasis on love.
When New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie came out and said, "Tonight, we choose respect over love," Brickley says, "that disturbed me a bit."
Knucklesnorts! I don't know why this keeps happening. I'm just trying to find a story that states definitively that Romney has won over the hearts, minds and uteri of women everywhere, regardless of their previous political affiliation. Wait. Here…
Wasserman Schultz dismissed the female speakers this week as in it for themselves, rather than genuinely supporting Mitt Romney.
"I think they spent the week in infomercials for their candidates for 2016," she said. "I mean I think the thing that I noticed the most about Tuesday and Wednesday night, was the parade of future leaders of their party who spent a tremendous amount of time promoting themselves, and took a very long time, if they ever did get to promoting their candidate, Mitt Romney."
Come on now, that's way harsh. Romney has done everything he can to try to make women understand how much he appreciates and respects them. He's been trying to relate to women's rights ever since he's gotten into this election, especially a woman's right to change her mind. Am I right? Hey-o!
Copyright © 2012 Comedy Partners
http://www.indecisionforever.com/blog/2012/08/31/mitt-romney-has-won-over-all-the-women-yay [with comments]
===
in addition to (linked in) the post to which this is a reply and preceding and (other) following, see also (linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79061847 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79191146 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79191409 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79318071 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79354117 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79355179 and preceding and following
Well, the tie's blue anyway.
By Jim Schutze
Fri., Aug. 31 2012 at 11:07 AM
Categories: Get Off My Lawn [ http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/get_off_my_lawn/ ]
I had a private little laugh and moment of startled disbelief while my wife and I were watching Mitt Romney's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention last night. Romney described his father as having started out in life as an apprentice "lath and plaster carpenter [ http://blogs.ajc.com/jamie-dupree-washington-insider/2012/08/31/text-of-mitt-romneys-gop-convention-speech/ ]," a term so arcane in the age of Home Depot building materials that Fox News actually recorded it in their transcript as "laugh and plaster carpenter [ http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/30/transcript-mitt-romney-speech-at-rnc/ ]."
More on laughing plaster in a moment. That wasn't what I personally was laughing about.
I knew Romney's father just a little bit, only as a reporter knows a politician, but I did a fair amount of research on the old boy and his family back many years ago when I was a reporter for The Detroit Free Press and he was a kind of returning hero, coming back to Bloomfield Hills to retire after serving in the Nixon White House.
George Romney's parents were monogamy-practicing Mormons, Gaskell Romney and Anna Amelia Pratt, who sat at the head of Utah's most prosperous Mormon family. George Romney bragged to me that his father made and lost several fortunes in the construction business. These were rich people, justifiably proud of their achievements.
I'm sure Gaskell Romney did struggle. The Romney family story is one of genuine courage and audacity. The part where I laughed last night, however, was when Mitt Romney tried to paint his dad, George Romney, as a blue-collar Detroit guy.
The Fox transcript has Romney saying, "My dad never made it through college, and he apprenticed as a laugh (ph) and plaster carpenter. He had big dreams. He convinced my mom, a beautiful young actress, to give up Hollywood to marry him. And moved to Detroit."
What a tale. Sort of hard to believe, eh? What did he tell her? I beg you, leave this meaningless dross of Hollywood glamor, come with me to Detroit, and we shall lead the life of laugh and plaster.
It's lath and plaster, of course, the stuff they used to make wall coverings out of before Sheetrock. And I'm sure George Romney did work for his dad's construction company at some point. But after college and his missionary stint, young George went straight to Washington where he made a brilliant career as a Senate staffer and lobbyist.
George Romney was never a car guy. American Motors brought him out to Detroit from the Automobile Manufacturing Association, the industry's lobbying arm, to be a sort of figurehead chief executive and super-salesman, heading up the innovative "gas-guzzling dinosaurs" ad campaign for the Rambler. He got all kinds of ink and TV exposure through the ad campaign, building the name recognition that later propelled into him into the governor's office in Michigan.
Am I saying there was something fake about George Romney? Oh, no, quite the contrary. What people loved about George Romney was that he was absolutely straight-on, what you see is what you get.
His candor eventually undid him in his 1968 presidential bid: Romney told the truth about Vietnam, saying he (and by implication all of us) had been brainwashed by the Washington establishment to believe it was a good war that we were going to win. The truth was that it was a bad war that we were going to lose.
That finally was too much truth for America at the moment. We still haven't come to grips with losing that war. George Romney was out of the 1968 presidential race, but it was an entirely honorable exit.
Look, George Romney, like his son Mitt, was a rich kid. The point about George Romney was that he took his advantages as a challenge to work even harder, reach even farther. He was proud of who and what he was, and I do not believe it would ever have occurred to him to try to pose as something else.
It looks to me like his son did the same thing -- worked as hard as any poor kid with rat-in-the-belly ambition -- and that's a thing for a rich kid to be proud of. But to deny it and pose as something he is not is just flat disturbing, every bit as much as if he really were a poor kid trying to take on airs as an aristocrat. It is not a thing old George would have gone along with a bit.
That's why the laugh and plaster thing really wasn't funny. It's a window into the soul of a shape-shifter, the being the Indians called a nagual. He can be anything. Just show him what animal you want him to be, and he will appear to you as that creature.
The entire theme of the Republican convention was, "No matter what you see on your TV screen, we are not rich white people." They even had Ann Romney up there talking about how, "We walked to class together, shared the housekeeping, ate a lot of pasta and tuna fish ... our dining room table was a fold down ironing board in the kitchen [ http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/28/transcript-ann-romney-speech-at-republican-national-convention/ ]."
Yeah. At Harvard.
But I guess some posing and exaggeration are to be expected at a political convention, but that's not supposed to include the guy who wants us to to elect him president. Last night Mitt Romney tried to tell me he was from some kind of blue-collar Detroit "car-guy" stock. I hope he tries it again in the debates. I have the rebuttal line right here: "Governor, you're no Joe the Plumber."
© 2012 Dallas Observer, LLC
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2012/08/shape-shifting_mitt_from_blue.php [with comments]
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Republican Convention Delegates Spurred By Fear Will Fight For Man They Don't Like
By Michael McAuliff
Posted: 09/01/2012 11:09 am Updated: 09/04/2012 6:18 pm
TAMPA, Fla. -- The conservative faithful who make up the base of the Republican Party still don't like Mitt Romney very much, but Democrats are kidding themselves if they think that will matter at all in November.
The reasons have very little to do with Romney, a former pro-choice governor of Massachusetts who nevertheless managed to emerge from his party's fractious field of White House aspirants, backed by deeper pockets than his opponents.
So why will people -- grassroots conservatives who know Romney's past -- work hard for a man who once described himself as a progressive?
"That's a real good question," said Peggy Dau, of Bartlesville, Okla., who spoke to The Huffington Post at a "Patriots for Romney" rally organized by someone they really do like -- Rick Santorum.
The answers given by Dau and other staunch conservatives who would have preferred a different standard-bearer offer a glimpse into a mindset that, though liberals might find it somewhat disturbing, is nevertheless built on a foundation of faith, family, loyalty, community spirit and all-around decency. Their perception is that they are under assault, that other people want to destroy the world they have built, or take it away.
Bolstered in their belief by relentless persuasion of the right's paid political professionals, they are afraid they will lose the "fight." That fear is focused squarely on President Barack Obama. And it doesn't matter that Mitt Romney might not be a genuine conservative in their eyes.
"At the end of the day, we're still Republicans and we've gotta get Obama out of there," said Donna Cosmello, of New Milford, Pa.
"Anybody's better than Obama," said Rosie Gaetano, of Scranton, Pa. "Obama must go. OMG. Not 'Oh my God.' Obama. Must. Go!"
It's not just partisan fervor. It's bone-deep. They truly believe they're under siege.
Still, faced with a reporter employed by one often caricatured as a demon of the left, Arianna Huffington, they are not hostile. They are open and friendly and frank. And they neatly delineate the world into the broad factions that they see engaged in the battle.
"I heard a poll that said married, white, family values, spiritual values, are the people more going for Romney," said Peggy Dau, of Bartlesville, Okla. "On the other side -- and this is just the way it is -- are single parents, more minorities, more non-religious people who want Obama."
Dau, who backed Michele Bachmann before settling on Santorum, puts herself solidly in the values camp, which makes her and others like her motivated Romney voters.
"People who followed Rick Santorum were probably very strong on family values, on faith values, and Obama is at the opposite in his legislation," she said, careful to not make her opposition personal. "I will give him credit, he's got a family and they are intact."
But she still believes the president is ruining the country.
"Women want to be secure in how their kids are going to have a better education, they want to know if they can get jobs, they want to know that their country is going to keep growing," Dau said. "They don't want to live in a country that's going toward the Bangladeshian. I mean, I feel sorry for those people, but we don't want to be them. And Obama is going in that direction in every way."
Those ways, she said, include everything from divisiveness, racial tension, and the political climate to the economy and even the price of gas.
"It's double, more than double," said Gaetano, nodding her head at Dau's assessments.
"We are going down," Dau said. "Everything is going down."
No wonder it doesn't matter that Mitt isn't really their man.
Team Romney has managed to take some steps to help the base like him better. One was the deft performance by Ann Romney at the Tampa Bay Times Forum on Tuesday.
"Oh, she hit one right out of the park. She made him human," said Cosmello. "I think as the days go on and the people get to know more about Mitt Romney, he's going to appeal more."
Another step that's working for Romney is his false charge that Obama has gutted the work requirements for welfare -- an assertion that plays well with people who are suspicious of those getting government assistance.
"If you look at the Asian population after Vietnam, a lot them came over here, and they worked like crazy," Dau said.
"They wanted freedom," Gaetano said.
"Not the people that are born here, that live on the system, perpetuate it," continued Dau. "And we can't sustain it."
Larry Gallow, of Tulsa, Okla., predicted that the surge in people needing food stamps and other aid since the start of the financial meltdown in 2007 and 2008 would make Obama especially unpopular.
"One of the things that's going to really hit Obama bad is that with the welfare, all of this, so many people in entitlements right now -- the middle class, who he terms as the middle class, who are out there working every day, they're resentful of the fact that they are put into this class, and they're resentful that there are a lot of people who could be working who are not working," said Gallow, who believes the president has deliberately swelled the ranks of the needy.
"So that's going to backfire on him," Gallow said. "There are actually a whole lot of people out here who are working very hard to take care of themselves and their family, and he said here's free cell phones, here's free food stamps. They don't want that. These people have pride, and that's what that man is trying to take away from these people -- pride. They are taking away pride from the American citizen."
"He wants to give these entitlements because the more entitlements you get, the more he controls, the more the government controls you, and that's his goal," Gaetano said.
The pick of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as a running mate has also helped: a point made at the Romney rally held by longtime evangelical activist Ralph Reed.
"I believe that he has provided as big a booster rocket to this ticket as Sarah Palin did four years ago in Minneapolis," Reed said. "I think it's deeply revealing of Mitt Romney's character. It says a lot about who Mitt Romney is that he had the judgment, the guts, and the intestinal fortitude to pick somebody like Paul Ryan."
Cindy Frich, a Santorum delegate from Morgantown, W.Va., said she liked the fact that the former Pennsylvania senator was now pushing for Romney. But after that, she had to think hard about whether she liked anything about the man himself.
"Anything about Mitt Romney? Besides Paul Ryan?" She said. "I'm hoping he will support fiscally conservative policies."
But it doesn't really matter that conservatives aren't crazy about Romney, because his opponent is Obama.
"All presidents -- we don't agree with them all the time -- but deep down, they all loved this country. I don't think this man even likes this country," Gaetano said, referring to Obama.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/01/mitt-romney-convention_n_1846625.html [with comments]
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Republicans Imagine The Day After Obama's Reelection: A GOP Convention Survey
Among the survey respondents (clockwise from upper left) were Newt Gingrich, John Kasich, Allen West and Grover Norquist.
(Photos: Getty Images)
By Sam Stein and Amanda Terkel
Posted: 09/03/2012 12:06 am Updated: 09/03/2012 12:06 am
TAMPA, Fla. -- Should President Barack Obama win reelection this November, anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist pledges that he would immediately begin working on the 2014 midterm elections, foreshadowing the same type of adversarial approach that conservatives adopted after Obama's 2008 victory.
He won't have Dr. Ada Fisher to help him, however. The North Carolina Republican national committeewoman and member of the North Carolina Women for Mitt leadership team said she would move to Israel if Obama wins a second term.
"Number one, I'm Jewish," she explained. "And number two, I don't believe Obama will support the nation of Israel. Israel will have to defend itself alone, and they are going to need all hands on deck."
Others promised to join Fisher in her post-election exodus. Lori Hatch, a convention-goer from Oregon, said she would move to the Czech Republic. Sheila, a convention attendee from Tampa who would only reveal her first name, said she would basically disengage from normal society, "get out of the mainstream of all the things I do for the community and business and all of the charitable things I would do."
Then there was Newt Gingrich, who wouldn't even consider the hypothetical. "That's a thought so terrible I can't contemplate it," said the former House speaker.
These are just a sampling of the answers that The Huffington Post received in its very informal survey of delegates, lawmakers, operatives and other attendees at last week's Republican National Convention. The goal was to ask the same four questions of 100 convention-goers. But things got complicated.
For starters, we ran out of time. Attendees were eager to chat at length, and the convention was shortened by one day. In the end, we conducted 61 interviews. Along the way, we encountered other problems. Some people gave more than one answer to the same question. Others didn't address the question at all. Still, the responses were illuminating, if unscientific.
Of those interviewed, a full 16 believe that Obama is putting the country on a path toward socialism or is a socialist himself. (That may not seem like a large number, but only 34 people answered the question.)
"Garbage policies are socialistic policies, yes," said Jeff Johns, a Wisconsin alternate delegate, when asked if the president was a socialist.
Several supporters of Texas Rep. Ron Paul believe that the president is the polar opposite of a socialist, in the pocket of financial titans rather than the working masses.
"Unfortunately, I think Obama's major donors are the big bankers, and I think that his policies have benefited them the most, at the expense of most American people," said Scott Shock, a Washington state delegate.
Others offered vague replies when asked to identify Obama's ideological leanings.
"I just watched the movie '2016.' I've seen it three times. That tells you what Barack Obama is all about," said Roxanne Lewis, 54, of Oregon, in a reference to conservative intellectual [cough, hack] Dinesh D'Souza's anti-Obama film [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/22/anti-obama-2016-obamas-america-release_n_1821520.html ] about the president's allegedly anti-colonial roots.
"He is Santa Claus," said Ryan Davenport, 22, of College Station, Texas, "handing out free things to everybody all the time."
The socialist question was, more often than not, the last of the four questions asked survey respondents, many of whom were grabbed in the hallways of the Tampa Bay Times Forum, on the streets of Tampa or at other events around the city. It was also the one that solicited some of the most colorful responses.
Another question posed to attendees was what they would change about the Republican Party if they were granted complete and unquestionable authority. Eleven people said they wouldn't make a change.
"When Republicans act like conservatives, they win," said Rep. Allen West of Florida. "When they try to act like a lesser version of Democrats, they get their butts handed to them. So just be who you are."
Another 11 suggested improving the party's image (which, when one thinks about it, is more a make-over than a change). Two respondents wanted the party to focus less on social issues; one wanted it to focus more on religious issues. The Paul-ites (eight were interviewed) sought changes to the party rules or opposed the changes that were approved during the convention. One top Republican congressional aide, who would only speak on condition of anonymity, said he wanted "better musical acts." One person said the party should support gay marriage. Two respondents (one being Norquist) wanted the party to rally around a comprehensive immigration platform.
"The party is a bit fractured when it comes to immigration policy, depending on whether you are a border state or a Midwestern state like I am," said Rep. Aaron Shock of Illinois. "I think if our party was unified on an immigration reform bill ... it would go a long way towards helping us with the Hispanic and Latino demographic, who I think is with us on every issue but our inability to rally around a comprehensive immigration reform package."
Former Florida Sen. Mel Martinez refused to disclose what he would change with supreme authority over the GOP.
"I have to think about that," he said. "I'm not going to tell The Huffington Post today."
HuffPost granted respondents complete power over the Republican Party again for another of the four questions: If they could have anyone accept the nomination on Thursday night, who would it be?
Thirty-one people said they would still choose Mitt Romney. Two said Paul Ryan, Romney's running mate; two said New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; eight said Ron Paul; three said former Sen. Rick Santorum; two said Gingrich; one said Winston Churchill; one said her husband; two said former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; and one suggested Obama's secretary of transportation, Ray LaHood (who is a Republican).
"I think he'd make a great president," said Chris Guidry, a Louisiana alternate delegate. "He'd work with both sides of the aisle, and I think people in America would be receptive to his ability to get things done."
The fourth question required convention-goers to contemplate the unthinkable: If Obama won a second term, what would they do?
For many attendees, this amounted to asking how they would react when face to face with personal ruin. Six respondents said they would be in some form of tears, mourning or sadness.
"Other than cry, I'm not sure what I'd do at this point," said Christine Sutton, 62, of Honolulu. "Canada is just as bad," she added, dismissing a move up north.
Unlike Sutton, 10 respondents said they would move or at least contemplate moving. Five said they would begin prepping for the next election. Three said they would move their money because of economic fears. One, Sue Cosgrove, who declined to reveal where she's from, can't do that.
"I will pray and cry," she said. "I already moved my money."
Two other people chose prayer as a remedy for an Obama win, while one suggested major changes to the family finances.
"Maybe I'll have to take my son out of college at the rate things are going," said Pam Raygor, an Alaska delegate.
But for all the acute trepidation, there were many cooler heads. Thirteen attendees said life would go on. "It's not going to be an apocalypse," conceded Phil Johasz, 25, of Midland, Mich.
"I just do my job," said Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio).
"I get up and go to work," said Ann Clanton, executive director of the Rhode Island Republican Party. "What am I going to do, roll over and die?"
Sabrina Siddiqui contributed reporting.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/03/republican-convention-obama_n_1850846.html [with comments]
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Chuck Norris
Walker,
Texas Bedwetter
([linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79116017 and preceding and following)
Video: Obama Reelection Will Bring '1,000 Years Of Darkness'
By Cavan Sieczkowski
Posted: 09/04/2012 11:36 am Updated: 09/05/2012 11:45 am
Chuck Norris has offered a dire warning to America, claiming that U.S. citizens face "1,000 years of darkness" if President Obama is reelected for a second term in November.
In a two-minute video posted on his official YouTube channel, which also includes work-out tutorials and promotional appearances for "The Expendables 2," Norris and his wife Gena warn of a "growing concern" that the America we know can be lost forever if Obama is reelected.
“If we look to history, our great country and freedom are under attack,” Norris says. “We’re at a tipping point and, quite possibly, our country as we know it may be lost forever if we don’t change the course in which our country is headed.”
Gena then cites the statistic that in 2008 more than 30 million Evangelical Christians stayed home on Voting Day and Obama won.
She quotes President Ronald Reagan, saying, "You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into 1,000 years of darkness [ http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1964reagan1.html ]. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”
Reagan gave his "A Time For Choosing Speech" in 1964 on behalf of then-Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, who eventually lost to Lyndon B. Johnson [ http://www.kennesaw.edu/pols/3380/pres/1964.html ]. Goldwater's campaign was hurt by a lack of support from his own party as well as the unpopularity of his politically conservative positions. Divided Republican party followers decided to stay home rather than vote for a candidate they did not like.
In January, Norris endorsed Newt Gingrich for president [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/20/chuck-norris-endorses-newt-gingrich_n_1220171.html ]. In May, after Gingrich dropped out of the race, the "Walker, Texas Ranger" actor offered his support to Romney in an article penned for NewsBusters.
"I believe that Mitt has the skills and organization to defeat Obama and stop his fundamental transformation of America," Norris wrote in an anti-Obama article which invoked the ideals of Abraham Lincoln [ http://newsbusters.org/blogs/chuck-norris/2012/05/01/how-romney-and-our-republic-can-win-part-1 ]. "We all know what four more years of increased socialistic decisions would do to our country."
Norris joins other celebrities who have publicly endorsed Romney, including Clint Eastwood [ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/80505.html ], Jeff Foxworthy [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2012/03/09/jeff-foxworthy-endorses-romney.html ] and possibly Nicki Minaj [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/nicki-minaj-romney_n_1853797.html ].
(H/T Raw Story [ http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/03/chuck-norris-threatens-1000-years-of-darkness-if-obama-wins/ ] for the find.)
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/chuck-norris-obama-reelection-1000-years-of-darkness-mitt-romney_n_1854309.html [with Walker, Texas Bedwetter's referenced video, next below, embedded, and comments]
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Chuck Norris' dire warning for America - 2012
Published on Sep 1, 2012 by MrNorrisVideos
# READ THE DESCRIPTION #
Chuck Norris Fact No. 39: "Chuck Norris stared evil in the eye and it went into hiding."
America's favorite action star is doing just that this election -- calling on evangelical Christians across the nation to join him in crushing the creep of socialism under President Obama.
Norris and his wife, Gena, have filmed a public service announcement, unveiled exclusively at WND, wherein the two urge Christians to help save the country in November.
"We are here to talk about a growing concern we all share," Chuck Norris explains. "If we look to history, our great country and freedom are under attack. We're at a tipping point and, quite possibly, our country as we know it may be lost forever if we don't change the course in which our country is headed."
Gena warns that voter apathy among evangelicals in 2008 may have contributed to Obama's election in the first place.
"With our country at a crossroads, Chuck and I have asked ourselves what we can be doing to help support this great country we're blessed to live in and how we can encourage our like-minded American brothers and sisters to unite and let their voices be heard," she said. "It is estimated that in the 2008 election, 30 million evangelical Christians stayed home on voting day and Obama won the election by 10 million votes."
Chuck cautions Christians about the cost of doing nothing while the nation spirals into a state of socialism from which there will be no return.
"We know you love your family and your freedom as much as Gena and I do," he says in his appeal to Americans. "And it is because of that we can no longer sit quietly or stand on the sidelines and watch our country go the way of socialism or something much worse."
Gena urged Christians to register and cast their votes on Election Day to ensure "our voices will be heard."
Chuck recalled the cautionary words of great patriots on the subject of preserving liberty:
"As Edmund Burke said, 'All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men and women do nothing.'
"Our great president, Ronald Reagan said, 'Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same.'"
Likewise, Gena noted, "President Reagan went on to say that 'You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.'"
Chuck Norris concludes the announcement by encouraging Americans to close ranks and defend their great nation "for God and country."
"Please stand with us," he urges. "Let's unite for God and country. And may God continue to bless the United States of America. See you at the polls."
Norris has been writing a weekly column exclusively for WND since Oct. 23, 2006. The star of "Walker: Texas Ranger" and some of the biggest action pictures ever, Norris has also reached a new generation as part of the Internet craze for one-liners usually labeled not as jokes but as "facts."
In "The Official Chuck Norris Fact Book," Norris gives readers not only his favorite "facts," roundhouse-kicked by the man himself, but also the stories behind the facts and the code by which he lives his life.
In his bestselling book, "Black Belt Patriotism: How to Reawaken America," Norris provides real solutions for solving the nation's problems, moving the country forward and changing its course for the better.
Read more: http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/chuck-norris-dire-warning-for-america/
Don't forget to visit:
@ http://www.chucknorris.com
@ http://www.facebook.com/officialchucknorrispage
@ http://www.kickstartkids.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ud3pK5Wa90
===
Hank Williams Jr. Blasts Obama Again, Says President Is Muslim, 'Hates Cowgirls,' 'Loves Gays'
09/04/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/03/hank-williams-jr-obama-gays_n_1852739.html [with embedded videos, and comments]
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Alec Baldwin: Hank Williams Jr. Is 'A Broken-Down, Senile, Racist Coot'
09/05/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/alec-baldwin-hank-williams-jr-racist_n_1854791.html [with comments]
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Commentary: Glenn Beck, Hank Williams Jr. are bellyaching all the way to the bank
By Bud Kennedy
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Posted Friday, Sep. 07, 2012
Only a month ago, Texas hosted "Restoring Love."
Looks like it didn't take.
In a week when national TV viewers watched an 82-year-old man verbally assail an innocent chair, musician Hank Williams Jr. unleashed a Stockyards harangue against gays and "Love" host Glenn Beck himself blew up at a cranky flight attendant.
Beck acknowledged to his radio audience Tuesday that "I lost my cool" Monday at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport after an American Airlines attendant "barked" at him, banged down his soft drink can and otherwise snubbed him on a flight from New York.
Beck said the flight attendant made him feel "subhuman." He used his show to blast "liberal American Airlines" for the personal slight.
A young Southlake passenger on the same flight saw it differently.
Beck "threw the most immature hissy fit I've ever seen," Colton Hess wrote on Twitter.
Beck, 48, moved to Westlake from New York last year and hosts daily radio and Web shows from a former movie production studio in Las Colinas.
He told radio listeners how he was mocked by strangers and servers on a weekend visit to New York.
For no apparent reason, Beck noted that one offending barbecue shop was "minority-owned."
Already in full victim mode, Beck boarded the flight home, only to encounter a flight attendant who ignored him while fussing over other passengers.
According to Beck, the attendant bragged about his time in the Israeli army and said he was "so proud of the very liberal cities in America."
For that, Beck blamed the airline and "the kind of people that American Airlines likes to hire."
In one fleeting moment of humility, he added: "I shouldn't have lost my temper."
This airport drama came after Williams treated the Stockyards Music Festival to a complaint about "queer guitar-pickers."
In the middle of what is billed as his "Taking Back the Country 2012" tour, the 63-year-old musical malcontent added convention commentary.
According to The Dallas Morning News, Williams said: "We've got a Muslim for a president who hates cowboys, hates cowgirls, hates fishing, hates farming, loves gays, and we hate him!"
Like Beck, he's bellyaching all the way to the bank.
Copyright 2012 The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/09/07/4232557/commentary-glenn-beck-hank-williams.html [with comments]
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Donte Jamar Sims Arrested For Alleged Obama Threats On Twitter
09/06/12 07:31 PM ET
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A 21-year-old Charlotte man has been arrested by the Secret Service for allegedly posting threats to kill President Barack Obama on Twitter.
Authorities said Donte Jamar Sims was detained Wednesday. The Secret Service says Sims posted messages including one that said, "Ima Assassinate president Obama this evening!" on Monday morning, two days before Obama arrived in Charlotte for the Democratic National Convention.
Investigators say Sims told them he hated the president and was high on marijuana when he made the posts. When he found out he was being arrested, he wrote a written apology.
It wasn't immediately known if Sims had a lawyer. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/06/donte-jamar-sims-obama-threat_n_1863065.html [with comments]
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'White Graduates Only' Party Planned For 1973 Class Reunion In Louisiana Sparks Outrage (VIDEO)
By Dominique Mosbergen
Posted: 09/02/2012 3:23 pm Updated: 09/04/2012 7:17 pm
A letter that lists a "white graduates only" party as one of the activities planned for a class reunion [ http://www.katc.com/news/st-martinville-class-of-1973-reunion-letter-causes-a-stir/ ] has sparked outrage after it was leaked online.
For nearly 40 years, graduates from the St. Martinville, La., Senior High School Class of 1973 have been holding racially segregated class reunions.
But this year, ABC affiliate KATC reports that the graduates decided to change that tradition, making the reunion a non-segregated affair [id.].
However, a letter announcing the change included an after party for "white graduates only."
Michael Kreamer, who is the principal of the Louisiana school, said he found the letter distressing.
"I'm just a little disappointed that something like this comes up," he told KATC. "I don't think that it looks good for the school, but again as I said it has nothing to do with St. Martinville Senior High [id.]. So I hope people don't take that the wrong way."
According to reports, a reception is going to be held at the school at the end of September, followed by the homecoming football game. The letter notes that "all graduates are welcome to attend [ http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/09/class-reunion-letter-lists-white-graduates-only-party/ ]" those events.
After the game, however, "white graduates only [id.]" have been invited to gather at a classmate's home. Invitees are encouraged to bring a "food dish to share."
Liza Chance, one of the organizers of the event, told KATC that she was bewildered by this backward step.
"This is just a start it's a beginning, it needs to go forward. I don't understand why this went the way it did [ http://www.katc.com/news/st-martinville-class-of-1973-reunion-letter-causes-a-stir/ ]," she said.
The letter has caused quite a "stir" [ http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/09/02/Reunion-letter-causes-stir/UPI-64231346600541/ ] after making headlines this week, UPI notes.
People have been taking to social media platforms like Facebook to express their displeasure.
"'We've been doing this for the last 30 years,' totally excuses three decades of discrimination and the burden of inequality. I'm glad that they found a way to fix this terrible indiscretion in 2012 and finally decide to integrate like it's 1960, or was that the mistake? I can't think of an intelligent person I know who would ever think it was okay to write or plan anything exclusively for 'White People,'" commented one man from Lafayette, La [ http://www.katc.com/news/st-martinville-class-of-1973-reunion-letter-causes-a-stir/ ].
This is not the first "white only" event that has caused a furor in recent months.
According to a July report by the Huffington Post, Pastor William J. Collier and his Church of God's Chosen were planning on holding a "white only" Christian conference in Alabama [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/05/whites-only-christian-conference-alabama-william-collier_n_1651268.html ].
"We don't have the facilities to accommodate other people [id.]. We haven't got any invitations to black, Muslim events. Of course we are not invited to Jewish events and stuff," Collier said in way of explanation.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/02/white-graduates-only-party-class-reunion-louisiana-1973_n_1850568.html [with comments]
===
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) On Student Loans (Full Clip)
Published on Sep 6, 2012 by MD06RawFootage
Roscoe Bartlett discusses student loans and compares them to the Holocaust.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhCvqQOldcg [via/embedded in/more at "Roscoe Bartlett, Maryland Representative, Links Student Loans To The Holocaust [UPDATED]", http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/06/roscoe-bartlett-holocaust-student-loans_n_1862184.html (with comments)]
===
Karl Rove Apology Issued To Todd Akin Over 'Murder' Remark
By Paige Lavender
Posted: 09/01/2012 3:31 pm
Karl Rove has apologized [ http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/08/akin-camp-says-rove-apologized-for-murder-joke-134026.html ] to Congressman Todd Akin (R-Mo.) after he joked about killing the senate candidate.
“We should sink Todd Akin," Rove told top GOP donors at a an exclusive breakfast in Tampa, according [ http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-31/exclusive-inside-karl-roves-billionaire-fundraiser ] to Bloomberg Businessweek. "If he’s found mysteriously murdered, don’t look for my whereabouts!"
Rick Tyler, Akin's campaign adviser, told the AP Rove called the senate candidate Friday to apologize. Akin, who was publicly bothered [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/31/todd-akin-karl-rove_n_1847318.html ] by Rove's comment, accepted his apology.
The AP reported earlier [id.]:
Akin's office issued a statement calling the quote deeply disturbing, given that the FBI has been investigating threats against Akin after his comments that women's bodies can shut down pregnancy in cases of what he called "legitimate rape."
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/01/karl-rove-apology_n_1849180.html [with comments]
===
Todd Akin's Remarks: The Broader Meaning
By Jay Sterling Silver
Posted: 08/31/2012 4:52 pm
Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin's vile remarks about "legitimate rape" and women's natural resistance to pregnancy from forcible intercourse disturbingly parallel the views of many in law enforcement and recall the sorry history of the crime of rape in American jurisprudence.
The notion of "legitimate rape" -- or "real rape," as police often refer to it -- is often bandied about by police officers and even some prosecutors to distinguish four loosely defined classifications of rape accusations. In descending order of "legitimacy," the belief goes, they are: "real" rapes in which depraved perpetrators spring from bushes or climb through bedroom windows to victimize our wives and sisters; "date rape" in which the alleged victim assumed the risk by consenting to the date; "deserved" rape, as in "she-got-what-was-coming-to-her," for dressing "provocatively," visiting a seedy bar, traversing a dangerous street, or being flirtatious; and utterly false accusations of rape conjured up to explain to boyfriends or husbands discovered acts of infidelity, or to punish partners when love turns to loathing.
Although police departments have improved markedly in the handling of rape accusations over the last three decades, the tendency to blame the victims or turn a blind eye to violence against women persists within these bastions of machismo and, as Akin's remarks and his remaining support attest, within our society.
While the bizarre myth of a biological defense against pregnancy from rape has not entered the discussion of the crime of rape, similarly outrageous claims have masqueraded as medical fact in the evolution of the elements of the offense in American jurisprudence. Marching in lockstep with the proponents of Freud who posited a tendency of women to fantasize rape, predominantly male legislatures have adopted the requirement that a rape victim's testimony be independently corroborated by other evidence. That requirement, nearly nonexistent outside of a crime usually committed by men against women, ensures that a man cannot be convicted of a crime as serious as rape solely on the testimony of a female victim. A corroboration requirement for any other heinous offense, be it kidnapping or arson or armed robbery, would be an unthinkable affront to the victims.
Akin's sponsorship, along with Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, of a bill to limit the definition of rape-intrinsically a crime of force and violence-to instances of "forcible rape" is reminiscent of another unfortunate chapter in the evolution of the offense. The requirement that the victim of a rape, despite the attendant dangers, must have "resisted to the utmost" discounted the credibility of women. If the victim didn't fight back, the act wasn't sufficiently forcible in the eyes of the law. The "prompt-outcry" requirement, -- the rule that the victim of rape must report the crime within a relatively brief period of time, -- was yet another indignity aimed at women.
As with the medieval belief that divine intervention would assure justice in trial by battle and ordeal, Akin and his ilk proclaim a natural defense against pregnancy from rape that assures that an absolute ban on abortion is just.
Akin, however, is not the real problem, so his seemingly inevitable exit from the national scene is not the solution. Indeed, his "misspoken" remarks, as he now calls them, are yet another sore reminder of the distance we have yet to travel -- inside and outside of the law and law enforcement -- in confronting insensitivity to violence against women.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-sterling-silver/todd-akins-remarks-the-br_b_1827869.html [with comments]
===
Judge To Woman Sexually Assaulted By Cop: ‘When You Blame Others, You Give Up Your Power To Change’
Judge Jacqueline Hatch
By Ian Millhiser on Sep 7, 2012 at 9:00 am
Last summer, a drunk Arizona police officer named Robb Gary Evans drove himself to a bar, flashed his badge to avoid paying cover at the door, and then walked up behind a woman, put his hand up her skirt, and ran his fingers over her genitals [ http://azdailysun.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_0aa8be56-f7a3-11e1-b804-0019bb2963f4.html ]. A jury convicted him of sexual abuse, a felony with a maximum sentence of 2 and a half years in prison, and Evans was fired from the police force after an internal investigation.
Nevertheless, Arizona trial Judge Jacqueline Hatch, who was appointed to the bench by Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) [ http://azdailysun.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/article_bb519bc7-bde1-5c35-9e54-308cfa80802f.html ], decided that Evans’ actions did not warrant jail time — sentencing him probation and 100 hours of community service. Evans also will not have to register as a sex offender. Yet, while Judge Hatch apparently did not view the disgraced former cop’s actions as particularly serious, she had some very harsh words for the woman he assaulted [ http://azdailysun.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_0aa8be56-f7a3-11e1-b804-0019bb2963f4.html ]:
Bad things can happen in bars, Hatch told the victim, adding that other people might be more intoxicated than she was.
“If you wouldn’t have been there that night, none of this would have happened to you,” Hatch said.
Hatch told the victim and the defendant that no one would be happy with the sentence she gave, but that finding an appropriate sentence was her duty.
“I hope you look at what you’ve been through and try to take something positive out of it,” Hatch said to the victim in court. “You learned a lesson about friendship and you learned a lesson about vulnerability.”
Hatch said that the victim was not to blame in the case, but that all women must be vigilant against becoming victims.
“When you blame others, you give up your power to change,” Hatch said that her mother used to say.
The victim, who has not been identified by the press, called for Judge Hatch to apologize for her offensive comments, adding that if she had not been at the bar to be assaulted by Evans, “it probably would have happened to someone else [ http://azdailysun.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/victim-calls-for-judge-to-apologize/article_f5ae588e-f85c-11e1-9652-0019bb2963f4.html ].”
© 2012 Center for American Progress Action Fund (emphasis in original)
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/09/07/809861/judge-to-woman-sexually-assaulted-by-cop-when-you-blame-others-you-give-up-your-power-to-change/ [with comments]
===
Victoria Jackson Sounds Off On Todd Akin's Rape And Abortion Comments (AUDIO)
Posted: 08/31/2012 4:50 pm Updated: 08/31/2012 5:10 pm
Reacting to the controversy surrounding Rep. Todd Akin's controversial comments regarding rape and abortion [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/19/todd-akin-abortion-legitimate-rape_n_1807381.html ], former "Saturday Night Live" star and conservative activist Victoria Jackson said on Wednesday that if she were raped she would have the baby because it "would be a blessing," noting that the baby "has its own DNA" and is "not the father's DNA."
And responding to a HuffPost Gay Voices blog post [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-steadman/kirk-cameron-victoria-jackson_b_1703587.html ] from a former friend who said he ended their friendship because of her views on homosexuality, Jackson said she doesn't "think people should identify themselves by their sexual life."
"The Todd Akin thing was so blown out of proportion -- it's a joke," Jackson said at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., when interviewed for my SiriusXM OutQ radio program [ http://www.siriusoutq.com/ ]. "How many times do people get pregnant from rape? It's point zero zero one percent. It's a joke. I read lots of articles. I know people, because I'm 53. I've know a lot of people, and I've actually never known anyone who got pregnant from being raped."
"And guess what?" she continued. "If I got raped, I would have the baby. And if I didn't want to keep it because I had these [mocking tone] horrible nightmares, I would adopt it out. But I think that God can turn a bad thing into a good thing. And that, if I got raped and a beautiful baby who was innocent was born out of it, that would be a blessing. The DNA of a baby is individual. It's not the mother's DNA. It's not the father's DNA. And that's why I believe abortion is murder, because it's not the woman's body. It has it's own DNA. If there's a boy baby inside of me, he has a penis. That's not my body."
In response to Gay Voices blogger Dan Steadman's post [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-steadman/kirk-cameron-victoria-jackson_b_1703587.html ], in which he wrote about ending his friendships with both Jackson and Kirk Cameron because of their views on homosexuality, Jackson discussed her gay friends.
"I didn't see [the post] but I love my gay friends," she said. "My best friends who are gay, I've actually never seen them with a boyfriend. It's like -- we've never talked about sex. I don't think people should identify themselves by their sexual life. My identity is in Christ. Some people's identity is in what country they come from. But I don't think people should make their identity about their sex life. That should be private. Why are they in the middle of the street in a parade? Why don't they just have sex in their bedroom alone?"
Listen to the full interview:
[audio embedded]
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/31/victoria-jackson-todd-akin-rape-abortion_n_1847852.html [with comments]
===
U.S. Marines Arrested For Attack On California Gay Man In Possible Hate Crime
09/05/12 09:56 PM ET
LONG BEACH, Calif. -- The beating of a gay man outside a bar resulted in the arrest of four Camp Pendleton Marines and was being investigated as a potential hate crime, Marine Corps and police officials said Wednesday.
Long Beach police said a preliminary investigation found that the four Marines attacked the man just after leaving the bar. Two other men who tried to help the victim were also attacked, police told the newspaper.
Long Beach police Cmdr. Joe Stilnovich said at least one of the suspects used derogatory terms regarding the victim's sexual orientation, U-T San Diego ( http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/sep/05/marines-identified-possible-hate-crime/ ) reported.
The Marines were arrested just after the incident. They have since made bail and returned to their units, Camp Pendleton spokesman Maj. Manuel J. Delarosa said. Military officials were assisting Long Beach police and the Marine Corps was conducting its own probe, he said.
"This is an isolated incident," Delarosa said. "Committing any hate crime is unacceptable behavior and is not tolerated in the Marine Corps."
The victim was treated at a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries, Long Beach police spokeswoman Lisa Massacani said. The two others who tried to help the victim suffered minor injuries.
Neither Massacani nor Delarosa gave specifics on why it was being considered a possible hate crime.
Arrested were Lance Cpl. Lewis Serna; Pfc. Thomas Pentek; Pfc. Sean Miller and Lance Cpl. John O'Leary. Authorities were trying to determine each person's role in the assault, Stilnovich said.
The four Marines could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/05/us-marines-arrested-california-gay-hate-crime-_n_1858718.html [with video "Only on CBS2: Man Claims 4 Marines Brutally Beat Him For Being Gay" video embedded, and comments]
===
Alabama's Spanish Fort High School Slammed For 'Man, That's Gay' Football Banner
09/06/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/06/alabama-spanish-fort-high-school-man-thats-gay-sign_n_1861855.html [with embedded video, and comments]
===
Mark Craddock, Christian Sect Doctor, Banned For Prescribing 'Gay Cure' Drug Used For Castration
By Cavan Sieczkowski
Posted: 09/05/2012 11:45 am Updated: 09/05/2012 5:06 pm
An Australian doctor and member of a conservative Christian sect has been banned from practicing medicine after he prescribed a teenager a chemical castration drug to be used as a "gay cure."
Dr. Mark Craddock of Sydney, who is also a member of the Exclusive Brethren Christian Fellowship sect, prescribed an 18-year-old man who was also part of the sect with the drug after he came out as gay [ http://m.smh.com.au/nsw/exclusive-brethren-gp-banned-for-prescribing-gay-cure-20120904-25cnu.html ], according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
In a letter to the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, the unnamed man, who is now 24, said that when he came out as gay, a church leader told him ''there's medication you can go on." He continued, ''He recommended that I speak to Dr Craddock on the matter with a view to my being placed on medication to help me with my 'problem','' the New Zealand resident said, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
The teen went to visit the 75-year-old doctor who then prescribed him with a "gay cure" [ http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8527657/doctor-banned-for-prescribing-gay-cure-to-teen ]: the anti-androgen therapy cyproterone acetate, sold under the brand name Cyprostat, along with five repeats, according to ninemsn. He said the doctor did not refer him to a psychologist or discuss the drug's side effects.
Cyprostat is a form of hormone therapy [ http://prostatecanceruk.org/media/11702/cyproterone.pdf ] used to treat prostate cancer. The drug will "work by stopping testosterone from reaching the cancer cells. Without testosterone the prostate cancer cells are not able to grow," according to the UK's Prostate Cancer Charity. Hormone suppressants have been used to "chemically castrate" sex offenders [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2012/mar/13/prisons-and-probation-criminal-justice ], the Guardian notes.
A hearing by the Medical Council of the Australian State of New South Wales determined, "Dr Craddock failed to adequately assess the patient and failed to provide appropriate medical management of the patients therapeutic needs," in an excerpt obtained by Gay Star News [ http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/christian-sect-doctor-banned-practicing050912 ]. The committee found that Craddock was guilty of "unsatisfactory processional conduct. He was severely reprimanded and practice restrictions were placed on his registration."
There are more than 40,000 Exclusive Brethren [ http://www.theexclusivebrethren.com/exclusive-brethren.html ] around the world, according to the sect's official website. They "believe strongly in the traditional family unit. Marriage is held in the greatest [honor], as one of God's original thoughts of blessing for the human race."
Some doctors, like Craddock, have taken somewhat dangerous steps in an attempt to "cure" homosexuality. In 2010, Dr. Maria New of New York City's Mount Sinai was reportedly experimenting with injecting fetuses with steroids to potentially make girls "more feminine" and reduce odds they turn out gay, the Oregonian reported at the time [ http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/anna_griffin/index.ssf/2010/07/northeast_portland_couples_tv.html ].
The American Psychiatric Association has condemned the "treatment" of homosexuality [ http://www.glaad.org/reference/exgays ], according to GLAAD, saying, "The potential risks of 'reparative therapy' are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient."
Activists have championed against "gay cures" [ http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/gary-spedding/dangerous-world-of-gay-cures_b_1723431.html ] in the United Kingdom, which includes Conversion Therapy. Last year, Apple pulled Exodus International's "Gay Cure" app [ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20046162-37.html ] from its collection.
Below, see 11 horrific "cures" for homosexuality:
[photos and videos embedded]
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/05/mark-craddock-christian-doctor-gay-cure-prostate-cancer_n_1857571.html [with comments]
===
Note To [GOP] Candidates: 'Woman' Does Not Equal 'Mom'
By Lisa Belkin
Posted: 08/31/2012 1:18 pm
In his speech to the Republican convention last night [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/mitt-romney-speech-text_n_1826619.html?utm_hp_ref=elections-2012 ], Mitt Romney used some version of the word "mom" 14 times.
That was one more time than he said the word "Obama" or "future" and ten more times than the word "economy."
Even more striking than how often we came up was the reverence he had for us. "I knew that her job as a mom was harder than mine," he said of his wife, Ann. "And I knew without question, that her job as a mom was a lot more important than mine."
The speech dripped with such reverence for women who have children that one of the most popular tweets last night was this one from @dweinberger [ https://twitter.com/dweinberger/status/241367628743073793 ].
David Weinberger
@dweinberger
"So tonight I'm proud to announce I'm running to be your Mom." #Romney
30 Aug 12
Coming as it did the night after Paul Ryan's own ode to motherhood [ http://www.npr.org/2012/08/29/160282031/transcript-rep-paul-ryans-convention-speech ] ("to this day, my mom is my role model") which, in turn, came the day after Ann Romney's [ http://www.npr.org/2012/08/28/160216442/transcript-ann-romneys-convention-speech ] ("It's the moms who always have to work a little harder, to make everything right), mothers can feel pretty smug in their own importance this quadrennial cycle.
Hold on, you say, haven't mothers always been a group wooed by politicians? Why else have they spent all those decades kissing babies?
Yes. But this year feels different. A word count alone hints at what's changed. John McCain used the word "mother" twice [ http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/conventions/videos/transcripts/20080904_MCCAIN_SPEECH.html ] in his acceptance speech four years ago and didn't use "mom" once. George W. Bush thanked his own mother [ http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=123214&page=1&singlePage=true ], briefly, in 2004, then only used the word once or twice again. Sarah Palin's official acceptance speech included only three "moms [ http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/conventions/videos/transcripts/20080903_PALIN_SPEECH.html ]," though she famously added a fourth with her off-the-prompter comment about hockey moms and lipstick. Obama [ http://www.zimbio.com/Democratic+National+Convention+Speech+Transcripts/articles/17/2008+Barack+Obama+Convention+Speech+Transcript ], at his last convention, didn't say "mom" at all.
But this is a good thing, right? A reflection of politicians' long overdue realization that mothers deserve consideration and attention?
It would be good if it were true. As has long been the case, both parties this year know that they cannot win without women. And their embrace of mom-without-the-apple-pie is just the latest example of campaigns reducing us to shorthand rather than addressing all of our dimensions. The elder George Bush did it in 1988, choosing the handsome Dan Quayle to appeal to the ladies (after Walter Mondale arguably chose Geraldine Ferraro for a version of the same reason four years earlier). John McCain did it with Palin last time around, assuming we would vote for one of our own.
But those choices, patronizing to women as they might have been, were decidedly less direct than the ones we saw in Tampa this past week. In earlier years, candidates assured us that they liked women, or were attractive to women, or were women. Now they are turning the lens and telling women that we ourselves are wonderful -- mostly because we are moms.
In part what rankles is their overuse of the shorthand, nickname version -- mom, not mother. When I hear it, I sense tones of "honey" or "dear." Add to that the fact that the March of the Moms through political rhetoric nowadays eliminates men -- including many of the men giving these speeches -- from the equation. Parents = mothers. It is interesting that candidates have chosen this tack now, because it is several years behind the Zeitgeist, at a time when men are steadily becoming more invested in their identities as dad [ http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/26/health/kerner-stay-home-dads-sexy/index.html ].
But mostly what makes me want to snap back at my TV [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-belkin/ann-romney-praises-mothers_b_1840762.html ] during these odes to motherhood is the corollary calculation that women = mothers. By reducing the votes of all women to those of a subset, by assuming the concerns we share (or don't) are exclusively about children, candidates diminish and dismiss us. They assume that just by praising us as parents we won't notice that they haven't mentioned what they plan to DO for us, as parents, or as women.
We have noticed. And we vote.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. (emphasis in original)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-belkin/mom-voters_b_1846936.html [with comments]
===
Fault Lines: The abortion war
Published on Aug 28, 2012 by AlJazeeraEnglish
Fault Lines [ http://www.youtube.com/show/faultlines ] investigates the forces behind the so-called war on women in the US. Why is a medical procedure being reframed as a deeply divisive moral issue in the US?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E0oMN2oJj8 {original Al Jazeera story and video embed at http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/faultlines/2012/08/20128288841399701.html (with comments); see also "Exploring the Roots of 'The Abortion War'", http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laila-alarian/exploring-the-roots-of-the-abortion-war_b_1834214.html (with comments)]
===
Mitt Romney Has Won Over All the Women Yay!
Photo by Scott Olson/Staff/Getty Image News/Getty Images
Aug 31, 2012 05:50 PM by Lisa Beth Johnson
The main goal for Republicans at this week's RNC was to woo the women, and man did they do it. Mission accomplished! There were soooo many women who attended and spoke at the event. Democrats may whine that giving so many speaking slots to women and minorities smacks of "tokenism," but Republicans know the DNC are the ones with loosest slots in town (pssst: Sandra Fluke). So cross your legs and sit up straight, ladyvoters, because here's proof that Mitt Romney is gonna close that gap…
The recent blowup in the Missouri Senate race, in which Republican candidate Todd Akin asserted that women rarely get pregnant in cases of "legitimate rape," hardly helped the GOP’s image.
Oh darn. Sorry. I must have copied the wrong quote. Here we go…
Ms. Brickley, like just about everyone else, brings up Romney’s not-so-secret weapon: Ann. "She was sincere and spoke from the heart," Brickley says, noting her emphasis on love.
When New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie came out and said, "Tonight, we choose respect over love," Brickley says, "that disturbed me a bit."
Knucklesnorts! I don't know why this keeps happening. I'm just trying to find a story that states definitively that Romney has won over the hearts, minds and uteri of women everywhere, regardless of their previous political affiliation. Wait. Here…
Wasserman Schultz dismissed the female speakers this week as in it for themselves, rather than genuinely supporting Mitt Romney.
"I think they spent the week in infomercials for their candidates for 2016," she said. "I mean I think the thing that I noticed the most about Tuesday and Wednesday night, was the parade of future leaders of their party who spent a tremendous amount of time promoting themselves, and took a very long time, if they ever did get to promoting their candidate, Mitt Romney."
Come on now, that's way harsh. Romney has done everything he can to try to make women understand how much he appreciates and respects them. He's been trying to relate to women's rights ever since he's gotten into this election, especially a woman's right to change her mind. Am I right? Hey-o!
Copyright © 2012 Comedy Partners
http://www.indecisionforever.com/blog/2012/08/31/mitt-romney-has-won-over-all-the-women-yay [with comments]
===
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http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79061847 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79191146 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79191409 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79318071 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79354117 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79355179 and preceding and following
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
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