Saturday, October 24, 2009

Obama Nominee: Marriage Is Not a Good Thing

Chai Feldblum, Obama's nominee for the EEOC, aims to fundamentally change America's definition of marriage.

"My own view, reflected in my writing over the past decade, is that government often appropriately legislates on a shared social vision of morality and that changing the public's moral assessment of same-sex sexual activity is thus key to achieving true equality for LGBT people. For some time, I have articulated this view as a requirement that the public must come to view homosexuality and heterosexuality as morally equivalent - that is, the public must believe that both straight sex and gay sex encompass equivalent moral ‘goods'...that there is nothing inherently immoral or wrong with two people of the same gender engaging in sexual conduct. That belief of moral neutrality must then be coupled with an affirmation that government has an obligation to advance what I term ‘statements of moral understanding'. Four of those statements are the following: it is good for human beings in society to feel safe, to feel happy, to experience and give care, and to live a life of authenticity. These four statements of moral understanding, coupled with a belief in the moral neutrality of homosexual conduct, should then result in a society in which gay people are protected from discrimination in employment, provided access to civil marriage, permitted to adopt children, etc."

So here we go, another Obama appointment that is at moral odds with the rest of the country. Another radical appointed by a president that's supposed to be in charge of our nation. What fuck-ups put him there?

You can see the original article here.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Score One for Free Press

The White House's bid to have Fox News excluded from an interview given to the press pool has failed.

The Treasury Department on Thursday tried to make "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg available for interviews to every member of the network pool except Fox News. The pool is the five-network rotation that for decades has shared the costs and duties of daily coverage of the presidency and other Washington institutions.

But the Washington bureau chiefs of the five TV networks consulted and decided that none of their reporters would interview Feinberg unless Fox News was included. The pool informed Treasury that Fox News, as a member of the network pool, could not be excluded from such interviews under the rules of the pool.

The White House finally gave up and agreed.

What do you know, the media finally did something right.

You can find the original article here.

Open Post 10/23/09

It's Friday and that means it's another open post. Leave a comment about anything you want to talk about and feel free to leave a comment about someone else's post.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Finally, a Credit Card That's Being Honest

How would you like a credit card that charges 80% interest? It's real, and it can be yours. Gordon Hageman got an offer in the mail.

But there's nothing in the letter that tells you the interest rate. For that, you have to read the fine print.

"My first thought was it was a mistake so I called the 800 number on the back of the offer and gave them the offer code and verified my information and sure enough they verified it at 79.9 percent," says Hageman.

You can find the original article here.

An Arm of the Republican Party?

Anita Dunn says Fox News is an arm of the Republican party. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, even if it's flat out wrong.

A new survey conducted for the League of American Voters by the Global Marketing Research Center shows this:

• Among Democrats, 17 percent watched it several times each week or more

• Among Independents, 46 percent watched the station several times each week or more

• And among Republicans, 55 percent watched it several times each week or more

The survey indicated that 11 percent of all American voters watched CNN “just about every day” and 20 percent watched several times each week or more.

Combined, 31 percent watched CNN several times each week or more.

For MSNBC, the totals were 10 percent watched just about every day and 8 percent watched several times each week. Combined, 18 percent watched MSNBC several times each week or more.

You can find the original article here.

Controlling the Media

The Obama campaign's press strategy leading up to his election last November focused on "making" the media cover what the campaign wanted and on exercising absolute "control" over coverage, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn told an overseas crowd early this year.

"Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control," Dunn said, admitting that the strategy "did not always make us popular in the press."

I don't give them that much credit. I don't think they controlled the media as much as the media controlled itself. We all know they are worthless partisan hacks and they actively campaigned for Obama. To this day, they continue to give him a pass instead of doing their jobs.

You can see her video here.

You can see the original article here.

Congress' Imaginary Savings

Peter Suderman at Reason Online has a good article about the myth that the Democrats' proposals are "deficit neutral." Right now they're pushing a "fix" for Medicare -- $240 billion! -- and since it isn't part of the health care proposal, they can keep their claim.

Something is rotten in Denmark.

Suderman says, "As legislative scams go, it's pretty obvious — pass a bill on the promise of future savings, then 'fix' those savings later when they prove unpopular."

In the end, it comes down to the fact that government cannot spend wisely. And when it needs more money, Congress votes for more money. No efficiencies ever arise, no savings ever appear.

You can find the original article here.