Presumptuous Politics : Jan 9, 2015

Friday, January 9, 2015

Do You Get It Cartoon?

NBC omits “God” from Pledge of Allegiance… again

It seems the folks over at Rockefeller Center have a problem with the Almighty.
An astute reader pointed out that NBC has once again omitted God from the Pledge of Allegiance. The omission happened during a commercial promoting the network’s upcoming spy thriller called “Allegiance.” How’s that for a coincidence?
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands,” a chorus of voices intones in the spot. “One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

It’s not the first time the Peacock Network has dissed a deity.

Watch the video for yourself by clicking here.
“Allegiance” is about a young CIA agent who learns his parents are former covert Russian spies who may be plotting a terrorist attack inside the United States. I’m assuming the CIA agent is the good guy – but then again – we’re talking about NBC, folks.
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I reached out to NBC to find out why they have a problem with God but so far no one has returned my telephone call. I probably would’ve had a better chance of finding an NBC executive at a Wednesday night church supper.
It’s not the first time the Peacock Network has dissed a deity.
In 2011 NBC was forced, yes forced, to apologize after they omitted the phrase “one nation under God” from its coverage over the U.S. Open Championship. It happened not once, but twice.
The omission ignited a firestorm on Twitter, the New York Daily News reported at the time.
“Why does mainstream America not trust media? Simple, you can’t get Pledge of Allegiance right, why trust you to tell us anything else? #NBC,” Pastor Michael Catt tweeted at the time.
NBC released a statement to the trade publication Broadcasting & Cable and said the decision to eliminate God was “made by a small group of people.”
“This was a bad decision,” NBC stated.
You think?
And how can we forget about MSNBC?
In 2013 Rev. Al Sharpton, refused to utter “under God” during a “Lean Forward” commercial for the cable network.
In fairness to the “reverend” it may have been a simple oversight – seeing how he has a rather troubled past when reading off a TelePrompTer.
“Allegiance” will premiere Feb. 5 at 10 p.m. ET on NBC.
Lord have mercy.

House approves ObamaCare bill despite veto threat

The House voted Thursday to curb a provision in ObamaCare that some lawmakers say is hurting the job market, as the new Republican-controlled Congress moved quickly to challenge the administration on several fronts.
The House voted 252-172 for the ObamaCare bill, which tweaks the law's definition of full-time workers who must be offered employer-provided health care. Twelve Democrats sided with Republicans in approving the first Affordable Care Act-related legislation of the new Congress.
The bill changes the full-time worker threshold from 30 hours weekly to a 40-hour minimum. Critics claim defining full-time employees as those working at least 30 hours is pressuring firms to save money by cutting workers' hours below that and, in turn, the number of full-time jobs.
The White House, though, already has vowed to veto the bill, drawing jeers from GOP leaders.
"You say you care about low-income workers, about working women and small businesses?" House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., taunted Obama. "Show it and sign this bill."
The White House, just days into the 114th Congress, also has threatened to veto two other Republican-sponsored bills, including one forcing approval of the Canada-to-Texas Keystone pipeline.
The House is planning to vote on that bill Friday, while a Senate panel on Thursday approved the legislation - teeing up debate on the Senate floor for next week.
On both bills, GOP leaders would face uphill fights mustering the two-thirds House and Senate majority votes they would need to override Obama vetoes. But both measures had some support from Democrats, and Republicans could use them to portray themselves as championing bipartisan legislation, only to be thwarted by Obama and his Democratic congressional allies.
"Given the chance to start with a burst of bipartisan productivity, the president turned his back on the American people's priorities," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters Thursday, adding, "We were taking our oath of office when they were issuing veto threats. Come on."
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Democrats would sustain Obama's vetoes on both bills and said it was Republicans who have blocked progress.
"The president has always extended the hand of friendship. Some say too much," she told reporters.
She also said Democrats would uphold a promised Obama veto on a third measure rolling back some regulations on the financial industry enacted after the 2008 economic crash. That bill fell short in the House this week but is expected to pass on a revote next week.
Obama's 2010 health care law, a perennial GOP target, is phasing in a requirement that companies with more than 50 full-time workers offer health care coverage or face penalty payments to the government.
House Republicans say boosting the standard to 40 hours would protect those workers and named their bill the "Save American Workers Act." They cite a study by the conservative Hoover Institution saying that 2.6 million workers are at risk of having their hours reduced by the 30-hour minimum, including disproportionately high numbers of female, low-income, younger and less-educated workers.
The White House and Democrats, with support from labor and liberal groups, mock the measure as the latest attempt by Republicans to scuttle Obama's health care law. The House has voted more than 50 times to repeal or roll back parts of that law since Republicans took control of the chamber in 2011.
Democrats say changing the full-time threshold from 30 to 40 hours would make fewer workers eligible for employer-provided health coverage and put more of them at risk of losing that coverage from companies looking to cut costs.
The measure's fate is less clear in the Senate, where majority Republicans will need at least six Democratic votes to get the 60 needed to overcome Democratic delaying tactics. Senate GOP leaders have not said when the bill will be debated.

California newspaper office vandalized over use of 'illegal' immigrant label

A California newspaper will continue to use the term "illegals" to describe people who enter the U.S. without permission, despite an attack on its building by vandals believed to object to the term.
The Santa Barbara News-Press's front entrance was sprayed with the message "The border is illegal, not the people who cross it" in red paint, sometime either Wednesday night or early Thursday, according to the newspaper's director of operations, Donald Katich. The attack came amid wider objections to a News-Press headline that used the word "illegals" alongside a story on California granting driver's licenses to people in the country illegally.

"It is an appropriate term in describing someone as “illegal” if they are in this country illegally."- Statement from Santa Barbara News-Press

"The vandalism and the damage speak for itself, as well as the motivation behind it," Santa Barbara Police Officer Mitch Jan said. "At this point in time, I don't really have any suspect information. Without cameras or an eyewitness, we really don't know who would be responsible."
In addition to the writing on the building, graffiti espousing a no-borders mentality was scribbled on the walkway through Storke Placita and the sidewalk near Santa Barbara City Hall. Police were braced for a protest in front of the paper later this week. Jan said hundreds could show up, and the Police Department is aware of the call for a protest.
"There is a plan underway," he said. "There is extra staffing on board for it."
In a statement, the newspaper said it has no plans to drop its style in describing illegal immigrants.
"It has been the practice for nearly 10 years at the Santa Barbara News-Press to describe people living in this country illegally as “illegals” regardless of their country of origin," the statement read. "This practice is under fire by some immigration groups who believe that this term is demeaning and does not accurately reflect the status of “undocumented immigrants,” one of several terms other media use to describe people in the Unites States illegally.
"It is an appropriate term in describing someone as “illegal” if they are in this country illegally," the statement added.
The debate over how to label people who are in the U.S. without permission has raged at news organizations across the nation in recent years. In 2013, both The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times banned the phrase after employing it for decades, saying it "lacked precision," according to Pew Research Center.
The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal all use the phrase, although only The Wall Street Journal uses “illegal immigrant” to refer to people who not only criminally enter the U.S. without the proper documentation, but also those who overstay their visas.
FoxNews.com's policy is to describe immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally as "illegal immigrants."

Obama proposes free community college program, cost details unclear

WASHINGTON – President Obama on Thursday proposed making community college free for all Americans who are "willing to work for it," though the administration has not revealed the price tag or how exactly it would be paid for.
In a video posted on Facebook, the president previewed his plan, which will be formally announced during a trip to Tennessee Friday. The president said he wants to provide free community college for two years, by covering enough tuition to get students who keep their grades up an associate's degree or halfway to a bachelor's.
"It's not for kids," Obama said. "We also have to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to constantly train themselves for better jobs, better wages, better benefits."
On a conference call with reporters, however, administration officials were vague on the details.
They said the funding details would come out later with the president's budget. They estimated 9 million students could participate and save an average of $3,800 in tuition per year.
That suggests an annual cost in the tens of billions of dollars. The White House said the federal government would pick up 75 percent of the cost and the final quarter would come from states that opt into the program.
The proposal drew an immediate critical response from House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, whose spokesman said, "with no details or information on the cost, this seems more like a talking point than a plan."
The idea was reminiscent of Obama's 2013 State of the Union proposal to provide universal preschool, which Congress did not take up because of cost issues. Obama policy adviser Cecilia Munoz pointed out that even without federal action, many states are taking up the idea and expanding preschool.
Last year, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam signed into law a scholarship program that provides free community and technical college tuition for two years to the state's high school graduates. About 58,000 of the state's roughly 62,000 seniors have applied to participate this fall.
But Tennessee Republican Rep. Diane Black said her state's plan, called Tennessee Promise, is paid mostly with lottery funds, while the federal funding source for Obama's plan is unclear and states will have to help pick up the tab. "Ultimately, any efforts to reboot Tennessee Promise as a one-size-fits-all nationwide approach will be met with heavy skepticism from Congress," Black said.
Under the president's new plan, students would be required to maintain a 2.5 GPA while in college, and must make steady progress toward completing their program in order to have their tuition eliminated, according to the press release.
"Put simply, what I'd like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who is willing to work for it," the president said.

2 reported dead in 2nd hostage situation as police pin massacre suspects north of Paris

French police were confronting two separate -- but apparently related -- hostage situations Friday, after a jihadist couple suspected of killing a cop a day earlier stormed a Paris deli, killing two and taking as many as five prisoners even as the suspects Wednesday's massacre at a Paris satirical magazine were holed up in a printing plant 25 miles north of the city, authorities said.
Authorities feared all four suspects, who may know one another, are bent on going out as martyrs, and potentially killing hostages and police officers in the process. The fast-moving developments came as nearly 90,000 police and military personnel were deployed to bring the terror crisis that has gripped the European nation since late Wednesday morning, when a pair of brothers conducted a bloody commando-style raid on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a weekly satirical magazine that had angered Muslim radicals by repeatedly publishing images of Prophet Muhammed.
"Even though these guys are a bunch of savages, the negotiators are going to be trying to calm things down ... the less volatile things are, the safer it is for everybody," James Alvarez, who has worked as a consultant for Scotland Yard and the New York Police Department, told Sky News as the dueling situations unfolded.
The hostage takers in the second case, at a kosher grocery store in eastern Paris, were identified by police as Amedy Coulibaly and Hayat Boumeddiene, a couple suspected in the murder Thursday of Paris Police Officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe as she attended to a routine traffic accident in the city. Authorities believe the case is related to Wednesday's attack, which 12 people, including two cops, dead at the publication Charlie Hebdo, which has angered Muslim radicals by publishing images of Prophet Muhammed.
The Islamist brothers suspected of killing 12 people in an attack on a French satirical magazine were holding at least one hostage inside a printing house surrounded by police northeast of Paris Friday morning, and at least two people were reportedly dead in a separate, but likely related hostage situation in Paris.
Hundreds of French security forces backed by a convoy of ambulances streamed into Dammartin-en-Goele, a small industrial town 25 miles outside the capital in a massive operation to seize the men suspected of carrying out France's deadliest terror attack in 54 years. The suspects reportedly told police negotiators they were ready to "die as martyrs."

"France has been struck directly in the heart of its capital, in a place where the spirit of liberty -- and thus of resistance -- breathed freely."- French President Francois Hollande

Meanwhile, two people were reportedly dead in connection with a separate hostage situation in a kosher grocery on the east side of Paris, where a gunman armed with AK-47s was believed to be holding as many as five hostages, including women and children. The gunman in that case is believed to be the same person who shot a Paris policewoman on Thursday. Authorities believ the second hostage situation is related to Wednesday's massacre and the ongoing standoff involving the suspects in Wednesday's massacre at the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.
The two suspects in the massacre, identified as brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, were holed up Friday inside CTF Creation Tendance Decouverte. Xavier Castaing, the chief Paris police spokesman, and town hall spokeswoman Audrey Taupenas, said there appeared to be one hostage inside the printing house.
Christelle Alleume, who works across the street, said that a round of gunfire interrupted her coffee break Friday morning.
"We heard shots and we returned very fast because everyone was afraid," she told i-Tele. "We had orders to turn off the lights and not approach the windows.
Officials told Fox News that there were four people inside the business when the gunmen went inside, but three people were somehow able to leave the area.
The Associated Press reported that at least three helicopters were seen hovering above the town. At nearby Charles de Gaulle airport, two runways were briefly closed to arrivals to avoid interfering in the standoff, but were later reopened. Schools went into lockdown.
Earlier Friday, a French security official told the AP that shots were fired as the suspects stole a car in the town of Montagny Sainte Felicite in the early morning hours. French officials told Fox News that the suspects threw the car's driver out at the side of the road. The driver, who recognized the suspects, then called police and alerted them to the suspects' whereabouts.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that 88,000 security forces have mobilized to find the brothers after the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices on Wednesday.
On Thursday, U.S. government sources confirmed that Said Kouachi had traveled to Yemen in 2011 and had direct contact with an Al Qaeda training camp. The other brother, Cherif, had been convicted in France of terrorism charges in 2008 for trying to join up with fighters battling in Iraq. The sources also confirmed that both brothers were on a U.S. no-fly list.
Fox News was told the investigators have made it a priority to determine whether he had contact with Al Qaeda in Yemen's leadership, including a bomb maker and a former Guantanamo Bay detainee.
French President Francois Hollande called for tolerance after the country's worst terrorist attack since 1961, in the middle of the conflict over Algerian independence from France.
"France has been struck directly in the heart of its capital, in a place where the spirit of liberty -- and thus of resistance -- breathed freely," Hollande said.
Nine people, members of the brothers' entourage, have been detained for questioning in several regions. In all, 90 people, many of them witnesses to the grisly assault on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, were questioned for information on the attackers, Cazeneuve said in a statement.
The minister confirmed reports the men were identified by the elder brother's ID card, left in an abandoned getaway car, a slip that contrasted with the seeming professionalism of the attack.
A third suspect, 18-year-old Mourad Hamyd, surrendered at a police station Wednesday evening after hearing his name linked to the attacks. His relationship to the Kouachi brothers was unclear.
Charlie Hebdo had long drawn threats for its depictions of Islam, although it also satirized other religions and political figures. The weekly paper had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, and a sketch of Islamic State's leader was the last tweet sent out by the irreverent newspaper, minutes before the attack. Nothing has been tweeted since.
Eight journalists, two police officers, a maintenance worker and a visitor were killed in the attack.
Charlie Hebdo planned a special edition next week, produced in the offices of another paper.
Editor Stephane Charbonnier, known as Charb, who was among those slain, "symbolized secularism ... the combat against fundamentalism," his companion, Jeannette Bougrab, said on BFM-TV.
"He was ready to die for his ideas," she said.
Authorities around Europe have warned of the threat posed by the return of Western jihadis trained in warfare. France counts at least 1,200 citizens in the war zone in Syria -- headed there, returned or dead. Both the Islamic State group and Al Qaeda have threatened France -- home to Western Europe's largest Muslim population.
The French suspect in a deadly 2014 attack on a Jewish museum in Belgium had returned from fighting with extremists in Syria; and the man who rampaged in southern France in 2012, killing three soldiers and four people at a Jewish school, received paramilitary training in Pakistan.