Obama Cartoon

White House Escalates War of Words With Fox News * Refreshing your Memory.

Published October 12, 2009

FoxNews.com

Calling Fox News "a wing of the Republican Party," the Obama administration on Sunday escalated its war of words against the channel, even as observers questioned the wisdom of a White House war on a news organization.
"What I think is fair to say about Fox -- and certainly it's the way we view it -- is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party," said Anita Dunn, White House communications director, on CNN. "They take their talking points, put them on the air; take their opposition research, put them on the air. And that's fine. But let's not pretend they're a news network the way CNN is."
Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente, who likens the channel to a newspaper with separate sections on straight news and commentary, suggested White House officials were intentionally conflating opinion show hosts like Glenn Beck with news reporters like Major Garrett.
"It's astounding the White House cannot distinguish between news and opinion programming," Clemente said. "It seems self-serving on their part."
In recent weeks, the White House has begun using its government blog to directly attack what it called "Fox lies." David Gergen, who has worked for President Bill Clinton and three Republican presidents, questioned the propriety of the White House declaring war on a news organization.
"It's a very risky strategy. It's not one that I would advocate," Gergen said on CNN. "If you're going to get very personal against the media, you're going to find that the animosities are just going to deepen. And you're going to find that you sort of almost draw viewers and readers to the people you're attacking. You build them up in some ways, you give them stature."
He added: "The press always has the last barrel of ink."
Gergen's sentiments were echoed by Tony Blankley, who once served as press secretary to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
"Going after a news organization, in my experience, is always a loser," Blankley said on CNN. "They have a big audience. And Fox has an audience of not just conservatives -- they've got liberals and moderates who watch too. They've got Obama supporters who are watching. So it's a temptation for a politician, but it needs to be resisted."
Nia Malika Henderson, White House correspondent for the Politico newspaper, also questioned the White House offensive against Fox.
"Obama's only been a boon to their ratings and I don't understand how this kind of escalation of rhetoric and kind of taking them on, one on one, would do anything other than escalate their ratings even more," she said.
Dunn used an appearance on CNN's "Reliable Sources" over the weekend to complain about Fox News' coverage of the Obama presidential campaign a year ago.
"It was a time this country was in two wars," she recalled. "We'd had a financial collapse probably more significant than any financial collapse since the Great Depression. If you were a Fox News viewer in the fall election, what you would have seen would have been that the biggest stories and biggest threats facing America were a guy named Bill Ayers and something called ACORN."
Ayers was co-founder of the Weather Underground, a communist terrorist group that bombed the Pentagon and other buildings in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1995, Ayers hosted Obama at his home for a political function and the two men later served together on the board of an anti-poverty group known as the Woods Fund.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which once had close ties to Obama, has been accused by a variety of law enforcement agencies of voter fraud. In recent weeks, the Democrat-controlled Congress moved to sever funding to ACORN after Fox News aired undercover videotapes of ACORN employees giving advice on how to break the law to a pair of journalists disguised as a pimp and prostitute.
As for Dunn's complaint about Fox News' coverage of the Obama campaign, a study by the Pew Research Center showed that 40 percent of Fox News stories on Obama in the last six weeks of the campaign were negative. Similarly, 40 percent of Fox News' stories on Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, were negative.
On CNN, by contrast, there was a 22-point disparity in the percentage of negative stories on Obama (39 percent) and McCain (61 percent). The disparity was even greater at MSNBC, according to Pew, where just 14 percent of Obama stories were negative, compared to a whopping 73 percent of McCain stories -- a spread of 59 points.
Although Dunn accused Fox News of being a "wing of the Republican Party," she said the network does not champion conservatism.
"It's not ideological," she acknowledged. "I mean, obviously, there are many commentators who are conservative, liberal, centrist -- and everybody understands that."
Still, Obama refused to appear on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace on Sept. 20, the day he appeared on five other Sunday shows. At the time, the White House characterized the snub as payback for the Fox Broadcast Network's decision not to air an Obama prime time appearance. But last weekend, Dunn blamed Fox News Channel's coverage of the administration for Obama's snub of Fox News Sunday.
"Is this why he did not appear?" Dunn said. "The answer is yes."
Wallace has called White House officials "the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington."
Dunn was asked by CNN's Howard Kurtz whether Obama would grant an interview to Fox News by the end of the year.
"Obviously, he'll go on Fox, because he engages with ideological opponents and he has done that before, he will do it again," Dunn replied. "I can't give you a date, because frankly I can't give you dates for anybody else right now."
But last week, Fox News was informed by the White House that Obama would grant no interviews to the channel until at least 2010. The edict was relayed to Fox News by a White House official after Dunn discussed the channel at a meeting with presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs and other Obama advisers.
"What I will say is that when he (Obama) goes on Fox, he understands he's not going on it really as a news network, at this point," Dunn said on CNN. "He's going on to debate the opposition. And that's fine. He never minds doing that."
Dunn also strongly implied that Fox had failed to follow up on a New York Times story about a scandal swirling around GOP Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, although Fox News broadcast the stories on numerous shows, including Special Report with Bret Baier.
Clemente questioned the motives of the White House attack, which comes in the wake of an informal coffee last month between Fox chairman Roger Ailes and Obama adviser David Axelrod.
"Instead of governing, the White House continues to be in campaign mode, and Fox News is the target of their attack mentality," he said. "Perhaps the energy would be better spent on the critical issues that voters are worried about."
Blankley suggested the war on Fox News is unpresidential.
"It lowers the prestige," he said. "If you're president or speaker, at a certain level, you don't want to be seen to be engaging that kind of petty bickering. If you're just a congressman, maybe you can do it."
In an interview over the summer, Obama made clear that Fox News has gotten under his skin.
"I've got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration," he told CNBC's John Harwood. "You'd be hard pressed if you watched the entire day to find a positive story about me on that front."
At the White House Correspondents Dinner in May, Obama even mocked the media for supporting him.
"Most of you covered me; all of you voted for me," Obama said, spurring laughter and applause from the assembled journalists. "Apologies to the Fox table."
Gergen said the White House should delegate its attacks to outside support groups.
"Why don't they take this over to the DNC, over to the Democratic National Committee, and have their struggles like that fought out over there and not out of the White House?" Gergen said. "I have real questions about that strategy."
Click here for more on the conflict between the White House and Fox News. 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/12/white-house-escalates-war-words-fox-news/?intcmp=trending#ixzz2Z1cadmfS

Texas Senate passes sweeping new abortion restrictions

Democrats, though, promised a fight in the courts.
"There will be a lawsuit. I promise you," Dallas Sen. Royce West said on the Senate floor, raising his right hand as if taking an oath. Bailey Comment: When ever the Democrats lose on a issue, the only thing they want to do is ether riot or sue or both. This is their answer to everything.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/13/texas-senate-poised-to-vote-on-abortion-measure/#ixzz2Yve8ZQjn

Fact check rips Pelosi claim that ObamaCare mandate 'not delayed' What a Idiot!

The big news on ObamaCare these past two weeks has been the administration's announcement that it will delay by one year the requirement on businesses to provide health insurance.
Nancy Pelosi, though, had a curious take on the whole thing. Actually, she instructed reporters, "The mandate was not delayed."
The House Democratic leader used some creative reasoning to make her case -- she claimed the administration really only delayed the requirement on businesses to report insurance coverage details.
But The Washington Post fact-checker on Friday shut it down, effectively ruling that Pelosi is trying to "deny reality."
"Yes, reporting requirements were delayed. But there also was a one-year delay of the actual employer mandate. It's right there in the announcement," the Post wrote.

'The point is, is that the mandate was not delayed.'

- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi

Here's what Pelosi said during a press conference on Thursday:
"The point is, is that the mandate was not delayed. Certain reporting by businesses that could be perceived as onerous, that reporting requirement was delayed, and partially to review how it would work and how it could be better. It was not a delay of the mandate for the businesses."
Pelosi was correct in the first part of that statement. In an announcement last week on the Treasury Department blog, Mark J. Mazur. assistant secretary for Tax Policy at Treasury, said the requirement to report details on insurance coverage would be delayed by a year.
However, that decision meant everything else would be delayed too. Mazur said the penalties on employers would be pushed off until 2015, meaning the requirement itself would be pushed off -- though the administration would still "strongly encourage" employers to offer coverage during that time.
But, as the Post noted, "encouraging employers to provide health insurance is not the same thing as mandating it."
Pelosi tried to deny the existence of a delay as her Republican colleagues use the announcement as an opening to attempt to stall other parts of the law.
Republicans are already teeing up votes on delaying what is known as the "individual mandate" -- the requirement on individuals to buy health insurance, which the administration so far has kept on schedule.
The Post wrote: "We understand Pelosi's desire to minimize the impact of the decision -- and supporters of the law may have a strong case that the employer mandate is not as central to the law as the individual mandate to buy insurance -- but that's not an excuse to deny reality."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/12/fact-check-rips-pelosi-claim-that-obamacare-mandate-not-delayed/?test=latestnews#ixzz2Yspkb9zg

Airman Punished for Objecting to Gay Marriage in Military Chapel

A 27-year veteran of the Utah Air National Guard said he was reprimanded after he wrote a letter objecting to a gay wedding in the West Point chapel and was later told to prepare for retirement because his personal beliefs about homosexuality were not compatible with the military’s policies.
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“The military is trying to make examples of people who have religious beliefs that homosexual conduct in the military is wrong,” said John Wells, an attorney representing TSgt. Layne Wilson. “The end game is to force conservative Christians out of the military.”
Last December Wilson wrote a letter to a person believed to be a chaplain at West Point. He stated his displeasure at news of a same-sex ceremony held in the Cadet Chapel.
“This is wrong on so many levels,” Wilson wrote. “If they wanted to get married in a hotel that is one thing. Our base chapels are a place of worship and this is a mockery to God and our military core values. I have proudly served 27 years and this is a slap in the face to us who have put our lives on the line for this country. I hope sir that you will take appropriate action so this does not happen again.”
Instead of responding to the private email, the Commandant of Cadets notified the Utah Air National Guard – leading to an accusation that he had brought disgrace and discredit upon the Air National Guard and his conduct was inconsistent with the United States Air Force.

• ON FIRE! ARMY REPRIMANDS SOLDIERS FOR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
• OUTRAGEOUS! CONGRESSMAN SAYS CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS BEING SINGLED OUT
• IS THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IMPOSING ANTI-RELIGIOUS CULTURE IN MILITARY?

The Air National Guard determined that Wilson’s email “failed to render the proper respect to a commissioned officer.”
“You are hereby reprimanded,” read a letter from Lt. Col. Kevin Tobias. “As a noncommissioned officer you are expected to maintain a standard of professional and personal behavior that is above reproach. You have failed!”
A public affairs officer with the Utah Air National Guard told Fox News they could not comment on pending litigation.
Ironically, Wells pointed out, the Defense of Marriage Act was still the law of the land and TSgt. Layne was simply reporting “what he believed was a violation of the law.”
In addition to his reprimand, the Air National Guard terminated a six-year reenlistment contract. Instead, they gave Layne a one-year extension.
“Due to the fact that I expressed my views on homosexuality in uniform; Lt. Col. Tobias stated that I was no longer compatible with further military service,” Wilson wrote in a letter detailing the discrimination allegations.
Tobias confirmed Wilson’s allegation in a memorandum dated June 19, 2013 and obtained by Fox News.
“We talked about his feelings about DADT and how he doesn’t agree with it,” Tobias wrote. “I then told him that maybe this is a good time for him to move on because we’ve been ordered to not have an opinion about Gays in the military and we need to treat them as we would treat anyone else in the service of our country.”
“I also reiterated that I respect his feelings but I’m not comfortable reenlisting him with his strong feelings about this matter,” he additionally wrote.
Col. Ronald Blunck concurred with Tobias – noting that “Your right to practice your religious beliefs does not excuse you from complying with directives, instructions and lawful orders.”
“Lt. Col. Tobias is correct in demanding that TSgt. Wilson refrain from expressing opinions contrary to Air Force guidance while in uniform,” Blunck wrote. “The Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was directed by law.”
Wilson also discussed concerns he had about a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” repeal briefing in 2011. He told his superior officers he found the briefing to be “very disturbing” and “conflicting with my moral rights of conscience.”
“My issue is so much about homosexuals serving in the military, but rather that it is being forced upon as an acceptable lifestyle abandoning our traditional values,” he wrote.
He said the military has created an atmosphere where those who do not approve of homosexual conduct “must remain disapprovingly silent or face reprisal to our careers.”
“It is evident those who refuse to affirm homosexuality and openly oppose it are being severely punished,” he wrote.
Attorney Wells told Fox News he wants the military to rescind the reprimand and reinstate the original six-year reenlistment contract.
“This was an executed contract,” he said. “But they just went in, tore it up and issued a new one.”
Wells said his client’s only “crime” was registering his opinion that a gay marriage in a military chapel was a violation of the law that existed at that time.
“His actions were proper within the scope of the Uniform Code and the Manual for Courts-Martial,” Wells said. “While his interpretation of the law may or may not have been correct, his actions should not have given rise to the firestorm of reprisals that he has suffered.”
Wells said he believes the military is trying to send a message to other troops- and incidents like this are just the “tip of the iceberg.”
“They’re trying to make examples of people early on who have religious beliefs that homosexual conduct in the military is wrong,” he said. “When these people assert their First Amendment rights, they are getting slapped down and slapped down hard.”
Wells isn’t alone in his fears.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said there is a clear and present danger to religious liberty within the military.
“Christians who choose to live out their faith find themselves incompatible with the secular view of this administration,” said Perkins. “We’re establishing a beach head for religious liberty and the evidence points to a very deliberate attack.”
Representatives of 14 groups concerned about religious liberty joined Reps. John Fleming R-La., Jim Bridenstine R-Okla., and Louie Gohmert R-Tex. on Capitol Hill to urge support for Fleming’s military religious freedom amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.
The amendment protects the rights of servicemembers to not only hold religious beliefs but to act on them and speak about them. Fleming’s amendment has bipartisan support but the Obama Administration issued a statement “strongly objecting” to the legislation.
The amendment comes as more than 170,000 Americans signed petitions calling for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to protect the religious liberties of military personnel through policies that guarantee those liberties.
“We want to make this the first key battle to restore religious liberty back to the American people,” Fleming told Fox News. “It sets the tone for a broader war to fight back against this government that is infringing on our religious liberty.”
Perkins and Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin, the FRC’s executive vice president, released a nine-page document detailing anti-religious behavior in the military.
“Unfortunately, pressures to impose a secular, anti-religious culture on our nation’s military services have intensified tremendously during the Obama Administration,” the FRC report states.
“We will stand with servicemembers who wish to exercise their First Amendment rights of religious liberty,” Boykin said. ‘We must do all we can to ensure that our servicemembers have the right to practice the very freedoms that they risk their lives to defend.”
Bailey Comment: The majority of Americans are really getting tire of being demonized for standing up against a few sick people that want to make all of the weird stupid stuff they do be OK. Well it's not OK and no matter how they try to make it seem like it's natural, only they really believe in the crap they're trying to shove down our throats.

Obama Cartoon

When a car is broken and can't be fixed, you get another one. Get rid of the IRS.

Group: IRS mistakenly posted thousands of Social Security number on website

The IRS mistakenly posted the Social Security numbers of tens of thousands of Americans on a government website, the agency confirmed Monday night. One estimate put the figure as high as 100,000 names.
The numbers were posted to an IRS database for tax-exempt political groups known as 527s and first discovered by the group Public.Resource.org.
The California-based group said it learned of the "privacy breach" Tuesday while working on an unrelated audit of an “improperly vetted shipment” of IRS data on DVDs and promptly informed the agency, which shut down the site the next day.
An IRS spokesman told FoxNews.com on Monday the agency was alerted about a "substantial number" of Social Security numbers posted on the site and removed web access to the information "out of an abundance of caution." The spokesman also said the IRS is now "assessing the situation and exploring available options."
A message on the agency’s 527 homepage asks visitors to check back Monday, but the site was still down Monday evening.
Public.Resource.org. founder Carl Malamud.told FoxNews.com on Monday night that roughly 100,000 Social Security numbers were exposed.
Malamud said in a statement on the group's website that it hopes the Obama administration will act to restore access to the agency's nonprofit database and resolve its concerns over what it described as a "serious violation of federal law."
"It is time now for the administration to send a tiger team over to the [IRS] to help fix their information management practices," Malamud said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/08/group-irs-mistakenly-posted-thousands-social-security-number-on-website/?intcmp=HPBucket#ixzz2YXXd9LjK

Since when did everything wrong become right?

Preacher Arrested for Calling Homosexuality a Sin

By Todd Starnes
An American evangelist said he was arrested and interrogated about his Christian faith after he was caught on a London sidewalk preaching that homosexuality is a sin.
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Tony Miano, a retired deputy sheriff and former chaplain with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept., was charged with “using homophobic speech that could cause people anxiety, distress, alarm or insult.”
Miano had been preaching on a London street corner during the Wimbledon Tennis Championships with a ministry group called Sports Fan Outreach International.

British police prepare to arrest American Evangelist Tony Miano.

He was preaching about immoral living – and cited homosexuality as an example of lifestyle choices that are contrary to biblical teaching.
“I never used any gay slurs,” he said. “You would never hear me using slang or discriminatory language against homosexuals or any other group. That would be contrary to my faith.”
At some point, the evangelist quoted I Thessalonians 4:1-2 – a passage of scripture that mentions sexual immorality.
“I talked about women addicted to romance novels, men addicted to pornography, people with lustful thoughts, heterosexual fornication and homosexuality,” Miano told Fox News. “When I mentioned that the Bible was clear that homosexuality is a sin, a lady walked by and she glared at me and hurled the f-bomb.”
Miano said the woman came back a short time later and began to videotape his sidewalk sermon. Then, she called the police.
“They were concerned about homophobic speech,” he said. “But I told them I don’t fear homosexuals. The language I used was not homophobic, as I was not promoting fear or hatred of homosexuals.”
Miano said he did not limit his remarks to homosexual acts.
“I did not speak solely about homosexuality as a form of sexual immorality but also about any kind of sex outside marriage between one man and one woman, as well as lustful thoughts,” he said. “All of these are considered mainstream Christian positions and have been taught and believed by Christians for thousands of years.”
Police took the retired deputy sheriff to a nearby jail where he was fingerprinted. Officers also took a sample of his DNA and then he was interrogated.
“It was very distressing to be arrested and interrogated for openly expressing my deeply held Christian beliefs,” he said.
According to a transcript of the interrogation provided to Fox News, the officers asked if he really believed homosexuality is a sin. He was also asked whether he would help a homosexual who requested a favor.

• READ A TRANSCRIPT OF THE POLICE INTERROGATION. CLICK HERE

“I was made to feel that my thoughts could be held against me,” he said. “The detective also asked me if I thought I was 100 percent right in what I had done. I said yes.”
Miano said he would gladly offer assistance to a homosexual.
“The Christian faith is dictated by the two greatest commandments – to love the Lord your God and to love your neighbor,” he said. “As such, I am compelled to love all people. Had a gay come up and asked me for something to eat, I would have fed him.”
But what troubled Miano is the idea that a hypothetical situation could have been used against him in court.
“I was actually going to be tried for how I thought,” he said.
In an ironic twist, the officers made arrangements to provide the evangelist with a Bible to read in jail – the same book that led to his arrest.
“The same book I read from in public which resulted in my arrest, was now the same book the police were giving to provide me comfort,” he said.
Miano, who is a member of the Evangelical Free Church, has been open-air preaching for eight years. He said this is the first time he’s been arrested.
“It was a rather surreal experience,” the retired deputy sheriff said. “I’ve conducted many interrogations but I’ve never been the subject of one.”
Miano spent about seven hours in jail before he was released without explanation and without an apology.
Now back home in Southern California, Miano said he fears that what happened in Great Britain could soon happen in the United States.
“I believe that’s what our government is going to eventually do here,” he said. “I believe homosexuals or others who are sensitive to their point of view will be visiting churches to listen to what preachers say from the pulpit. And I believe that pastors will be arrested in their pulpits for teaching what the Bible says about homosexuality and other sins.”
Andrea Williams, the chief executive of the British Christian Legal Centre echoed those concerns.
“It’s clear that there is already a clamp down on freedom of speech where people publicly express mainstream Christian views on sexual ethics,” he said.
Watch the sermon that got the evangelist arrested. Police arrive at approximately the 25:40 mark: