DC Appellate Court Rules Against HHS Contraception Mandate, for Religious Liberty

NYTimes.com:

A federal court on Friday ruled that the health care law’s mandate that employers provide free coverage for contraception infringed on individual religious liberty. 

The case, Gilardi v. the Department of Health and Human Services, was the latest setback for the Obama administration as it struggles to fix the crippled insurance enrollment website, HealthCare.gov. However, the fight over the mandate long preceded the law’s enactment and will most likely go to the Supreme Court. 

The mandate “trammels the right of free exercise,” Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote for a divided three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. 

The ruling was largely in line with most others around the country so far. Of nearly 40 challenges, only a handful of courts have upheld the government’s requirement that employer health plans provide free birth control, emergency contraception and sterilization. 

Francis A. Gilardi Jr. and Philip M. Gilardi, brothers from Sidney, Ohio, should not have to provide contraception coverage to employees of the companies they own if it goes against their Catholic faith, the court ruled. However, those companies themselves, Freshway Foods and Freshway Logistics, do not have the right to challenge the mandate on religious grounds, the court said. 

As a result, the ruling was only a “partial victory” for mandate opponents, according to a statement from the American Center for Law and Justice, which represented the Gilardis. The organization said it planned to ask the Supreme Court to settle the question. 

“While this is a victory for the individual plaintiffs,” said Francis J. Manion, who argued the case, “the appeals court rejected a critical argument that the rights of the companies be protected as well.” 

RELATED:  Sebelius Receives a Gift on Obamacare Promotion Tour…

Obama Administration Caught in Outright Lies, Media Yawns

Mediaite.com:

CBS News has caught the White House in an outright lie. It’s a lie that administration officials stood by and disseminated through the media. Stated more clearly, the White House used many credulous members of the media to misinform the public. Now, after having been made fools of by their Democratic allies in the executive branch, one might be excused for expecting the press to push back against their abusers forcefully. Instead, the race is on to make excuses for the embattled White House. 

According to the results of an investigation by CBS News, the White House did have accurate enrollment figures – and they were disastrous: Six enrollees on day one. A total of 248 by day two. The program needs 39,000 enrollees per day to meet their goal of seven million by the end of the open enrollment period. According to one widely-sourced unofficial enrollment tracker, there have no even been 39,000 enrollees after the first month. 

“We don’t have that data,” said White House Press Sec. Jay Carney on October 3 when asked if the administration had any “hard enrollment numbers” to share with the public. No ambiguity. No dancing around the issue. The data simply did not exist. 

“We do not have any reliable data around enrollment, which is why we haven’t given it to date,” Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius said in testimony before Congress, under oath, when asked if the White House had enrollment figures. Of course, the “reliable” modifier will handily absolve the secretary of any criminal culpability, but what was an obvious falsehood at the time has at least been exposed for what it was. 

The press’s reaction to their having been used so egregiously and their credibility damaged so irreparably? It’s hard to tell because there is almost no reaction — indignation or otherwise — being expressed by the members of the misled media. In fact, one senses a note of commiseration with the White House. Of course they had to lie. What else were they supposed to do? Share this embarrassing data with the public? 

In fact, two falsehoods surrounding the ACA’s roll-out have recently been exposed for what they were. Aside from the program’s dismal enrollment figures, there is the far more odious falsehood that no one would be forced out of their health insurance plans. This was an untruth stated repeatedly over the course of nearly 5 years by almost every administration official, including the president himself. Already, some members of the press are eagerly excusing this lie as merely a communications failure. 

“This fall, thousands of Americans are learning that they can’t keep their insurance policies next year because the coverage doesn’t meet the standards set in the 2010 healthcare law,” read an editorial in Friday’s Los Angeles Times. “The only alternative for many will be more comprehensive policies at a higher price. The cancellations have caused a new wave of outrage against the law and President Obama, who repeatedly pledged that ‘if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it.’” 

“Obama clearly overpromised — not everyone can keep the plans they’ve signed up for since the new law passed,” the editorial continued… “Overpromised,” is not even a word, according to Mirriam-Webster. 

In fact, Hot Air’s Mary Katherine Hamm has assembled a handy list of euphemisms Democrats and the media are using to describe the president’s lie without labeling it what it is. Is there a more apt metaphor for how the press has reacted to the cascade of falsehoods after they have been exposed by events? 

The press is so disinclined to call out the White House on a “lie” that they would prefer to contort the English language in order to not have to acknowledge this inconvenient fact.

RELATED: Carney On Number Of Obamacare Enrollees: "We Don't Have That Data"

Barneys' 'Racism' Threatens Jay-Z's Street Cred

Townhall.com:

"World War II Vets Under Attack by Blacks." Can you imagine such a headline in The New York Times -- or anywhere else, except perhaps some in underground racist tract? But for the second time in three months, an 80-plus-year-old WWII veteran was murdered by black suspects. 

In Washington, 88-year-old Delbert Belton, who fought and took a bullet to the leg at the Battle of Okinawa, was beaten to death by two black teen suspects. The motive? Police describe the killing as a random attack. 

In Mississippi, 87-year-old Lawrence E. Thornton, a WWII vet who served as a Navy fireman on a minesweeper, was beaten to death by four black suspects. The motive was robbery. Even if the vets were racially targeted -- and there is no evidence that they were -- it would be absurd to say that white World War II vets "are under attack" by "black people" because of the bad behavior of some individuals who happen to be black. 

Yet this is the reasoning the Rev. Jesse Jackson applied following the black teen's death in the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case. Jackson, angry when he heard the news of Martin's death, said, "Blacks are under attack." 

This brings us to the accusation of "blatant prejudice and discrimination" by the upscale department store, Barneys New York. In February, plainclothes NYPD cops stopped a black woman and falsely accused her of credit card fraud after she bought a $2,500 Celine handbag. The shopper filed a "notice of claim," announcing her intention to sue. And in April, a black shopper used a debit card to buy a $349 Ferragamo belt. He, too, was falsely accused of fraud. 

Now things get even more interesting. 

Rapper and hip-hop mogul Jay-Z had entered into a deal with Barneys. A Jay-Z curated, limited-edition collection of designer clothes and accessories rolls out this holiday season, with part of the proceeds going to charity. A hyper left-wing organization called Color of Change put out an "open letter" appealing to Jay-Z. Another group, Change.org, set up an online petition that calls on Jay-Z to denounce Barneys' "blatant prejudice and discrimination." Some Jay-Z fans now call him a "sell-out" and "Uncle Tom" for giving cover to a racist institution for money. Through his website, Jay-Z said that before he reacted with "emotion," he wanted to get the "facts." Enter the Rev. Al Sharpton, who never lets "facts" get between him and a race card. 

Sharpton, of course, shot to fame by falsely accusing a white man of raping a black teenager; was in the middle of the Crown Heights riots ("If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house"); once called the black mayor of New York an "N-word whore"; and spoke of whites moving into Harlem as "interlopers" and Jews as "diamond merchants." He steps in to calm the waters?! 

"Some people want to make this about Jay-Z," Sharpton told reporters, "No, this is about Barneys first." 

He demanded Barneys "bring the data" to prove that when expensive purchases are made, the store investigates white and minority shoppers equally. Barneys, warned Sharpton, better gather the information quickly and not use the busy holiday season as an excuse. "We'll march all the way down to your store," said Sharpton. "I'll serve turkey right on the corner." 

For race hustlers and the eternally aggrieved, Barneys did not unfairly treat a handful of shoppers. No, it's an institutional problem. Anecdotes equal evidence. The election and reelection of President Barack Obama has not stopped so-called "civil rights leaders" from treating America like it's still the back-of-the-bus '50s. For those who argue racism remains a deep and persistent problem, consider this. 

Attorney Johnnie Cochran argued that the LAPD had it out for O.J. Simpson because, according to Cochran, Simpson broke the final taboo by marrying a blond, blue-eyed white woman. 

A few years ago, "Desperate Housewives" ran a sex-themed promo during Monday Night Football. It featured blond actress Nicollette Sheridan and prominent football wide-receiver Terrell Owens. Clad only in a white towel, Sheridan teased and flirted with Owens. The Federal Communications Commission claimed it received 50,000 complaint letters -- a tiny amount compared to total viewership. But a Freedom of Information request discovered that, in fact, the FCC received fewer than 2,000 letters, with less than 100 -- or less than 5 percent of that total -- saying anything about race. 

Let's do the numbers. Out of 17,000,000 viewers, 2,000 bothered to write. Of that, only 100 complained about the promo being racially offensive. That comes to about 5 percent of the .01 percent that wrote -- or a little over .0005 percent of viewers.

Now the discriminated Barneys' customers have already sought legal counsel. Barneys has announced an investigation. Without waiting for the results, Barneys' CEO issued an apology. To ensure that the store keeps its "commitment to fairness and equality" and "zero tolerance for any form of discrimination," Barneys has retained a respected "civil rights expert."

Just tell us it isn't Sharpton.

RELATED: Black customers claim discrimination by Barneys New York, police

Time Lapse Video Shows Radical Effect of Photoshop on a Model's Body

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Should Barack Obama Be Impeached For Lying to America on Obamacare Harm to Millions?

RenewAmerica.com:

"If you like your plan, you can keep your plan, I guarantee it!" – Barack Obama

This is the morbid lie which has been repeated no less than 12 times since president Obama first spoke it in 2007 as candidate Obama and deceived Americans with. It is quite possibly the very presidential lie that shall lead to Impeachment Hearings in the House of Representatives. Remember the last Democrat President that spoke to the American people about another memorable lie, "I did not have relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky!" He was equally as adamant about his statement and he was also impeached in the House.

Does lying about 14 to possibly 16 million Americans being thrown out of their insurance plans count as an impeachable offense due to undo reliance on a presidential guarantee? Impeachment count one: The White House knew millions would lose health plans under ObamaCare, according to Fox News.

On Wednesday, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius took responsibility for the disasterous launch of the website, according to U.S. News and World Report. While she attempted to divert attention and responsibility away from Obama, she had to finally admit that the buck does stop at the president's desk.

In fact, it is the very cavalier attitude and artful dodging of responsibility for the administration's open knowledge of the known impact of Obamacare implementation that indicts Sebelius and the President. According to Fox News' Megyn Kelly's Tuesday night broadcast, the proof was contained in an IRS July 2010 document which states, "A reasonable range for the percentage of individual policies that would terminate and therefore relinquish their grandfather status is 40 to 67 percent." That is about 14 millions Americans folks!

Thus far, 2 million Americans have received insurance termination notices due to HHS destroying grandfather status protection in June of 2010. Are these Americans permissible collateral damage due to a healthcare fiasco which was predicted by Tea Party and many conservative leaders before it was voted on? Are Americans and their families cannon fodder to be used and tossed aside due to Obama's hidden agenda to decimate American lives and their healthcare?

This is a new kind of horror in the nation that can and must not stand. Then U.S. Senator John Kennedy said in a 1959 speech, "This is not a time to keep the facts from the people – to keep them complacent. To sound the alarm is not to panic but to seek action from an aroused public. For, as the poet Dante once said: 'The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.' "

Obama evades the truth and practices in hiding the facts from Americans. These hidden facts are not just a simple oversight, but are a calculated road to a socialist state that the president envisions for America. His conduct is both purposeful and injurious to the very fabric of Americans and their individual and family's health. President Clinton lied about an affair, and Obama lied about destroying a health system. Impeachment should and must be the answer for his actions.

There is a threshold which must be met in order for impeachment proceedings are initiated in the House of Representatives. The president, "shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." It seems that clear that Obama has trampled all over the threshold conditions of high crimes and misdemeanors, and dares the congress and the American people to hold him accountable because he is allegedly the first black president of the United States.

"Hold me accountable if you dare and try to impeach me if you have the guts to do it, if you can!" This is the ultimate race card that Obama and his progressive and liberal supporters on the left and RINOs on the right embrace as the ace in the president's deck.

Well, here's a newsflash. It is because of this very "race card" being played by many democrat lawmakers, mainstream media pundits as well as "low information" voters on the left that Obama has been allowed to trample on the U.S. Constitution. He openly discarded millions of honest hard working Americans by stripping them of their health care coverage, and creating a national welfare state that would put the former communist Russian leaders to shame.

Now is the time for Americans to rise up and hold this nefarious presidential pretender accountable for his actions of open denial, deceit, and duplicity in perpetration of an historic fraud upon the nation.

Each one of the two million Americans who were issued an insurance policy termination should keep that termination letter and use it in a class-action lawsuit that will demonstrate to all Americans that liberty, justice and truth still have a place in America.

Each American who received an insurance termination should join with others in their community and march on their state capitol as one united front, and hold those insurance termination slips high, and show their fellow citizens, "WE WANT OUR HEALTH INSURANCE INDEPENDENCE BACK!!"

For every one of the fourteen to sixteen million Americans who have been lied to by Obama and his minions like HHS Secretary Sebelius should move as one on the U.S. Capitol and defy the White House and the congress to not remove Obamacare from its claw hold on the throats of American families.

Health Independence is the right of all Americans and not something that can be torn away like the well oiled precision of socialism, communism and fascism as formerly practiced in China under Chairman Mao, Russia under Joseph Stalin and Germany under Adolph Hitler.

The American public has a solution that can and should be used and it lies in the Impeachment powers of the congress. The day of reckoning for Obama's lies with the American public's active protest. His punishment is only a congressional hearing away.

RELATED: Amy Holmes: Only Person Fired Over Obamacare ‘Fiasco’ Was Operator Who Told Hannity the ‘Truth’

Federal Appeals Court Halts Reform of NYPD's "Controversial" Stop-and-Frisk Policy

Stop-and-frisk, a law enforcement policy that works while helping law-abiding citizens with crime, has been labeled "controversial" by white liberals with no real interest in helping minorities overall welfare. Thankfully, common sense has prevailed over liberal terrorism and the policy been reinstated by a federal appeals court:

NBCNews.com:

A federal appeals court on Thursday put the brakes on a judge’s ruling that ordered New York City’s police department to reform its controversial stop-and-frisk policy — and even assigned the case to a different judge.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — postponing the lower court's ruling pending an appeal — agreed with New York City's bid to delay any reforms to the policy, which U.S. Judge Shira Scheindlin's ruled in August unconstitutionally violated the rights of minorities.  

The appeals court said that Scheindlin compromised the appearance of impartiality by encouraging a class-action lawsuit over the stop-and-frisk tactic and by giving media interviews in which she answered critics of her ruling, the court said.  

“Upon review of the record in these cases, we conclude that the District Judge ran afoul of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, Canon 2 ('A judge should avoid impropriety and the appearance of  impropriety in all activities.'),” the appeals court wrote (read the order here in PDF).

Scheindlin of Manhattan federal court had ruled Aug. 12 that NYPD's "stop and frisk" tactic amounted to "indirect racial profiling" and as implemented violates the constitutional rights of blacks and Hispanics. She cited the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law.  

Scheindlin appointed an outside lawyer to oversee changes to the program and ordered a test in which officers would wear cameras in one precinct in each of New York’s five boroughs to record their encounters with civilians.  

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg had vowed to challenge the judge's ruling, which he called dangerous, to the Supreme Court if necessary. He said that the city's police officers were following crime regardless of where it occurred.  

But Scheindlin noted that the overwhelming majority of stops in New York — 88 percent — result in no arrests or tickets. Four men had sued the city, saying that they were unfairly targeted by police.  

RELATED: NYPD's Kelly heckled off stage at Brown University over stop-and-frisk policy

VIDEO FLASHBACK: Barack Obama Promises ‘If You Like Your Plan, You Can Keep It’ at Least a Dozen Times

  Mediaite.com:

The latest Obamacare-related controversy emerged this week after hundreds of thousands of Americans reportedly received cancellation notices from their insurance providers after new healthcare legislation took effect this month. Republicans have seized the opportunity to ridicule Democrats and the president for having promised the contrary. 

As far back as 2009, Pres. Obama and Team Blue had repeatedly told voters that, under the Affordable Care Act, “if you like your current plan, you can keep it.” As many have pointed out, the plans are being terminated because they failed to meet the minimum requirements set forth by new law. 

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer conceded that Washington has long known that some people would not get to keep their insurance, telling the press on Tuesday that the president should have been “more concise” when suggesting to the public that they could “keep” their plan, “period,” without noting that new regulations would make some plans effectively unviable. 

A look back at the last several years shows that Obama did, indeed, make this oversimplified guarantee over and over and over again. New York‘s Dan Amira put together a video compilation to show just how often it happened:

RELATED: Pitiful: Sebelius to blame contractors, not HHS, for Healthcare.gov problems in House testimony tomorrow

Ted Cruz Tells Trayvon’s Mother Why Stand Your Ground Laws Can’t Possibly Be ‘Racist’

Mediaite.com:

Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, who was shot and killed by George Zimmermanin early 2012, appeared on Capitol Hill Tuesday for a hearing regarding the controversial “Stand Your Ground” laws. When it came time for Sen.Ted Cruz (R-TX) to speak at the hearing, he informed the still-grieving mother that Stand Your Ground laws actually benefit African-Americans as much as, if not more than, they do whites.

Cruz began by offering his condolences for Fulton’s loss, but quickly moved on to defend the trial by jury process that found Zimmerman not guilty of murder. He also noted, correctly, that the “subject of this hearing, the Stand Your Ground laws, was not a defense that Mr. Zimmerman raised. So this entire hearing–the topic of this hearing–is not the issue on which that trial turned.” 

Though Zimmerman’s defense team did not end up using Stand Your Ground, it did come out during the trial that Zimmerman was likely aware of the law’s protections when he shot Martin. “We know that some in our political process have a desire to exploit that tragic, violent incident for agendas that have nothing to do with that young man who lost his life,” Cruz continued. “We have seen efforts to undermine the verdict of the jury and, more broadly, to inflame racial tensions that I think are sad and irresponsible.”  

Then, Cruz got to one of his primary points, which concerned that effect of Stand Your Ground laws on African-American communities. He rejected the notion, put forward earlier in the hearing that “no one could reasonably believe that Stand Your Ground laws protect those in the African-American communities who are victims of violent crimes.” 

He found that idea particularly remarkable since “a great many African-Americans find themselves victims of violent crime and have asserted this defense to defend themselves, defend their families, defend their children.”  

Cruz also cited the fact that “in 2004 a state senator in Illinois by the name of Barack Obama co-sponsored an expansion of Illinois’ law providing civil immunity for those who use justifiable force to defend themselves” as evidence that similar laws could not possibly be racially biased. “The notion that stand your ground laws are some form of veiled racism may be a convenient political attack,” he said, “but it is not borne out by the facts remotely.”   

RELATED:  Trayvon Martin’s Mother Responds to Ted Cruz’s Stand Your Ground Remarks

1 Year Later: Media Link Climate Change, Hurricane Sandy Every Single Time

Newsbusters.org:

During the 2008 banking crisis, then-Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel famously said, “Never allow a crisis to go to waste.” The broadcast networks certainly followed his advice when reporting on Hurricane Sandy since the storm became a hurricane one year ago, hitting the New Jersey coast on Oct. 29. 

Network reporters and experts have repeatedly claimed that the storm was either caused or worsened because of climate change. In fact, 100 percent of the 32 news stories and briefs in the past year that mentioned climate change and Hurricane Sandy claimed global warming directly impacted the storm – even though “no single weather event can be linked directly to a long-term driver, such as global warming,” according to climate change activists. 

ABC, CBS and NBC spun the issue even more. Only 6 percent of the stories (2 out of 32 stories) provided another view. No story actually quoted an expert who disagreed. The closest the networks came to providing a “balanced” news story was saying that “whether climate change is to blame for it [Sandy] is the subject of debate,” on the CBS “Evening News,” May 28. In another story, NBC listed climate change as a possible cause: “Blame it on a freak storm, climate change, or both,” said “Today,” on Nov. 3, 2012. 

The stories were predictably one-sided. From “Today” interviewing Al Gore to journalists quoting politicians like liberal New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, there was little room for debate on the issue. 

Other reports claimed “extreme weather” events like Sandy were becoming more common. The idea that weather is more extreme and varied than any point in history was also uncontested and considered a fact by the networks. On July 4, 2013, “This Morning,” CBS congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes made that case in a conversation with global warming activist and meteorologist Michio Kaku. “As one scientist told us, its not just like global warming, it’s almost like global weirding. All the weather is more extreme,” she argued. 

On CBS “This Morning,” Jan. 26, Time senior writer and global warming alarmist, Jeffrey Kluger even had the audacity to call climate change skeptics, “flat earthers” and like “the people who say the moon landings never happened,”
“The latest peer-reviewed studies, data and analyses undermine claims that the weather is more ‘extreme’ or ‘unprecedented,’” according to Marc Morano, publisher of Climate Depot. “They are exploiting any weather event to promote their religious like cause and a storm like Sandy is shamelessly used to gin up fear,” he added. 

Experts Say Weather Patterns Are Normal and ‘There Is No Trend In Hurricanes’There are experts who disagree that weather is more extreme than normal and that man is causing extreme weather events. 

Meteorologist Joe Bastardi told Forbes in May that “blaming turbulent weather on global warming is extreme nonsense” and that the current climate changes are part of a normal weather cycle. 

For example, the chart used by global warming alarmists like Al Gore in “An Inconvenient Truth” that supposedly shows a period of global warming have long been debunked for faulty methodology.

Bastardi went on to explain: 

“First of all, we need to keep in mind that ‘climate’ occurs over at least three-decade periods and on a large scale … Right now we’re seeing the same kind of major events on a regional scale that occurred the last time the Pacific Ocean shifted its temperature phase from warm to cold when the Atlantic was in a warm phase, and globally, the Earth’s temps have fallen about .05C in the last four years.” 

Not all scientists agree that Sandy was anything other than a natural disaster either.
Climatologist Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama Huntsville, took that view. 

“Hurricane Sandy was a minimal hurricane. So, it is in no way indicative of arising trends in hurricanes that might be attributed to global warming.” In addition, Colorado State University researchers William Gray and Phil Klotzbach told National Geographic that human activity on the formation and intensity of Atlantic hurricanes “is likely to be negligible.” 

While all three networks frequently interviewed or cited global warming activists, not one had a scientist presenting a different viewpoint in the stories linking Sandy to climate change since the storm, even though such scientists clearly exist. 

Media Use Sandy Crisis to Promote Climate Change Activism 

Not only did the news provide unbalanced coverage, journalists actively championed the cause of global warming, and used Sandy as an example for why climate change “is real” and why we need to “act” sooner than later. 

On CBS “This Morning” on Nov. 1, anchor Charlie Rose asked global warming activist and Time editor Bryan Walsh about the storm and its “big lessons.” Walsh responded, “Well, I think there’s – there’s a few. One is that climate change clearly is real. I mean scientists will differ on exactly how much climate change contributes to a storm like this. But what we know is that this will become more and more common in the future that we’ll have stronger storms.” 

If reporters didn’t sensationalize, they scolded for not “acting” on the climate. On ABC “World News” Jan. 8, correspondent Dan Harris warned of a future following inaction saying, “Many cities had record warmth, including Washington D.C., where a lack of action on manmade climate change is likely to mean 2012 is just a glimpse into an unpleasant future, according to many scientists.” 

The “Green is Universal” network, NBC, was the most outspoken on the issue and sounded more like activists than journalists. On “Today,” April 3, weather anchor Al Roker was incredulous at an NBC poll that showed 37 percent of people did not believe in global warming. Roker said, “But 37 percent said – 37 percent of these people don’t believe in global warming. They think it’s a hoax. I mean – that, uh, okay, two words – Superstorm Sandy.” 

Roker found a way to bring in climate change to Hurricane Sandy again on Sept. 24 when interviewing Vice President Joe Biden about government aid through FEMA. 

“You guys have been going to these – it seems like with a pretty regular, you know, in the last 18 months, Sandy, Moore, Okla., you name it, Isaac, Irene, now this. Are we looking at the new normal?” Biden replied, “We can’t attribute any one thing to global warming – but there is – there are all of these weather events seem more severe and more pervasive.”

RELATED: Sandy one year later: Christie criticizes slow movement of aid to N.J.

Ann Coulter Rips The View Hosts Claiming Women Govern Better: 'Bitchy' and 'Hysteria' Are Female Traits

 

RELATED: Ann Coulter to Her ‘Love’ Ted Cruz: Stop the GOP From Primarying Itself to Death

Katy Perry's Ex-Husband Russell Brand Admits To Having Had Sex With Men

News.com.au:

CONTROVERSIAL comedian Russell Brand has admitted to having sex with a man in a bar toilet, purely for a television show. 
 
Brand made the confession to fellow comic Richard Herring during a podcast interview.

Brand told how he performed the act as it was filmed for a TV documentary series when he was a heroin addict.

He said: "I w***** off a man in a toilet. I thought, ‘I think of myself as heterosexual but perhaps that’s ‘cause of the environment that I grew up in where homosexuality may have been difficult for me to express.’”

The show - called RE:Brand - was aimed at exploring social taboos, said Brand.

"I trawled around Soho going to various gay bars, gay gyms trying to pick people up with a film crew.

"I went in this pub and I goes: ‘Anyone want me to w*** them off?’ And this bloke goes, ‘Yep’. Like as if I was saying: ‘Does anyone want a packet of crisps from the bar.’"

He said: "So we goes to the lavvy - me, him, the director - and he gets his willy out. And it was not nice. The phallus is... I like mine and you see some others in paintings that look all right but his looked like a rag.

"And we're in the toilet with the director standing there filming me and he goes, ‘I think it would be easier if I was able to touch yours’. I thought ‘F****** hell mate, do us a favour!’ And the director goes: 'Go on Russell it would be funny.’

"So I take down my trousers and pants and then the bloke sort of mauled at my genitals while I w***** him off."

Brand, of course, has battled both sex and drug addiction. He’s currently said to be dating Jemima Khan, ex-wife of cricketer, Imran Khan.

RELATED:  Katy Perry on Russell Brand Divorce: I Felt "Punched," "Kicked," "Was in Bed for Two Weeks"

AP’s Dismal Outlook for GOP Masks Democratic Party’s Looming Catastrophes

Mediaite.com:

On Monday, the Associated Press’ Charles Babington published a rather grim assessment of the state of the Republican Party roughly one year after the GOP’s poor showing in the 2012 elections. Babington accurately observes that congressional Republicans are both faltering and factional. He correctly notices that many Republicans are actively forgetting the lessons that 2012 taught them about the minority vote and how conservative social policy positions are unpalatable to the broader presidential electorate. But Babington’s analysis might leave partisan Democrats with the imprudent belief that their party’s political prospects are as bright as the rising sun. In fact, Democrats have their own political troubles brewing. Some in fact, are far more intractable than those with which Republicans are currently wrestling.


“A year after losing a presidential race many Republicans thought was winnable, the party arguably is in worse shape than before,” Babington opens. This observation is undeniably accurate.

“It’s almost quaint to recall that soon after Mitt Romney lost to President Barack Obama, the Republican National Committee recommended only one policy change: endorsing an immigration overhaul, in hopes of attracting Hispanic voters,” he continues. “That immigration bill is now struggling for life and attention in the Republican-run House. 

The bigger worry for many party leaders is the growing rift between business-oriented Republicans and the GOP’s more ideological wing. Each accuses the other of bungling the debt ceiling and government shutdown dramas, widely seen as a major Republican embarrassment.

All true. He continues, noting that Republicans are set to lose a gubernatorial race in Virginia. Republicans would be well-advised to not dismiss seemingly inevitable electoral loss as an aberration isolated to the Old Dominion which cannot possibly inform political observers about the GOP’s political future. In a state with an electorate that increasingly mirrors the nation, where Republicans have historically won the governorship in off-years in which the White House is occupied by a Democrat, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s pending loss is just the kind of dead canary that should scare Republicans (particularly those of the tea party brand). 

Further still, a conservative faction within the Republican Party continues to attempt to force the party further to the right by mounting primary challenges against successful GOP officeholders. Successful primary challenges against entrenched Republican lawmakers are as likely to result in unlikely Democratic victories as they are the ascension of more conservative politicians to national office. 

For some conservative political observers, the Republican Party’s internecine skirmishes are indicative of a form of vitality that Democrats do not enjoy. Indeed, there are vibrant policy debates ongoing within the GOP, but one man’s vitality is another’s civil war. For the untrained observer, the violent, spasmodic death throes of a mortally wounded animal could just as easily be mistaken for signs that the withering creature is demonstrating renewed vigor. The GOP’s internal struggles could easily and rapidly evolve from a healthy exercise to something quite different. 

And yet, even though Republicans struggle with all these issues and more, Democrats would be wise to focus on their own house. There are indications that the party’s future is not as rosy as the Republican autopsy would lead many to believe. 

The 2014 generic congressional ballot appears increasingly favorable to Democrats. The Republicans’ misguided government shutdown has resulted in the electorate directing their inchoate rage at Republicans. But there is more than a year between today and the midterm elections, and a series of events – both foreseen and unexpected – will intervene in the interim to alter public opinion. Further, Democrats are doing all they can to rehabilitate the shutdown by vindicating its impetus – the Affordable Care Act and all its myriad issues. Increasingly, Congressional Democrats are admitting, after just one week of sustained media coverage of the ACA’s roll-out, that the nearly four-year-old law is still not ready for prime time. It may never be.

The technical failures associated with the ACA mask its larger problems: too many who need coverage are signing up and those who do not need coverage are not contributing to the risk pool. This was always the law’s structural Achilles’ heel. Some observers believe that what more Democrats are calling for, a delay in either the individual mandate to purchase health insurance or the penalty phase should an individual fail to comply before next April, is functionally impossible. It would require the federal government consider bailing out the overextended insurers who have taken on a number of sick, elderly, and infirmed uninsured over the course of the open enrollment period. Populists on both the right and the left would revolt over the prospect of another federal bailout for a troubled industry. 

The government shutdown and the ACA’s miserable debut have rescued President Obama from the political consequences of his inaction in Syria, but foreign policy issues are always just one news cycle away from returning to the forefront of the national debate. A report in USA Today last week revealed that Iran is nearly ready for a nuclear breakout – something most observers believe will precipitate a political (and potentially military) crisis in the region. Indeed, a political crisis is already underway as Saudi Arabia and Egypt – two of the regions strongest players – drift away from the American sphere of influence in conspicuously dramatic fashions. 

Add to this the background radiation of the Obama administration’s drone warfare program and liberal Democrats’ increasing discomfort with this tactic and you have the makings of an internal struggle within the Democratic Party set to explode as liberal voters prepare to select President Obama’s successor.
Republican structural advantages in the 2014 midterms suggest that, outside of a historic Democratic wave – a virtually unprecedented occurrence given the fact that the Oval Office remains in Democratic hands – the GOP will retain the House in 2015. Furthermore, anti-incumbent anger may fall unevenly on the Senate where a number of Democrats are seeking reelection in states Romney carried by substantial margins.

Even if Democrats retain control of the Senate, increasingly restless liberal constituency within the party may again assert its primacy over Democratic moderates in the coming presidential primary. Recall that in 2005, the party’s presumed nominee, Hillary Clinton, was preparing herself and her allies for a coronation rather than a primary election. Pollsters were not even testing Barack Obama’s name before December of that year, in spite of his keynote address to the Democratic nominating convention the year before. Few envisioned a scenario in which the Iraq War would go so far south that it would motivate the left to jettison Clinton. In the same way, few foresee a political future in which liberal Democrats who believe they were robbed of a universal, single payer health care system might elevate another champion over the more moderate Clinton. At the least, a competitive Democratic primary that will force Clinton to the left of the electorate appears likely. 

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Radical Feminist Loons Attack Article Advising Women To Not Binge Drink

WaPo.com:

The message of Emily Yoffe’s Slate article about binge drinking and sexual assault on college campuses was as important as it was obvious: The best step that young women can take to protect themselves is to stop drinking to excess.

Young women everywhere — not to mention their mothers — ought to be thanking Yoffe. Instead, she’s being pilloried. A “rape denialism manifesto” full of “plain old victim-blaming,” Lori Adelman wrote on the feminist blog Feministing.com. Erin Gloria Ryan, on Jezebel.com, accused Yoffe of “admonishing women for not doing enough to stop their own rapes.”

Argued Yoffe’s Slate colleague Amanda Hess, “We can prevent the most rapes on campus by putting our efforts toward finding and punishing those perpetrators, not by warning their huge number of potential victims to skip out on parties.”

Excuse me, but no one’s suggesting that our daughters should be holed up in the library studying every night, forswearing any semblance of a social life. Yoffe (disclosure: she’s a close friend) is saying that the responsible advice is the one that I’ve been trying to impart for years to my now-teenage daughters: When you drink (because, let’s be serious, they’re not waiting until 21), don’t drink too much. Consider the female Naval Academy midshipman who started with seven shots of coconut rum and woke up in an off-campus “football house” wondering what had happened. (Answer: Sexual encounters with three midshipmen, two of whom are being court-martialed.)

None of this — none of it — excuses men, sober or drunk, who prey on women, sober or drunk, to have sex without giving consent. Men who behave that way ought to be punished. Parents should warn their sons: Not only does “no mean no,” being too incapacitated to say “yes” also mean “no.”

But it is important to underscore two points here. The first concerns the disturbing culture ofbinge drinking on college campuses. This phenomenon is, at least in part, an unfortunate and perhaps inevitable artifact of raising the drinking age to 21. That has had the perverse consequence of transforming alcohol from a no-big-deal substance that was readily attainable into the bizarre focus of social planning. Without knowing whether they’ll be able to drink later, our children, male and female, resort to “pre-gaming,” doing shots — and too many of them — to steel themselves for the evening ahead. This tactic lowers inhibitions among both genders — indeed, that’s kind of the point — but the unavoidable facts are that women get drunk more quickly than men and that intoxication is highly associated with campus sexual assaults. Yoffe cites a 2009 study finding that, by the time they are seniors, almost 20 percent of college women will be victims of sexual assault on campus, overwhelmingly by a classmate, and that more than 80 percent of such incidents involve alcohol.

“I’m not saying a woman is responsible for being sexually victimized,” Christopher Krebs, one of the study’s authors, told Yoffe. “But when your judgment is compromised, your risk is elevated of having sexual violence perpetrated against you.”  

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