Arizona Religious Liberty Law Does Not Cause Discrimination, It Prevents it

RenewAmerica.com:

Arizona's new religious liberty bill is exactly that – a bill that protects the religious liberty of faith-driven businessmen in the Copper State. Lawmakers there are seeking to prevent the truly un-American and shameful things that have happened in New Mexico, Oregon and Colorado where wedding vendors are facing state-imposed penalties, including possible jail time, for simply running their businesses according to deeply-held religious values.

There is no question that homosexuality is a sin according to Christian teaching, and that marriage is exclusively a man-woman proposition. Same-sex "marriages" are thus counterfeit marriages, and no wedding vendor should be compelled against his conscience and Christian conviction to positively affirm something that Scripture condemns.

Now the right to the free exercise of religion – "exercise" means it applies all the time, 24 hour a day, seven days a week – is enshrined in the Constitution. In fact, it is the very first of the unalienable rights the Founders protected in the Bill of Rights.

Conversely, there is no express right in the Constitution to engage in sodomy. You can read the Constitution from left to right, from right to left, backwards, upside down and in Sanskrit and you will find no mention of sodomy whatsoever. But the right to religious liberty is right there in black and white, staring you in the face in the first sentence of the Bill of Rights.

In addition, every state in the Union, including Arizona, prohibits discrimination on the basis or religion. I submit that throwing a practicing Christian in jail because of his religious views is egregious discrimination, and should be in the eyes of any clear-thinking individual whose mind and heart have not been darkened by the spirit of the age.

So the Arizona bill simply affirms protections that are already found in the Constitution and state law. It prevents unconstitutional and illegal discrimination rather than causing it.

Just as no homosexual printer should be forced against his will to produce pamphlets for the Family Research Council, so no Christian baker should be forced to participate in the solemnizing of a ceremony that violates Scripture's view of human sexuality.

The Bible is straightforward and unambiguous: "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them" (Ephesians 5:11).

The bullies and bigots of Big Gay find themselves in the untenable position of wanting to use the tyrannical power of government to force Christians to commit sin and to violate their most deeply held convictions. This is offensive to a colossal degree and violates every classic American value you can mention.

If homosexuals actually believed in tolerance, they would respect the convictions of Christian businessmen and happily and contentedly go to other vendors. It's worth noting that every one of the complaining homosexual couples readily found other vendors to photograph their ceremonies, make their flower arrangements, and bake their cakes.

But the truth is they don't believe in tolerance at all. In reality, they are jack-booted homofascist thugs who want to use the totalitarian and tyrannical power of the state to send men of faith to jail. That sounds far more like Nazi Germany than the United States of America.

RELATED: Kirsten Powers’ Understanding Of Sin And Conscience Lacks A Biblical Foundation

New York Times Champions Gay Men's Surrogate Child Purchase For the 'Post Marriage-Equality World'

Newsbusters.org:

In an utterly typical flourish, the front of the "Thursday Styles" section of The new York Times featured two gay men and a tot over the headline "And Surrogacy Makes 3: Surrogate baby-making, through restricted in many states, has been growing among gay men."

Times reporter Anemona Hartocollis told the utterly unopposed story of New York State Sen. Brad Hoylman and his partner David Sigal with their daughter, Silvia Hoylman-Sigal. In New York, Sen. Hoylman is trying to make it easier for gays to use surrogates for their "fundamentally conservative embrace of family values." Their baby story "carries with it an extra frisson of the illicit that seems to them more than a little archaic and unfair in the post marriage-equality world."

Hoylman and Sigal had to travel to California to create a surrogate baby, since commercial surrogacy contracts have been illegal in New York since the "notorious Baby M case of the 1980s." Mary Beth Whitehead kept her child after the pregnancy. Now they're trying to repeal that law:

Surrogate baby-making has long been a path taken by the affluent and celebrities, partly because it takes good legal advice and money to accomplish. But in recent years, it has been growing among gay men, who in a fundamentally conservative embrace of family values, see having children and building a family as the logical next step after getting married.

“Not to be cliché, but you know how the phrase goes — first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby and the baby carriage,” said Allison Steinberg, a spokeswoman for the Empire State Pride Agenda, which has endorsed the bill. 

The bill’s supporters argue that it makes no sense for New York, which has a large number of fertility clinics, not to mention a flourishing gay community, not to be able to offer commercial surrogacy to those who want it. And they say that making surrogacy more widely available could reduce the exorbitant costs, easily as much as $100,000 per baby. 

In Mr. Hoylman and Mr. Sigal’s case, neither of their parents expected them to have children. “Now they think he’s a family man,” Mr. Sigal said, grinning at his husband.
“It’s a funny phrase,” Mr. Hoylman said. “This is what it takes for people to relate to you.” 

Mr. Hoylman says views on his Facebook page spike when he puts up pictures of their daughter, Silvia, now 3, but not when he puts up photographs of him and his husband without her. 

The bill’s co-sponsors could hardly offer a more perfect vision of the surrogacy constituency. Mr. Hoylman, who took his Senate office last year, represents the heart of gay New York, in the Village, Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen. The Assembly sponsor, Amy Paulin, who actually originated the bill, is from wealthy Scarsdale. 

The Times can't even be liberal enough to balance this out with someone complaining from outside the One Percent that surrogacy's only for the wealthy. Surrogacy subsidies can't be far off. The positive buzz continued, about how surrogate mothers prefer growing babies for the gay men:

Agencies prefer to contract with surrogates who are married with children, because they have a proven ability to have a healthy baby and are less likely to have second thoughts about giving up the child. 

Conversely, gay couples are popular among surrogates. “Most of my surrogates want same-sex couples,” said Darlene Pinkerton, the owner of A Perfect Match, the agency in San Diego that Mr. Hoylman used. Women unable to become pregnant often go through feelings of jealousy and loss, she said. But with gay men, that is not part of the dynamic, so “the experience is really positive for the surrogate.” 

Or as her husband, Tom, a third-party reproductive lawyer, put it, “Imagine instead of just having one husband doting on you, you have three guys now sending you flowers.”

RELATED: Of Bakers and Beliefs: Kirsten Powers’ Faith-Work Disconnect

Kirsten Powers: Being A Democrat Was My Religion

Or Being a Democrat Means To Follow A Godless, White, Liberal Agenda:

Former Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers on her conversion from atheism to Christianity: "I think my whole life had centered on Democratic politics, I was very much in that bubble. I worked in the Clinton administration so I had all these friends from there, and then in Democratic politics in New York, so that's what we sort of bonded over--that was our religion, to a certain extent."  

RELATED: Democrat Kirsten Powers Says Party's Politics was Her Religion Before Her Conversion

Kirsten Powers Says Barack Obama ‘Should Give Back’ Nobel Peace Prize

Mediaite.com:

Wednesday night on The O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly used a question from a Swedish reporter at this morning’s G-20 press conference to ask if President Obama should “give back” his Nobel Peace Prize now that he’s advocating military action in Syria. Fox contributor Kirsten Powers went even further, saying Obama “should have given it back a long time ago.” 

Powers said she thought the president should return the prize “for the drone war, for escalating the war in Afghanistan, having all these people die unnecessarily. Plenty of civilians have been killed by his drone war, including children.”

Taking Obama’s side in the argument, O’Reilly countered with, “you know every war in the history of mankind has resulted in collateral damage and civilian casualties.”

“First of all, I don’t use the term collateral damage because they are human beings,” Powers shot back. “I think that the war should actually be accomplishing something and I don’t think that the drones were accomplishing anything.” Instead, she said “it’s created more terrorists.” She said she may have been in favor of going into Syria earlier on but doesn’t “understand why there is a moral imperative now but there wasn’t a moral imperative a year ago.” 

Republican strategist Kate Obenshain agreed with more of what Powers said than she thought she would, saying Obama “basically won the election saying he didn’t believe in military intervention unless there was imminent threat to our national security,” but now pushing for action in Syria. She found herself in a heated debate with O’Reilly for saying the U.S. should not intervene because “seven out of nine of the factions against Assad right now is Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

If that’s the case, O’Reilly wanted to know if Obenshain thinks Sen. John McCain is “trying to deceive the American people.”

“I am saying that he is understating Bill, intentionally, to further his own objectives,” Obenshain responded.

Powers, who had been quiet for several minutes, dropped into the conversation to ask, “Has John McCain never been wrong about anything?”

RELATED: Obama: Hey, I didn’t set the red line!

Mother of Information Officer Killed in Benghazi Blames Hillary Clinton

 Townhall.com:

While politicians on Capitol Hill ready their questions for Benghazi whistleblowers ahead of a hearing on the 9/11 attack Wednesday, Pat Smith, the mother of State Department Information Officer Sean Smith who was killed in the attack, is blaming former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the lack of security for the consulate.

"I'm just told lies," she said in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper. "She is in charge. Why couldn't she do something about it? I blame her [Clinton]."

Smith also expressed frustration with charges from State Department officials, the Obama administration and Democrats of the Benghazi investigation turning "political."

"They didn't do their job and now they're hiding behind the word political," Smith said. 

RELATED:  O’Reilly And Kirsten Powers Bash Dems For Defending Obama, Clinton In Benghazi Hearings

Social Liberalism In The Midst Of A String Of Stunning Defeats

Mediaite.com:

April has not been kind to those who subscribe to the tenets of cultural and social liberalism. The advocates of progressivism in American life have suffered two defeats in recent weeks – one fight they sought but the other was unforeseen. The trial of Kermit Gosnell has forced the media and the public to ask themselves some disturbing questions about the nation’s abortion laws and the disdainful treatment of pro-life ideas and advocates by the press. Similarly, gun control advocates suffered a dramatic defeat yesterday at the hands of the country’s elected representatives. Neither of these events had to unfold in the way they did. Convinced of the righteousness of their cause, social progressives have for some time failed to engage their critics as honest brokers. Absolutist social liberals have made a virtue of dismissing their opponents as uncaring or unthinking brutes. This conceit led to some stunning defeats with as yet untold repercussions.


The revelation that the political news media had not pursued the Gosnell case in the same way it pursued other “local crime stories” which many in the press implied were indicative of a larger societal problem; the shooting of Trayvon Martin or 2012’s mass shootings in Colorado and Connecticut, to name some recent examples. This admission that the press had abdicated its job provoked a level of introspection in the media that is virtually unprecedented. 

Pro-choice writers issued mea culpas for their lack of coverage. Some wondered in print if they overlooked the story because of their own biases or because their social and professional circles simply are not interested in reports that ultimately lead to discomforting conclusions about some abortion practices.
“I understand why my readers suspect me, and other pro-choice mainstream journalists, of being selective — of not wanting to cover the story because it showcased the ugliest possibilities of abortion rights,” wrote The Daily Beast columnist Megan McArdle. “The truth is that most of us tend to be less interested in sick-making stories — if the sick-making was done by ‘our side.’” 

“There is a bubble,” acknowledged Slate columnist Dave Weigel. “Let’s just state the obvious: National political reporters are, by and large, socially liberal. We are more likely to know a gay couple than to know someone who owns an ‘assault weapon.’ We are, generally, pro-choice. Twice, in D.C., I’ve caused a friend to literally leave a conversation and freeze me out for a day or so because I suggested that the Stupak Amendment and the Hyde Amendment made sense.”

Beyond the media, the Gosnell case has transcended the filter on information which the press jealously guards and has percolated into the national consciousness. The public, largely comfortable with the notion of “safe, legal, and rare,” must now confront the idea that some abortion practices in this country may be none of the above. 

Not all in the media are willing to ask themselves the tough questions. Salon’s Irin Carmon has called into question the Democratic credentials of The Daily Beast columnist Kirsten Powers who so effectively shamed the media into covering the Gosnell case. She added that the Gosnell case, almost certainly an outlier, deserves as much coverage as the relatively high fatality rate for African-American women due to pregnancy. Those alleging a media cover-up of the Gosnell case “just want all reproductive freedom curtailed,” she writes.

Carmon raises valid points, but she is also shifting the terms of the debate. After failing to effectively justify the media’s silence on Gosnell last week, it is doubtful she will derail the debate about late-term abortion this week. For a nation which has been rapidly trending away from calling itself “pro-choice” over the last 20 years, the Gosnell case has focused the minds of many who would prefer not to face the gruesome realities of abortion after the first trimester. This is not evidence of a trend towards religiosity in America – data suggests the nation is turning away from organized religion. It is a trend in America towards libertarianism. The protection and preservation of an individual’s “right to life” has become a winning argument — emphasis on the word “right.” 

This defeat – and it is a defeat – for one of social liberalism’s most sacred cows is compounded this week by the failure of the Senate to pass even a modest tightening of the nation’s gun laws. After four months of campaigning on the issue of gun control by the Democratic political establishment and by their allies in the media in the wake of the Newtown massacre, Republicans and red-state Democrats joined together to kill the token modification to the background checks for gun purchasers. This development was greeted with shock by gun control proponents, but it was a foreseeable development. 

“Do we really think thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence don’t have a right to weigh in on this issue? Do we think their emotions and loss is not relevant to this debate?” President Barack Obama asked rhetorically during his post-vote berating of all of Washington D.C.

But Obama intentionally conflated reasoned opposition with cowed obedience to entrenched interests. The endlessly compassionate American people and their Congressional representatives did not cede their logic to their emotions on the issue of gun ownership, but gun control advocates steadfastly refused to accept that their opponents had a legitimate counterargument. 

Further, gun control backers refused to reconcile a discrepancy in public polling which showed some proposed new gun laws to be wildly popular in the same way that the fundamental right to own a firearm remains wildly popular. 

During the height of the debate over the Affordable Care Act, the law’s supporters dismissed the unpopularity of healthcare reform by identifying particular provisions within the bill that polled well. They said that the bill’s unpopularity would fade away as those popular provisions began to take effect. Of course, that day never came. 

In this same way, gun control advocates are fooling themselves. A backlash against those Senators who struck down new gun laws in spite of their popularity is unlikely to materialize. Gun control supporters presumed that their opponents were animated by base or disingenuous motives. In doing so, they failed to make a convincing case for their cause. 

RELATED:  The World Is Marching Toward Anarchy

Kirsten Powers And Tucker Carlson Trash Obama/Hillary’s 60 Minutes ‘Propaganda’ Interview

 Mediaite.com:

Appearing on Fox’s Happening Now this morning, Fox contributors Kirsten Powers and Tucker Carlson trashed the President Obama/Secretary Clinton joint 60 Minutes interview as “propaganda” befitting of a state-run media organization, not CBS.

Asked whether she saw the interview as a “missed opportunity” for “real questions” about the administration’s first term, Daily Beast columnist Powers went off on the entire ordeal: “It was something you expect from state-run media — that kind of level of propaganda as far as I’m concerned,” she said.

“60 Minutes was transparently being used as a campaign advertisement, which, you know, if they’re okay with that, then okay,” she continued. “I understand agreeing to the interview, letting them have one softball question in the beginning and then move on to more important things. But the reality is, this was a joke. I mean it really was. You look at it, even just not challenging basic things, like the president claiming Hillary has been a great Secretary of State in part because they have dismantled al Qaeda.”

She then went after interviewer Steve Kroft for ignoring other relevant issues of state, such as the ongoing struggles in North Africa: “Why is the president not asked about Algeria, Mali, Libya? These are front and center in the news right now. The next question after he says this is, ‘I have to ask you, what’s the date of expiration of this endorsement?’ That’s his follow-up question to the president saying that al Qaeda has been dismantled,” she said.

Daily Caller founder Carlson added that “60 Minutes is a good show a lot of the time,” but lamented that this is “consistent” behavior for the CBS program, as they stirred controversy back in September for “sitting on” a soundbite in which the president said he wasn’t sure whether the Benghazi attacks were an act of terrorism or not.

RELATED: Paul Ryan Heaps Praise On Hillary: If She Were President, ‘We’d Have Fixed This Fiscal Mess By Now’

Kirsten Powers: Obama Doesn’t Call On Fox News At Pressers ‘Because He Doesn’t Want To Be Embarrassed’

Speaking truth to power:

Kirsten Powers slammed President Obama Saturday in a roundtable discussion on why Fox News reporters never get called on at the president’s solo press conferences. It’s “because he doesn’t want to be embarrassed,” Powers said. She added that questions from Fox News would be “tenacious” and on subjects “he doesn’t want to get asked about.” 

“He wants softballs,” Powers said. 

Host Jon Scott noted that in a recent study, it was shown that Fox News gets called on at “less than half of the rates” of the other top outlets. ABC reporters get chosen the most frequently, followed by CBS, the AP, NBC and Fox News comes in at ninth place. 

When Obama is asked a question by Fox News, Powers said, it’s similar to when Jay Carney “ends up looking stupid because he doesn’t know how to answer.” 

The rests of the panelists agreed with Powers and said it was “brave” to challenge the “liberal mainstream media.” 

RELATED: Creepy? CNN Reporter Writes Letter To Obama EVERY SINGLE DAY

Kirsten Powers Slams Obama’s ‘Petulant’ Presser: If You ‘Don’t Go His Way,’ He Claims You ‘Starve Children’

Mediaite.com:

Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers slammed President Obama‘s press conference earlier today when she told Bret Baier that his tone was “petulant” and he was “acting annoyed that people were asking him questions.”

Regarding the impending debt ceiling debate, Powers said Obama “didn’t do a great job of explaining the situation” because although a default would be “disruptive,” he “didn’t need to exaggerate it.”

Baier noted that “default is really not an option for the country.” Powers agreed and responded that Obama “could have been straightforward about that.”

Obama saying that Social Security and veteran’s benefits may be delayed, Powers continued, is a “scare tactic.” The GOP has a “fair position,” she added, and Obama is setting it up to appear that “if you don’t go his way, you like to starve children.”

RELATED: Obama Blames Media ‘Preferred By Republican Constituencies’ For Unfriendliness In D.C.

Megyn Kelly Takes On ‘Word Police’ That Forced ESPN To Apologize For Brent Musburger’s Comments

Mediaite.com:

Fox News’ Megyn Kelly invited two of her favorite female commentators on her show this afternoon to discuss ESPN’s apology for announcer Brent Musburger‘s over-zealous praise of Katherine Webb, Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron‘s beauty contest-winning girlfriend. 

After Musburger spent what some considered to be an inordinate amount of time praising Webb’s beauty on air, the internet exploded with condemnation and ESPN released a statement that read, in part, “we apologize that the commentary in this instance went too far and Brent understands that.”

Kelly began her segment by recapping the details of the story and asking her guests to “raise your hand if you think Brent went too far.” Suffice it to say, no hands were raised. The three women proceeded to lambast the politically correct liberal media for dictating when men can and cannot call women beautiful.

Conservative radio host Monica Crowley exclaimed, “Here’s what’s wrong with a man calling a woman beautiful: Nothing!” She went on to say that if would have been more offensive if Musburger had said nothing.

Columnist Kirsten Powers added “He hardly said anything. He called her lovely and beautiful. People act like he was drooling and saying inappropriate things. To me, this is just Feminism gone awry.” 

Megyn Kelly reiterated that there’s nothing perverse about commenting on a woman’s beauty, asking “didn’t we all admire her? We are not perverted.” 

And Crowley doesn’t think open praise of beauty should be confined to just women. “When I’m watching the NFL and Tom Brady comes on screen, I have some choice words about him. He’s such a hunk!”

Kelly summed up the story by lamenting the fact that ESPN felt pressure to apologize for something that should never have been a story to begin with. Noting that Webb put her beauty on display by competing for and winning the Miss Alabama competition Kelly said, “It’s crazy to me that ESPN felt that he went too far in doing what all the judges at the competition did and millions of Americans did as well. I don’t know a woman who doesn’t like to be told she’s beautiful.” 

For her part, Webb has not sought any sympathy in the aftermath of the remarks, appearing on the Today Show this morning and telling Matt Lauer she was simply “flattered.” 

RELATED: Katherine Webb says she didn't need a Brent Musburger apology

Fox News Watch Marvel At Media’s Promotion Of Justice Roberts From ‘Right Wing Goon’ To ‘Hero’

Mediaite.com:

By far the biggest story of this week was the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the constitutionality of fining individuals for not having health insurance, a move that Justice John Roberts wrote fell under the taxing authority of Congress. On Fox News Watch today, the panel noted that his decision to side with the more liberal justices appeared to change the tone of liberals in the media when referring to him, who now saw him as a “hero” for what he wrote.


Jim Pinkerton joked that the turnabout by the media in warming up to Justice Roberts had been dubbed by “some wiseguy in DC” the “Greenhouse Effect”– namely, Linda Greenhouse, whose writing “moved the courts in her direction.” He also joked that a week ago, Justice Roberts was a “right-wing goon,” to which host Jon Scott interjected to point out how Chris Matthews reacted– going from claiming Justice Roberts could be “compared to a Civil War-era supreme court judge who upheld the Dred Scott Slave Act” to “a hero.”


“Here the bias is so obvious,” Judith Miller replied, noting that at least the “legal media see his reasoning as specious and his about-face as, well, an about-face.” Kirsten Powers, on the other hand, took a look at the way conservative media reacted– namely, “very, very angry.” he agreed it was “historic” and “a big victory for Obama,” but didn’t see Justice Roberts as siding with conservatives, given that “his reasoning was completely different than theirs.” Richard Grenell agreed, explaining that Justice Roberts had now “saddled ‘the President’ with a terrible scalet T… he has to go into the campaign season with the label of a taxer.”


As for Mitt Romney and the election, Miller expressed some surprise that Romney had not “taken advantage of the moment,” though “he did talk about the elements that he would have in his plan.” Pinkerton thought the President was not in the best position given the decision. People “oppose Obamacare as a thing, and if he spends the next five months defending it, that’s a bad thing,” he concluded. 

RELATED: Krauthammer To Hannity: Roberts Was Protecting The Court’s ‘Reputation’ With Health Care Decision

Kirsten Powers Blasts ‘Disturbing’ Bill Maher NYT Profile: He ‘Says The Most Vile Things’

Mediaite.com:

Perennial offender Bill Maher was the topic of conversation on today’s Fox News Watch today, this time for rejecting American exceptionalism. The conversation took a turn when the point was made that, despite his behavior, Maher received a positive profile in the New York Times this week, one Kirsten Powers described as “disturbing” and describing “a person who does not exist.”


“HBO gives him that show, freedom of speech allows him to say all that, but why give him the platform?” host Jon Scott asked, to which Jim Pinkerton responded, “money,” adding that there was “an audience for it” in Los Angeles, which “does say something about where you can make a living in this country.” Scott responded with the point that replacing America with Iran and the Latter-Day Saints Church with Islam would post a much bigger problem for the media, in his opinion, and the panel agreed. Richard Grenell noted that “he’s making these statements in Los Angeles, he’s not making these statements in Cairo” and called his rejection of American exceptionalism “ludicrous.”


The conversation then turned to the fact that Maher had bought a stake in the New York Mets and received what Scott described as a “glowing” piece in the New York Times. Powers was even less charitable, calling it “delusional” and describing “a person that does not exist,” a libertarian for whom atheism was not of the utmost importance. “He’s an Obama supporter– I thought maybe the meant ‘libertine,’” she joked, concluded that given that “he says the most vile things… the idea that he would get a glowing profile is disturbing.”

RELATED: Bill Maher finds six black men to deem Matt Drudge racist [VIDEO]

Kirsten Powers: ‘Obviously There Is A Bias’ In Media Not Covering Catholic Insurance Lawsuits

Mediaite.com:

The struggle between the federal government and the Catholic Church in whether the latter should be required to purchase insurance for its employees including birth control coverage continues, as 43 Catholic institutions have sued the White House over the issue. On Fox News today, Kirsten Powers and Gretchen Hamel debated the struggle between women’s rights and religious freedom and, in particular, the media’s reaction to the public discourse, and its comparative silence on the lawsuits when indicated to Powers that “obviously there is a bias.”


Powers did not agree with the Church’s position to not provide health insurance coverage in this specific instance, describing it as “church overreach” to intrude into the services a doctor provides to an employee, but explained that she understood the Church’s position. “I think they are acting in good faith– I don’t think this is some anti-woman campaign; they really feel this is infringement on their beliefs,” she told host Juliet Huddy. More importantly, she added, the Church likely sees the issue as a “slippery slope” that will lead to the government intruding on other issues aside from birth control.


Hamel found it “highly ironic” that religious freedom was at issue on Memorial Day, a day to celebrate those who protect our freedoms. She didn’t see the overreach issue with the Church, but with the government. “We have a government that is continuously governing and telling people what they should do and they are spending more.” Huddy then asked about the lawsuits against the White House coming from Catholic institutions. “Obviously there is a bias behind because when it came to covering this from the perspective of covering this as a war on women… it was pretty startling how much time they spent on it,” Powers argued. She noted there appeared also to not be “a lot of interest in understanding where the church is coming from” on the part of the media.

RELATED: Matalin: Religious liberty is the issue at stake in the HHS mandate

Kirsten Powers on Rush and Sandra Fluke: Where’s The Outrage At Misogynistic Liberal Men?

HotAir.com:

If you missed her widely linked Daily Beast item this weekend, read it now. Then read Treacher’s long look back at Our Moral Superiors’ most morally superior moments. The most interesting bit here is when Megyn Kelly asks whether she thinks liberals are genuinely offended by Rush but debilitated by a blind spot about their own side or whether they’re affecting outrageous outrage to put points on the partisan scoreboard. KP thinks it’s the former; I think the truth is in between. They are genuinely offended — not by the rhetoric, though, but by conservative opposition to abortion and support for prioritizing religious conscience above contraception coverage. That’s what makes Rush “anti-woman”; the “slut” name-calling is, supposedly, a window onto that deeper animus. Because Maher and Olbermann and Taibbi are, ahem, “pro-woman” on policy, they can be as personally nasty as they want and it’s not a window onto anything. The quintessential example of this is of course Ted Kennedy, whose career stands for the proposition that you can allegedly assault women and even leave a woman to die and be reelected for eternity so long as you vote the right way.


That is to say, for all of the left’s bleeding-heart smugness about “good intentions,” they’re remarkably bottom-line on this: So long as you support abortion and the rest of their packet on social issues, your actual intent when calling a woman a “mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick” is irrelevant. It’s an irrebuttable presumption of feminism, a de facto “get out of misogyny free” card. As a thought experiment, imagine, say, Maher suddenly declaring himself pro-life (that’s a mighty tough experiment, I know) and then calling a woman a “c*nt.” Think there’d be a response from the left then? I wonder, in fact, to what extent KP’s sensitivity to this is shaped by the fact that she’s pro-life herself. Must get tiresome for her to be accused of being a “self-hating woman” or whatever while left-wing heroes go around accusing their female critics of looking like pre-op transsexuals.


Apropos of nothing, my favorite comment on the endless Rush/Fluke saga comes from the Political Math guy, who points to this petition at the White House website calling on Panetta to drop Rush from Armed Forces Radio and quips, “Liberals have ‘moral objection’ to Rush, don’t want tax money paying him #SelfAwarenessFail”. Exit question via Guy Benson: Since we’re now all about organizations distancing themselves from media types who use “slut” rhetoric, when does Obama’s Super PAC plan on forfeiting Bill Maher’s $1 million donation?

RELATED: Rush Limbaugh not the only culprit, left guilty of misogyny too

Kirsten Powers Takes On Male Liberal Misogynists In The Media

TheDailyBeast.com:

Did you know there is a war on women?


Yes, it’s true. Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Matt Taibbi, and Ed Schultz have been waging it for years with their misogynist outbursts. There have been boycotts by people on the left who are outraged that these guys still have jobs. Oh, wait. Sorry, that never happened.


Boycotts are reserved for people on the right like Rush Limbaugh, who finally apologized Saturday for calling a 30-year-old Georgetown Law student, Sandra Fluke, a “slut” after she testified before congress about contraception. Limbaugh’s apology was likely extracted to stop the departure of any more advertisers, who were rightly under pressure from liberal groups outraged by the comments.


Let it be shouted from the rooftops that Rush Limbaugh should not have called Ms. Fluke a slut or, as he added later, a “prostitute” who should post her sex tapes. It’s unlikely that his apology will assuage the people on a warpath for his scalp, and after all, why should it? He spent days attacking a woman as a slut and prostitute and refused to relent. Now because he doesn’t want to lose advertisers, he apologizes. What’s in order is something more like groveling—and of course a phone call to Ms. Fluke—if you ask me.


But if Limbaugh’s actions demand a boycott—and they do—then what about the army of swine on the left?


During the 2008 election Ed Schultz said on his radio show that Sarah Palin set off a “bimbo alert.” He called Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut.” (He later apologized.) He once even took to his blog to call yours truly a “bimbo” for the offense of quoting him accurately in a New York Post column.


Keith Olbermann has said that conservative commentator S.E. Cupp should have been aborted by her parents, apparently because he finds her having opinions offensive. He called Michelle Malkin a “mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick.” He found it newsworthy to discuss Carrie Prejean’s breasts on his MSNBC show. His solution for dealing with Hillary Clinton, who he thought should drop out of the presidential race, was to find “somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out.” Olbermann now works for über-leftist and former Democratic vice president Al Gore at Current TV.


Left-wing darling Matt Taibbi wrote on his blog in 2009, “When I read [Malkin’s] stuff, I imagine her narrating her text, book-on-tape style, with a big, hairy set of balls in her mouth.” In a Rolling Stone article about Secretary of State Clinton, he referred to her “flabby arms.” When feminist writer Erica Jong criticized him for it, he responded by referring to Jong as an “800-year old sex novelist.” (Jong is almost 70, which apparently makes her an irrelevant human being.) In Taibbi’s profile of Congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann he labeled her “batshit crazy.” (Oh, those “crazy” women with their hormones and all.)


Chris Matthews’s sickening misogyny was made famous in 2008, when he obsessively tore down Hillary Clinton for standing between Barack Obama and the presidency, something that Matthews could not abide. Over the years he has referred to the former first lady, senator and presidential candidate and current secretary of state as a “she-devil,” “Nurse Ratched,” and “Madame Defarge.” Matthews has also called Clinton “witchy,” “anti-male,” and “uppity” and once claimed she won her Senate seat only because her “husband messed around.” He asked a guest if “being surrounded by women” makes “a case for commander in chief—or does it make a case against it?” At some point Matthews was shamed into sort of half apologizing to Clinton, but then just picked up again with his sexist ramblings.


Matthews has wondered aloud whether Sarah Palin is even “capable of thinking” and has called Bachmann a “balloon head” and said she was “lucky we still don’t have literacy tests out there.” Democratic strategist Jehmu Greene, who is the former president of the Women’s Media Center, told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly in 2011 that Matthews
“is a bully, and his favorite target is women.” So why does he still have a show? What if his favorite target was Jews? Or African-Americans?


But the grand pooh-bah of media misogyny is without a doubt Bill Maher—who also happens to be a favorite of liberals—who has given $1 million to President Obama’s super PAC. Maher has called Palin a “dumb twat” and dropped the C-word in describing the former Alaska governor. He called Palin and Congresswoman Bachmann “boobs” and “two bimbos.” He said of the former vice-presidential candidate, “She is not a mean girl. She is a crazy girl with mean ideas.” He recently made a joke about Rick Santorum’s wife using a vibrator. Imagine now the same joke during the 2008 primary with Michelle Obama’s name in it, and tell me that he would still have a job. Maher said of a woman who was harassed while breast-feeding at an Applebee’s, “Don't show me your tits!” as though a woman feeding her child is trying to flash Maher. (Here’s a way to solve his problem: don’t stare at a strangers’ breasts). Then, his coup de grâce: “And by the way, there is a place where breasts and food do go together. It’s called Hooters!”


Liberals—you know, the people who say they “fight for women”—comprise Maher’s audience, and a parade of high-profile liberals make up his guest list. Yet have any of them confronted him? Nope. That was left to Ann Coulter, who actually called Maher a misogynist to his face, an opportunity that feminist icon Gloria Steinem failed to take when she appeared on his show in 2011.


This is not to suggest that liberals—or feminists—never complain about misogyny. Many feminist blogs now document attacks on women on the left and the right, including Jezebel, Shakesville, and the Women’s Media Center (which was cofounded by Steinem). But when it comes to high-profile campaigns to hold these men accountable—such as that waged against Limbaugh—the real fury seems reserved only for conservatives, while the men on the left get a wink and a nod as long as they are carrying water for the liberal cause.

RELATED: Rush Limbaugh Apologizes For Calling Sandra Fluke A ‘Slut’

Kirsten Powers: How Did Trump Become A ‘Kingmaker’ In The Republican Party?

Mediaite.com:

In case you’ve been living under a rock or willfully avoiding the news like a virus, you know that Donald Trump is going to host a Republican presidential debate on December 27th between Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. The head of the Republican party publicly expressed concerns about the debate, especially given the possibility Trump will decide to run as an independent.


Realistically speaking, some candidates would naturally make the decision to avoid the Trump debate for that very reason, but Trump seems to think the other candidates are afraid of him, and this was the topic of discussion on tonight’s Hannity. Sean Hannity discussed the Donald’s influence in the Republican party with Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers and Republican strategist Kevin Madden.


Kirsten Powers: How Did Trump Become A ‘Kingmaker’ In The Republican Party?
video
by Josh Feldman | 10:46 pm, December 9th, 2011
» 133 comments


In case you’ve been living under a rock or willfully avoiding the news like a virus, you know that Donald Trump is going to host a Republican presidential debate on December 27th between Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. The head of the Republican party publicly expressed concerns about the debate, especially given the possibility Trump will decide to run as an independent.


Realistically speaking, some candidates would naturally make the decision to avoid the Trump debate for that very reason, but Trump seems to think the other candidates are afraid of him, and this was the topic of discussion on tonight’s Hannity. Sean Hannity discussed the Donald’s influence in the Republican party with Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers and Republican strategist Kevin Madden.


RELATED: Andrew Breitbart: Why Would GOP Candidates Go On MSNBC, But Turn Down Trump?


Hannity wondered why any candidate polling poorly would avoid an invitation to such a high-profile event, given that any airtime is good exposure for these candidates. (Long-shot candidate Buddy Roemer has, in fact, publicly asked Trump to participate in the debate.) Powers found it hard to just accept that Trump suddenly became the Jeff Probst of the Republican party.


“I don’t understand how Donald Trump suddenly became this kingmaker in the Republican party. I’m a little puzzled by it, and I… ’cause it makes total sense to me that Republicans are saying no to him. And even this idea that people now go up to see Donald Trump to kiss his ring, I just… I don’t know, it’s just puzzling.”


Hannity countered that when Trump briefly “entered” the race, he was polling well. Yes, and Breaking Dawn: Part One broke box office records, it’s still a crappy Twilight movie. What other strong metric does Trump have going for him, according to Hannity? He’s a harsh Obama critic. Powers didn’t buy this explanation, pointing out the Obama administration has plenty of critics who aren’t wealthy megalomaniacs.


Madden, meanwhile, argued that one of the problems with having Trump host a debate would be that the Donald would gravitate towards the center of attention, as is his modus operandi. He expressed concerns that such a distraction would take away from the candidates’ efforts in early primary states. Madden also made the obvious observation that Trump is most likely not going to run for president as an independent, but says it as often as possible in order to garner the media’s attention.

RELATED: Red Eye Panel: With Debate, Trump ‘Threw His Own Birthday Party And Nobody Showed Up’

Charles Krauthammer Calls Obama's SOTU Speech "Flat" And "Uninspired"

Mediaite.com:

President Barack Obama delivered his third State of the Union speech tonight, and in an age in which opinion media so dominates political will, the reaction to the delivered text by various pundits is almost as interesting as the text itself. Take for example the initial reaction by the Fox News panel that seemed primarily unimpressed by what some may have seen as a significant move to the center by the Democratic president. Charles Krauthammer did not demure, calling the speech “flat and uninspired” and “remarkably against the trend of what the electorate said this November.”


To be fair, the energy in the room was dramatically different than recent State of the Union speeches, largely because the two parties were not sitting in clear and separate sections of the House. Without question, the somewhat improvised mixed seating arrangement that was conceived to show unity, took away many of the partisan interruptions but made for a more fractured and yes, entertaining experience. While it was perhaps less interesting to partisan bloggers looking for snark, it did create a rare and more unifying experience for the speech.


But this was largely overlooked by the Fox News panel, who focused on the actual rhetoric and ignored the “room,” at least in their initial reaction. Brit Hume seemed to agree with Krauthammer’s critique saying that it appeared that Obama “wanted the speech to be upbeat about America’s future, but only outlined further government spending.” When challenged by fellow guest Juan Williams, Hume doubled down by theoretically asking the President “How much borrowed money, Sir are you willing to spend on these items?” Sharp words that appear to have come from someone who may have missed (or overlooked?) any bipartisan effort from the President.


Token Democrat Kirsten Powers presented faint praise by suggesting that State of the Union speeches are always lackluster and that this was no different. But Williams went to bat for Obama, lauding the President for the realistic nature of the speech, clarifying that it was “not a time for fake oratory” adding admiration for the simple note that Obama made when he said “we do big things.”

What Do Democrats Have Against Women?

Excellent piece by the one-n-only Kirsten Powers:

The Jerry Brown campaign's “whore” comment wasn't the first to slur against a Republican woman. And look where the attacks are coming from—progressives and liberal women.

“What about saying that she’s a whore?”

No, I wasn’t eavesdropping on a Duke fraternity meeting. This was the suggestion of an aide to Democrat Jerry Brown on how to deal with his GOP rival for the California governorship, Meg Whitman.

Brown’s response? “Well I’m going to use that.”

Not anymore.

Once a tape of the conversation was leaked, the Brown campaign apologized.

While we, sadly, are all too familiar with the casual misogynistic comment, what perhaps is more surprising is where these slurs lately have been coming from—progressive bastions like the Brown camp, and liberal women.

Last month, liberal talk show host Stephanie Miller laughed uproariously when a female guest on her show said that if she ever met Michelle Malkin, “I would kick [her] right in the nuts,” and warned, “Wear a cup, lady.”

Charming.

Or how about this: “You have to lift their skirts to find out if they are women. You sure can’t find out by how they vote.” This is what Democratic Rep. Janis Baird Sontany of Nashville said earlier this year of her female GOP colleagues.

Or this: “Sarah Palin may be a lady, but she ain't no woman,” as Cinta Wilson wrote during the tsunami of anti-Palin hysteria in 2008. In her Salon piece, Wilson went on to refer to the Alaska governor as a “Christian Stepford wife in a ‘sexy librarian’ costume” and the GOP’s “hardcore pornographic centerfold spread.”

Who needs misogynist men when liberal women will do the job for you, often sounding that shopworn theme that women GOP candidates are somehow inauthentic women?

S.E. Cupp And Kirsten Powers On New Christine O'Donnell Ad

I don't agree. It was clear to me that she was being sarcastic, even making light of the Left's No. 1 smear tactic. No biggie on the "I'm not a witch" line and a good ad in my book.

More Americans Wrongly Believe Obama Is A Muslim

Anyone who thinks Barry's a Muslim is really stupid.