Gay Groups Oppose Black Mayor Nominated to Head Virginia Democrat Party; Will MSNBC Cover Spat?

Newsbusters.org:

To its credit, the Washington Post this morning is reporting an intramural spat roiling inside the Democratic Party in the Old Dominion. Turns out gay rights groups are livid that Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-Va.) has nominated Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones to chair the state's Democratic Party. Jones, who happens to be African-American and is a Baptist pastor, "has not endorsed same-sex marriage," the Post's Laura Vozzella noted, even though he has a strong record on other issues of import to the gay-rights movement.

"Activists are working to thwart Jones's election at the party's central committee meeting March 15 -- setting up a highly unusual battle for a sitting governor, whose choice for party chairman is rarely challenged," Vozzella noted in the fourth paragraph of her March 7 front-page story. While the Post deserves kudos for noting the rancorous division within the Democratic ranks, it remains to be seen if MSNBC -- which revels in portraying Republicans as bearing antipathy towards African-Americans -- will dare to cover the story at all.

Democratic racial politics aside, this is also a matter of a new litmus test which is emerging throughout the country in Democratic Party politics, with would-be party leaders being pushed to stifle their moral and religious objections to same-sex marriage, even though they may be wholeheartedly in support of other items in the LGBT agenda. As Vozzella noted, Jones "issued a proclamation to mark the [Richmond's] Transgender Day of Remembrance."

We don't expect that MSNBC, much less any other liberal media outlet, will pay significant attention to this spat, although, quite frankly, they should. There are a few reasons the political press should care:

• This episode is evidence that the Democratic Party, just as much if not more so than the GOP, has pretty heated disagreements within itself when coalition constituencies come into conflict
• This matter is evidence of how the approval of the gay rights agenda within the Democratic Party poses an existential threat to the political futures of loyal Democrats who dare to transgress the emerging litmus test over "marriage equality"
• This episode shows the internal divisions within the Democratic Party of Virginia which Gov. McAuliffe will have to bridge during his tenure, particularly if he wants to prove a reliable surrogate for the Democratic presidential nominee in the crucial swing state in 2016
• The liberal media love to hype "victim" narratives and many of them are scripted with gays or blacks as the victim of conservatism. Here is a case which doesn't neatly fall into that pattern

Political journalists always insist that they do have a bias, but that it's a bias for conflict or controversy. particularly if it involves an underlying debate roiling in the arena of public opinion.

A bias for conflict demands significant media attention to the Jones nomination controversy, but the liberal newsroom's rooting interest for the fortunes of the Democratic Party demands adherence to a overarching midterm election narrative which exclusively focuses on real and imagined Republican divides. Expect partisan and ideological loyalties to win over the journalistic thirst for a good story.

RELATED: Yes, Gay Activists Failed in Sochi. Here’s Why.

Alan Grayson Accused of Shoving Wife

Couldn't have happened to a better guy:

A Florida judge has granted a temporary protective order to the wife of Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson after he allegedly shoved her during a weekend dispute, according to a complaint obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.

Grayson, a second-term lawmaker reelected to the House in 2012 after losing his seat the previous cycle, has denied the allegations.

Grayson and his wife, Lolita, are in the process of divorcing after 24 years of marriage. The couple have two children.

According to a complaint filed by Lolita Grayson, she and the congressman had an argument when he came to her house on Saturday night.

She asserts that Grayson “deliberately and with force pushed [Lolita Grayson] very hard against the front door, causing [her] to fall to the ground as a result,” according to a copy of a complaint obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.

Lolita Grayson also claims the congressman “has battered [her] and the parties’ minor children” in the past, although she has not previously reported such actions.

RELATED: Cellphone video disputes claim that Rep. Alan Grayson pushed wife

Bill Clinton Poses With Prostitutes Barbie Girl and Ava Adora at Humanitarian Gala

Some things never change. Then too you'd be a fool not to go after Hillary for sticking with this guy if she chooses to run for POTUS in the near future:

What would Hillary say?

Former President Bill Clinton raised eyebrows on Friday night when he paused to snap a photo with two prostitutes at the star-studded charity ball Unite4Charity.

Clinton, 67, was working the crowd at the fancy LA gala when he paused to take a picture with two young fans, Ava Adora and Barbie Girl, two sex workers from the Moonlite Bunny Ranch brothel in Moundhouse, Nevada.

The working girls were the invited guests of Dennis Hof, the 68-year-old proprietor of the brothel made famous by HBO's series "Cathouse."

"These two girls are just incredible fans of Bill Clinton," Hof told the Daily News. "They kept saying, 'Please take me, Daddy.'"

RELATED: Rand Paul Continues Piling on Clinton: He’s a ‘Bad Role Model’ for Women’s Rights

How Godless White Liberals Dupe Blacks Into Supporting Welfare State

WashingtonExaminer.com:

People in the media and academia are mostly leftists hellbent on growing government and controlling our lives. Black people, their politicians and civil rights organizations have become unwitting accomplices. The leftist pretense of concern for the well-being of black people confers upon them an aura of moral superiority and, as such, gives more credibility to their calls for increasing government control over our lives.

Ordinary black people have been sold on the importance of electing blacks to high public office. After centuries of black people having been barred from high elected office, no decent American can have anything against their wider participation in our political system. For several decades, blacks have held significant political power, in the form of being mayors and dominant forces on city councils in major cities such as Washington; Philadelphia; Detroit; Washington, D.C.; Memphis, Tenn.; Atlanta; Baltimore; New Orleans; Oakland, Calif.; Newark, N.J.; and Cincinnati. In these cities, blacks have held administrative offices such as school superintendent, school principal and chief of police. Plus, there's the precedent-setting fact of there being 44 black members of Congress and a black president.

What has this political power meant for the significant socio-economic problems faced by a large segment of the black community? Clearly, it has done little or nothing for academic achievement; the number of black students scoring proficient is far below the national average. It is a disgrace -- and ought to be a source of shame -- to know that the average white seventh- or eighth-grader can run circles around the average black 12th-grader in most academic subjects. The political and education establishment tells us that the solution lies in higher budgets, but the fact of business is that some of the worst public school districts have the highest spending per student. Washington, D.C., for example, spends more than $29,000 per student and scores at nearly the bottom in academic achievement.

Each year, roughly 7,000 -- and as high as 9,000 -- blacks are murdered. Ninety-four percent of the time, the murderer is another black person. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1976 and 2011, there were 279,384 black murder victims. Contrast this with the fact that black fatalities during the Korean War (3,075), Vietnam War (7,243) and wars since 1980 (about 8,200) total about 18,500. Young black males have a greater chance of reaching maturity on the battlefields than on the streets of Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, Newark and other cities. Black political power and massive city budgets have done absolutely nothing to ameliorate this problem of black insecurity.

Most of the problems faced by the black community have their roots in a black culture that differs significantly from the black culture of yesteryear. Today only 33 percent of black children are raised in two-parent households, but as far back as 1880, in Philadelphia, 75 percent of black children were raised in two-parent households -- and it was as high as 85 percent in other places. Even during slavery, in which marriage was forbidden, most black children were raised with two biological parents. The black family managed to survive several centuries of slavery and generations of the harshest racism and Jim Crow, to ultimately become destroyed by the welfare state. The black family has fallen victim to the vision fostered by some intellectuals that, in the words of a sociology professor in the 1960s, "it has yet to be shown that the absence of a father was directly responsible for any of the supposed deficiencies of broken homes." The real issue to these intellectuals "is not the lack of male presence but the lack of male income." That suggests that fathers can be replaced by a welfare check. The weakened black family gives rise to problems such as high crime, predation and other forms of anti-social behavior.

The cultural problems that affect many black people are challenging and not pleasant to talk about, but incorrectly attributing those problems to racism and racial discrimination, a need for more political power, and a need for greater public spending condemns millions of blacks to the degradation and despair of the welfare state.

RELATED: Black Unemployment Rose in January to 12.1 Percent

The Cultural War Against Christians

Townhall.com:

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer was right to veto SB1062, which would have amended the Arizona Religious Freedom Restoration Act. 

The bill, per most interpretations I’ve read, would have given broad discretion to business owners, because of their religious convictions, to refuse to do business with anyone associated with homosexual lifestyles. 

Religious freedom is about protection of your right to practice your religion and not being forced to violate it.

However, the right to religious freedom does not mean the right to write-off and marginalize into non-existence a whole class of citizens whom you don’t like or agree with. 

Under Jim Crow, the problem whites had with blacks was not what blacks thought or did, but that they existed. These laws were designed to relegate one class of citizens to separate and unequal status, simply because of who they were. 

Such actions have nothing to do with freedom and everything to do with bigotry and racism. 

But, unfortunately, the failure of this poorly conceived Arizona bill will be misinterpreted. Some will incorrectly claim that this means it is not a violation of religious freedom to force a business owner to provide a product or service for activity that is against his or her religious convictions. That is incorrect. 

Would anyone question the refusal of a black vendor to sells sheets to the local Ku Klux Klan chapter? Or a Jewish merchant refusing to sell the poster board for a Neo-Nazi rally? Or refusal of a Christian video service to make a pornographic film? 

So why is it not perfectly clear that the religious freedom of a Christian merchant is violated if that merchant is forced to bake a cake or prepare a flower arrangement for a same-sex marriage which is not only as personally repugnant to that vendor as any in the cases above, but is also a clear and literal violation of the scripture that defines the faith of these individuals? 

And why is it that same-sex couples have such a hard time finding bakers and florists that are not offended by their wedding? Why do they wind up with such regularity trying to buy from Christian vendors? 

The reality is that the “gay rights” crusade is not about a struggle for justice but rather it is a cultural war. 

Homosexual activists understand the ongoing erosion of traditional values as a pillar of our society and use this opportunity to push Christian reality, once and for all, into the closet and to lock the door. 

The cultural script has been re-written such that Christians have been put in a position of either rejecting the precepts and prohibitions of their religion, or being faithful to them and being branded as against “equality.”

RELATED: The Ingrained Intolerance of Liberal Tolerance

Matthew McConaughey Wins Over Conservative Fans by Thanking God at Oscars

HotAir.com:

We see this a lot at sporting events, but not a lot of it from the entertainment industry. When someone from Hollywood gets up and thanks God, especially at the Oscars, it makes headlines … which says volumes about Hollywood and the media.

What’s most interesting about this heartfelt gratitude towards God is the reaction it gets from the Academy audience, or more accurately, the lack thereof.

RELATED: Matthew McConaughey Wins Over Conservative Fans by Thanking God at Oscars

MSNBC’s Most Embarrassing Mockery of Mitt Romney’s Russia Warnings

Mediaite.com:

The smug self-assuredness that often suffices for expertise on cable news was perhaps never more smug than when former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney warned the American public that Russia was rapidly positioning itself as America’s “number one geopolitical foe.” Among the worst offenders were the hosts and guests who provide MSNBC with content on a daily basis. 

In early 2012, President Barack Obama was caught on an open microphone telling Russia’s then-President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have more “flexibility” after the presidential election in his dealings with Russia. Romney reacted strongly to that comment. Appearing on CNN, the GOP nominee said that the United States should regard Russia as a geopolitical adversary and should work to limit Russia’s flexibility rather than to secure it. His observation was soundly criticized by the president’s defenders who, at the time, were still attempting to rehabilitate Obama’s floundering “Reset” with Russia. 

There were few who defended Romney’s comments. Even snake-bit Republicans, chastened by the swift backlash in the media, hedged when asked to back up Romney’s assessment of the challenges posed by Moscow. But MSNBC’s wagons circled particularly quickly in defense of the president. Volley after volley of snark was lobbed in the GOP nominee’s direction.

“I don’t know what decade this guy’s living in,” MSNBC host Chris Matthews said with a sigh on March 28, 2012. “Is he trying to play Ronald Reagan here, or what?”

“This is Mitt Romney’s severely conservative problem,” University of Georgia professor Cynthia Tucker opined on-the-air. “It made Romney look dumb. He’s not a dumb man, but he said something that was clearly dumb.”

Huffington Post reporter Sam Stein agreed that Romney’s statement was evidence of an “antiquated worldview.” He fretted further about how Romney, should he become president, would enter the office having severely complicated America’s bilateral relations with Moscow given his carelessly provocative statement. 

“I personally am worried about what it says to the Russian people,” Matthews added to a chorus of sagely nods.

MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell got in on the self-satisfied ridicule, too. 

 Promoting Maddow’s latest book about the “unmooring of American military power,” O’Donnell asked the flagship MSNBC host if Romney was merely reflecting on what he might have read in that book. 

“He read about Reagan’s private, outside-the-CIA cabal of team-B zealots who were telling him that Russia had all the stuff they didn’t have so he could justify a giant defense budget,” Maddow submitted scornfully. 

“It is amazing that Mitt Romney can flip like that just as soon as he hears something to exploit in foreign policy,” O’Donnell remarked.

Maddow took her observations about Romney’s position on Russia one ill-advised step further on her MSNBC.com blog:

I can appreciate why the Romney campaign would try to make Obama’s “hot mic” story interesting, but the problem is the former governor just doesn’t have any real policy chops in this area. He’s out of his depth, and struggles when the subject takes center stage.
It’s not just that Romney is uninformed; it’s that he hasn’t figured out how to fake it.

Appearing on Andrea Mitchell Reports in April of that year, Romney surrogate and former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour was confronted by the MSNBC anchor. Calling Romney’s comments “a throwback to the Cold War,” Mitchell insisted that “we work with Russia all the time.” “Hardly an ally but certainly not an adversary,” she declared.

But the worst offender was one who should have, and likely did, know better, former Secretary of State Colin Powell. The former Army general greatly entertained his MSNBC hosts with some of the most snide commentary about Romney’s observation. 

“Come on, Mitt. Think,” Powell said of Romney’s remark in May to the chuckles of host Joe Scarborough. “That isn’t the case.” 

He went on to suggest that Romney’s assessment of the threat posed by Russia was so dubious that it was possible he was being disingenuous or he was coached to make that statement.

RELATED:  Mitt Romney Was Right About Russia

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Bipartisan Group of Legal Scholars: Critics 'Egregiously Misrepresented' Arizona's SB 1062

Newsbusters.org:

The Arizona governor’s decision Wednesday to veto a bill widely seen as pitting religious protections against gay rights puts an end to two controversial amendments proposed by lawmakers.

But it leaves standing the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which continues to empower individuals to sue when they believe state or local laws – including antidiscrimination laws – are violating their religious rights.

In announcing her decision to veto the amendments, known as SB 1062, Gov. Jan Brewer (R) said that religious liberty is valued in Arizona. She added that the state also values the principle of nondiscrimination.

How those two goals coexist in Arizona in the future remains unclear. But it is clear from the governor’s veto that the potential downside of following through with the amendments outweighed the advantages.

“I sincerely believe that SB 1062 has the potential to create more problems than it purports to solve,” she said in a brief statement.

While the Brewer veto ends the current dispute in a way that appears to deliver a clear victory to gay rights advocates and their supporters, the underlying causes of the conflict remain unresolved.

On one side are Arizona residents seeking to live their lives in accord with traditional moral positions embraced in the Bible’s Old Testament – positions that condemn homosexuality. On the other side are gay men, lesbians, bisexual, and transsexual individuals fighting for equal rights and equal dignity in communities they also call home.

The Arizona Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) seeks to protect religious faith from coercive laws. That protection continues to exist throughout Arizona.

What is changing is a growing recognition of civil rights for gay Americans that is clashing with traditional religious teachings. For example, Arizona law offers no protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation, but three Arizona cities – Phoenix, Tucson, and Flagstaff – have passed ordinances banning sexual orientation discrimination in their jurisdictions.

The two proposed amendments to the Arizona RFRA were an attempt to address the issue in a way that favored religious adherents. Brewer’s veto eliminates the attempt, but it does nothing to address the underlying clash.

The veto was issued amid a growing controversy in Arizona over what had been a little-noticed state law patterned on a 21-year-old federal statute designed to shield religious adherents from government measures that violate their beliefs.

The original Religious Freedom Restoration Act, far from a hate-inspired antigay measure, sailed through the US House of Representatives on a voice vote and passed the US Senate 97 to 3 before being signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton in 1993.

The law was written to fill a vacuum left after the US Supreme Court embraced a significantly narrower reading of the protections of religious liberty under the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion clause. Congress responded with RFRA.

RELATED:  Tea Party Leader: Arizona Veto Enslaves Christians into Baking Giant Penis Cakes

Sarah Palin Warned Everyone in 2008 That Russia Might Invade Ukraine if Barack Obama Wins Election

Townhall.com:

In October 2008, then-Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin warned that Putin, having been motivated by Obama's lack of response to the Russian invasion of Georgia, would proceed to invade Ukraine if then-Senator Obama was elected to the presidency.

After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama's reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia's Putin to invade Ukraine next.

Foreign Policy dismissed this warning as "strange" and "far-fetched."

As we've said before, this is an extremely far-fetched scenario. And given how Russia has been able to unsettle Ukraine's pro-Western government without firing a shot, I don't see why violence would be necessary to bring Kiev to heel.

Yesterday, Russia invaded the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine and seized control of two airports.

Seems as though Palin's prediction wasn't too far-fetched after all. 

RELATED:  Russian Parliament Grants Putin Permission to Invade Ukraine

Liberal Scumbag Harry Reid Calls All ObamaCare Victims 'Liars'

FOXNews.com:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is being hammered by Republican lawmakers after he claimed on the Senate floor that all the ObamaCare "horror stories" being circulated are untrue.

Reid tried to clarify his remarks late Wednesday by saying he was only referring to the “vast majority” of stories featured in ads funded by Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group, and not the complaints of everyday Americans. However, he added fuel to the fire by continuing to slam the group’s backers, the Koch brothers, calling them “un-American.” 

Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips, in response, said Reid had effectively "attacked the character and integrity of every American who had the courage to share how they're being hurt by the president's health care law." 

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., called Reid's original remarks "astounding and offensive." 

Reid said Wednesday morning on the Senate floor that he believes Americans for Prosperity hires actors in their ads to tell fake stories about canceled policies, higher premiums and ruined lives under ObamaCare.

“There’s plenty of horror stories being told,” Reid said. “All of them are untrue. But they’re being told all over America.” 

It was an apparent reference to, among other instances, an AFP ad that featured a woman with cancer who claimed her health care became unaffordable under the law. Her story was called into question by critics, but she and AFP are standing by the ad. 

The outcry over Reid's comments from Republican lawmakers was swift. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said he is demanding Reid apologize to those who have felt ill effects from ObamaCare.

“The majority leader, and any Democrat who agrees with him, owes an apology to all Americans who are suffering under this disastrous law and whose personal stories he has dismissed as ‘untrue,’” he said.

RELATED:  Cancer Patient Who Lost Insurance Due to Obamacare Demands Apology from Harry Reid

Greenpeace Co-founder Patrick Moore: No Scientific Proof Humans Are Dominant Cause of Warming Climate

FOXNews.com:

A co-founder of Greenpeace told lawmakers there is no evidence man is contributing to climate change, and said he left the group when it became more interested in politics than the environment.

Patrick Moore, a Canadian ecologist and business consultant who was a member of Greenpeace from 1971-86, told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee environmental groups like the one he helped establish use faulty computer models and scare tactics in promoting claims man-made gases are heating up the planet.

“There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years,” he said.

Even if the planet is warming up, Moore claimed it would not be calamitous for men, which he described as a “subtropical species.”

Skeptics of manmade climate change say there is no evidence the Earth is warming. A UN report on the scientific data behind global warming released in September indicated that global surface temperatures have not increased for the past 15 years, but scientists who believe climate change due to man is occurring say it has merely paused because of several factors and will soon resume.

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Jan Brewer Vetos Religious Freedom SB1062 Bill and Caves To Godless, White Liberals

Is it any wonder so many social conservatives in this country have lost faith in the Republican party? With losers like John McCain, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and the 3 Arizona Republican members who caved to liberal lies and hyperbole on SB1062 and changed their mind, who needs the GOP?

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer made a statement Wednesday night declaring she already vetoed the controversial SB1062 bill that would permit state businesses to discriminate against LGBT individuals, confirming an earlier report that she was planning to veto the bill.

Advocates of the bill have argued that the bill was meant to protect people’s religious liberty, while opponents insisted it’s just the government adding on another layer of discrimination that gay people have to face in their lives.

Brewer previously pledged she would “do the right thing for Arizona,” and deferred questions by saying she had until Friday to make her decision. The Arizona Chamber of Commerce came out against the bill, as did many businesses (Apple and Marriott among them), and a number of high-profile Republicans, including both of Arizona’s GOP senators, called on Brewer to veto the bill.

RELATED:  7 Myths About Arizona's Religious Freedom Law

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

Alec Baldwin Lashes Out at MSNBC: Calls Rachel Maddow a ‘Phony’

Even if the guy has an axe to grind, I'm just glad that someone in the public spotlight finally displays the guts to not kiss Rachel Maddow's royal ass:

“I haven’t changed, but public life has,” State and Main star Alec Baldwin wrote (or rather told to Joe Hogan) in this week’s New York cover story in which the embattled Baldwin officially bid adieu to the profiled life.

Baldwin had a nasty professional year in 2013, featuring several incidents in which he was accused of using homophobic slurs (Baldwin disputes these in the piece), and getting an MSNBC talk show (which he claims he never wanted) that barely made it out of the starting gate.

Baldwin said those incidents have taken their toll, and he exited the spotlight Monday morning with a middle finger for many of his past employers, especially MSNBC. There’s also a lot about Shia LaBeouf, another celebrity who’s experienced some well-broadcasted troubles.

Les highlights:

On MSNBC: “It turned out to be the same shit all day long. The only difference was who was actually pulling off whatever act they had come up with. Morning Joe was boring. Scarborough is neither eloquent nor funny. And merely cranky doesn’t always work well in the morning. Mika B. is the Margaret Dumont of cable news…The problem with everybody on MSNBC is none of them are funny, although that doesn’t prevent them from trying to be.”

On Phil Griffin: “All he wanted to talk about was Giants tickets, Super Bowl tickets, restaurants, movies. The conversations about the set, about the physical production of the show, cameras, lighting—it seemed like he wanted to get those over with as quickly as possible. He didn’t care. He had four monitors on the wall. They were all on, muted. He never listened to them. He never watched them.”

On Maddow: “I think Rachel Maddow is quite good at what she does. I also think she’s a phony who doesn’t have the same passion for the truth off-camera that she seems to have on the air.”

On the media: “Now I loathe and despise the media in a way I did not think possible. I used to engage with the media knowing that some of it would be adversarial, but now it’s superfluous at best and toxic at its worst. If MSNBC went off the air tomorrow, what difference would it make? If the Huffington Post went out of business tomorrow, what difference would it make?”

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Ugandan President Calls Homosexuality 'Disgusting', Correctly Calls Being Gay "Unnatural" And Not A Human Right

Isn't it always funny when a morally-bankrupt, sex-obsessed, pedophile-enabling, deviance-loving country being taken over by Godless, white liberals tells other people how they should live?

President Yoweri Museveni, who made anti-homosexuality laws in Uganda much tougher Monday, told CNN in an exclusive interview that sexual behavior is a matter of choice and gay people are "disgusting."

After signing the bill that made some homosexual acts punishable by life in prison, Museveni told CNN's Zain Verjee that, in his view, being homosexual is "unnatural" and not a human right.

"They're disgusting. What sort of people are they?" he said. "I never knew what they were doing. I've been told recently that what they do is terrible. Disgusting. But I was ready to ignore that if there was proof that that's how he is born, abnormal. But now the proof is not there."

Museveni had commissioned a group of Ugandan government scientists to study whether homosexuality is "learned," concluding that it is a matter of choice.

"I was regarding it as an inborn problem," he said. "Genetic distortion -- that was my argument. But now our scientists have knocked this one out."

Dean Hamer, scientist emeritus at the National Institutes of Health, wrote an open letter to the Ugandan scientists in the New York Times last week urging them to reconsider and revise their report. Among his responses to their conclusions: "There is no scientific evidence that homosexual orientation is a learned behavior any more than is heterosexual orientation."

Museveni, whose public position on the measure changed several times, signed the bill into law at a public event Monday. The bill was introduced in 2009 and originally included a death penalty clause for some homosexual acts.

The nation's Parliament passed the bill in December, replacing the death penalty provision with a proposal of life in prison for "aggravated homosexuality." This includes acts in which one person is infected with HIV, "serial offenders" and sex with minors, according to Amnesty International.

The new law also includes punishment -- up to seven years in prison -- for people and institutions who perform same-sex marriage ceremonies, language that was not in the 2009 version of the bill.

Lawmakers in the conservative nation said the influence of Western lifestyles risked destroying family units.

The bill also proposed prison terms for anyone who counsels or reaches out to gays and lesbians, a provision that could ensnare rights groups and others providing services to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

The White House issued a statement Monday: "Instead of standing on the side of freedom, justice, and equal rights for its people, today, regrettably, Ugandan President Museveni took Uganda a step backward by signing into law legislation criminalizing homosexuality."

The statement continued: "As President Obama has said, this law is more than an affront and a danger to the gay community in Uganda, it reflects poorly on the country's commitment to protecting the human rights of its people and will undermine public health, including efforts to fight HIV/AIDS. We will continue to urge the Ugandan government to repeal this abhorrent law and to advocate for the protection of the universal human rights of LGBT persons in Uganda and around the world."

RELATED:  Uganda 11th African state to tighten gay laws

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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.”

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Arizona Religious Freedom Bill Riles Gay Rights Supporters

Townhall.com:

The Arizona Legislature gave final approval Thursday evening to legislation that allows business owners asserting their religious beliefs to refuse service to gays, drawing backlash from Democrats who called the proposal "state-sanctioned discrimination" and an embarrassment.

The 33-27 vote by the House sends the legislation to Republican Gov. Jan Brewer and puts Arizona back at the forefront of a polarizing piece of legislation four years after the state enacted an immigration crackdown that caused a national furor.

Similar religious protection legislation has been introduced in Ohio, Mississippi, Idaho, South Dakota, Tennessee and Oklahoma, but Arizona's plan is the only one that has passed. The efforts are stalled in Idaho, Ohio and Kansas.

Republicans stressed that the bill is about protecting religious freedom and not discrimination. They frequently cited the case of a New Mexico photographer who was sued after refusing to take wedding pictures of a gay couple and said Arizona needs a law to protect people in the state from heavy-handed actions by courts and law enforcement.

The bill allows any business, church or person to cite the law as a defense in any action brought by the government or individual claiming discrimination. It also allows the business or person to seek an injunction once they show their actions are based on a sincere religious belief and the claim places a burden on the exercise of their religion.

The legislation prompted a heated debate on the floor of the House, touching on issues such as the religious freedom, constitutional protections and civil rights.

Opponents raised scenarios in which gay people in Arizona could be denied service at a restaurant or refused medical treatment if a business owner thought homosexuality was not in accordance with his religion. 

One lawmaker held up a sign that read "NO GAYS ALLOWED" in arguing what could happen if the law took effect, drawing a rebuke for violating rules that bar signs on the House floor.

Democrats also said there were a host of other scenarios not involving sexual orientations where someone could raise their religious beliefs as a discrimination defense.

The bill is backed by the Center for Arizona Policy, a social conservative group that opposes abortion and gay marriage. The group says the proposal is needed to protect against increasingly activist federal courts and simply clarifies existing state law.

"We see a growing hostility toward religion," said Josh Kredit, legal counsel for the group.

All but three Republicans in the House backed Senate Bill 1062 Thursday evening. All three House Republicans who broke ranks said they had problems with the proposal, though none elaborated at length.

"I disagree with the bill," said Rep. Ethan Orr. "I think it's a bad bill."

The two others were Reps. Heather Carter and Kate Brophy McGee.

The Senate passed the bill a day earlier on a straight party-line vote of 17-13.

Brewer doesn't comment on pending legislation, but she vetoed a similar measure last year. That action, however, came during an unrelated political standoff, and it's not clear whether she would support or reject this plan.

RELATED:  Arizona Senate: Business owners can cite religion to refuse service to gays

George W. Bush Found the Solution to America's Healthcare Crisis Seven Years Ago, Too Bad Nobody Listened

Politico.com:

The Congressional Budget Office’s warning that the Affordable Care Act will cause employment to fall by the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time workers is just the latest of Obamacare’s negative surprises. Unfortunately, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s statement that “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it” is proving to be depressingly accurate. 

The law’s defenders legitimately argue that it is not sufficient merely to criticize the Affordable Care Act; responsible action requires proposing an alternative. Fortunately, Republicans have a good one, and it’s been hiding in plain sight for the past seven years. The plan was first described in President George W. Bush’s 2007 State of the Union Address, but it remains timely. This plan would remedy most of the major problems that exist in America’s health care system and cause less destruction with fewer adverse consequences than Obamacare. 

There are two main problems associated with health care in the United States today. First, it is expensive. Health economists, among them Daniel Kessler at Stanford, have shown convincingly that the United States spends a larger share of its gross domestic product on health care than other countries (for example, about one-and-a-half times what Switzerland spends per capita) because of inappropriate incentives to use care efficiently. Patients who have insurance or rely on state funds to cover their expenses bear little of the cost of any treatment received, which causes them to use health resources as if they were almost free. This means that health care is overused and the scarce resources do not always go to those who need them most. Part of this is a result of a Tax Code that subsidizes expensive plans, which have low co-payments and overly extensive coverage. The second problem is the large number of uninsured Americans who do not have reasonable access to health care and who obtain the health care that they do receive in inefficient ways, such as using emergency rooms for minor ailments. 

So what would the ideal alternative to Obamacare look like? It should provide cost-effective care and the quality treatment that Americans deserve. Effective reform should discourage over-insurance that results from the subsidy of so-called Cadillac plans that pay for basic, inexpensive and predictable proceduresand have patient co-payments that are too low. Reform should encourage consumers to use America’s scarce health resources efficiently by inducing them to get tests and treatments that are justified instead of those that are selected because they are almost free to the decision-makers. Finally, reform should make health insurance available to the vast majority of Americans, some of whom cannot afford insurance without help. 

The Bush 2007 plan achieves these goals. The basic structure is to offer all Americans a standard tax deduction, in 2007 set at $15,000 for families and $7,500 for individuals. The deduction would apply to payroll tax — both employee and employer contribution — as well as to income tax. Importantly, the size of the deduction would be independent of the amount spent on the plan. Any taxpayer who has a plan that includes catastrophic coverage gets the full deduction, irrespective of the plan’s cost. That is important because it creates the incentives to choose efficiently. A family that wanted to spend less on the plan than the value of the deduction would pocket the difference. A family that wanted to spend more on a plan than the value of the of the deduction would bear the additional cost out of pocket. As a consequence, consumers would reap the full benefit of keeping the cost of their plan low, which prompts them to shop and choose effectively. If the extra coverage offered by a $10,000 plan over an $8,000 one is not worth at least $2,000 to the consumer, he will not purchase it. 

Under the current system, part of the cost is borne by others because the tax system does not treat employer-provided health insurance as income. As a consequence, a dollar spent by the employer or worker costs less than a dollar to that worker. The Bush plan would eliminate that distortion, replacing the non-taxed status of employer-provided health insurance with the standard deduction. By eliminating the link to employers, health insurance becomes more like auto insurance, where the consumer has appropriate incentives to shop around. Other features of the Bush proposal include allowing the purchase of plans across state lines to enhance competition and reform of medical liability to reduce the amount of defensive medicine.

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