His Holiness has a knack for making even pathetic no-talent skanks like Sarah Silverman sit up and pay attention. Of course, she'll have to get on the right side of the abortion issue if she wants to be taken seriously by any real Catholic, let alone the Pope. Of course that's never going to happen. Instead I suspect she'll keep raising money to support abortion, no matter how ridiculous the stunt.
ABC Preaches the 'Gospel of Polyamory' and the Saving Power of Threesome
Moving past gay marriage, ABC News on Monday pushed the "gospel" of polyamory, having multiple romantic and sexual partners in an open relationship. Co-anchor Dan Harris hyped, "More couples opting to become triples or fourples. Live-in lovers spicing up the marital bed, even helping raise the children."
Harris opened the segment by lecturing, "Just for a minute, let's do a thought experiment. Let's set aside all of the emotion and consider whether the evangelists for open marriage might have a point." Reporter Nick Watt profiled Michael, Kamela and Rachel, a threesome "couple" that has sex with numerous people, all while raising a child. Watt described, "They're spreading the gospel of polyamory, hoping to speed up societal acceptance of this kind of set-up."
Watt could only manage the most meager criticism of polyamory. Talking to sexual psychologist Karen Stewart, he offered, "Watching your spouse having sex with somebody else is not really my bag, I've got to say."
This isn't the first time ABC has promoted polyamory. On January 4, 2012 Good Morning America touted the sex games of a "modern" family who date within their "species."
Comments by panelist Stephen K. Bannon, Executive Chairman of Breitbart News, at The Future of Conservativism conference, held at the National Press Club in Washington DC, September 24, 2013.
Comments by panelist Lori Sanders, Policy Analyst at R Street Institute, at The Future of Conservativism conference, held at the National Press Club in Washington DC, September 24, 2013.
Comments by panelist Alice Linahan, founder of Voices Empower, at The Future of Conservativism conference, held at the National Press Club in Washington DC, September 24, 2013.
TV's Andy Levy fills in for Greg as host and welcomes guests Sherrod Small, Diane Macedo and Charles Payne. Michael Moynihan takes over as the ombudsman. (I decided to post this rather than last Saturday night's episode because the sound quality for that one sucked.)
Politico: Latest ObamaCare Delay Crushes Relaunch "Victory"
Politico writer David Nather says the Obama Administration's announcement that the small business Obamacare system will not be ready for the website's Saturday relaunch dashes all Democratic hopes for declaring the relaunch a victory.
"There's no way the administration could declare victory anyway, since it just suffered the embarrassment of another 'what now?' announcement the day before Thanksgiving - the one-year delay of online enrollment for small businesses in federally run health insurance exchanges," writes Nather. "So there will be no victory celebration, no announcement that could even sound like it."
News that Obamacare's small business enrollment system, known as the SHOP program, will be delayed until after the 2014 midterm elections creates a "victory void" for Democrats scrambling to find political cover for the highly unpopular Obamacare program.
"Democrats on Capitol Hill have their own nightmare scenario, too: The White House gives them nothing to brag about, no evidence that the site is actually better," reports Nather.
Black Friday is here and you know what that means: minions of Big Labor, left-wing activist groups and yes, maybe even a handful of actual Walmart employees, will be out picketing the nation's largest retailer in various locales across the country. Big Labor propagandists and left-wing activists are trying to convince people that this is the year when their predictions of "widespread, massive strikes and protests for Black Friday" will actually come true. This, in turn, will signify a heroic new era of workers uniting against the evil empire of capitalism…or something.
In reality, these "strikes" are not the culmination of an organic movement of oppressed and unhappy employees. Instead, they are nothing more than the kind of Potemkin village protests - comprised of few or no actual Walmart employees - that are organized by Big Labor to smear the nation’s biggest retailer. It's the usual shakedown.
But you won't see those national labor unions on the front lines. Instead you'll see an organization called OUR Walmart, which represents the unions’ latest gimmick: "worker center" front groups (the lefties prefer the term "alt-labor").
Worker centers look like unions, throw money around like unions and protest like unions. But since they don't actually negotiate with company management on behalf of workers, these so-called "worker centers" aren't required to register as unions under federal labor laws. They are typically registered as nonprofit organizations - the same designation as churches, charities and schools.
This allows them to avoid many of the reporting requirements of labor unions, as well as the necessity of holding democratic leadership elections. There's nothing left-wingers abhor more than public accountability and honest elections. Thus the rise of astroturf outfits like OUR Walmart.
The loophole in labor laws that OUR Walmart and other worker centers are exploiting is central to their existence. Without it, after 30 days, they would be forced to do one of two things: either call for an election - an election they'd undoubtedly lose - or call off their protests.
Even MSNBC recognizes that the so-called "strikes" are more left-wing agitation than legitimate labor action. In an article on MSNBC.com, Ned Resnikoff acknowledged that OUR Walmart hasn't predicted large scale employee turnout. Instead, they're suggesting that the agitators will be just more liberal activists:
But a protest - which doesn't even necessarily include current Walmart employees - isn't the same thing as a strike. Indeed, the organization has been downplaying the number of strikers, and instead emphasizing the support it enjoys from organizations like Color of Change and MoveOn.org.
Depending on which union leader you talk to, OUR Walmart is either a subsidiary of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, or a recently spun-off independent organization that's merely funded by the union. The UFCW has devoted substantial resources to this week's street theater by printing and distributing protest materials including posters, handbills, etc., and is even providing social media operational support through paid consultants.
What they can't provide is an authentic employee protest.
OUR Walmart's 2012 Black Friday protest featured thousands of demonstrators, but less than 50 actual associates, according to the company. Labor watchdogs expect more of the same this year, especially because the worker center keeps focusing on the number of protests, rather than the number of employee dissidents.
"They're not the type of grassroots worker-driven efforts that media portrays them to be," Ryan Williams of Worker Center Watch said. "They're protests held by professional protesters - oftentimes paid and given training - to cause a scene for publicity."
J. Justin Wilson, managing director of the Center for Union Facts, said that UFCW members, political allies, and paid protestors dominate such rallies, in order to give off the appearance of strength.
"OUR Walmart has nowhere near the support they need to unionize Walmart; if they did, they would do it," he said.
There are some indications that even the non-employee activists are unreliable:
Wilson's organization sent observers to labor union meetings designed to plan and promote the Black Friday walkouts in Chicago, Pittsburgh and Raleigh. Although touted by union leaders as crucial to the strike’s success, according to Wilson nearly no one attended the events.
Only two union activists - not Wal-Mart employees - showed up to the Chicago meeting on Nov. 12. Just four managed to make it to Pittsburgh's strike planning committee this Wednesday. And an expected meeting in Raleigh earlier this month was canceled, apparently due to a complete lack of interest.
"At the Chicago one, instead of having a meeting talking about the strike they had people making phone calls, trying to get people to turn out for the strikes," Wilson claimed. "And even after making a fair number of calls, no one actually even wanted to come."
Strikes against Wal-Mart were similarly exaggerated in the run-up to Black Friday in 2012.
However many activists show up for the latest protests, there is no doubt that this activity is intended to do nothing but make life difficult for Walmart by fabricating a public relations disaster. It's the threat that always accompanies an extortion racket.
White House targets local media on ObamaCare
President Barack Obama has bungled HealthCare.gov so badly that he's told senior aides to not even try to win positive coverage from the national press.
Instead, they're going local.
In the past month, Obama and his Cabinet have hit nine of the top 10 cities with the highest concentration of the uninsured, while senior administration officials have held almost daily reporter conference calls in nearly a dozen states to challenge Republican governors who refuse to expand Medicaid.
Obama's political arm, Organizing for Action, is taking a similar approach, holding protests — some attended by only a dozen or so people — that win coverage on the local pages of the nation’s small-town newspapers.
The local strategy is unusually aggressive, even for a president on the ropes and desperate to circumvent the national media. It's been the only way to break through the glut of bad headlines and go on the offense to make the law work — although even when the White House showers attention on small markets, the results can be mixed.
Obama, thin-skinned about media coverage of his presidency and often frustrated by the White House press corps, knows a few favorable local headlines is as good as it gets these days.
Bill Schulz has left Red Eye... Meanwhile: Greg welcomes guests Sherrod Small, Jedediah Bila and Brian Kilmeade.
And in unrelated looks-like-somebody-lost-a-bet news, the Oprah Winfrey penis dress that the mainstream media refuses to cover...
Apparently Paul Krugman has been drinking from the same batch of Kool-aid as Debbie Wasserman Schultz...
Krugman: ObamaCare Becoming 'Benghazi-Type Affair' that 'Nobody Else Cares About' but GOP
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman informed his audience on Tuesday that the problem-plagued Affordable Care Act has turned a corner. Based on "upbeat" statements from the White House and a shift in the media's coverage of the implementation of the ACA, Krugman sees the law's roll-out evolving from a failure into an unmitigated success.
Krugman added that the problems will continue, but not in their present form. "Obamacare will turn into a Benghazi-type affair where Republicans are screaming about a scandal nobody else cares about," Krugman predicts.
"White House officials are sounding increasingly upbeat," Krugman wrote on Tuesday, linking to a Washington Post summary of Tuesday's update from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. "They could be deluded or spinning; but after what happened two months ago one suspects that the last thing they want is to inflate expectations unduly."
He goes on to cite a story broadcast on CNN on Tuesday which focused on winners and losers as a result of the new law. Krugman, like Mediaite's Tommy Christopher, found the report to be lopsidedly focused on people who would be better off under the health care reform law.
"At this rate, the whole horrors-of-Obamacare meme will be gone in weeks, not months," Krugman declares. "But the GOP echo chamber won’t be able to let it go."
But unlike the no-limit Kool-aid addicts in the Establishment Media, those Democrats who actually have to deal with political ramifications and other reality-based problems are not nearly as clueless confident:
Democratic leaders claim the bungled launch of Obamacare is just the latest news sensation — a media-stirred tempest that looks in the heat of the moment like it could upend the midterm election, but ends up fizzling well before voters head to the polls.
Some party strategists say they're in denial.
And that perceived gap between party spin and facts on the ground is fueling worries that the White House and Democratic higher-ups aren't taking the possible electoral blowback seriously enough or doing enough to shield their candidates. Democratic contenders in the toughest races are distinctly less convinced that Obamacare will fade as an election-year issue — and they can't afford to just cross their fingers that things get ironed out or that Republicans revert to political hara-kiri.
Wait, wait, wait! Hara-kiri? Did somebody just commit the hate crime of "cultural appropriation?" But I digress...
"We're trying to deny what everyone knows is happening," said one Democratic pollster who is a veteran of competitive congressional races. "Anybody who is halfway intelligent knows this is a big...problem for us. It's impossible not to see. We can try to hide our heads in the sand and pretend it's not a problem, but it is."
Sadly, I'm afraid that "halfway intelligent" is still too high a bar for the vast majority of low-info types who insist on voting against their interests by supporting less-than-halfway-intelligent Dim-o-crats like Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Steny Hoyer.
Apparently the Regime has a name for those party aparatchiks guilty of the doubleplusungood thoughtcrime of being nervous about the political fallout of massive ObamaCare fail: They are "bed-wetters."
There's a term of art that the Obama White House uses to describe its neurotic supporters who instantly race to the worst-case scenario: They are known as "bed-wetters." Two months into the dysfunctional life of healthcare.gov, however, that seems a perfectly appropriate physiological reaction.
Liberalism has spent the better part of the past century attempting to prove that it could competently and responsibly extend the state into new reaches of American life. With the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, the administration has badly injured that cause, confirming the worst slurs against the federal government. It has stifled bad news and fudged promises; it has failed to translate complex mechanisms of policy into plain English; it can't even launch a damn website. What's more, nobody responsible for the debacle has lost a job or suffered a demotion. Over time, the Affordable Care Act's technical difficulties can be repaired. Reversing the initial impressions of government ineptitude won't be so easy.
Therefore the Kool-aid Coalition of the Willing is required to keep calm and carry on by continuing to search for the elusive ObamaCare success story...
Via Guy Benson: I'll leave you with lefties' latest coping mechanism: Finding individual people who haven't been harmed by Obamacare. Via the crowd that shrugs off millions of cases as "anecdotes:"
Remy is excellent as always! Lyrics here.
Large employers cite upcoming ObamaCare Cadillac tax for reduced benefits
So, if you have a catastrophic plan in the individual market, you're losing the plan you may have liked for the privilege of paying more. If you had a middle-of-the-road individual market plan you liked, you're losing that plan for the privilege of paying more often for fewer benefits. If you had a decent plan at a small employer, you're likely to get dumped into the exchanges as mandate-heavy health care plans get too expensive for small businesses to afford. If you have a plan you like at a medium-sized employer, you're likely to get dumped into the exchanges next year when the employer mandate kicks in, and your costs are already rising or benefits are going down. If you're at a large employer with a very nice health insurance plan, sorry, you're now going to have reduced benefits to avoid the "Cadillac" tax.
Young Americans Not Receiving Promised ObamaCare Subsidies
Though the Obama administration said that individuals making under $45,960 would get Obamacare subsidies, low-income young people in most of America's big cities who relied on that promise are discovering they will be ineligible for them.
According to a CNN report, though young people are now required to purchase insurance under Obamacare or pay a fine, "many low-income younger Americans won't get any subsidy at all" because, as the Obama administration claims, the "cost of insurance is lower than the government initially expected."
In April Sebelius "told a congressional subcommittee that any individual making under that $45,960 threshold - or four times the poverty level of $11,490 for an individual - would qualify for 'an upfront tax subsidy.'
Wrong! As Ed Morrissey at Hot Air points out:
The trigger on this is the premium price for a qualifying "bronze" plan in the exchange for the consumer. If the premium does not go over a certain percentage of income, then the formula produces a zero for the calculated subsidy. The problem for these consumers is that the baseline plans still cost more than their previous options, and have large deductibles to boot. That sets the incentives for younger consumers to bail out of the system, paying the fine and only signing up for insurance after a catastrophic event, which they cannot be denied under the new law.
That will mean disaster for the ObamaCare system...
If the subsidies don't show up, neither will these consumers. They'd be better off paying retail, which thanks to the enormous deductibles in these comprehensive plans they'd have to do anyway, rather than premiums and retail for provider services. And this is yet another point on which the administration has been less than honest with the very people who backed them through two successive presidential elections.
Saudi Arabia: Obama "Lied To Us" About Nuke Negotiations With Iran
A senior advisor to the Saudi royal family has accused its Western allies of deceiving the oil rich kingdom in striking the nuclear accord with Iran and said Riyadh would follow an independent foreign policy.
Nawaf Obaid told a think tank meeting in London that Saudi Arabia was determined to pursue its own foreign and policy goals. Having in the past been reactive to events, the leading Sunni Muslim nation was determined to be pro-active in future.
Mr Obaid said that while Saudi Arabia knew that the US was talking directly to Iran through a channel in the Gulf state of Oman, Washington had not directly briefed its ally.
"We were lied to, things were hidden from us," he said. "The problem is not with the deal struck in Geneva but how it was done."
Now why would anybody think that Obama and his minions are less than truthful? I can't quite put my finger on it. Oh, wait, that's right...
Because obviously!
Presidential poll: Ronald Reagan's the greatest, Obama the worst
Former President Ronald Reagan has edged out Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy as the nation's greatest president in over a century, and President Obama was rated the biggest failure by a sizable margin over George W. Bush, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, according to a new poll.
The YouGov/Economist rankings just released found that more adults, 32 percent, put "the Gipper" in the "great" category. Of the 1,000 polled, FDR followed at 31 percent and JFK at 30 percent. Just 14 percent rated Obama as great.
Instead, 37 percent graded Obama a "failure," more than Bush at 32 percent, Nixon at 30 percent and Jimmy Carter at 22 percent.
The survey looked at presidents since Theodore Roosevelt, the first of the 20th century. Those surveyed were asked to rate each president in six categories: great, near great, average, below average, failure, and don't know.
Greg welcomes guests Jim Norton, Ann Coulter and Dean Cain.
Poll: Obama Sinking Dems in Florida
A new Quinnipiac poll of Florida finds a majority of voters in the state view President Obama as untrustworthy. Just 44% believe Obama is honest. This view is a major factor in the collapse of Obama's approval rating in the state, where just 40% of voters approve of the job he is doing. This poll drop isn't just confined to Obama, however. The poll found a significant trend towards Republicans and steep drops in approval ratings for Democrats up and down the ballot.
Former Gov. Charlie Crist, who is seeking the Democrat nomination for Governor next year, saw his favorable ratings drop 15 points since the last poll taken in June. Among Independents, Crist lost 22 points and more voters view him unfavorably now. In a match-up with incumbent Gov. Rick Scott, Crist holds a 7 point lead. In March, however, Crist led Scott by 16 points.
Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson dropped 16 points in his favorable ratings. In June, 51% of voters approved of Nelson. Today, just 43% approve. His unfavorable ratings jumped, as well, rising to 37% from 29% in June. Nelson's numbers are near the low-point of his political career.
Even Hillary Clinton has been hurt by Obama's polling collapse. Her lead over potential GOP opponents dropped 5 points overall. She leads former Gov. Jeb Bush by just 2 points now, and loses Independents. She leads NJ Gov. Chris Christie by just 4.
These numbers go a long way to understanding the panic that is consuming Democrats on Capitol Hill. The disastrous ObamaCare rollout hasn't just hurt Obama, it has done considerable damage to the Democrat brand in general.
If this trend persists, many Democrats will have to publicly separate themselves from Barack Obama and his policies to preserve their political careers.
This discussion between Kevin Glass of Townhall and Ben Domenech of The Transom, The Federalist and the Heartland Institute took place in late July but since it deals with the general topic of libertarian populism it's still timely. It's a very important subject and worth the time to listen.
On Rational Actors, Kevin asks Ben to explain libertarian populism. How is it different from other kinds of reform conservatism? What does libertarian populism have to offer middle- and working-class voters? Ben points toward a number of areas ripe for reform: the payroll tax, farm and energy subsidies, and big banks. Would the GOP base accept a more progressive tax code? Kevin and Ben next discuss the changing media landscape, where ad-supported models are collapsing while paid subscriptions are on the rise. Plus: What Glenn Beck, Andrew Sullivan, and Netflix have in common.
Avik Roy joins Glenn Reynolds to discuss Medicaid, the federal health care program for the poor. Roy explains that most enrollments under ObamaCare are in the Medicaid program, and that Medicaid is actually having a negative health impact. Hear more about the ObamaCare debacle, and Roy's new book, How Medicaid Fails the Poor on this InstaVision.
Greg welcomes guests Joe DeVito, Ellison Barber and R.A. The Rugged Man.
To clear up any confusion as to what they're talking about in the A Block, it's this. The first time the episode was posted, YouTube was forced to block it, apparently at the request of Family Feud, so the clip has been cut out in this version.
Obama Named to GQ's "Least Influential People" List
As Cortney pointed out, the media still considers the President Obama to be a "celebrity" rather than the leader of the United States. According to the magazine GQ, however, Obama is not even that good of a celebrity: he landed at #17 on their annual list of the 25 Least Influential People.
Here's what the magazine had to say about the president:
17. President Obama
He can blame Republicans in Congress all he likes and get away with it because congressional Republicans are the worst. But the fact remains that I have spent the majority of this man's presidency watching bad things happen, then hearing a thoughtful speech about how we gotta make sure the bad things never happen again, and then watching as nothing gets done. Next time there's an election, I want Nate Silver to analyze the data and tell me who to vote for so that I don't end up casting my ballot for a very eloquent hat stand.
Ouch.
Former NBA basketball player and unofficial ambassador to North Korea Dennis Rodman took the list's number one spot. Other notables on the list included convicted murderer Jodi Arias, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, and former Rep. Anthony Weiner.
"This was a bad year for impotent megalomaniacs." - Esquire
In this installment of the Your Government series, Virtual President Bill Whittle explains why a two-cent aspirin pill costs $20, and how we can replace the waste and inefficiencies of our present system with one that empowers patients to use their own money, just as if it were...their own money.
Greg welcomes guests Tom Shillue, Bonnie McFarlane and Patti Ann Browne.
Largest massacre of Christians in Syria ignored
The worst Christian massacre - complete with mass graves, tortured-to-death women and children, and destroyed churches - recently took place in Syria, at the hands of the U.S.-supported jihadi "rebels"; and the U.S. government and its "mainstream media" mouthpiece are, as usual, silent (that is, when not actively trying to minimize matters).
The massacre took place in Sadad, an ancient Syriac Orthodox Christian habitation, so old as to be mentioned in the Old Testament. Most of the region's inhabitants are poor, as Sadad is situated in the remote desert between Homs and Damascus (desert regions, till now, apparently the only places Syria's Christians could feel secure; 600 Christian families had earlier fled there for sanctuary from the jihad, only to be followed by it).
In late October, the U.S-supported "opposition" invaded and occupied Sadad for over a week, till ousted by the nation's military. Among other atrocities, 45 Christians - including women and children - were killed, several tortured to death; Sadat's 14 churches, some ancient, were ransacked and destroyed; the bodies of six people from one family, ranging from ages 16 to 90, were found at the bottom of a well (an increasingly common fate for "subhuman" Christians).
The jihadis even made a graphic video (with English subtitles) of those whom they massacred, while shouting Islam's victory-cry, "Allahu Akbar" (which John McCain equates to a Christian saying "thank God"). Another video, made after Sadad was liberated shows more graphic atrocities.
Harry Reid then: "My Republican colleagues claim that nominees are entitled to an up-down vote. That claim ignores history, including recent history."
Harry Reid now: "These nominees deserve at least an up-or-down vote. But Republican filibusters deny them a fair vote and deny the president his team."
So, what really happened in the past eight years to cause such blatant and unforgivable hypocrisy? The Democrats have their false narratives and their revisionist history but the fact of the matter is that only one thing has changed since 2005: The Democrats became the majority party in the Senate. If you believe anything else, then you really need to kick the Kool-aid habit and give reality another chance.
