Politics and Hypocrisy

Your Tax Dollars At Work

Fresh off being taken to the woodshed during a Congressional hearing for throwing a huge shindig, AIG, recipients of $85 billion of your money, plans their next get together on our dime.

American International Group Inc., castigated by the White House, Congress and Barack Obama for hosting a $440,000 conference days after an $85 billion federal bailout, plans to hold another gathering for brokers next week.

The event, at the Ritz-Carlton in California’s Half Moon Bay, aims to “motivate and educate” about 150 independent agents who sell AIG coverage to high-end clients, said spokesman Nicholas Ashooh.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino today called “despicable” expenses from the first gathering, a weeklong conference last month at the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach. Those costs included $23,000 for spa services, according to Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Wingnut Logic

I am still trying to grasp that whole “if you allow gays to marry you are infringing on my religious rights” thing but the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins takes it even farther. While speaking out against California’s gay marriage laws, he tells his flock about comments from a Pastor friend that intimates that allowing gay marriage will result in the “faithful” being jailed.

California Pastor Warns of Threat to Religious Freedom - FRC national campaign to defend marriage needs your immediate support
If marriage loses, religious liberty is next
September 23, 2008 | Refer a Friend

Dear XXXX,

I want you to hear something a California pastor said to me recently:

“If we lose, we go to jail.”

It’s just that simple, says Pastor Jim Garlow-if marriage loses in California, religious liberties everywhere will be next.

Family Research Council has been pouring resources into a national campaign to defend marriage and religious freedom, and . . .

I’m writing today to ask you again to stand with us. We still must raise $600,000 before the close of our fiscal year on September 30.

I know many Americans are feeling the pinch of a tight economy. As you prayerfully consider a gift, rest assured that FRC carefully stewards every dollar you give to the defense of marriage, religious freedom, parental rights, and human life.

The stakes are enormous. We face a national menace to religious liberty:

* In Boston, a Christian adoption agency was shut down for refusing to place orphans with homosexual couples.
* In New Mexico, a Christian-owned studio was fined more than $6,000 for refusing to photograph a lesbian commitment ceremony.
* In San Francisco, the city council officially condemned Christian opposition to homosexual adoption as hateful and discriminatory rhetoric.

By God’s grace and with your help, we can win this fight.

FRC has been protecting marriage during its 25-year history, and we’ve been voicing your values ever since activist judges in Massachusetts and California legalized counterfeit marriage and triggered a national debate.

Your prayers and generosity are enabling FRC to use our national platform to make the forceful case for traditional marriage in the media, in the churches, and at the grassroots.

In less than two months, voters in California, Florida, and Arizona will have the chance to place marriage out of the reach of activists and liberals.

Twenty-six states already have constitutional protections for marriage.

We pray that California, Florida, and Arizona will be added to that list once voters learn the truth about the lies the Left uses to justify counterfeit marriage.

The fight for marriage in the states is our first priority.

But we can’t take our eye off Washington, D.C. politicians. Your support is vital as we stand up to liberals who want to criminalize your religious speech . . . threaten the religious liberties of employers . . . silence conservative and Christian broadcasting . . . raise taxes . . . and impose taxpayer funding of abortion and embryonic stem cell research.

Thank you for sacrificially giving whatever you can at this critical moment for faith, family, and freedom in America.

FRC national campaign to defend marriage needs your immediate support

Standing (Ephesians 6:13),

Tony Perkins
President

P.S. Please forward this e-mail to a friend.

Family Research Council: 801 G Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20001
P: 202/393-2100 or 800/225-4008

Sounds an awful lot like the standard NRA scare tactic talking point that goes something like “if you ban semi-automatic assault rifles what is to stop you from banning gun ownership altogether“, only crazier.

$700,000,000,000

$700,000,000,000!

I am not sure what else to add but I bet Congress will find something and of course that only includes bailing out the banks and brokerage houses that thought giving $500,000 loans to minimum wage fry cooks was a prudent business decision. I would image that if we give it a few days the Democrats will add another $100 billion or so to bailout the fry cooks as well.

Attack The Messenger, Karl Rove Edition

The liberal blogs have been all over John McCain and Sarah Palin for telling some whoppers during the campaign. It has recently gotten so bad that even that darn liberal media has finally started taking notice of the half truths and bedtime stories coming from the McCain camp.

Of course we all know that a rightie’s blind faith in the Grand Old Party prevents them from ever considering that their guy/gal might be less than truthful so they instead do their best to look the other way or come up with some whoppers of their own to explain away the inconsistencies. This has been the political world that we lived in until recently when several non-partisan fact checking organizations have sprouted up to try and get around the spin that comes from both sides.

Now that these groups are also now calling BS on much of the BS coming from the McCain/Palin camp, the GOP spin machine led by their leader, Karl Rove, has had to go into full attack mode. And Fox News is more than happy to let their recently minted “political commentator” go on the offensive.

But on Fox News Sunday today, former Bush political adviser Karl Rove dismissed the organizations, claiming that “they’ve got their own biases built in there.” “You can’t trust the fact-check organizations,” said Rove

While Rove did concede that McCain might have gone too far at times (which is amazing in it’s own right), he stopped short of saying that McCain didn’t tell the truth because in Rove’s world, we could never let the facts get in the way of McCain and Palin’s mission.

Saying otherwise would be sexist and unpatriotic.

Ollie North?

Ever since our military attacked Azizabad, Afghanistan on August 22nd, numerous groups including the United Nations and human rights organizations have claimed that up to 90 civilians were killed. Also since August 22nd, our military has disputed the number of civilian deaths instead claiming that no more than 7 might have died.

Finally yesterday the military admitted that the scores of witnesses and other evidence could mean that the higher civilian death toll might be accurate. While that thought is horrible, what makes it even worse is who they used to corroborate their initial denials, the one and only Fox News correspondent Oliver North.

The US military said that its findings were corroborated by an independent journalist embedded with the US force. He was named as the Fox News correspondent Oliver North, who came to prominence in the 1980s Iran-Contra affair, when he was an army colonel.

So we are being accused of killing almost 100 civilians during one of our military operations and we use the word of Iran Contra front man Ollie North for death toll corroboration?

Pit Bull With Lipstick

Remember that line from Sarah Palin’s speech at the RNC about the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull that so energized the troops? It seems that it isn’t the first time someone associated with John McCain has used a similar phrase though in slightly different context.

Do you remember controversial pastor John Hagee, you know the guy that John McCain put on the gold plated pandering knee pads in order to get his endorsement? Well he also said something very similar in his book “What Every Man Wants in a Woman”.

Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist.

Do you think the McCain speechwriters had a copy of this handy while writing the Palin speech?

JA To Promote Proper Business Practices

I saw this on KELO’s newscast and can’t find it online but found it interesting just the same.

A recent survey by Junior Achievement found that many young students thought that cheating in business to get ahead is ok. As a result JA decided to started a new program to try and change that perception among our future business leaders.

Of course a program of the magnitude that JA wanted wouldn’t be cheap so who do you think  jumped in to help out? I would bet that you wouldn’t have guessed it was that bastion of fair play in business, Wal-Mart, whom made a nice donation to Junior Achievement for this program.

So now we have company that strong-arms their suppliers, tells their employees how to vote, and forces their competition out of business with brute force pricing tactics wanting to help instill fair business ideals into our young business people? Maybe they want them working for their competition so they will have a whole new generation to take advantage of…

You just can’t make this stuff up.

UPDATE 8:30pm: The story is now up on KELO.

McCain: I Will Protect The Creative Industries From Piracy

The hits just keep on coming from John McCain in his bid for the White House. Yesterday in my quick hits I mentioned how the McCain campaign was being sued by Jackson Browne for using his music without permission. While I can think of no better theme than Browne’s “Running on Empty” to describe the McCain run, what really is funny is his just released technology position statement.

John McCain Will Protect The Creative Industries From Piracy. The entertainment industry is both a vital sector of the domestic economy and among the largest U.S. exporters. While the Internet has provided tremendous opportunity for the creators of copyrighted works, including music and movies, to distribute their works around the world at low cost, it has also given rise to a global epidemic of piracy. John McCain supports efforts to crack down on piracy, both on the Internet and off.

So while McCain says he will protect intellectual property owner’s rights, Think Progress documents instances where he has been busted doing just the opposite besides the aforementioned Jackson Browne lawsuit.

– Earlier this week, the McCain campaign re-cut a web ad after comedian Mike Myers’ publicist complained about the use of footage of Myers and fellow Saturday Night Live alum Dana Carvey’s Wayne’s World characters.

– Last month, the McCain campaign had to pull and re-cut a web ad after Frankie Valli’s record label, the Warner Music Group asserted its copyright claims over the use of the song “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You.”

– Earlier this year, the copyright owners for the “Rocky” theme song “telephoned the McCain campaign to politely complain it was being used without permission.”

Sounds like a staunch defender of intellectual property to me, how about you?

Not Every Violation Of The Law Is A Crime

Sounds like something someone that broke a law would say in their defense but in this case it is a quote from our own Attorney General!

US Attorney General Michael Mukasey used the “not every violation of the law is a crime” meme when trying to justify why no one from his department would be prosecuted in the DOJ hiring scandal thaw saw 2 years worth of hiring illegalities discovered during Alberto Gonzales years.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Tuesday said former Justice Department officials will not face prosecution for letting improper political considerations drive hirings of prosecutors, immigration judges and other career government lawyers.

And here is the money quote given in front of the American Bar Association coincidentally:

But, Mukasey told delegates to the American Bar Association annual meeting, “not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime. In this instance, the two joint reports found only violations of the civil service laws.” (emphasis mine)

So what’s the breaking of a few laws, civil or criminal, between friends especially if you are a member of the “teflon coated” Bush Administration?

Not Sure What To Say About This

10 year old rats out his mom

A Bakersfield woman faces charges that she counterfeited money and identification cards after her 10-year-old son turned her in to authorities.

According to Kern County Superior Court records, the boy gave sheriff’s deputies phony money last month that his mother created. The child told investigators she also had a computer that makes fake ID cards.

Deputies executing a search warrant seized computer disks, scanners and printers.

The thirty-year-old woman is due in court Friday. She faces several charges, including possessing equipment to commit forgery.

Deputies said she was arrested July 4 and posted $50,000 bail the same day.

Feel free to insert your own punchline.