JUDICIAL WATCH sues Defense Department to learn why ‘So help me God’ removed from Air Force materials.
THE PERSISTENT BIAS against ex-gays.
Public-policy decisions on homosexual issues are, in fact, typically determined by gay activists who carry this intrinsic prejudice. It is gay teachers who determine policy for homosexual students; gay librarians who determine what books are permitted on the library shelves; and gay mental-health professionals who get to tell the world whether any sort of sexual-orientation modification is possible. For example, anyone who has a comment or question about APA (American Psychological Association) policy is referred to the Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns, which does not recognize ex-gays or the concerns of people struggling to change.
In fact, the most grievous and damaging example of this prejudice is the recent APA Task Force Report on the treatment of homosexuality, written by a panel that consisted almost entirely of gay mental-health practitioners. Of the six APA panelists, five self-identify as gay or bisexual, and the APA Staff Liaison who chose them, Clinton Anderson, is also gay. All of the panelists admitted, at the start of their work, to being opposed to reorientation therapy. Not a single reorientation therapist who applied to be a part of the Task Force–and there were several distinguished and scholarly psychologists who did apply– were permitted to join the committee. . . .
An additional result of gay activism’s power to determine public policy is the fact that ex-gays are then marginalized and intimidated into silence. Gays see them as “gays-in-process,” or gays with a small “g,” and not entitled to claim a valid identity in their own right. Ex-gays, they believe, are merely gays who have not yet come out of the closet; they are simply “inhibited by their own homophobia.”
GET OUT: Illegal Aliens Demand Free Organ Transplants. “This insanity is taking place outside a prestigious Chicago-area hospital, according to news reports, but it’s only a matter of time before it spreads nationwide. Dozens of demonstrators and hunger strikers have gathered outside the medical facility chanting through bullhorns and waving large signs to protest the hospital’s policy that patients must be in the U.S. legally to qualify for an organ transplant procedure.”
RELIGION OF PIECES: It’s open season on Christians in Syria and across the Muslim world.
THE COLLEGE FIX: Jobless And $150K In College Loan Debt – One Grad’s Story. “My bachelor’s degree in financial mathematics and political science (double-major) from Asbury University in 2011 and my master’s degree from the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky that I earned this past spring are impressive and all, but have not guaranteed me a job.”
Related: Hard Times for Gender Studies Major. “I have a honors BA and I’m defending my MA thesis in two weeks. I am also apply for jobs and I can only find stuff in the service industry. I applied for a Hotel Front Desk Clerk job today. My degrees mean NOTHING. I am at the end of my rope.”
HOW IT WAS MEANT TO BE SUNG: The Moment a Soccer Crowd Turns a National Anthem SNAFU Into a ‘Chilling’ Example of Patriotism. “During Friday’s Sporting KC Major League Soccer game, technical difficulties plagued what was supposed to be a performance by Dr. Cameron Smith. His moment to shine was thwarted by a faulty public address system and two misbehaving microphones. So that’s when the fans in Kansas City decided to step up and deliver a rousing rendition of the song themselves.”
Related: Crowd sings the anthem at a Bruins game after the Boston Marathon bombing.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Don’t be a soft target. “Is your church, synagogue, or temple a physically safe place for you and your family? There are organizations which focus on safety in churches, and some books that address these issues. I’d like to highlight one of each of these: Black Watch Threat Management Services, and the book, Wolves Among the Sheep: Protecting Your Church from Violence.”
LEGALIZED PLUNDER: Gov Targets Private Bank Accounts: Seizes Funds Of Innocent Americans Without Charge or Trial. “Their $35,000 was subsequently seized after the IRS filed a secret warrant (a lot of that going around these days) accusing them of ‘structuring.’ Because of the nature of civil forfeiture laws they now have to fight for their own money and prove their activities were legal. The IRS required no proof whatsoever.”
Related: Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture.
ABORTIONIST: We Invite Moms to Hold Their Babies After Abortions.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to Turn a Campus into an Indoctrination Center. “I will never forget how my job interview at another university, the only time I ever applied for a teaching position, was interrupted by one professor screaming at me, ‘How could you ever possibly represent the narrative of the Palestinian people?’ To which I responded that I didn’t think I was supposed to represent its case, clearly. I merely thought I was supposed to teach about it.”
RULE OF LAW MEN: Obama Administration Rewrites Law to Forgive False Citizenship Claims by Minors. “Congress, in its sole authority to write immigration laws, has deemed it fit to provide exceptions for juveniles in other parts of immigration law, notably other criminal offenses, but not this one. Aliens who are caught knowingly lying about being a citizen for any reason, whether to avoid being discovered as an illegal alien or to obtain some benefit, such as a driver’s license or in-state tuition, may not receive a green card or immigrant visa, period. Until now.”
LET’S NOT GIVE THEM ANY IDEAS: Backing Up Over Your Own Kid: Why Isn’t the Federal Government Doing Something About This? “What next? Are people who beat their kids to death while drunk going to demand that the government mandate monitored video cameras in every room of your house?”
ROGER PEARSE: More on the arrest of Josh Williamson. “The cops also arrested a man who had been enjoying the sermon, for asserting that he had been enjoying the sermon. They have since denied Williamson was arrested at all — but this is a lie, because the pastor recorded the copper saying ‘I am arresting you’, and I’ve heard it.”
Earlier: Arrested for Preaching the Gospel.
VOX DAY: The importance of slut-shaming.
SMITHSONIAN: Inside America’s Great Romance With Norman Rockwell. “He was viewed as a cornball and a square, a convenient symbol of the bourgeois values Modernism sought to topple. His long career overlapped with the key art movements of the 20th century, from Cubism to Minimalism, but while most avant-gardists were heading down a one-way street toward formal reduction, Rockwell was driving in the opposite direction—he was putting stuff into art.”
TRANSFERRING WEALTH TO THE “RIGHT” FOLKS: Sen. Mike Lee’s “pro-family” proposal.
Senator Lee proposes adding “an additional $2500-per child tax credit” applicable to income and payroll taxes in order to address what he calls the “Parent Tax Penalty.” Essentially, he claims that parents are “taxed” unfairly as they bear the “enormous economic costs of raising” their children . . .
One wonders why Lee’s plan is considered pro-family when, at most, it is pro-parenthood. His plan does not distinguish between the married couple with 2.5 kids struggling to pay the mortgage and help with algebra homework and the irresponsible alcoholic who would see it as an incentive to bring children into a dangerous environment.
Indiscriminately paying people who have children may exacerbate many social problems, like fatherlessness, that Sen. Lee’s proposal does not seem equipped to address.
JAY SCHALIN: Inclusion Is Exclusion: The New Segregation. “Hamilton College’s ‘dean for diversity and inclusion’ has decided to hold an event limited to ‘people of color’ only.” The dean writes, “In order to create a safe space, this program is open to people of color only.”
UPDATE: “My intent was to be inclusive but my phrasing suggested otherwise.”
NICE ROUNDUP: Nine-year-old suspended for pretending his toy was a gun.
Unfortunately for Gage and young children across the country, actions that were once considered simple childhood fun are slowly become punishable crimes.
Despite a 70 percent drop in gun crime since 1993 according to U.S. Justice Department statistics, a media-induced hysteria has led to a near ban on normal childhood behavior.
Just last March, a 6-year-old student from Washington state was temporarily suspended for talking about a Nerf gun he had at home because others reportedly found the conversation “threatening.”
A 7-year-old student in Maryland was suspended after chewing his “Pop Tart” breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun last March as well.
Two 6-year-old students in Maryland were suspended last January for making gun gestures with their hands while playing “cops and robbers.” The school claimed the boys’ game was a threat to other students.
That same month a 5-year-old girl in Pennsylvania was suspended for simply talking about her “Hello Kitty” toy bubble gun during the bus ride home. According to the school, her actions constituted a “terroristic threat.”
LA TIMES: Divorces increase as improving economy makes split-ups affordable. “When the recession hit and home values plummeted, the couple had fewer assets. Divorcing resulted in greater financial losses. Now, however, the housing market has rebounded and interest rates are [close to] historical lows. Couples now have more wealth as they consider divorce, which lessens the financial impact.” Who’s actually considering divorce, though? “Couples,” or nonworking spouses unsure about job prospects?
I HOPE YOU LEARNED YOUR LESSON, YOUNG LADY: Tunisian Girl Recounts Her Sex Jihad in Syria.
Her name is Lamia, and she’s 19-years-old. While in Syria, she had sex with jihadis fighting to overthrow the secular Bashar Assad regime. Among other nationalities she recalls having slept with were Pakistanis, Afghanis, Libyans, Tunisians, Iraqis, Saudis, and Somalis, all in the context of the “sex jihad.” . . .
According to Al Sharouk reporters, who went to interview Lamia at her home, the young woman began her story by saying that in 2011 she became religious, after watching an Islamic program; among other things, she took to wearing the hijab and came to believe that going out in public was a sin.
Then, “Lamia became convinced that a woman may participate in the jihad to eliminate the enemies of Islam by making her body recreational for the men after each and every raid, so that her body became their possession.” . . .
Finally, released back to Tunisia, Lamia has been to a doctor finding that she is five months pregnant. Both she and her unborn are carrying the aids virus.
FROM 1911: Things All Scouts Should Know.
IF I HAD A SON, he would look like Giovanne and Rakeem. “Giovanne Johnson, 19, and Rakeem Jones, 18, are both charged with first-degree premeditated murder, felony murder and aggravated robbery in connection with the shooting death of Taylor Hotzoglou, 22, who was killed on April 28, 2012, after giving Johnson and Jones a ride. Hotzoglou was found by a passerby dead in his car on the shoulder of Victory Road. He had been shot six times in the back and face.”
ART CARDEN on government schools: “What does it say about the quality of your product when you have trouble giving it away?”
RELIGION OF PIECES: The extinction of Christianity in the Middle East.
THAT’S ASSAULT, ISN’T IT? Abortionist Slaps Pregnant Woman Before Abortion, Just Gets Slap on the Wrist. “Just ask yourself how much coverage this story would have gotten if, instead of being assaulted by her abortionist, this woman had been slapped by a pro-life sidewalk counselor as she was walking into the clinic. Where are the so-called women’s groups? If anyone other than an abortionist had done the same thing, do you think they might have trotted out their ‘war-on-women’ rhetoric? Count on it.”
PUNISHING EXCELLENCE: Mercy rule’s $200 fine in California youth football league brings protests.
Darin Kahalekulu, the assistant coach of the Oroville Eagles for the past eight years, told FoxNews.com that he agrees with the league’s enforcement of the penalties and has in the past instructed one of his players to purposely turn over the ball.
“The other coach knows what’s going on,” he said. “In the end you want the kids to learn how to be responsible.”
He said it is difficult to tell a player not to give it 100 percent, but he said it is the price to pay for an opposing player not to be demoralized.
Sometimes demoralization is necessary for people to try harder. How is it responsible to remove such a strong source of motivation?
DEFENDING THE OBVIOUS: When rape charges are dropped, it’s not appropriate to call the accuser ‘the victim’. Then again, maybe it’s not so obvious: “Rape charges were dropped against a University of North Alabama football player, but the Associated Press still refers to the young man’s accuser as ‘the victim.'”
SUNSHINE MARY: The Feminist obsession with transgender children. “Have you noticed that liberals/feminists call sex roles a product of socialization except for when they are talking about transgender people, when suddenly the most rigid sex-based roles are considered inborn and unchangeable?”
A good comment: “Also, I find it ironic that the same folks who won’t let you clear away the underbrush in a forest because it would be ‘unnatural’ have no issues with snipping and trading people’s genitals.”
WARREN MEYER: Deceptive Chart of the Day from Kevin Drum and Mother Jones to Desperately Sell the “Austerity” Hypothesis. “This is absurdly disingenuous. Why? Simple — it is impossible to evaluate post recession spending without looking at what spending did during the recession. All these numbers begin after the recession is over. But what if, in the current recession, we increased spending much more than in other recessions. We would still be at a higher level vs. pre-recession spending now, despite a lack of further increases after the recession.”
LYDIA MCGREW: DC Government Much Worse than Scrooge. “This story is unbelievably damning. The Washington, DC, city government sells small debts for property tax to private investors. The investors are empowered to go immediately to court to foreclose on homes worth orders of magnitude more than the property tax debt. The investors are also empowered to bill the homeowners for the legal expenses incurred in trying to take their homes away. If the homeowner can’t pay the exorbitant legal bills on top of their sometimes quite minor original property tax owed (with interest), the home is sold, and the investor who purchased the lien gets everything. Not just collecting the original property tax owed. Not just collecting interest on the original property tax owed. Not even collecting only those things plus their own exorbitant legal fees incurred trying to take the home away. Everything. The entire value of the home.”
FIFTY CHRISTIANS face eviction in Laos. “On August 30, leaders of Nongdaeng village summoned representatives of 11 Christian families to the government headquarters building for an official meeting instructing them to recant their Christian faith and return to their village’s traditional animist religion.”
MAYBE BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO CONTROL OUR GUNS, the government should take a shot at controlling its own. “The recent theft of massive amounts of highly sensitive U.S. military equipment from Libya is far worse than previously thought, Fox News has learned, with raiders swiping hundreds of weapons that are now in the hands of militia groups aligned with terror organizations and the Muslim Brotherhood.”
US MARINE: When a girl hits you.
I was sitting across the desk from the child protective services supervisor, who spoke with confidence of things he didn’t know. . . .
The guy laughed at me when I said there’s nothing to do except just turn away. I asked what he’d do if I were a woman and started hitting him in this private interview room. “I’d grab your arms and hold you back,” he said. I countered, “that’s going to be tough for you to explain why I’ll have your handprints and bruises on my arms and there’s not a scratch on you.”
Related: Unprecedented Domestic Violence Study Affirms Need to Recognize Male Victims.
UK: Arrested for Preaching the Gospel. “Towards the end of my interview the officer said to me, ‘You seem reasonable. Why don’t you just stop preaching?’ I replied by saying, ‘Let me ask you a question, is it better to obey man or God?'”
Earlier: In the UK, no free speech.
DOG BITES MAN: Reid Blames Colorado Floods On ‘Climate Change’.
RELIGION OF PIECES: At least 85 killed in suicide bombing at Pakistan church.
GOOGLE MAKES IT EASY TO FOLLOW BAD EXAMPLES: Tech giant launches tool for searching and comparing constitutions around the world.
RELIGION OF PIECES: Muslim Persecution of Christians: July, 2013.
GO FOR IT: Angry entrepreneur replies to patent troll with racketeering lawsuit. “O’Connor wrote to tech sites like PandoDaily telling them of his determination to ‘slaughter’ the troll, the ‘scum of the earth.’ And in August, he pledged $1 million of his own money to fight the troll that went after his company.”
ATLAS SHRUGGED hits Kickstarter.
ARMED EPA RAID IN ALASKA sheds light on 70 fed agencies with armed divisions.
LESSON: Don’t trust the authorities.
The 16-year-old boy was suspended this week for reporting to a security guard at the Foxes’ Friday night football game that he had a pocket knife with him. . . .
Schaffner was asked to leave the game immediately on Friday. On Monday, he was handed a 10-day out-of-school suspension.