Is Obama creating a pro-gay Boy Scouts of America?

A Boy Scouts of America national board member, James Turley, who is also global chairman and CEO of the accounting firm Ernst & Young, recently said he “will work from within to seek a change” to overturn the BSA policy that bans gay scouts and leaders. But is Turley working on his own initiative, or has the White House prodded him with perks and favors?

Is it a coincidence that Turley came out swinging against the BSA’s century-old policy to ban gays from leadership and that he has such close affiliations with the pro-gay Obama administration?

Is it a coincidence that Turley and his wife, Lynne, were just guests at a state dinner hosted by President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama in honor of U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron at the White House on March 14, 2012?

Is it a coincidence that Turley was nominated to President Barack Obama’s Export Council in 2010?

Is it a coincidence Turley was granted a seat on an investment advisory panel which met with none other than Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Oct. 17, 2011?

Is it a coincidence that Turley has been a global cheerleader for Obama’s economic strategies and an economic-ambassador-of-sorts to other mogul business leaders, as clearly seen in his Bloomberg media interview from the 2011 economic summit in Davos, Switzerland?

Is it a coincidence that the former assistant secretary for tax policy at the U.S. Treasury from 2009 to 2011, Michael Mundaca, who advised Treasury Secretary Geithner on all matters relating to taxation, recently joined the team of Ernst & Young?

Is it a coincidence that, as the White House website explained, “Ernst & Young LLP will honor [the Obama administration's Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship's] youth entrepreneurs at regional Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year Award galas across the country, bringing important attention to the next generation of young entrepreneurs”?

Is it a coincidence that a couple months ago President Obama reversed his position on marriage, extending the union to gay couples, and that James Turley just came out of the closet in his position against the BSA?

Is it a coincidence that in the same couple-week period when James Turley turned on the BSA with his pro-gay stance that President Obama turned on the U.S. military and sent down a decree that the service branches must celebrate “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month”?

Is it a coincidence that back in January 2010 President Obama nominated Katherine G. Hammack, who was formerly a leader in Ernst & Young’s Climate Change and Sustainability Services, as the assistant secretary of the Army (Installations and Environment), Department of Defense?

Read more here.

Maxine Waters to Tea Party: Let’s get it on

California Congressman Maxine Waters told Denver Democrats tonight that Republicans are waging a war on women on issues ranging from health care to wage disparity.

During her speech at the 5th annual House District 7 Unity Dinner, she accused Republicans of attacking President Obama any chance they get.

“We cannot allow the opportunities that America stands for to be eroded by those who simply want to bring this president down,” she said.

She was cheered when she said, “After a good night sleep, I wake up the next day, and I say, ‘Come on, Tea Party, let’s get it on.’”

Among those present at the dinner: Congresswoman Diana DeGette; Denver City Councilwomen Robin Kniech and Mary Beth Susman; state Rep. Angela Williams and Sen. Mike Johnston, who represent House District 7; and Sen. Pat Steadman and House Minority Leader Mark Ferrandino.

Read more here.

The austerity plan

I’ve been rolling this one in my head for a couple days, and I’ve become convinced of something. Austerity is a dirty word in this country.

This is America, for gosh sakes, and we are entitled to the best of everything, aren’t we? What is this stuff about doing without? That seems to be the response on the lips of millions of Americans, with perhaps the better way of putting it being that we should cut the fat out of government – of course, anything benefiting these Americans isn’t considered fat.

So into the middle of this attitude the local Libertarian Congressional candidate drops a big, fat helping of talk about cutting back. Perhaps the money paragraph in his treatise is this one:

The culture of dependency has nearly destroyed the soul of our country. The welfare state is wrought with fraud and failure. It has deprived generations of their dignity and few ever break out of the cycle. They have become enslaved by dependency and are trapped under the giant footprint of government.

Of course you know Muir Boda is right, but you also know his hopes of being elected on a Libertarian ticket lie someplace between those of being struck by lightning and winning the Powerball lottery. So the idea for Libertarians isn’t necessarily winning elections, but rather to pull the political center in their direction. In that respect they’re acting like the TEA Party to the Republicans and the Occupy movement to the Democrats, borrowing something from both.

And this message is actually at home in the Republican Party; unfortunately too many GOP members of Congress have the same attitude I expressed above. (The incumbent Boda is running against is better than most at resisting this.) They talk in platitudes about reducing government but when it comes to some favored constituency that buck just keeps right on going. One case in point: the farm bill under consideration, which instills yet another program to privatize profits and socialize losses through the “shallow loss” portion of the bill which provides a guaranteed income floor to qualifying farmers. Simply put, it’s not the government’s job to do this and I defy anyone to tell me where this is authorized under the Constitution. It sounds more like something President Obama would write up in an Executive Order.

Read more here.

NC Student Who Videotaped Pro-Obama Screaming Teacher Faces Harassment

Remember one month ago, when a high-school junior in the Rowan-Salisbury school district in North Carolina videotaped his teacher yelling at another student that he was being disrespectful for criticizing Barack Obama and that his behavior was a criminal offense?

The young man who did the videotaping had a hellish time finishing the school year. In an interview with Breitbart News, the young man’s sister described the ensuing weeks after the videotape. She said that some of the other students have said they are out to get the young man; the teacher, Tanya Dixon-Neely, has relatives who are students in the school. The young man’s family, fearing for his safety, requested for the young man to finish the last three weeks of school at home, but the school refused. Instead, the school offered for the young man to come to school after the other students were already in class, be secluded from other students during the school day and leave before school ended.

According to the videotaper’s sister, not only did the school authorities reject the appeal for home-schooling, they gave him a suspension on his school record for videotaping in the classroom — the first suspension ever issued for such an action, despite the fact that other students have also videotaped on school grounds.

Read more here.

Eternal (Official Music Video)

Most Arrogant Man in the World

Middle schoolers severely sunburned on school trip after teacher deny them sunscreen

A Tacoma, Wa., mother is seeing red because that was the color of her daughters’ skin when they arrived home from a school outing last week. The children, ages 9 and 11, were so severely sunburned that both required treatment at a local hospital, all because of an obscure law requiring schools to prohibit the use of sunscreen by students.

The mother, Jesse Michener, told ABC News that she was horrified when she first laid eyes on her daughters at the end of the school day. But the teacher was merely following a statute, which is enforced in all states but California, that children are not allowed to carry sunscreen to school or apply it during school hours. For liability reasons, sunscreen is viewed as an over-the-counter medication requiring a prescription.

Dan Voelpel, a spokesman with the Tacoma School District, told ABC, “Because so many additives in lotions and sunscreens cause an allergic reaction in some children, we have to really monitor that.” The argument fails to account for the multitude of hypoallergenic sunscreens made expressly for children that are on the market.

Jesse Michener has a personal stake in seeing the blanket policy overturned. One of her daughters has a form of Albinism that makes her especially susceptible to harm from the sun’s rays. The child, Michener wrote at her blog last Wednesday, “is starting to blister on her face. Both children have headaches, chills and pain.”

Read more here.

Egyptian beats pregnant wife to death for not voting for Mursi

An Egyptian plumber in Alexandria beat his pregnant wife to death upon learning that she had not voted for Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate Mohammed Mursi, reported the Egyptian daily al-Wafd on Sunday.

According to police reports, the initial argument between the couple who was not named escalated into violence, despite her pleas. Battered and bruised, she was reported to have died at the hospital from injuries sustained.

Domestic fights have dominated Egyptian news headlines when the bid fell on the two most feared and most controversial candidates, Mursi and former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq.

Read more here.

Egypt’s New President: Our Capital ‘Shall Be Jerusalem, Allah Willing’

‘Bottom Up’ Economics

According to President Obama:

He told his audience Republicans, including presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney, “believe that we should go back to the top-down economics of the last decade.”

“They figure that if we simply eliminate regulations and cut taxes by trillions of dollars, then the market will solve all of our problems,” Obama said.

“They argue that if we help corporations and wealthy investors maximize their profits by whatever means necessary — whether through layoffs or outsourcing or union-busting — that it will automatically translate into jobs and prosperity that benefit all of us. …

“We don’t need more top-down economics,” he said. “What we need is some middle class-out economics, some bottom-up economics.”