This is why Biblical Separation from EVIL, Satanic men is Important

House Republicans Call on Obama to Fire 'Safe Schools Czar' Kevin Jennings

Fifty-three House Republicans on Thursday urged President Obama to fire "safe schools czar" Kevin Jennings. 

FOXNews.com

Thursday, October 15, 2009

 

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Fifty-three House Republicans on Thursday urged President Obama to fire his "safe schools czar," citing their concerns that Kevin Jennings wants to promote a "homosexual agenda" and that as a schoolteacher years ago he did not report that a young student told him he was romantically involved with an older man.

The members of Congress, in a letter to the president, called Jennings "unfit to serve" and said he should be immediately removed from his post. The letter was authored by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who first called for Jennings' firing a week ago, and 52 other Republican colleagues. 

"Kevin Jennings cannot gain the approval of parents who want their children safe and their schools drug free. You should replace him with someone who has a record of educating children in a safe and moral environment," they wrote. 

Jennings, the founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, has described in writings and speeches how a high-school student confided to him in 1988 that he was having a relationship with an older man. 

The student has since spoken out in defense of Jennings, claiming he was 16 at the time, which was the legal age in Massachusetts, and that he was not sexually active. 

But Jennings has described the relationship as sexual, and in 2000 he said the boy was 15 years old. 

"I said, 'What were you doing in Boston on a school night, Brewster?'" Jennings said to a rally in Iowa in 2000. 

"He got very quiet, and he finally looked at me and said, 'Well I met someone in the bus station bathroom and I went home with him,'" Jennings recounted. "High school sophomore, 15 years old ... I looked at Brewster and said, 'You know, I hope you knew to use a condom.'"

After the controversy surfaced, Jennings -- the director of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools -- admitted late last month that he "should have handled [the] situation differently" when the boy confided in him. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has stood by Jennings as "uniquely qualified" for the position. 

But the House Republicans, operating under the assumption that the student was 15 years old when Jennings spoke with him, accused the safety czar of "ignoring the sexual abuse of a child." 

They added that Jennings has "played an integral role in promoting homosexuality and pushing a pro-homosexual agenda in America’s schools," and they criticized Jennings for "his own history of unrepentant drug and alcohol abuse." 

Jennings made repeated references to his past drug use in his 2007 autobiography. But he now claims his past drug use makes him qualified to help students and teachers confronting those issues. 

Healthcare Insider Comes Clean on Government-Run Medicine

Health Care Speechwriter for Edwards, Obama & Clinton Without Insurance Now

POSTED:

10/8/09

FILED UNDER:HEALTH CARE

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For the first time in my life, I am without health insurance and it is a terrible feeling.

In the past, I paid attention to the health care debate as a speechwriter who prepared speeches, talking points, op-eds, and debate prep material on the topic at different times for John Edwards, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and others. Now, I'm paying attention because I'm a citizen up the creek without a paddle.

Throughout my life, I have been very lucky because my insurance has always been there whenever I had a crisis. When my 10-speed hit a patch of leftover winter sand, and I went flying into a telephone pole, it covered the x-rays and stitches and concussion diagnosis. When a half a ton of sheet rock fell on me, my insurance paid for the cast on my foot. When my depression kicked in and I was hospitalized and painting ceramic pieces in art therapy to boost my self-esteem (sheesh), it made sure that when I got home my medical bills didn't make me reach for a razor. And when there were growths in my uterus, it covered that medical procedure and every regular check-up, lab test, broken bone, sports injury, and antibiotic prescription in between.

Since I care more about my country than my personal pride, here's how I lost my insurance: I moved. That's right, I moved from Washington, D.C., back to Massachusetts, a state with universal health care.

In D.C., I had a policy with a national company, an HMO, and surprisingly I was very happy with it. I had a fantastic primary care doctor at Georgetown University Hospital. As a self-employed writer, my premium was $225 a month, plus $10 for a dental discount.

In Massachusetts, the cost for a similar plan is around $550, give or take a few dollars. My risk factors haven't changed. I didn't stop writing and become a stunt double. I don't smoke. I drink a little and every once in a while a little more than I should. I have a Newfoundland dog. I am only 41. There has been no change in the way I live my life except my zip code -- to a state with universal health care.

Massachusetts has enacted many of the necessary reforms being talked about in Washington. There is a mandate for all residents to get insurance, a law to prevent insurance companies from denying coverage because of a pre-existing condition, an automatic enrollment requirement, and insurance companies are no longer allowed to cap coverage or drop people when they get sick because they forgot to include a sprained ankle back in 1989 on their application.

Even if the economy was strong and I was working more, I still couldn't afford my premium. I am not alone; I've got 46 million friends in a similar situation. We wake up every day worried that a bad cough, an accident while walking the dog, or that dreaded pain on the right side of the abdomen will send us into complete financial ruin.

As luck would have it, I didn't schedule a physical before I left D.C. I thought I could get that taken care of when I moved -- after all they had reforms, automatic enrollment, and universal coverage in Massachusetts, all the things I'd written about for politicians. Health care would be affordable. It didn't dawn on me that it would just be affordable for other people.

Now, sharing my experience doesn't make me an expert in health care policy anymore more than my knowledge that Kajagoogoo sings "Too Shy" makes me an expert in music. What my story does is serve as a cautious reminder that we need to get this right, not right away. A rushed bill will have consequences. Reforms will not be cheap and some people may be priced out.

How could all of these weeks and months go by and no one is examining and talking about what has worked and what hasn't worked in Massachusetts?

While the state has the lowest rate of uninsured, a report by the Commonwealth Fund states that Massachusetts has the highest premiums in the country. The state's budget is a mess and lawmakers had to make deep cuts in services and increase the sales tax to close gaps. The number of people needing assistance has at times overwhelmed the state. The mandate means that some people who can't afford insurance are now being slapped with a fine they also can't afford. There is no "public option" in the way the president describes it, no inter-state competition, no pool for small businesses and self-employed individuals like me to buy into groups that negotiate cheaper rates. So far I haven't found any "death panels," but if I get sick and need a hospital, I sure hope I can find one and a feisty granny to pull my plug.

What makes this a double blow is that my experience contradicts so much of what I wrote for political leaders over the last decade. That's a terrible feeling, too. I typed line after line that said everything Massachusetts did would make health insurance more affordable. If I had a dollar for every time I typed, "universal coverage will lower premiums," I could pay for my own health care at Massachusetts's rates.

So far, the most informed and civil discussion I've had about this issue has been with some of the sales representatives with the top providers in Massachusetts as I searched for an affordable plan. Each person I talked to was kind and considerate and truthful. One man said that he prepares everyone for the "sticker-shock," whether they are a family of four or an individual.

Right now, the truth is if I could buy my health plan from D.C., then I would. If I could buy into a public option, co-op, or trigger plan, whatever they want to call it, then I would. If I qualified for the new exchange, then I'd get into that, too, but four years is a long time to go without a physical, pap smear, and to have this mole checked. If someone were to put Medicare for All back on the table, then I would be fine with that too. Honestly, it's starting to make the most fiscal sense: $450 billion we pay to insurance companies could be redirected to Medicare, $350 billion in savings in paper work, and of course that $500 billion in savings for "waste, fraud, and abuse."

If this country is about to gamble a trillion dollars plus -- and it will be a big plus no matter what the Congressional Budget Office projection is -- then why not use a system that already exists? My experience in politics has been any time a politician says $500 billion will come from "waste, fraud, and abuse" that's a fancy way of saying, "Hold on to your wallet; we'll pay for it later."

We have to be careful about how we spend this trillion dollars. Right now, we are $1.4 trillion in the hole and the Senate has been asked to raise the country's debt ceiling to $12 trillion. We are fighting two wars and may increase troop levels in one. We have 250 new Iraq and Afghanistan veterans seeking care from VA facilities every day, and unemployment is headed north, past 10 percent. Has anyone else thought, "Hey wait a minute? Why are we proposing to spend so much on a mess of a plan?"

Why can't Washington look north to Massachusetts? What's the lesson for the nation in its successes and failures: universal coverage first or cost reductions? If health care is a right, then why aren't we starting over with Medicare for All? If health care is a responsibility, then why aren't we changing the system to address that? There is a big red flag planted in the middle of this state and it looks like everyone's just pledging allegiance to it rather understanding the warning in its wave.

For now, I'm going to have to get used to this terrible feeling. I'll eat right. I'll drive 55. I'll keep my dog on a tight heel and pet her to keep my blood pressure down. And I'll hope the economy turns around soon and $6,600 or so a year for health insurance doesn't seem so unaffordable.

I want health care reform. I need it, but I want Washington to start over. It doesn't make me "un-American" or "astroturf" or "racist." I'm a critic because what Washington is talking about doing has made health insurance unaffordable in Massachusetts.

If Washington won't go for a simple clean move to a system like Medicare for All, then it needs to do one reform, one new law, at a time -- not with a 1,000 page bill where strange things can hide. Line up the 80 percent of things we agree on and vote one at a time to change pre-existing conditions, cut that $500 billion in Medicare's "waste, fraud, and abuse," create meaningful lawsuit reform, and add some real competition to insurance companies whether it's a public option or a pilot exchange program. Show the country that this is possible with lower premiums and more efficiency and then go for the tough stuff. Critics like me want something done right because we actually are up the creek without a paddle.

If Congress and the president want to fix health care, then it is time to start over. They need to look at what's worked and what has failed in Massachusetts. They are going to have to actually take former Gov. Sarah Palin's advice and "look north to the future." Who knew that would ever make sense? But if we continue on this current path without looking, it's easy to diagnose what's coming to the country when a health care bill passes.

A mess.

Wendy Button has written for John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Mayor Tom Menino of Boston as well as other national and international leaders, and is working on a book.

ACORN-types PRAYING to Obama!!

Shock Discovery: Community Organizers Pray TO President-Elect Obama

September 29, 2009 at 9:33 am - Naked Emperor News
Dateline: Washington, DC

"Hear our cry Obama!" 

The Gamaliel Foundation is the community organizing group that helped sponsor Barack Obama's initial work in Chicago.

Communist (re: Haters of America) Now Heads New York Federal Reserve Bank

New York Fed Names AFL-CIO Leader as
Chairman of the Board

» Links to this article

By Neil Irwin

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Denis M. Hughes, a New York labor leader, was named Monday to chair the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's board of directors.

Instead of a résumé filled with corporate or financial experience, as has been typical of his predecessors, Hughes is president of the New York State AFL-CIO. He succeeds Stephen Friedman, who resigned from the job in May after drawing criticism for his simultaneous service as a director of Goldman Sachs and for buying stock in the company even after it became regulated by the New York Fed.

The board of directors of the regional Federal Reserve banks serves mainly an advisory role, sharing with bank presidents its views of economic conditions and business trends. The directors have no role in setting monetary policy or determining how banks are regulated, though they select the president of the bank, who does have those powers, subject to approval by the Fed board of governors in Washington.

In the past, the chairman of the New York Fed was usually chosen from the corporate or financial elite. Friedman was a former Goldman Sachs chief executive. Before him, Jerry I. Speyer was one of New York's leading developers of commercial real estate as head of Tishman-Speyer. Another recent chairman was Peter G. Peterson, the billionaire founder of private equity firm the Blackstone Group. A recent exception to the rule: John E. Sexton, who served between Speyer and Peterson, is president of New York University.

Hughes, as leader of a labor union that represents 2.5 million workers, is an even greater departure from that tradition. But he is no newcomer. Hughes has been on the New York Fed board since 2004 and deputy chairman since 2007. He was named acting chairman of the board in May when Friedman stepped down.

 

Completing the move away from having people from the financial world lead the New York Fed board of directors, Lee C. Bollinger, the president of Columbia University, was named deputy chairman on Monday.

The unusual mix of public and private governance of the regional Fed banks was put in place by the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, and some in Congress are looking to revisit how the regional banks are structured as they consider broader reforms to the financial world. Board members such as Hughes and Bollinger are "Class C" directors, chosen by the presidentially appointed Fed board of governors in Washington, and to represent business, industry, agricultural, labor or consumer interests.

The boards also include "Class A" directors, who lead private banks, and "Class B" directors, who are business leaders chosen by bankers.

'No truth' in Obama's speech before homosexuals

Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 7/1/2009 7:20:00 AM

A black evangelical Christian pastor and former NFL linebacker says there was "absolutely no truth in anything" President Obama said in his speech to homosexuals in the East Room of the White House Monday.

President Obama promised LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) supporters Monday at a White House "gay pride" celebration that he "will continue to be an ally and a champion" for their agenda, once again vowing he will repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. (Related article: Obama White House not appealing transgender ruling) Ken Hutcherson, senior pastor of Antioch Bible Church in Washington state, says it is "a shame" that the president is "supporting what destroys the family." "There's absolutely no truth in anything he said, from beginning to the end," says Pastor Hutcherson. "There is no such thing as [a] biblical stance for homosexuality, if you use the Bible. If you want to use any other denomination, feel free -- but where I stand is...biblical; it is marriage between one man [and] one woman, and that is the relationship, heterosexual, that is ordained, blessed, and called by God." In his talk, Obama acknowledged that many Americans still disapprove of homosexuality. "There are still fellow citizens, perhaps neighbors or even family members and loved ones, who still hold fast to worn arguments and old attitudes," he stated. (See related article) Hutcherson says those comments demonstrate the president has contempt for more than just conservative Christians. "I think this president has a disdain for anyone who disagrees with anything about him -- don't just limit it to Christians and conservatives," he remarks. "Brother, this man doesn't like anyone who doesn't think he's the smartest man in the world." Hutcherson says until conservative Christians make their small voice a dominating one, there is nothing that will stop President Obama from pushing for the legalization of same-sex "marriage."

Clinic of Murdered Kansas Abortion Doctor Will Be 'Permanently Closed' - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News - FOXNews.com

Clinic of Murdered Kansas Abortion Doctor Will Be 'Permanently Closed' - Local News News Articles National News US News - FOXNews.com

New Hampshire Becomes Sixth State to Legalize Gay Marriage

New Hampshire became the sixth U.S. state to legalize gay marriage Wednesday after Gov. John Lynch signed the measure into law, even though he says he personally opposes the practice.
After rallies outside the Statehouse by both opponents and backers of the law in the morning, the last of three bills in the package went to the Senate, which approved it 14-10 Wednesday afternoon.
Cheers from the gallery greeted the key vote in the House of Representative, which passed it 198-176. Surrounded by gay marriage supporters, Lynch signed the bill about an hour later.
"Today, we are standing up for the liberties of same-sex couples by making clear that they will receive the same rights, responsibilities -- and respect -- under New Hampshire law," Lynch said.
Lynch, a Democrat, had promised a veto if the law didn't clearly spell out that churches and religious groups would not be forced to officiate at gay marriages or provide other services. Lawmakers made the changes.
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont and Iowa already allow gay marriage, though opponents hope to overturn Maine's law with a public vote.
California briefly allowed gay marriage before a public vote banned it; a court ruling allowed couples who were already married to remain so. Federal law does not recognize same-sex marriages.
The New Hampshire law will take effect Jan. 1, exactly two years after the state began recognizing civil unions.
The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, elected in New Hampshire in 2003 as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, was among those celebrating the new law.
"It's about being recognized as whole people and whole citizens," Robinson said.
"There are a lot of people standing here who when we grew up could not have imagined this," he said. "You can't imagine something that is simply impossible. It's happened, in our lifetimes."
Opponents, mainly Republicans, objected on grounds including that the bill went through several versions.
"It is no surprise that the Legislature finally passed the last piece to the gay marriage bill today. After all, when you take 12 votes on five iterations of the same issue, you're bound to get it passed sooner or later," said Kevin Smith, executive director of gay marriage opponent Cornerstone Policy Research.
The revised bill added a sentence specifying that all religious organizations, associations or societies have exclusive control over their religious doctrines, policies, teachings and beliefs on marriage.
It also clarified that church-related organizations that serve charitable or educational purposes are exempt from having to provide insurance and other benefits to same-sex spouses of employees.
The House rejected the language Lynch suggested two weeks ago by two votes. Wednesday's vote was on a revised bill negotiated with the Senate.
Supporters had considered Wednesday their last chance to pass a bill this year.
The law will establish civil and religious marriage licenses and allow each party to the marriage to be identified as bride, groom or spouse. Same-sex couples already in civil unions will automatically be assumed to have a "civil marriage."
Churches will be able to decide whether to conduct religious marriages for same-sex couples. Civil marriages would be available to both heterosexual and same-sex couples.