From the Los Angeles Times:

Democrats may play hardball in Pennsylvania

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews could be in the mix of candidates hoping to win Republican Sen. Arlen Specter’s seat in 2010.

By Josh Drobnyk

The Northeast’s dwindling cast of Senate Republicans has Democrats circling Arlen Specter’s seat in Pennsylvania, convinced the party is well-positioned to make a competitive race out of the 2010 election.

Leading the pack of prospects — at least in celebrity — is Chris Matthews, the MSNBC “Hardball” host and a former Capitol Hill Democratic staffer. The Philadelphia native has been toying with a run for months, and this week he sat down with state Democrats to discuss the prospect of taking on the five-term GOP senator.

Others considered in the mix include Rep. Joe Sestak, who is sitting on $3 million in campaign funds; state Rep. Josh Shapiro; and U.S. Rep. Allyson Y. Schwartz, a two-term Philadelphia area lawmaker who has moved up quickly on the Hill and has a Rolodex full of prospective donors from her unsuccessful 2000 Senate run. “We’ll see,” she said about a repeat bid.

“There are a lot of compelling reasons why serious Democrats would aspire to run in 2010,” said Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chairman T.J. Rooney, who said Matthews had been in Pennsylvania Monday meeting with other Democratic leaders.

“You look at what has gone on in this state in the past six or seven years, and you think nothing is out of reach,” Rooney said. Since 2002, Pennsylvania Democrats have grabbed the governor’s mansion; unseated the Senate’s No. 3 Republican, Rick Santorum; and picked up five U.S. House seats. But just as relevant to the party’s optimism is what has happened outside the state. The Northeast lost nearly half its slate of Senate Republicans in the previous two elections, leaving Specter with just three GOP colleagues from the eight Northeastern states: Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire.

This month’s Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan political newsletter that handicaps races, cast Specter as among the four most vulnerable senators of the 35 up for reelection in two years. “He is increasingly isolated from his party as a Republican in a Northeastern sea of blue,” said Hershey, Pa.-based pollster Michael Young.

Matthews, 62, who didn’t respond to a request for comment, has dismissed questions about a run in recent months as he lays the groundwork behind the scenes. His contract with MSNBC expires in June. …

http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....9657.story

But it’s Fox News that can’t be trusted due to bias.

Uh huh.

Let’s see now. McCain was too old to be president, but Volcker’s brain cells, at age eighty-one, are still firing on all eight cylinders.

Well, if Obama is going to “get this economy back on track” beginning on ‘day one’, I will expect dramatic results beginning on ‘day two’. And if I don’t get what I’m promised, I intend to start ragging on that egotistical bastard beginning on ‘day three’ and I won’t let up for the next 1458 days!

What a yutz! He even believes his own press releases and expects us to do likewise. Maybe he really is a fairy, but he’s missing his magic wand.

Anybody want to bet that none of his failures will be his fault? Didn’t think so.

Ariana Huffington, are you out there reading this?

From the AP:

Obama reassures nervous nation on ailing economy

By Sara Kugler and Stephen Ohlemacher

CHICAGO (AP) – President-elect Barack Obama sought to reassure the nation and nervous holiday shoppers about the ailing economy Wednesday as beleaguered stores braced for their most important month of the year.

“Help is on the way,” he proclaimed at his third news briefing on the economy this week. Fifty-five days away from taking office, he declared he would have an economic plan ready for action “starting day one.”

Investors’ improved spirits kept pace. The Dow Jones industrials climbed 247 points, marking the first time since last spring that the average had risen for four straight sessions.

To help with ideas from outside the White House, Obama announced he was forming a new team of advisers with former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker as the head.

“There is no doubt that during tough economic times family budgets are going to be pinched,” Obama said. “I think it is important for the American people, though, to have confidence that we’ve gone through recessions before, we’ve gone through difficult times before, that my administration intends to get this economy back on track.”

The crucial holiday shopping season gets under way in earnest on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, with deep discounts already in place as stores try to lure buyers who are worried about their jobs and homes.

Volcker, 81, will head the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. The board’s top staff official will be Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist, Obama said.

Volcker is no stranger to economic crises, having led the Fed under two presidents from 1979 to 1987. Volcker is a legendary central banker who raised interest rates and restricted the money supply to tame raging inflation in the 1980s. It was a painful prescription that helped send the economy into one of the nation’s worst recessions.

However, he is largely credited with ushering in nearly three decades of relatively low inflation — an unthinkable feat in the 1970s, when the country was grappling with high unemployment, high interest rates and ever-rising prices.

“He pulls no punches,” Obama said of Volcker. “He seems to be fairly opinionated.” …

http://www.ktla.com/landing_bu.....p;feedID=6

Not even a single mention of the current occupant; Obama has rushed in to reassure us.

Meanwhile, of course it was Volcker that brought us the prosperity of the 1980s; Reagan had nothing to do with it, it was all Fed policy that “ushered in nearly three decades of relatively low inflation.”

It’s bad enough that white males like me are told continually we’re the cause of all the world’s problems, now honestly sick people are going to be bereft of charity because they think a disease is too inclusive to us. (?!?) And when they realize their error, I’m sure they’ll still find some way to blame it on us.

Boy, you’d think that whole 5% mandate Obami got was more like 90%. They just can’t wait for Obama to start, he’s the guy who should be talking to the financial leaders at the summit, he’s the guy we want up there RIGHT NOW!

And just what miracle could Obami work in seven weeks? Over his Christmas break?

The party on January 20th will be horrible to endure, but how long until the halo falls off? The True Believers(tm) will never doubt him; we’ve gone past the mindset that their candidate has to maintain an image, instead the believers maintain the image for him and tell us all to see it.

But the college kids, the moderates, the “I-vote-based-on-the-news” types, how long until they wake up?

Ottawa university boots cystic fibrosis from charity drive

‘I think they see this, in their own twisted way, as a win for diversity’

By Joanne Laucius

OTTAWA — The Carleton University Students’ Association has voted to drop a cystic fibrosis charity as the beneficiary of its annual Shinearama fundraiser, supporting a motion that argued the disease is not “inclusive” enough.

Cystic fibrosis “has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men” said the motion read Monday night to student councillors, who voted almost unanimously in favour of it.

Every year near the beginning of fall classes, during university orientation for new arrivals, students fan out across the city and seek donations from passersby. According to the motion, “all orientees and volunteers should feel like their fundraising efforts will serve their (sic) diverse communities.”

Nick Bergamini, a third-year journalism student on the student council, said he was the only elected councillor present to vote against the motion. The decision is an example of campus political correctness gone too far, he said.

“They’re not doctors. They’re playing politics with this,” said Mr. Bergamini. “I think they see this, in their own twisted way, as a win for diversity. I see it as a loss for people with cystic fibrosis.”

The Shinearama fundraiser is carried out by students at about 65 colleges and universities across Canada. It has raised money for the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation for almost 50 years and Carleton has been participating for at least 25.

During orientation week this year, Carleton students, who have raised about $1-million over the years, raised about $20,000, said foundation chief executive Cathleen Morrison, who was surprised and dismayed by the student association decision.

The rationale for dropping cystic fibrosis as the beneficiary is not correct, she said. CF is diagnosed just as often among girls as boys, although the health of girls deteriorates more rapidly, she said. It is commonly considered an illness that affects Caucasians, but that includes people from the Middle East, South America, North Africa and the Indian subcontinent.

” ‘Caucasian’ as we understand it isn’t just white people,” said Ms. Morrison. “It includes people with a whole rainbow of skins.”

One of the councillors who voted in favour of switching the charity said Monday night that the information provided to the panel prior to the vote was factually incorrect, and he will be seeking support from other members to hold an emergency meeting to reconsider their decision. “After seeing all the reaction today, I definitely think it should be revisited and reconsidered,” said Michael Monks, who represents Carleton’s business students for the student council.

Student association president Brittany Smyth said the motion came about because the association has been contemplating rotating the beneficiary of Shinearama to different charities each year instead of giving the money to a single charity.

“It’s about people wanting to do something different,” she said.

The motion was forwarded by Donnie Northrup, who represents science students. Mr. Northrup did not respond to a request for an interview.

The preamble to the motion is Mr. Northrup’s explanation for why he supports the motion, based on what he learned as an orientation-week volunteer, said Ms. Smyth.

In making a decision, it was not the preamble but the declaration itself that matters, she said.

“The preliminary is the councillor’s own motivations and ideas,” she said. “Most discussion revolved around rotating the charity.” …

http://www.nationalpost.com/ne.....?id=992946

Even if the disease affected mostly white men, that would be a reasonable rationale to not support research into its cure?!?!

Obligatory revelation: I knew a really sweet girl in college, the sister of a roommate’s girlfriend, who had CF.

Like most with CF, she didn’t expect to live to see her 30s.

Time For Him to Go

By Gail Collins

Thanksgiving is next week, and President Bush could make it a really special holiday by resigning.

Seriously. We have an economy that’s crashing and a vacuum at the top. Bush — who is currently on a trip to Peru to meet with Asian leaders who no longer care what he thinks — hasn’t got the clout, or possibly even the energy, to do anything useful. His most recent contribution to resolving the fiscal crisis was lecturing representatives of the world’s most important economies on the glories of free-market capitalism.

Putting Barack Obama in charge immediately isn’t impossible. Dick Cheney, obviously, would have to quit as well as Bush. In fact, just to be on the safe side, the vice president ought to turn in his resignation first. (We’re desperate, but not crazy.) Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would become president until Jan. 20. Obviously, she’d defer to her party’s incoming chief executive, and Barack Obama could begin governing.

As a bonus, the Pelosi presidency would put a woman in the White House this year after all. On the downside, a few right-wing talk-show hosts might succumb to apoplexy. That would, of course, be terrible, but I’m afraid we might have to take the risk in the name of a greater good.

Can I see a show of hands? How many people want George W. out and Barack in?

A great many Americans have been counting the days all year on their 2008 George W. Bush Out of Office Countdown calendars. I know a lot of this has been going on because so many people congratulated me when the Feb. 1 Bush quote turned out to be from one of my old columns. (“I think we need not only to eliminate the tollbooth from the middle class, I think we should knock down the tollbooth.”)

This was not nearly as good as Feb. 5 (“We ought to make the pie higher”) or Feb. 21 (“I understand small business growth. I was one.”) But we do what we can.

In the past, presidents have not taken well to suggestions that they hand over the reins before the last possible minute. Senator J. William Fulbright suggested a plan along those lines when Harry Truman was coming to the end of a term in a state of deep unpopularity, and Truman called him “Halfbright” for the rest of his life. Bush might not love the idea of quitting before he has a chance to light the Christmas tree or commute the execution of one last presidential turkey. After all, he still has a couple more trips planned. And last-minute regulations to issue. (So many national parks to despoil, so many endangered species to exterminate … .) And then there’s all the packing.

On the other hand, he might want to consider his legacy, such as it is.

In happier days, Bush may have nurtured hopes of making it into the list of America’s mediocre presidents, but somewhere between Iraq and Katrina, that goal became a mountain too high. However, he might still have a chance to avoid the absolute bottom of the barrel, a spot currently occupied by James Buchanan, at least in my opinion. Buchanan nailed down The Worst President title in the days between Abraham Lincoln’s election and inauguration, when the Southern states began seceding and Buchanan, after a little flailing about, did absolutely nothing. “Doing nothing is almost the worst thing a president can do,” said the historian Michael Beschloss.

If Bush gives up doing nothing by giving up his job, it’s possible that someday history might elevate him to the ranks of the below average. Better than Franklin Pierce! Smarter than Warren Harding! And healthier than William Henry Harrison! …

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11......html?_r=1

You get the idea.

Also, if you didn’t realize, the Bush quotes she’s ridiculing are him saying the way to help the Middle Class is to grow the economy as a whole – a “funny” idea to redistributionists like Collins, her readers, and Mr. Obama.

HRC, State — and the Constitution

By Pete Williams

If President-elect Barack Obama nominates Hillary Clinton to be secretary of state, many legal scholars believe it would be the former law professor’s first violation of the Constitution as president.

Why? Because the Constitution forbids the appointment of members of Congress to administration jobs if the salary of the job they’d take was raised while they were in Congress. (Article I, Section 6: “No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office … the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time.” Emoluments meaning salaries and benefits.)

Past presidents have confronted this problem repeatedly — Taft in nominating Sen. Philander Knox to be secretary of state, Nixon in nominating Sen. William Saxbe to be attorney general, Carter in nominating Sen. Ed Muskie to be secretary of state, and Clinton in nominating Sen. Lloyd Bentsen to be treasury secretary, to name some notable examples.

The usual workaround is for Congress to lower the salary of the job back to what it was so that the nominee can take it without receiving the benefit of the pay increase that was approved while the nominee was in Congress. This maneuver, which has come to be known as “the Saxbe fix,” addresses the clear intent of the Constitution, to prevent self-dealing.

But many legal scholars believe it does not cure the Constitutional problem, because the language of Article I is so clearly an absolute prohibition: No senator or representative, period.

“The content of the rule here is broader than its purpose,” said Professor Michael Stokes Paulsen, a Constitutional law expert at St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis. “And the rule is the rule; the purpose is not the rule.”

“A ‘fix’ can rescind the salary,” he added, “but it cannot repeal historical events. The emoluments of the office had been increased. The rule specified in the text still controls.”

Having said all this, so what? If Obama goes ahead and nominates Clinton, it’s doubtful the courts would entertain a lawsuit from an outraged citizen. Such generalized taxpayer lawsuits are disfavored by the federal courts.

A more difficult case might come if a Secretary of State Clinton issued an order that put a specific citizen at a disadvantage. That might give rise to a lawsuit that could get some traction.

Even then, though, some legal scholars believe it would be a hard case to make. Former Clinton Justice Department solicitor general Walter Dellinger says there’s reason to think that the official acts of someone in a federal office are valid, even if the person’s qualifications for the office are in doubt.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com.....88640.aspx

Needless to say, should a lawsuit occur, the courts will dismiss it as quickly as they’ve dismissed the “birthplace” lawsuits.

Because no citizen has standing to sue over a President’s actions.

Unless, of course, said President is a Republican.

From the Los Angeles Times:

SUV hits 2 children, man outside Diamond Bar school

By Ruben Vives

Two children and a man were hit by a sport utility vehicle outside an elementary school in Diamond Bar this morning, leaving at least one of the children in critical condition.

The accident occurred about 7:40 a.m. in front of Maple Hill Elementary School, said Lt. John Saleeby of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Walnut station. The driver lost control of the vehicle, went over the sidewalk along Maple Hill Road and struck a 2-year-old girl, a 4-year-old girl and a man, said Ron Haralson, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

About 8:37 a.m. one of the girls and the man were airlifted from the school to a hospital, said L.A. County Fire Department spokesman Sam Padilla. The other child was taken by an ambulance.

The 2-year-old girl was listed in critical condition, and the 4-year-old and the man received non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said. The driver of the SUV was still being questioned at the scene, Saleeby said. No arrests have been made, and the cause of the accident was under investigation, he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/lo.....3952.story

Were the children hit by a large sedan or perhaps a station wagon, would the article be as specific or just say “Vehicle hits two children” or perhaps “Car hits two children?”

But no, they were hit by an evil SUV, the scourge of the roads.

One wonders if the story would even have been reported had the kids been hit by a Prius or (gasp!) an electric car…

From an OpEd piece at the Los Angeles Times:

Which Thanksgiving?

By Karl Jacoby

When Americans sit down to our annual Thanksgiving meal with family and friends, we like to imagine that we are reenacting a scene that first took place in 1621. That year, having made a successful harvest after a brutal winter that killed half their number, the 50 or so surviving Colonists in Plymouth “entertained and feasted,” in the words of one, a visiting delegation of nearby Wampanoag Indians, led by “their greatest king,” Massasoit.

American holidays, however, sometimes reveal more about what we have forgotten about the past than what we remember. Historical records indicate that the parties dined on venison and corn rather than on the stuffing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie Americans have come to associate with Thanksgiving, and that the feast probably took place in the early autumn rather than November. Moreover, it is not even clear that the Pilgrims referred to their 1621 celebration as a thanksgiving. To devout Pilgrims, a day of thanksgiving was usually a solemn religious undertaking, marked by worship and, often, fasting. It was not a day spent gorging on wild deer and engaging in “recreations” with one’s Indian neighbors.

Although there were sporadic local Thanksgiving days in Colonial and early America, it was not until the middle of the Civil War — 1863 — that President Lincoln issued a proclamation making the last Thursday in November a national holiday of Thanksgiving. Lincoln’s statement suggested that thanks were being given as much for “the advancing armies and navies of the Union” as for a bountiful harvest, and the president urged special prayers for “all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged.”

Not surprisingly, few at the time viewed Thanksgiving as a private, family occasion. Instead, Northern civilians donated turkey and cranberries to feed Union troops, while Jefferson Davis declared separate Thanksgiving holidays for the Confederacy.

During Reconstruction, many Southerners initially expressed reluctance at celebrating what they saw to be a Yankee holiday. And yet it was at this moment, as the recently rejoined United States struggled to reconcile its populace after a divisive Civil War, that it became useful to reinvent the history of Thanksgiving. Most Americans found it far more pleasant to imagine this American holiday as originating not during the traumas of the 1860s but rather during the more distant past of the early 1600s. To partisans of the Union and the Confederacy alike, the image of Pilgrims and Indians sitting down together to a shared meal offered a comforting vision of peace between potential rivals.

Yet this new image of Thanksgiving not only allowed Americans to gloss over the deep divisions that had led to the Civil War, it also overlooked much of the subsequent history of the Pilgrims’ relations with their Indian neighbors. About 50 years after Massasoit and his fellow Wampanoags enjoyed their harvest meal at Plymouth, the Colonists’ seizures of Wampanoag land would precipitate a vicious war between Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoags, now led by Massasoit’s son, Metacom.

Most of the other peoples in New England at first tried to avoid the conflict between the onetime participants in the “first Thanksgiving.” But the confrontation soon engulfed the entire region, pitting the New England Colonies against a fragile alliance of Wampanoags, Narragansetts, Nipmucs and other Native American groups. Although these allies succeeded in killing hundreds of Colonists and burning British settlements up to the very fringes of Boston itself, the losses suffered by New England’s indigenous peoples were even more devastating. Thousands died over the two years of the war, and many of those captured were sold into slavery in the British West Indies, including Metacom’s wife and 9-year-old son.

Metacom met his end at the hands of a Colonial scouting party in August of 1676. His killers quartered and decapitated his body and sent Metacom’s head to Plymouth, where for two decades it would be prominently displayed on a pike outside the colony’s entrance. That same year, as the violence drew to a close, the colony of Connecticut declared a “day of Publique Thankesgiving” to celebrate “the subdueing of our enemies.”

Perhaps it is not surprising that we choose to remember the Thanksgiving of 1621 and to forget the Thanksgiving of 1676. Who, after all, would not prefer to celebrate a moment of peaceful unity rather than one of bloody conflict? But if our public holidays are meant to be moments for self-reflection as well as self-congratulation, we should think of Thanksgiving not as a perpetual reenactment of the “first Thanksgiving” of 1621 but instead as a dynamic event whose meaning has shifted over time. …

http://www.latimes.com/news/op.....8652.story

So there.

We need not forget Massasoit’s pleasant experiences dining with the Pilgrims in order to remember the more troubling fate of his son at the hands of the Pilgrims’ descendants. Indeed, commemorating all the many reasons Americans have expressed thanks over the centuries allows us to come to a more complete and more honest understanding of our history. For while we cannot change events in the past, we do have the power to decide what we wish to be thankful for now and in the future.

Sigh…

From Television Week:

SAG to Hold Strike Authorization Vote

By Sergio Ibarra

Screen Actors Guild President Alan Rosenberg said SAG will conduct a strike authorization vote in December, inching the union closer to the brink of a strike.

Mr. Rosenberg made the announcement via e-mail and video message Wednesday.

“Now, per the resolution passed by 97% of our newly constituted national board of directors in October, we are launching a member education campaign and we will send out a strike referendum ballot to SAG members in December,” Mr. Rosenberg said in his announcement. “We ask that you support your board and negotiating committee, and vote ‘yes’ to authorize the board to call a strike only if it becomes absolutely necessary.”

SAG has already begun its educational campaign via its Web site with topics related to the strike authorization vote.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers responded with a brief statement.

“SAG’s latest mass e-mail fails on three counts: It fails to explain why SAG deserves more than everyone else in the industry, the AMPTP said in the statement. “It fails to justify why SAG members should bail out a failed negotiating strategy by striking during a time of historic economic crisis. And it fails to explain why it makes sense to strike when SAG members will lose more during the first few days of the strike than they could ever expect to gain.”

Mr. Rosenberg blasted those citing the ailing economy as a reason not to strike.

“It’s also curious that these global corporations are preaching to us about the bad economy,” he said. “Like it’s our fault. As middle-income actors we are the victims of corporate greed. We didn’t cause this turmoil.”

http://www.tvweek.com/news/200.....rizati.php

I hope they authorize the strike, I really do.

When the MSM has made the American populace frightened for their jobs and convinced them they will never be able to retire and that the banks in which their savings are held are one withdrawal away from insolvency, they’ll get to see their favorite movie and TV stars walking the picket line, demanding more money.

Granted, many actors just eke out a living – but the press coverage is going to focus on the very people we see regularly who are all making seven if not eight or nine figures annually.

The anti-union PR value of said strike will be priceless.

Doesn’t the attitude of “Yeah, the economy sucks, but that’s not our fault – we want more money” play right into every anti-Union statement ever made, not to mention the prevailing American attitude towards the bailout of the Big Three?

Do you think even the most pro-Union UAW worker will support their Union brothers and sisters when they see a picture in People of Reese Witherspoon carrying a picket sign stating actors are underpaid? (For better effect they’ll hopefully see said photo not long after blowing $10 per person to sit through the dreadful Four Christmases…)

http://www.howobamagotelected.com/

There’s a video there, and I can only think of two words to describe its content: hilarious and scary. Perhaps very scary.

From BBC:

Obama victory prompts US gun rush

In a quiet side street not far from where the Texas freeway system knits the sprawling suburbs of Houston into something like a city centre, business is booming at the Top Gun shooting range.

Recession is not biting here in the oil-rich Energy Capital of the World as it is in the rest of the United States – but that is not the only reason why it is difficult to find a parking space outside Top Gun towards the end of the working day.

America’s gun owners are worried that the incoming Obama administration, which is coming to power offering hope and change, is going to mean something rather different for them – restriction and regulation.

So they are rushing to buy certain types of weapons in the dying weeks of the Bush years.

…It is a reminder that Barack Obama’s win was not just a victory of optimism and energy over age and staleness, it was also a victory across a cultural divide, of one sort of America over another.

A gun-lovin’, largely rural and conservative vision of the US was clearly defeated by a brand of big city liberalism which fears or despises firearms and wants to do something about America’s love affair with them.

The American right to bear arms is enshrined in the second amendment of the constitution, so there is a limit to what even a Democratic president supported by majorities in both the House and the Senate could do it about, even if he were minded to.

Any legislation would really tinker around the edges of the right, restricting the purchase of certain types of assault weapon, and certain sizes of ammunition cartridge.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7749474.stm

There it is in a nut shell. The liberal people of america have somehow been given the right to tell the rural conservatives how to live their lives. A mandate if you will, since they are the pillars of clarity and reason. And us few, us lucky few, have only sweetness and light to go on.

Funny I seem to remember reading something about some short of legistlation in Cal. that got the liberals all up set. Wonder what that could of been about?

Liberal Hollywood ponders next step in fight for same-sex marriage

After the passage of Proposition 8, some are calling for boycotts and firings. Others worry about free speech rights being trampled.

By Rachel Abramowitz and Tina Daunt

Should there be boycotts, blacklists, firings or de facto shunning of those who supported Proposition 8?

That’s the issue consuming many in liberal Hollywood who fought to defeat the initiative banning same-sex marriage and are now reeling with recrimination and dismay. Meanwhile, activists continue to comb donor lists and employ the Internet to expose those who donated money to support the ban.

Already out is Scott Eckern, director of the nonprofit California Musical Theatre in Sacramento, who resigned after a flurry of complaints from prominent theater artists, including “Hairspray” composer Marc Shaiman, when word of his contribution to the Yes on 8 campaign surfaced.

Other targets include Film Independent, the nonprofit arts organization that puts on both the Los Angeles Film Festival and the Spirit Awards; the Cinemark theater chain; and the Sundance Film Festival.

In Film Independent’s case, the board has defended the continued employment of Richard Raddon, the Mormon director of the L.A. Film Festival who donated $1,500 to support Proposition 8. Cinemark is under siege because Chief Executive Alan Stock gave $9,999 to support the same-sex marriage ban. And in a sign of a powerful ripple effect, Sundance, perhaps the American institution that has done the most to support gay filmmakers and gay cinema, is being targeted because it screens films in a Cinemark theater.

For many in Hollywood, the Proposition 8 backlash represents a troubling clash of free speech, religious beliefs and the right to fight intolerance. Many supporters of same-sex marriage view the state constitutional amendment as codified bigotry, a rollback of civil liberties for gays and lesbians.

Raddon has been a particularly polarizing figure because Film Independent’s board includes many independent film stalwarts, including Don Cheadle, Forest Whitaker, Fox Searchlight President Peter Rice and Oscar-winning writer Bill Condon. One of the group’s explicit missions is to promote diversity.

Last week, Raddon offered to resign. According to one board member, a conference call was hastily arranged, and after much discussion the board voted unanimously to keep him.

Yet the anger continues to stew.

“There is still roiling debate within the organization,” says distributor Howard Cohen, an advisor to the film festival who is gay. “Is it OK to let this go? There are a lot of gay people who work at Film Independent. The issue has not been closed.”

No one is certain how the current protest will affect Film Independent’s Spirit Awards in the spring, a popular event recognizing work that “challenges the status quo.” And there are already indications the Los Angeles Film Festival could be affected.

Gregg Araki, director of the critically acclaimed gay cult hit “Mysterious Skin” and an influential figure in “new queer cinema,” has said he won’t allow his films to be shown there, while others, such as “Milk” producers and gay activists Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, say they’re going to “study in depth all the facets of our specific situation before making a decision.”

Araki says Raddon should step down. “I don’t think he should be forcibly removed. The bottom line is if he contributed money to a hateful campaign against black people, or against Jewish people, or any other minority group, there would be much less excusing of him. The terrible irony is that he runs a film festival that is intended to promote tolerance and equality.”

Others are leery of punishing free speech, even if they consider it hateful. “I can’t quite stomach the notion that you fire somebody because of what they believe. It doesn’t feel right to me,” says Christine Vachon, a pillar of gay cinema who produced such films as “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Far From Heaven.”

Raddon declined to comment, but Dawn Hudson, executive director of Film Independent, says, “Are we happy with his donation? No. But he has a right to his religious and personal beliefs.

“The very cornerstone of our organization is diversity, and diversity includes sexual orientation. Rich’s actions have always been in accordance with those principles,” she said. …

http://www.latimes.com/enterta.....2815.story

Or, “blacklisting is OK if we do it.”

NPR Sends Wiccan Priestess to Public Prayer Booth

A pagan priestess runs into the president of the atheists in a phone booth in New York.

No, it’s not a joke — it’s the start of a controversial report from National Public Radio — and your tax dollars may have paid for it.

New York City officials this fall launched an art project called “Public Prayer Booth,” which features a modified phone booth rigged up with a flip-down kneeler. Passers-by, if they’re in the mood, can bend to their (padded) knee and say a prayer — a private moment in a very public atmosphere.

To cover the story, NPR sent reporter Margot Adler, a Wiccan priestess and author of two books on paganism. Lo and behold, she happened upon the president of the New York City Atheists, Ken Bronstein, an outspoken opponent of public religious displays.

“I just happened to be walking by at this exact moment,” Bronstein told Adler. Then he denounced the display of what he called a “supernatural situation” on city property. Bronstein said that it was inappropriate for the public sphere and had to go.

“You know, if they want to put it on private property, that’s where it should go — but not in public space,” said Bronstein.

Critics are calling the radio report a biased assault on religion — one that’s being supported in part with public funds.

“There are serious efforts under way right now to erase religious expression from the public square,” said Father Jonathan Morris, a Catholic priest and FOX News contributor. “I don’t understand why these groups would be so fascinated with taking this [religious expression] away.”

NPR vehemently denied that its coverage was opposed to prayer or organized religion.

“There’s no bias in this story and to imply that there is because of a reporter’s religious beliefs is absurd,” said Anna Christopher, an NPR spokeswoman. “[Adler] spoke with several different people with several different viewpoints on the booth.”

Adler said traffic was sparse by the booth and she had trouble finding someone who took it seriously enough to pray there, but she interviewed a woman named Francesca Richardson who lives on disability payments and stopped to say a prayer. Adler compared her to Avery Williams, 7, who said grace for her ailing pets.

“Well, my gerbil died so we prayed for him, and my dog had a very bad leg so we prayed for that too,” said Williams.

Asked whether their reporter was taking snipes at the faithful on the government dime, NPR was adamant that she wasn’t and explained that only a minuscule amount of its funding comes from the government.

“Less than two percent [of NPR's budget] comes from competitive grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts,” Christopher said.

“There’s no disrespect for religion at all. Our reporters are able to separate their private practices … and their standards as journalists, and in no way does [Adler's] religious affiliation affect that.“…

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,457205,00.html

But Fox News can’t be trusted to hold a Presidential debate.

Of course not.

So if so little of NPR’s budget comes from the Federal Government, it’s no big deal if we zero that line item out – right?