Tag Archives: Topic: White House

Lambda Legal: “The single most important principle contained in the guidelines is that affirming the sexual orientation and gender identity and expression of LGBTQ youth in care protects young peoples’ emotional safety and ensures positive outcomes,” said Flor Bermudez, Lambda Legal’s Youth in Out-of-Home Care Staff Attorney. “We are pleased that the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) will make the Recommended Practice Guidelines available to every state child welfare agency in the country to help meet the needs of LGBTQ children.”

National Review Online: There is some that is commendable and much that is pernicious in Secretary Clinton’s speech Tuesday announcing that the United States will be making “LGBT rights” — that is, the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered persons — “a priority of our foreign policy” and a factor in determining the uses of “foreign assistance.”

LifeNews: The Obama administration is coming under more fire from pro-life advocates for blocking Texas’ plan to run a women’s health initiative without funding the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

Frank Gaffney at Townhall: To the contrary, the Obama administration has been working behind the scenes to do as its Islamist friends have demanded by shutting down the USCIRF. It has enlisted for this purpose Senator Dick Durbin, the Senate’s Number 2 Democrat. Sen. Durbin is not only perfectly placed to do the deed stealthily. He has his own close associations with a number of the Brotherhood’s top fronts and operatives in his home state of Illinois, in Washington and elsewhere across the country.

Washington Times: Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter said the Republican governors of the Midwestern states who back the stalled Keystone XL oil pipeline should bypass the federal government altogether and make the agreements necessary to get the $7 billion project up and running.

ADF Chief Counsel Benjamin Bull at Townhall : On Dec. 6, the White House released a memorandum instructing the heads of U.S. executive departments and agencies abroad to join in the “struggle to end discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons” around the world . . . Yet while he’s doing his best to appeal to that group, Christians around the world continue to be persecuted—to be hunted like animals, then tortured and killed when captured—yet we are still awaiting a serious White House memorandum on their behalf.

News from The Associated Press: Leading Democratic senators are demanding that the Obama administration explain its decision to continue restricting access to Plan B, the morning-after birth control pill, for those under 17.

The Daily Caller: The State Department began a three-day, closed-door meeting Monday to talk about U.S. free speech rules with representatives from numerous Islamic governments that have lobbied for 12 years to end U.S. citizens’ ability to speak freely about Islam’s history and obligations.

ADF Attorney Kevin Theriot at Speak Up Movement Church Blog: So if Secretary of State Clinton is willing to acknowledge that rights aren’t simply something we’ve made up ourselves as we bump along evolutionary path to self actualization, why didn’t she say they emanate from God? The simple answer is she probably knows God not only gave us rights, He’s given responsibilities. The whole point of her speech is she believes the freedom to engage in homosexual behavior is a basic human right that even trumps religious freedom.

Chuck Colson at the Christian Post: Last week, the Obama administration issued a memo making the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered people “a major element of its foreign policy,” that’s a quote from a Washington Post article. The article noted the president’s concern for discrimination and violence against LGBTs (as they are known).

RealClearPolitics: Gretchen Carlson, FOX News: Unemployment has gone up precipitously since he took office. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC Chair: That is simply not true. In fact, unemployment has now dropped below 9%. It’s continuing to drop. He’s been focused on —

News from The Associated Press: Seeking to bolster relations with Muslim countries angry about Western characterizations of Islam, the Obama administration has gathered representatives from more than two dozen governments this week in an effort to address religious intolerance around the world.

Earlier this year, Texas yanked about $64 million in funding from Planned Parenthood and directed the funds to agencies that do not do abortions.

NYTimes.com: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other international leaders urged countries and private businesses on Thursday to fight increasing efforts to restrict access to the Internet by repressive governments and even some democratic ones.

LifeNews.com: “The Obama administration’s track record on protecting Planned Parenthood raises the likelihood that the FDA decision is less about safety and more about making sure that Planned Parenthood retains a substantial share of the Plan B market,” Indiana Right to Life president Mike Fichter told LifeNews shortly after the decision Wednesday.

Washington Times: The catalyst for the amendment was the announcement last spring that the newest supply ship in the Navy’s inventory would be named after labor leader Cesar Chavez.

Religion Clause: The Coalition Against Religious Discrimination (CARD) is a group of over 50 religious, civil rights and public policy organizations that has been encouraging the Obama administration to require all recipients of federal grants and contracts to observe a strict non-discrimination policy in hiring for positions funded with federal dollars.

Fox News: Sen. Susan Collins on Wednesday blasted the Defense Department for classifying the Fort Hood massacre as workplace violence and suggested political correctness is being placed above the security of the nation’s Armed Forces at home.

In a rare move, the Health and Human Services Department overruled a decision by the Food and Drug Administration to make the morning after pill available to teenagers without a prescription.

Speaking yesterday at a United Nations event in Geneva, Switzerland marking International Human Rights Day (full text of remarks), U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a strong call for protection of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights . . . ”

The Obama administration is examining the possibility of selling the morning after pill to teenagers and the FDA has until Wednesday to respond to a request from the maker of the Plan B drug to sell it on the shelves and not behind the pharmacist’s counter.

The Obama administration will begin considering how countries treat gay and lesbian citizens when making decisions about allocating foreign aid, an official familiar with the decision says.

Religion Clause: VP Biden Meets In Turkey With Ecumenical Patriarch.

FRC Washington Update: The Obama State Department has an interesting interpretation of “diplomacy.” From Kenya to El Salvador, ambassadors are tasked–not with advancing America’s interests–but the interests of the President’s radical social agenda. In most cases, this aggressive strategy has made more enemies of nations than friends.

LifeNews.com: A House committee held a hearing today on the decision by the Obama administration to deny to the nation’s Catholic bishops a grant for a program helping sex trafficking victims because it would not refer for abortions.

Heritage Foundation: Sometimes the White House gets the easy questions wrong. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney was asked about a controversial mandate stemming from Obamacare that would require religious employers to provide insurance coverage for birth control despite religious objections.

Dan Balz at The Washington Post: The 2008 election was a reminder of the demographic forces that are changing America and potentially the political balance in the country. The most diverse electorate in the nation’s history added to the favorable winds that pushed President Obama to victory. He will need the assistance of those shifts even more in 2012 if he is to avoid defeat.

Thomas B. Edsall at NYTimes.com: For decades, Democrats have suffered continuous and increasingly severe losses among white voters. But preparations by Democratic operatives for the 2012 election make it clear for the first time that the party will explicitly abandon the white working class.

But something is missing from this year’s message out of the Obama White House. It’s the mention of sin and the need for repentance.

Wendy Wright atTurtle Bay and Beyond: Now, before even being confirmed by the Senate, she has offended the people of El Salvador. Aponte published an op ed in an El Salvadoran newspaper brashly telling the citizens it is their duty to be advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.

Reuters: A U.S. judge on Tuesday sentenced Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a former Chicago fundraiser for President Barack Obama, to 10-1/2 years in prison for corruption and extortion.

he American Bar Association has secretly declared a significant number of President Obama’s potential judicial nominees “not qualified,” slowing White House efforts to fill vacant judgeships . . .

LifeNews.com: The re-election campaign of President Barack Obama has hired an activist who formerly worked for one of the top pro-abortion groups to head up a new women’s outreach effort for the 2012 presidential election.

The Hill: “The President designed a political strategy that doomed the committee to failure first by insisting the committee include $450 billion of his failed stimulus policies in any agreement, making deficit reduction much harder and second by issuing a veto threat warning he would not accept an agreement that did not include a job-killing tax increase,” the memo obtained by The Hill states.

More than 200 LGBT presidential appointees serve under President Obama, among them the first two who are openly transgender.

U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan became the first sitting cabinet secretary to announce support for marriage equality, saying on Nov. 15 that he ”absolutely” supports marriage equality in an exclusive interview with Metro Weekly.

LifeNews.com: A recent investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, revealed that the Obama administration has broken the law. The GAO’s report establishes that at least one Obama grantee openly lobbied to expand abortion in Kenya despite the longstanding law, known as the Siljander Amendment, that prohibits U.S. tax dollars from being used to lobby for or against abortion in other countries.

“As we gather in our communities and in our homes, around the table or near the hearth, we give thanks to each other and to God for the many kindnesses and comforts that grace our lives. Let us pause to recount the simple gifts that sustain us, and resolve to pay them forward in the year to come.”

LifeNews.com: An investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), into the Obama Administration’s use of $18 million in taxpayer funds to provide funding for a group pushing legalized abortion in Kenya finds the administration broke the law.

Cheryl Gay Stolberg at NYTimes.com: As Barack Obama battled Hillary Rodham Clinton over health care during the Democratic presidential primaries of 2008, he was adamant about one thing: Americans, he insisted, should not be required to buy health insurance.

Lambda Legal (includes video): Today, the White House announced that former Lambda Legal client Janice Langbehn will be one of 13 recipients of the 2011 Presidential Citizens Medal, the nation’s second-highest civilian honor.

LifeNews.com: Efforts by the watchdog group Judicial Watch to demand that Justice Elena Kagan recuse herself when the Affordable Care Act (Health Care Reform) is brought before the Supreme Court later this year resulted in the release of emails between Kagan (back when she was Solicitor General) and a top Department of Justice official. They unsurprisingly, confirm what pro-lifers have been saying all along about the phony agreement which Democrats have claimed prevented health care reform from creating new abortion funding streams.

The Hill: Democrats on Capitol Hill are worried that the Supreme Court will rule against President Obama’s healthcare reform law.

USA Today: The U.S. Catholic bishops Monday blasted “aggressive secularism” and the Obama administration for attacking the Church — and all believers — on religious liberty by curtailing the voices of faith in the public square.

Christianity Today: Family Research Council recently elevated the criticism of President Obama, saying the President disrespects Christianity and is creating an environment “hostile” to Christianity . . . Alliance Defense Fund president Alan Sears and American Values president Gary Bauer joined Perkins on Dobson’s show.

Breitbart: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Sunday that he was looking at exporting more oil to China after the United States delayed a decision on a controversial pipeline.

NYTimes.com: The Obama administration is preparing to delay a decision on the contested Keystone XL pipeline while it studies an alternate route, effectively pushing any action past the 2012 election, officials and lobbyists who have been briefed on the matter said on Thursday. An announcement is expected as early as Thursday afternoon.

NCPA Policy Digest: That is, unless we consider Christmas trees to be wholly secular, this is an obvious burden on the free exercise of Christianity, and one that no other religion faces.

The Hill: Abortion-rights supporters say the issue can help President Obama’s reelection campaign regain ground with voters who supported him in 2008 but have drifted since.

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears at Townhall: The Obama administration’s obsession with appointing a wide range of “czars” flies in the face of this construct and is dangerous to our form of government.

News from The Associated Press: White House officials are praising the defeat of an anti-abortion proposal in Mississippi that would have defined life as beginning at conception.

Fox News: Republican lawmakers and conservative activists are expressing outrage after the Obama administration announced its objection to adding President Franklin Roosevelt’s D-Day prayer to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

TheHill.com: “That’s not putting people back to work,” Obama said. “I trust in God, but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people to work.”

LifeNews.com: The nation’s Catholic bishops are considering a lawsuit against the Obama administration for denying a grant previously granted for a program helping victims of sex trafficking because the bishops would not refer the women for abortions.

The Volokh Conspiracy: The New York Times Room for Debate Forum has an interesting symposium on the role of religion in presidential elections. In his contribution, polling expert Andrew Kohut cites a 2007 Pew survey showing that atheism is viewed more negatively by voters than virtually any other possible trait of a presidential candidate.

NCRegister.com: The federal government’s decision to end funding for a Church program for trafficking victims has fueled concerns that “abortion politics” are at work.

Christian Post: Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said the Arab Spring and the Muslim campaign against Catholic University are symptoms of a growing anti-Christian climate, and pledged to defend religious freedom around the globe.

Wall Street Journal (via Google): According to Mr. Isaacson, Jobs “stressed the need for more trained engineers and suggested that any foreign students who earned an engineering degree in the U.S. should be given a visa to stay in the country.” The president reportedly replied that this would have to await broader immigration reform, which he said he was unable to accomplish. Apple’s founder on Obama: “The president is very smart, but he kept explaining to us reasons why things can’t get done. It infuriates me.”

The Hill: The Obama administration on Thursday approved hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to California’s Medicaid program that the state had requested to shore up its dismal finances.

TheHill.com: President Obama and Democrats on Capitol Hill are increasingly referring to the Congress as “Republican” even though their party controls one-half of the unpopular institution.

WSJ.com: The extremely big bet that the Justice Department—and presumably, the White House—is making on ObamaCare’s constitutionality.

FRC: On Wednesday, October 26, at Noon Eastern, Family Research Council will host a panel discussion about religious persecution around the world and how U.S. policy on religious freedom is a compelling national interest. Religious persecution is on the rise throughout the world, according to a recent report by The Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life.

The Daily Caller: Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole confirmed on Wednesday that the Obama administration was pulling back all training materials used for the law enforcement and national security communities, in order to eliminate all references to Islam that some Muslim groups have claimed are offensive.

TheHill.com: President Obama will announce Friday that all U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the year.

Ken Blackwell at Townhall: Egyptian violence against Christians is intolerable. When peaceful demonstrators demanding only protection of the law are attacked, we see a complete breakdown of civil order. More than that, the fact that Egypt ’s Christians are being killed with impunity means there is no Arab Spring. We need a thorough reassessment of our foreign policy goals.

Washington Examiner: President Obama failed to renew the $19 million grant awarded to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for providing assistance to human trafficking victims.

Investors.com: Leaked cables show Japan nixed a presidential apology to Hiroshima and Nagasaki for using nukes to end the overseas contingency operation known as World War II.

NCPA Policy Digest: President Obama revived one of his favorite revenue-raising proposals in his recent jobs plan: limiting the itemized tax deductions that “millionaires and billionaires” (defined as individuals earning over $200,000 or couples earning more than $250,000 per year) can take for mortgage interest, state and local taxes, and charitable contributions, says Craig D. Eyermann, an Independent Institute Research Fellow.

Today you have judges who are dictatorial and arrogant, who pretend that they are the dominant branch and who issue orders that clearly are against the Constitution,” he told CBS’ Bob Schieffer on Sunday.

The Blog of Legal Times: Addressing reporters today at the White House, President Barack Obama said he has “complete confidence” in how Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. is running the U.S. Justice Department.

CNSnews.com: Bantering with the audience at a fundraiser in St. Louis yesterday, President Barack Obama bragged about a new regulation, proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services, that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has denounced as an “unprecedented attack on religious liberty.”

The Washington Post: President Barack Obama said Monday he does not regret a $528 million loan to a solar energy company that later collapsed, saying officials always knew a clean energy loan program would not back winners 100 percent of the time.

LifeNews.com: Three members of the Council, as represented by attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, requested that HHS declare the grant void. In their complaint, they say “the Grant by HHS was improper, irregular, unnecessary, in contravention of the authority of the Executive Council and its duly

Boston.com: Represented by lawyers from the Alliance Defense Fund, Republican Councilors David Wheeler, Dan St. Hilaire and Ray Wieczorek asked the government on Wednesday to void the contract as contravening the state’s sovereign authority. They said there was no emergency or urgency in delivering the services.

The Republic: Represented by lawyers from the Alliance Defense Fund, Republican Councilors David Wheeler, Dan St. Hilaire and Ray Wieczorek asked the government on Wednesday to void the contract as contravening the state’s sovereign authority. They said there was no emergency or urgency in delivering the services.