Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Last Call For A Member Of Club Wrong

Yet another reason why more liberals need to be involved in local politics and especially school boards: otherwise, they get infested with horrible theocratic bigots.

A North Carolina K-12 charter school has caved to parents and shut down all student clubs over concerns about the inclusion of a student LGBT group.
The Daily Courier reported that parents and other members of the community “blindsided” the Lake Lure Classical Academy board of directors at a meeting on Friday after a students formed the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Club.

On grandmother reportedly complained to the board that she would have to explain the meaning of “gay” and “lesbian” to her grandchild because of the club.

Another citizen told the board since it is a public school it has the ability to do away with the club,” The Daily Courier noted. “He said he did not have a child at Lake Lure, but if he did he would take them out immediately. He said the only diversity the school needs is the Bible.”

As long as "Christians" like this continue to run out politics because the rest of us are too busy to give a damn, then they'll continue to be in charge. These are wingnuts who would rather see all clubs shut down rather than be exposed to those people.

Lake Lure Baptist Church Pastor Anton Roos warned that attendance at the school would dwindle if the LGBT club was allowed to continue.

Roos said that it was unfair that the “Raptors for Christ Club” was not allowed to hang posters in the school but he said that the LGBT club was allowed to kick off with an “advertising campaign.” And the pastor asserted that, Layne Long, the teacher who sponsored the LGBT students, should be disciplined.

This [LGBT] club was put together by a teacher and I would like to know what action was taken against her,” Roos said. “We are in a time in which you as a board need to take a stand. We have entrusted [School Director Jessica Boland] with our children and you have failed them.”

To recap, the point of a school board in 2015 is to punish those educators who disagree with the board.

Got it.

Think maybe you should look into the school board where you live, yet?

Operation La Kocha Nostra

Guess which major right-wing political donors are so wealthy and powerful that they have their own 25-person strong in-house intelligence gathering agency to spy on liberals?

The competitive intelligence effort, reported here for the first time, also hints at the audaciousness of the Koch network’s mission. While the Republican Party focuses on winning elections, the Kochs want to realign American politics, government and society around free enterprise philosophies that they hope to spread more broadly. 
A key to accomplishing the mission, from the Kochs' perspective, is countering super PACs and other big-money groups funded by rich liberals, as well as allied public sector unions and academic and media elites. The Kochs’ allies feel that those forces have worked together for decades with Democratic politicians and government bureaucrats to institutionalize the philosophy that heavy regulation and taxation of business is the only way to ensure an equitable society. 
The Kochs concluded that defeating this well-funded left-wing infrastructure requires tracking the professional left in real time ― a capability they realized they lacked after the 2012 election. In the run-up to that election, the Koch network spent $400-million-plus attacking Democratic politicians and policies, only to see President Barack Obama win re-election and his party maintain control of the Senate. A forensic audit of the network’s efforts concluded the Kochs had been out-maneuvered by the left on the airwaves, in the data war and on the ground. Vowing not to let that happen again, the network began investing in the competitive intelligence team and other efforts to keep tabs on the left. 
To be sure, the Kochs’ operation isn’t the only one focused on pulling back the curtain on its opponents. In fact, liberal activists and groups have frequently worked to expose the activities of the Koch brothers and their network. But the competitive intelligence team, like so many other Koch-backed programs, appears to be unique in its scale and its thoroughly methodological approach.

The outfit is run by a former CIA operative named Jim Roman, and from all indications it's a very professional deal. Keep in mind that if it was a left-wing business group that had its own intelligence group tracking conservatives in real-time, there would be congressional hearings, subpoenas , endless breaking news stories, and conservatives screaming that American take up armed resistance to overthrow "tyrant" Obama's network of spies.  Hell, those attacks on the "Dems'' private Stasi" would be coming from the right and the civil libertarian left.

But it's the Koch Brothers, so it's okay. And of course, the paranoid style runs deep.

In addition to delving into the left, the competitive intelligence team also monitors potential Koch network threats, according to sources familiar with it. It tracks people deemed suspicious outside the offices of Koch network groups, circulating be-on-the-lookout photos to internal network email lists, while keeping an eye on the network's own ranks for possible leakers or disloyal employees. 
One former network executive remembers an email containing a photo of a man identified as an operative with the environmental group Greenpeace who allegedly had been spotted taking his own photos outside the network’s cluster of offices in the Courthouse neighborhood of Arlington. 
Connor Gibson, a Greenpeace researcher who focuses on the Koch network, said he visits its component groups’ offices once a year to pick up their tax filings, and he speculated he could have been the operative photographed by the competitive intelligence unit. While he said he’s never sought to conceal his identity during such visits, he added “If the Kochs consider me an opponent, I’m flattered.” 
In another instance, sources say, Roman's team set out to identify an IT contractor who was working for one of the network's groups and was posting anonymous messages to Reddit, proclaiming that he worked for the Koch brothers but despised their stances. Within 48 hours, the team had sleuthed out the offender and his contract was terminated. 
“They were scared to death of moles,” said the former executive. 
A separate source ― an organizer who’s worked with the unit ― described it as “a full opposition research operation, only at about 10-times the level of any political campaign.” The organizer added “my guess is that most people inside the network don’t even know about it.”

Understand that this is the logical endpoint of believing your political opponents as an enemy that needs to be ferreted out and destroyed, to spy on them, track them, identify them, and to conduct counter-espionage against, all in the name of controlling the country's politics.  And they have access to billions in resources in order to do it.

The Kochs see liberals -- fellow Americans, mind you -- as people who must be tracked in real-time.

This is who controls American politics.

Syrian Shutdown, Con't

GOP Old and brokedown: threatening to shut the government down over Planned Parenthood.

GOP new hottness: threatening to shut the government down over Syrian refugees.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) told Republicans in a closed-door meeting Thursday that he is looking to address this week the concerns many GOP lawmakers have raised about Syrian refugees in light of the Paris attack, an anonymous source in the room told Politico.
It's not clear which steps Ryan will take, though Politico reported there are several legislative options to consider in the coming days.

Some Republicans have suggested attaching a measure blocking or restricting President Obama's refugee resettlement program to the must-pass spending bill due in December. Avoiding a government shutdown over the refugee program -- which Obama has continued to defend -- will likely be Ryan's first major test as speaker.

That's right folks, the government shutdown game isn't over yet, and the Paris attacks just threw the whole thing into doubt.  Ryan and Mitch the Turtle made it the official GOP position last night:

Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, embracing his new role as the highest-ranking Republican in Washington, was the leading voice in his party urging immediate suspension of a State Department program to settle Syrian refugees in the United States. The Republicans cited evidence that at least one of the Paris attackers may have entered Europe by posing as a refugee.

The Republican demands raised the possibility that legislation temporarily barring the admission of Syrian refugees could be attached to a spending measure that Congress must pass before Dec. 11 to avoid a government shutdown. Republicans said they had not yet settled on a legislative strategy.

“Our nation has always been welcoming,” Mr. Ryan said at a news conference. “But we cannot allow terrorists to take advantage of our compassion. This is a moment where it is better to be safe than to be sorry. So we think the prudent, the responsible thing is to take a pause in this particular aspect of this refugee program in order to verify that terrorists are not trying to infiltrate the refugee population.”

Mr. McConnell also endorsed a suspension of the program, which so far has brought only small numbers of Syrians to the United States and, Democrats noted, only after a lengthy screening process. The administration earlier this fall pledged to take in up to 10,000 additional Syrian migrants.

“We’re going to continue to have refugees as long as Syria looks like it does, and so what we need is a strategy obviously to give the refugees an opportunity to stay in their own country,” Mr. McConnell said.

The spoiler here is that the Republicans will never agree to unpause in this particular aspect while a Democrat is president.

The Donald also wasted no time in taking the lead on the demagoguery among the 2016 GOP hopefuls.

Presidential candidate Donald Trump is going after President Barack Obama claiming the administration is sending Syrian refugees to Republican states.

“They send them to the Republicans, not to the Democrats, you know because they know the problem… why would we want to bother the Democrats?” Trump told conservative radio host Laura Ingraham Tuesday, as reported by Politico.

The question becomes is this something the GOP can win, or is it their usual overplaying their hand and getting smashed by President Obama?

We'll see.  The answer is how many Democrats are believe they are going to survive political ads showing SCARY BROWN TERRORISTS and "Shame on X for possibly allowing deadly terrorists pretending to be refugees into our backyard!" voiceovers next year.

We'll see, and soon.

StupidiNews!