Democrats drop Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson names from annual fundraising dinner

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Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson are history in Connecticut.

Under pressure from the NAACP, the state Democratic Party will scrub the names of the two presidents from its annual fundraising dinner because of their ties to slavery.

Party leaders voted unanimously Wednesday night in Hartford to rename the Jefferson Jackson Bailey dinner in the aftermath of last month’s fatal shooting of nine worshipers at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C.

The decision is believed to be unprecedented and could prompt Democrats in other states with similarly named events to follow suit.

“I see it as the right thing to do,” Nick Balletto, the party’s first-year chairman, told Hearst Connecticut Media on Wednesday night.

“I wasn’t looking to be a trailblazer or set off a trend that’s going to affect the rest of the country. Hopefully, they’ll follow suit when they see it’s the right thing to do.”

Take our poll: What should the new name be?

Democrats cited Jefferson and Jackson’s ownership of slaves as a key factor in the decision, as well as Jackson’s role in the removal of Native Americans from the southeastern U.S. in what was known as the Trail of Tears.

In 2005, the school board in the city of Berkeley, Calif., considered a measure to change the name of Thomas Jefferson Elementary School for similar reasons, but the moniker remains.

Scot X. Esdaile, the head of Connecticut’s NAACP, said it was high time for Democrats to rebrand the event.

“I would applaud the current leaders in Connecticut in making the symbolic first step and striving to right the wrongs of the past,” Esdaile said.

“You can’t right all the wrongs, but I think it’s a symbolic gesture of our support for their party.”

The decision immediately drew criticism from some historians as a politically correct overstep, including Robert Turner, a law professor at the University of Virginia, which was founded by Jefferson.

“It is a sad and short-sighted decision based upon tragic ignorance,” said Turner, who has written extensively about Jefferson’s legacy.

This December will mark the 150th anniversary of the enactment of the 13th Amendment of the Constitution, which abolished slavery.

“The authors of that amendment purposely chose language drafted by Jefferson in an unsuccessful effort to outlaw slavery in the Northwest Territories as a means of honoring Jefferson’s struggle against slavery,” Turner said.

“If (Democrats) understood Jefferson’s lifelong opposition to slavery, they would have reached a different conclusion.”

A new name for the event, which marked its 67th year in June with Massachusetts Sen.Elizabeth Warren as its headliner, will be chosen in the fall.

The event’s third namesake, John Bailey, who led the state party and then the Democratic National Committee under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, will likely be preserved.

Balletto said blacks and Native Americans are a major constituency of the Democratic Party.

“When something offends someone, it’s beyond being politically correct,” Balletto said.

“It just causes a need for change.”

Balletto said Jefferson was a great founding father, but “had some issues.”

“You can’t change history, but you don’t have to honor it,” Balletto said.

neil.vigdor@scni.com; 203-625-4436; http://twitter.com/gettinviggy

Via: CTPost

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Appeasing Iran Ignores the Lessons of History

 Expect a Nobel Peace Prize for Secretary of State John Kerry now, followed by Chamberlain-like infamy later.

The now-concluded Iran nuclear negotiations predictably reflect ancient truths of

 While members of the Obama administration are high-fiving each other over a deal with the Iranian theocracy, they should remember unchanging laws that will surely haunt the United States later on. 

First, appeasement always brings short-term jubilation at the expense of long-term security. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was a beloved peacemaker after the Munich Agreement of 1938 with Adolf Hitler but derided as a conceited fool and naif by May 1940. 

A few years from now – after Iran has used its negotiated breathing space to rearm, ratchet up its terrorist operations, and eventually gain a bomb to blackmail its neighbors – the current deal will be deeply regretted. Expect a Nobel Peace Prize for Secretary of State John Kerry now, followed by Chamberlain-like infamy later. 

Second, the appeasement of autocrats always pulls the rug out from under domestic reformers and idealists. After the Western capitulation at Munich, no dissenter in Germany dared to question the ascendant dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. 

RELATED: Is the Iran Deal the Worst Political Blunder of All Time? Until last week, Iranian dissidents and reformers had blamed the theocracy for earning Iran pariah status abroad and economic ruin at home. Not now. The haughty ayatollahs are bragging that they faced down the West and will restore the economy – as they wink to applauding crowds that Iran will soon be nuclear and dictate its terms to the Middle East. 

Third, appeasers always wrongly insist that the only alternative to their foolish concessions is war. Just the opposite is true.

Via: National Review

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Exclusive: More MSNBC Changes Coming with Three Shows Out, Hard News and Chuck Todd Back

A well-placed source tells me MSNBC will announce today major changes to its afternoon lineup…arguably the most significant revamp the network has made at one time in its 19-year history.

Out: The Cycle at 3:00 PM. Now with Alex Wagner at 4:00 PM. The Ed Show with Ed Schultz at 5:00 PM (all times eastern).

In: Chuck Todd at 5:00 PM. Similar to Jake Tapper at CNN doing both weekday afternoons (hosting The Lead) andanchoring Sunday morning’s State of the Union, Todd will also continue to work weekends as moderator of Sunday’sMeet the Press. Todd’s MSNBC show will likely take on its old name The Daily Rundown, but that is not a guarantee.

More interesting: Andrea Mitchell will keep her program at noon (Andrea Mitchell Reports). Thomas Roberts will continue to anchor his midday news program from 1:00-3:00 PM. The programs being cancelled at 3:00 PM (The Cycle) and 4:00 PM (Now with Alex Wagner) will be replaced by a straight news program (similar to Roberts’ two-hour newscast preceding it). Whether that 3:00-5:00 PM slot goes to Brian Williams is not known at this time, but it would certainly make the most sense to put Williams directly up against Fox’s Shepard Smith (Shepard Smith Reporting) and CNN’s Brooke Baldwin (CNN Newsroom) for the first hour in a similar format.

Since coming on four months ago, relatively new NBC News Chief Andy Lack is obviously making his presence felt. Ratings are in the toilet…it somehow finished 5th in a four-horse race recently. Staffers and talent are walking on eggshells. And unless your last name is Matthews, Maddow or your first name Joe or Mika, nobody appears safe, as Mediaite’s Andrew Kirell reported exclusively earlier this week.

Once self-dubbed The Place for Politics, MSNBC goes back to its 1996 roots: More news, less talk.

The place for politics pertains only to mornings and prime-time now. Lack quickly realized that the lack of balance via almost all opinion programming and very little hard news offerings was killing the network as audiences ran to CNN and Fox in droves when any big breaking story was happening. The good news for fans of the network is the Lack’s actually doing something about it…all while tapping resources from the NBC Mothership to help make it happen without breaking the bank.

Fixing dayside was a no-brainer. 6:00 PM and 8:00 PM are likely next. Some old faces may be returning. MSNBC will soon look very different, courtesy of the biggest change in its lineup in nearly two decades.

And Andy Lack isn’t done shaking things up at 30 Rock…not by a long shot.

Via: Mediaite

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Cap-and-Trade Funds Targeted for High-Speed Rail Project

Bills being introduced that monitor or change terms for the state’s high-speed rail project are a rarity. However, there are two bills brewing in the Legislature.

One has a shot at passing. The other doesn’t.

Senate Bill 400 would require the California High-Speed Rail Authority to use at least 25 percent of its cap-and-trade funds for projects to reduce or offset construction emissions. The bill comes as two groups have brought legal challenges to the state’s cap-and-trade program and the state’s plan for measuring emissions from the high-speed rail project. The bill traces its origins to the powerful Hispanic caucus and is expected to pass in the largely pro-rail legislature.

SB400, introduced by Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, has been approved in the Senate and is moving through committees in the Assembly.

Last year the Legislature appropriated 25 percent of the state’s revenues from cap-and-trade auctions to the high-speed rail project. SB400 would reduce construction funds to 18.75 percent of the revenues, with the remainder going to “reduce or offset greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions directly associated with the construction of the high-speed rail project and provide a co-benefit of improving air quality,” according to a Senate analysis of the bill.

The analysis suggests that this bill might save the cap-and-trade program, which is being challenged by two lawsuits.

Lawsuits against AB32 and HSR

A suit brought by the Pacific Legal Foundation, which favors limited government and “sensible environmental policies,” claims that the very existence of the cap-and-trade program is an illegal tax. The case is on appeal and expected to be heard in the fall.

A second suit asserts that a state plan to reduce emissions improperly calculated the impact of the high-speed rail project — which the plaintiffs allege will actually contribute to greenhouse gases instead of reduce them.

The plaintiffs in their complaint say that the state’s estimates “were neither real, permanent, quantifiable or verifiable but were instead illusory because in reality the construction of the (rail) project would result in a significant increase in (greenhouse gas) emissions prior to 2030 or beyond.”

The suit is being brought by the Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund, a nonprofit environmental group.

Cap and trade bailing out high-speed rail project

The rail project is not slated to be operational by 2020, which is the deadline in state law to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels.

The Senate analysis points out that state law restricts the use of cap-and-trade funds.

“The Constitution requires that a clear nexus exist between an activity for which a mitigation fee is used and the adverse effects related to the activity on which that fee is levied. …

“It is important that legislation allocating cap-and-trade revenues ensure that the funds are being used to reduce (greenhouse gas) emissions. If opponents of the program can convince the courts that the revenues are not being used appropriately, the entire cap-and-trade program could be jeopardized.”

The analysis hints that the rail program’s use of cap-and-trade funds, as currently outlined, doesn’t meet legal standards, and that passage of the bill would shore up the legal standing of the program and help the state win the pending court cases.

Via: California Political Review

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Should the servicemen murdered in Chattanooga receive Purple Hearts?

Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain is working to ensure that the four Marines and Navy petty officer who died in the terror attack on the Marine recruiting station in Chattanooga recieve Purple Heart medals for their sacrifice.

Washington Times:

Some of the Marines may have saved their fellow service members by ushering them to safety before returning to try to neutralize Abdulazeez. 

“While I cannot share specific details about what happened that morning, our Marines reacted the way you would expect — rapidly going from room to room. They got their fellow Marines to safety,” Maj. Gen. Paul Brier, commander of the 4th Marine Division, said during a news conference Wednesday. “Once they got them to safety, some willingly ran back into the fight.” 

Twenty Marines and two Navy corpsmen were in the naval reserve center inspecting their equipment after returning from a training program, Gen. Brier told reporters, indicating that the massacre could have been much worse if not for the Marines’ acts of courage. 

Lt. Cmdr. Timothy White, the support center’s commanding officer, used his personal firearm to engage Abdulazeez during the attack, the Navy Times reported. Four sources confirmed that the officer’s actions were included in a report distributed to senior Navy leaders after the attack.

Via: American Thinker

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Charlie Daniels on PP: ‘It’s High Time to Stop Funding the Butchering and Exploitation of the Unborn’ by Charlie Daniels

Planned Parenthood supporter holds sign that reads, "I Stand With Planned Parenthood." (AP File Photo)

A small quiz:

Who do you think made the following statement about blacks, immigrants and indigents?

"Human weeds … spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.”

Who said that they should enlist black ministers to sell black women on the prospect of abortion and the use of contraceptives in what was dubbed “The Negro Project”?

“We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”

Who said, “The eugenists wanted to shift the birth control emphasis from less children for the poor to more children for the rich. We went back off that and sought first to stop the multiplication of the unfit. This appeared the most important and greatest step towards race betterment”?

Was it Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin or some rabid white supremacist bent on purification and perfecting a “master race”?

Actually, it was Margaret Sanger, a woman, hailed as a hero in the ranks of feminism, who has coveted awards named after her, is revered by many prominent people in Washington and who founded the nation's largest abortion mill, Planned Parenthood.

Margaret Sanger's views on the controlled birth of children bordered on Nazism, and her views on religion and marital fidelity were akin to hedonism.

She made this statement: “The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.” And she was a closet advocate of black genocide.

Via: CNS News

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HAPPY MISERS! Colleges Across Boston Refuse To Pay For Basic City Services

A bunch of fancypants colleges and universities in Boston blatantly fail to pay voluntary fees for essential services provided by the taxpayers, such as police protection, fire protection and snow removal, an analysis by The Boston Globe reveals.

The private schools and their ultra-valuable campuses are tax-exempt by law. However, the city of Boston sends each school a bill twice a year, which requests — but does not demand — payment for basic services rendered.

Out of the 19 schools the Beantown municipal government asks for payments, only six gave even as much as half of the amount sought. The remaining 13 provided less than half — and often way less than half.

At Harvard University, school officials chose to contribute just 44 percent of the amount the city of Boston sought in 2015.

Harvard’s endowment is $36.4 billion. It is larger than the entire gross-domestic product of Jordan and, in fact, larger than half the economies on the planet.

In 2010, Harvard Magazine published a 5,342-word article entitled “Time to Tax Carbon.”

Other schools in Boston were similarly miserly this year when asked to pay any share for services.

Boston College gave just 23 percent of the amount Boston’s officials have sought, for example.

Northeastern University provided just 11 percent of the amount requested.

Northeastern’s endowment of $713 million is about the same as the annual GDP of the archipelago island nation of Comoros.

In March of this year, the Globe reported contemporaneously, officials at Northeastern made a late payment of $886,000 for essential services in the face of criticism.

Before that, the private school had provided exactly nothing at all for its share of city services.

In 2013, the director of Northeastern’s Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy signed a statement backing then-Gov. Deval Patrick’s plan to increase income taxes for Massachusetts residents.

“We believe there needs to be a significant increase in investment to make sure we remain economically competitive,” the director, Barry Bluestone, told the Globe at the time.

Boston’s four-year-old program of voluntary taxes asks private, tax-exempt institutions which hold property worth over $$15 million to pay for the basic amenities the city provides.

Not all the wealthy private schools in town have been so stingy. For example, Boston University ponied up 86 percent of its voluntary payment. That amounts to over $6 million.

Tufts University paid its full amount of $491,400.

Other nonprofits, such as hospitals, have paid far more generously than colleges and universities have under the program.

Via: Daily Caller

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AFL-CIO CONTROLLED UNION INTERVENES, CANCELS TRUMP’S BORDER TOUR PLANNED BY LOCAL AGENTS

Donald Trump’s planned tour of the Laredo Sector of the Texas -Mexico border has been canceled by the national AFL-CIO-controlled union that represents U.S. Border Patrol agents, the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC). Border Patrol agent Hector Garza acted in his role as Local 2455 president to honor Trump by inviting him to see his section of border in Laredo firsthand. Agent Garza confirmed to Breitbart Texas that the national union had stepped in and insisted that the Laredo local back out of honoring Trump with the border tour. Agent Garza said he expected Trump to continue without the participation of the union.

An inside source with knowledge of the internal NBPC discussion over the Trump visit told Breitbart Texas, “The union is about to put out a press release saving face for the local who invited Trump and the union itself by saying they are canceling their participation because Trump said he was “being honored” and that “agents supported him.”

One Border Patrol agent who spoke with Breitbart Texas on the condition of anonymity said, “The union has largely appealed to the public for more attention to the dangers posed by illegal immigrants who cross the border, so it’s strange that the AFL-CIO side would take lead and try to hurt a presidential candidate for saying the same things the union always says. This kind of crap is why I left the union.” The agent continued, “The agents who actually work on the border invited him. This seems contrived.”

To understand the reasons behind Local 2455 inviting Trump to bring attention to what the agents are facing, a brief understanding of the Texas-Mexico border and the Laredo Sector’s struggles are needed.

Texas has five border sectors. from East to West they are the Rio Grande Valley Sector (RGV), the Laredo Sector, the Del Rio Sector, the Big Bend Sector, and the El Paso Sector. Immediately after Breitbart Texas broke the June 5, 2014 leaked images of minors warehoused in RGV Border Patrol facilities, the State of Texas announced an effort to help secure the border. However, in that instance, Texas only sent help to the RGV Sector, largely ignoring the Laredo Sector.

Both the RGV and Laredo Sectors are worse off than most of the other sectors on the U.S.-Mexico border, largely due to the behaviors and characteristics of the specific Mexican cartels operating in these areas. Most of the border has the more professional Sinaloa Federation, an entity very concerned with keeping a low profile and staying out of the public eye. Both the Gulf and the Zetas have had leadership decimated and younger, less professional leaders take over and war with each other. Unlike the RGV Sector that received state help to handle the Gulf cartel, the Laredo Sector has largely been left to fight a losing battle against the Zetas cartel.

Via: Breitbart

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IAEA Tells Congressmen of Two Secret Side Deals to Iran Agreement That Won’t Be Shared with Congress

Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and Congressmen Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) issued a press release yesterday on a startling discovery they made during a July 17 meeting with International Atomic Energy Agency officials in Vienna: There are two secret side deals to the nuclear agreement with Iran that will not be shared with other nations, with Congress, or with the U.S. public. 

One of these side deals concerns inspection of the Parchin military base, where Iran reportedly has conducted explosive testing related to nuclear-warhead development. The Iranian government has refused to allow the IAEA to visit this site. Over the last several years, Iran has taken steps to clean up evidence of weapons-related activity at Parchin.  

The other secret side deal concerns how the IAEA and Iran will resolve outstanding issues on possible military dimensions (PMDs) of Iran’s nuclear program. In late 2013, Iran agreed to resolve IAEA questions about nuclear weapons-related work in twelve areas. Iran only answered questions in one of these areas and rejected the rest as based on forgeries and fabrications.   

Former Department of Energy official William Tobey explained in a July 15 Wall Street Journal op-ed why it is crucial that Iran resolve the PMD issue. According to Tobey, “for inspections to be meaningful, Iran would have to completely and correctly declare all its relevant nuclear activities and procurement, past and present.”

   According to the Cotton/Pompeo press release, there will be a secret, opaque procedure to verify Iran’s compliance with these side agreements. The press release says:

According to the IAEA, the Iran agreement negotiators, including the Obama administration, agreed that the IAEA and Iran would forge separate arrangements to govern the inspection of the Parchin military complex — one of the most secretive military facilities in Iran — and how Iran would satisfy the IAEA’s outstanding questions regarding past weaponization work. Both arrangements will not be vetted by any organization other than Iran and the IAEA, and will not be released even to the nations that negotiated the JCPOA [Iran nuclear agreement]. This means that the secret arrangements have not been released for public scrutiny and have not been submitted to Congress as part of its legislatively mandated review of the Iran deal.  

This means that two crucial measures of Iranian compliance with the nuclear agreement will not be disclosed to Congress despite the requirements of the Corker-Cardin bill (the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act), which requires the Obama administration to provide the U.S. Congress with all documents associated with the agreement, including all “annexes, appendices, codicils, side agreements [emphasis added], implementing materials, documents, and guidance, technical, or other understandings and any related agreements, whether entered into or implemented prior to the agreement or to be entered into or implemented in the future.” 

Via: NRO

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Secret 'Side Deals' ... Not-So-Secret Opposition: Why Obama's Iran Deal Is In Danger

The Obama administration has to be worried about the polling data on the Iran deal. It’s not good, not good at all.

According to Pew, which released a survey this week, 38 percent support it and 48 percent oppose.

Given the fact that the American people usually follow the president’s lead when it comes to foreign policy, this is a pretty bleak result for President Obama.

Even more striking, perhaps, is the relative softness of Democratic support — only 59 percent of Obama’s fellow Dems support the pact, fewer than three in five. (Unsurprisingly, nearly 80 percent of Republicans oppose the deal.)

The Pew results appear to contradict an earlier Washington Post/ABC poll that found 56 percent support for the deal with 37 percent against.

But that 56-37 number is hinky. It doesn’t jibe with other findings in the same survey.

For example, 35 percent said they approved of the president’s handling of Iran, while 52 percent disapproved.

Since the president’s “handling of Iran” now boils down exclusively to the pact he made with the mullahs, that painfully low 35 percent approval rating for Obama on Iran is impossible to square with 56 percent support for the deal.

Even more impossible to square are the feelings the public has about the deal.

In the words of James Arkin of Real Clear Politics, “just 35 percent of Americans said they were confident the deal would prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon — and only 6 percent were ‘very confident.’

“Meanwhile, 64 percent said they were not confident the deal would halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions, with 42 percent saying they had absolutely no confidence.”

These numbers actually confirm rather than undermine the subsequent Pew findings.

Pew’s survey is much larger than its predecessor, with nearly 1,700 respondents who say they know something about the terms of the deal.

Pew explains the discrepancy by pointing to the difference in the way the organizations approached the issue:

“The Pew Research question, which does not describe the agreement, finds lower levels of support than the Post/ABC News question, which details the intention to monitor Iran’s facilities and raises the possibility of re-imposition of sanctions if Iran does not comply.”

In other words, when the pact is described as the administration would want it to be described, it gets soft support — but the overall sense remains that Obama has done a bad job of it when it comes to Iran.

Via: New York Post

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NEW EMAILS: IRS Targeted Donors

Bombshell new emails reveal that the Obama administration’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) used donor lists of nonprofit groups to target donors, and specifically vowed to target the conservative U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The emails, obtained by Judicial Watch, show that Obama’s IRS conspired to revive the “gift tax” — a tax on 501(c)(4) donors that had not been enforced since 1982 following a Supreme Court ruling that effectively invalidated it. Emails between IRS officials show that the agency referred to Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS while discussing how to enforce their new gift tax on donors.

On April 20, 2011, IRS lawyer Lorraine Garder emailed a donor list for a nonprofit group to James Hogan, a manager in the IRS’ Chief Counsel’s office. Judicial Watch noted that the disclosure of the redacted group’s donor list occurred during the period in which officials were discussing Crossroads GPS.

“Does Bob have information about any of the donors [to the group in question]?” Gardner wrote in an email to IRS Estate Gift and Policy Manager Lisa Piehl.

Weeks later, on May 13, 2011 an IRS official whose name was redacted in the documents released to Judicial Watch emailed Gardner and made one of the most stunning admissions of the existence of the IRS conservative targeting program.

“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a 501(c)(6) organization and may find itself under high scrutiny,” the official wrote. “One can only hope.”

Via: Daily Caller

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Opinion: How long do LGBT youth have to wait before school 'gets better'?

I am still wondering when it gets better. People in the media, even in government, say it gets better. Just hang in there, they say, it gets better. But for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth still in school, how long do they have to wait — before it gets better?

Ten years ago, on July 20, 2005, same-sex marriage became legal across Canada. Canada became the fourth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage, and overnight, Canada became a tourism destination for same-sex weddings.

With that profound and historic change in legislation, Canadian lesbians and gay men finally attained rights equal to those of other Canadians. Since then, many same-sex couples have exercised their right to marry. Just like straight couples.

Many observers would say that gays and lesbians have now achieved equal rights in Canada. Like the struggle for equal rights for women, the fight for equal rights for lesbians and gay men is old news. But is this true for all LGB Canadians? What about teens still in school?

Catherine Taylor at the University of Winnipeg and Tracey Peter at the University of Manitoba have described schools as “the Land that Time Forgot” when it comes to LGB youth. They argue that while LGB adults may enjoy equal rights in Canada, younger cohorts do not.

A national survey of homophobia by Taylor and Peter under the auspices of Egale Canada, a human-rights organization, found that LGB youth were three times more likely than straight youth to report feeling depressed about school, and feeling like they didn’t belong at school.

Some would say that everyone gets bullied from time to time, and this is true. It is also true that the effects of being bullied are more severe for some. According to Egale Canada, while 7 per cent of youth attempt suicide annually, 33 per cent of LGB youth attempt suicide. The statistic is even higher for trans kids.

Has legalizing same-sex marriage made a difference in terms of discrimination based on sexual orientation? The McCreary Centre Society in Vancouver has been collecting data from British Columbia high school students since 1992, data that can begin to answer this question.

Over the last 15 years, discrimination of high school students based on sexual orientation has in fact increased, especially for those students identifying as bisexual. In other words, making same-sex marriage legal in Canada has not made things easier for LGB students.

Recent research, however, shows that having explicit anti-homophobia school policies and other measures such as gay-straight alliance clubs reduced reports of victimization and suicide attempts on the part of LGB youth.

Surprisingly, researcher Elizabeth Saewyc at the University of British Columbia’s Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre (SARAVYC), found that explicit anti-homophobia measures also protected straight students from bullying.

Anti-homophobia school policies work. LGB youth in schools with explicit policies feel safer and more connected to school. Feeling safer and more connected means these young Canadians stay in school longer and get a better education. And that’s good for Canada.

We have heard that LGBTs are always asking for “special” rights, or rights that go beyond those of other Canadians. Having the right to a safe and supported education is not a “special” right. It is the constitutional right of every Canadian.

As we remember the 10-year anniversary of the legalization of same-sex marriage in Canada, we should consider that not all Canadian gays and lesbians have equal rights. The most vulnerable lesbians and gays — the youth — have not yet achieved equal rights in Canada.

Canadian schools shouldn’t have to be the land that time forgot. Not for LGBT youth. Not for anybody.

Hilary Rose is an associate professor in the Department of Applied Human Sciences at Concordia University and a member of UBC’s SARAVYC research team. Her research focuses on sexual minority youth and Canadian family policy.

Via: Montreal Gazette

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Obama Outrageously Denies IRS Targeting Scandal on Daily Show, Nets Censor

President Barack Obama outrageously denied there was anything scandalous about the IRS-Tea Party controversy, in his Tuesday interview on The Daily Show, as he lectured Jon Stewart that: “When there was that problem with the I.R.S. everybody jumped, including you....you got this back office and they’re going after the Tea Party. Well it turned out no.”

 Obama went on to assert “the truth of the matter is there was not some big conspiracy there.” Obama was never challenged by Stewart on this dodge despite the recent bombshell news that Lois Lerner had a meeting with the Justice Department and the FBI to target Obama opponents.  

While all Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) network morning shows, on Wednesday, offered glowing coverage of Obama’s sitdown with Stewart, not one of them picked up on Obama’s scandal denial. 

 CBS This Morning’s Vladimir Duthiers offered the most nostalgic, sentimental coverage when he reminisced, “Like two old friends just enjoying each other’s company, Tuesday night, Jon Stewart and President Obama both reflected on the approaching conclusion of their careers.

” The I.R.S. portion of the video begins after the end of the 7:06 mark. Fast forward or let it play to see second part.

he following is the relevant exchange from the July 21 interview as it was shown on Comedy Central’s official The Daily Show website:  

BARACK OBAMA: When there was that problem with the IRS everybody jumped, including you. 

JON STEWART: What happened with the I.R.S.?

OBAMA: Look, look, you got this, you got this back office and they’re going after the Tea Party. Well it turned out no. Congress had passed a crummy law that didn’t give people guidance in terms of what it was they were trying to do. They did it poorly and stupidly. But that becomes, but, but -

STEWART: Wow! You really only do have a year left. That’s unbelievable! Throwing it out there. 

OBAMA: But hold on Jon - this is important. But the truth of the matter is there was not some big conspiracy there. They were trying to sort out these conflicting demands. You don’t want all this money pouring through non-for-profits but you also want to make sure that everybody is getting treated fairly. Now the real scandal around the I.R.S. right now is that it has been so poorly funded that they can’t go after, they can’t go after these folks who are deliberately avoiding tax payments. And the real scandal is a tax code where multinationals can pay zero taxes making massive profits. 

So we tend to get distracted by the fact that there are going to be elements - because government is a human enterprise - where somebody somewhere is screwing up at any given time. Because it’s a huge system. Overall it works really well to help a lot of people. What is scandalous is the fact that we are not making as much progress as we should on the basic things we know government should be doing. Rebuilding our infrastructure, rebuilding our roads, rebuilding our ports. Setting up a smarter system for distributing energy. 

STEWART: Right. 

Via: Newsbusters

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