Less than halfway through his first term, President Barack Obama has appointed more openly gay officials than any other president in history.
Gay activists say the estimate of more than 150 appointments so far — from agency heads and commission members to policy officials and senior staffers — surpasses the previous high of about 140 reached during two full terms under President Bill Clinton.
[…]Gay activists, among Obama’s strongest supporters, had hoped he would be the first to appoint an openly gay Cabinet secretary. While that hasn’t happened — yet — Obama did appoint the highest-ranking gay official ever when he named John Berry as director of the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the nation’s 1.9 million federal workers.
Other prominent names include Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and Fred Hochberg, chairman of the Export-Import Bank. Obama also named Amanda Simpson, the first openly transgender appointee, as a senior technical adviser in the Commerce Department.
[…]One Obama nominee who met some opposition was Chai Feldblum, a Georgetown University law professor nominated to serve on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Concerned Women for America accused Feldblum of playing “a major role in pushing the homosexual and transsexual agenda on Americans.” Other conservative groups blasted her role in drafting the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, a bill that would ban employers from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Obama is a strong supporter of that legislation.
Obama made Feldblum a recess appointment in March after an anonymous hold in the Senate held up her confirmation for months.
Another target for conservatives was Kevin Jennings, founder of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, who was named to oversee the Education Department’s Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools. More than 50 House Republicans asked Obama to remove Jennings from the post after reports surfaced about advice he gave more than 20 years earlier after learning a gay student had sex with an older man.
Jennings conceded that he should have consulted medical or legal authorities instead of telling the 15-year-old boy that he hoped he had used a condom. The Obama administration defended Jennings and declined to remove him.
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“The Republican party has been overtaken by the zealots, by the extremists, by the radicals … and they don’t seem to like Ohio very much… And quite frankly they act like they don’t like America very much. They want to change our Constitution. They want to change Medicare. They want to change labor rights. They want to change this country in fundamental ways.”
Does Ted Strickland encourage businesses to remain in Ohio and hire workers in Ohio?
Let’s see:
Wow. 400,000 jobs lost in Ohio while Strickland was governor? He sounds as competent at encouraging job creation as his fellow Democrat Barack Obama.
In June of last year, Strickland upset pro-life Ohio residents by using his line-item veto to axe the section of the $1.3 billion funding bill banning state funds for cloning human beings.
Mike Gonidakis, the director of Ohio Right to Life, told LifeNews.com at the time, “By vetoing a ban on using taxpayer funds for human cloning, Ted Strickland has demonstrated that he supports treating human life as a commodity.”
“Most Ohioans don’t share Governor Strickland’s cavalier disregard for the value of human life and they should not be forced to pay for its creation, exploitation and destruction in cloning research,” Gonidakis said.
In March 2007, Strickland feuded with pro-life advocates over his budget proposal that eliminated the $500,000 the state normally spends annually on encouraging kids to practice abstinence.
The governor said he would not apply for any more federal funds for abstinence education for future budgets.
In February 2007, Strickland would not fight to save an Ohio law that protects women from the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug which has killed seven women in the United States and injured more than a thousand more. With little fanfare, Strickland quietly dropped a legal effort to salvage a law that puts safety limits on the drug.
The Ohio state legislature previously approved a bill to bring the use of the abortion pill in Ohio in line with Food and Drug Administration guidelines.
During his tenure in Congress, Strickland had a strong pro-abortion voting record while Kasich compiled a strongly pro-life record.
Ohio Right to Life today announced its endorsement of a slate of pro-life candidates seeking elected office statewide. The pro-life organization picked Rob Portman as its endorsed candidate for the U.S. Senate and named John Kasich as its endorsed candidate for governor.
[…]Marshal Pitchford, the chairman of the Ohio Right to Life Society Board of Trustees said the pro-life movement in Ohio “is fortunate to have experienced and highly qualified pro-life candidates seeking the state’s executive offices.”
“John Kasich had an outstanding pro-life voting record during his career in Congress,” he said. “His running mate, Mary Taylor, is an articulate advocate of the right to life movement. As Governor and Lt. Governor, they will reflect the common sense and common decency of the people of Ohio.”
And he’s also lousy on traditional marriage and the rights of children to be raised by a mother and a father. He was opposed to the Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage, and opposed to banning gay adoption in D.C. He’s a left-wing radical on social issues. Just like Barack Obama.
n June of last year,Strickland upsetpro-life Ohio residents by using his line-item veto to axe the section of the $1.3 billion funding bill banning state funds for cloning human beings.
Mike Gonidakis, the director of Ohio Right to Life, told LifeNews.com at the time, “By vetoing a ban on using taxpayer funds for human cloning, Ted Strickland has demonstrated that he supports treating human life as a commodity.”
“Most Ohioans don’t share Governor Strickland’s cavalier disregard for the value of human life and they should not be forced to pay for its creation, exploitation and destruction in cloning research,” Gonidakis said.
In March 2007, Strickland feuded with pro-life advocates over his budget proposal that eliminated the $500,000 the state normally spends annually on encouraging kids to practice abstinence.
The governor said he would not apply for any more federal funds for abstinence education for future budgets.
In February 2007, Strickland would not fight to save an Ohio law that protects women from the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug which has killed seven women in the United States and injured more than a thousand more. With little fanfare, Stricklandquietly droppeda legal effort to salvage a law that puts safety limits on the drug.
The Ohio state legislature previously approved a bill to bring the use of the abortion pill in Ohio in line with Food and Drug Administration guidelines.
During his tenure in Congress, Strickland had a strong pro-abortion voting record while Kasich compiled a strongly pro-life record.
The causes for the coming demographic crisis are not in dispute: improved longevity, urbanization and rising female education. The United States’ total fertility rate is relatively high at 2.06, but when you break it down, the American women with the highest fertility rates are those who have no post-secondary education. The rule is unvarying: The more educated the woman, the fewer her offspring.
If any. Voluntarily childless couples (oops, make that “child-free” couples), once uncomplaining outliers from the matrimonial mainstream, now confidently assert the superior moral standing of environmentally-friendly “hedonic” marriage, in which shared interests and pleasures rather than children form the relationship glue. Some exhibit overt disgust at “breeders” and “moomies” (nursing mothers).
These righteous depopulators are indifferent to the big picture. An article entitled “The Old World” in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine paints a grim demographic portrait of the developed and developing world’s future. By 2018 65-year-olds will outnumber those under five, “a historic first,” and by 2050 the median age–now 28–will be over 40.
Autocratic governments can make people have fewer children, but they can’t make people have more. Singapore tried. While modernizing in the 1960s after gaining independence from the British, Singapore’s newly minted Family Planning and Population Board launched a billboard campaign, messaging “Stop at Two” and “Small Families Brighter Future.” Abortion and sterilization were encouraged at the government’s expense. Maternity leave was denied after two children.
It worked. Singapore reached its fertility rate target of 2.1 in 1976, a 53% plunge over a decade. But it didn’t stop declining, as women’s education rates went up. A reverse strategy was implemented. Abortion wasn’t banned, but pre-op counselling is now required for women with three or fewer children. The billboard and media messaging was changed to “Have Three or More Children if you Can.” But no dice. Singapore’s fertility rate in 1960 was 5.45. Today it is 1.1.
I would like my wife to have advanced degrees to be able to write and speak so she can protect the family by advocating for good policies that will enable us to have autonomy from the government and taxes and politically correct fascism. I think getting an education is an excellent thing for a woman. And she can complete her education by the time she is 25. It’s having a job outside the home when there are young children that is problematic for me. A writing career is an excellent option since research and writing can be done from the home.
The real concern I have about this is children having a lower standard of living than we do. Because of these massive government pension programs (Social Security in the USA, Old Age Security in Canada), children will taxed at very high rates. Either these entitlement programs have to go, or children will be poor. These redistribution schemes cause people to depend too much on the government and not to plan ahead for their own needs (retirement, health care, etc.). It’s immature to expect other people’s children to pay for your health care and retirement. You have to pay – you have to earn and save your money to pay for what you need.
I was reading recently about how George W. Bush, a fine President and a good man, thought that his greatest success was keeping us safe (true) and his worst failure was the failure to privatize Social Security (also true). It’s the Democrats who are telling us that Social Security doesn’t need reform, just like the Democrats told us that Fannie and Freddie did not need to be regulated and reformed. Until we get serious about keeping them out of power, it’s not really safe to marry and have children.
WINTERY KNIGHT 