Who approved Hallmark's decision to air same-sex wedding ads?

M. Catharine Evans  "Hallmark Channel's decision, first to air ads from the wedding registry company Zola that feature same-sex couples kissing on their so-called wedding days, then to pull the ads due to an outcry from the conservative group, One Million Moms (1MM), and ultimately to reverse course after backlash from the LGBT organizers of GLAAD, created all of this inane whiplash by airing the ads in the first place.  That Crown Media, the parent company of Hallmark, did not see fit to filter out the Zola commercials before their target audience of conservative-minded families watched in disbelief, raises the question, "Who approved the Zola ads?"

"On December 13, Crown Media Family Network's CEO, Bill Abbott, told reps from One Million Moms the advertisements "aired in error" and he was informed about them only after hearing from concerned 1MM supporters.  Crown Media pulled the ads saying, "The debate surrounding these commercials on all sides was distracting from the purpose of our network."

"Abbott's move to ban the ads conveniently led to a reciprocal backlash from high profile LGBT activists, catapulting the controversy into the public arena.  Two days after tweets from Pete Buttigieg; Ellen DeGeneres; and, of all people, William Shatner, Hallmark's CEO, Mike Perry, promised to reinstate the Zola commercials. Perry said Abbott made the initial call to stop the ads from airing.  Perry not only announced that the ads will run, he stated that Hallmark will work with GLAAD to "better represent the LGBTQ community across our portfolio of brands."

"In other words, Judas Hallmark executives betrayed their faithful and lucrative audience with a lesbian kiss." . . .

Flashback: Corruption, Thy Name Is Hillary Clinton

PJ Media

"Now that President Donald Trump is being accused of all sort of misdeeds -- although I think it's limited to abuse of power at this point -- because he asked Ukraine to investigate possibly corrupt practices by Joe and Hunter Biden, perhaps it's time to revisit news about actual blatant corruption. It involved, who else, Hillary Clinton.
"Back in 2016, the Clinton Foundation admitted that it received a "gift" from Qatar to the tune of $1 million while Hillary Clinton was U.S. Secretary of State. Although she promised to let the State Department review any new or significantly increased foreign donations, she (and her husband) failed to inform the agency of Qatar's royal donation.
"Oops, sorry about that!"
"According to Reuters, Qatari officials "pledged the money in 2011 to mark the 65th birthday of Bill Clinton." They also wanted to meet Bill "in person the following year to present him the check.' " . . .

Big Win – Covington Boys Lawsuit Against CNN Moves Forward

PJ Media

Cernovich  "Nicholas Sandmann’s lawsuit against CNN will proceed to discovery, a federal judge has ruled. This will be a devastating blow to CNN, which will now have all of its emails examined by lawyers for a severely wronged client.
"Sandmann was one of the the high school student falsely accused of a racially-motivated attack against Nathan Phillips in Washington, D.C. Phillips was called a “Vietnam veteran” by the media, when in fact Philips was stolen valor. He never served in the Vietnam War and he was discharged from the military under circumstances suggesting a poor service record.

"Sandmann sued CNN for lying about him.
"Sandmann had been confronted earlier by a group known as the Black Hebrew Israelites – the group responsible for the deadly terrorist attack at a New Jersey Deli.
"CNN wasn’t the only outlet to attack Sandmann. The National Review’s Rich Lowry and Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro joined the hate mob against Sandmann – although they at least sort-of apologized after realizing they had been hoaxed by the left wing media. (Why do those guys trust the media would be a good question for conservatives to ask them.)
"Although the judge’s ruling was short, the court’s rationale was explained in the orders allowing Sandmann’s lawsuit to go forward against the Washington Post.
"You can read my reporting on Sandmann v. Washington Post below, as the judge’s rationale and other policy considerations apply to the lawsuit against CNN….and if you enjoy this article, you can donate to our journalism here." . . .

Sandmann had been confronted earlier by a group known as the Black Hebrew Israelites – the group responsible for the deadly terrorist attack at a New Jersey Deli.

Phillips in the past had made claims of being a "recon ranger" and a "Vietnam times veteran" who came home and was "spit on" and "called a baby killer," even though his service record shows that he had zero deployments and never left the United States.

Sorry, Joe; Barack has made his choice and it's not you

Bad news for Joe Biden: Obama endorses Michelle for president ... and in the most ickily avuncular* way  . . . "Yet even the supposedly politically savvier Obama does it in the worst kind of way - with an avuncular patronization of "the little ladies" that comes off as worthy of Joe Biden.

"Obama threw out these ridiculous rationales for what had to be Michelle, whose name is often bruited around as a last-minute brokered candidate for the Dems because she is supposedly popular:

“Women, I just want you to know, you are not perfect, but what I can say pretty indisputably is that you’re better than us,” Obama reportedly said Monday. “I’m absolutely confident that for two years if every nation on Earth was run by women, you would see a significant improvement across the board on just about everything."

...and...

Among the issues Obama thinks female leaders would excel are war and youth issues.

"Statements like these have been said about the little ladies since the pre-suffragette era. They're stupid. They're patronizing. They roll women up into an identity-politics wrapper and end their individuality entirely. A candidate is not a candidate if she's a woman, if she's a woman candidate, then she's just a woman. Obama  accentuated the stupidity by bring up women as good with kids and against war, which is another stereotype. Some are, some are not. Same as politics: Some women are good, some are not. Some women are really good but not the people Obama has in mind. Memo to Obama: Margaret Thatcher.
(Ed: I cannot see a single Margaret Thatcher in US politics; only possible guest stars on some late-night talk show.  TD)

"And I doubt that by his statement, Obama was thinking of Elizabeth Warren, Tulsi Gabbard, Hillary Clinton or Amy Klobuchar as his vaunted women who'd do it all better than Obama did, most of these people are people he fights with. Nope, it had to be Michellem who, by the way, looks like she's lost some weight and has had a makeover.

"Michelle Obama is a ridiculous choice, of course, because she has no political record other than being someone's wife.

"But with no political record at all, she's easy to put forward under the argument: Vote for me, I'm a woman. It's actually all she has, and Obama thinks it's enough.

"Apparently, he thinks the voters are stupid."

Barack Obama's feminist nonsense By Cheryl K. Chumley  "Former President Barack Obama, at a leadership event in Singapore that he attended with wife, Michelle, told the no-doubt adoring crowd that women were awesome, men were scum and people of the world, unite! It’s time for the fairer sex to take over both boardrooms of business and power offices in politics. To paraphrase, that is.
“ '[M]en have been getting on my nerves lately,” he said, The Hill reported.
"Gag. Barf. What’s Obama trying to do — score points with his wife or start a fire of feminism?" . . .

Perhaps the endorsement is still an ongoing penance for this incident. I doubt any of America's enemies would get the look Michelle just gave in this video.

*Avuncular: ADJECTIVE;  relating to an uncle.

1. • kind and friendly toward a younger or less experienced person.
     "an avuncular manner"
     synonyms:

     paternal · fatherlike · protective · supportive · encouraging · vigilant · 
     

     [more]
   • 
     

     anthropology

     relating to the relationship between men and their siblings' children.

     Michelle Obama, back with a racially charged vengeance

Nancy holds President Trump in her prayers

Nancy Pelosi's prayers for Trump spoofed on 'SNL'

Mike Ramirez and Argus Hamilton on the impeachment project for Maxine Waters

Mike Ramirez:   "Ramirez, who studied premed at the University of California, Irvine, originally considered journalism a hobby. But he was hooked when his first cartoon for the college newspaper, lampooning candidates for student office, had the student assembly demanding an apology.

" 'Editorial cartoons should be smart and substantive, provocative and informative. They should stir passions and deep emotions. Editorial cartoons should be the catalyst for thought, and frankly speaking, if you can make politicians think, that is an accomplishment in itself. If I don't get at least one death threat every few months, then I'm not doing my job," Ramirez says of his penchant for sparking controversy.

"In addition to the 1994 and 2008 Pulitzer Prizes, Ramirez was the 2008 winner of the prestigious Fischetti Award. He is a three-time Sigma Delta Chi, Society of Professional Journalism Award winner, a Lincoln Fellow and a recipient of the UCI Medal.

"He is a senior editor and the editorial cartoonist for Investor's Business Daily. He is formerly the editorial cartoonist for the Los Angeles Times, The Memphis Commercial Appeal and a contributing cartoonist for USA Today. His work is syndicated by Creators Syndicate.

"Don't leave without checking out his editorial cartoons and Ramirez Caricatures."

"Comedy Store reran the impeachment hearings on a back-bar TV before comics who know the facts of the case better than House Members from our own experience. You play the cover charge, we tell the jokes, and that’s the quid pro quo. How hard or how little you laugh is the trial that follows.

"The White House Counsel wrote House Democrats Tuesday saying an impeachment inquiry without a House vote to impeach is invalid. The comedy continues. Joe Biden demanded that Trump be impeached for questioning the honesty of the Eastern European billionaire Hunter Biden."

"Chairman Adam Schiff's impeachment inquiry yielded no eyewitnesses to Trump wrongdoing and ended in Schiff having to deny multiple times he met with the whistleblower. I have just one question for Adam Schiff. How much is Donald Trump paying you to stage this inquiry?"

Judge Blocks Los Angeles Law Forcing Contractors to Disclose Ties to NRA

Legal Insurrection  "The National Rifle Association (NRA) received some good news in its legal challenge to a Los Angeles ordinance requiring businesses to disclose any links with the advocacy group: a federal judge temporarily blocked the rule.

The Los Angeles City Council approved an ordinance this past February requiring companies that do business with the city to disclose any financial connections to the gun-rights advocacy organization.

The Fairfax, Virginia-based organization responded with a federal lawsuit against the city, arguing the policy silences NRA members and supporters in the city by forcing them to disclose their ties with the organization.

"U.S. District Court Judge Stephen V. Wilson found that the Los Angeles City Council enacted the rule to suppress the speech of the NRA and its sponsors or business affiliations." . . .

Greta: Put climate change deniers "against the wall"?

Kurt Schlicter  "Clearly Greta Thunberg is being exploited by her cynical puppetmasters, but equally clearly she’s a tiresome, bizarre Marxist scold whose exploitation of the hapless dummies who buy into the climate change hoax is part of what is an increasingly violent plot to undermine capitalism and freedom. Recently, the cretins at TIME, which shockingly still exists in 2019, named her “Person of the Year.” That’s appropriate, since 2019 has been a very annoying year." . . .
. . . "The kid is a fanatic, and though that’s no fault of her own – she’s a victim of her pinko exploiters – she is still spewing bloodstained poison. 
"Bloodstained poison, really? Isn’t she just a nice Eastern Norwegian who wants a better world with love and hugging? Or is she yet another aspiring fanatic ready to kill for the kreepy kommie climate kult?" . . .

Adam Schiff: the Greta Thunberg of Congress

Schiff town hall meeting in his district erupts in catcalls and chaos  "Adam Schiff walked into a buzz saw at a town hall meeting back in his district in Glendale, California, as blowback erupted for his lies and grandstanding advancing impeachment.

" 'While as a general rule, I deplore the loss of civility as the country polarizes, we have long passed the point where simply behaving ourselves and calling out the other side for its sins has any positive effect.  #Resistance goes both ways beyond a certain point, and that point is now in the rearview mirror.
" 'I think this is the future for Schiff and his co-conspirators:" . . .

WATCH: Chaos Erupts When Constituents Confront Schiff Over Impeachment During a Town Hall  . . . Multiple people sat in the front of the audience with signs that read "Don't Impeach." 
"In a video, audience members in the back of the crowd yelled "liar!" One man said Schiff would be known for "committing treason," a clear reference to Schiff spearheading the impeachment of the president. 
"Those who were Schiff supporters quickly surrounded those who backed President Trump and chanted "Adam! Adam! Adam!"
"As Trump supporters tried exiting the venue, they were pushed and shoved and told to "leave" or "get out." One of the men held up a "re-elect Trump" flag, at which point Schiff supporters attempted to rip the flag out of his hands." . . .

Shameless Schiff goes Sgt. Schultz   . . . "Appearing on the Sunday morning talk shows, he fell back on the Sgt Schultz defense – that he just didn’t know the facts, but with no apology for acting on false information.  That is total BS, as Steve Scalise pointed out on Twitter:" 

Steve Scalise tweeted:

.@DevinNunes was right from the start: bad actors at the FBI abused FISA to spy on @realDonaldTrump's campaign.Schiff had the SAME info as Nunes, yet wrote a false report he still won't fully admit was a fraud.And he's the guy Dems trust to run impeachment? Give me a break.

 Comey and Schiff: Tweedle-dee-Dum and Tweedle-dee-Dee  . . . "The most damning omission from Wallace's interview was not pressing Schiff hard enough about the Nunes Memo of February 2018  in which Nunes laid out everything he had learned to date about the FBI's gross abuse of the FISA courts.  Schiff promptly released his own memo disavowing the facts in the Nunes memo.  Now we know that everything Nunes wrote was true and that Schiff's memo was, as Mollie Hemingway wrote, riddled with lies." . . .
Nunes tells Schiff he needs 'rehabilitation' after IG report: 'Admit you have a problem'


Adam Schiff is Shameless   . . . "Schiff is such a stone-cold partisan that he can’t even put aside his quest for power to care about protecting his grandchildren from anti-Semitism. That is shameful and I’d love to see him try and explain it to his grandkids.

"Schiff, Pelosi, and the rest of the Democrats leading this grossly partisan and undemocratic process are hypocritical jerks who prove day after day that all they care about is partisanship and power. The Constitution? Nah. Democracy? Nope. Patriotism? What’s that? The American people? Seriously…?

. . . "But the “Late Show” where Schiff was afforded a platform to call Republicans shameful? That’s a priority during this very serious time in our country’s history? You betcha. And who cares if it costs taxpayer money to transport him here, surround him with security in the form of Secret Service and local police forces.  Certainly not Adam Schiff.  When Schiff looks in the mirror, he sees “shameful” staring back at him. He’s just too stupid and shameless to know it."

Adam Schiff to Colbert: How Will ‘Shameful’ Republicans Explain Defending Trump to Their Grandchildren
 (Colbert also seems to have an obsession over the penises of world leaders.)   . . . “'For some of our members, who are defending the Constitution, it is their finest hour,” Adam Schiff told Colbert. “But for others, who are willfully blinding themselves to this president’s misconduct, it is the most shameful hour.' ” . . .

Liberals accuse Army, Navy cadets of flashing ‘racist’ hand signs

Trevor Thomas  "Of all the ridiculous, baseless charges of racism taken seriously by people who ought to know better, the claim that cadets used a racist hand gesture at the Army-Navy Game last weekend is among the worst, because it slimes the best among us, who are part of the least racist institution in the United States (and the world)." . . .
. . . "If you need proof that modern liberalism corrupts virtually everything it touches, consider the silly game described above and the Army-Navy football game played over this past weekend. As reported by even USA Today, cadets who were merely playing this silly game are being accused of making the “White Power hand symbol during a pregame broadcast of the Army-Navy game.' ”
. . . 
"The gesture, though, is also used in the so-called Circle Game. In it, a person holds an upside-down OK sign below his or her waist. If someone notices, the person making the symbol is able to punch the person who notices it in the shoulder.
"The Anti-Defamation League in September added the OK symbol as a gesture of hate.
"In October, Universal Studios Resort fired an actor dressed as a "Despicable Me" character after the person was accused of using the symbol."

Army-Navy game: Academies looking into students' hand symbols during pregame broadcast

The climate change debate: liberalism's effect on informed discourse.

The "press" does to climate change skeptics what they continue do to President Trump  All the so-called climate fears have been promulgated by those same people. If we become convinced as to the declared cause of climate change, the immense cost will have to be taught by those more trusted than those we see attempting it daily. TD

So who is Dr. Judith Curry? And why does the media choose to ignore her?

The debate: my presentation by Judith Curry

Climatologist Judith Curry on Bill Nye, the Fake Science Guy

Greta Thunberg paints her German train ride as cattle car deal, actually rode first class

. . . "Here's the spat update from the German train company, which got mad at its portrayal as a moving hellhole:
"A German railway company has taken back an apology they made to Greta Thunberg after they realized the climate activist wasn’t schlepping it on the train’s floor but instead was treated “friendly” in first class.
"The rail company was responding to an image Thunberg tweeted of herself sitting amid bags and suitcases on the floor of what she called “overcrowded trains through Germany' ” . . .

The debate: my presentation, by Judith Curry

George Carlin on Climate Change

Elizabeth Warren Releases Plan For LGBTQ Rights And Equality

Yahoo News  "Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren released a wide-ranging LGBTQ policy plan on Thursday morning, vowing to enact measures and funnel resources toward fighting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender expression.

"In a 12-page memo, the Massachusetts senator outlined dozens of ways a Warren administration would “fight for LGBTQ+ equality in solidarity with the leaders and organizers who have been at the helm from the very beginning.”
"The measures include things like working to pass the Equality Act, which would extend civil rights protections to LGBTQ people, and amending the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to ensure it can’t be used to discriminate against LGBTQ people. "
"Thursday’s plan comes on the heels of a sweeping climate justice proposal Warren released on Wednesday and which reads as an ambitious blueprint of how to implement a Green New Deal." . . .