Obama To Receive $400,000 Speaking Fee At Cantor Fitzgerald Conference

Zero Hedge  "Shortly after Barack Obama delivered his first (free) speech today since leaving the White House in Chicago before an invitation-only crowd of college students, community organizers and other fans, Fox News' Charlie Gasparino reports that in what may be his first paid speaking arrangement, Obama will be paid $400,000 to speak at Cantor Fitzgerald's healthcare conference this September, setting the benchmark for how much an hour of the former president's time will cost going forward.

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Charles Gasparino 

✔@CGasparino

#BREAKING @BarackObama has agreed to speak at Cantor Fitzgerald’s health care conference for $400,000! I discuss NOW on @FoxNews!

3:48 PM - 24 Apr 2017

 
Obama, who spent years bashing big banks (even if, like Trump, ultimately achieved nothing to halt Wall Street's dominance) will deliver the keynote address at the organization's lunch in what will be one of his first paid speeches.

" 'What sources are telling FOX Business Network is that former President Obama, now less than 100 days out of office, has agreed to a speaking engagement during Cantor Fitzgerald’s healthcare conference in September," FBN's Gasparino said. "We understand that he is going to be the keynote speaker for the lunch, and he’s going to receive a fee of $400,000. We should point out that that’s in line with what Hilary Clinton got... we should point out that Cantor will neither confirm or deny.' " . . .

Why Republicans don't believe in global warming

"Given the history of the past half century, environmentalists come off to normal thinking people as the boys who cried wolf, rather than the men who saved the wolves."

Robert Maranto  April, 2015

Environmental activists attend a protest in Zucotti Park on Earth Day on April 22, 2014 in New York City. About three dozen activists marched around New York's financial district calling for greater respect for the environment.

. . . "Back in the 1960s, environmentalists declared with great authority that pesticides would wipe out birdlife. Remember Silent Spring? I do. After reading it I was one terrified sixth-grader, convinced that the next robin I saw would be my last. My backyard birds, not to mention the far away whales and forests, were on their way out, thanks to man's greed and corporate transgressions against divine Gaia.

"While I feared for the birds, self-righteous professors preached that unless we changed our sinful ways there would be hell to pay. As Alex Berezow and Hank Campbell detail in Science Left Behind, in 1977 then Harvard Professor and current Obama "science czar" John Holdren co-authored a book predicting mass starvation by the 1980s due to overpopulation. Governments would need to consider extreme methods, including forced sterilization, for humanity to survive.

"Meanwhile, in the real world, this all proved to be false. The percentage of the population in developing nations living in extreme poverty shrank from 50 percent to 21 percent from 1981 to 2010." . . .

Robert Maranto (B.S. Maryland, 1980; Ph.D. Minnesota, 1989) is the 21st Century Chair in Leadership at the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, and previously taught political science at Villanova University and worked at the Brookings Institution and for the Clinton administration in the 1990s.

Soros-Funded Group Warns Advertisers Could Pull Ads From All of Fox News

Independent Sentinel  "Media Matters, the George Soros-funded website, is run by David Brock (pictured, right) who spearheaded the firing of Bill O’Reilly, as we reported here. They are currently reporting that advertisers demand much more from Fox News or they will withdraw from all of Fox News.

"It’s part of the well-planned War on Fox.

"The leftists have been successful in destroying the head honchos and now they are going to bully advertisers into pulling ads from the station completely.

"Media Matters President Angelo Carusone says that advertisers are concerned that this (sexual harassment complaints against O’Reilly and Ailes) is reflective of a bigger epidemic at Fox News and they want action beyond just firing O’Reilly. From Carusone:

And what they’re hearing, it’s not just about Bill O’Reilly. The advertisers are deeply concerned that this is reflective of a bigger epidemic at Fox News and rightfully so given one of the co-presidents was very much involved in the cover-ups against the people that came forward against Roger Ailes, as well as the women that have come forward against Bill O’Reilly and they re-signed a contract with Bill O’Reilly knowing full well. So the advertising community is not just saying this is about O’Reilly." . . .

Protesters Heckle Preacher During Town Hall Prayer

Todd Starnes   "Liberal activists shouted down a Baptist preacher Thursday as he tried to deliver the invocation at Rep. Jack Bergman’s town hall meeting in Gaylord, Michigan

"The activists, many wearing so-called pink “pussyhats”, boo’d the Almighty and shouted, “separation of church and state” during Pastor Derek Hagland’s prayer.

“ 'As my mother would’ve said, shame on you,” Rep. Bergman (R-MI) told me in a telephone interview. “We were all raised better than that.

"In addition to honorably serving Michigan’s first congressional district, Congressman Bergman is also an American hero.  He is the highest-ranking military officer ever to serve in Congress – a 3-star lieutenant general in the U.S. Marine Corps.

"He is also a devout Christian man – and he was especially troubled to see the liberals bully the guest preacher.

“ 'It was a sad state of affairs,” he said. “For a small but very vocal group to make every effort to disrupt even God’s involvement – was just – well – we are better than that as a country.”

“ 'It’s all about them and their agenda and not about the betterment of the country as a whole,” the congressman told me. “People really figure that they can push their agenda just by being vocal and disruptive. That’s not civil discourse.”

"But liberals have no interest in civil discourse. They want to shut down any speech or any issue they disagree with. And they will use any means necessary to silence the opposition – even violence.

"Rep. Bergman tells me they did not force anyone to leave.

“ 'We had a game plan and we marginalized their disruption,” he said. “Being a father and a grandfather – I’m used to dealing with tantrums.”

"And as we all know – nobody throws a tantrum quite like a bunch of crybaby liberals wearing hilariously obscene hats."

On Bill O'Reilly

Fox regrets firing Bill O?  Bill O’Reilly is returning to the airwaves on Monday. Here’s where you can find him 

Justice for Bill O’Reilly  . . . "However, Bill O’Reilly doesn’t need me to defend him, so I won’t.  O’Reilly himself charges that he was done in by “unfounded claims.”  Perhaps that’s true, but his saying so doesn’t mean he’s telling the truth.  I don’t know if O’Reilly is guilty of being a sexual harasser or just an arrogant Long Island jerk who became the easy target of some people who looked to cash in by blackmailing Fox News.  Neither do you. 

"Which means we cannot know is whether Bill O’Reilly saw justice served for behavior that went way beyond legal bounds, or whether Bill O’Reilly was “lynched” by a mob powerful people at Fox who – in the wake of last year’s Roger Ailes sexual harassment scandal – were afraid of one more scandal." . . .

Across America, lives are being ruined on nothing more than hearsay.  Certainly, some of those young men are guilty and deserve what they get – and more.  But just as certainly, some of those young men are innocent of all charges, except – perhaps – bad judgment for angering a vengeful young woman.
O’Reilly’s case is a microcosm of a trend in America that the “wronged” woman must always be right, and the “wronging” man must always be wrong.  What we need is a healthy dose of justice – real justice, not the Lynch Mob’s rush to judgment.

 Remember when personal conduct did not affect your job?  "Back in 1998-99, many Democrats and liberals defended President Clinton.   My favorite defense was that President Clinton's private behavior did not affect his job, i.e. “look at your 401-K!” and the unemployment rate was something I heard about on TV back then!

"I find this interesting because Bill O'Reilly’s alleged personal conduct did not affect his job either.   After all, his ratings never dropped." . . .

Bill O’Reilly is leaving Fox, and I can’t say I’ll miss him.  . . . "I was never on the show much. I don’t enjoy being a meat prop for hosts to make the points they want to make, and I guess it showed the few times I was on. O’Reilly was the master of making his long and often well-crafted statements in the form of a question. “Now, I think . . .” “This is the way I see it . . .” “This is where I come down on this . . .” often preceded a jeremiad that concluded with, “Do you agree?” The answer was merely punctuation for the next “question.”

". . . but for the most part guests were there either to serve as a Greek chorus or as ritual human sacrifice for his smartest-guy-at-the-bar routine."

Time and again prominent conservative personalities have failed to uphold basic standards of morality or even decency.  . . ."O’Reilly’s fall can be an important act of public hygiene, but only if it represents the beginning of the end of a conservative culture that makes us behave like the cultural enemies we purport to despise. Otherwise conservatives will hand the Left more scalps, forfeit more public trust, and ultimately lose because of their single-minded quest to win."

There is much more out there, but these should do for now.

Despite Reports, Fmr Fox Guest Now Claims She Was Never Sexually Harassed by Sean Hannity

Debbie Schlussel, whose posts the Tunnel Wall checks frequently. A search for Hannity in her site showed no mention of his name later than 2014 shows no mention of her charges against Hannity; only that she does not like him. TD

LawNewz

"Debbie Schlussel, a former Fox News guest, appeared on a local radio show on Friday and recounted an incident where Sean Hannity  purportedly asked her to a hotel, and when she rebuffed his advances, she claims, she was ostracized by the network star. The story has since gone viral garnering headlines like “Sean Hannity Accused of Sexually Harassing Fox News Guest” in publications like The Daily Beast and The Huffington Post. Now, in an interview with LawNewz.com on Monday morning, Schlussel is denying that she was ever sexually harassed by Sean Hannity. While Schlussel stands by her description of the incident, Schlussel told us that she doesn’t believe what happened between the two amounted to sexual harassment by any legal definition.

“I would never accuse him of that. Sexual harassment has a special meaning under the law, and I would never accuse him of that,” Schlussel, an attorney herself, said.  Schlussel said the interaction happened in the early 2000’s when Hannity was in Detroit taping a show." . . .

Hannity fervently denies her claims

University’s student government wants free tuition ‘reparations’ for black students

The Blaze

"The student government at a Kentucky university voted Tuesday night to recommend that the school make tuition “free” for all black students.

"The Student Government Association at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky, said the measure is a recommendation to pay those students reparations for slavery, even though the U.S. abolished slavery more than 150 years ago. The resolution sends a message to university faculty and administrators that slavery is “a debt that will never be paid,” according to Campus Reform.

"The resolution, which passed 19-10, also called for a special task force to research ways to make it easier for black students to apply and get accepted into the college.

"The school’s website listed undergraduate tuition for campus residents during the fall 2016 and spring 2017 semesters at $4,956 per semester." . . .

Rick Moran: Oxford: You might be racist if you don't make eye contact with a minority   See? I told you that you were a racist!

Your opportunity to smack Hollywood right in the kisser

That would be the same Hollywood that supported Hugo Chavez, of course.  . . . "Alonso should be honored for her truth-telling. And all the Hollywood suckups to this vile tragedy should be held up to public scorn to the extent that they never show their faces in public again."  Now to the featured article:

 

Russ Vaughn  . . . "Now the Democrats are up to the same game in another special congressional election in Georgia’s 6th District, necessitated by Trump’s appointment of Representative Tom Price to head up the Department of Health and Human Services. Once again the Democrats believe they have a chance to turn this Republican seat blue and have fielded a candidate who, while having local roots, appears better suited to represent San Francisco than suburban Atlanta. If you were to Google the term metrosexual, you might pull up Jon Ossoff's picture. He attended an expensive private school in Atlanta that’s progressive enough to observe some Jewish holidays but none Christian. He then matriculated at Georgetown and the London School of Economics. He cut his political teeth working for members of the Black Caucus including, Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson, the congressional authority on possible archipelagic inversions. But to really buff his bonafides, Jon is a filmmaker, which must surely endear him to Hollywood.

"So Ossoff is the Democrats’ fair-haired boy (30) for this contest in a district they again feel confident they can swing. In the just-held election with a widely divided Republican field of eleven candidates, Ossoff failed to close the deal by attaining one vote over 50%, bringing in only 48.1% forcing a June runoff between him and the Republican leader, former Georgia Secretary of State, Karen Handel, a solid conservative who was the vote leader for the Republican field." . . .

Guns for people who hate guns

Rich Terrell

In House of Murdoch, Sons Set About an Elaborate Overhaul

NY Times  Visit the link here.

Obama's Chickens Coming Home to Roost; Ticking time bombs from Syria to North Korea.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, 'Chickens Coming Home to Roost'

Daniel Greenfield

"Democrats inherit the foreign policy crises of a thousand Republican presidential fathers, but the foreign policy crises inherited by incoming Republicans in the White House are always orphans.

"Or at least that’s how the media likes to spin it.

"If you believe your random mainstream media outlet of choice, North Korea and Syria were crises freshly spawned by this administration with no prior history. But these ticking time bombs are the direct result of the two terrible terms of his predecessor.

"The Nobel Peace Prize winner’s years in the White House were the most dysfunctional, schizophrenic and senseless eight years of our national foreign policy. His domestic policy was a disaster, but it was a radioactive toxic waste dump with clear and consistent goals. ObamaCare, the abuses of the Justice Department, the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency were the naturally terrible outcome of left-wing policies being implemented with inevitably terrible results.

"But Obama’s foreign policy was a wildly inconsistent mess. The Nobel Peace Prize winner couldn’t quite decide if he was a humanitarian interventionist or a pacifist non-interventionist. He couldn’t make up his mind if he wanted to take the side of the Sunnis or the Shiites in their Islamic unholy war. He didn’t know if he wanted to appease Russia or sanction it, to pivot to Asia or run the other way, to play another round of golf or replace his defense secretary for the fifth time." . . .

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam/

State Department Confirms Iran Compliant With Nuclear Deal, but Warns Tehran Still on Notice

Heritage

"With a new White House, many have wondered about the fate of the 2015 nuclear agreement made between the Obama administration and Iran. 

"The Trump administration’s stance on the agreement became a little clearer on Tuesday when the administration notified Congress that Iran is complying with the terms of the agreement, and that the United States would therefore extend the sanctions relief granted to Iran as part of that agreement.

"Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan, wrote that Iran remained compliant with the agreement, but that the administration was concerned about Tehran’s support for terrorism and is reviewing whether to continue suspending sanctions, as required under the deal. 

"Congress mandated that the State Department must notify it every 90 days about Iran’s compliance with its nuclear obligations. Tuesday’s letter was the first such notification by the Trump administration.

"Significantly, Tillerson also added:

President Donald J. Trump has directed a National Security Council-led interagency review of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that will evaluate whether suspension of sanctions related to Iran pursuant to the [agreement] is vital to the national security interests of the United States.

"This statement casts doubt on whether the administration will continue to grant Iran sanctions relief in the future. At a minimum, it reinforces the administration’s previous warning that Tehran is “on notice” about its malign behavior.

"The bottom line is that the Trump administration has approved 90 days more of sanctions relief for Iran. But the pending policy review may lead the president to withdraw this concession in the future."

More here:

• Trump Administration Slaps Sanctions on Iran for Missile Test and Other Provocations
• Iran Is Wrong: Trump Can Absolutely Overturn the Nuclear Deal
• Obama’s Legacy Is Likely to Be Nuclear-Armed Iran
• The Dangerous Regional Implications of the Iran Nuclear Agreement
• The Nuclear Deal Has Not Changed Iran