New York lawmakers have rejected a bill to legalize gay marriage this afternoon.
The Democrat controlled Senate decision Wednesday comes after months of delays and arm twisting of lawmakers sympathetic to the bill. It follows a referendum in Maine earlier this month that struck down a gay marriage law before it took effect.
Advocates say they aren’t surprised by the decision. Most, including Gov. David Paterson, say they at least wanted a floor debate and vote.
Something doesn’t smell right. You would think that the White House would want to cooperate with the investigation of the “party crashers”. Well, think again.
The White House says its social secretary will not testify at a congressional hearing into the security lapse that mistakenly allowed a couple into last week’s state dinner.
Press secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday that Desiree Rogers will not testify before the House Homeland Security Committee. The panel has scheduled a hearing Thursday and Rogers had been invited to testify. Gibbs cited the separation of powers and a history of White House staff not testifying before Congress.
Liberal host Chris Mathews referred to West Point, home of our brave future officers, as “enemy camp”. I guess Mathews would believe that anyone who volunteers to defend the Constitution and fight for freedom and democracy would be the enemy.
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The story of the White House “party crashers” continues to get more interesting. Rumors are circulating that Obama friend and GE CEO Jeffery Immelt knew that Tareq and Michaele Salahi were with him.
GE, which owns NBC and Bravo, has signed a contract with the Salahis prior to the state dinner. According to my friends at Gawker here’s what’s going on with the Salahis:
NBC News didn’t pay the Salahis for their exclusive Today. They didn’t have to: According rival bookers trying to land the Salahis, they already have a contract with Bravo preventing them from talking to anyone else. appearance this morning As applicants to appear on Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Washington, D.C., Tareq and Michaele Salahi had signed a contract with the network limiting their television appearances. And according to a booker at a rival network, an NBC staffer has admitted that Bravo prevented the Salahis from giving their initial exclusive interview to anyone other than NBC News, which is under the same NBC Universal corporate umbrella as Bravo. “They had a Bravo contract before the state dinner,” the NBCer said, according to our source. “Bravo just held them to it,” comparing the situation to what the TLC network did with John and Kate Gosselin after that pair became front-page news. Bravo’s contract with Real Housewives of New Jersey participants has been posted online, and the relevant portion of that contract—which we’d imagine would be quite similar to what the Salahis signed—is here: In addition to obligating participants to make themselves “reasonably available” to market the show, it prevents them from appearing on any “unscripted, reality-based programs” without Bravo’s written consent. If the Salahis signed a contract like this, Bravo could have prevented them from giving their exclusive to anyone other than Today. The Salahis had been scheduled to break their silence on CNN’s Larry King Live last night, but the appearance was “rescheduled” without explanation. ABC News and CBS News were also pursuing the Salahis, and the Associated Press has reported that the couple was demanding “a payment in the mid-six figures range” in exchange for access. It’s an open secret that morning news shows will pay money to land interviews — they are just very clever about it, never cutting a check directly for an interview. The spurned rival saluted former Today honcho and present NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker’s creativity in securing the biggest get of, well, the month so far. Still, Lauer insisted this morning that NBC News hadn’t paid the Salahis: Matt Lauer: Based on some of the things that have been reported over the last 48 or 72 hours I feel the need to say this and ask this : are you appearing here today in any way because of any financial deal that you have made with this network? Are we paying you for this appearance in any way? Michaele: No you’re not. Tareq: No, absolutely not. Michaele: And at no time, Matt, have we ever even talked about doing that with anyone. It depends on what “this network” means. Did they have a financial deal with NBC? No. Did they have one with Bravo? Absolutely. “I’m OK losing,” said a rival booker, “but to watch Matt Lauer say ‘we didn’t pay them’” when NBC News’ corporate sister Bravo used its contract to force them to Today was too much. Not to mention that the Salahis will be paid, handsomely, when they are inevitably selected for the final cast of Real Housewives, which they almost certainly will be.
NBC News didn’t pay the Salahis for their exclusive Today. They didn’t have to: According rival bookers trying to land the Salahis, they already have a contract with Bravo preventing them from talking to anyone else. appearance this morning
As applicants to appear on Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Washington, D.C., Tareq and Michaele Salahi had signed a contract with the network limiting their television appearances. And according to a booker at a rival network, an NBC staffer has admitted that Bravo prevented the Salahis from giving their initial exclusive interview to anyone other than NBC News, which is under the same NBC Universal corporate umbrella as Bravo.
“They had a Bravo contract before the state dinner,” the NBCer said, according to our source. “Bravo just held them to it,” comparing the situation to what the TLC network did with John and Kate Gosselin after that pair became front-page news.
Bravo’s contract with Real Housewives of New Jersey participants has been posted online, and the relevant portion of that contract—which we’d imagine would be quite similar to what the Salahis signed—is here:
In addition to obligating participants to make themselves “reasonably available” to market the show, it prevents them from appearing on any “unscripted, reality-based programs” without Bravo’s written consent. If the Salahis signed a contract like this, Bravo could have prevented them from giving their exclusive to anyone other than Today.
The Salahis had been scheduled to break their silence on CNN’s Larry King Live last night, but the appearance was “rescheduled” without explanation. ABC News and CBS News were also pursuing the Salahis, and the Associated Press has reported that the couple was demanding “a payment in the mid-six figures range” in exchange for access.
It’s an open secret that morning news shows will pay money to land interviews — they are just very clever about it, never cutting a check directly for an interview. The spurned rival saluted former Today honcho and present NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker’s creativity in securing the biggest get of, well, the month so far.
Still, Lauer insisted this morning that NBC News hadn’t paid the Salahis:
Matt Lauer: Based on some of the things that have been reported over the last 48 or 72 hours I feel the need to say this and ask this : are you appearing here today in any way because of any financial deal that you have made with this network? Are we paying you for this appearance in any way?
Michaele: No you’re not.
Tareq: No, absolutely not.
Michaele: And at no time, Matt, have we ever even talked about doing that with anyone.
It depends on what “this network” means. Did they have a financial deal with NBC? No. Did they have one with Bravo? Absolutely.
“I’m OK losing,” said a rival booker, “but to watch Matt Lauer say ‘we didn’t pay them’” when NBC News’ corporate sister Bravo used its contract to force them to Today was too much. Not to mention that the Salahis will be paid, handsomely, when they are inevitably selected for the final cast of Real Housewives, which they almost certainly will be.
Sounds to me like Obama was doing his friend Jeffery a little favor. Like I wrote earlier, I find it hard to believe that the Secret Service would be that lax in their security.
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If you haven’t heard about Tareq Salahi and his wife Michaele Salahi, then you’ve been living under a rock or a victim of Obama’s economic plan and haven’t paid your cable bill. At any rate, they are the couple that crashed the state dinner for the Indian Prime Minister. At first, the White House claimed that the couple were never in the same room as the President and when pictures emerged showing the couple posing for pictures, the White House, as has been routine, backtracked their story. Regardless, there’s something that doesn’t pass the smell test here. I find it odd that the Secret Service would be that incompetent not to check to ensure that this couple was on the guest list. Perhaps someone from the White House wanted this couple there, but didn’t want to have them listed on the guest list, because the list would be accessible to the public and the couple’s names would ring alarm bells. Honestly, I don’t know what the truth is, but whatever it is it shows that this White House can’t even protect the security of the residence of the President.
The Secret Service is said to be interviewing the couple. If they can’t get any information out of them, may I suggest waterboarding?
From Gateway Pundit:
American Power discovered this on the White House party crashers- They belong to a radical anti-Israeli group: Tareq Salahi, the polo-playing intruder, is a Palestinian nationalist with ties to the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) , a pro-Palestine lobby demanding the “right of return” for all Palestinian refugees and their descendants. The “right of return” has long been considered the backdoor to Israel’s destruction. But not only that: ATFP President Ziad Asali is an America-basher who blamed 9/11 on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Asali was a lead U.S. official to PLO terrorist Yassir Arafat’s funeral in 2004. And in a position paper in 2007, the ATFP called for a power-sharing agreement at the Palestinian Authority, which would have included the State Department’s designated-terrorist group, Hamas. And, there’s more… Canada Free Press reported that the American Task Force for Palestine (ATFP) has airbrushed references to Salahi from its website: We do know for a fact that among the slew of memberships on charitable boards, Tareq Salahi is a former member of The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP). The only way to know for a fact is because even though ATFP scrubbed all references to Salahi as a board member, he can still be found on Google cache. (Canada Free Press) Sad that White House Secret Service are looking like Keystone Kops in the aftermath of Obama’s very first state house dinner in the tent. While the media is fixated on the hitch in Michaele Salahi’s git-along, there can be no doubt that these recently minted “party crashers” really get around. American Power has more on the Salahi’s leadership role with the the American Task Force on Palestinian, the “moderate” rights groups pushing a thinly-veiled program of Palestinian nationalism and the “right of return” (the backdoor destruction of Israel). According to Discover the Networks, ATFP’s former vice president is Rashid Khalidi, the Columbia University Middle East Studies professor and militant Palestinian rights activist. Khalidi cites the late Edward Said as his major influence, and according to the entry cited, “As with Said before him, Khalidi’s involvement with the Palestinian cause goes beyond mere support.” And, “Khalidi so strongly identified with the aims of the PLO, which was designated as a terrorist group by the State Department during Khalidi’s affiliation with it in the 1980s, that he repeatedly referred to himself as ‘we’ when expounding on the PLO’s agenda.” Also, according to Campus Watch, ATFP remains in full support Kahlidi, for example, during charges of academic misconduct in 2005, at the time of Senator Barack Obama’s meeting with Tareq Salahi. See, “ATFP EXPRESSES FULL SUPPORT FOR COLUMBIA PROFESSOR RASHID KHALIDI. Note too that Obama’s ties to the Palestinian community became something of an issue during the 2008 campaign. See, the Los Angeles Times, “Allies of Palestinians See a Friend in Obama.” Plus, from Andrew C. McCarthy and Claudia Rosett, “In Obama’s Hyde Park, It’s All in the Family: Passing Anti-American Radicalism From Generation to Generation. As you may recall. The LA Times hid the tape of Barack Obama attending a 2003 Jew-bash where he praised and toasted the former PLO operative Rashid Khalidi. With Barack Obama, it’s always about the radicalism. Always. It looks like the Salahi security breach is much more than just an “embarassment” for the Secret Service. UPDATE: Bennet send this– I noticed you posted about the Salahi’s crashing the party, but did not mention that–as Canada Free Press mentioned–Obama met them back in 2005. I assume you did that because CFP did not give proof for their claim that their picture together (along with the Black Eyed Peas) was from 2005 and not last year as the Polo Contacts website claims. I searched for proof the picture was from 2005 without any luck–until I realized the proof is from the Polo site itself. Right click on the image and save it: the current name of that file is: ROCKTHEVOTEJune82005014.jpg Seems that reading The Da Vinci Code finally paid off. This doesn’t prove Obama was as friendly with the Salahis as with the Khaladis, Saids, and the Ayers’–but it is still interesting to note
American Power discovered this on the White House party crashers- They belong to a radical anti-Israeli group:
Tareq Salahi, the polo-playing intruder, is a Palestinian nationalist with ties to the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) , a pro-Palestine lobby demanding the “right of return” for all Palestinian refugees and their descendants. The “right of return” has long been considered the backdoor to Israel’s destruction. But not only that: ATFP President Ziad Asali is an America-basher who blamed 9/11 on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Asali was a lead U.S. official to PLO terrorist Yassir Arafat’s funeral in 2004. And in a position paper in 2007, the ATFP called for a power-sharing agreement at the Palestinian Authority, which would have included the State Department’s designated-terrorist group, Hamas.
And, there’s more… Canada Free Press reported that the American Task Force for Palestine (ATFP) has airbrushed references to Salahi from its website:
We do know for a fact that among the slew of memberships on charitable boards, Tareq Salahi is a former member of The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP). The only way to know for a fact is because even though ATFP scrubbed all references to Salahi as a board member, he can still be found on Google cache. (Canada Free Press)
Sad that White House Secret Service are looking like Keystone Kops in the aftermath of Obama’s very first state house dinner in the tent.
While the media is fixated on the hitch in Michaele Salahi’s git-along, there can be no doubt that these recently minted “party crashers” really get around.
American Power has more on the Salahi’s leadership role with the the American Task Force on Palestinian, the “moderate” rights groups pushing a thinly-veiled program of Palestinian nationalism and the “right of return” (the backdoor destruction of Israel).
According to Discover the Networks, ATFP’s former vice president is Rashid Khalidi, the Columbia University Middle East Studies professor and militant Palestinian rights activist. Khalidi cites the late Edward Said as his major influence, and according to the entry cited, “As with Said before him, Khalidi’s involvement with the Palestinian cause goes beyond mere support.” And, “Khalidi so strongly identified with the aims of the PLO, which was designated as a terrorist group by the State Department during Khalidi’s affiliation with it in the 1980s, that he repeatedly referred to himself as ‘we’ when expounding on the PLO’s agenda.” Also, according to Campus Watch, ATFP remains in full support Kahlidi, for example, during charges of academic misconduct in 2005, at the time of Senator Barack Obama’s meeting with Tareq Salahi. See, “ATFP EXPRESSES FULL SUPPORT FOR COLUMBIA PROFESSOR RASHID KHALIDI.
Note too that Obama’s ties to the Palestinian community became something of an issue during the 2008 campaign. See, the Los Angeles Times, “Allies of Palestinians See a Friend in Obama.” Plus, from Andrew C. McCarthy and Claudia Rosett, “In Obama’s Hyde Park, It’s All in the Family: Passing Anti-American Radicalism From Generation to Generation.
As you may recall. The LA Times hid the tape of Barack Obama attending a 2003 Jew-bash where he praised and toasted the former PLO operative Rashid Khalidi.
With Barack Obama, it’s always about the radicalism. Always.
It looks like the Salahi security breach is much more than just an “embarassment” for the Secret Service.
UPDATE: Bennet send this–
I noticed you posted about the Salahi’s crashing the party, but did not mention that–as Canada Free Press mentioned–Obama met them back in 2005. I assume you did that because CFP did not give proof for their claim that their picture together (along with the Black Eyed Peas) was from 2005 and not last year as the Polo Contacts website claims.
I searched for proof the picture was from 2005 without any luck–until I realized the proof is from the Polo site itself. Right click on the image and save it: the current name of that file is: ROCKTHEVOTEJune82005014.jpg
Seems that reading The Da Vinci Code finally paid off.
This doesn’t prove Obama was as friendly with the Salahis as with the Khaladis, Saids, and the Ayers’–but it is still interesting to note
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