http://rightwingnews.com/top-news/new-study-smoking-marijuana-causes-brain-damage/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rightwingnews%2FhGmL+%28Right+Wing+News%29

New Study: Smoking Marijuana Causes Brain Damage

Think smoking pot is harmless? Well, check this out. Most pot these days is high potency so you need to be aware of what you’re really looking into.

King’s College London reports,

Smoking high potency ‘skunk-like’ cannabis can damage a crucial part of the brain responsible for communication between the two brain hemispheres, according to a new study by scientists from King’s College London and Sapienza University of Rome.

Researchers have known for some time that long-term cannabis use increases the risk of psychosis, and recent evidence suggests that alterations in brain function and structure may be responsible for this greater vulnerability. However, this new research, published today in Psychological Medicine, is the first to examine the effect of cannabis potency on brain structure.

Exploring the impact of cannabis potency is particularly important since today’s high potency ‘skunk-like’products have been shown to contain higher proportions of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) than they did around a decade ago. In experimental studies THC has been shown to induce psychotic symptoms and ‘skunk-like’ products high in THC are now thought to be the most commonly used form of cannabis in the UK.

So, as long as you want to claim that smoking pot is just another lifestyle choice, an adult decision without no ramifications, remember studies like this. While you or your family/friends are getting high, you might want to show them this study. Maybe it will make them slow down, or maybe even reconsider destroying their brains for a brief period of pleasure.

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http://dailysignal.com/2015/11/24/senate-republicans-gear-up-to-block-obamas-climate-pact/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=tdsfacebook

Senate GOP Plan to Use Budget Process to Block Obama's Climate Change Pact

Senate Republicans, girding for another budget battle in early December, are vowing to use the process to undercut President Barack Obama’s chances of brokering an international climate pact expected to emerge from negotiations in Paris.

The GOP lawmakers want to leverage their appropriations power to block $3 billion pledged by the Obama administration to help developing countries manage climate change.

“We want to make sure that any of these countries that think they’re going to have a check to cash … that they shouldn’t cash the check just yet,” Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., told Politico.

The threat arrives less than two weeks before U.S. diplomats are set to join representatives from nearly 200 nations in Paris to finalize a climate deal intended to cut carbon emissions.

The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation.  We’ll respect your inbox and keep you informed. 

Negotiators are expected to sign the final agreement Dec. 11 during the United Nations summit, running parallel with a deadline for Congress to submit its 2016 spending bill to Obama.

Barrasso and Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., sent a letter last week to the White House pledging to use the budget legislation to prevent U.S. tax dollars from flowing into the climate plan unless the president submits the deal to Congress for review.

Obama is said to be devising a strategy to avoid sending the agreement to Congress because of near inevitable rejection from the GOP-led legislature.

“While the executive branch and Congress both play an important role in the foreign policy of our nation, Congress ultimately holds the power of the purse,” Barrasso and Inhofe wrote.

The senators demanded that Todd Stern, U.S. special envoy for climate change, relay to foreign counterparts that “Congress will not be forthcoming with these funds in the future without a vote in the Senate on any final agreement, as required in the U.S. Constitution.”

Rachel Bovard, director of policy services at The Heritage Foundation, said the Obama administration plans to cast the pact as an “international agreement” rather than a treaty, which requires two-thirds approval in the Senate, because it would not attract the votes required for ratification.

“In an incredibly bold move, he has decided to subvert the intent of the Constitution—which requires Senate advice and consent for treaties,” Bovard said of Obama:

Essentially he is using legal loopholes to get around the constitutional role of the Senate, and impose this agreement—and its billions of dollars in costs—onto the American people without the say of their elected representatives.

During a hearing last week by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Barrasso said Congress never approved the president’s promise to pour billions of U.S. funds into the Green Climate Fund. That United Nations fund allocates money from developed countries and private contributors to assist developing nations with protections against climate change.

“These actions in the House and Senate send a strong signal that the U.S. will no longer underwrite the global climate change project,” said Steven Groves, a senior research fellow in foreign policy at The Heritage Foundation. “If the poor countries attending the Paris negotiations don’t think the U.S. will make good on its financial pledges, they won’t sign any climate change agreement.”

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http://www.glennbeck.com/2015/11/25/how-progressives-changed-thanksgiving

How progressives changed Thanksgiving

Much of what we know about the first Thanksgiving comes from a letter written by Edward Winslow in 1621. The letter, lost for nearly 200 years, was discovered by Boston publisher Alexander Young and later published in 1841.

The first Thanksgiving, according to the account, was primarily a day of fasting to remember and thank God.

While George Washington held a Thanksgiving as president, it was Abraham Lincoln that made it a national holiday.

Right after the battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln declared Thanksgiving an annual day of remembrance to be observed the fourth Thursday of every November. From 1863 to 1939, Thanksgiving took place on the fourth Thursday, allowing people to stop and to give thanks to God.

As Glenn outlined on radio, the tie between Thanksgiving and God slowly unraveled during the Progressive Era.

In an official statement issued by Franklin D. Roosevelt, a subtle change in wording and tradition began the unraveling.

“I, Theodore Roosevelt, president of the United States do hereby designate as a day of general thanksgiving, Thursday the 28th, this present November, and I recommend that throughout the land, people cease from their wanted occupations.”

“Notice the date was still the same [the fourth Thursday of November], but this is the first time the president said we should take the day off,” Glenn explained. “This was unusual because up until the Progressive Era, we thought it was abhorrent to take even Christmas off. …In fact, the Pilgrims and our Founders thought it would be crass to take the day off and make it not a day of work for either holiday, either Thanksgiving or Christmas. We worked on Christmas. But it was the progressives that wanted us to cease from occupations.”

Roosevelt’s statement went on to “thank the giver of all good for the countless blessings in our national life.” Glenn pointed out the subtle, but extreme importance of the language used: FDR said, “our national life,” not “individual life.” 

Woodrow Wilson issued a similar statement, urging citizens to take the day off. 

“I, Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States, do hereby designate Thursday the 27th of November as a day of Thanksgiving and prayer and invite the people throughout the land to cease from their wanted occupations.”

At the beginning of the Depression in 1931 when things were really bad, Herbert Hoover followed suit. 

“I, therefore, Herbert Hoover, president of the United States, do hereby designate Thursday, November 26th, as the national day of Thanksgiving and recommend that our people rest from their daily labors, and in their homes and accustomed places of worship, give devout thanks for the blessings which a merciful Father have bestowed on all of us.”

Again, while most people wanted to work, a progressive president told them to stay home and rest. 

So that brings us to the change from the third Thursday to the fourth in November — and its impact on Thanksgiving and American society. The change happened in 1939.

“At the tail end of the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt, hoping to boost the economy by providing shoppers and merchants a few extra days to conduct their business between Thanksgiving and Christmas, moved Thanksgiving to November’s third Thursday,” explained Glenn. “So the only reason why we changed from the fourth Thursday to the third, was because in the third term of FDR, he officially disconnected it from God and connected it to the God of America, the almighty dollar.” 

That’s right, liberal progressives who purportedly hated business, hated commercialism and despised the power of big business, made Thanksgiving all about money. 

Interestingly, a Gallup poll at the time showed 59 percent of Americans disapproved of the date change. Twenty-two states decided to go along with Roosevelt’s plan. Twenty-three decided to stick with the old date, affirming Thanksgiving should be about thanking God, not shopping. Both dates were recognized by the press, the latter referred to as the Republican Thanksgiving because it was connected to God, the founding and Abraham Lincoln. 

In 1941, the Wall Street Journal looked at a large pool of data and declared the move a bust. It provided no real boost to retail sales. 

It did accomplish one thing, though. It further separated the American people and society from God.

Watch Glenn describe why FDR changed Thanksgiving:

 
Featured Image: Constant Snow walks through the 1627 Pilgrim Village at ‘Plimoth Plantation’ where she and other role-players portray Pilgrims seven years after the arrival of the Mayflower November 17, 2005 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The 17th century replica village was the site of the first Thanksgiving in 1623. Thanksgiving Day, believed to have originally taken place at the end of July, was established as a national holiday by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 and is celebrated on the last Thursday of November. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

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Blaming white privilege is toxic to actual advancement’

http://eagnews.org/black-pastor-blaming-white-privilege-is-toxic-to-actual-advancement/

Black pastor: ‘Blaming white privilege is toxic to actual advancement’

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a recently published article about racial unrest at the University of Missouri, the Rev. Harry R. Jackson Jr., gave an honest assessment of the concept of “white privilege.”

Jackson, a black man who serves as senior pastor at Hope Christian Church in Washington, D.C., believes that “white privilege” exists. But he also believes that many black people, and well-meaning white people, are wasting their time focusing on the topic.

“The people – white and black – who are shining the light on white privilege must understand that focusing on it will, in and of itself, bring no measureable improvement to the lives of black people or other minorities, “ Jackson wrote.

“Our real focus should be upon how people of every race can set and achieve their personal goals. My grandfather grew up in a level of material poverty that is virtually unknown in our country today.

“Early on he did not have indoor plumbing and only a grade-school education. He did not rise above this situation and make a better life for our entire family by bemoaning the advantages that white people had. He focused wholeheartedly on what he could control, not on how other people thought about him.”

Hard work and social stability are the only reliable tickets to social advancement, for blacks or other minorities, he wrote.

“If blacks and Latinos wish for more than superficial gestures and condescending lip service, they must understand that blaming white privilege is toxic to actual advancement.

“We must envision strategies that will give millions of urban youth incentives and strategies to earn their way out of poverty. Children of color – especially those living in poverty – need stable families, or failing that, dedicated mentors.

“They need rigorous education, strong work ethics and emotional resilience. It is absolutely true that wealthier children can make horrible decisions without facing nearly the level of painful consequences that poorer children do, which is why I continue to advocate for criminal justice reform. But even with second chances, people must learn to live responsibly in order to break the cycles of generational poverty.”

Improving educational outcomes for minority students is a major key, Jackson argued.

“What most black college students need far more than more diversity programs is a stronger academic foundation before they even think about applying to college,” Jackson wrote. “In Missouri, for example, the average African-American high school graduate in 2014 scored between a 16 and 17.7 on the ACT.

“These numbers are more than four points lower than the state average and indicate that the overwhelming majority are not ready for college-level work. Addressing those numbers might prove more productive for advocates who want to see more black students at the flagship state university.”

“At the end of the day, whites who want blacks to listen to them, or support them politically, would do well to develop empathy for those who may have had a radically different experience in America than they have had.

“And those who are serious about improving the lives of minorities in this country must focus on substantive improvements in family stability, job creation and education, recognizing that without these, nothing will get better.”

From Around The Web

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http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/24/german-professor-nasa-fiddled-climate-data-unbelievable-scale/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

German Professor: NASA Has Fiddled Climate Data On ‘Unbelievable’ Scale

A German professor has confirmed what skeptics from Britain to the US have long suspected: that NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies has largely invented “global warming” by tampering with the raw temperature data records.

Professor Dr. Friedrich Karl Ewert is a retired geologist and data computation expert. He has painstakingly examined and tabulated all NASA GISS’s temperature data series, taken from 1153 stations and going back to 1881. His conclusion: that if you look at the raw data, as opposed to NASA’s revisions, you’ll find that since 1940 the planet has been cooling, not warming.

According to Günter Ederer, the German journalist who has reported on Ewert’s findings:

From the publicly available data, Ewert made an unbelievable discovery: Between the years 2010 and 2012 the data measured since 1881 were altered so that they showed a significant warming, especially after 1950. […] A comparison of the data from 2010 with the data of 2012 shows that NASA-GISS had altered its own datasets so that especially after WWII a clear warming appears – although it never existed.

Apart from Australia, the planet has in fact been on a cooling trend:

Using the NASA data from 2010 the surface temperature globally from 1940 until today has fallen by 1.110°C, and since 2000 it has fallen 0.4223°C […]. The cooling has hit every continent except for Australia, which warmed by 0.6339°C since 2000. The figures for Europe: From 1940 to 2010, using the data from 2010, there was a cooling of 0.5465°C and a cooling of 0.3739°C since 2000.

But the activist scientists at NASA GISS – initially led by James Hansen (pictured above), later by Gavin Schmidt – wanted the records they are in charge of maintaining to show warming not cooling, so they began systematically adjusting the data for various spurious reasons using ten different methods.

The most commonly used ones were:

• Reducing the annual mean in the early phase.
• Reducing the high values in the first warming phase.
• Increasing individual values during the second warming phase.
• Suppression of the second cooling phase starting in 1995.
• Shortening the early decades of the datasets.
• With the long-term datasets, even the first century was shortened.

Ewert’s findings echo that of US meteorologists Joseph D’Aleo and Anthony Watts who examined 6,000 NASA weather stations and found a host of irregularities both with the way they were sited and how the raw data had been adjusted to reflect such influences as the Urban Heat Island effect.

Britain’s Paul Homewood is also on NASA GISS’s case. Here he shows the shocking extent of the adjustments they have made to a temperature record in Brazil which has been altered so that a cooling trend becomes a warming trend.

Unadjusted temperature record: shows cooling trend.

Adjusted temperature record: shows warming trend.

For still more evidence of NASA’s adjustments, check out Alterations to Climate Data at Tony Heller’s Real Climate Science.

Truly, these people have no shame.

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http://www.mikehuckabee.com/2015/11/president-obama-s-idealistic-and-outright-dangerous-syrian-refugee-relocation-plan

President Obama's idealistic and outright dangerous Syrian refugee relocation plan

By Mike Huckabee

Armed with grenades and guns, Al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic radicals struck again, took 170 people hostage at the Raddison hotel in Mali. These barbaric terrorists spared the lives of hostages who proved their Islamic bona fides by reciting the Koran, while 27 innocent civilians were killed.

After this attack in West Africa, Obama’s new domestic terrorism plan probably requires Americans to memorize Koran verses.

Why does the Obama administration express more outrage at conservatives than at radical Islamic terrorists? President Obama seems more interested in protecting the reputation of Islam than protecting the American people.

Bomb-throwing Baptists, Anglican arsonists, or radicalized Roman Catholics don’t commit these atrocities—radical Islamic jihadists do. Yet this administration is so naive, they refuse to speak the truth about Islamic terrorism. Benghazi, Boston, Ft. Hood, Paris, 9/11, Kenya, Tanzania, the USS Cole, the list of radical Islamic carnage keeps growing.

Sadly, the Obama administration is moving full-steam-ahead with its idealistic and outright dangerous Syrian refugee relocation plan, which will resettle more than 10,000 unchecked, unscreened foreigners across America towns. The FBI director has explicitly stated that we cannot conduct background checks on these people, yet nothing will stop Obama’s obsession with pandering to the international community, even if it poses a direct threat to Americans. Europe's experiment with open borders collided with radical Islam, and the results are deadly. How has Obama not learned these lessons?

Republicans in Congress have stepped-up their efforts, but they lack the strength to hold this out-of-control president accountable.

On Friday, French authorities revealed another Paris attacker was masquerading as a Syrian refugee. Two others conspirators had visited Syria, including one who had trained with ISIS. This past week, authorities apprehended five Syrians in Honduras with fake Greek passports. They have apprehended Syrians on the Texas border near Laredo. The Syrian refugee crisis must not be taken lightly.

In the face of this chaos, America needs real strength, moral clarity and commonsense. Obama’s politically-correct, press release foreign policy is a complete disaster, and it shouldn’t take another Paris or Mali for the cartoonish clowns in the administration to wake-up.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is a 2016 Republican candidate for president of the United States.  This op-ed was originally posted on www.FoxNews.com.

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http://mobile.wnd.com/2015/11/top-christian-voice-west-being-taken-down-in-small-portions/

TOP CHRISTIAN VOICE UNCORKS ON LIARS IN MEDIA, POLITICS

Dr. Ravi Zacharias is one of Christianity’s foremost apologists. His ministry, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, is based in Norcross, Georgia.

Is the West being slow-cooked by a resurgence of Islamic fervor across the globe, responding to individual attacks by separate groups but refusing to engage in the wider battle?

One of Christianity’s most widely respected thinkers and erudite apologists says that is exactly the case.

In an op-ed titled “Is Paris Burning,” Ravi Zacharias says Europe, America and the entire free world are being lied to by their politicians and most of their media, who refuse to ask the appropriate questions and brand those who dare to do so with nasty labels.

The Paris attacks targeted every-day people having fun – at restaurants, pubs, a soccer stadium and a concert hall.

Zacharias, who is speaking in Egypt this week, was in England the night of the Paris massacre.

The newspapers the next day described the horrific attacks that killed 129 and injured more than 350 with words like “carnage,” “massacre,” “assassination,” “murder,” “blood,” “death,” “screams,” “terror” and so on.

“Television programming was pre-empted and viewers were cautioned that some of the scenes of the slaughter were graphic. It was real,” Zacharias wrote. “A few hours later, names and pictures of the dead were shown. It was like we had heard this before. But it was new and real: the victims’ lives cut short in the peak of their careers. Children who weren’t going to come home.”

He said there is a sense that we are at war, but not officially and not seriously enough to name the enemy.

“War in small increments can be deadlier than large scale war because it doesn’t just desensitize the killers; it desensitizes all of humanity.

“Killers who do not represent a country and whose belief is debated ad nauseam as to whether it is a version or a perversion are truly sinister and are the cancerous cells of our time,” he continued. “They are protected by having no roots either in country or belief. The West is being taken down in small portions till one day the lie of the murderers being protected by smooth-talking power brokers with a bodyguard of lies will be seen for the terrifying belief that it is. No contrary view will be allowed then.”

Until that happens, Zacharias says deception will continue to rule the day.

“For now, the layers of distortion cover the graves of the murdered. The whole world has become a courtroom where clever lawyers make truth unattainable,” he wrote. “Whether it be 9/11 or the carnage at the Boston Marathon or blown-up planes or Paris, we will not find answers because to ask the question is either to receive a lie from some politicians or many in the media, or to invoke the wrath of hate-filled killers.”

Those who expose the truth about Islam do so at great risk to their personal safety. Many, such as Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, also get lampooned in the media and even barred from entering once-free countries like Britain.

“So we ask,” says Zacharias, “what is the belief behind all this that kills with such callousness? We do not get any answers. We are told by some that it’s a religion of peace. Others call it a political theory at its core covered with the garb of religion to give it maximum protection as it invokes the laws of blasphemy.”

What is the answer?

“We had dare not unpack the truth. In one sense, strangely, one feels almost pity for these murderers,” he said. “The possessor of hate loses the essence of life much more than the victim does. Living with a heart so deceived breeds a decimating misery within and spreads the venom globally. There must be scores of young men within the belief who do not wish to inflict such pain but who now live with the pall of suspicion over them. Such is the contagion of a poisoned soul.”

In fact, those who try to break with Islam invite horrific consequences of their own. A man in Britain who converted a decade about from Islam to Christianity lives in constant fear of attacks. The father of six, Nissar Hussain, was brutally beaten outside his home last Tuesday by two hooded Muslims. He was dealt a broken arm, a broken knee cap and a concussion.

“This is the new Britain. This is the path Britain has chosen,” Geller, author of “Stop the Islamization of America,”  wrote at her blog. “The U.K. Home Office banned me from the country for standing up against this Muslim brutality and thuggery — and they’ve ruthlessly moved against everyone who stands up against it. So now the Muslim thugs and jihad killers have the run of the place. ”

Clare Lopez, vice president for research and analysis for the Center for Security Policy, says she holds America’s leaders responsible for the failure to recognize Islam for what it is. There has always been a disconnect, she said.

“Our top leadership has never understood what Islam really is and implemented policies they thought were going to empower ‘democratic forces’ against dictators – never realizing the reason those dictators were able to hold things together was precisely because they suppressed jihad, and that if they let up the pressure or if genuinely free elections were held, the jihadis would win – or at least surge back up to cause mayhem again,” Lopez told WND.

Author and filmmaker G.M. Davis takes up the crucial question in his new book, “House of War: Islam’s Jihad Against the World.” In it, he not only asks but answers the forbidden question, concluding that “the origin of Islamic violence is Islam itself.”

Davis quotes Hiskett, who makes the following observation about multicultural Britain which could just as easily be applied to America:

“Britain has failed because the multiculturalists have failed to understand the nature of Islam. What they offer is a gallimaufry of humanist ideas, and some selective comparative religion, shorn of all ‘irrational’ elements, for which an unhallowed relativism, not a passionate accession of faith and a blinding encounter with divinity, is the premise.  This is defended as ‘an ability to cope with the uncertainty posed by pluralism.’ In fact, it is an attempt to extinguish the sacerdotal. It may seem admirable in the fashionable context of liberal doubt. But what he multiculturalists forget – or have never understood – is that the equation is altogether one-sided. For the Islamic side there is neither doubt nor pluralism, and only very limited tolerance. … All multiculturalism does is to enable the Muslims to run rings around their trusting multiculturalist and interfaith well wishers, in the business of bending the British education system to their will.”

While countries like Britain, Germany, Sweden and Belgium appear to have made their choices of what path to follow, the quest for answers still haunts, says Zacharias.

“In one Middle Eastern country, an awful thing happened. Two young Muslims turned atheists were on a program. They argued for the reality that blood had been spilled across the centuries and that there was no denying that from its earliest days to the present, this was the same blood-letting in the name of the belief as originally given and carried out. Then one of them asked the cleric a question that was as pointed as could be. It was a powerful question with an irrefutable fact within the question. The question laid bare a reality that was deemed blasphemous. The next day that man and his family were murdered, just for asking a fact-laden question that was unanswerable without conceding the truth. For that, he and his family paid with their lives.

“That’s the depravity of our age. It is death to ask the pointed question because the answer, if true, betrays the real truth. The masquerade is on and it is deadly. We watch hundreds die. We hear speeches full of distortions; we tolerate deceit and even reward it. Some in power and in the public eye whitewash the reality while the blood of the murdered cries out from the ground. Our children and grandchildren will inherit the whirlwind because our media pundits and misguided speech-makers have sown to the wind by trading in lives for their power.”

Zacharias says there is hope even in the midst of the reigning lie.

“The lie has a shelf life. The truth abides forever,” he said. “God can even conquer through our perversion.”

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 Controversy brewing over gay sex ed book at Wasilla library

http://www.frontiersman.com/news/controversy-brewing-over-gay-sex-ed-book-at-wasilla-library/article_03db473a-90af-11e5-947b-47be66ddd523.html

WASILLA — A committee has been formed to evaluate the appropriateness of a Wasilla Public Library book intended for gay teens that more than one parent says is “sexually explicit.”

On a trip to the library in September, Wasilla resident Vanessa Campbell’s 10-year-old son found a book with a rainbow cover titled, “This Book is Gay,” by U.K. young adult author James Dawson. Concerned about the content and the placement of the book in a bookcase labeled “Government” in the juvenile nonfiction section of the library, Campbell took it to Wasilla Public Library Director Kathy “KJ” Martin-Albright.

“I felt it was too sexually explicit to have in the younger section,” Campbell said Friday.

Chapter titles in the book range from “Coming Out” to “The ins and outs of gay sex,” the latter of which seemed to cause the most disturbance among Campbell and friends to whom she showed photocopied pages. “The ins and outs,” section, for example, includes detailed descriptions of how to appreciate anal sex, such as the following:

“With the right water-based lube, however, it can be hugely enjoyable — a good kind of pain like a deep tissue massage,” reads a sentence on page 177.

Other passages include how-to examples.

"Oral sex is popping another dude's peen in your mouth or, indeed, popping yours in his," explains the book.

The American Library Association labels Young Adult books as those appropriate to ages 12 to 18, and Juvenile books as those appropriate for readers age 8 to 12. While fiction books in each category are in separate sections of the lower level of the Wasilla library, nonfiction gets lumped together, Martin-Albright said.

Campbell was not satisfied with this, saying that the book was too accessible to “kids not ready to see this stuff.” She also took the author to task for using “really improper, borderline vulgar” slang in place of  “correct anatomical terms” to describe sex, and claimed it went beyond so-called education, focusing more on “intrigue” and “enticement.”

After discussing these concerns with Martin-Albright, Campbell was encouraged to fill out a “Reconsideration of Materials” form, which asks the patron eight questions, including, “what are your objections to this material?”

Campbell said her objection was more about placement than content, the latter of which cannot constitute grounds for the removal of a book anyway, according to library policy.

“I’m not challenging this book at all because it’s addressed to LGBTQ people,” she said. “It just shouldn’t be in the mix with children’s books.”

Martin-Albright said she spent the next two weeks reading the book and reading reviews of the book in publications such as Publisher’s Weekly and School Library Journal, as per the library’s Reconsideration of Materials policy. (Reading reviews in such publications is part of the initial selection process when purchasing books for the library as well, but more reviews of an individual book, when questioned by a patron, must be located).

When the allotted research period was up, Martin-Albright denied Campbell’s request to move the book to the adult section of the library.

“It was my determination that keeping it in the juvenile nonfiction section is what was appropriate for it,” Martin-Albright said Friday.

She did say, however, that the book could probably be moved to the health and medicine subsection rather than the social sciences — currently labeled “Government” — since it focuses at least as much on sex and sexuality as culture and social issues.

Campbell appealed the decision, resulting in the formation of a Reconsideration Committee, which library policy requires to consist of “a representative from the Friends of the Wasilla Public Library, a professional in the local literary community, and a community school librarian.”

Crowding the committee

Once the committee was formed and a meeting date set (Nov. 19), Campbell penned a letter to Martin-Albright stating what she said was her intention to bring a few friends for moral support.

“I am aware of numerous individuals that are dissatisfied with this finding. We will present our findings before the newly established Reconsideration Committee,” she wrote.

Though not considered or advertised as a public meeting by the City of Wasilla, Martin-Albright said the committee initially decided to allow some extra people in as a courtesy to those who had contacted the city directly to express their concerns.

“This is a committee meeting and while we welcome the public to attend, committee meetings are not open to public comment,” reads a statement on the typed agenda.

But when more than 15 people showed up, Martin-Albright, the committee, and city officials decided the courtesy was no longer appropriate.

“It was not conducive to holding the hearing appropriately,” she said.

Martin-Albright added that the number of people present was not ultimately significant anyway.

“Since the decision is based on the merits of work, it shouldn’t matter,” she said.

Nevertheless, other patrons have said they now want their voices heard about the book.

 

Going public

 

Campbell has encouraged others to voice their opinion on the matter during the regularly scheduled period of public testimony at Monday’s 6 p.m. Wasilla City Council meeting. Although the Reconsideration Committee’s proceedings aren’t on the council's agenda, Campbell said she hopes city officials will take her opinion and that of others into consideration before the new library opens next fall.

Jessica Cox, one of Campbell’s friends who showed up to the Thursday meeting, is another library patron who decried the “explicit content” of the book.

“I think it just crosses the line, it’s very crass, it’s not educational,” Cox said. “There are such things as educational sex ed books, and there are school teachers that teach sex ed in a well-mannered way, but this is just over the top.”

When presented with photocopied pages of the book in the Wasilla library on Friday, Palmer resident Amanda Taylor — who said she hadn’t heard of the book before — was shocked to learn of the book’s existence in a shelf not far from where her 8-year-old daughter was browsing.

“I didn’t even consider that kind of book would be in the kids’ section of a library,” she said. “I don’t wanna censor people, but at the same time, as a parent, that’s not something I want my kid looking at.”

Taylor added that she figured her child would ask about sex and homosexuality eventually, but that it’s strictly a family issue.

“If a parent wants to discuss that with their kids, great, but it’s not up to a public library to teach children about that,” she said.

In an email to the Frontiersman, the author argued that children will find a way to access such material through other means — better they find it in his book than elsewhere, he said.

“If parents think internet savvy young adults aren’t aware of what consenting adults do in bed, they’re kidding themselves,” Dawson wrote. “Would they rather they saw it in pornography or would they rather they took a responsible, sensible non-fiction title out of a library?”

Dawson also doesn't shy away from discussing politics in the book.

"Is there anything icky about gay sex?" he writes in one passage. "I challenge any politician to discuss this with me. I WILL RUIN THEM."

Placement a moot point?

In the new library, Martin-Albright said, all nonfiction — regardless of targeted age range — will exist in the same section, “a documented library best practice.” In part, it has to do with minimizing discrimination of a patron based on reading level.

“Adults who have limited reading skills don’t feel comfortable going into a children’s section to get materials or information, even though it might be more appropriate and easier for them to understand those. But they will browse everything interfiled, and it’s the same with accelerated readers.”

Martin-Albright said the books will be labeled with a “J” for juvenile or “YA” for Young Adult. Campbell and Cox said they’re equally “concerned about that.”

As for the immediate decision on where to place “This Book is Gay,” Martin-Albright said the committee will make a decision by Dec. 6.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.

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What we've learned about Paul Ryan

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/paul-ryan-speaker-first-three-weeks-216078

What we've learned about Paul Ryan

Paul Ryan has been speaker of the House for just three weeks. It’s hardly enough time to make sweeping judgments about whether the Wisconsin Republican's inclusive, bottom-up decision-making process is sustainable in the long term.

But still, over this period, Ryan has been busy. Very busy. He’s deftly navigated a Syrian refugee crisis that might have crippled former Speaker John Boehner. He reformed an internal power center within the House Republican Conference. He’s reopened lines of constant communication with President Barack Obama. And he seems to be playing on an endless loop on cable television. 

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Official Washington has gotten to know a new side of Ryan. And the 45-year-old is sending strong signals about how he’ll run the Capitol, how he’ll wield power and how he’ll interact with this White House for the next 13 months — and beyond.

It’s an evolution — not a revolution. Ryan is looking to build on what he thought worked for Boehner and the House GOP leadership, without tearing down the structure and starting over. To take it a little further, he's trying to repair a car while sitting at the steering wheel, and everyone else is in the back seat yelling at him.

Still, Ryan has shown a deft touch in dealing with the oversized egos that come with his new gig. Other party leaders, committee chairmen and veteran lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have fallen for the Ryan charm. Even the Freedom Caucus is gushing about him. So far, Ryan is working.

With that in mind, here's what we've learned about Ryan so far. 

Ryan will go big in 2016

Ryan believes that next year — an election year — should be heavy on legislating. The speaker said he wants to set the House Republican conference up as a counterpoint to the Democrats. He doesn’t pay much mind to what candidates are saying on the campaign trail — he can hardly keep track. In fact, during a small roundtable with reporters in his Capitol office Thursday, the Wisconsin Republican said he hadn’t given his role in the election — or that of the House GOP majority — a lot of thought. 

“I think it’s making Congress work, getting this place functioning and being the party of ideas,” Ryan said when asked what the House GOP’s role is next year. “That’s when we have to go from being just an opposition party to being an alternative party. So by then, we have to be kicking in on offense on ideas, and being the alternative party."

Asked whether he had any concern about being too bold in 2016, Ryan said, “I don’t have that fear, I never have.” Ryan continued: “We should run in 2016 on who we are, what we believe, what we will do if elected so that if we are given the honor of winning the election by the people of this country, then we have an obligation to do that. And we will have an honest election.” When quizzed whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would agree with that view, Ryan smiled and said, “he will."

Ryan is going to empower Kevin McCarthy

McCarthy couldn’t have looked weaker than when he bowed out of the race for House speaker in October. 

But Ryan has orchestrated a resurgence, of sorts, for McCarthy. Ryan sets the tone for how the House Republican Conference should work, but McCarthy helps facilitate that vision. For example, McCarthy ran the "blocking and tackling" during the highway bill, working to sift through amendments and ensure a relatively smooth floor process. 

And it was McCarthy who convened GOP committee chairmen after the attack in Paris and identified Rep. Richard Hudson’s (R-N.C.) bill as a good example of what Congress' response should look like. It was McCarthy who shut down a push from Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul (R-Texas), among others, to include Christianity as the leading “preference” for admitting refugees in the legislation the House passed Friday. 

It's that kind of in-the-trenches work that shows why Ryan needs McCarthy. McCarthy understands each member’s wants, desires and quirks — especially on the political side. And Ryan trusts McCarthy, which isn't always easy, even for politicians of the same party. The thorny relationship between Boehner and former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) is a perfect example of how two leaders can clash.

Ryan isn't afraid to stand up to the right wing — inside and outside the Capitol.

There are numerous signs that Ryan is willing to stand up to the right wing. The religious preference example is one such episode. To the chagrin of some on the right, Ryan said repeatedly that it was inappropriate to consider religion before any other factor when screening refugees seeking entry into the United States. Ryan said Congress will focus on visa waivers and "homegrown jihadists" next.

"We shouldn’t spend all of our concerns and time about refugees, there are bigger issues to deal with here," Ryan said.

Ryan is keeping his word about changing how the House works.

Ryan promised an open process, and he has mostly adhered to it. He allowed dozens of amendments on the highway bill, and supported a process whereby members of the House Republican Conference can quiz Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) about the substance of spending bills.

Ryan promised to rework the powerful Steering Committee, which doles out committee assignment — and he did, booting chairmen off the panel and giving rank-and-file members more say. 

But, his so-called firm rules are actually quite malleable.

When disaster strikes — as it did last week in Paris — Ryan isn’t afraid to move fast, bypass committees and bring a bill to the floor quickly. 

Here’s what Ryan said about bringing the refugee bill to the floor under a closed rule with limited committee oversight: “If we had a free-for-all on the floor who knows what the outcome would be, and I think the country is very worried, and the country wants to see us doing something to help secure the country, and I didn’t want to jeopardize that,” Ryan said. “This is definitely outside of the realm of regular order. Good grief, we didn’t even run through committee. ... [The Paris attack] was Friday. We set up a task force on Saturday. We got the committees starting to meet over the weekend. We came together on Monday, and on Tuesday, because we have a 72-hour rule we care about, we posted the bill Tuesday night so we can have it on the floor.”

Ryan likes being on TV — and other Republicans like to see him doing it

During Ryan’s brief run for the speakership, he said he’d be a constant presence on television — and he has been. Since winning, he’s done nine television interviews: ABC’s “This Week,” NBC’s “Meet the Press,” CNN’s “State of the Union,” CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Fox News’s “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren,” Bloomberg’s “With All Due Respect,” CBS’s “60 Minutes,” and two segments on Fox News’ “Hannity.” He appeared on Hugh Hewitt and Bill Bennett’s radio shows, and did spots on four local radio stations. Ryan said members like that he’s communicating the party’s message.

But he's still getting his sea legs 

Ryan said he’s half German, which makes him “very much a routine person.” And he still hasn’t settled into a routine in his new position.

“I enjoy it,” Ryan said of being speaker. “I never thought I would. That’s why I never wanted the job. But I do enjoy it. It’s an absolute honor to have this job. And I think one of the reasons is I decided to do it differently. I had to redesign this job to fit my own style, and I just have always been a House guy. Passed up governor races and Senate races. I really like the House. We play rugby, they play golf over [in the Senate]. I like the team sport of the House. I think it’s grass roots, it’s team, it’s close to the people.”

Still, in a further sign that his regime is moving on from the Boehner era, Ryan did note that the Capitol cleaning crews have mostly gotten rid of the smell of smoke from the speaker’s suite. 

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