Radio America Online News Bureau

Archives for February 2017

‘Dirty Dozen’ Firms Facilitating Sexual Exploitation Exposed

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Social media, premium and cable television and educational resources are all among the worst corporations to profit from and facilitate sexual exploitation, according to a new story.

The “Dirty Dozen List” is a project of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.  Communications Director Haley Halverson says the list is designed to highlight the worst offenders in several different venues.

“We’re targeting 12 mainstream corporations or organizations that we invite into our home, and that we think of as a reputable brand, that are facilitating pornography, prostitution or sex trafficking,” said Halverson.

The “Dirty Dozen List” has a page of information for each entity, so concerned citizens can reach out and urge the companies to change course.

“We don’t typically advocate for boycotts since that’s often not that effective.  But we have created several different ways you can reach out and email the executives at these companies and it’s been tremendously expensive,” said Halverson, noting public pressure works quite well.

“We’ve changed policies at Google, the Department of Defense, at Walmart and Hilton Worldwide.  The Hilton Worldwide hotel company used to sell on-demand pornography.  For an example, when they contacted us to say that they would stop selling this contact, they told us they were receiving a thousand emails a week from our supporters,” said Halverson.

The list includes social media giants Twitter, YouTube, and Snapchat.  Halverson says Snapchat’s entire history is clogged with trafficking in obscenity.

“Snapchat is frequently used for sexting.  With its new addition of Snapcash, Snapchat is actually monetizing a lot of sexting, some child pornography and also prostitution,” said Halverson.

“That’s something that Snapchat could easily fix or at least clean up by allowing users to age-gate some sexually graphic content that in their ‘Discover Stories’ section.  Snapchat has actually been sued by a 14-year-old who was exposed to some graphic material in their stories section, which users can’t opt out of.  They have to see what these images are,” said Halverson.

YouTube has volumes of explicit material available and Halverson says that site and Twitter do a terrible job of enforcing their policies against such content.

“They’ll have a policy against something like pornography or prostitution but then they won’t do anything to enforce it.  It’s time that we just stand up and say. ‘It’s your platform and if you’re going to have this policy, you need to do your best to actually create a safe and friendly user environment,” said Halverson.

Comcast makes the “Dirty Dozen List” while Verizon does not.  Halverson says Verizon is taking steps to force users to access explicit programs rather than listing it where every family member can see it.  She says Comcast is doing just the opposite.

“Not only do they sell this on-demand pornography, but they’ve actually written us a letter defending the pornography on there that has very violent, incest and racist themes, saying it’s all part of their consumer choice,” said Halverson.

HBO is also cited.  Halverson says the premium cable outlet is guilty of “mainstreaming” pornography in popular television programs such as “Game of Thrones” and “Westworld.”  Other violators in this category include Roku, Amazon, Backpage, and Cosmopolitan magazine.

The list also takes aim at educational institutions that insist on making explicit material available to users of any age, specifically the American Library Association, or ALA, and Ebsco.  The American Library Association consistently says it refuses to allow internet filters because of its commitment to the first amendment.

Ebsco specifically caters to kids.

“They’re an online resource to public and private school and some libraries.  They’re basically a big database that kids can go in and find some academic resources for their papers,” said Halverson.

However, she says they end up finding a lot more.

“You can go in there and search something as innocent as seventh grade biology and there will be links to hardcore pornography websites.  There will be articles advising kids to try public, violent, and anal sex and on how to convince your girlfriend to do that,” said Halverson, who notes that elementary school kids use the resource as well.

Halverson also pushes back against the argument that the first amendment is an adequate defense for allowing kids to see such content.

“The first amendment does not protect obscenity, which is most hardcore pornography.  That has been upheld by the Supreme Court several times.  Secondly, the Supreme Court rules against the ALA in a case, saying that it is OK within the first amendment to filter out sexually graphic material in order to create a safe environment for children to learn,” said Halverson.

One asset in the fight against the proliferation of obscene materials is a Justice Department willing to enforce existing laws.  Halverson says the DOJ almost made the list due its inaction.

“The last administration did not enforce this law.  They’re on the watch list now because it’s still early.  We’re waiting to see what the DOJ will do moving forward,” said Halverson.

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Three Martini Lunch 2/28/17

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are encouraged by some of the budget tightening the Trump administration wants to do but are concerned that there seems to be no appetite for entitlement reform.  They also wonder why George W. Bush is coming forward to criticize Trump after virtually eight years of silence on the Obama administration.  And they have fun with Sen. Tom Udall’s suggestion that the Senate confirm Neil Gorsuch AND Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

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‘He Hasn’t Been Keeping Up With the News’

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Former President George W. Bush indicated he considers President Trump’s recent executive order a “Muslim ban” and opposes efforts to infringe upon anyone’s freedom to worship, an analysis that one immigration experts suggests is evidence Bush doesn’t know what is in the policy and is continuing with his narrative that anyone killing in the name of Islam cannot be a Muslim.

Bush appeared on NBC’s ‘Today’ show to promote his new book, “Portraits of Courage,” but soon found himself immersed in a conversation about the president, the press  and Trump’s temporary pause on immigration from seven nations suffering from the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism.

‘Today’ host Matt Lauer began the discussion of the executive order by quoting Bush’s positive portrayal of Islam following the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

“That’s very different talk than what we’re hearing today about a Muslim ban,” said Lauer.  “Do you think the president’s position on this has been well thought out?”

“It’s important for all of us to recognize one of our great strengths is for people to worship the way they want to or not worship at all.  A bedrock of our freedom is the right to worship freely,” Bush responded.

Bush later said he supported an “immigration policy that is welcoming and upholds the law.”

Center for Immigration Reform Executive Director Mark Krikorian says Bush’s focus on the freedom to worship suggests he’s not all that familiar with Trump’s executive order.

“He still misunderstands what the struggle is and specifically about the travel ban he didn’t push back against Lauer’s comment that this was a Muslim ban.  How can it be a Muslim ban if it only covers 10 or 12 percent of the world’s Muslims.  He hasn’t been keeping up with the news and he really shouldn’t be commenting on it if he hasn’t,” said Krikorian.

But Bush wasn’t done.

“I understood right off the bat, Matt, that this was an ideological conflict and people who murder the innocent are not religious people.  They want to advance an ideology,” said Bush.

Krikorian says Bush sees the threat in much the same way former President Barack Obama does.

“Even President Obama made these points about how if you’re a terrorist killing innocent people, you’re not religious.  Well, that’s completely misunderstanding what it means.  Who are we to say that a terrorist acting in the name of Islam doesn’t understand what Islam is?” asked Krikorian.

“Former President Bush would have been correct in saying that sort of violent perspective on Islam is not the only way to see it, that there are many Muslims who reject it.  But he steps over the line, and Obama did this too, when he said that other perspectives of Islam that see it legitimately as killing infidels are not really Islam,” said Krikorian.

Krikorian is also keeping a close eye out for Trump’s revised executive order banning travel from the seven nations with significant terrorism problems.  He expects the new order to carve out exceptions for anyone holding green cards.

He says the massive fight over the order is largely a distraction from the real fight over which branch of government gets to establish immigration policy.

“It’s only 90 days for seven countries.  What this is really about is whether the elected representatives of the people or the judges get to decide who moves to the United States,” said Krikorian, who says the statutory power clearly gives authority to Congress, which allows the president to ban any alien or class of alien he wants.

He says the left wants that power to be in the hands of judges.

“This is something that the anti-borders people, whether on the right or on the left, have been pushing for for years, where every single visa decision – everything – would be decided by judges ultimately.  That’s not what the law says,” said Krikorian.

“The courts suspending that old executive order were acting lawlessly.  It was literally an illegal act by those judges,” said Krikorian.

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Three Martini Lunch 2/27/17

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America think Republicans ought to be pleased with the radical liberals now running the DNC.  They also rip everyone involved in the flap over the White House excluding some media outlets from Friday’s gaggle.  And they discuss the annual self-righteous preening of the Hollywood elite and how their air of superiority blew up in their face at the biggest moment of the night.

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Transgender Battle Shifts to States, Local Schools

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Social conservatives and proponents of federalism are cheering the Trump administration’s decision to rescind the Obama policy requiring public schools to accommodate transgender students and personnel according to their gender identity, but the fight is far from over.

The battle now shifts to the a Supreme Court case, state supreme courts and countless school districts around the country, but Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver says this week’s Justice Department ruling is critical.

“Removing this lawless directive from the Obama administration will do a lot to get the federal government off the backs of these local schools,” said Staver, who says the Obama order put girls at great risk by placing them in vulnerable situations with biological males.

He says the backlash by liberals and the media is

“There’s such a big backlash about this in the liberal media, like there’s something horrible that he did.  Frankly, he’s just following the law.  The law does not include gender identity, or sexual orientation, or gender expression – or whatever you want to say – to the non-discrimination categories,” said Staver.

Staver notes that Congress has rejected such efforts to amend Title IX to expand the application of non-discrimination policies.  He further states that the authors of Title IX and the 1964 Civil Rights Act had no intention of extending such protections.

Despite the Trump administration’s move, the Supreme Court may soon weigh in the issue.  On March 28, the eight justices will hear arguments in in a high profile case out of Virginia.  Gavin Grimm, a biological male who identifies as male, is in a legal battle with the Gloucester County Schools.

However, Staver now believes the high court may defer on the issue as a result of Trump’s actions.

“It’s possible that the court may simply punt on this and dismiss the case because of this new development.  One of the questions before the Supreme Court is should they give deference to the administrative agencies for interpreting the statute.  That administrative agency has gone back to the original intent of the statute,” said Staver.

The Trump administration’s decision also impacts Staver directly.

“This comes at a good time for a case that I’m arguing next week before the Virginia Supreme Court.  In the next few days, I’ll argue before the Virginia Supreme Court on the Fairfax County case,” said Staver.

“That’s a school board in northern Virginia that, on its own, included gender identity, sexual orientation and gender expression to its policies.  Virginia doesn’t allow that.  It has to be set at the state level,” said Staver.

“Our case deals with something that many states have and that is that these non-discrimination categories have to be set at the state level, not at the local level.  You don’t want to have different policies at the state, county, and local level all conflicting with one another,” said Staver.

He says this battle is playing out around the United States.

“Just a few days ago, the Arkansas Supreme Court came down with the same thing.  Fayettevile added gender identity to its non-discrimination policy.  The Arkansas Supreme Court said no, you can’t do that.  It has to be set at the state level.  That’s exactly what I’m arguing at the Virginia Supreme Court,” said Staver.

Even more battles on this and other key issues will play out at school board meetings around the country.  Staver urges people to get active at the local level.

“It’s very important to get involved with the local school board because you can stop these policies before they occur.  That’s the first line of defense.  You need good people at the school board, not just for these policies but for other things as well.  We need good Christians and people of moral values to be on these school boards all across the country,” said Staver.

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Three Martini Lunch 2/24/17

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Not Just Milo: Childhood Sexual Abuse Often Precedes Gay Lifestyle

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Two viral videos of famous men casually discussing being molested as teenagers this week is no aberration but rather a common experience for many engaged in a homosexual lifestyle.

And a leading expert on the issue says the far left is not horrified by pedophilia but has actually worked to mainstream the sexualization of children for a long time.

The issue exploded earlier in the week when former Breitbart Tech Editor Milo Yiannopoulos lost a book deal and was disinvited from delivering the keynote address at the Conservative Political Action Conference after video surfaced of him refusing to name pedophiles in Hollywood while also discussing how he engaged in sexual relations with adult men – including a priest – while he was a young teenager.

Just days later, interviews done by”Star Trek” actor George Takei flooded the internet.  An outspoken gay activist, Takei revealed that he had his first homosexual experience with an adult when he was just 13 years old and attending a summer camp.

Yiannopoulos and Takei are not alone.

“It is fairly common among men who identify as gay in their adulthood.  I think this is one argument for homosexuality being a product of circumstances.  It’s not something you’re born with,” said Americans for Truth About Homosexuality President Peter LaBarbera.

Decades of research and confronting the LGBT agenda convince him this is one of the driving factors in men turning to homosexual lifestyles.

“I’ve been doing this for 25 years and I now see that I really underestimated this factor.  I think it’s extremely high.  I think it could be upwards of half the men or even much higher than that,” said LaBarbera.

He says the research backs that up.  LaBarbera cites a 2016 study in The New Atlantis which concludes that “compared to heterosexuals, non-heterosexuals are about two to three times as likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse.”

LaBarbera says molestation was also a factor in the orientation of gay activism icon Harvey Milk, a homosexual political figure from San Francisco who was murdered in 1978.  President Obama later honored Milk with a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom and named a U.S. Navy ship after him.  Milk was sexually assaulted as a boy in a New York City theater after his mother sent him there alone.

“He went on to become a homosexual activist who also liked to date so-called younger men, even a teenager once.  There was a 16 or 17-year old boy whom Milk had a sexual relationship when he was 33,” said LaBarbera.

LaBarbera says the key issue is the premature sexualization of children can happen in many forms, including exposure to pornography at an early age.

“Something happens when you expose a child prematurely to sexuality or abuse and dysfunction.  There’s other factors, but this is clearly a major factor in male homosexuality and also among some lesbians,” said LaBarbera.

And that is why LaBarbera is horrified at the Boy Scouts of America for opening its doors wide open for homosexual scouts and leaders.

“The Takei thing is fascinating because it was a camp counselor.  Here we have the Boy Scouts of America are now allowing openly homosexual – not just boys – but openly homosexual men.  That means you’re going to have homosexual men taking boys on camping trips. We know from history that is not a good thing and a lot of abuse comes out of that, including in the Boy Scouts,” said LaBarbera.

But why would the trauma or confusion of being assaulted by a man convince boys they are homosexuals?

“Some of these boys, and it’s very, very tragic, they believe when they are recruited or seduced by an older man that somehow confirms they were homosexual.  They blame themselves and it’s very, very tragic,” said LaBarbera.

He says the impact is similar to other abusive relationships.

“It’s sort of like the girl who is a abused by a boyfriend or a relative.  Then she seeks out other abusive men,” said LaBarbera.

LaBarbera urges deeper research to be done into the issue but he’s not expecting it to happen anytime soon.

“A fascinating study would just be famous homosexuals.  Just take people like George Takei, who are well known as homosexual and look at their backgrounds.  I think you would find an amazing amount of abuse, neglect, dysfunction in childhood, parent alienation,” said LaBarbera.

“These things should be studied, but of course, in academia, they’re not because the rigid political correctness says you have to be pro-gay,” he said.

It’s not just academia.  LaBarbera says the media also turns a blind eye even though some – like CNN anchor Don Lemon –  suffered abuse as kids.

“There’s a lot of examples of this but the for the media it’s not a politically correct topic, because when you start raising questions like this, people say, ‘Well, maybe this is a contributing factor to homosexuality,” said LaBarbera.

“That’s the problem with this debate.  We focus on the gay rights-civil rights aspect, which I believe is fraudulent.  We don’t talk about these negative causes and factors,” he added.

LaBarbera says Yiannoupoulos inadvertently pulled the mask off one of the dark secrets of homosexuality and the exposure may do some good.

“I don’t think he intended to, but he has educated a lot of people about homosexual ideation,” said LaBarbera.

However, he doesn’t expect much help from the far political left in the U.S.  LaBarbera says there has been a persistent effort over the years to remove the stigma from pedophilia.  Figures ranging from Bill Maher to liberal academics are on the record defending it or trying to explain it.

“It is gaining traction.  There is actually a movement which is redefining pedophilia as MAPS – Minor-Attracted Persons.  I was reading the [American Psychological Association] manual on mental disorders.  They called pedophilia an orientation,” said LaBarbera.

“The idea that being attracted to children is an orientation.  That is already officially out there, and that’s pretty scary,” said LaBarbera.

And he says the far left end game is clear.

“The radical left wants to achieve the normalization of pedophilia, defining the age of consent down and treating children as sexual objects,” said LaBarbera.

But LaBarbera says there is hope for anyone engaged in a homosexual lifestyle or is badly damaged from childhood sexual abuse.

“The good news is people have come out of homosexuality.  My good friend Stephen Black was abused as a boy.  But he is now ex-gay.  He came out of the homosexual lifestyle.  He’s married with children.  The good news is you can come out of these awful circumstances,” said LaBarbera.

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Three Martini Lunch 2/23/17

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Greg Corombos of Radio America and David French of National Review applaud the Trump administration for rescinding Pres. Obama’s demand that all public schools embrace transgender accommodation and leaving the issue to states or local school districts.  They also slam the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for ruling that any gun can be banned if it’s “useful for military service.”  And David vents about the one of the worst trades in NBA history.

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‘No Campus for White Men’

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The vast majority of college campuses have been liberal bastions for decades, but those politics have now morphed into a “victimhood olympics” that threatens people not affiliated with an allegedly oppressed group and even puts the future of our nation in doubt.

Colleges are making headlines on a regular basis for reasons unrelated to the curriculum.  Efforts by minority students to rename buildings, demand safe spaces, and intimidate free speech seem to be an every day occurrence.

“There is a case of this happening at nearly every college campus,” said Daily Caller Deputy Editor Scott Greer, author of the new book “No Campus for White Men: The Transformation of Higher Education into Hateful Indoctrination.”

“You can look at pretty much any campus and there is a major microaggression that started protests,” said Greer, who says campus activism is essentially a competition among aggrieved minorities to prove they are the most oppressed.

“The reason why all these students are rushing to compete in this victimhood olympics is that on college campuses there is a new moral culture arising called victimhood culture,” said Greer.

“In this culture, people are not assigned status and value based on being very honorable and having a lot of accomplishments or simply the dignity that comes from being an American citizen or a human being.  It comes from who can demonstrate they’ve been the most oppressed, who’s been the biggest victim,” said Greer.

Greer says this is a sharp contrast to the typical liberalism found on campus for many years.

“Colleges have always been historically home to pretty crazy leftism, but now the angle on all these protests is very racial in nature.  It’s getting more anti-white in its character as well,” said Greer.

Greer traces the issue back more than 50 years to the dawn of Affirmative Action instituted under President John F. Kennedy.  He says the policy made a lot sense at the time as many colleges and universities were blatantly slamming their doors in the faces of black applicants.

But over time, says Greer, efforts to help students based on race colored their perceptions of their own identities.

“This encourages students to think in a way that doesn’t see themselves as an American or that they’re being judged on the content of their character, but that they’re being judged on their skin color and their ethnic background,” said Greer.

“That encourages them to gravitate towards that identity for the rest of their four years.  If they got this benefit of getting into college based on racial identity, why not carry it on for the four years and see what happens,” said Greer.

However, he says the movement is that often pushing for special rights rather than equal rights.

“We saw last week at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where students are now advocating for free tuition for African-Americans and other minorities.  It seems against the American character and American values, where they’re judged by the content of their character,” said Greer.

As the protesters make their demands, a common cycle plays out where college administrators initially resist the protests but ultimately cave in to the students.  Greer says there are multiple reasons for the weak resolve of those leaders, starting with ideological sympathy for the demonstrators.

“A lot of the administrators and professors cave in because all of them believe, ‘Oh, as a white person, I inherit all these bad things from the past.  Even though my ancestors weren’t even in the United States, I’m still responsible for slavery and colonialism and all these other terrible things that have happened in the past,” said Greer.

Greer says the next problem is administrators  don’t know what to do when the demands come pouring in.

“Secondly, they’re spineless because they have a very easy job.  It’s the part of the job they don’t want to deal with because it’s the most difficult.  It’s a very easy job being a college administrator.  You have a two-hour lunch break.  You really just sit in meetings all day.  It’s not a difficult job,” said Greer.

Finally, he says administrators give in because the campus liberals are the only ones in their faces.

“They’re the only pressure group they have to deal with in their job.  They don’t have to deal with conservative students [complaining about not having more conservative speakers].  They don’t have to deal with because conservative students typically ask politely and go through the proper methods.  Campus leftists will barge in their office and start screaming and shouting for an hour,” said Greer.

“They have to deal with that so they just cave in,” he added.

With liberals have a stranglehold on the vast majority of college campuses, Greer says it’s up to conservative politicians to make sure the liberal students aren’t the only voice in the ear of administrators.

“They control the purse strings.  They can demand – when administrators do something stupid like mandating white privilege courses for all students – to come before a committee hearing and explain themselves as to why they’re pushing this ridiculous and harmful ideas on students,” said Greer.

Greer says reversing the trend is essential because the race-based victimhood culture on campus is no longer a fringe but the dominant culture on most campuses.

“These are very well going to be your next senators, your next judges and maybe even your next president,” said Greer.

“It would be a terrible path for our country where we have congressmen, sitting on the House floor, competing over who is the bigger victim and determining public policy based on these silly notions.  But that well could happen unless we change.  This is definitely the path we’re going to go down unless something happens to change course in higher education,” said Greer.

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Three Martini Lunch 2/22/17

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are glad to see Americans more optimistic about the nation’s direction than they have for a long time.  ‘Morning Joe’ co-host Mika Brzezinski is worried that Pres. Trump is trying to control what people think because that’s her job.  And they discuss MSNBC’s Katy Tur having no idea what a GOP congressman was talking about when he said Pres. Obama promised greater flexibility with Russia once his re-election was over.

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