WH Silent Over Demands to Denounce ‘Piss Christ’ Artwork

Religious groups are blasting President Obama for not condemning am anti-Christian art display set to appear in New York City and one Republican lawmaker said he is “fed up with the administration’s double standard and religious hypocrisy.

 “Piss Christ,” once branded as a “deplorable, despicable display of vulgarity,” will be displayed at the Edward Tyler Nahem Gallery in Manhattan on Thursday. The artwork features a “photograph of the crucifix submerged in the artist’s urine.”

The artwork debuted in 1989 and was funded through prize money provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. The art gallery hosting the retrospective salute to Andres Serrano is privately owned.
Religious groups and some lawmakers have already started sounding off – and making comparisons to the controversy over a recent anti-Muslim film. The low budget movie “Innocence of Muslims” sparked violent and deadly clashes across the globe.

It also brought strong rebukes, condemnations and apologies from President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a host of administration officials.

The administration tried to have the film removed from YouTube – but Google rebuffed their request. The State Dept. spent $70,000 on a Pakistani television advertisement rebuking the film. And the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff personally telephoned a Christian minister in Florida to ask him to withdraw his support of the film.
Rep. Michael Grimm (R, C-NY) wants to know why President Obama hasn’t denounced the exhibit and said he’s fed up with what he called the administration’s “religious hypocrisy.”
“The Obama administration’s hypocrisy and utter lack of respect for the religious beliefs of Americans has reached an all-time high,” Grimm told Fox News. “I call on President Obama to stand up for America’s values and beliefs and denounce the ‘Piss Christ’ that has offended Christians at home and abroad.”

So will the Obama Administration condemn the anti-Christian art display? Will they air a television ad denouncing the exhibit? Will the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ask the gallery to cancel the exhibit?
The White House did not return calls seeking comment. Neither did the Pentagon.

The State Dept. referred to a previous statement Clinton made in reference to the anti-Islamic film.
“America’s commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation,” Clinton said. “And as you know, we are home to people of all religions, many of whom came to this country seeking the right to exercise their own religion, including, of course, millions of Muslims. And we have the greatest respect for people of faith.”

Grimm said the lack of response from the White House is unacceptable.

“Perhaps they’ve forgotten the controversy that surrounds this deplorable piece depicting a crucifix submerged in the artist’s urine,” Grimm said. “It outraged Christians in American and throughout the world.”
Grimm, who is Catholic, said he found the artwork to be vulgar and offensive, “just as many in the Islamic world found ‘Innocence of Muslims’ to be highly offensive.”

“Like most Americans, I condemn both yet remain tolerant as the First Amendment demands,” he said. “Unfortunately, this administration has yet to echo these views in regards to the religiously offensive ‘art’ here at home.”

And the congressman isn’t the only one demanding a response from the White House.
“I would like to find out what my government is going to say about this,” said Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League. “We have the United States government making apologies and some very critical statements about the abuse of freedom of speech because it might offend Muslims.”

Donohue said the Obama administration seems to have a double standard when it comes to incidents that might offend the Christian community.
“It seems like we have a protected class for Muslims as well as some other segments of our population,” he told Fox News. “But when it comes to Christians, it’s an all-out war.”

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said the two incidents show a clear contrast between Islam and Christianity.
“You won’t have to worry about a mob of people storming the gallery after Sunday school lets out,” Perkins told Fox News. “Christ has been the subject of attacks for 2,000 years – as have his followers. As Christians, we have learned to turn the other cheek.”

Perkins said the lack of response from the White House over the “Piss Christ” display provide an unintentional recognition.
“It’s a recognition of the contrast between Christianity and Islam,” he said. “You don’t have to plead with Christians not to riot and burn and storm buildings simply because they are offended. That’s the difference. That’s why Christianity moves nations forward and Islam moves nations backwards.”

As for the display – Perkins said it’s being held in a private gallery – without taxpayer funding.
“They have their freedom to do what’s wrong,” he said. “That’s what’s great about America.”
But Donohue said he may very well be outside the gallery on Thursday – and he questions the timing of the exhibit.

“The timing is not a mistake,” he said. “The obvious reason is not because it’s something new – it’s the idea of throwing more salt on Christians. This is a pattern that’s calculated, it’s deliberate and it’s time the elites spoke out on this.”

Tapes the Obama loving media chooses to ignore

Obama attended an anti-Israel conference with Rashid Khalidi.  The L.A. Times will not release the video.

Obama was caught on an open mic calling federal employees ”slugs.”  CBS News will not release the tape.

Obama was caught on an open mic promising the Russians to be more flexible if re-elected, and CBS describes the controversy as mere “presidential politics.”

An audio surfaced of Obama talking about how he loooooves redistribution, and Andrea Mitchell will not play it.

We caught Mother Jones putting forward an edited snippet of a Romney answer without disclosing that 1-2 minutes were missing, including part of the very answer which caused the controversy, and the media yawned.



Where would this country be, where would this Presidential race be, with an objective media?  They have become nothing more than an extension of the Obama campaign.
But you people with brains already know this.

Nevada Republican to Harry Reid: Make our day, release your 2011 tax return

Should Sen. Democratic leader Harry Reid follow in the footsteps of GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney by releasing his 2011 tax return?

Dave Buell, chairman of the Washoe Country Republican party in Mr. Reid's political backyard of Nevada, certainly thinks so.

"Senator, make our day and release your 2011 tax return," he said in an email blast Friday evening.
Citing an anonymous source, Mr. Reid has repeatedly claimed in recent weeks that Mr. Romney "didn't pay taxes for 10 years."

Mr. Romney countered that over the past ten years he never paid less than 13 percent of his taxable income and that "Harry Reid's charge is totally false."

Shortly after Mr. Romney released the additional tax information, Mr. Buell blasted out the email calling for Mr. Reid to come clean and release hits tax records "so that all Nevadans can see that he is paying his fair share." He added, "In addition, Mr. Reid should explain to all of us how he became a millionaire on a bureaucrat's salary. Mitt Romney earned his money by investing in companies, people and creating jobs in the private sector while Harry Reid made his money by taking money from the private sector and redistributing it through government."

Mr. Buell also pointed out that Nevada has had the highest unemployment rate in the country.

 

Chapter I: A childhood of privilege, not hardship

Obama and his bride Michelle Robinson, a fellow Harvard Law School graduate, on their wedding day, Oct. 3, 1992, in Chicago. (Associated Press)

First lady Michelle Obama told the Democratic National Convention that "Barack and I were both raised by families who didn't have much in the way of money or material possessions."It is a claim the president has repeated in his books, on the speech-making circuit and in countless media interviews. By his account, he grew up in a broken home with a single mom, struggled for years as a child in an impoverished Third World country and then was raised by his grandparents in difficult circumstances.

The facts aren't nearly so clear-cut.





Ann Dunham was just 18 years old when she gave birth to Obama. She was a freshman at the University of Hawaii. His Kenyan father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., was a few years older than Ann. They were married against family wishes.

Obama Sr. does not appear to have been welcoming or compassionate toward his new wife or son. It later turned out that he was secretly married to a Kenyan woman back home at the same time he fathered the young Obama.

He abandoned Obama Jr.'s mother when the boy was 1. In 1964, Dunham filed for a divorce that was not contested. Her parents helped to raise the young Obama.

Obama's mother met her second husband, an Indonesian named Lolo Soetoro, while working at the East-West Center in Hawaii. They married, and in 1967, the young Obama, then known as Barry Soetoro, traveled to Indonesia with his mother when the Indonesian government recalled his stepfather.

In Indonesia, the family's circumstances improved dramatically. According to Obama in his autobiography "Dreams from My Father," Lolo's brother-in-law was "making millions as a high official in the national oil company." It was through this brother-in-law that Obama's stepfather got a coveted job as a government relations officer with the Union Oil Co.

The family then moved to Menteng, then and now the most exclusive neighborhood of Jakarta, where bureaucrats, diplomats and economic elites reside.

A popular Indonesia travel site describes Menteng: "Designed by the Dutch Colonial Government in 1920s, Menteng still retains its graceful existence with its beautiful parks, cozy street cafes and luxurious housing complexes."

In 1971, his mother sent young Obama back to Hawaii, where his grandmother, Madelyn, known as Toots, would become one of the first female vice presidents of a Honolulu bank. His grandfather was in sales.

Obama's grandparents moved the same year into Punahou Circle Apartments, a sleek new 10-story apartment building just five blocks from the private Punahou School, which Obama would attend from 1971 to 1979.

Obama explains in "Dreams from My Father" that his admission to Punahou began "the start of something grand, an elevation in the family status that they took great pains to let everyone know."

To his credit, Obama did not downplay Punahou's upscale status, noting in his autobiography that it "had grown into a prestigious prep school, an incubator for island elites. Its reputation had helped sway my mother in her decision to send me back to the States."

Obama also admitted in the book that his grandfather pulled strings to get him into the school. "There was a long waiting list, and I was considered only because of the intervention of Gramps's boss, who was an alumnus."

The school still features a lush hillside campus overlooking the Waikiki skyline and the Pacific Ocean. It was one of the most expensive schools on the island, and both Obama and his half sister Maya Soetoro-Ng received scholarships.

While the Dunhams were not among the wealthiest families on the island, he nevertheless studied and socialized with the children of the social and financial elite. Obama has said he didn't fit in at the school. But that's not how other Hawaiians remember it.

Associated Press writer Sudhin Thanawala reported from Honolulu in 2008 that "classmates and teachers say Obama blended in well. He served on the editorial board of the school's literary magazine, played varsity basketball and sang in the choir. He went on the occasional date."

In his recent book "Barack Obama: The Story," Washington Post reporter David Maraniss said the future chief executive often smoked marijuana with prep school friends, rolling up the car windows to seek "total absorption," or "TA." They called themselves the "Choom Gang."

Edward Shanahan, a retired newspaper journalist who now edits downstreet.net and makes no effort to conceal his admiration for Obama, retraced his Hawaii years shortly after the president was elected.

Shanahan wrote that Obama lived in a "well-off neighborhood near the University of Hawaii where Barry, as he was known, resided in a comfortable home with his mother and her parents before she took him to Indonesia."

Sanahan said "our tour ended up on the lush, exquisitely maintained and altogether inviting campus of Punahou School, which we can imagine was a place of great comfort for Obama."

Tellingly, Obama has never lived in a black neighborhood. Maraniss reported in his book that when leftist activist Jerry Kellman interviewed Obama for a community organizing job in Chicago, he asked Obama how he felt about living and working in the black community for the first time in his life.

Obama accepted the job but chose not to live among those he would be organizing. Instead, he commuted 90 minutes each way daily from his apartment in Chicago's famous Hyde Park to the Altgeld Gardens housing project where he worked.

It was an early instance of Obama presenting himself one way while acting in quite a different way.

Next: Chapter II: The myth of the rock-star professor