The blog LGBTQ Nation praised a new "CBS Cares" video that CBS employees made in the "It Gets Better" video series affirming gay teenagers against bullying. But for Christians, it gets worse. They don't get bullied. They just get fired. Take the case of evangelical speaker Frank Turek, who wrote at Townhall.com about being fired from Cisco Systems.

When a homosexual manager found out on the Internet that I had authored a book giving evidence that maintaining our current marriage laws would be best for society, he couldn’t tolerate me and requested I be fired. An HR executive canned me within hours without ever speaking to me.

It sounds like the Cisco Systems version of the Juan Williams story. He concluded;

Cisco’s chief “Inclusion and Diversity” officer, Ms. Marilyn Nagel, had trouble on the phone defining what “inclusion and diversity” actually means at Cisco, so she sent me several links from the Cisco website. As in our conversation, I found no specific definition on the website but plenty of platitudes, such as Cisco is committed to “valuing and encouraging different perspectives, styles, thoughts, and ideas.”

If that’s the case, then why not value my “perspectives, styles, thoughts and ideas?”

Because only certain perspectives, styles, thoughts and ideas are approved, you see. “Inclusion and diversity” to corporate elites actually means exclusion for those that don’t agree with the approved views.

Peter LaBarbera at Americans for Truth added:

One reason I deduce this is that while attending (undercover) the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force “Creating Change” meeting earlier this year, I listened as a homosexual activist described (to a room full of fellow “gay” activists) a church talk given by Turek that he had attended as a critic. The homosexual advocate described Turek’s presentation and demeanor as kind and bereft of malice. This particular LGBT activist works diligently to convert Christians to a pro-“gay rights” mindset, and yet – even as he opposed Turek’s ideas – he found no hatred for homosexuals in the man.

Anika Smith at Evolution News noted that Turek is not alone in the Fired Christian category:

This story is becoming too common for a free society. Blogger Max Andrews reports on the Frank Turek discrimination case:

Dr. Turek was hired by Cisco back in 2008 to train in leadership techniques and team building for their Remote Operations Services team. Dr. Turek "was fired as a vendor for his political and religious views, even though those views were never mentioned or expressed during his work at Cisco." What happened was one of the managers in Dr. Turek's program Googled Turek and noticed that he had authored a book, which advocated a particular position on marriage that this manager, a self-identified homosexual, disagreed with. A complaint was filed against Dr. Turek for not having values consistent with Cisco.

If this story sounds like you may have heard it before, it's because there's a trend. Andrews notes:

This whole situation is strikingly similar, perhaps even worse than the wrongful termination of NASA's JPL information technology specialist David Coppedge…

Coppedge was terminated for allegedly "pushing" intelligent design upon his coworkers. JPL associated this with Coppedge's "religious beliefs" and so Coppedge sued on grounds of religious discrimination. (I suggest reading the articles listed for a full account). Cisco meets a sub-par standard of internal consistency and had a knee-jerk reaction to, well they didn't really know what it was they were reacting to.

Thought crimes have filtered down from academia into the workplace. Regardless of what you think of Dr. Turek's views, that he should be fired merely for having them is alarming, and everyone who values academic freedom should be watching this closely.

As you've watched and read media reports concerning the debt ceiling, have you gotten the feeling the press have given Republicans a pass for standing strong in their pledge to not raise taxes?

CNN's Howard Kurtz thinks they have, and said so quite often on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

HOWARD KURTZ: Katrina vanden Heuvel, here’s David Brooks saying, “Republicans are not a normal Party.” Have most in the media been unwilling to point a finger and say the Republicans are largely responsible for blocking any deal here?

That's some question to ask the editor and publisher of The Nation, America's most left-leaning major magazine.

Of course, there's no need to bother sharing her answer. Care to guess what it was?

Next, Kurtz pushed this line of thinking further with Newt Gingrich's former press secretary Tony Blankley:

KURTZ: Tony Blankley, I’m not taking sides here. The Republicans have their standing on principle, but journalists could easily write that by saying we’ll negotiate anything except tax increases, which is of course half of the debate, Republicans are blocking progress toward a deal.

Does Kurtz actually think they haven't been doing that? It was CNN contributor Donna Brazile's entire point on Sunday's "This Week."

The Associated Press made a similar case in its piece about the stalled negotiations Saturday evening, as did Mike Barnicle on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Friday, the New York Times editorial board Friday, the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson Thursday, and NBC's David Gregory Thursday.

For the past several weeks, virtually every media outlet has been incessantly blaming the lack of a deal on the Republicans and demanding they give in to tax hikes. Exactly what world has Kurtz been living in that he's missed this?

Quite cluelessly, he continued pressing this absurd position with his guests:

KURTZ: But on that point, Katrina, the Democrats have their own sacred cows. Medicare is one of them. It’s a great issue for the Democratic Party. But, President Obama has put nearly $500 billion in Medicare cuts on the table saying the Republicans should now give something on revenue. But, again, I don’t see the press, I think the press is so worried about appearing to take sides that they don’t want to say, “Well, the Democrats took another step here, and Republicans, and look Boehner is under a lot of pressure from his caucus, are still digging in.”

"The press is so worried about appearing to take sides?" Not that that's what they're doing, but isn't it supposed to be?

Kurtz – who claims to be a media analyst – is now complaining that the press are worried about taking sides. Look at the chyron that was at the bottom of the screen during most of this segment:

GIVING REPUBLICANS A PASS? Media neutral on debt crisis

Horrors! The media were neutral on a subject rather than taking sides!

I guess that should have given his viewers all they needed to know about which side he was on concerning raising taxes.

Maybe he was trying in one segment to compensate for this supposed "neutrality," which is a heck of a position for a media analyst.

Better for Kurtz to stop watching the press for a week and study the Historical Budgets of the United States in order to get a rudimentary understanding of why America is at this juncture.

Since the Democrats took over Congress in 2007, spending has risen by $1.1 trillion or 41 percent. If we spent this year what we did in fiscal 2007, we'd only have a $160 billion deficit, which just so happens to be what the deficit was in the last budget created by Republicans and signed by George W. Bush.

Even if spending had increased at the rate of inflation since 2007, today's deficit would only be $370 billion and we wouldn't be anywhere near the debt ceiling.

As such, this matter isn't about tax receipts, tax rates, or tax loopholes. We've gotten ourselves into this crisis with reckless spending, and the only solution is to reduce it.

Maybe if Kurtz was better informed about our historical budgets, he would be complaining that the media are devoting way too much time pushing for tax hikes and not enough time demanding more spending cuts.

A conservative can dream, can't he?

Given the opportunity to directly relay the two sentences of House Speaker John Boehner's statement on the status of debt-ceiling and budget negotiations tonight, the Associated Press's Andrew Taylor and Jim Kuhnhenn, in their 9:29 p.m. report (saved here at my web host for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) disgracefully cut the Speaker's statement off after its first sentence and inserted seven paragraphs designed to minimize its full impact, leaving readers unaware of Boehner's full statement with the impression that its second sentence was uttered sometime and somewhere else.

Boehner's full statement follows:

Statement by Speaker Boehner on Debt Limit Discussions
Washington (Jul 9)

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) released the following statement today regarding ongoing debt limit discussions with the White House:

"Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes. I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure, based on the cuts identified in the Biden-led negotiations, that still meets our call for spending reforms and cuts greater than the amount of any debt limit increase."

Here is what Taylor and Kuhnhenn rudely interjected between Boehner's two sentences (bolds and numbered tags are mine):

The White House responded that Obama will continue to push to make as much progress on deficit reduction as possible.

Boehner's statement came a day before he and seven of the top House and Senate leaders were scheduled to meet at the White House in a negotiating session and lay out their remaining differences.

A deficit reduction deal is crucial to win Republican support for an increase in the nation's debt ceiling. The government's borrowing capacity is currently capped at $14.3 trillion and administration officials say it will go into default without action by Aug. 2.

Obama tried to build political support for an ambitious package of spending cuts and new tax revenue [1] that would reduce the debt by $4 trillion over 10 years. But from the moment he proposed it, Republicans said they would reject any tax increases and Democrats objected to spending cuts in some of their most prized benefit programs, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Vice President Joe Biden had already identified, but not signed off on, about $2 trillion in deficit reductions, most accomplished through spending cuts. [2]

But after holding a secret meeting with Boehner last weekend, Obama and his top aides said they believed an even bigger figure was attainable if both parties made politically painful, but potentially historic, choices. [3]

In the end, the pressure from both sides was pushing against Obama's bigger goal. [4]

Notes:

• [1] — What's under discussion is not "new" tax "revenue," it's tax increases. As Senator John Kyl made clear earlier in the week, in a statement Reuters reporters tried to twist into openness to tax increases, Republicans are willing to look at sales of assets and user-fee adjustments to better reflect the underlying costs of services rendered as sources of one-time and ongoing "revenue" — but not tax increases.
• [2] — The phrase "mostly through spending cuts" gives readers the impression that the Biden package includes tax increases. It doesn't, as the second sentence in Mr. Boehner's statement indicates. But apparently Taylor and Kuhnhenn are hoping many readers won't get that far while they play stall-ball.
• [3] — Isn't it great how "historic choices" always seem to involve tax increases enacted now with spending cuts to come later (except that the spending cuts rarely show up in material form)?
• [4] — Yeah, Obama is the guy with the "bigger goal," while Boehner is just some narrow-minded rube who would prefer a bigger economy over a bigger government.

Because the AP reporters cut Boehner off, most readers will have every reason to believe that the second sentence of Mr. Boehner's statement was said separately from his official statement. It wasn't. "Clever," guys. The first sentence in isolation makes Boehner look inflexible, while the second makes him open to bipartisanship with Biden's spending-cut proposals. We can't have readers thinking Republicans will work towards an agreement, can we?

It doesn't seem at all unreasonable to expect two AP reporters to simply relay both parts of a two-sentence statement without interjecting the administration line. But apparently Taylor and Kuhnhenn are congenitally incapable of that. That's why the oft-used name Apparatchik Press so often applies to dispatches from the self-described, hopelessly conceited Essential Global News Network.

In the meantime, many readers will agree with the Thatcherite suggestion I make at my home blog: Don't go wobbly, Mr. Boehner.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

While Associated Press Economics writers like Christopher Rugaber and Paul Wiseman, as seen in a post this morning (at NewBusters; at BizzyBlog), talk of "baffled economists" and a job market that is "defying history," one AP writer, in discussing stocks which have done well in this economy, has revealed what employment prospects really are with quite un-baffling certainty from the point of view of those who have to put their money where their expectations are, i.e., investors.

The wire service's Bernard Condon cited a pawn shop operator, a payday lender, a debt-collection firm, and a rent-to-own outfit as companies which have outperformed the market and are expected to continue doing so. The reason for the expectation is found in the title of this post, which is also seen in the following excerpt from Condon's composition:

How bad is it? Pawn shops, payday lenders are hot

As the jobless rate inches up and the economic recovery sputters, investors looking for a few good stocks may want to follow the money – or rather the TV, the beloved Fender guitar, the baubles from grandma, the wedding ring.

Profits at pawn shop operator Ezcorp Inc. have jumped by an average 46 percent annually for five years. The stock has doubled from a year ago, to about $38.

… In investing, it's often better to focus on what you can safely predict, even if that safety is found in companies that thrive on hard times. One good bet: The jobless aren't likely to find work anytime soon. And companies profiting from their bad fortune will continue to do so.

B-B-B-But I thought the president told us three months ago that "We are turning the corner." And of course, there's been no shortage of Associated Press and other wire service reports telling us that the economy is on the "rebound" and that the joblessness problem is a result of "temporary factors," blah-blah-blah-blech.

Not so, as Condon explains, because when it comes to putting one's money where the greatest expected returns are, the companies whose prospects are bright are those which work with the financially at risk or cater to the growing number of Americans who have become misers by necessity:

- Stock in payday lender Advance America Cash Advance Centers (AEA) has doubled from a year ago, to just under $8. Rival Cash America International Inc. (CSH) is up 64 percent, to $58. …

- Profits at Encore Capital Group, a debt collector that targets people with unpaid credit cards bills and other debts, rose nearly 50 percent last year. Encore has faced class action suits in several states, including California, over its collection practices. The Minnesota attorney general filed a suit in March. No matter. The stock (ECPG) is up 59 percent from a year ago, to more than $30.

- Stock in Rent-A-Center (RCII), which leases televisions, couches, computers and more, is up 57 percent from a year ago to nearly $32. Nine of the 11 analysts covering the company say it will rise further and that investors should buy it.

The idea of investing in companies catering to the hard-up might not be palatable to some people. But it is profitable.

Memo to Chris Rugaber and Paul Wiseman: It's also not baffling and certainly doesn't defy history.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Bill Maher on Friday proudly equated the Casey Anthony verdict with Republican thinking.

Unfortunately for him, conservative author Ann Coulter was present, and when she got the chance to respond during the internet-only Overtime segment of HBO's "Real Time," she nicely exposed some of the host's most delicious hypocrisies (video follows with transcript and commentary):

BILL MAHER, HOST: And finally, New Rule, if you can look at a crime where everything points to one answer and not see it you're a dumb ass. And if you can look at the deficit and not see that the problem is that the rich stopped paying taxes, you're a Republican.

Before Coulter interrupts, I must.

As NewsBusters reported last August, the liberal think tank the Brookings Institution calculated that extending all of the Bush tax cuts for an additional ten years would cost the Treasury a total of $3.675 trillion.

Of that, Brookings identified that $679 billion – or roughly $68 billion a year – would go to married couples making over $250,000 and individuals earning in excess of $200,000.

It therefore is logical to conclude the cost of these taxes the previous ten years since enacted in July 2001 has been somewhat similar – roughly $68 billion per year.

As we currently have a $1.5 trillion deficit, exactly how would it disappear if we had $68 billion more in revenues?

I guess using Maher's premise, if you look at the deficit and believe the problem is because the rich stopped paying taxes, you're either a Democrat, a liberal comedian, or both.

But I digress:

MAHER: And before you accuse me of equating the Casey Anthony verdict with Republican thinking, save your breath, I am. I am. I'm equating them. I’m saying if you're a working class American who still votes Republican then you don't get to bitch about that verdict.

ANN COULTER: They were all Democrats. I bet they were.

MAHER: You bet they were.

COULTER: The entire OJ jury…

MAHER: I’m doing something now.

COULTER: I don’t care. The entire OJ jury were Democrats.

MAHER: I’ll see you in court.

COULTER: The entire OJ jury were Democrats.

MAHER: My lawyer will. In his press conference last week President Obama said maybe, just maybe, the problem with the budget is that the billionaires were quote "enjoying the lowest tax rates since before I was born." Yeah, like we believe Obama was born.

Now here's Obama’s thinking, and it’s a little counter-intuitive, but try to follow it. When Clinton was president, the rich paid a little more taxes and the government had money. Then Bush cut all those taxes and now we don't. I know it's hard to grasp. It involves subtracting. But in suggesting that in these desperate times we slightly raise the tax on private jets, Obama was baiting the Republicans to look like extremists by defending private jets, but the gambit failed because half the people are not outraged. Half of them say I'm with the Party that cuts all these programs for real people, for the 99 percent – planned parenthood, environmental protection, college, health care, infrastructure – but holds the line on private jets. Voting for them is as stupid as voting not guilty for the mom who lost her baby for a month and went looking at a wet t-shirt contest.

[Applause]

MAHER: Every election, roughly half the population votes Democrat and the other half votes Republican. Now, I understand why the Republicans get one percent of the vote – the richest one percent. That other 49 percent, someone will have to explain to me.

Unfortunately for him, Coulter was still around in the internet-only Overtime segment wherein she did indeed explain it to him as only she can:

MAHER: First of all, do you want to respond to that editorial? I could feel you chomping at the bit.

COULTER: Yeah. Next time I’m bringing the earphones for my iPhone so that I don’t have to listen to that without being able to respond.

MAHER: Well, now you can respond.

COULTER: I didn’t, I forgot we had this internet section, so I tried to pretend I was listening to music.

MAHER: Well, I basically was saying…

COULTER: Okay, one thing is, okay, I got the basic idea – one percent of Americans with their private jets, the ones you fly, Bill, because you’re such an environmentalist.

[Applause]

MAHER: Well, I did when we had debates.

COULTER: Oh, it was just for me.

MAHER: It was just for you.

Nice. Does anyone doubt for a second that Maher, like most of the global warming believing Hollywood elites, flies private jets whenever it's possible?

They sure don't care about carbon dioxide when they're emitting it.

But that wasn't the only hypocrisy Coulter exposed:

COULTER: Okay. I don’t understand why anyone who wasn’t part of the 40 percent of America working for state, local, or federal government would ever vote for the Democratic Party since that is what the Democratic Party stands for. And as I told you interrupting your joke – sorry, but I couldn’t help myself…

MAHER: I understand.

COULTER: …it is a fact that every juror on the OJ case was a Democrat. Everybody blames the blacks. Not me. I blame the Democrats.

[Applause]

MAHER: Well, I…

COULTER: Ha!

MAHER: Alright, let’s move on.

It's nice to be the host and be able to change the subject when you've been exposed as a hypocritical dunce.

All in all, it was a good evening of liberal hunting for Coulter.

Brava!

Stephanie Condon of CBS News reports the Party of Charlie Rangel is attacking freshman Republicans as sleaze-oids: "Democrats are launching a series of robocalls today against six vulnerable House Republicans who have been caught in ethics scandals."

The calls focus on six relatively new GOP members: Reps. Scott Tipton of Colorado, David Rivera of Florida, Frank Guinta of New Hampshire, Charlie Bass of New Hampshire, and Stephen Fincher of Tennessee were all elected in 2010. Rep. Vern Buchanan of Florida came into office in 2007.

"House Republican leaders pledged a zero tolerance policy to ethics problems in their conference, but their answer has been to turn a blind eye, " said Jesse Ferguson of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm of House Democrats…

Most of the allegations noted in the robocalls surfaced before Election Day 2010, but there have been new developments since then in most cases. For instance, Fincher came under scrutiny in 2010 for allegedly failing to disclose a loan of $250,000 to his campaign, but the Federal Election Commission has since opened an investigation into the charge.

The robocall targeting Guinta focuses on an investigation into his campaign funding, while the call targeting Rivera highlights a series of charges against the congressman, including the accusation he received "secret payments" from his mother's company.

Perhaps CBS could add the story of Rep. Laura Richardson, recently profiled by David Freddoso.

It's one thing to report dishonestly. It's another to proudly display it.

The front page of the ABC "World News" website now contains a "Countdown to U.S. Debt Default' clock:

As NewsBusters reported Thursday, the Treasury is expecting to take in $172 billion in tax receipts in August.

As the total interest due on our nation's debt will likely not be greater than $35 billion, we will bring in almost five times as much in taxes which means there will not be a debt default.

To suggest otherwise is just a flat out lie.

For a leading American "news" organization to be publicly counting down to something that won't happen is really the height of dishonesty.

ABC should be ashamed of itself, as should Diane Sawyer.

You knew when you saw conservative author Ann Coulter was pitted against far-left MSNBC contributor and Nation magazine editor Christopher Hayes on HBO's "Real Time" sparks were going to fly.

Such occurred when Hayes told the panel that his mother works for the government prompting Coulter to respond, "She is a drain on society" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CHRISTOPHER HAYES, NATION EDITOR AND MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: The only thing that has been done, which is the Recovery Act, and CBO estimated increased employment by 1.5 to 3 ½ million people. That’s it. That’s the one concrete thing that has been done.

AMANDA FOREMAN, AUTHOR: I’m sorry, government does not create jobs.

HAYES: Sure it does.

FOREMAN: It doesn’t, no. Ideas create jobs. Innovation creates jobs.

BILL MAHER, HOST: During the Depression government didn't create jobs?

Once again Maher showed his stupidity. The unemployment rate in 1929 was 3.2 percent. After federal spending tripled from $3 billion to $9 billion, unemployment was 17.2 percent ten years later.

Liberals just can't get it through their heads that all the money and New Deal programs thrown at the Depression did little to solve it. But I digress:

FOREMAN: They were temp, they were temporary jobs. That’s not a job-job. Under Bill Clinton…

HAYES: What’s a job-job?

FOREMAN: Under Bill Clinton, 23 million…

HAYES: My Mom works for the government. She doesn’t have a job-job?

FOREMAN: That’s not a…

ANN COULTER: No. She is a drain on society.

(Applause)

HAYES: Oh. Thank you.

FOREMAN: I wouldn’t go that far.

MAHER: Your mother personally.

HAYES: Yes.

MAHER: We want you to know that. Your mother is a drain on…

COULTER: Well, you asked.

HAYES: Ann Coulter thinks you’re a drain on society.

FOREMAN: What Ann means, she's not a revenue producer. She’s not a revenue producer.

COULTER: Right. She’s a revenue taker.

FOREMAN: No, she’s gainfully employed, but she’s not a revenue producer.

COULTER: No, it's worse than not having a job, having a government job, because you have somebody doing something nobody wants, taxpayers pay for it, and they can never get rid of them.

Game, set, and match.

Bill Maher less than a week after the 9/11 attacks made an absurd comment on his "Politically Incorrect" program that led ABC to not renew his contract.

Almost ten years later, as the host of HBO's "Real Time," Maher is trying to revise history concerning what he said (video follows with transcripts and commentary):

BILL MAHER: He said I’m anti-religion. “Don’t forget he said that suicide bomber at 9/11” – I guess he’s trying to say, “Suicide bombers at, of 9/11” – “were more heroic than American servicemen,” which I never came close to saying. So here's a psychiatrist who's a liar and who goes on television.

The person Maher was referring to was psychiatrist Keith Ablow, who as NewsBusters reported was on "Fox & Friends" Wednesday claiming Maher hates women and has little regard for life.

Most importantly, here's what Maher actually said on "Politically Incorrect" shortly after 9/11:

MAHER: We have been the cowards. Lobbing cruise missiles from two thousand miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building. Say what you want about it. Not cowardly.

So, the hijackers that slammed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were "not cowardly," but the folks "lobbing cruise missiles from two thousand miles away" – which so happened to be "American servicemen" – ARE cowards.

With this in mind, who's lying about what Maher said ten years ago?

Amid all of the spurious talk about "tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires" (defined incongruously by the left as anyone with income of over $200,000), the Obama administration and its media lackeys are trying to raise support for an increase in taxes on corporate jets.

It's well-known that the amount of money that potentially would be raised by closing this loophole is miniscule, it'd take 5,000 years for it to equal the new debt added just last year, but since we're talking about tax cuts for the wealthy, it's worth noting that the Hollywood Left actually has managed to get a significant number of tax deductions to promote television and movie production. Magically, however, we aren't seeing much discussion about closing these tax loopholes from the elite media.

And loopholes they are indeed. The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, passed by former president George W. Bush and a Republican congress has a nice fat tax deduction of 9 percent for qualified films and television shows taped in the U.S.

Contrast the lack of effort being expended to end this loophole with the rhetoric of a group calling itself "Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength" which boasts some celebrity members such as actress Edie Falco (pictured below) calling on Congress to raise taxes on incomes of over $1 million to promote "the fiscal health of our nation and the well-being of our fellow citizens."

As blogger "Ace" notes, though, this tax loophole and the lack of interest in closing it is pretty typical for the left:

[L]iberals always seem to understand that lower taxes spur economic activity — but if and only if it is themselves getting the favorable tax treatment.

Hollywood of course lobbied for this special break, most likely to keep productions from moving to other countries (first England, and lately, Canada).

So when it comes to their industry, they get that higher taxes –and higher production costs due to unionized labor!– create a barrier to economic production, and lower taxes and lower production costs due to cheaper labor create an environment for economic creativity.

But when it comes to every other industry? Every other American?

Suddenly they get dumb and pretend like they forgot about this.

Besides trying to end the film subsidy, Hollywood liberals who can't get enough taxes should also realize that right now, it is possible to voluntarily pay more in taxes thanks to a special program that the Treasury Department has set up formally called "Gifts to Reduce Debt Held by the Public."

As you might expect, though, it appears there are comparatively few people who are interested in paying more taxes. By Treasury's count, only $2.8 million was donated last year. In 2009, it was just over $3 million, in 2008, $2.2 million was given.

For comparative purposes, supposed tax loving liberals gave then-presidential candidate Barack Obama $750 million in 2008. That pales in comparison to the $10.6 billion Americans spent on video games in 2009 or the $63 billion they spent on tobacco products in 2010 (just to pick two random non-essential industries).

Needless to say, there are plenty of wealthy liberals who have not put their money where their mouths are.