On November 7, Sandy Rios of WYLL-AM1160 in Chicago interviewed John Haskins, a former journalist and editor who is now a political analyst with the Parents’ Rights Coalition. in Massachusetts.

The page with the audio link to the full interview is here; the link is at the third paragraph. The last quarter of the audio is on another topic.

In advance of Mitt Romney’s “I am (insert name of his religion here), hear me roar” speech on Thursday, I am providing selected audio excerpts from the Rios-Haskins interview, along with full transcripts of those excerpts after the jump (if you’re on the home page).

There really is no substitute for reading the whole transcript or listening to all audio segments. But, as with the “Romney, the Courts, and the Constitutions” series, as a service to those in a time crunch, I am boiling it down, this time providing key quotes for each segment

A HT and intense thanks to Matt at Weapons of Mass Discussion for creating the separate segments. If this is to make a difference, it could not have been made without you.

Part 1 (audio link)

Key Quotes:

John Haskins — “…it was something strategically very significant when he promised the Log Cabin homosexual Republican group, when he was running against Ted Kennedy bank in 1994, running for the US Senate, that he could be more effective than Ted Kennedy in advancing the gay agenda. …. that is a profoundly significant statement and an insight that Romney had — that as a Mormon, as a Republican, he had far more leverage to implement a radical gay agenda than a Democrat could have had.”

Part 2 (audio link)

Key Quote:

Haskins — “….. while campaigning for governor in 2002, Romney secretly promised to the Log Cabin homosexual Republicans that when the anticipated ruling came forth from the court, that he would abdicate his constitutional duty to defend the Constitution.”

Part 3 (audio link)

Key Quote:

Haskins — “It was almost as though the Massachusetts Constitution was written by the Founding Fathers for this moment in history that we are living through. And yet the entire conservative movement is ignoring this Constitution, because it embarrasses them.”

Part 4 (audio link)

Key Quote:

Sandy Rios — “And so in Massachusetts, to follow that pattern, the judicial branch said that gay marriage needed to be provided for. The legislative branch, which is the one that makes the laws, didn’t do it. They gave them a deadline, they didn’t do it.

So Mitt Romney, totally different branch, steps in, suddenly orders, and threatens his Justices of the Peace with firing if they do not start marrying same-sex couples. He orders marriage certificates to be changed from “Husband” and “Wife” to “Partner A/Partner B.”

That’s what he did.”

Part 5 (audio link)

Key Quote:

Haskins — “(Paul Weyrich) doesn’t understand that Romney wasn’t simply weak in what he did in Massachusetts in sort of caving in to the Court. That was the criticism that we all, including myself, thought was the problem with Romney in the gay-marriage thing, that he caved in, he was weak.

We now know since the New York Times revelation that Romney was carrying out, he was delivering a promise he made to earn the endorsement of a homosexual Republican group.”

Part 6 (audio link)

Key Quote:

Rios (after replay of October 21 debate statement on gay marriage by Romney) — “Sure sounds good. That’s Mitt Romney. Problem is, it doesn’t, that’s not what he did as governor!”

Part 7 (audio link)

Key Quote:

Rios — “And I just asked him very, very respectfully, ‘Mr. Romney, you just expressed your concern about gay marriage.’ (I had forgot what he had said.) ‘Then why is it that this is what you did?’

….. And I’m telling you, John, he lost his temper.

He got so mad at me, he said, ‘Are you an attorney?’

And I said, ‘No I’m not.’

He said, “Well, I have a degree from Harvard Law School!’”

Part 8 (audio link)

Key Quote:

Haskins — “I have access to first-hand evidence that people inside the Romney camp, and people close to Romney, have said that what he did was without legal authority, in ordering public officials to give out gay-marriage licenses.”

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The full transcript of each segment is after the jump.

All I can think to say is this: If, after reading the excerpts and hearing Romney’s debate statement about same-sex marriage, you don’t catch scary echoes of a certain person who was president for eight years beginning in the early 1990s, you’re just not paying close enough attention.

(more…)

Four reports today threw more cold water on Old Media’s “The Recession Is Coming, The Recession Is Coming” chorus.

First, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued its revised Productivity and Costs Report for the third quarter, saying:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor today reported revised productivity data–as measured by output per hour of all persons–for the third quarter of 2007. The seasonally adjusted annual rates of productivity growth in the third quarter were:

6.7 percent in the business sector and
6.3 percent in the nonfarm business sector.

In both sectors, changes in productivity are higher than the preliminary estimates published November 7, and represent the largest productivity gains since the third quarter of 2003.

Refuting Old Media’s recent claims that the third quarter was fine, but that all good news is old news, the Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM’s) Non-Manufacturing report for November came in with an “expansion” reading of 54.1% (any reading above 50% indicates expansion). Though the reading is lower than last month’s 55.8%, and lower than expectations that it would come in at 54.8%, it’s still comfortably in expansion mode, and for the 56th straight month.

Here’s something you won’t see reported about the ISM’s numbers: They’re almost as good as those seen in the third quarter, when GDP grew by 4.9% (pending final adjustment in December). Looking at both the ISM Manufacturing and Non-Manufacturing indices, here is how the third quarter and fourth quarter so far compare, with Manufacturing and Non-Manufacturing weighted 15% and 85%, respectively, to approximate their contributions to the economy:

Third, new orders jumped by 0.5%, “unexpectedly” beating predictions of flatness.

Fourth, though its reliability is in my opinion more than a little suspect, ADP’s National Employment Report came in with an estimate of 189,000 new non-farm private-sector jobs during November, and an upward revision of October’s number.

With reported results like these, a recession would appear to be quite distant — which of course explains why Google News search shortly before noon on December 5 on the word “recession” (limited to Dec. 4 and 5 for news sources in the US) returns 15,350 results (/sarcasm).

Cross-posted at NewsBuster.org.

Dennis Prager says that Boomers owe America’s young people an apology. Prager’s regrets go to education, abortion, and other cultural matters. The real list of things that should be apologized for is so long that he doesn’t even get to the financial part.

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In a subscription-only op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal, Martin Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan and currently a Harvard prof, advocates a tax-cut stimulus if the economy heads downhill:

What’s really needed is a fiscal stimulus, enacted now and triggered to take effect if the economy deteriorates substantially in 2008. There are many possible forms of stimulus, including a uniform tax rebate per taxpayer or a percentage reduction in each taxpayer’s liability. There are also a variety of possible triggering events. The most suitable of these would be a three-month cumulative decline in payroll employment. The fiscal stimulus would automatically end when employment began to rise or when it reached its pre-downturn level.

That’s an interesting idea, because it a) is logical, and b) if conditions do deteriorate (I’m not at all convinced that they will), it would put a tax cut into place in diametric opposition to the plethora of taxes the Democratic nominee will be campaigning to put into place. Voters will be more likely to note the disconnect.

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Michelle Malkin’s takes on “Hillarycare for the Housing Market.” I don’t totally agree, but it’s well-argued. Does she ever sleep?

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John Boehner v. Jim McDermott — He came, he saw, he kicked McDermott’s butt:

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner yesterday achieved a definitive victory in his decadelong fight with a leading liberal Democrat who leaked an illegally taped 1996 telephone conversation among House Republican leaders.

The Supreme Court yesterday let stand a lower federal court’s ruling that Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington had wrongfully leaked the tape to two newspapers, contrary to House rules, and that Mr. Boehner could sue him for damages.

….. Lower courts have ruled that Mr. McDermott must pay Mr. Boehner $10,000 in actual damages, $50,000 in punitive damages, plus “reasonable” attorneys fees.

Determining legal costs has been set aside while Mr. McDermott, who has created a legal-defense fund to pay his expenses in the case, appealed the verdict and his claim of constitutional issues. Mr. Boehner submitted an affidavit in 2000 putting his attorneys fees at $530,000, but the appeals process is estimated to have raised his costs to about $800,000.

Cut the check, Jim, before the accumulated legal costs go into 7 figures.

You can tell the sore-loser New York Times isn’t happy, as its online story has pics of McDermott and Gingrich, but not the triumphant Boehner. The Associated Press must be in a snit too, as the AP coverage carried at the Times doesn’t mention Boehner, the guy who just won the lawsuit, until the fourth paragraph.

McDermott, a facilitator of illegal eavesdropping, is a far-left hero. Note the hypocrisy.

From Honolulu:

Burglary Victim Says Neighbor Saved Her Life
Story Updated: Nov 29, 2007 at 9:35 PM HST

A 49 year old Waialua woman says she struggled with her attacker for more than a half hour early Wednesday morning as the man pinned her down on her bed and held a knife to her throat.

38 year old Mark Stephen Panela was charged with burglary, kidnapping and attempted rape after allegedly breaking into the woman’s home on Waialua Beach Road. Patrol officers arrested Panela inside the victim’s home after responding to a phone call of a burglary in progress.

The victim, whose identity is being withheld by Khon2, says a few seconds after her alarm clock rang at 5 a.m. Panela was on top of her. “I felt a knife blade on my throat and he started to suffocate me.”

She said Panela grew more violent every time she struggled or tried to escape his firm grasp. “He started to use ropes and he yelled at me not to yell and I yelled out once really loud, ‘help.’”

As her attacker tried to muffle her screams with a pillow, the woman made a move for the man’s knife and managed to wedge it between the bedroom wall and the headboard of her bed. “He couldn’t reach it,” she said.

The victim’s cries for help were eventually answered by a neighbor who lives directly behind her home and whose bedroom faces hers. “He’s actually the one that called police,” the victim said, “my lifeguard Steve.”

Steven Keitzer is an actual City & County of Honolulu lifeguard and is no stranger to helping victims of crime. In July of 1996 Keitzer was honored by then Honolulu Police Chief Michael Nakamura after he caught a robbery suspect who had jumped into the ocean in Waikiki. At the time of the award Nakamura said HPD had never had an awardee like Keitzer, who had received so “many letters of appreciation and certificates of merit.”

Although Keitzer shied away from talking to a Khon2 camera crew about his phone call to police, Panela’s alleged victim says her lifeguard neighbor probably saved her life.

“Steve, my guardian angel Steve,” she said. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.