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912 Patriots of Lower Bucks - Your Daily Updates ALL in ONE Place!
December 19, 2011
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Quote:
"In what people irritatingly call "iconic" terms, Bin Laden certainly had no rival. The strange, scrofulous quasi-nobility and bogus spirituality of his appearance was appallingly telegenic, and it will be highly interesting to see whether this charisma survives the alternative definition of revolution that has lately transfigured the Muslim world. The most tenaciously lasting impression of all, however, is that of his sheer irrationality. What had the man thought he was doing? Ten years ago, did he expect, let alone desire, to be in a walled compound in dear little Abbottabad?...Ten years ago, I remind you, he had a gigantic influence in one rogue and failed state-Afghanistan-and was exerting an increasing force over its Pakistani neighbor. Taliban and al-Qaida sympathizers were in senior positions in the Pakistani army and nuclear program and had not yet been detected as such. Huge financial subventions flowed his way, often through official channels, from Saudi Arabia and other gulf states.... Then, not only did he run away from Afghanistan, leaving his deluded followers to be killed in very large numbers, but he chose to remain a furtive and shady figure, on whom the odds of a successful covert "hit," or bought-and-paid-for betrayal, were bound to lengthen every day...It seems thinkable that he truly believed his own mad propaganda, often adumbrated on tapes and videos, especially after the American scuttle from Somalia. The West, he maintained, was rotten with corruption and run by cabals of Jews and homosexuals. It had no will to resist. It had become feminized and cowardly. One devastating psychological blow and the rest of the edifice would gradually follow the Twin Towers in a shower of dust. Well, he and his fellow psychopaths did succeed in killing thousands in North America and Western Europe, but in the past few years, their main military triumphs have been against such targets as Afghan schoolgirls, Shiite Muslim civilians, and defenseless synagogues in Tunisia and Turkey. Has there ever been a more contemptible leader from behind, or a commander who authorized more blanket death sentences on bystanders?."
- Christopher Hitchens (April 13, 1949 - December 15, 2011) who died last night in Houston, writing in an article entitled "Death of a Madman" on Slate.
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Obama Administration Bans Knowledge of Islam
Posted by Raymond Ibrahim Bio ↓ on Dec 1st, 2011
The Obama administration's censoring of photographs of the late Osama bin Laden, lest they "offend" Muslims, is one thing; but what about censoring words, especially those pivotal to U.S. security?
Weeks earlier, the Daily Caller revealed that "the Obama administration was pulling back all training materials used for the law enforcement and national security communities, in order to eliminate all references to Islam that some Muslim groups have claimed are offensive."
The move comes after complaints from advocacy organizations including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and others identified as Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the 2004 Holy Land Foundation terror fundraising trial. In a Wednesday Los Angeles Times op-ed, Muslim PublicAffairs Council (MPAC) president Salam al-Marayati threatened the FBI with a total cutoff of cooperation between American Muslims and law enforcement if the agency failed to revise its law enforcement training materials. Maintaining the training materials in their current state "will undermine the relationship between law enforcement and the Muslim American community," al-Marayati wrote. Multiple online sources detail MPAC's close alignment with CAIR. In his op-ed, Al-Marayati demanded that the Justice Department and the FBI "issue a clear and unequivocal apology to the Muslim American community" and "establish a thorough and transparent vetting process in selecting its trainers and materials."
Read more: Fellow patriots, When I was growing up, Richard Nixon uttered the memorable phrase, "Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I am not a crook." This, of course, was a flat out lie, which led to intense analysis of the phrase, "Let me make one thing perfectly clear," with the popular consensus being that anyone who says something like it is lying. This lesson was driven home so thoroughly by the press that I thought the world would never forget it and no one would dare to use that phrase again. So imagine my surprise when U.S. Attorney Dwight C. Holton said, after a discussion with Eric Holder, "I want to be perfectly clear about this: training materials that portray Islam as a religion of violence or with a tendency towards violence are wrong" Apparently members of the Obama Administration don't pay much attention to history, thus history repeats itself and a liar outs himself. Dave  | | Jihad Awareness Month (Hat Tip: Barack Obama) |
After complaints from Muslim organizations, the Obama Administration is eliminating all counter-Jihad training in the U.S. government.
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Southern NH 9.12 Project
& Temple University Students for Intellectual Freedom (TUSIF)
This is a really good chart with all the candidates positions on issues....note especially, please, those that support agenda 21
Get the PDF Document Here . . .
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Join the Thomas Jefferson Club for our 3rd Annual Christmas Party!
Tuesday, December 20th, 7:30PM
The Temperance House
5 South State Street
Newtown, PA 18940
Tis the Season to join in fellowship and freedom!
Dinner buffet & dessert, $25pp (Cash bar)
Please RSVP to info@thomasjeffersonclub.org
Special Tea Party update from Ana Puig (Kitchen Table Patriots) and Jennifer Stefano (Loyal Opposition)
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!
Jeff McGeary
Please remember our military men and women deployed overseas;
consider a holiday donation to the United Service Organizations (USO) on their website here:
https://usowishbook.uso.org/templates/landing-product.aspx?cid=193&rid=34
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Hi group. Below is a message from Phila Tea Party Patriots founders Diana and Don Reimer about an event. Please try to attend and please RSVP to philatppatriots@gmail.com if you're coming.
Thanks,
-Jim
p.s. you'll get one more email from us today, then we'll leave you alone for a while, haha.
Space is limited, therefore please RSVP for this event, noting the viewing session you will be attending. RSVP: philatppatriots@gmail.com
Presented by Philadelphia Tea Party patriots, on 29 Dec, three movies to help us gear up for the 2012 election cycle will be shown at the Lansdale Library.
Government have you worried ... Us too.
www.PhilaTeaPartyPatriots.com
Don and Diana make this invitation to all folks who count as home their PTPP Groups in Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. Limited to 40 seats for each movie showing
"KNOWLEDGE IS POWER" ... and a knowledgeable voter is the best citizen patriot
- Dick Morris
COME to be informed.
SEE how to be involved individually.
DISCOVER the effectiveness of acting in one accord.
WHO:
Philadelphia Tea Party Patriots - Don & Diana Reimer
WHAT:
Three FREE Movie Viewings:
1st Showing: 10:15am to 1:30pm
2nd Showing:1:30pm-4:45pm
3rd Showing 5:15pm- 8:30pm
WHEN:
All Day Three Showings - Thursday, December 29, 2011
WHERE:
Community Room, Lansdale Public Library 301 Vine Street Lansdale, PA
map: http://g.co/maps/9v2fu
WHY:
Information: This is an introduction to Citizen's Coup for 2012
BATTLE FOR AMERICA With Dick Morris TEA PARTY A Documentary Film
HOW:
The Making of YOUR Plan: 2012 or Bust
Ownership and Participation
The Ultimate Goal:
To Bring Your Personal Efforts To Influence a Positive Conservative Outcome of the 2012 Primary and General
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Congress overturns incandescent light bulb ban
Another trillion dollar spending bill. At least we might have our lightbulbs back.
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1. David Codrea, unauthorized journalist who broke Fast & Furious, to speak in Montgomeryville Jan 7.
Please see the flier at bottom of email for our big event: David Codrea presents Fast & Furious. We need you to distribute this flier to everywhere/everyone you think will be interested, and we hope you can come yourselves. We need to fill the room which holds 400! 2. We need your 2012 election ideasPlease submit your ideas for things we can do as individuals or groups to win our region in 2012. Tea Party Patriots is taking all suggestions, and we coordinators will report up what our members (you guys) say. I would submit 2 lists: A) with no funding and B) with funding (your wishlist). For example with no $, we can pass out info door-to-door. But with $, we could put up a billboard. PLEASE DON'T TAKE THIS TO MEAN WE HAVE FUNDING; but there are ideas good enough to fundraise for. Please submit ideas by replying or go to our forum. 3.Tom Smith for Senate - any interest?Is there any interest in hearing Tom Smith for Senate on Wednesday Dec 14 at the Rock from 7-9pm? Please reply before Tuesday at 4pm if you intend to come so we can decide if it's feasible. I'll let you know if we have a quorum. http://tomsmithforsenate.com/ 4. Get onto our forumPlease get onto our FORUM if you'd like to communicate with other members, post items of interest, keep track of legislation, figure out rides to events, propose ideas, etc. It's accessible from the blue link, or our website, www.centralmontcoptpp.com Thanks, -Jim 
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Nullify Now! Philadelphia
 March 31, 2012. 10a-6p
-SPONSOR THIS EVENT - CLICK HERE
-Click here to like this event on Facebook
Crowne Plaza, Liberty Ballroom
Philadelphia Downtown
CLICK HERE for tickets*******
-Speakers
-Event Overview
-Event Agenda
-Venue Information, Parking, etc
Thomas Jefferson: "Whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers....a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy."
But what IS nullification? How does it happen and work? Since September 2010, the Tenth Amendment Center has been hosting a national tour to educate and activate people on this topic. People are learning the constitutional basis, when it's been used in history, and how it is happening around the country and how YOU can stop DC right in your own state.
Go here for more information: |
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THE INTERFAITH TASKFORCE FOR AMERICA AND ISRAEL (ITAI)
123 S. Broad Street, Suite 1832, Philadelphia, PA 19109
HOLD THE DATE
ITAI is pleased to invite you to attend our program titled "Christians in the Middle East: Endangered Species."
With Samir Asad (an Egyptian Coptic-Christian), Wafa Mikhail, and Joseph Puder, and Charles Kahn Jr.,
Our panel will discuss the current situation in Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and Gaza, and more...
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2012, 7:30PM
At
St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church
1989 Rt. 70 East, Cherry Hill, NJ
Admission is free, tax-deductible contributions to ITAI are encouraged.
Please RSVP by 1/16/12.
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LISTEN LIVE TO REPATRIOT RADIO
"BETTER THAN EVER"
(all times are eastern)
Monday 3-4pm "Bordering on Insanity" - Sue Payne and Frosty Wooldridge
Tuesday 3-4pm "American Freedom Watch" - Karen Schoen with contributors John Estabrooks and Dr. Ronald Myers
Wednesday 3-4pm "Patriots Watch" - Billy Baer and Dan Haggerty
Thursday 3-4pm "America's Black Shield" - Ted Hayes and Terrance Lang
Friday 10-11pm "Veterans' Weekly Forum" - Rich Davis and David Bellavia
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Remember January 3rd, 2007 The Day The Democrats Took Over!
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I wonder how many people know this?
The day the Democrats took over was not January 22nd 2009 -- it was actually January 3rd 2007. The day the Democrats took over the House of Representatives & Senate, the start of the 110th Congress.
The Democratic Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995.
"For those of you who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is "Bush's Fault," think about this:
January 3rd, 2007 was the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress:
At the time: The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77 The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5% The Unemployment rate was 4.6%
George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB CREATION!
Remember the day. |
Read more:
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The person that wrote this is a college student. Perhaps there is hope for us after all.
Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:We have stuck together since the late 1950's for the sake of the kids, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has clearly run its course.
Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what
is right for us all, so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.
Here is a model separation agreement:
--Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a similar portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.
--We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them.
--You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU.--Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military.
--We'll take the nasty, smelly oil industry and you can go with wind, solar and biodiesel.
--You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell. You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them.
--We'll keep capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street.
--You can have your beloved lifelong welfare dwellers, food stamps, homeless, homeboys, hippies, druggies and illegal aliens.
--We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO's and rednecks.
--We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood
--You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us.
--You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security.
--We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values.
--You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism, political correctness and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N. but we will no longer be paying the bill.
--We'll keep the SUV's, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars.. You can take every Volt and Leaf you can find.
--You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors.
--We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right.
--We'll keep "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "The National Anthem."
--I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute "Imagine", "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing", "Kum Ba Ya" or "We Are the World".
--We'll practice trickle down economics and you can continue to give trickle up poverty your best shot.
--Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag.
Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like-minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you answer which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.
Sincerely,
John J.. Wall
Law Student and an American
P.S. Also, please take Ted Turner, Sean Penn, Martin & Charlie Sheen, Barbara Streisand, & (Hanoi) Jane Fonda with you.
P..S.S. And you won't have to press 1 for English when you call our country.
Forward This Every Time You Get It ! Let's Keep This Going, Maybe Some Of It Will Start Sinking in!
The person that wrote this is a college student. Perhaps there is hope for us after all.
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I've received the emails critical of Corbett's decision about setting up health care exchanges in Pennsylvania as part of the Obamacare program.
I therefore contacted, Donna Baver Rovito, a woman who has worked with physicians for many years and publishes a newsletter for them, one that is well received by most or all of my many doctors.
She's been active as the health care point person with the large Tea Party/912 group in Lehigh Valley, some 1,500 members, and is also married to a surgeon. Because I was concerned when I read of Corbett's decision, I forwarded info about his actions to her and received the response you see below. I now see her point; note what I've bold-faced.
Lou Flanagan
From: DonnaBaverRovito
Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2011 11:46
Hi, Lou,
I LOVE Dr. Pandelidis, but we're not on the same page on this ONE POINT.
Bottom line - unless we get ObamaCare declared unconstitutional and/or repealed, it WILL BE the law of the land, and one of the provisions of the law is that the federal government WILL SET UP exchanges in each state if the state fails to do so.
I think Corbett is hedging Pennsylvania's bets here - obviously, he doesn't support ObamaCare or we wouldn't be part of the lawsuit.
But the law is the law, and if (God forbid) it STAYS the law, the Borg Queen and her drones will COME INTO PENNSYLVANIA and set up an exchange IF WE DON'T ALREADY HAVE ONE IN PLACE.
What will serve Pennsylvania better - making a useless and ultimately futile "statement" against ObamaCare by refusing to set up an exchange system, and setting Pennsylvanians up for MORE federal control over their healthcare, or having an infrastructure in place to PROTECT Pennsylvanians from greater federal control?
BOTH choices suck, but I personally think Corbett's doing the right thing this time.
Donna
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RedState Morning Briefing
For December 19, 2011
1. Insanity
The Republican Party has gone insane.
For the better part of the last three years the Republican Party has exercised itself into a frenzy over the need to repeal Obamacare. For the two years leading up to November of 2010, mostly middle aged working white people took to the streets in sizes rivaling a NASCAR race to protest the socialization of the American health care system.
The individual mandate and TARP draw the ire of scores of primary voters.
And our two front runners for President? They both support an individual mandate and they both supported TARP.
Not only that, just last year Mitt Romney was saying he'd keep parts of Obamacare. Like supporting amnesty, he has changed his position just in time for an election cycle.
Are we really going to do this?
I just want everyone to make sure they understand this and remind them that Perry, Bachmann, Huntsman, and yes, even Rick Santorum are still in the race.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
2. House Must Decouple Payroll Tax Cut From Broader 'Extenders' Package
Over the weekend, Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans obviated the superior leverage of House Republicans by passing a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut, along with a clean extension (no reforms and offsets) of doc fix and unemployment benefits.
In a premature capitulation, they agreed (89-10) to amend the House extenders bill by eliminating most of the spending offsets, all of the UI reforms and the policy riders, with the exception of the Keystone pipeline provision. They will fill in the $33 billion two-month gaping budget hole with nebulous revenue increases from higher Freddie/Fannie mortgages over ten years. To the extent that those revenues will be actualized, this deal will indeed make it harder to shut down these officious venture-socialist enterprises. The Senate action was akin to grounding into a triple play for Team GOP, yet the underlying bill passed with unanimous consent.
Yes - we can already see the ecstatic pronouncements emanating from the McConnell Republican echo chamber. "We got the pipeline," they will exclaim. But here is the problem: the ship already sailed on that. This issue was such a political liability for Obama that, despite his rhetoric, it was a foregone conclusion he would be forced to cave on it. He was not going to allow this to become an albatross around his neck during the election. Accordingly, the White House is lending enthusiastic support to McConnell's Senate-passed extension. Besides, due to loopholes in the Keystone provision, the administration is already balking at compliance with the language of the bill.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
3. Offshore O&G Lease Sale: Small Companies Stay Away in Droves
On Wednesday of the week just past, the Department of the Interior conducted the first sale of oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico since BP's Macondo oil spill. Measured by the statistics touted in Interior's press release, the sale would appear to be a rousing success.
A detailed look at the leasing history, however, reveals a different story. While deepwater remains active, the shallow water Gulf saw little leasing action. Many of the shallow water bidders from recent sales stayed home for Sale 218.
"Big Oil" rules the deepwater. Shallow water has become the domain of smaller independent companies, many of them privately-held. None of the shallow water operators are household names; nonetheless, their jobs and capital investment supports the economies of several states across the region and contributes to the nation's domestic energy supply.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
4. SEIU Job Description: Train & Lead Members to Occupy State Buildings & Takeover Banks
If there was ever any question whether the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a radical and militantly Marxist union, this SEIU job description for a Senior/Lead Internal Organizer, Home Care, posted on the SEIU's website should remove all doubts.
The SEIU is advertising on its main site for SEIU Healthcare 775NW in Washington State. Among the job duties (screenshot below the fold) listed includes the training of members in civil-disobedience, peaceful resistance (how to get arrested), as well as the occupation and takeover banks and state buildings.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
5. The Truth about the New Detainee Policy
On Thursday, Congress gave the President sweeping new power to detain American citizens indefinitely, without charge or trial. A provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) empowers the President to detain anyone who "substantially supported" groups he determines are "associated forces" of terrorists.
The provision at issue, sec. 1021, was tucked into an 1800-page conference report that was shuttled through Congress in a matter of days. Given the complexity and weight of the issue, I was interested to read House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon's post on RedState explaining the bill's detention policy. Unfortunately, the post is almost useless because it muddles two separate provisions of the NDAA.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
Sincerely yours,
Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com
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350
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No. 350 of 365
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Practice fly-casting on your front lawn.
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When your liberal friend comes over and asks the inevitable, "Oh, so you're a fly-fisherman (or fisherperson)," shrug your shoulders and say, "Not really, I just do this in the yard to relax. When I go fishing I've found dynamite gets you a lot more bang for your buck."
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352
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No. 352 of 365
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Make sure your wife has a ready supply of conservative novels to recommend to her ladies book club.
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A few good starters: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh; Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen; The Old Limey by H. W. Crocker III; A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy O'Toole.
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351
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No. 351 of 365
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Say grace before meals.
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Bringing God into the picture always puts liberals ill at ease, because it reminds them you think there's a power more important than government.
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 | | PJTV's Andrew Klavan: Political Correctness Kills |
Dr. Klavan has his diagnosis: political correctness kills and America might have a terminal case of this deadly disease. ("Klavan on Culture")
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♦ CHECK OUT FSM'S NEW HOT PICKS' FEATURE: "WHAT DOES PAM THINK? "♦
1. VIDEO: VP Joe Biden Says Iran Is 'Less Feared' Today (See also #9 below)
2. August 22, 2008: U.S. troops to pull out of Iraq by 2011: The agreement has already been approved by President George W Bush... 3. VIDEO: David vs. Goliath: Couple Takes on the EPA
4. VIDEO: Glenn Beck's Comedic Tale: Neighbors Confront Him in Elevator
5. Atheists win a majority of exhibit spots in a city park, displacing most of the traditional Nativity scenes 6. VIDEO: Corzine Gets Served Outside Capitol Hill Hearing 7. My Time at Walmart: Why We Need Serious Welfare Reform
8. VIDEO: German Sesame Street Doing Missionary Work on behalf of Islam for Koran School
9. China Is Helping to Arm Iran and Sidestep Sanctions Thanks to an Assist From North Korea 10. FSM on the Radio - Tonight at 6pm Eastern
Alan Caruba Today is the 238th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, where with planning and care a revolt against British tyranny and corruption took place. Are there lessons for today?
Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman American-born Tarek Mehanna is currently on trial in Boston. He likes jihadi videos, and has lied about associations with terrorists. But his case pushes at the boundaries of the law...
Trevor Westra A Spanish newspaper claims that Venezuelan and Iranian diplomats planned to work with Mexican hackers to break into White House, Pentagon and FBI databases.
Cliff Kincaid The collusion between the Department of the Interior and the Occupy Wall Street movement is a cause for concern, especially when public parks have been severely damaged by protesters.
Frank Salvato Why is it that conservatives at the start of election cycles are so willing to trade insignificant insults and to execute campaigns of personality-based mudslinging?
Jim Kouri, CPP The president was an opponent of the war in Iraq, but now it has come to an end, he is claiming that U.S. soldiers did "what was right for America and peace in the region."
Paul Driessen Tapping abundant US energy deposits would create jobs and restore prosperity
John W. Howard Modern conservatism grew as a reaction to events and ideologies, but now needs to develop its own set of basic principles and philosophical underpinnings, to set a goal and take it forward.
by Michelle Malkin Pelosi's financial conflicts of interest are once again on display, and her carefully-honed mask is slipping to reveal a hypocritical and inconsistent approach to political ethics.
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Should We Intervene in Syria?
Dec 18, 2011 11:27 am
The Transatlantic Counterjihad Part VI Unofficial Opposition to the Counterjihad
Dec 18, 2011 05:00 am
Why Free-Market Economics is a Fraud
Dec 18, 2011 05:00 am
Gingrich, Gerson, and The Sharia
Dec 17, 2011 09:53 pm
King Introduces New IDEA Immigration Bill
Dec 17, 2011 02:40 pm
BENADOR: Israel: Time to Delegitimize the Usurpers
Dec 17, 2011 10:42 am
American Muslims for Palestine's Web of Hamas Support
Dec 16, 2011 11:06 pm
Supreme Court to Consider Arizona's Get-Tough Illegal Immigration Law
Dec 16, 2011 10:54 pm
FBI's Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending December 16, 2011
Dec 16, 2011 10:32 pm
American Energy can Jump-Start US Recovery
Dec 16, 2011 01:30 pm
They Don't Believe In God, Yet Fear Christ?
Dec 16, 2011 12:33 pm
Wyden & Ryan Advance Bipartisan Plan to Strengthen Medicare and Expand Health Care Choices ...
Dec 16, 2011 11:32 am
Rubio Slams Administration For Abuses Of People-To-People Cuba Program
Dec 16, 2011 11:11 am
Eating Our Own & Providing Strategy
Dec 16, 2011 07:45 am
Language and the Big Society
Dec 16, 2011 01:43 am
Bulletin of the Oppression of Women November 14 - December 15, 2011
Dec 16, 2011 01:29 am
Obama Officials Permit Trashing of Parks by Occupiers
Dec 15, 2011 09:03 pm
Coalition Urge Retailers to Denounce Greenpeace to Protect Local Jobs
Dec 15, 2011 03:36 pm
U.S. Mosques: Repositories of Muslim Brotherhood Literature and Preachers
Dec 15, 2011 03:01 pm
Fake Reading Theory is the Slave Trade of our Era
Dec 15, 2011 01:12 pm
Israeli Palestinian Confrontation Escalates in the South
Dec 15, 2011 11:36 am
The Syria Crisis: Assessing Foreign Intervention
Dec 15, 2011 11:28 am
Know Your Enemy
Dec 15, 2011 10:08 am
Coddling the 'Islamophobia' Police
Dec 15, 2011 09:56 am
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The highly reliable Ann Bayefsky informs us that Rumors of the U.N.'s Benefits Have Been Greatly Exaggerated By the Obama Administration.
The only sensible reaction is, of course, to send more US taxpayer money (there is no shortage, The Democrats at the Fed will print as much as we need) and re elect Barack Obama with hopes he will retain Susan Rice as our ambassador to the UN. Bob Guzzardi
 Rumors of the U.N.'s Benefits Have Been Greatly ExaggeratedAnne BayefskyDecember 7, 2011 10:01 AM
Portraying President Obama's U.N.-centered foreign policy as consistent with American values or pro-Israel has become increasingly difficult for administration officials. The result has been a steady stream of inaccurate accounts of goings-on at the organization.
On Friday, December 2, the Obama administration made another attempt to justify its decision to join the disreputable U.N. Human Rights Council. The Council had just followed a discussion on Syria with a resolution promising to appoint a human rights investigator - four months from now in March 2012 - and rejected calls to seek the involvement of the Security Council and the International Criminal Court. The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice tried to praise the body's toughness: "No nation has been the subject of more than one special session, let alone three, in such a short amount of time."
In fact, while the Council held three special sessions on Syria between April and December 2011, it has held six special sessions on Israel and three of those occurred in a shorter amount of time, namely, between July and November 2006.
Rice continued: "I applaud the Council for holding its third special session on Syria since April, with a record 29 co-sponsors." The state department press release claimed that 29 countries was "by far the largest number of co-sponsors for any special session since the Council was created." In fact, five other Council special sessions had more co-sponsors, including a session on Israel and the infamous Goldstone operation that had 33.
These aren't the only factual inaccuracies being thrown around to shore upU.S. support for the Council, a body known to be no friend of Israel's.
Read more:
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By Ryan Mauro
Ron Paul's defense of Iran steals the show.
Read more »
By Jacob Laksin
The Senator leads the Obama administration's troubling outreach to Egypt's Islamists.
Read more »
By Robert Spencer
A Muslim Brotherhood operative whispers sweet nothings into a credulous pundit's ear.
Read more »
By Frontpagemag.com
An all-star panel discusses our gravest internal threats at Restoration Weekend.
Read more »
By Daniel Flynn
How an honorary mobster influenced the modern labor movement.
Read more »
By Jamie Glazov
A Muslim apostate's defense of liberal democracy.
Read more »
By Bruce Bawer
The lords are growing restless at the prospect of the European Union's demise.
Read more »
By Frontpagemag.com
Three distinguished guests join Frontpage editor's TV series to discuss how they made it out of their totalitarian faith.
Read more »
By Raymond Ibrahim
More and more Muslims seek to institutionalize the extortion of Christians.
Read more »
By Ben Shapiro
Obama's magic isn't working.
Read more »
By Alan W. Dowd
Are Washington and Wall Street merely imitating us?
Read more »
By Arnold Ahlert
A new book details the six figures who left an indelible mark on the American pop-intellectual landscape.
Read more »
By Frontpagemag.com
Two Middle East experts appear on Frontpage's talk blog radio show to shed light on Gingrich's statement about the "Palestinians."
Read more »
By Tait Trussell
Progressives wrongly portray a middle class with suppressed earnings.
Read more »
By David Horowitz
We will miss him.
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More to read:
Time's 'Person of the Year': Dishonest and Delusional
Mark Steyn at Restoration Weekend
The Glazov Gang: Why Europe Surrendered
Coddling the 'Islamophobia' Police
Blaming Bain
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Bang for your buck: that's what the Freedom Center provides. Ammunition for the culture war against the Left: that's what your contribution buys. So please act now and help us in the fight we are waging on many fronts for America's future. America is under assault from within and without. There is no time to lose.
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Learn more about the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
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Defense Budget Cuts Will Devastate America's Commitment to the Asia-Pacific
By Dean Cheng and Bruce Klingner
December 6, 2011
Abstract: The failure of the Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction ("Super Committee") to come to agreement on reducing the federal deficit raises the real prospect of a total of $1 trillion in additional cuts to the defense budget over the next decade. These cuts have been put forth with little consideration for their long-term impact: a dangerous degradation of America's capacity to deter, defend, and defeat her enemies. They will have a particularly negative impact on America's ability to stabilize and influence Asia, a critical component of U.S. national security. While the past century has seen America establish a strong role in Asia, these gains would be jeopardized by the proposed enormous pending cuts in defense capability.
The Department of Defense is already preparing for more than $400 billion in spending cuts over the next 10 years, and if the automatic reductions dictated by the 2011 Budget Control Act are not reversed, that number will increase by an additional $500 billion-$600 billion. These spending cuts will result in further reductions in the total number of U.S. aircraft carriers and/or carrier operations and maintenance-reductions that will affect America's ability to maintain combat-ready, forward-deployed units.
Given America's global commitments, such cuts will in turn hinder this nation's ability to deter potential opponents and reassure friends and allies in Asia. They will devastate America's military predominance and leadership in the Western Pacific at the very moment the Administration is declaring this century "America's Pacific Century."
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Russian customs seize radioactive metal from Iranian's luggage bound for Tehran
By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, December 16,
MOSCOW - Russia's customs agency said Friday that it seized radioactive metal from the luggage of an Iranian passenger bound for Tehran.
Spokeswoman Kseniya Grebenkina told The Associated Press that the luggage had been seized some time ago, but could not specify when. The Iranian hasn't been detained, she said.
The Federal Customs Service said in a statement that its agents found 18 pieces of metal at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport after a radiation alert went on. It says the gauges showed that radiation levels were 20 times higher than normal.
It was not immediately clear if the substance could have any use in Iran's controversial nuclear program.
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Is it twenty minutes to midnight in America?
Dec 18, 2011 05:13 am | Coach Collins
by Suzanne Eovaldi, staff writer
That our republic is sinking like the Titanic with only twenty minutes left until midnight is the stark theme of an astonishing new book by citizen historian Joseph J. Breitfeller. Drawing a trenchant comparison with the ineptitude of leadership that allowed the magnificent ship Titanic to sink after the bridge ignored five iceberg warnings; the author says America is fast heading to a similar fate.
The Four Horsemen of America's Apocalypse are the four progressive Democrat Presidents, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, and now the worst, Barack Hussein Obama says Breitfeller whose book belongs in the stocking of every American patriot and conservative this Christmas!
As the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic approaches on April 14, 2012, we need to give this book's main premise careful consideration. Just as a flawed captain was unable to lead, even to directing deployment of life ... Continue Reading:Is it twenty minutes to midnight in America?
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American Minute for December 17th Dec 17, 2011 03:13 pm | Coach Collins Coachisright.com is pleased have American history scholar; nationally known speaker and best selling author William J Federer's American Minute column as a part of CiR's team. Bill Federer is a tireless and meticulous researcher whose daily history lessons reflect the relationship between God and our nation. Bill is a regular guest on radio and television shows when getting American history right is essential. We're sure you will enjoy Bill's daily columns and want to share them with your friends and families. Bill Federer is an American patriot whose message needs to be heard by all. By Bill Federer, staff writer A peer of Mozart and Haydn, he started becoming deaf at age 28, yet incredibly wrote some of the world's most beautiful symphonies, concertos and sonatas. This was Ludwig van Beethoven, baptized DECEMBER 17, 1770, in Bonn, Germany. President Jimmy Carter noted while visiting Bonn, July 14, 1978: "As the world's people speak and work ... Continue Reading:American Minute for December 17th comments | read more
The Declaration of Independence beautifies (and beatifies) the Constitution Dec 17, 2011 12:13 pm | Coach Collins
by Jerry Todd, staff writer
On September 17, 2010 President Barack Obama spoke to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute 33rd Annual Award Gala. During his speech - reading from a teleprompter - he quoted from the Declaration of Independence. Here is what he said: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, endowed with certain unalienable rights, life and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Perhaps his teleprompter or his brain just can't handle the phrase "endowed by our Creator!" The Declaration of Independence defines the Constitution philosophically and spiritually, therefore in Beauty and its Author. "Progressives" have argued for years, quite successfully, that the Constitution is a living, breathing document, standing alone from its origins in the Declaration of Independence. It is subject to change as the mores' of the times change. The Declaration, they say, was a motivational statement designed to gather support for the "real" document - The ... Continue Reading:The Declaration of Independence beautifies (and beatifies) the Constitution comments | read more
Drones over Iran? Maybe not Dec 17, 2011 05:13 am | Coach Collins By Jim Emerson, staff writer In the cat and mouse game of espionage every once in a while back operations are exposed to the light of day. The loss of a RQ-170 Sentinel drone was such an event. As reported the drone was being used to gather real-time intelligence against an alleged nuclear weapons facility inside of Iran. The Iranians are using the drone in their propaganda campaign against the United States in order to distract attention away from its own nuclear weapons development, missile development programs and the evasion of the British Embassy in Tehran. Why Use Drones? Drones are extremely effective by maintaining a "persistent observation" of targets. By remaining over an Iranian nuclear weapons complex the drones can observe daily operations over a long period of time providing analysts insight to routine operations and daily traffic of materials entering and leaving the targeted nuclear facilities. It has the ability to monitor and track vehicles going ... Continue Reading:Drones over Iran? Maybe not comments | read more American Minute for December 16th Dec 16, 2011 03:13 pm | Coach Collins Coachisright.com is pleased have American history scholar; nationally known speaker and best selling author William J Federer's American Minute column as a part of CiR's team. Bill Federer is a tireless and meticulous researcher whose daily history lessons reflect the relationship between God and our nation. Bill is a regular guest on radio and television shows when getting American history right is essential. We're sure you will enjoy Bill's daily columns and want to share them with your friends and families. Bill Federer is an American patriot whose message needs to be heard by all. By Bill Federer, staff writer The Boston Tea Party took place DECEMBER 16, 1773, just three years after the Boston Massacre, where the British fired into a crowd, killing five. The British passed unbearable taxes: 1764 Sugar Act -taxing sugar, coffee, wine; 1765 Stamp Act -taxing newspapers, contracts, letters, playing cards and all printed materials; 1767 Townshend Acts -taxing glass, paints, ... Continue Reading:American Minute for December 16th comments | read more The debate in "Reale time": a wife, visiting relatives, and two dogs allowed Dec 16, 2011 01:13 pm | Coach Collins By Ron Reale, staff writer If life were fair, Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachmann would be doing much better than they are. I understand the reluctance to back Bachmann. I stopped backing her because she claimed, among other things, that God was sending recent natural disasters, killing people all around the world as a warning. Santorum, to my knowledge, hasn't made any such self destructive statements and believes with a passion what he says. He just doesn't seem to project any passion himself. And that's a shame. He would probably do well and is undeniably for a strong America. Gingrich as usual was the smartest person in the room, but like Obama has an arrogance befitting a know-it-all professor and, like Obama, is an admitted progressive. He goes so far as to call himself "Wilsonian" in his beliefs. That in and of itself should scare the bejesus out of anyone. Gingrich loves big government because he believes, like Obama, ... Continue Reading:The debate in "Reale time": a wife, visiting relatives, and two dogs allowed comments | read more Phones for votes Dec 16, 2011 05:13 am | Coach Collins By Suzanne Eovaldi, staff writer Illegal aliens now quite possibly can call a toll free government number, 1-800-259-0957, to get a free "Obama Phone," called Safe Link Wireless, if they are on food stamps or Medicaid. By applying for work permits that give them drivers' licenses, that now provides proof of identity, they enter America's Entitlement class and even become entitled to vote in our elections, for Democrats, of course. What, you say? (1) The Obama administration has set up a cascading series events, beginning back in August when deportation of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants was suspended, pending reviews. "A review of about 300,000 deportation cases currently before the immigration courts," will be done by the DOJ and Homeland Security to "halt deportations of longtime residents with clean police records who came here illegally when they were children," says a NYTIMES article. (2) A source contacted me saying she translated Latino publications that are urging Hispanic illegals to be ... Continue Reading:Phones for votes comments | read more American Minute for December 15th Dec 15, 2011 03:13 pm | Coach Collins Coachisright.com is pleased have American history scholar; nationally known speaker and best selling author William J Federer's American Minute column as a part of CiR's team. Bill Federer is a tireless and meticulous researcher whose daily history lessons reflect the relationship between God and our nation. Bill is a regular guest on radio and television shows when getting American history right is essential. We're sure you will enjoy Bill's daily columns and want to share them with your friends and families. Bill Federer is an American patriot whose message needs to be heard by all. By Bill Federer, staff writer Newly independent, the thirteen States were concerned their new government may become too powerful, as King George's was. They insisted handcuffs be place on the power of the Federal Government. We call these the First Ten Amendments or Bill of Rights, ratified DECEMBER 15, 1791. The First states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment ... Continue Reading:American Minute for December 15th comments | read more Fast and Furious smuggling numbers dwarfed by "legal" weapon sales to Mexico Dec 15, 2011 01:13 pm | Coach Collins By Doug Book, staff writer Though congressional committees continue to expose the gun smuggling methods of Operation Fast and Furious, their members apparently remain oblivious to the fact that the Obama Regime has "legally" sold tens of thousands of weapons to the nation of Mexico. And of that number, far more have disappeared into the hands of drug cartel killers than via the DOJ-initiated method of "gun walking." A 2009 State Department audit revealed that more than 25% of weapons sold by the Regime to nations in "the region which includes Mexico" had been diverted in one way or another to owners other than those for whom the guns had been intended. In short, they made their way to drug cartels. And during that year 18,709 weapons had been sold by the US to Mexico alone. In 2006 those sales totaled fewer than 2,500. (1) There can be no question that the number of firearms headed from ... Continue Reading:Fast and Furious smuggling numbers dwarfed by "legal" weapon sales to Mexico comments | read more |
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Forget all the talk about democracy and a revolt against tyranny, the choice here isn't being a tyrant and a populist movement, it's which species of Islamists will come out on top. On one side is Iran and on the other are the Gulf States and the Muslim Brotherhood. Syria is not an Islamist regime, except to the extent which all Muslims countries incorporate Islamic law into their legal and social systems, but it is the pawn of Iran, a Shiite Islamist state. On the other side are Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulfies, Turkey and the Sunni Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. Forget all the nonsense about a secular opposition. The so-called liberals will show up just enough to legitimate the uprising and then fade away when it's time for the Imams to take power. That is how it happened in Iran, and despite every prediction too many people refused to listen when they were told it would happen in Egypt. Now it has happened in Egypt. Some neo-conservatives have insisted on treating the Arab Spring as if it were an extension of Iraq. It's not. Iraq was meant to be a supervised reconstruction. The Arab Spring empowers Islamists and nothing else. So let's move on to the real issue. Is there any point in backing one side or the other in Syria? To begin with, what is Syria? It's a leftover from the days when the Middle East was overrun with local Arab Socialist tyrannies. Like most of the breed, the Syrian version was another combination of military coup, family dynasty tied in with religious and ethnic elements. Run by the Baath Party as an extension of the Assad family and the Alawite splinter Shiite sect, it's one of the last of the old tyrannies standing after the fall of Saddam. But none of that really matters. The days when Syria was anything more than a bypass for Iranian weapons and influence are long gone. There was a time when it was a building block in the Arab Socialist plan for a regional state and even briefly merged with Egypt into the United Arab Republic. Now it's the odd man out in a region that is being divided along religious lines. It doesn't fit into the Sunni Islamist plans for a Caliphate and while it is a vector for Iranian Shiite influence, the Alawites are too out of the mainstream and Syria is mostly Sunni, making it another poor fit. In a divided region everyone is trying to make their own regional superstate. If the Assad family is overthrown and the Muslim Brotherhood's version of democracy wins, then Syria will fit neatly into the plans for a regional Caliphate. It will also neuter Hezbollah, damage Hamas and set back Iran, which are all good things. Unfortunately it's a matter of choosing the devil you don't know. Choking Iranian influence is not a bad thing, but the long term implications of handing over Syria to the Brotherhood are just as bad, if not worse.
A LETTER FROM GOEBBELS The Republican race is more muddled than ever as Gingrich's numbers fade a little without anyone to take his place. Either Gingrich recovers, Perry surges or it's Romney all the way. The establishment backing Romney had to damage Gingrich to limit the fallout from their backing of Romney. This way they chose between two evils, rather than choosing the man that they were always going to choose. Congressional deadlocks continue as neither side can really move their agenda forward. But Obama can still abuse executive orders and he benefits from the appearance of a do-nothing congress. Meanwhile the NJDC has dumped a sputtering press release condemning Congressman West for his "shocking" Goebbels comment about the Democratic Party, complete with an ADL press release. The comment may be a bit much, but is the party most associated with breaking Godwin's Law really pretending to be outraged by a Goebbels analogy? Let's just have a skip and a hop back to January when a Democratic congressman said that Republican criticism of ObamaCare was "a big lie just like (Nazi propagandist Joseph) Goebbels." There's also a difference between a Nazi analogy and a Holocaust analogy. A Nazi analogy is about how totalitarian populism works. A Holocaust analogy is about the mass murder of millions. In some cases it is valid to make Nazi analogies, but not Holocaust analogies. Goebbels' Big Lie is an obvious example because it addresses the mechanics of propaganda, which is a valid point even when applied to people who are not mass murderers. The Democratic Congressmen scurrying to condemn West for it is political opportunism at its most cynical, especially when the NJDC adds quotes from West's former opponent and future opponent. About the only sensible condemnation of the lot comes from Carl Levin, the rest of the condemnations misrepresent what West said and try to spin it for political gain. Read more:
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Iran Mocks Obama Who 'Begged' for Drone
Iran is having a field day over the latest downed Drone, saying that Obama "begs to give him back his toy plane."
By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
First Publish: 12/13/2011
Iran is having a field day over the latest downed Drone, saying that President Barack Obama "begs to give him back his toy plane."
"Obama is hoping that the Iranian government is in a Christmas mood because he has asked Tehran to send him his Christmas present. Iran mocks Obama who 'begged' for [his] Drone back," chided the semi-official Fars News Agency.
"We have asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond," Obama said following a meeting at the White House with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Iran said last week it downed an advanced RQ-70 drone. The Obama administration initially denied the report, but later admitted it had lost a drone.
"Given Iran's behavior to date, we do not expect them to comply," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. President Obama reportedly turned down proposals to try to bomb the drone or retrieve it, fearing such an act would be considered an "act of war."
"This is not only an intelligence victory for us, but a defeat for our enemies," said a senior commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps
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A French minister of Arab origin says 'there is no such thing as moderate Islam'
Saturday, 03 December 2011
Jeannette Bougrab, who is originally from Algeria, is a French junior minister with responsibility for youth. She said that any legislation based on Islamic sharia law "inevitably" imposed restrictions on rights and freedoms. (Reuters)
A French minister said there was no such thing as moderate Islam, calling recent election successes by Islamic parties in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia "worrying" in an interview published Saturday.
Jeannette Bougrab, a junior minister with responsibility for youth, told Le Parisien newspaper that legislation based on Islamic sharia law "inevitably" imposed restrictions on rights and freedoms.
Bougrab is of Algerian origin, whose father fought on the French colonial side during Algeria's war of independence, and said she was speaking as "a French woman of Arab origin."
"It's very worrying," she was quoted as saying. "I don't know of any moderate Islam."
"There are no half measures with sharia," she added. "I am a lawyer and you can make all the theological, literal or fundamental interpretations of it that you like but law based on sharia is inevitably a restriction on freedom, especially freedom of conscience."
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Fellow patriots,
When Arab-American charities turn down donations from Lowe's, it raises a deep question: "So...where's the bad news?" In fact, Lowe's may have just uncovered a way to drastically reduce the funding given to Islamist front groups: All one has to do is cause them the slightest offense, and they'll refuse to take money from you. I think we're on to something!
Now for the more serious stuff: An "Anonymous" hacker has attacked the Florida Family Association for starting the petition that led to Lowe's decision to stop advertizing on All-American Muslim. The actions taken are actually that of cyberwar. This is a very serious matter because the "Anonymous" hackers are making themselves an extra-legal force that can harm anyone who raises their ire -- and no one even know who they are. Could Islamists be among them? We don't know.
This is an unacceptable situation and reveals a gaping security gap in the current internet system that puts the whole internet concept in danger. Unless our law enforcement agencies demonstrate the ability and resolve to capture these hackers and bring them to justice, they could destroy the value of the internet by terrorizing all and carrying out crimes on anyone they please.
If it's not possible to capture and prosecute the "Anonymous" hackers, it's -- SERIOUSLY -- time to redesign the internet so that it is more secure and traceable. THIS CAN BE DONE! How? As unpleasant as this sounds, it's called money, which always leaves a trail. If every activity on the internet required a payment, no matter how miniscule, the activity could be traced to a bank account. Anonymity can only exist in a world of free stuff. As much as we like free stuff, sometimes we have to pay for security. This is why we pay taxes for a police force and military. It's sad to say we're coming to this, but we're approaching the day when the security costs of "free" internet activity become greater than the cost of security.
Finally, a bonus article just came in from brother-in-arms, Logan's Warning (at bottom). Logan apparently had a twitter dialogue with Sen. Lieu and discovered that Lieu was completely ignorant about Islam -- he doesn't know the first thing about it. Give the Senator a big gold star for being the useful idiot of the week!
Dave
The TV show chronicles five families in and near the Detroit suburb with large Muslim and Arab populations. The Arab-American network says its members have accepted donations from Lowe's stores in the past. The group did not say how large those donations were. Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Anonymous hacks group in Muslim TV show uproar
 Adam Rose / AP
Nawal Aoude, a pediatric respiratory therapist, left, and her husband Nader go for a walk in a scene from the TLC series, "All-American Muslim." The series features five families from Dearborn, Mich., a city near Detroit with one of the highest concentrations of Arab descendants in the country.
By Matt Liebowitz
SecurityNewsDaily
A conservative Florida organization's opposition to the reality show "All-American Muslim" has stirred up a storm of controversy that's got Lowe's, a Muslim rights group, travel website Kayak, actor Kal Penn and the hacktivist group Anonymous all choosing sides.
Tuesday, the Tampa-based Florida Family Association told the St. Petersburg Times that its website was hacked by a member of Anonymous. FFA executive director David Caton said the attack shut down the FFA site, leaving a message saying that the site destroys free speech. (The site is back online.)
"In a country that supposedly embraces free speech, those that oppose our position have no qualms about destroying our free speech," Caton said.
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IGNORANT California St. Senator Ted Lieu to Speak at "Islamophobia" Conference!
 Obviously over the past few days most of you have read about the verbal war going on, over Lowes pulling their ads from the failure of a show "All-American Muslim". Stepping into the fray is the useful idiot St. Senator of California Ted Lieu. Like his master Islamophile Dictator Obama, Ted is another out of control power freak who has threatened Lowes with legal action. So over the past 2 days or so, I and many others anti-Islamic teammates have been speaking to Lieu via Twitter. Doing so clearly exposed his ignorance, and treacherous actions to our non-Islamic country!
Numerous infidels including myself, asked Lieu if he had read the Koran.
(HERE ARE SOME HIGHLIGHTS OF THE TWITTER CONVERSATION)
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is refusing to pen an op-ed piece for the New York Times, signaling the degree to which he is fed up with the influential newspaper's editorial policy on Israel. Netanyahu's senior adviser Ron Dermer made clear that this had much to do with the fact that 19 of the paper's 20 op-ed pieces on Israel since September were negative. Dermer's letter to the Times, saying that the prime minister would "respectfully decline," came a day after Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote that the resounding ovation Netanyahu received in Congress when he spoke there in May had been "bought and paid for by the Israel lobby."
Dermer wrote that "the opinions of some of you regular columnists regarding Israel are well known. They constantly distort the positions of our government and ignore the steps it has taken to advance peace. They cavalierly defame our country by suggesting that marginal phenomena condemned by Prime Minister Netanyahu, and virtually every Israeli official, somehow reflect government policy or Israeli society as a whole."
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THE INTERFAITH TASKFORCE FOR AMERICA AND ISRAEL (ITAI)
123 S. Broad Street, Suite 1832, Philadelphia, PA 19109
Friday, December 16, 2011
This WEEKLY MIDDLE EAST REPORT is titled The Pessimists Win in the Middle East. In the Arab Middle East, a betting man should always bet on a pessimistic outcome to life changing events, because generally speaking, he/or she will be proven right...
THE PESSIMISTS WIN IN THE MIDDLE EAST
By: Joseph Puder
In the Arab Middle East, a betting man should always bet on a pessimistic outcome to life changing events, because generally speaking, he will be proven right. The so called Arab Spring that began early this year created a sense of euphoria around the world, as well as in America and Israel and especially in the liberal press. Even in Egypt, the largest Arab state, Christian Copts and Muslims shared optimism as to the outcome of the people's uprising. Although in the minority, the pessimists who warned of an Islamist takeover were dismissed and in fact castigated for their views.
The pessimistic minority however was proven right. In Libya, where longtime dictator Gaddafi was ousted and killed by the revolutionary forces aided by the Obama administration and NATO, the interim leader of Libya, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of the Transitional National Council declared in his 'liberation' address that Sharia law would govern the new Libya. Sharia - the source of the doctrine of jihad that triggered the attack on America on 9/11. Mustafa Abdel Jalil was careful not to utter the word 'jihad,' which is obligatory to anyone following the application of Sharia in the public domain. Rather Jalil's pronouncement took on the more salacious aspect of Sharia: "We as a Muslim nation have taken Islamic Sharia as the source of legislation; therefore any law that contradicts the principles of Islam is legally nullified. This includes changing marriage laws to allow men to more easily take on a second wife." In other words, bigamy is now lawful in Libya.
In Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring revolutions, the "moderate" Islamic party won 41.47% of the vote in free elections where liberals and Islamists faced off this past weekend. Thousands of Islamist supporters swooped down on central Tunis on Saturday to confront liberal demonstrators rallying against extremism as MPs were drafting a new constitution for Tunisia. The protest was partly a response to ongoing demonstrations at a university outside the capital, where Islamists disrupted courses, demanding a stop to mixed-sex classes and the wearing of full-face veils or niqabs for female students. Sheikh Rashed al-Ghanushi, the leader of the winning Islamist Party Al-Nahdha ("The Revival"), called for jihad against Israel, but in the West he is considered a "moderate Muslim."
Similarly in Morocco, the Islamic Justice and Development party (PJD), called moderate by the British Guardian newspaper, won the majority of the votes in the parliamentary elections, and for the first time an Islamist, Abdelillah Benkirane, will likely serve as Morocco's next Prime Minister.
President Obama and his administration are particularly fond of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Egypt. In February this year, the White House demanded that the next government in Egypt "has to include a whole host of non-secular actors (the Muslim Brotherhood fit this bill) that give Egypt a chance to be a stable and reliable partner."
Fortunately for the MB in Egypt, which adopted the benign name of Freedom and Justice Party and became the largest party in the parliament with 36.6% of the vote, another Islamist party that is far more extreme took second place in the recent elections. The salafist Al-Nour party having garnered 24.4% of the vote in the recent parliamentary elections in Egypt obscures (for many in the press) the true nature of the Muslim Brotherhood. At this point in Egypt's unfolding history the Islamist parties now control a large majority of the parliament. The difference between the two parties is significant. The salafist Al-Nour seeks to bring 21st century Islam back to the Islam of the 7th century, while the Muslim Brotherhood/Freedom and Justice Party alleges that it wants to fashion 7th century Islam into a 21st century reality. Both parties however intend to see Egypt governed by Sharia Islamic law.
Iran's Major General Qassem Suleimani, Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, delivered a speech on May 22, 2011 at the Haqqani Theological Seminary in Qum during which he stated that the revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa "...provide our revolution with the greatest opportunities. Iran's victory or defeat no longer takes place in Mehran and Khorramshahr. Our boundaries have expanded and we must witness victory in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. This is the fruit of the Islamic revolution." Suleimani sent a clear message to the Obama administration that in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco, and for that matter anywhere else in the Arab world where a revolution might occur, a new Islamist Iran-like state will emerge.
The Arab world is marching towards an "Arab Winter," as the authoritarian regimes that fell by the wayside have given way to the emergence of even darker regimes, steeped in Islamist intolerance and hatred of the West and Israel. The Islamist victories in Tunisia, Libya, Morocco and Egypt were not supposed to happen according to the Western governments, including the Obama administration. In Washington, the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified before the House Intelligence Committee, and declared that Egypt's branch of the Muslim Brotherhood movement is "largely secular..." It prompted Richard Engel, NBC's News Chief Foreign correspondent to call Clapper's statement "a wild misreading of the organization."
Last month a pre-election Muslim Brotherhood rally in Cairo's most prominent mosque turned into a venomous anti-Israel protest with attendants vowing to "one day kill all Jews." This is the same MB that we are told by members of the western media and governments is "moderate" and "marginal." The same MB that liberal western pundits claimed is only 20% of the vote.
Interviewed by Fox News, Frank Gaffney, head of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, articulated the contrast in how Obama dealt with the aftermath of the stolen 2009 elections in Iran when millions of Iranian demonstrated against the theocratic regime, and last February demonstrations in Egypt. The Obama administration's cautious response to the uprising in Iran - a vicious US enemy - was explained as being part of President Obama's attempt to "engage" Iran. In Egypt however, Obama called for the swift departure of former President Hosni Mubarak - a US ally. According to Gaffney, "The President of the United States in both cases did the bidding of the Islamists, who wanted to preserve the regime in Iran and who wanted to remove the regime in Egypt. Gaffney told Fox News, "I think that quite apart from what his intentions were, in so doing, he made all the morepredictable the very unhappy outcome that I think is playing out before our eyes."
In Egypt, the largest Arab Muslim country, secular liberals and especially Christian Copts are no longer harboring illusions about the revolution called the "Arab Spring." For them it is already a dreadful "Arab Winter." And, for all the optimists in the West, next time they'll be better off betting on the worst case scenario when it comes to revolutions in the Arab Muslim world.
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By Ted Belman
Ehud Barak when speaking to Union for Reform Judaism conference, said, according to Haaretz
Israel would not "agree to the creation of a Palestinian State, if the raison d'être of that Palestinian State is to continue the conflict, and to deny our basic national rights."
"I believe that an agreement - based on [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's] Bar Ilan and Knesset speeches, President Obama's two speeches from May of this year and the Clinton parameters - can still be achieved - and thus, saving us the alternatives which are much much worse," the defense minister said, reiterating that Israel would "not accept unilateralism."
These parameters are totally unacceptable.
Clinton stressed that the solution should "Minimize the number of Palestinians affected." and said that 20% of the settlers (now over 120,000 whould have to be evicted.
On Jerusalem he wrote
The general principle...
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By Kenneth R. Timmerman, The Daily Caller
NEW YORK - In an historic hearing in the federal courthouse in Manhattan on Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge George Daniels said he planned to issue a ruling in the coming days declaring that Iran shares in the responsibility for the 9/11 terror attacks.
"The extensive record submitted to this court, including fact witnesses and expert testimony, is satisfactory to this court," Judge Daniels said. The court "accepts as true" the various allegations of the plaintiffs and their experts, he declared, and "will issue an order" in the coming days that Iran bears legal responsibility for providing "material support" to the 9/11 plotters and hijackers.
Family members of 9/11 victims who attended the open-court hearing broke into tears. They had nervously sat through a four-hour presentation by attorneys Thomas E. Mellon, Jr., and Timothy B. Fleming, consisting of evidence backing up their claims that Iran had foreknowledge...
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by Bill Levinson
(Re: http://www.adl.org/PresRele/DiRaB_41/6091_41.htm)
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was once a very respectable organization, and my father thought the world of it. That was 20 or 30 years ago. The past five or six years have however seen ADL do the following, all on Mr. Foxman's watch.
(1)ADL used its nominally Jewish identity to whitewash MoveOn.org's knowing and willful hosting of anti-Semitic and other hate speech at its now-disgraced Action Forum.
(2)ADL engaged in conduct one step short of Holocaust denial by encouraging Congress to reject recognition of Turkey's genocide of Armenians. Abraham Foxman fired ADL director Andrew Tarsy for refusing to go along with this outrage, whereupon two other ADL leaders quit in disgust.
(3)Abraham Foxman helped legitimize the prominent racist and anti-Semite (e.g. Freddy's Fashion Mart) Al Sharpton by issuing a joint statement with him.
(4)ADL has attacked Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller for their...
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By Andrew C. McCarthy, NRO
Senator John Kerry (D., Mass.) is in Egypt, meeting with leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood - the Islamist organization whose goals are to destroy Israel, "conquer Europe" and "conquer America" (to quote its most influential jurist, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi).
The Brotherhood, which operates throughout the world, seeks the imposition by governments of strict sharia law (as outlined in Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law) and, eventually, a global caliphate. Naturally, the Obama administration describes it as a "largely secular" and moderate organization - and William Taylor, President Obama's hand-picked "special coordinator for transitions in the Middle East," announced last month that the administration would be quite "satisfied" with a Brotherhood victory in the Egyptian elections.
As the Investigative Project on Terrorism reports, Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee and key Obama...
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By DORE GOLD, JPOST
Israel, West must see new regional Islamic leaderships as they really are, not as what they hope them to be
Writing for a CNBC website on December 8 about the Arab uprisings of 2011, former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of Spain made a stunning revelation about one of the key leaders who has risen in the Libyan power structure after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Abdul Hakim Belhadj. According to Aznar, Belhadj was one of the suspects involved in the Madrid train bombing of 2004, that left 192 people dead and over 2,000 wounded.
Moreover, other noted Islamists were a part of the new Libyan leadership, like Sheikh Ali Salibi, whom the Washington Post this month labeled as "the likely architect of the new Libya." Salibi lived for many years in exile in Qatar, where he was a close associate of Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the spiritual head of the global Muslim Brotherhood.
Did anyone know any of this earlier?
The story of Belhadj is only one item in a...
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My problem with this analysis is that it ignores that Turkey may take over along with the Muslim Brotherhood and support the Islamist encirclement of Israel. The only good outcome is if the Islamists are prevented from taking power. Ted Belman
By Joel Greenberg, WaPo
In a shift, Israeli officials are welcoming the prospect that Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, will be overthrown, an event they say could be weeks away.As Syria's embattled president, Bashar al-Assad, comes under mounting pressure from a revolt at home and moves to isolate him abroad, Israeli officials are welcoming the prospect of his possible overthrow, saying that his departure is a matter of time.
As Assad has come under mounting pressure from a revolt at home and moves to isolate him abroad, initial wariness of speaking out publicly about the fate of his Assad's regime has given way to open speculation by officials and analysts about how long he can hold on to power, who might replace him and the...
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By No Camels ·
Israel's ADL, a subsidiary of state-owned Mekorot, will build and operate the plant in the coastal city of Ashdod for 25 years, supplying 100 million cubic metres of desalinated water annually, the Finance Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Israel is two-thirds arid and to avoid further depleting its fresh water sources it has become a world leader in desalination and wastewater recycling.
The new Ashdod plant will join four other desalination facilities that to provide, by the end of 2013, 85 percent of the country's household water consumption.
"In the coming years we will be able to return water to nature and even sell water to our neighbors," said Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau.
ADL secured funding for the project from Israel's Bank Hapoalim and the European Investment Bank (EIB), the statement said.
The Finance Ministry had previously put a 1.5 billion shekel ($400 million) price tag on the plant, which will use reverse-osmosis to...
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J.R. Dyer, HOT AIR
Hillary Clinton's promise on this matter has been out there for months, but a virtually unadvertised conference in Washington, D.C. this week has resurrected the Clinton quote from July 2011.
Back in July, at a conference of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul, Clinton pledged that the US would take action against "religious intolerance" in America.
It's worth taking a moment to reflect on that. Clinton said, in her remarks, "No country, including my own, has a monopoly on truth or a secret formula for ethnic and religious harmony." But if any country comes close to having such a monopoly, it is, in fact, the United States. One of the core principles of our founding was religious freedom; the purpose of guaranteeing it was, explicitly, to discourage religious strife; and to fulfill that purpose, the drafters of the Constitution prohibited Congress from making any law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the...
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Laura: While cheering on the jihadist-led "Arab spring" and applauding the election outcomes which have brought the muslim brotherhood to power in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and Morocco, the NY Slimes increases its vitriol against Israel. The NY Slimes champions the forces of evil while denigrating the forces of good. And it is guilty of fueling global antisemitism in the process. Thomas Friedman's inciteful comment about Congress cheering Bibi only because they are 'bought and paid for by the Israel lobby' is a prime example of the Slimes deliberately trying to ratchet up the global political war against Israel and whip up the leftist and islamic mob into a frenzy. Supporting Israel is morally right and most governments of the world in fact are the ones guilty of bowing to pressure from the powerful bloc of Arab and islamic states into gangin g up on the tiny Jewish state.
The New York Times Hates Israel
by Isi Leibler
December 16, 2011
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A few days ago I posted an article by Mudar Zahran who was looking to start a democracy movement in Jordan. I received a number of emails from people who wanted to help him. I am working on this project. I also heard from Zahran. Then when I read this article by Martin Sherman I called him to discuss his ideas. I will keep you posted. Ted Belman By MARTIN SHERMAN, JPOST
The Palestinians aspiration is not to establish a state of their own but to dismantle a state of others I think there is an Arab nation. I do not think there is a Palestinian nation. I think it's a colonialist invention... When were there any Palestinians? ...until the 19th century Palestine was the south of greater Syria. - Azmi Bishara, 1994 I think we've had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab community. - Newt Gingrich, 2011 Newt Gingrich is to be warmly commended on his recent statement underscoring the lack of... Read the whole entry »
By Ted Belman Amb Susan Rice was just honoured by the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, with their Annual National Service Award, Susan Rice said, "The United Nations' daily treatment of Israel is merciless, ugly, and obsessive," "I hope we never let our justified frustration over the treatment of Israel blind us to the ways in which the U.N. is vital to our security and our values." She might just as w3ell have been talking about Obama's treatment of Israel.
She went further, The manner in which the U.N. responds to Israel, Rice said, is "bad for the U.N., bad for the peace process - and must come to an end." She pledged that the Obama administration will "continue to lead, to pursue our interests and our values, and to stick up for fair treatment for Israel," Despite the harsh political climate, though, Rice maintained that the work of the U.N. is still "fundamentally... Read the whole entry »
Both the EU and the US are conspiring to discredit and deligitimate Israel in the eyes of the world including in the US. Their efforts are despicable. Ted Belman Secret EU paper aims to tackle Israel's treatment of Arab minority Paper states EU should consider Israel's treatment of its Arab population a 'core issue', and not second tier to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By Barak Ravid, HAARETZ The European Union should consider Israel's treatment of its Arab population a "core issue, not second tier to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," according to a classified working paper produced by European embassies in Israel, parts of which were obtained by Haaretz. This is an unprecedented document in that it deals with internal Israeli issues. According to European diplomats and senior Foreign Ministry officials, it was written and sent to EU headquarters in Brussels behind the back of the Israeli government.
Other issues the document... Read the whole entry »
Atlas Shrugs posted these two reports yesterday among many others equally horrifying. Muslim Hubby Man Cuts Off Wife's Fingers Because She Pursued College Ms Akther hopes to continue her studies using her left hand to hold a pen Religion of peace and love and sharia. Bangladesh man 'admits' cutting off wife's fingers BBC Human rights groups in Bangladesh have demanded a severe punishment for the husband of a young wife who allegedly cut off most of her right hand. Police say Rafiqul Islam, 30, attacked her because she pursued higher education without his permission.
They say Mr Islam, a migrant worker, admitted to the crime shortly after returning home from the Gulf. However there has been no independent confirmation from the suspect that he carried out the attack. The incident is one of a number of acts of domestic violence targeting educated women in recent months. Police say that Mr Islam, who works in the United Arab Emirates, tied up his... Read the whole entry »
If this is what they do to Jesus' followers, what do you think they would do to JESUS?
by Bill Levinson Gunmen Kill Christian Couple in Mosul Mosul's Christian communities have faced many attacks since 2003 that has led to the dwindling of their population from 120,000 prior to the Iraq war to 5,000, according to Church officials.
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American President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Harper have unveiled a new border security agreement that has received scant attention in the American media. However, far from being a new arrangement, what this accord represents is only the latest in a chain of usurpations of national sovereignty.
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RJC: Obama's URJ Remarks Long on Style, Short on Accomplishments
Washington, D.C. (December 16, 2011) -- Republican Jewish Coalition Executive Director Matthew Brooks released the following statement in reaction to President Obama's speech to the Union for Reform Judaism's Biennial meeting earlier today:
"After almost three years in office, it's disappointing that this President has to rely on hollow campaign-style rhetoric and platitudes when he should be able to cite accomplishments on issues critical to the Jewish communtity.
"The President acknowledged that there's more 'frustration' than satisfaction with his Middle East peace effort, but his vow to persist rings hollow. Persistence, absent introspection about why we've actually gone backwards on his watch, will only produce more failure and frustration.
"Closer to home, the President says we need to create jobs and reduce dependency on foreign oil even as his aides are fighting to block the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
"President Obama still excels at delivering speeches, but Jewish voters - and all Americans - need more than lip service to our ideals of a more just and secure world.
"Sadly, President Obama has failed in his policies, with respect to Israel and the entire Middle East, as well as here at home. That is why public opinion polls and electoral indicators like the recent special election in New York's Ninth Congressional District show that President Obama has a real and growing problem with Jewish voters heading into 2012."
# # #
This statement appears on the RJC web site at
http://www.rjchq.org/Newsroom/newsdetail.aspx?id=ec6f09c8-5a40-4b65-af96-2b47dd9e347b
The RJC is the national grassroots organization of Jewish Republicans.
Learn more at our web site, www.RJCHQ.org.
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KUHNER: Obama's WatergateOfficials cover up culpability for gun smuggling and murder
By Jeffrey T. Kuhner
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The Washington Times
Thursday, December 15, 2011
 Illustration: Rangel by Alexander Hunter for The Washington Times
A year ago this week, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered. He died protecting his country from brutal Mexican gangsters. Two AK-47 assault rifles were found at his death site. We now know the horrifying truth: Agent Terry was killed by weapons that were part of an illegal Obama administration operation to smuggle arms to the dangerous drug cartels. He was a victim of his own government. This is not only a major scandal; it is a high crime that potentially reaches all the way to the White House, implicating senior officials. It is President Obama's Watergate.
Operation Fast and Furious was run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and overseen by the Justice Department. It started under the leadership of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. Fast and Furious enabled straw gun purchases from licensed dealers in Arizona, in which more than 2,000 weapons were smuggled to Mexican drug kingpins. ATF claims it was seeking to track the weapons as part of a larger crackdown on the growing violence in the Southwest. Instead, ATF effectively has armed murderous gangs. About 300 Mexicans have been killed by Fast and Furious weapons. More than 1,400 guns remain lost. Agent Terry likely will not be the last U.S. casualty.
Mr. Holder insists he was unaware of what took place until after media reports of the scandal appeared in early 2011. This is false. Such a vast operation only could have occurred with the full knowledge and consent of senior administration officials. Massive gun-running and smuggling is not carried out by low-level ATF bureaucrats unless there is authorization from the top. There is a systematic cover-up.
Read more:
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December 16, 2011
STUNNING PICS FROM FREEDOM TOWER The building replacing the twin towers of the World Trade Center is officially tall enough to be called a "skyscraper." See some of the breath-taking photos from atop the Freedom Tower HERE.
DON'T CALL CHRIS MATTHEWS A 'DEM' Last night's episode of "Hardball" featured a unique simulcast with MSNBC's elder stateman and Iowa's conservative radio talker Simon Conway. However, things got off to a shaky start when Matthews took exception to being called a democrat. Watch the squirm-worthy video HERE.
NEW VIDEO OF VIOLENCE FROM OWS SEATTLE Police in Seattle have released a series of videos showing protesters throwing bricks and tossing bags filled with steel at law enforcement officers during the attempted closing of the Seattle port on Monday. Watch the new clips HERE.
BECK AND O'REILLY DISCUSS NEWT GINGRICH AND THE PROGRESSIVE LABEL For a couple of weeks, Glenn Beck has been claiming that GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich is a big government progressive. Fox News superstar Bill O'Reilly disagrees and invited Glenn on his show last night to debate the theory. Who won that debate? Watch the segment HERE.
TEA PARTY PATRIOT CO-FOUNDER ARRESTED ON GUN CHARGES AT NYC AIRPORT Mark Meckler was arrested and charged with violating Federal gun laws after bringing a firearm into LaGuardia Airport. The gun was locked inside his luggage. While Meckler does have a permit to carry a weapon in his home state of California, that permit is not recognized in New York State. See the latest news on this breaking story HERE.
VIRAL VIDEO DU JOUR - 'BATMAN' ACTOR ROUGHED UP BY CHINESE GUARDS
Hollywood star Christian bale was roughed up and prevented from visiting a blind Chinese activist currently under house arrest. The encounter took worrisome turn as plain-clothed Chinese military guards descended on Bale's entourage, roughed them up a bit and chased the crew for over thrity minutes. See the clips HERE.
SEE THE TOP-TEN, HARD-TO-FIND, HOTTEST CARS
The auto industry has experienced a rough couple of years. However, recent sales indicators seen by Edmonds Automotive point to a potential recovery. See the ten cars that are flying out of showrooms and actually being called "hard to find" HERE.
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The Foundation
"In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate -- look to his character." --Noah Webster
Government
The Field in Iowa
Is it really a two-man race?
In less than three weeks, the Iowa caucuses will be upon us. Time flies when you're choosing among this Republican field. As of today, the race there looks to be among Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul. The latest Rasmussen poll has them in that order, at 23, 20 and 18 percent, respectively. The only other candidate in double digits is Rick Perry at 10 percent. National polls tell a somewhat different story, however. Gingrich leads an NBC/WSJ poll with 40 percent to Romney's 23 percent. No one else is in double digits. Hence, at the moment, the race is essentially between the former House speaker and the former Massachusetts governor. Not many people are happy about it.
As we noted last week, Romney seems to have a support ceiling in the 20s. Obviously, his past "progressive" positions, not least of which was godfathering ObamaCare, are weighing him down. Gingrich, on the other hand, is enjoying his turn as the Not Romney while voters give him a look, following Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain in that role. Gingrich's negatives, too, are well known: A disastrous personal history, his past support of an individual mandate to buy health insurance, his earning $1.8 million from government-backed mortgage giant Freddie Mac just before the housing collapse, his global warming commercial with Nancy Pelosi, a flip-flop list even longer than Romney's, and so on, and so on, and so on.
We're as surprised as anyone at Gingrich's rise, and, unlike the other Not Romneys, Gingrich faces significant opposition from, for lack of a better term, the conservative establishment -- from Ann Coulter and George Will to National Review. Indeed, we can't shake the feeling of wishing for a mulligan on the whole thing and finding an entirely new field of candidates. Or at a minimum, asking the "what ifs." What if Tim Pawlenty hadn't dropped out? What if Jon Huntsman, who actually has a halfway decent record, hadn't run such a terrible campaign? What if Rick Santorum had gained traction? What if Rick Perry hadn't self-destructed? We're not endorsing any of the four, but the first three never even got their 15 minutes in the sun to find out.
Given the deep dissatisfaction with the GOP field, one man is getting his hopes up: Barack Obama. According to The Washington Post, "President Obama's top campaign strategists said Tuesday that the increasingly heated Republican primary battle between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich is helping to shift the national political landscape back to Obama's advantage. Their comments reflected growing confidence among Democrats, who only months ago worried that the sputtering economy and a lack of enthusiasm among core voters would doom Obama's reelection bid." The obvious reasons for tempering their enthusiasm are that the election is still nearly 11 months away, and Obama remains deeply unpopular -- more so than any incumbent since Jimmy Carter.
According to Romney, the Republican primary "is not going to be decided in just a couple of contests" and "could go for months and months." That's easy for him to say, facing a stiff challenge from Gingrich, but he's also correct. There's plenty of time. We certainly don't think anyone should fold up the tents and go home right after Iowa and New Hampshire. Republicans have a chance in this election to stop the fatal Cycle of Democracy. We would say they shouldn't blow it by settling hastily on a deeply flawed nominee, but deeply flawed is the one thing that describes the entire field.
Then again, the supposed "messiah" candidate didn't do so hot after winning last time, and Republican voters looking for their own messiah shouldn't fall for the same false hope.
How would you sum up the field?
News From the Swamp: Tax Cut Extension and Government Funding
The battle over the payroll tax cut extension reached a new level this week, with the proposal suddenly being used as leverage in a larger battle over averting a federal government shutdown. Republicans and Democrats have remained steadfast in recent weeks about their respective views for "funding" the tax cut, i.e., Republicans, yes; Democrats, no. Now it appears Democrats may be ready to cave due to a lack of team support. Senate Democrat leaders met with the president this week to discuss the possibility of dumping or scaling back the millionaire surtax that they previously insisted was necessary and "fair." This meeting came a day after the House called Obama's veto bluff and passed its version of the payroll tax cut with a provision attached to move forward with the Keystone XL pipeline, which would create tens of thousands of jobs.
Despite the internal debate over the future of the surtax, Democrats are still pressing for an advantage. They linked the payroll tax cut to a government funding measure that needs to be in place by midnight Friday to avert a shutdown, though members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees approved an agreement Thursday night to extend the payroll tax cut for two months to allow for further discussion, and also to allow the $1 trillion spending agreement to go through.
One item not receiving enough attention, however, is the blow that the tax cut extension will deliver to Social Security's so-called "trust fund." Charles Blahous III, a member of the Social Security Board of Trustees, said that the two percent payroll tax cut reduced Social Security revenue by $105 billion this year, and it will claim another $119 billion next year. When the trust fund falls short, Social Security revenue has to be drawn from the general fund. The payroll tax cut, according to Blahous, is forcing Social Security to become even more reliant on the general fund to stay solvent. "If you just had a program that was in the general financing pool," Blahous said, "if you didn't have a separate trust fund, if you didn't have a separate payroll tax, Social Security would have a lot fewer political protections. It would basically be competing each year" with other priorities. Blahous is a little late to the game -- Congress has been raiding the "trust fund" for generations.
The original purpose of the payroll tax cut was to ease unemployment and give a little relief to the middle class. However, unemployment has remained near 9 percent even with it, and the money that middle-class families receive may be short-changing their own retirement.
One small bit of good news is that the final omnibus contains a provision defunding the Department of Energy's program to create new and higher standards for incandescent light bulbs. A 2007 law required efficiency levels that would effectively ban 100-watt incandescents as of Jan. 1, 2012. Perhaps consumers will still have a choice, after all.
Finally, even though a deal has been reached, Michelle Obama is headed to Hawaii for vacation without Barack. That's despite the fact that it will cost at least $100,000 and despite the executive order from just last month demanding efficient travel. Rough lives of the 1 Percent.
Open Query"One of the most egregious aspects of this bill [the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2011] is that it promotes state drug testing for workers to qualify for unemployment benefits. Mr. Speaker, did the authors of this provision know about the Constitution of the United States of America?" --Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) We have a question for Rep. Moore: What section or article of the Constitution authorizes unemployment benefits in the first place? Democrats seem to think that as long as they came up with the idea -- or at least support it at the time -- it's automatically constitutional. Sorry, but that doesn't cut it. The BIG Lie"The unemployment insurance extension is not only good for individuals. It has a macroeconomic impact. As macroeconomic advisers have stated, it would make a difference of 600,000 jobs to our economy." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), making up numbers New & Notable LegislationThree competing bills aimed at addressing Internet piracy are working their way through the House and Senate, but their approaches to the problem differ considerably. Two similar bills in the House, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and the Senate, Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), would implement the security of property on the Internet by giving the government unlimited power to shut down websites. These laws have been attacked by First Amendment advocates for their overly broad language and their lack of respect for judicial process. Former Democrat Sen. Chris Dodd, who now runs the Motion Picture Association of America, Hollywood's lobbying arm, is highly motivated to stop piracy, and he supports both bills. In fact, Dodd even pointed to the Chinese government's effective system for handling the Internet. Rather than follow China, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced a competing and more streamlined bill, the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act, which adheres to the judicial process currently in place in copyright cases. The Congressional Black Caucus introduced the Restore the American Dream for the 99 Percent Act, a long list of leftist grab-bag items that was the result of a meeting between the CBC and members of the New York and Washington Occupy Wall Street protest groups. The bill claims it will create five million jobs over the next two years by raising $800 billion in new taxes on millionaires and an additional $350 billion in taxes on investors. Pardon the pun, but that's rich -- taxing the job creators to make them create jobs. OWS claims that they want to meet with other caucuses in Congress in the coming weeks and months, but maybe they just want to come indoors because it's cold outside. Support LibertyWe have all enjoyed the fruits of prosperity that our forefathers purchased at great sacrifice, many with their lives. With the current unprecedented assault from within upon Liberty, each and every one of us is called to make our own great sacrifices. Our posterity deserves no less. Before the year is out, we must raise $119,904 to continue providing the news and analysis you expect each week. Help us honor our forefathers' sacrifices and restore Liberty for our posterity by making a secure online donation to The Patriot Post's 2011 Year-End Campaign. If you prefer to support us by mail, please use our printable donor form. Thank you! Nate Jackson
Managing Editor
EconomyAround the Nation: Terrible Economy Is a Case to Re-Elect Obama?According to a new report by the National Center on Family Homelessness, a left-wing advocacy group, child homelessness spiked 33 percent between 2007 and 2010, with allegedly 1.6 million children -- or one in every 45 -- in the United States living on the streets last year. Center President Ellen Bassuk placed the blame on the economy: "What we [had] new in 2010 is the effects of man-made disaster caused by the economic recession. ... We are seeing extreme budget cuts, foreclosures and a lack of affordable housing." Indeed, among the states with the worst rates of child homelessness are those where foreclosures and job losses are prevalent. Moreover, it's not just "poor" families who are in distress. A number of those seeking help are professionals who have lost their jobs and depleted their savings. Hundreds of TV, print and online media sources reported this week that new census data indicate 50 percent of Americans are at or below the poverty level. Some journalists need to take elementary math. The actual percentage is 31.8. That is significant, but far less than originally reported and then recycled by major media outlets. Speaking in Kansas, Barack Obama also bemoaned the horrible economy, conveniently ignoring, however, the fact that he has presided over it for the last three years. Instead, he blamed the rich for, well, being rich, while calling it "heartbreaking" that "millions of working families ... are now forced to take their children to food banks for a decent meal." As columnist Charles Krauthammer writes, "You have to admire the audacity. That's the kind of damning observation the opposition brings up when you've been in office three years. Yet Obama summoned it to make the case for his reelection! Why? Because, you see, he bears no responsibility for the current economic distress." He hasn't yet mentioned child homelessness as a reason to give him four more years, but you never know... How does economic malaise benefit Obama? Climate Change This Week: Kyoto Receives an ExtensionAfter a two-week marathon of negotiations and infighting, the 194 nations that met in Durban, South Africa, finally threw in the towel on a whole new global warming accord and decided instead to extend the Kyoto Protocol, first adopted in 1997, for another five years through 2017. Key points added to the existing framework were mechanisms for collecting and distributing billions of dollars from wealthy industrialized countries to poorer nations. Following the money reveals the reason why Kyoto wasn't allowed to expire: its abject failure to achieve meaningful emissions reduction, particularly since the United States has never been a party to it. In the meantime, developing nations exacted promises from China, India and the United States to begin negotiations on a new pact by 2015. Soon, though, the U.S. will be joined by another major industrialized nation as a non-participant. Earlier this week Canada announced its intention to withdraw formally from Kyoto, as Environmental Minister Peter Kent warned that, for Canada to comply, it would face the choice of "either removing every car, truck, ATV, tractor, ambulance, police car and vehicle of every kind from Canadian roads, or closing down the entire farming and agricultural sector and cutting heat to every home, office, hospital, factory, and building in Canada." Some choice, huh? Even though it won't make a dent on the overall climate, some nations insist upon enacting this handy wealth redistribution tool in order to handicap the world's producers.
SecurityWarfront With Jihadistan: The 'End' in IraqIn a 45-minute ceremony Thursday, U.S. military personnel officially marked the end of the mission in Iraq, though the administration made a point to say that the U.S. is not declaring victory. It has been nearly nine years, $800 billion and 4,487 American lives (3,527 in combat) since the war to liberate Iraq began. Saddam Hussein was deposed, tried and hanged, and we should have a fledgling ally in the region. It strains credulity to deny victory. Hosting Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Washington this week, Barack Obama declared that Iraq is now a nation "that is self-governing, that is inclusive and that has enormous potential." Yet the president has done little to ensure that ties are strong with Iraq. That isn't surprising, given his insistence while an Illinois state senator that Iraq was a "dumb war," but he's not in the Illinois senate anymore, either. Unfortunately. An ongoing alliance with Iraq is critical to U.S. interests in the region if for no other reason than to keep Iraq from falling under the control of Iran. The U.S. must forward-deploy materiel and limited manpower to southern deserts to maintain a formidable power presence in the region and rapid response capability. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who has said we should remain in Iraq for 100 years, didn't hold any punches for the sorry excuse for a commander in chief in the White House: "All I will say is that, for three years, the president has been harvesting the successes of the very strategy that he consistently dismissed as a failure. ... I believe that history will judge this president's leadership with the scorn and disdain it deserves." The Wall Street Journal echoed that sentiment: "What a pity ... that this Administration is treating our near-total withdrawal from Iraq mainly as an opportunity to show the political left that it has ended George Bush's war." If it's political gain at the expense of national security Obama is looking for, well, mission accomplished. All else aside, America's men and women in uniform served nobly, and they won an important war. Nearly 1.5 million of them went to Iraq, and we thank them for their service to our country. Share your thoughts on Iraq. Drone Use by Police Is a Bad PrecedentAn unsettling, perhaps illegal, mixture of federal and local law enforcement resources is starting to rear its head across the land, and it will bear close monitoring. Last June, North Dakota Sheriff Kelly Janke tried to execute a search warrant on a family farm, seeking stolen cows, but was chased off by three armed men. Fearful of an armed standoff and needing help searching the 3,000 acre farm, Janke called in the Highway Patrol, a SWAT team, a bomb squad, and, surprisingly, a Predator drone from Grand Forks Air Force Base. The Predator pinpointed the suspects and showed they were unarmed, allowing police to rush in and make the first known arrests -- apparently without an arrest warrant -- of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator. The use of the Predator, including some two dozen additional surveillance drone flights by local law enforcement, the FBI, or the Drug Enforcement Administration for domestic investigations, may violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which bars the military from a police role on U.S. soil. The drones belong to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and advocates of their use cite the alleged broad authority given to Customs by Congress to work with police on "interior law enforcement support." Working with local officials to find illegal aliens or drug smugglers, or to assist during emergencies, is one thing. It's quite another to spy on citizens without a warrant, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Meanwhile, Congress is moving ahead with a defense bill that includes broad language denying captured terrorists, even U.S. citizens seized within the country, the right to trial and subject them to indefinite detention. While we recognize the need to treat enemy combatants as just that, there already exist rules for handling enemy combatants with due process, which this bill does not. Additionally, the bill's overly broad language could allow a lawless administration (anybody seen one recently?) to start putting Americans away for almost any "threat" against the nation that it declares as such. Extreme vigilance is the word. Iran and the Drone, ReduxWebster's Dictionary defines "feckless" as: Not fit to assume responsibility; generally incompetent and ineffectual; being incompetent or inept. Barack Obama's lame attempts to defend his inaction on the downed U.S. RQ-170 drone in Iran fit the bill. "We have asked for it back," he said, and "we'll see how the Iranians respond." We have asked for it back? Where was Joe "foreign policy expert" Biden when the national security team mapped out how to handle this issue? And now "we'll see how the Iranians respond"? How does anyone with half a brain think Iran is going to respond? After the mullahs stopped laughing, they said, "Not a chance." To wit, this headline in Fars News, one of Iran's official news services: "Obama begs Iran to give him back his toy plane." Losing the drone by itself was embarrassing, but the damaging part was allowing Iran to capture it intact and exploit U.S. technology themselves, as well as share it with China and Russia. That could and should have been prevented. The drone went down in eastern Iran, a vast, sparsely populated area with virtually no air defenses to speak of. With all the U.S. airpower in the region, not to mention the hundreds of Tomahawk missiles on U.S. Navy ships, why didn't Obama order the aircraft destroyed on the ground (as the Air Force did with a downed F-15 early in the Libya campaign)? Being president of the United States carries with it a responsibility not to do or say exceedingly stupid things that damage the nation's standing in the world. Far more important, however, is the president's responsibility to preserve the national defense. Obama's failure to act is outrageous and unforgivable. It reminds us of Clinton's allowing the Chinese to recover targeting systems from a suspiciously crashed ICBM that he allowed them to buy to "send up a telecommunications satellite." Democrats used to be at least moderately patriotic, but the last two Democrat presidents seem to want to share our defense secrets with the world.
Judicial Benchmarks: SCOTUS to Hear Arizona SB1070 CaseIt seems to be the way of things these days -- major changes in law or enforcement of the law wind their way through the courts and eventually end up in the lap of the Supreme Court. So it is with Arizona's recently enacted laws that empower local law enforcement to verify the immigration status of those suspected of being illegal aliens during traffic stops or other offenses. After Arizona passed SB1070 last year, several other states passed similar legislation, but the Obama administration secured court orders thwarting enforcement by the several states, claiming federal jurisdiction. Yet as the required number of justices granted the petition for a writ of certiorari, the endnote stated that Justice Elena Kagan did not participate in the consideration or decision on that petition. It can be presumed that she won't hear the case, leaving open the possibility of a split verdict, which would by default uphold the lower courts' rulings and void the Arizona law. So just in time for the 2012 election, we will likely have a more definitive answer on the legal direction of two key campaign issues: the fate of ObamaCare and the legality of state laws that mirror federal laws on immigration -- laws that are, by court fiat, legal for the feds but not for the states. CultureVillage Academic Curriculum: Occupy ScholasticThe latest issue of Scholastic, a publication distributed to students in virtually all schools, reminds us that we cannot be too vigilant in monitoring our kids' "education." In its recent coverage of Occupy Wall Street, Scholastic portrayed the "movement" as a bunch of harmless college kids who fear they will be excluded from the American Dream. It said nothing, however, about the crimes these people have committed or how their insatiable need to be relevant continues to distract us from other pressing political, economic and cultural issues. One parent, upon reading his fourth grader's copy of the newsletter, contacted Scholastic to complain. He referred to their one-sided coverage as "propaganda," the likes of which he saw growing up in the Soviet Union. In response, he received the sort of boilerplate language worthy of any typically inadequate customer service center: "We apologize for any inconvenience," and we "will make sure corporate headquarters sees your comments." This is unacceptable, especially since Scholastic, which has been around for nearly 100 years, refers to itself as "America's Leading News Source for Kids." Back to the reality of Occupy Wall Street: As cast and crew of "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" prepared to shoot an OWS-themed episode in New York City, the set was overrun with more than 100 OWS protesters. After a lengthy disruption, an NYPD officer announced that the city had rescinded the filming permit, which, of course, the protesters considered a victory. "We've made it so they could not exploit us," one protester said, "and that's awesome." They shouldn't flatter themselves; the "Law and Order" franchise, which has been around for more than two decades, has always based its episodes on real legal cases and current events, tilting story lines strongly leftward. This is, however, a disturbing sign of the times that a city as "tough" as New York has allowed these interlopers to dictate what happens on its streets. 'Sesame Street' Teaches Kids About Free LunchesIt used to be that kids watched "Sesame Street" to learn how to count to 10. Now, however, they're learning to count on the government. Last week, as part of the show's "Food for Thought" campaign, a Muppet named Lily announced to the National Press Club that even though she's worried her family cannot afford enough food, she has hope: "[W]e've been finding lots of ways that we can get help. ... [F]or example, at school I get a free breakfast and a lunch [as] part of the meal plan." The message: Don't worry, the government will always provide. The multimedia campaign is targeting schools, hospitals and food service organizations. Then, with a straight face, WIC representative Reverend Douglas Greenaway linked free government lunches with reducing the federal deficit. Of course, he didn't bother to explain how spending vast amounts of money reduces the deficit. This is the worst kind of indoctrination, for it teaches our kids first to fear, then to rely on government largesse. Of course, as the old saying goes, there's no such thing as a free lunch -- something the children will find out soon enough. Regulatory Commissars: NTSB and Cell PhonesThe National Transportation Safety Board has issued a synopsis of a report on a 2010 Missouri highway accident, involving a semi cab (without its trailer), a pickup and two buses. The NTSB determined that the 19-year-old driver of the pickup was distracted because he was texting on his cell phone. That is already against Missouri law for anyone under 21, and he paid the ultimate price -- he and a student on one of the buses died. According to The Washington Post, in 2009 almost 5,500 fatalities were caused by crashes involving a distracted driver, though it's not known how many of those were due to cell phone use. The NTSB, however, took the opportunity to use one report on a single incident to issue a recommendation that states ban the use of cell phones -- not just texting, but also talking while holding the phone (handsfree devices exempted) -- while operating an automobile. The agency does not have the authority to enact a ban on its own, but at least some states are sure to begin the process. Anyone who drives knows that the moment eyes are taken off the road, anything can happen. Distractions can lead to accidents. Yet some of the most dangerous words in the English language are "There ought to be a law," and, at a minimum, we recommend caution when outlawing activities. Nanny states are no less tyrannical than communist ones. Should states ban cell phone use while driving? And Last...Firearms sales this holiday season have been the best since 2008, according to the Firearms Dealers Association. In fact, FBI stats show that the number of background checks this year represents an increase of 32 percent over 2008. One firearms dealer in Fresno, California, is cashing in with some clever advertising. "They've been mistreated and misunderstood for generations," says the ad narrator. "Abusive owners have done severe damage and given these beautiful creatures a bad reputation." The idea, of course, is to get people thinking along the lines of puppies or some such. But the object is guns. "You can make a difference by giving a gun a loving home," the ad continues. "These guns want nothing more than to adore and protect you. So, please, have a heart." The owner of the store says the ads have increased their business "10 fold," particularly among women, and they plan to continue the campaign. All we can say is, "Deck the halls with guns and ammo."
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team
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Catholic Mass, Andy Reid, School Choice and Dumb Security Measures
Random observations about what's really pissing me off this week
By Chris Freind 12/16/2011
The best thing about being a columnist is that there's never a shortage of material-especially the kind that leaves you shaking your head. The bad part is that there isn't enough time to cover all those topics thoroughly.
So the following is a brief perspective on various events, many of which the media has missed:
Pennsylvania School Choice Disaster: For the last year, those fighting for educational reform (comprehensive choice in education) but against Senate Bill 1, the fatally-flawed bill in Harrisburg that would have neither educated nor reformed (and is now dead), were lectured on the merits of "incrementalism" by SB 1 proponents. "You have to get a little at a time," they scolded.
Well, despite never actually trying to pass a broader bill that would include the middle class-which is why school choice failed-the SB 1 folks (pushing the incremental approach) were smashingly successful. They set the entire Movement back incrementally. Comprehensive school choice passed the senate in 1991, and garnered 89 votes in the House (of the needed 102). In 1995, an even broader bill had 101 votes-just one shy. Yet in 2011, with a governor who made vouchers a top priority, with Republican majorities in both chambers and with millions of dollars for lobbying, the SB 1 forces couldn't even get 90 votes.
So let's see. In 20 years, we went from 89 to 101 to 90. Not exactly progress, but definitely incrementalism.
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A good example of why, if Tea Parties are seen to 'endorse' or support a candidate under the Tea Party banner, they become vulnerable to such charges. Washington Times is Conservative and has opened their pages to Tea Party blogs - and they did not give this story a lot of play, but I expect the hostile news media will run with this during the campaign.
I see our mission is to promote Conservative values - point out why the current socialist administration must be replaced. We can encourage our individual members to support whom they believe as best, but my position is that, as a Tea Party, we remain above public endorsement of a person or of a party. Our members are already divided by which GOP figure they prefer - a healthy thing - and I don't expect any member to suddenly feel they wish to have four more years of O'Dumbo.
Lou
Tea partyers deny payments from Gingrich
by Seth McLaughlin
Published on December 15, 2011
South Carolina tea party supporters are denying suggestions by aides of Rep. Michele Bachmann that Newt Gingrich is paying off members of the grass-roots movement in exchange for their support, calling the charge bogus.
"Those charges are completely false," Dianne Belsom, of the Laurens County Tea Party, told The Washington Times. "I'm connected with tea partyers all over the state, and there is no way any tea party person would stoop to that."
"We are in it to save our country. We are not in it to get paid off," she said.
Mrs. Bachmann, founder of the House Tea Party Caucus, refused Wednesday to back away from accusations floated by her spokesman, Wesley Donehue, who reportedly said that the only way the former House speaker "can get the tea party vote is to buy it."
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In Pennsylvania, the Gerrymander of the Decade?
By Sean Trende - December 14, 2011
There have been a lot of good candidates for the "gerrymander of the decade" award this cycle. North Carolina, Illinois and Texas have all dreamed up district lines that have gone well beyond what many pundits believed could be pulled off in those states. Honorable mentions go to Massachusetts and Maryland, whose districts combine to allow for the election of one Republican out of 17 districts. But the legislators in all those states were making heavily Democratic/Republican delegations in states that were likewise heavily Democratic/Republican. That isn't a tremendous job. Republicans in Pennsylvania, however, took a state that is two or three points more Democratic than the country as a whole, and created 12 districts (out of 18) that are more Republican than the country as a whole. They did so by creating what can only be called a group of Rorschach-inkblot districts in southeastern Pennsylvania. The net result is a map that shores up their vulnerable incumbents, and that may well result in a 14-4 Republican edge by the end of the decade. To see how this works, take a look at the following two charts. The first one shows the 2008 Obama percentage in each district under the old lines and the new lines, as well as the change (negative is toward McCain, positive is toward Obama).
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NAACP Taking Complaints About U.S. Voter Laws to United Nations
By Judson Berger
Published December 06, 2011
| FoxNews.com
The NAACP is calling on the United Nations to intervene as it claims state governments are colluding to "block the vote" for minority communities ahead of the 2012 election -- a charge those governments vehemently deny.
The nation's biggest civil rights organization this week released a report that claimed a raft of new voting laws at the state level would disenfranchise minority voters. The report said 14 states passed 25 measures "designed to restrict or limit the ballot access of voters of color."
The report catalogued several categories of laws that have been passed largely by Republican-dominated legislatures and which Democrats have decried in recent months as tools of voter suppression. The new laws include requirements to present photo ID at the polls, voting restrictions on felons and limitations on registration and early voting periods.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/06/naacp-taking-complaints-about-us-voter-laws-to-united-nations/#ixzz1giRe6iM9
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Morning Bell: An 11th-Hour Spending Deal That Comes Up Short
Mike Brownfield
December 16, 2011
With Christmas just a week away and the new year nearly upon us, Congress came within a whisper of yet another potential government shutdown and once again demonstrated its inability to make substantive spending cuts and deliver the American people the reforms necessary to secure America's fiscal future. Rather than produce a timely budget by way of standard operating procedure, congressional leaders again butted up against the deadline and reached a deal on a trillion-dollar "mega-omnibus" nine-bill appropriations package that sadly is yet another disappointing failure to rein in government spending.
Patrick Louis Knudsen, the Grover M. Hermann Senior Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs at The Heritage Foundation, explains that the deal, which is expected to be voted on today, comes up far short in instilling fiscal discipline in Washington and, equally troubling, "allows everyone to vote for something he likes, while taxpayers pick up the tab":
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Too Few Jobs for College Grads?
Bring in Foreign Competition.
Full Story FAIR Op-Ed: Dictionary Debate Over Anchor Babies
Dictionary's politically correct flip-flop.
Full Story
Connecticut Town to Allow Illegal Aliens to Vote?
New Haven already a sanctuary city.
Full Story Obama Administration's Immigration Hypocrisy
No support for state enforcement.
Full Story Going to the Top!
Update on Stop AB131.
Full Story
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Look who else cashed in on 'stimulus'
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The founder of an energy company that benefited from deals involving hundreds of millions in "stimulus" money made the maximum donation allowable to President Obama's inauguration, WND has learned.
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Read the latest now on WND.com.
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Mark Meckler, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, one of the largest and most prominent tea-party groups, was arrested today at New York City's LaGuardia Airport on a gun charge - despite showing police his pistol permit and explaining that the weapon is registered in California.
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Click here for details.
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Christopher Hitchens: God's favorite atheist?
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When he eulogized famous religious figures, Christopher Hitchens contemptuously brushed aside conventional sensibilities, unleashing his Oxford-bred, wickedly witty disdain on the departed, often, it seemed, before the body had became cold.
How does one explain then, the outpouring of sympathy, appreciation and respect from people of religious faith for this uniquely talented British-born American journalist - a leading figure in the "new atheist" movement and the author of "God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" - who died at the age of 62 after an openly reflective 18-month battle with esophageal cancer?
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Read the latest now on WND.com.
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Plus!
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Buried within an 1,844-page bill currently sitting on Barack Obama's desk awaiting his signature is text that many critics are warning could give the president legal authority to send Americans to jail without charges, without trial, without end.
Both the U.S. House and Senate have passed the National Defense Authorization Act, a sweeping piece of legislation that affects dozens of aspects of foreign and military policy, but that was designed primarily to give the military - and not civilian courts - the clear authority for prosecuting and jailing terrorists.
But voices from across the political spectrum are concerned that the bill opens the door for the military - led by the president as commander in chief - to indefinitely detain American citizens, even within the U.S.
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Click here for details.
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Today's Headlines: Friday, December 16, 2011 Pelosi: Extending Unemployment Benefits Would Create '600,000 Jobs' Citing Auto Bailout, Gays in Military, Health Care, Obama Claims 'Vision That Is Truest to Our History' Planned Parenthood NYC Offers Tips For Pro-abortion Conversation Around the 'Holiday Table' Only Media Research Center exposes and neutralizes the liberal media agenda. Please help us with a tax deductible gift today. Democrat: Constituents Need to Know That 'Federal Presence' in Their Communities 'Performs a Life-Saving Kind of Function'
Gallup: Gingrich Leads Romney by 20 Points Among Conservatives; Romney Leads Gingrich by 10 Among Liberals, Moderates S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley Says Mitt's Her Man
CNSNews Database: 104 Women, 33 18-Year-Olds Among Iraq War's Casualties
Women 'Disproportionately Impacted' by Climate Change, Liberal Activists Say OIC Chief: Religious Tolerance Resolution Backed by Obama Administration Aligns With Islamic Bloc's Interests Bill Would Treat Mexican Drug Cartels as Terrorists; Allow U.S. to Use Counterinsurgency Measures to Secure Border Obama's Re-Election Odds Put at 50-50 by AP-GfK Poll
COMMENTARY: Yes, There Are Christmas Haters
By L. Brent Bozell III
In this special season of giving, Hollywood is willing to give people what entertainment executives think the country needs: a vicious, bloody takedown of Christmas. And Was the Mission Accomplished?
By Patrick J. Buchanan
What kind of victory did we win if, eight years after we ousted Saddam Hussein and helped install a democratic government, Americans in Iraq should fear for their lives? Nancy Pelosi, Down and Dirty
By Michelle Malkin
While she makes grand gestures toward banning congressional insider trading, San Fran Nan's financial conflicts of interest are once again on display. Final Pre-Caucus Debate
By Rich Galen
After the first 20 minutes of Kumbaya, the questions turned to Gingrich. The second tier candidates were unabashed about piling on. CNSNewsTV: Check out our latest videos!
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Huge Spending Bill Must Be Stopped
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TODAY Congress will vote on a massive $914.8 billion omnibus spending bill. If passed, it would push total discretionary spending for fiscal year 2012 higher than 2011 spending. Americans sent this Congress to Washington to cut spending, not increase it.
>> Call Congress, and tell them to reject this wasteful spending bill.
Not only does the omnibus spend too much of your money, it is also bad policy. From pushing back on damaging EPA regulations to subsidizing the energy industry to de-funding Obamacare and Planned Parenthood, it is unacceptable.
The simple fact is that packaging nine appropriations bills together, behind closed doors, is the kind of bad policy-making this Congress promised to reject.
>> Call your Members of Congress, and tell them to oppose this bloated omnibus.
Thanks for holding Congress accountable. Heritage Action is here in DC, ensuring your Members of Congress get the conservative message.
Sincerely,
Russ Vought
Political Director
Heritage Action for America
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December 15, 2011
"America's tax code needs reform, plain and simple," The Heritage Foundation's Mike Brownfield says in today's Morning Bell.
"The current tax system discourages saving, investment, and entrepreneurship. It's a drag on productivity, job growth, international competitiveness, and wages. It's complicated beyond belief, and it needs to change."
Fortunately, Heritage has a solution: the New Flat Tax.
The New Flat Tax is as easy as one, two, three:
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Obama Didn't Get the 'Truce' Memo
This column by ACRU Senior Legal Analyst Jan LaRue was published December 15, 2011 on the American Thinker website.
The Obama administration, predictably, is not calling a "truce on social issues," as Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) suggested that the next president should do.
Daniels reportedly told Andrew Ferguson of the Weekly Standard last year that the next president, whoever he is, "would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues. We're going to just have to agree to get along for a little while," until the economic issues are resolved. Daniels didn't back down when challenged by a few fellow Republicans as recently as last March.
Republican candidates have mostly heeded Daniels' naive advice instead of going on offense against Obama on social issues, including freedom of religion. The GOP could easily make the case that moral and family issues have a crucial impact on government spending and the economy. Because Obama can't defend his record on jobs and the economy, he is using social issues to pander to his leftist base, wasting taxpayer dollars and increasing federal debt.
Read the Entire Column
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Our Marxist Wizard of Oz
This column by ACRU General Counsel and Senior Fellow for the Carleson Center for Public Policy (CCPP) Peter Ferrara was published December 14, 2011 on The American Spectator website.
His mother was an unabashed hippie from 1960s central casting. His father was an openly avowed Communist from Kenya. While his father wasn't around much, his devoutly progressive grandparents arranged for him to be mentored during his adolescent years by a dues paying member of the U.S. Communist Party, Frank Marshall Davis.
When he went to college, he was attracted to the Marxist professors and student activists, according to his own published memoirs. When he graduated, he moved to Chicago and became an instructor for the left-wing extremist organization ACORN in the social manipulation methods of radical Marxist agitator Saul Alinsky. He attended for close to two decades the Trinity United Church of Christ, which practiced neo-Marxist Black Liberation Theology. That church was headed during those years by the openly socialist Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who declared that the 9/11 terrorist attack on America was "America's chickens coming home to roost." He also famously preached from his pulpit, "Not God bless America, God damn America...."
Read the Entire Column
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Obama Channels Hugo Chavez, Shows Why He Can't Lead on the Economy
This column by ACRU General Counsel and Senior Fellow for the Carleson Center for Public Policy (CCPP) Peter Ferrara was published December 8, 2011 on Forbes.com.
On Tuesday, President Obama went to Osawatomie High School in Kansas to deliver an address framing the economic issues for the 2012 election. He was following in the footsteps of turn of the century "progressive" Teddy Roosevelt, who spoke at that same site 100 years ago to rail against big corporations and the privileged, while calling for "fair play" for ordinary Americans.
But the speech only showed why Obama can't lead America on the economy. Instead of leading us forward into the modern economics of the 21st century, he keeps reaching back into the economics and politics of old - the failed Keynesian economics of Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s, the disastrous stagflation of Jimmy Carter in the 1970s, and the supposed promise of progressivism 100 years ago, before the demonstrated failures of Marxism worldwide in the 20th century.
Read the Entire Column
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Obama's War on Decency
This column by ACRU Senior Fellow Robert Knight was published December 12, 2011 in The Washington Times.
Three incidents in recent days tell us all we need to know about the Obama administration's "values."
On Dec. 1, the story broke that Bethesda-based Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where wounded veterans convalesce, apparently had banned visitors from bringing in Bibles or other religious items.
Walter Reed's Chief of Staff C.W. Callahan issued a memo in September that said, "No religious items (i.e., Bibles, reading material, and/or artifacts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit."
Telling wounded soldiers and their families that their First Amendment freedoms have been suspended should be a firing offense.
Read the Entire Column
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Holder's Choice: Name a Fast and Furious Special Prosecutor or Face Impeachment
This column by ACRU Senior Legal Analyst Ken Klukowski was published December 9, 2011 on The Washington Examiner website.
Official Obama administration explanations for Operation Fast and Furious keep changing with each new wave of revelations. If Attorney General Eric Holder won't appoint a special prosecutor, this scandal could end in his impeachment.
Republican congressmen put Holder in a vice-grip Thursday during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, interrogating him over the notorious gun-running scandal into Mexico.
This latest round of questions came after the Department of Justice (DOJ) dumped another 1,000 pages of Fast and Furious documents requested months ago by Congress. As usual, the release came late on a Friday afternoon at a time calculated to minimize news coverage of the contents.
Read the Entire Column
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Ending Marriage, Dashing Hopes: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama Speeches
This column by ACRU Senior Fellow Ken Blackwell was published December 7, 2011 on The Huffington Post.
The Obama administration has offered in two high level addresses the crystallization of all that is wrong in its course. Yesterday, President Barack Obama went to Osawatomie, Kansas. He chose that location because of his own Kansas roots and because former President Theodore Roosevelt gave a famous speech there in 1910.
Mr. Obama should do more of this.Theodore Roosevelt is rightly a beloved figure for millions of Americans. His 1910 Osawatomie speech, however, was the beginning of a disastrous course for him and for America. TR's sharp left turn in Kansas led him directly to his 1912 "Bull Moose" Third Party challenge of incumbent Republican President Taft and the Democratic nominee, Gov. Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey.
Read the Entire Column
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Are the Candidates on Your Side?
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Romney, Gingrich, Huntsman Fail to Answer Six Questions on Military/Social Issues
Ron Paul Voted for Gays in the Military
Center for Military Readiness
The Military Culture Coalition has released responses to the MCC 2012 Presidential Candidate Survey, which asked six questions about military social issues such as gays in the military, enforcement of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the military, religious liberty for chaplains, and subjecting women to direct ground combat and Selective Service registration.
Read the Full Story
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Trouble in Paradise
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Obama To Clinton: "You're A Racist." Clinton Calls Obama: "The Worst President Ever."
American Conservative News
Only one week after reporting that Michelle Obama may be having a "steamy secret affair" with a Secret Service
agent, The Globe has just unleashed another bombshell that may very well sink the foundering Obama Regime. According to the Globe, long-standing tensions between Barack Obama and Bill Clinton reached the boiling point during a recent golf outing at Andrews Air Force Base.
Read the Full Story
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Rape Coverup in High Places
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Video Shows Sebelius' Role in Planned Parenthood Rape Coverup
By Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com
A new video produced by a national pro-life organization shows the role pro-abortion HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had in a document shredding scandal that saw her administration's Attorney General shred documents important to a case concerning Planned Parenthood.
Read the Full Story
Obama's Role In The One World Government Agenda
Are major developments such as the Arab Spring, the absolute chaos in the European Union with the bankruptcy of Greece, Italy, Portugal and the emergence of the Vatican backing Germany as the one country that the European Union is dependant on for its survival totally unrelated?
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Ending Tenure
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Tenure for Teachers: Enough is Enough
By Larry Sand
California Political Review
Every year untold thousands of school kids are harmed by teachers who shouldn't be allowed in a classroom.
Parents must be given an opportunity to send their children elsewhere.
Read the Full Story
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Annals of Government Medicine
Posted: 18 Dec 2011 03:15 PM PST
(John Hinderaker)
A National Health Service hospital, Alexandra Hospital of Redditch, West Midlands, is being sued in a class action for malpractice. The incidents detailed include leaving patients to starve to death. On the whole, the allegations sound as though you put the postal service in charge of health care. Not a bad analogy, come to think of it:
The cases against Alexandra Hospital include:
* A 35-year-old father-of-four who his family say wasted away because staff did not know how to fit a feeding tube
* A retired NHS worker who died after allegedly being left without food or crucial heart medication
* A man who fell into a coma after contracting E.coli, apparently from a filthy catheter
* The claims include allegations that vulnerable patients were left to starve when trays were left out of reach, while others left in soaking bedsheets
Official statistics show death rates at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals trust, which runs the hospital, were 10 per cent higher than the national average in 2010/11 - meaning there were 239 deaths more than would be expected.
Concerns about the quality of government health care in the U.K. are by no means limited to this hospital:
The legal action comes amid increasing concern about the standards of care for hospital patients and failures to protect the vulnerable.
Earlier this year, a report by the Health Service Ombudsman condemned the service for its inhumane treatment of the elderly.
The investigation found hospitals were failing to meet their most basic needs, with many left hungry, unwashed or given the wrong drugs because of the "casual indifference of staff".
Yes; if you like casual indifference, you will love government medicine.
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How Exactly Is This a Good Idea?
Posted: 18 Dec 2011 12:29 PM PST
(Steven Hayward)
How would you respond if a homebuilder proposed a gated community called "Dachau Gardens," or a jewelry designer offered a gold and diamond broach in the shape of a Swastika? You'd probably think it was in poor taste, at the very least. So what do you suppose the architects who thought of this were (not) thinking when they came up with it:
Not to worry. Our favorite Washington Post art and architecture critic Phil Kennicott-the same fellow who thinks Occupy DC is showing a new vibrant urban form that we should all swoon before (which prompted Power Line's video tour of Occupy DC last month)-thinks we're all being too precious about this:
The controversy seems part of a larger cultural effort to make the events of September 11, 2001 somehow sacred, to use the meaning of the terrorist attack for larger, more overbearing cultural control. So now it is being deployed against contemporary architecture, not because there is anything inherently offensive in this design (which may or may not be an intentional reference to 9/11), but because the emotions generated by the attack have been co-opted by one part of the political and cultural spectrum.
Architects have long been exploring ways to turn buildings inside out, to peel away their external skin, to represent them as if melting or hurtling through space. The metaphor to "explode" a building might well be used as a positive architectural value, to open up space, break down formal strictures, allow multiple points of access. So even if the Dutch design firm, MVRDV intended a reference to 9/11, there's no reason that reference should be read as mocking or ironic. It might easily be seen as an effort to freeze frame a traumatic event, in architectural form, and neutralize its shock and pain.
We report, you decide.
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Tebow Theology
Posted: 18 Dec 2011 06:12 AM PST
(Steven Hayward)
We may not know yet about the Higgs boson (which is being called the "God particle" for some reason), but if the Denver Broncos beat the New England Patriots today-especially with another 4th quarter miracle-it will be positive proof that God does indeed exist. Or at least that he is a Broncos fan. The real test of God's goodness will come when Denver plays the Dallas Cowboys, which, being America's Team, is obviously God's team, too. What will God do? I predict a tie in overtime. Followed by a handholding group hug and prayer at the 50-yard line.
Or at least that's how you'd begin if you merely want to join the journalistic slipstream about the Tim Tebow phenomenon, where being un-ironic is the original sin-maybe the only sin-of the post-modern mind. You can tell that most of the media's treatment of Mr. Tebow's public piety reflects the simple offense at what they view as bad taste. Don't you know you're supposed to keep that all private, man?
You have to look elsewhere-like the Internet!-to get a more serious consideration of Tebow, like Jeff Pojanowski on the Catholic site Patheos.com:
Popular media, more fixated on cultural conflict than actual culture, work to shape the Tebow phenomenon into a stock, religious-versus-secular kabuki production. In this tired morality play-one reminiscent of debate about the "meaning" of Sarah Palin-coastal New Yorker readers, ironists twittering pictures of themselves "Tebowing," and handwringing strict-separationists are to square off against red-state, religious rubes with persecution complexes.
More than 30 years ago Irving Kristol wrote that theology has practically ceased being an intellectually respectable form of intellectual activity, and the shallow Tebow commentary is another validation of this. Very few have been the commentaries that begin to treat the more interesting theological questions which Tebow's public gratitude toward God raise. Amazingly the media seem to have forgotten the most basic questions of skepticism, such as why a loving God would favor or intercede on behalf of the Broncos while having no regard for the long-suffering Detroit Lions (or are the Lions out of God's favor for taking the name of the beast that ate so many early Christians?). More seriously, while Tebow's gratitude for his God is fitting (as will be his likely Job-like understanding for the inevitable trial of losing), it opens wide the cornerstone of skepticism, the age-old mystery of faith about God's tolerance for evil: why credit God's favor for the Broncos while tolerating the suffering of the starving in Darfur, or . . . pick your own example. That no one in the press corps so eager to highlight and frown upon Tebow's public piety thinks to raise this issue, which remains basic to the inquiry of so many sincere seekers after spiritual guidance, or ask Tebow for his answer to it, demonstrates how fully secular we have become.
It is unlikely that Tebow would give a very substantive answer involving all the old paradoxes about free will and such; he is likely to be more fully conversant with the intricate details Bronco's playbook that the Good Book just now, but in any event his best answer would be 1 Corinthians 1:25: "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men." (That's the King James; many modern translations render this "God's nonsense" or "God's madness" is wiser than men. . .) Or you can recur to many of C.S. Lewis's observations that are harmonious with this essential passage, like this one from The Problem of Pain (where he wrested at length with this basic problem): "The relation between Creator and creature, is, of course, unique, and cannot be paralleled by any relations between one creature and another. God is both further from us, and nearer to us, than any other being."*
My theology is too rusty to do this whole matter justice. But I will say that over the years I have been frequently stunned to hear the most unlikely people describe their highly unusual paths to Christian faith, which have included Billy Graham crusades and the seemingly crazy street corner preachers who mostly annoy the passers-by. I make it a point, on the rare occasions I happen upon a street corner preacher, to look around the crowd to spot the one or two people who appear to be listening intently. You can usually spot them.
So Tebow may be the NFL version of the lay street corner preacher, violating all the conventions of good taste and embarrassing even many of his fellow believers, but "the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men."
*If you're theologically astute you may pick up on Lewis's harmony with Karl Barth, one of the pre-eminent Protestant theologians of the 20th century, but I have to confess to never having mastered much of Barth's rich teaching beyond his basic quarrel with Thomistic theology. But Lewis has sometimes been made out to be a crypto-Roman Catholic. Not too sure about this.
**Hey-does this count as a sports post? [Yes.--JHH]
JOHN adds two observations: First, while perhaps not all Bronco fans are equally scrupulous, Tebow consistently says that God doesn't care who wins a football game, and he neither seeks nor claims divine intervention. Second, while Tebow might not be a great passer, the evidence suggests that he is a great leader. Those in more important leadership positions might observe Tebow and learn from his example.
Suppose, for instance, you are an important political figure-head of the executive branch, even-and your leadership style includes:
* Going on vacation while your teammates (i.e., fellow citizens) are hard at work;
* Stirring up division among your teammates in hopes that it will improve your standing;
* Suggesting that you are highly superior, but your teammates are dumb, lazy and bigoted, and on the whole not good enough for you;
* Acting remote and aloof whenever your team falls behind in the score;
* When your team loses, pointing your finger at everyone but yourself, including players who haven't been on the team for years; and
* Running the same plays over and over again, even though they are stopped for no gain, and then, rather than trying something different, attempting to convince your teammates that what you are doing is working great, as though they can't see the scoreboard.
If you are a politician and this describes your management style, you should pay close attention to a leader like Tim Tebow. You might learn something.
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Uncommon Knowledge with James Delingpole
Posted: 18 Dec 2011 06:04 AM PST
(Scott Johnson)
James Delingpole is the witty, right-minded columnist and blogger for the Telegraph. Among his several books are Obamaland: I Have Seen Your Future and It Doesn't Work and, most recently, Watermelons: The Green Movement's True Colors.
The latter book provides the occasion for Peter Robinson's interview with Delingpole in the latest installment of Uncommon Knowledge. Delingpole himself introduces the installment here, mostly in the form of a tribute to our friend Mr. Robinson. Among the subjects discussed in this entertaining installment of the series are the European Union, the culture of welfarism, the Green movement, and socialized medicine. Key quote: "Never believe a word you read in The Economist." Through our arrangement with the Hoover Institution we are pleased to present it in its entirety. Please check it out.
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Outrage In Iraq
Posted: 17 Dec 2011 05:37 PM PST
(John Hinderaker)
As our involvement in Iraq has wound down, a few loose ends remained. The most important was the status of Ali Mussa Daqduq. Daqduq is a Hezbollah operative, apparently directed by Iran, who was responsible for the capture, torture and murder of five American servicemen. Under the status of forces agreement, he was to be turned over to Iraqi authorities, and could only be removed from that country with the permission of its government. A number of conservative activists and politicians campaigned to retain custody of Daqduq and bring him to Guantanamo Bay or another suitable venue for trial. A correspondent forwarded this email:
I know Captain Dan Fritz, Jake Fritz's brother. He's been to our house in Morgantown - in fact, one year to the day after Jake was abducted and murdered in Iraq.
I know Noala Fritz, Jake's mother, from Verdon, Nebraska. She is one of the most humble, down to earth, pleasant people you will ever meet. Jake's father, Lyle, a Marine and Viet Nam vet, passed away in June of this year. Together, they raised one of the most patriotic, caring, and giving families in America.
I write you to seek your assistance in stopping this absolute lunacy and ultimate travesty of justice that is about to occur. Please, contact anybody and everybody you can, and enlist their support in stopping Daqduq's release from happening. Use the power of the internet, social media, or whatever means available, and get people to speak up. Leverage what you can (political parties, TEA parties, prayer groups, etc.) to let our Congressmen and Senators in DC know of our interest to stop the release of this calculated, cold-blooded murderer.
The Fritz's are a family that has seen more than its share of suffering, and is "all in" on the War on Terror. We owe it to them, and to Jake's honor, to see that his killer faces justice.
Thank you for your engagement - there is little time to act.
All such pleas fell on deaf ears, and the Obama administration turned Daqduq over to the Iraqis, despite widespread predictions that they will send him to Iran, where he will receive a hero's welcome and soon return to the fight. The Wall Street Journal reported:
U.S. officials have feared turning [Daqduq] over to Iraq would lead to his release without trial.
The Obama administration "sought and received assurances that he will be tried for his crimes," a White House spokesman said. "We have worked this at the highest levels of the U.S. and Iraqi governments, and we continue to discuss with the Iraqis the best way to ensure that he faces justice."
We will see. My guess is that Daqduq will be released and will be lavished with wealth and honors until we encounter him on a battlefield once again. My own view-call me a Neanderthal-is that things never should have gone this far. If Daqduq is who we think he is, and to my knowledge there is no dissent on that point, he should simply have been shot, long ago.
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What's really interesting at the end is the real meaning of the 12 days of Christmas - I didn't know that...  The Capitol Christmas tree in Washington , D.C. , is decorated with 3,000 ornaments that are the handiwork of U.S. schoolchildren. Encircling evergreens in the 'Pathway of Peace' represent the 50 U.S. states. 
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