All Your Organs Are Belong To Us!

Yet another grasp for power at the expense of liberty...

State plan volunteers all to donate organs, tissue

A plan that is being pushed now in the state of Colorado by two Democratic lawmakers would allow the government to assume that its residents want to donate their organs or tissue.
[...]
It calls for state administrators to present to applicants the statement:

You are automatically deemed to have consented to being an organ and tissue donor and this designation will appear on your driver's license or identification card. If you do not want to be considered an organ and tissue donor, you must elect to not be included on the organ donor registry by inserting your initials on the line below.

KMGH reported similar plans already have failed in Delaware, Illinois and New York because of the coercive nature of the statement.

Dr. Jackie Glover, of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities that is linked to the University of Colorado, had similar concerns.

"It seems coercive. It is not voluntary if you don't ask me," Glover told KMGH.
[...]
Commentator Wesley J. Smith at the First Things blog was alarmed.

"When [organ donation] was being pitched to a wary public, we were solemnly assured that only those who specifically agreed to donate their organs ahead of time, or with consent from family after death, would be donors. Now, we see advocacy to do away with specific consent – in other words to the concept of 'donation' – and replace it with organ conscription, in which the state could take your organs unless you specifically opted out beforehand…"

The British Medical Journal earlier studied the issue and said, "systems of opting out do not ensure higher rates of donation than opting-in systems."

"People may be more likely to donate when they feel they retain control of that decision rather than the law dictating that donation should take place. Brazil had to withdraw its system of presumed consent because it aggravated mistrust in the health-care system," the report said.

End Times?

When we see natural disasters like tidal waves and earthquakes, odd events like 1,000 dead birds falling from the sky, or all the world's kings turning against Israel, some begin to proclaim the apocalypse. But it's events like the one described below that lead me to expect the impending wrath of God.

Oakland 2nd Graders Reportedly Engage In Sex Acts, Teacher Suspended

A teacher at Oakland’s Markham Elementary School has been suspended indefinitely after school officials said a pair of second-graders performed sex acts on each other in class – with the teacher present.
[...]
In one case, several students apparently took off their clothes and were naked in the classroom. In the second incident, a boy and girl reportedly engaged in oral sex in front of their classmates.

Atheism Saves!

God to Gervais: No, Really – Thank You!

British Comedian Ricky Gervais ended his reputedly raucous evening of hosting The Golden Globes ceremony Sunday night with the mildly witty remark, “Thank God for making me an atheist.” I can’t help but reflect that God might well respond, “No, really, Ricky, thank you.” The atheism of someone like Gervais – a man who radiates unhappiness and self-hatred – has to be the best thing to happen to religion since the atheism of Bill Maher – a man who radiates unhappiness and self-hatred. Every time someone like this declares himself an atheist, twenty people must fall to their knees, crying, “Jesus Christ, don’t let me become like THAT guy!”

Didn't You Know?

Abortionists murder babies. The abortion industry is built on the murder of babies. Didn't you know?

Philadelphia Abortion Doctor Charged With 8 Counts Of Murder

A West Philadelphia abortion doctor, his wife and eight other suspects are now under arrest following a grand jury investigation.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 69, faces eight counts of murder in the deaths of a woman following a botched abortion at his office, along with the deaths of seven other babies who, prosecutors allege, were born alive following illegal late-term abortions and then were killed by severing their spinal cords with a pair of scissors.

Because of the popularity of murdering babies, particularly in the Legacy Media, the District Attorney is actually defensive about prosecuting a murder case.

“I am aware that abortion is a hot-button topic,” said District Attorney Seth Williams. “But as district attorney, my job is to carry out the law. A doctor who knowingly and systematically mistreats female patients, to the point that one of them dies in his so-called care, commits murder under the law. A doctor who cuts into the necks severing the spinal cords of living, breathing babies, who would survive with proper medical attention, is committing murder under the law.”

There is nothing wrong with keeping cash in the house, but it is suggestive of criminal behavior.

Investigators say during a search of his home, they found $240,000 in cash.

The story indicates this so-called doctor was taking many short cuts. Apparently, it's easier to murder a baby if its entire body is no longer inside the mother. I can see how that would be the case. However, that trivial distinction is the only legal difference between murder and a medical procedure. But this murderer understands most rationally, as we all should, that there really is no difference. Murdering a baby is murdering a baby whether or not it, or any part of it, remains inside the mother.

Godless

Stone Phillips of the Dinosaur Media just can't believe atrocities result from Godlessness.

How to Use Evil to Promote Your Agenda

Stone Philips asked the obvious questions probing Dahmer’s father and mother as to why Jeffrey committed these horrific acts. He asked if there were any signs, indications, events in Jeffrey’s life that would give us a clue as to how this monster was created. Was Jeffrey molested as a child? Did the screaming in the doomed marriage cause this behavior? The parents came up empty. They didn’t see any signs; they didn’t know of any catastrophic events. Jeffrey wasn’t abnormal or deviant by anything they saw. And if they had seen something, they would have hoped they would have reacted appropriately.

Then Stone asked Jeffrey the same question. Why? What caused you to do these things? Candidly, Jeffrey simply answers that he was Godless.

Shocking isn’t it? Jeffrey explains that up until he was caught and put into prison he had been told that he was primordial ooze, a product of evolution. After being convicted, his father sent him some information explaining that God created the world and the people in it. At some point, Jeffrey realized that he had to answer to a higher being. He logically understood that primordial ooze doesn’t have to answer to anyone or anything; a created human being MUST answer to his Creator.
[...]
Jeffrey’s father also added to the “God theory”. His father thought that if he had been more religious these things wouldn’t have happened. Notice he didn’t say: I wish we had him in sports. Or: If only I didn’t spank him. He put the blame right where it belonged: They were Godless.

If that were the end of the story, we could walk away with some important lessons. But, unfortunately, it’s not. You see, Stone Philips apparently didn’t believe Dahmer’s answer. He just couldn’t manage to take Dahmer’s answer at face value. Stone continued to probe into his parents, his classes, his life in general – ANYTHING but God – to explain why Dahmer did the heinous things he did.

But Dahmer stood his ground and said his parents were not to blame. His circumstances were not to blame. His father’s dreams and fantasies were not to blame. (Yes, they even tried that one.) He, Jeffrey Dahmer, took full responsibility for making the decision to mutilate his fellow man. And one day he will answer for his crimes to the One that created him and whose expectations for his life he cruelly violated.
[emphasis mine]

Way to go, Mr. Plumber!

Obama Moves Toward American Union

U.S.-Mexico border vanishes under Obama agency program

U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada simply have been erased under a program run by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol that issues The Trusted Traveler of North America cards.

Instead of a representation of the United States, the cards issued by the agency under Barack Obama's leadership carry a logo that depicts North America as a continent, without borders to identify the United States.

Charity Volunteer Fired for Calling for Civility

Video: Charity fires director for Facebook comments on Tucson shooting

Glen Busch and his wife have clothed more than 2,000 poor children since starting the Chicago chapter of Coats for Kids in 2005. That seems like a success story, but apparently a couple of Facebook postings asking people to stop leaping to conclusions over the Tucson shootings outweigh the years of good work performed by the Busches.

The Pot Calling the Kettle Hateful, Part 3

The Pot Calling the Kettle Hateful, Part Duh

YouTube Asked to Remove Video of Left’s Threats Against Palin

Ever since Saturday’s terrible tragedy in Tucson, Arizona, conservatives have endured, to use my colleague Dana Loesch’s words, a massive orchestration of defamation against them. And of all the vitriol that has been hurled around the internet, no other target has sustained more of it than Sarah Palin.

Within minutes of the shooting Saturday, the onslaught of inflamed rhetoric was immediate.
[...]
In fact, a couple of conservatives on Twitter – @coyotered9 and @JoeKenHa – were so disgusted that they decided to collect just a sampling of these public tweets and compile them into a slide show of sorts.



The result was this video, Twitter Users Wish Death on Sarah Palin, originally posted at YouTube. It’s since been cross-posted on Vimeo because of a takedown notice they received from YouTube in response to a privacy complaint. That’s right, one of the haters who was brave enough to publicly tweet her yearning for the death of a former Governor and Vice Presidential candidate is now suddenly concerned for her Twitter privacy.

As you can imagine, after the video first posted to YouTube, viewers were disgusted. In fact, quite a few from both the right and the left were sickened enough to let some of those Twitter users know that their behavior was reprehensible. And when the heat got to be too much for one user, she complained to YouTube about her precious privacy. Because she was “just voicing anger” in a public tweet and doesn’t want anyone “attacking her” back on Twitter.

This of course after publicly wishing death on a public figure.
[...]
The irony is almost painful. As the left is busy launching its Orwellian propaganda war against the right, accusing conservatives of inciting violence with their supposed dangerous rhetoric, the real and demonstrable dangerous rhetoric that’s been on display for all to see comes from the very fools who have been pointing the finger. The best way to stop vitriol is not to limit free speech, but to call it out when you see it.
[...]
Should the anti-conservative hate speech and threats continue, we’ll simply keep calling them out for all to see. With or without the help of YouTube.

Obama: "It's not MY fault!"

Referring to the shooting of Gabrelle Giffords and others in Tucson, President Obama disagreed with the legacy media.

"Let's remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy. It did not."

Self preservation forced Obama to reject condemnation of others for their rhetoric because of the violent language coming out of his own mouth.

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” ~Barack Hussein Obama
Get out there and “punish our enemies” ~Barack Hussein Obama
“I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I’m angry!” ~Barack Hussein Obama
“Punch back twice as hard.” ~Barack Hussein Obama
I want to know “whose ass to kick” ~Barack Hussein Obama
“I’m itching for a fight.” ~Barack Hussein Obama

Vanderbilt Required Nurses to Pledge to Murder

Vanderbilt breaks the law, denies having broken the law, proves they know the allegations are true by ceasing to break the law, and gets away with all of it.

Voila! Vanderbilt drops abortion demand

Only one day after WND reported on a complaint filed by a team of Christian attorneys over Vanderbilt University's requirement that nursing students pledge to participate in abortions, the requirement has been dropped.
[...]
Bowman had explained the Vanderbilt policy violated the law providing that any institution receiving federal grants cannot force, coerce or otherwise require an individual to assist in abortions.
[...]
In a statement one day earlier, Vanderbilt University Medical Center spokesman John Howser said the ADF was mistaken.

2011 Index of Economic Freedom

The U.S. no longer ranks among the worlds freest economies.
[...]
The global average increased as many countries embraced the policies the U.S. once championed.

Sarah Palin Shames Her False Accusers

Sarah Palin: "America's Enduring Strength" from Sarah Palin on Vimeo.

Transcript:

Like millions of Americans I learned of the tragic events in Arizona on Saturday, and my heart broke for the innocent victims. No words can fill the hole left by the death of an innocent, but we do mourn for the victims’ families as we express our sympathy.

I agree with the sentiments shared yesterday at the beautiful Catholic mass held in honor of the victims. The mass will hopefully help begin a healing process for the families touched by this tragedy and for our country.

Our exceptional nation, so vibrant with ideas and the passionate exchange and debate of ideas, is a light to the rest of the world. Congresswoman Giffords and her constituents were exercising their right to exchange ideas that day, to celebrate our Republic’s core values and peacefully assemble to petition our government. It’s inexcusable and incomprehensible why a single evil man took the lives of peaceful citizens that day.

There is a bittersweet irony that the strength of the American spirit shines brightest in times of tragedy. We saw that in Arizona. We saw the tenacity of those clinging to life, the compassion of those who kept the victims alive, and the heroism of those who overpowered a deranged gunman.

Like many, I’ve spent the past few days reflecting on what happened and praying for guidance. After this shocking tragedy, I listened at first puzzled, then with concern, and now with sadness, to the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event.

President Reagan said, “We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.” Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election.

The last election was all about taking responsibility for our country’s future. President Obama and I may not agree on everything, but I know he would join me in affirming the health of our democratic process. Two years ago his party was victorious. Last November, the other party won. In both elections the will of the American people was heard, and the peaceful transition of power proved yet again the enduring strength of our Republic.

Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions. And after the election, we shake hands and get back to work, and often both sides find common ground back in D.C. and elsewhere. If you don’t like a person’s vision for the country, you’re free to debate that vision. If you don’t like their ideas, you’re free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

There are those who claim political rhetoric is to blame for the despicable act of this deranged, apparently apolitical criminal. And they claim political debate has somehow gotten more heated just recently. But when was it less heated? Back in those “calm days” when political figures literally settled their differences with dueling pistols? In an ideal world all discourse would be civil and all disagreements cordial. But our Founding Fathers knew they weren’t designing a system for perfect men and women. If men and women were angels, there would be no need for government. Our Founders’ genius was to design a system that helped settle the inevitable conflicts caused by our imperfect passions in civil ways. So, we must condemn violence if our Republic is to endure.

As I said while campaigning for others last March in Arizona during a very heated primary race, “We know violence isn’t the answer. When we ‘take up our arms’, we’re talking about our vote.” Yes, our debates are full of passion, but we settle our political differences respectfully at the ballot box – as we did just two months ago, and as our Republic enables us to do again in the next election, and the next. That’s who we are as Americans and how we were meant to be. Public discourse and debate isn’t a sign of crisis, but of our enduring strength. It is part of why America is exceptional.

No one should be deterred from speaking up and speaking out in peaceful dissent, and we certainly must not be deterred by those who embrace evil and call it good. And we will not be stopped from celebrating the greatness of our country and our foundational freedoms by those who mock its greatness by being intolerant of differing opinion and seeking to muzzle dissent with shrill cries of imagined insults.

Just days before she was shot, Congresswoman Giffords read the First Amendment on the floor of the House. It was a beautiful moment and more than simply “symbolic,” as some claim, to have the Constitution read by our Congress. I am confident she knew that reading our sacred charter of liberty was more than just “symbolic.” But less than a week after Congresswoman Giffords reaffirmed our protected freedoms, another member of Congress announced that he would propose a law that would criminalize speech he found offensive.

It is in the hour when our values are challenged that we must remain resolved to protect those values. Recall how the events of 9-11 challenged our values and we had to fight the tendency to trade our freedoms for perceived security. And so it is today.

Let us honor those precious lives cut short in Tucson by praying for them and their families and by cherishing their memories. Let us pray for the full recovery of the wounded. And let us pray for our country. In times like this we need God’s guidance and the peace He provides. We need strength to not let the random acts of a criminal turn us against ourselves, or weaken our solid foundation, or provide a pretext to stifle debate.

America must be stronger than the evil we saw displayed last week. We are better than the mindless finger-pointing we endured in the wake of the tragedy. We will come out of this stronger and more united in our desire to peacefully engage in the great debates of our time, to respectfully embrace our differences in a positive manner, and to unite in the knowledge that, though our ideas may be different, we must all strive for a better future for our country. May God bless America.

The Pot Calling the Kettle Hateful

Traitors once again leap to accuse patriots of inciting violence in spite of all evidence to the contrary, all the while continuing to ignore the ubiquitous vitriol from the Left.
Angelic spitfire, Michelle Malkin, has assembled an extensive, though not exhaustive, presentation of leftist violence and expressions of bitter, vicious hatred from communists, anti-Americans, gender confusion activists, and other atheists and tyrants directed toward conservatives and Republicans. Excerpted is only the brief bit at the end consisting of quotes from the U.S. President who has demonstrated a proclivity for violent language.

The progressive “climate of hate:” An illustrated primer, 2000-2010

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” — Not Sarah Palin
Get out there and “punish our enemies” — Not Mitch McConnell
“I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I’m angry!” — Not Rush Limbaugh
“Punch back twice as hard.” – Not John Boehner
I want to know “whose ass to kick” — Not Sean Hannity
“…I’m itching for a fight.” – Yep, him again

Court-Ordered Atheism

A government bureaucrat in New Hampshire and a court in the state presume to force a child to attend public school because they don't like her strong Christian faith. The arrogance here is mind-boggling. Not only should individuals be fired or impeached, and not only should there be civil harassment suits filed, but there must be criminal charges brought against any who would so flagrantly trample someone's civil rights.

I can think of very little that is more deeply offensive and perverse than some measly, arrogant, power-mad pencil-pusher trying to interfere with a parent's authority and love for her child, especially in an effort to promote statism and atheism.

Court asked to give up control of student's religion

The Supreme Court in New Hampshire today was asked to reverse a lower court decision that ordered a homeschooled student who was "well liked, social and interactive with her peers, academically promising and intellectually at or superior to grade level" into a public school because she was too "vigorous" in defense of her Christian faith.

"Parents have a fundamental right to make educational choices for their children," said John Anthony Simmons, an attorney allied with the Alliance Defense Fund.

"Courts can settle disputes, but they cannot legitimately order a child into a government-run school on the basis that her religious views need to be mixed with other views. That's precisely what the lower court admitted it is doing in this case, and that's where our concern lies," Simmons said.
[...]
According to court documents, the guardian ad litem earlier had told the mother, "If I want her in public school, she'll be in public school."

The EPA Serves Obama's Anti-American Agenda

EPA's Texas Power Grab

So why is the US Environmental Protection Agency sending federal agents to Texas – to arrest the state’s economy for the “crime” of emitting carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4)? Texas is also challenging EPA over other arbitrary new air pollution standards, but that’s another article.

Cowboys and cowgirls recognize CO2 as the plant-fertilizing “gas of life” and CH4 as natural gas and cow farts.
[...]
But EPA says they are “greenhouse gases” that cause “runaway global warming.” So the ideologues who run this agency are telling Texas to start regulating its power plants and refineries into bankruptcy or oblivion – or EPA goons will take over its air quality programs and economy.
[...]
Ms. Jackson willfully ignores the immense harm that driving up energy prices will have on jobs, state revenues, people’s health and welfare, and even human lives. But her views are supported by scientists like Dr. Richard Alley, Michael Mann’s colleague at Pennsylvania State University, all handsomely paid by EPA and other federal agencies for raising alarms about global warming.
[...]
The alarmists need to get their computer models, scenarios, scare stories and climate cops out of Texas. If they don’t, Governor Perry and his Texas Rangers should arrest them for violating Lone Star rights to energy, jobs, health and the American Dream.

The Key New Year's Resolution: Stop the EPA

EPA has declared that carbon dioxide endangers the health of Americans, and the agency is using this "finding" to justify regulating anything that emits carbon dioxide. As Upton and Phillips note in their piece, many businesses have recovered from their shock at such a naked grab for power and are fighting back in the courts, but EPA is rushing forward with regulations to try and put its radical overlay on America's private sector before the courts can even respond to the claims. President Obama gets no questions on this somewhat complicated subject from his cheerleaders in the White Hous e press corps and so the largest grab for regulatory control unsupported by explicit legislation in our nation's history moves forward.
[...]
The carbon dioxide rules are thus a threat not just to the economy but also to the whole notion of self-government, and are the prime example of where bureaucratized administrative states move when allowed to assert authority unchecked by popularly-elected representatives.
[...]
An agency this radical needs gutting and overhaul, not tweaking, and Administrator Jackson needs to be in front of House committees for days on end, under oath and answering the toughest questions about her views on the agency's plans and legal authorities. Ms. Browner needs a subpoena as well backed up by legal action to compel testimony if she asserts executive privilege as President Obama has radically expanded the Office of the Presidency in an attempt to avoid the sort of balance and oversight on which separation-of-powers was premised.

If the EPA is not tamed in 2011, its regulatory reach will grow and grow. The agency has shrewdly begun its government-by-decree via diktats issued to power plants and refineries, obviously hoping that most Americans won't recognize that the precedent being set by these rules will apply to every business or operation in the U.S. that emits carbon dioxide. The fight to stop the EPA from crippling the power grid has immediate consequences to consumers but even greater consequences down the road for every citizen.

The president's willingness to indulge and indeed encourage such radical behavior should be a huge issue in the 2012 presidential campaign.

Planned Parenthood Promotes Sex for Children

Planned Parenthood Launches New Sex Ed Program for Kids

As they have in the past, the abortion giant is seeking to push comprehensive sexual education on young people, and now it is taking the campaign further with a push to reach children. As CNS News reports in a new article:

Specifically, Planned Parenthood’s Web site announced the group is preparing to launch a nationwide “social change initiative” to end the “stigma and shame about sex” in American culture. The project aims to teach parents and caregivers how to educate children about sex — from birth. And it recommends telling teenagers about masturbation, oral sex and “where to go for help to prepare to be sexually active.”

Totalitarianism Through Technology, Episode 4

Another Homeland Security Overreach: DHS Starts Seizing Websites

The always interesting Business Insider has this report:

The Department of Homeland Security’s ICE has launched a major crackdown on websites enabling copyright infringement or selling counterfeits of trademarked goods. In just the past few days ICE has seized at least 12 domains, TorrentFreak reports.

Knowingly violating someone’s copyright is rightfully against the law.
[...]
Still, this part of the article bothers me:

The owner of an affected site told TorrentFreak that his domain was taken over without any prior complaints or notification from the court.

Here are the two critical points:

So, the sites were seized before the site’s owner heard any charges or had the chance to submit any counter evidence in court. The owners of the sites had their property seized without being allowed to defend themselves.
[...]
But, the article begs an even bigger question: What the hell do fake Guccis have to do with homeland security?

Property seizure without due process is flat out against the law, and one of the reasons explicit in the Declaration of Independence for our secession from Britain. How could copyright infringement be a threat to national security?

The questions we should all be asking:

In the aftermath of 9-11, when the creation of DHS was being debated, would your opinion have been swayed if you knew that, within just a few years, the proposed agency would be seizing websites peddling fake purses? Did you imagine that the proposed agency would soon demand to take naked photographs of randomly-selected U.S. citizens? Or, insist on its authority to physically grope children?
Now, ask yourself this: What will the Agency be doing 10 years from now? Or, 20? In a little more than half a decade, DHS has morphed from protecting us from terrorists to protecting us from fake merchandise. Who is going to protect us from DHS?

Totalitarianism Through Technology, Episode 3

Feds Warrantlessly Tracking Americans’ Credit Cards in Real Time

The document, obtained by security researcher Christopher Soghoian, explains how so-called “Hotwatch” orders allow for real-time tracking of individuals in a criminal investigation via credit card companies, rental car agencies, calling cards, and even grocery store loyalty programs. The revelation sheds a little more light on the Justice Department’s increasing power and willingness to surveil Americans with little to no judicial or Congressional oversight.
[...]
Then the agent sends a request for “Any and all records and information relating directly or indirectly to any and all ongoing and future transactions or events relating to any and all of the following person(s), entitities, account numbers, addresses and other matters…” That gets them a live feed of transaction data.
[...]
It’s not clear what standards an agent would have to follow to get a “Hotwatch” order. The Justice Department told Soghoian the document is the only one it could find relating to “hotwatches” — which means there is either no policy or the department is witholding relevant documents.

The Justice Department did not return a call for comment.

Every year, the Justice Department does have to report to Congress the numbers of criminal and national security wiretaps undertaken, as well as the number of National Security Letters issued. Tens of thousands of NSLs are issued yearly — most with gag orders that forbid ISPs or librarians from ever saying they have ever been served with such a subpoena.

But the Justice Department does not report or make public the number of times it got real time or historic cell phone location information, nor how often it is using these so-called “hotwatch” orders.

Obama Surrenders to Native Americans

Obama to give Manhattan back to Native Americans?

President Obama is voicing support for a U.N. resolution that could accomplish something as radical as relinquishing some U.S. sovereignty and opening a path for the return of ancient tribal lands to American Indians, including even parts of Manhattan.

The issue is causing alarm among legal experts.

In recent remarks at the White House during a "tribal nations conference," Obama endorsed the "United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People," which includes a sweeping declaration that "indigenous peoples have a right to lands and resources they traditionally occupied or otherwise used" but that later were acquired by occupying forces.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

...and Muslims obeyed the Koran.

Nigeria: Pastor killed in front of his church, other churches targeted in arson rampage

Still more jihadist violence to report against Nigerian churches on Christmas Eve. "Christmas Eve tragedy: Serial blasts, arson in Jos, Borno," by Moses Gbande and Gbenga Akinkugbethe for the Nigerian Compass, December 25:

While the world prepared for the celebration of Christmas yesterday, the residents of Jos, in Plateau State, and Maiduguri, in Borno State were thrown into tears, blood and death .
At least four successive bomb explosions rocked Jos, killing no fewer than 30 people, while suspected members of the Boko Haram sect unleashed mayhem on Maiduguri.
[...]
A pastor of the Baptist Church , Rev. Bulus T. Narya, was confirmed killed at the front of his church at the Alamderi Dala area of the city and the place of worship was set ablaze.

H/T Atlas Shrugs

That's what Christmas is All About, Charlie Brown

New Jersey Senator Believes in 'Global Warming'.... and Santa Claus

Dear Santa: 'Global warming' is ruining Christmas

U.S Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., is worried that "there is probably nothing we can do in time" to save Santa's workshop from the effects of "global warming."

"Dear Santa Claus," Menendez writes in a letter published in the left-leaning Huffington Post, "I am writing out of concern, because you may have to move from the North Pole due to the dramatic melting of Arctic sea ice."
[...]
"I'm supportive of the EPA power, and I think we have the votes to sustain it," New Jersey's Star-Ledger reports Menendez affirming, "but it will be close."

Islamic Hypocrisy

'CHRISTMAS IS EVIL': MUSLIM GROUP LAUNCHES POSTER CAMPAIGN AGAINST FESTIVE PERIOD

Devout Muslims have launched a campaign against Christmas, blaming the beautiful holiday for sex diseases, whores, abortions, pedophilia (pot, meet kettle).

Hmmmmm. What's the response to this blasphemy? Are Christians burning down mosques? Are Christians wielding machetes, amputating the limbs of Muslims? Are Christians locking Muslims in mosques and setting them aflame? Are there worldwide riots, thousands of cars set afire, police cars trashed, buses destroyed, non-Muslims attacked?

Totalitarianism Through Technology, Episode 2

Is Obama's tyrannical power grab designed to make U.S. citizens eager for tyrannical Congressional legislation?

Morning Bell: It’s Time to Stop the FCC Internet Czars

Imagine a future where the Internet is governed by unelected bureaucrats in Washington, DC, who rule at their own whim, regardless of legislators’ demands or judicial rule. Sadly, that future is now.
[...]
And while the threat of unnecessary and harmful government regulation is worrisome, the way in which the FCC is pursuing its expanded powers is flat out alarming. Federal agencies like the FCC only have power as granted to them by Congress under the law. In this case, the FCC is charging forward full steam ahead, ignoring both Congress and the courts in order to act as it pleases — in effect, making the FCC commissioners self-proclaimed Internet Czars.

Wave goodbye to Internet freedom
FCC crosses the Rubicon into online regulation

With a straight face, Mr. Genachowski suggested that government red tape will increase the "freedom" of online services that have flourished because bureaucratic busybodies have been blocked from tinkering with the Web.

The FCC's Threat to Internet Freedom

Nothing is broken that needs fixing, however. The Internet has been open and freedom-enhancing since it was spun off from a government research project in the early 1990s. Its nature as a diffuse and dynamic global network of networks defies top-down authority. Ample laws to protect consumers already exist. Furthermore, the Obama Justice Department and the European Commission both decided this year that net-neutrality regulation was unnecessary and might deter investment in next-generation Internet technology and infrastructure.

Analysts and broadband companies of all sizes have told the FCC that new rules are likely to have the perverse effect of inhibiting capital investment, deterring innovation, raising operating costs, and ultimately increasing consumer prices. Others maintain that the new rules will kill jobs. By moving forward with Internet rules anyway, the FCC is not living up to its promise of being "data driven" in its pursuit of mandates—i.e., listening to the needs of the market.
[...]
To date, the FCC hasn't ruled out increasing its power further by using the phone monopoly laws, directly or indirectly regulating rates someday, or expanding its reach deeper into mobile broadband services. The most expansive regulatory regimes frequently started out modest and innocuous before incrementally growing into heavy-handed behemoths.

On this winter solstice, we will witness jaw-dropping interventionist chutzpah as the FCC bypasses branches of our government in the dogged pursuit of needless and harmful regulation. The darkest day of the year may end up marking the beginning of a long winter's night for Internet freedom.

Mr. McDowell is a Republican commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission.

Nothing Changed This Week-The FCC Still Has No Authority to Regulate the Internet

What was true before FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s Tuesday midnight run to grab power over the Web remains true today – the FCC does not have the authority to do what they have just announced they will do on December 21st.

Unless and until the Congress enacts law making it so, the FCC doesn’t have the authority to do anything. December’s vote to commandeer control of the Internet is no more legitimate than – and just as capricious as – if they were to vote themselves masters of all the nation’s pizza joints.

The FCC – no government agency – can just decide they want to regulate an industry – and then vote themselves power over it. That’s not constitutional, representative, limited government – that’s Hugo Chavez-style expropriative despotism.

And it’s not as if The Chairman has been suffering from a dearth of people pointing out his lack of authority. We have repeatedly pointed it out. And it hasn’t just been us.

In April, the D.C. Circuit Court said so, unanimously ruling the obvious – that the Commission does not have the authority to do anything to the Internet.

Then 302 members of Congress said the same – a large bipartisan majority. So then did more than 150 organizations, state legislators and bloggers, seventeen minority groups (that are usually almost always in Democrat lockstep) and many additional normally Democrat paragons including several large unions, several racial grievance groups and at least one anti-free market environmentalist group.

And then The Chairman officially announced his intent to usurp authority.

Obama's mystery proposal to regulate the Internet

In their net neutrality quest, Genachowski and two of his fellow Democratic appointees are working to expand government power into an area where the commission has no jurisdiction, under the guise of solving a problem that does not exist.
[...]
This exercise in government opacity and overreach is already damaging the economy. As major telecommunications and Internet service companies prepare to roll out new fourth generation (4G) wireless service for millions of customers, these unelected bureaucratic commissars are recklessly creating doubt about the future value and profitability of those companies' investments. They are also discouraging future investments that need to be made for the Internet to continue its phenomenal growth.

Federal courts will almost certainly strike down anything the FCC adopts Tuesday, just as they did earlier this year. Congress will also have its chance to undo Genachowski's handiwork through the Congressional Review Act. But why should we have to go this far to rein in a government agency supposedly run by people who took an oath to "support and defend" our Constitution? Is Obama unable to make his own appointees obey the law? Either way, the new Congress should hold Obama accountable for what the FCC is now doing in his name.

Conservatives Plan Countermeasures to Neutralize FCC Internet Edict

More than 300 members of Congress from both parties contacted the FCC in the spring, demanding they defer to Capitol Hill on rules governing the internet, and the DC Circuit Court of Appeals dealt the FCC’s online regulatory ambitions a severe rebuke in April. The American people had their say on the matter, too: All 95 Congressional candidates who ran on an explicitly pro-net neutrality platform in 2010 lost.

Despite clear opposition from two branches of the federal government and the American people, the FCC has forged ahead with its aggressive regulations.
[...]
The subtext to this brewing fight is the question of how far Congress will allow the executive branch to implement its agenda through increased regulation and rulemaking, bypassing the legislative process. This approach was advocated in a 54-page report published by the liberal Center for American Progress in November. “Pushing back against the FCC will set the tone for the next two years about how aggressive the Obama administration can be in pursing regulatory regimes. This fight is the first opportunity for Congress to show whether it has the will to stand up to these executive branch power grabs,” Kerpen said.
[...]
Both Blackburn and Kerpen also mentioned the appropriations process as a safety net solution to impeding a regulatory onslaught, if legislative fixes fall short. “If the Congressional Review Act fails, we can look to appropriations to starve any funding for enforcement,” Kerpen said.

A Pigford Sty of Corruption and Fraud, Part 3

The legacy media is deeply entrenched in Statism. As a result, they would never expose a Statist president for his or his administration's involvement in corruption. But this one isn't going to go away easily. It will have to be addressed. How will the anti-American, Statist legacy media ultimately spin this story?

The Pigford Case and Why the NY Times Doesn’t Want to Talk About It

This is pretty amazing in a number of ways:

This should be a case about public corruption, one that involves the President since he recently signed off on more money for this settlement. There are three reasons it’s not on the front page of the NY Times.

Reason 1: There were some real victims here, black victims. That’s shameful. No one likes to linger on their shame, especially not the government. And that goes for media outlets who, by and large, are on the current administration’s side.

Reason 2: If this was investigated it would undoubtedly uncover hundreds of people who took advantage of the system, all of them black. No one at the Times or the Post wants to portray blacks as victimizers of the public trust. Exposing something like this as reality would be a blow to the liberal narrative about government handouts and minorities. The Times won’t lend credence to what they see as a negative stereotype, i.e. “welfare queens.”

Reason 3: And this may be the biggest one of all. Andrew Breitbart broke the story. The liberal media is emotionally invested in Breitbart’s failure. You could see that in the grudging way they covered the ACORN story. You could see it in the gleeful way they covered the Shirley Sherrod story. They refuse to give him a win, especially one which would rehabilitate his image and make him more powerful going into 2012. They hate him. It’s obviously a factor in this situation.

There are only three courses left to the MSM. One, pretend it isn’t happening or, at best, frame the complaints as the product of far right troublemakers with no facts offered to back them up. That’s going to be increasingly difficult in light of this video tape, but it wouldn’t be the first time Times readers have gone without the facts.

Two, write a massive article full of pathos for the real victims and minimize or sidestep the fraud issue. In other words, let it be known that the Grey Lady has decided the good outweighs the bad so it’s okay to turn a blind eye on this one.

Three, investigate and let the chips fall where they may. Of all the options, this is the least likely. But you can just imagine how this would have been treated if Bush had signed off on it instead of Obama at a time of financial crisis and worries about deficits and government spending. It would have been front page news.

Gender Confusion Enforced by State of Georgia

Hope for Every Man

For those not aware, Keeton was threatened with expulsion from Augusta State University for refusing to submit to a re-education program run by state-employed university officials.
[...]
According to state officials, the principal “problem” was Keeton’s assertion that free will plays a role in homosexual conduct.
[...]
It is unclear how Boortz arrives at the conclusion that someone would find the phrase “You can change” to be more traumatic than the phrase “You cannot change.” Human beings have always been comforted by the idea that they have some control over their fate. To suggest that homosexuals are somehow emotionally traumatized by ideas that are found comforting by others is to suggest a high degree of emotional volatility. The idea is not only condescending but lacks any basis in reality.
[...]
The State of Georgia is attempting to do no less than force a student to articulate a position that has been empirically falsified; namely, that the genetic influence upon homosexuality is so complete as to nullify free will. Their motivation is predicated upon a second falsehood; namely, that the first falsehood promotes self-esteem.
[...]
Jesus did not come into the world to establish government programs that teach people there is nothing wrong with them and that they lack the ability to change. He came into this world to save sinners. But His offer is available only to those willing to acknowledge their sin and willing to change. And He gives us the power to change even when talk show hosts tell us we cannot.

We live in a world that hates God – so much so that it nailed Him to a cross. But Hope was resurrected and is there for every man today. And that is our greatest source of comfort in a world that preaches hopelessness.

Abortion Industry Continues to Abet Rape

Judge: Planned Parenthood Rushed Abortion on Sexually Abused Teen

Hurley also told the newspaper there is one more issue remaining to be resolved in courts — the matter of whether Planned Parenthood violated state law requiring abortion centers to notify parents when their teenager daughter is considering an abortion.

Also, under Ohio state law, such a case of sexual abuse or statutory rape is required to be reported to appropriate law enforcement officials.
[...]
Hurley said he’s obtained a handwritten note from Planned Parenthood that mentions the phrase, “Don’t ask/don’t tell” and said the note was from a Planned Parenthood trainer, Julia Piercey.

“So, to me, their position is laughable,” Hurley told the Cincinnati Enquirer. “It came from their own files, from their own trainer.”

Inmates Run the Asylum, Episode 2

Terrorist Supporter Teaches Next Generation of Diplomats At One of America’s Best Conservative Liberal Arts Colleges

Today, Professor Bassam Frangieh, director of the Middle East studies program, teaches Arabic to the next generation of “leaders in the making.” The new program was founded with the high hopes that they will join the diplomatic corps and promote peace in the Middle East. If Claremont McKenna’s president, Pamela Gann, has her way, that program will have a study abroad component in the Middle East (most likely in Jordan).

But Frangieh, as seen in an investigation I published in The Claremont Independent, a student news magazine of the Claremont Colleges, supports two terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah. He looks to Hamas, a group designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization with “with great pleasure,” and signed a petition that supported Hezbollah and condemned Israel as a “Zionist killing machine.”
[...]
Frangieh endorsed the most barbarous of attacks – suicide bombing – in a 2000 essay he wrote that celebrated Arab poet “martyrs” who fought Israel. That fight is justified because, according to Frangieh, Arabs have suffered the “most devastating blow” with “the creation of the state of Israel and the transformation of the Palestinians into a stateless people.” (He ignores that Israel allows Palestinians not living in the territories to vote and serve as members of the Knesset.)

Here’s what Frangieh wrote in that essay:

Nietzsche wrote, “The ideal condition cannot be achieved by dreaming, we must fight and struggle to achieve it.” Clearly, the fights and struggles of isolated poets and individuals have not succeeded in making change. Even if the best one hundred Arab poets loaded themselves with dynamite and exploded in the streets of Arab capitals, it would not be enough. For real change to come about, thousands of people will have to die; thousands must martyr themselves. It appears that only massive revolution will succeed in overturning the corrupt regimes of the Arab world. Only then can significant and radical change take place. [Emphasis added]

[...]
Given Frangieh’s views and his role in training future diplomats, every American, every real lover of peace, ought to ask for an explanation, if not his dismissal.

The "Tax Cut Compromise" Isn't

Swindle of the year

Barack Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 - and House Democrats don't have a clue that he did. In the deal struck this week, the president negotiated the biggest stimulus in American history, larger than his $814 billion 2009 stimulus package. It will pump a trillion borrowed Chinese dollars into the U.S. economy over the next two years - which just happen to be the two years of the run-up to the next presidential election. This is a defeat?

Totalitarianism Through Technology, Episode 1

Washington Set to Control Your Light Switch

The next step in Green won’t even require Congressional approval. The Department of Energy recently decided they have authority over appliances in your home.
[...]
Smart Grid sounds harmless and modern, but it will be incredibly intrusive. Appliances in the future will have microchips installed; when you plug them in, they will handshake with the grid, and a central authority will determine whether that appliance deserves to get power or not. If a bureaucrat in Washington decides that it’s not hot enough for you to put on the air conditioner, your air conditioner will not work. If the Fed decides that Margaritas lead to too much trouble on Cinco de Mayo, all blenders can be disabled for the day.

They can also turn off radios, televisions and computers. In the era of electronic information, restricting the freedom of the press is as easy as turning off the light. The idea is to conserve power, but a Smart Government will be able to use the technology to retain power as well.

A Spy is a Spy is a Spy

Like a Condom, the First Amendment Can't Protect You

First of all, I feel so much more confident that the TSA's nude photos of airline passengers will never be released now that I know the government couldn't even prevent half a million classified national security documents from being posted on WikiLeaks.
[...]
Among the criminal laws apparently broken by Assange is 18 U.S.C. 793(e), which provides:

"Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, (etc. etc.) relating to the national defense, ... (which) the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates (etc. etc) the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same (etc) ...

"Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."

As is evident, merely being in unauthorized possession of classified national security documents that could be used to harm this country and publishing those documents constitutes a felony.
[...]
The entire public discussion about prosecuting Assange has been neurotically fixated on the First Amendment, as if that matters.
[...]
All this is completely irrelevant.

New York Times reporters are agitators intent on damaging our government, and they're considered "journalists." That doesn't mean they have carte blanche to hunt endangered species, refuse to pay their taxes or embezzle money. The First Amendment isn't a Star Trek "energy field" that protects journalists from phasers, photon torpedoes, lasers, rockets and criminal prosecutions.
[...]
Assange would be prosecuted for committing the crime of possessing and releasing classified national security documents that could do this country harm. The First Amendment has no bearing whatsoever on whether Assange has committed this particular crime, so whether or not Assange is a "journalist" is irrelevant.

The problem here is that people get their information from the media, which is written by journalists, and journalists have spent the last half-century trying to persuade everyone that laws don't apply to them.

If a fully certified, bona fide, grade-A "journalist," rushing to get a story, swerves his car onto a sidewalk and mows down 20 pedestrians, he's committed a crime. It doesn't matter that he was engaged in the vital First Amendment-protected activity of news-gathering.
[...]
If Assange had unauthorized possession of any national defense document that he had reason to believe could be used to injure the United States, and he willfully communicated that to any person not entitled to receive it, Assange committed a felony, and it wouldn't matter if he were Lois Lane, my favorite reporter.

Liberty in Cali, of All Places

L.A. Parents Pull the Trigger on School Choice

The parents are making use of a new California law, called the Parent Trigger, which gives them the power to impose sweeping changes on failing schools.



[...]
Under this law, if the majority of a school’s parents agree, they can choose to close down the school, replace the entire staff, or convert it to a charter school. All that is required is a petition signed by 50 percent of the parents.
On December 7, accompanied by a horde of news cameras, a McKinley Elementary parent representative made history when she delivered a petition (signed by 62 percent of parents) to the district’s superintendent demanding that that school become a charter school.
“This is the beginning of a new future of our kids,” parent leader Ismenia Guzman was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying.
As a result, a charter school operator will be given control of the school. Like any charter school, the operators will have to meet agreed-upon goals in order to have their contract renewed.
What makes this story so encouraging is the fact that parents were given power over their child’s education. No longer will parents be forced to watch helplessly from the sidelines as their child becomes trapped in a failing school, at least in California.

A Pigford Sty of Corruption and Fraud, Part 2

A Black Farmer Blows the Whistle on the Black Farmer Settlement

I have 200 acres in Arkansas and have raised hogs.
Pigford is the biggest rip-off this country has ever known, and there are lots of people in positions of power that know it. Politicians are using it to buy votes. Trial lawyers are using it to get rich.

I personally know of people who have no connection to farming at all who got Pigford checks. People with potted plants in their apartments claimed to be farmers and got paid. I saw an instance where eight Pigford checks went to one house. There are drug addicts and pushers who have received payments who have never farmed a day in their life.
[...]
Congress needs to investigate Pigford immediately. I believe that probably 80 to 90% of Pigford claims are fraudulent. I know that its at least 300 cases in Arkansas alone. By investigating this fraud we are opening up a can of worms. But it needs to be done. Justice demands it.

Hallelujah! But the Fight is Far From Over

Judge torpedoes Obamacare, warns of 'unbridled fed police'

"A thorough survey of pertinent constitutional case law has yielded no reported decisions from any federal appellate courts extending the Commerce Clause or General Welfare Clause to encompass regulation of a person's decision not to purchase a product, notwithstanding its effect on interstate commerce or role in a global regulatory scheme," the judge said.

And he warned, "The unchecked expansion of congressional power to the limits suggested by the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision would invite unbridled exercise of federal police powers."
[...]
The judge said the mandate "is neither within the letter nor the spirit of the Constitution."

Inconvenient Weather, Sweet Irony

The Global Warming Summit in Copenhagen was unseasonably cold, and thus embarrassing, so this year's summit was planned for Cancun, Mexico. Surely, it will be nice and toasty in Mexico!

Irony alert: The unusually chilly global-warming summit

The irony: As negotiators from nearly 200 countries met in Cancun to strategize ways to keep the planet from getting hotter, the temperature in the seaside Mexican city plunged to a 100-year record low of 54° F.

They might be able to save the planet if they'd just have more of these 'summits'.

The Annual American Assault on Christ

Score One for Judeo-Christian Culture

We in America, and in the West as a whole, need to stop apologizing for our culture. We –or more accurately those who came before us- have created something great, and that is why people leave their non-Christian nations to come here and to other Western nations. How dare anyone say they have a right to the benefits of our society while at the same time attacking the root of our culture?

The norm needs to be reinforced: At Christmas time, we are celebrating the birth of the historical figure who gave rise to our culture, Jesus Christ. We who celebrate Christmas should be vocal in saying that we are offended when Christmas is ripped out of public life. Those who do not celebrate can bloody well not celebrate. It is selfish and insulting to demand that the majority alter something sacred, simply for the convenience or comfort of an unreasonable minority.

Well said.

Gender Confusion Doublespeak

Gender Benders Wage War On Sports

Kye Allums, a shooting guard on the George Washington University women's basketball team, has decided that she is a he. Changing her name from "Kay-Kay," Allums is believed to be the first Division I college basketball player to go public about being a "transgender" person.

The obvious question is whether Allums would still be able to compete. You can't have men playing in a women's basketball program, and it's more than awkward to have a man showering with the women in the locker room. Spurred by a track-and-field controversy four years ago, NCAA rules prohibit sexual reassignment surgery or hormone treatments for athletes to retain their eligibility. Allums, a junior, has pledged to forego those steps while she retains her eligibility for college basketball.

But in the meantime, in the midst of a culture that doesn't dare utter a discouraging word about gender denial and genital self-mutilation, Allums is listed on the GWU website as a male member of the women's basketball team. All the press reports swoon about how "he" -- who remains a woman in every biological way -- is handling this so bravely as a role model: "I'm trying to be an example for other people to not be afraid of who they are."

So let's get this straight (so to speak). A woman expects to be an example to others of one who is not afraid to be who she is. She intends to do this by pretending to not be a woman. Her statement is ridiculously irrational. In fact, one might call it 'hysterical'. Far worse is the absence of any challenge to it. Apparently, her bizarre, deluded assertion is being condoned and accommodated by the GW sports program and whatever media is reporting on her denial of who she is. As a result, she gets no help to learn to become comfortable with her sexuality. In addition, she is a role-model, but one that encourages others who are sexually confused to embrace their confusion and deny their gender rather than to overcome whatever trauma led to their fear.

I'm reminded of Romans 1:18-32, but also of G.K. Chesterton's The Oracle of the Dog wherein Chesterton's recurring character Father Brown says, "It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense and can't see things as they are."

"Safe-sex" Hypocrisy

Just when you thought it was safe to have sex with a multitude of complete strangers...

The Diseases of Pornography

Derrick Burts, 24, started working as a porn-film actor in June. By October, he'd contracted the HIV virus. The AP story on Burts contained this jaw-dropping sentence: "He said he began to have doubts about the business after contracting chlamydia, gonorrhea and herpes in his first month of work, but was convinced to keep working."
[...]
Burts says the clinic told him he contracted the HIV virus at a gay porn shoot in Florida, but the clinic told the press that he must have become infected in his personal life.
[...]
Pornography isn't just unhealthy for our culture; it's unhealthy for the "talent" that star in these films, with the endless carousel of sex partners. It should be only a matter of time before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (or their California equivalent) starts investigating -- unless, of course, government officials are too afraid of appearing like squelchers of a Howard Stern version of "freedom of speech."

It's ironic that our news media are such evangelists for "safe sex" with condoms, and very critical of anyone who's anti-condom as a menace to society, but they haven't forced that latex gospel on the porn industry, despite the obvious threat of fatal sexually transmitted diseases between strangers on the set.
[...]
Our media just found it wildly controversial that the Pope might hypothetically suggest a male prostitute using a condom may be trying to show a health concern for others. But somehow, there is no controversy or debate when secular sexual progressives fail to crusade against pornographers on something so contrary to their own condom-promoting "safe sex" philosophy.

Inmates Run the Asylum, Episode 1

Islamists Training TSA Scanners! Yes, You Read That Correctly

According to a press release by the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), the organization recently completed training for 2,200 officers charged with protecting our nation’s air security. According to the release, the two-month training course highlighted “the diversity of Muslims around the world from cultural dress to language and tenets,” and “taught the TSOs how to properly handle a Quran and discussed the different ways Muslim women and men choose to cover or dress.”

Reliance upon MPAC to improve airport security is misplaced. The organization has not only defended designated terrorist organizations, but criticized U.S. counter-terrorism efforts including those aimed at securing airports.

Told Ya

The WikiLeaks Vindication of George W. Bush

The WikiLeaks de facto declassification of privileged material makes it case closed: Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction -- and intended to restart his program once the heat was off.
[...]
Let's recap.

Bush, in building the case for war against Iraq, lied to the nation. He falsely claimed that Iraq was attempting to purchase yellowcake from Africa. Time magazine specifically referred to the yellowcake "lie" in accusing Bush of fabricating the case for war. Therefore, were Iraq to have had yellowcake -- an assertion called a "lie" -- it would have confirmed the presence of WMD, giving credence to Bush's declaration of Iraq as a "grave and gathering threat."

But ... there ... was ... yellowcake. This brings us back to WikiLeaks.

Wired magazine's contributing editor Noah Shachtman -- a nonresident fellow at the liberal Brookings Institution -- researched the 400,000 WikiLeaked documents released in October. Here's what he found: "By late 2003, even the Bush White House's staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But WikiLeaks' newly-released Iraq war documents reveal that for years afterward, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins and uncover weapons of mass destruction (emphasis added). ... Chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam's toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict -- and may have brewed up their own deadly agents."

In 2008, our military shipped out of Iraq -- on 37 flights in 3,500 barrels -- what even The Associated Press called "the last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program": 550 metric tons of the supposedly nonexistent yellowcake. The New York Sun editorialized: "The uranium issue is not a trivial one, because Iraq, sitting on vast oil reserves, has no peaceful need for nuclear power. ... To leave this nuclear material sitting around the Middle East in the hands of Saddam ... would have been too big a risk."

Child Protective Services is the New Gestapo

Blogger accused of child neglect and mental abuse

When my child got home, I got a bigger shock! My child told me, child services had come to her school that day and interviewed her!
[...]
My child said, these are the questions they asked " Does your mother have SOLAR PANELS? Where Exactly does your mother take you camping? Where exactly have you gone hiking? Do you hike and then camp? Does anyone else go with you camping? What do you do when you go camping? Does your mother have alternative energy? Does your mother have stored food? Does your mother have any guns? Does your mother saying anything about "The end of the world"? What kind of remodeling has your mother done to your home? Do you have a "safe room", like a bomb shelter in your home?

***EDIT***12/5/10 9:20am est - I forgot to include another question, they asked my child: IF your mother takes you to church and exactly which church do you go to? They did not ask ME that question when I was interviewed - BUT they did ask the father that question in if he knew, if I take my child to church or not. I was surprised at this question, I thought there was a separation of Church and State and did not know those type questions were allowed. - END OF EDIT***

My child also said she told child services, her father does not live with me and there was shared custody and that included being at my house for one week and then her father's house for one week. So my child TOLD Child services the father and I did not live together! I was upset, as the woman then lied to me on the phone saying "She did not know the father didn't live here".
[...]
They were at my house for about one hour and after they left, I called my child's father, to let him know they were on their way.

After a few hours, my child's father called me and said "they had been at his house for 2 HOURS and the whole time, they were grilling them about ME"! He said, they asked him all kinds of things about my camping, and if HE knew where we went and what we did while camping! He also said "they said they were concerned, since I did not let them see the downstairs of my house". He said they asked him, if he knew what my blog was about and did he read it? He told them "mainly financial stuff and the diseases from last winter and if they were so worried about it, they could get on the internet and read it themselves".
[...]
Now here are my questions about this whole ordeal.............. and the accusations of Mental abuse and Neglect.........................

How does if I have Solar panels have anything to do with of those two accusations?

How does Where we go Camping have anything to do with those two accusations?

How does where we go hiking have anything to do with those two accusations?

How does what we do when we go camping have anything to do with those two accusations?

How does Who has ever gone camping with us, have anything to do with those two accusations?

How does if I have any stored food, have anything to do with those two accusations?

How does if I have an alternative heat source have anything to do with those two accusations?

I would like to know How doing Renovations on my house has anything to do with those two accusations?

How does what I write on my blog, have anything to do with those accusations?
[...]
I am now of the opinion, another branch of the government, possibly sent Child Services to my home.
[...]
I was fearful of revealing this information, in case child services could come back on me for it. But Dave Hodges explained "People NEED To know what is Happening" and "the more exposure to it, the less they can get you"!
[...]
So...... now the question is, are others who have been public about their opinions on varied subjects, have had the government check on them? Has child services been used in other cases where they asked bizarre questions, compared to abuse questions?
[...]
***Note*** I have talked to Dave Hodges yet again today, he feels after talking to someone else who is an expert in regards to child services, is that I was being profiled and assessed in what kind of "threat" I may be for homeland security.
[...]
***UPDATE 12/5/10 - 10:50am est - I realized last night, as I continued thinking about this CPS ordeal and still trying to put the pieces together - this CPS interview happened within days of a conference call I had with a couple of Large Class Action Law Firms - regarding "the strategy" and what needed to be done to begin Class Action Foreclosure Fraud Law Suits in all States. I have no idea if this was the catalyst to the CPS allegations. What is also interesting, is we were suppose to have another conference call, the day before this happened - that call did not happen and since the firms have not gotten back to me, yet Class Actions were suppose to begin. This was not information I wanted to release, it may or may not have something to do with this. End of Update**

H/T Verum Serum

Global Warming Paganism

Any conference for addressing mythical global warming would be incomplete without homage to imaginary gods.

Cancun talks start with a call to the gods

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, invoked the ancient jaguar goddess Ixchel in her opening statement to delegates gathered in Cancun, Mexico, noting that Ixchel was not only goddess of the moon, but also "the goddess of reason, creativity and weaving. May she inspire you -- because today, you are gathered in Cancun to weave together the elements of a solid response to climate change, using both reason and creativity as your tools."

A Pigford Sty of Corruption and Fraud, Part 1

In addition to being a concise, but thorough, summary by Breitbart himself of his exposure of NAACP racism in response to their media-complicit false accusations of racism against the Tea Party, it also introduces a report initiated to understand why Sherrod was fired, but producing evidence of yet another scandal of government fraud and corruption.

Me & Mrs. Sherrod — And The $1.25 Billion Pigford II Black Farmers’ Settlement

Despite the firestorm, there was still an unanswered question — why on God’s green earth was Shirley Sherrod fired?
[...]
My first clue came, ironically, from the epicenter of Breitbart-hate — MSNBC. It was a week into the controversy. Nation editor Chris Hayes was filling in for Rachel Maddow and reported that I was responsible for black farmers not getting their settlement money.
“Conservative con artist, 1; black farmers, 0,” liberal Journolist Hayes said snarkily.
Black farmers? Settlement money? I had no idea what he was talking about. None.
[...]
I started to research Pigford and the more we looked into it, the more I realized that this was not a story that could be researched and told quickly. In fact, it was still unfolding. And even now, it still is.
This coming Wednesday, President Obama is slated to sign the Pigford II settlement.
But that will not be the end of the story. The American people deserve a full investigation and accounting.
Today, we’re releasing a report called “The Pigford Shakedown: How the Black Farmers’ Cause Was Hijacked by Politicians, Trial Lawyers & Community Organizers — Leaving Us With a Billion Dollar Tab.”
What have we discovered about Pigford so far?
Treasure troves of information from Lexis and Google. USDA whistleblowers. A former FBI agent who was on the verge of indictments. One of the originally discriminated-against black farmers with the goods. All these people paint a very clear picture of widespread fraud, and can testify to a complex web of bad players, including politicians, trial attorneys and community organizers.
I stumbled on the Pigford story in my defense of the Tea Party, so it’s a sweet irony that the Pigford story is exactly the kind of mess that makes the Tea Party so necessary. Politicians and trial attorneys bonded together to rip off the taxpayer, and even those farmers that were discriminated against were royally screwed.
Let me be clear, our investigation convincingly leads us to believe the USDA practiced discrimination against black farmers. Those wrongs must be rectified. But Pigford is wrought with a grotesque amount of fraud, while the truly aggrieved were mostly left high and dry.
The Pigford tale is about government run amok. It is also an indictment of the American media that is so blinded by ideology that it missed the big story yet again because taking out a political enemy was far more expedient. And furthermore it is why the American people need the Tea Party and new media as a checks and balances on corrupt politicians and their corrupt journalist counterparts.
Today will be the first of many days that BigGoverment.com will release information, testimony and documents to make the case that, at the very least, the American taxpayer (and ESPECIALLY those legitimately discriminated-against black farmers) need a full accounting of the Pigford I and II settlements.

Class Warfare Exploded

"In the real world of American democracy, social and economic divisions are between the Cans and the Can-Nots, the Dos and the Do-Nots, the Wills and the Will-Nots. The vast majority of wealthy Americans, as a matter of empirical fact, are first generation wealthy and have created what they possess. In the process of creating wealth for themselves, they have created wealth for hundreds and sometimes thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of others. But to describe the wealthy as wealth earners and wealth creators - that is, to describe them accurately - is to explode the whole religious fantasy that gives meaning to radical lives, inspires the radicals’ war, and has been the source of the most repressive regimes and the greatest social disasters in the history of mankind." ~David Horowitz, Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model

Girl Murdered for Believing in Jesus

Consider this a companion piece to the previous post, Girls Just Wanna Have Guns.

Somali Teenage Girl Shot to Death for Embracing Christ

A 17-year-old girl in Somalia who converted to Christianity from Islam was shot to death last week in an apparent “honor killing,” area sources said.
[...]
Relatives buried Farah, sources said. Her parents had severely beaten her for leaving Islam and regularly shackled her to a tree at their home, Christian sources said. She had been confined to her home in Gedo region in southern Somalia since May 10, when her family found out that she had embraced Christianity, said a Christian leader who visited the area (see “Family of 17-Year-Old Somali Girl Abuses Her for Leaving Islam,” June 15).

Her parents also took her to a doctor who prescribed medication for a “mental illness,” he said. Alarmed by her determination to keep her faith, her father, Hassan Kafi Ilmi, and mother, Hawo Godane Haf, decided she had gone crazy and forced her to take the prescribed medication, but it had no effect in swaying her from her faith, the source said.

Traditionally, he added, many Somalis believe the Quran cures the sick, especially the mentally ill, so the Islamic scripture was recited to her twice a week.

She had declined her family’s offer of forgiveness in exchange for renouncing Christianity, the source said. The confinement began after the medication and punishments failed.

Area Christians had reported that Farah was shackled to a tree by day and put in a small, dark room at night.

Girls Just Wanna Have Guns

Girls Just Wanna Have Guns

I have a dream!

A dream where instead of reading about a cute college coed left dead and naked out in a vacant lot or bloated and floating in a river, the story reads: “dead jackass found double-tapped and dead on the curb as his soul wings its way to Hades—all because he messed with the wrong mama.”

Meet the Liberal Elite!

Brilliant... and thorough!



H/T Babalu

We The People

H/T The Borg Conspiracy

Bobby Jindal Interview

This is actually part one of the 3-video series. I already posted the 2nd and 3rd parts. In this segment, Bobby Jindal emphasizes the benefits and success of smaller, disciplined government.

Austrian MP Strikes Back

It's encouraging to see a European official who is not a cowardly Islamophobe or a suicidal multiculturalist.

Bobby Jindal Interview, part 2

Still loving the Exceptional America

Bobby Jindal on Immigration Policy

There he goes again, loving America.

Evangelical Legalism

Reclaiming the Doctrine of Justification

Here's what ails us...

This, however, did not bring him assurance, but only doubts. For his assurance depended, not so much on God's promise to the ungodly as ungodly (Rom.4:5), but on his ability to see growth and improvement in his Christian walk."
[...]
A few years ago Will Herberg and other commentators noted that a predominant aspect of North American religion was that we have faith in faith. One American evangelist, in fact, wrote a booklet, "How To Have Faith In Your Faith."
[...]
Some of the preaching in evangelicalism--certainly some of the Sunday school material, some of the primary addresses by retreat speakers and Christian leaders--all taken together as the basic spiritual diet, tend to reinforce that old intuition that good people are the ones who are saved and that those who are not so good are the ones who are lost.

Here's the cure...

The motif in the New Testament, and in the Reformation is that Christ's death was outside of me and for me. It is not primarily something that changes us. After one has been declared righteous by grace through faith, this grace will begin to change us (sanctification); nevertheless its changing us is certainly not what justifies us. In Roman Catholicism, and in John Wesley's work, what makes us acceptable to God is his internal work of renovation within our hearts and lives.
[...]
[T]he Reformation tradition acknowledges that there are biblical texts that speak of sanctification as complete already. This is not a perfection which is empirical or observable, but a definitive declaration that because we are "in Christ," we are set apart and holy by his sacrifice (1 Cor.1:30; Heb.10, etc.). Anybody who is in Christ is sanctified because his holiness is imputed to the Christian believer, just as Jesus says in John chapter seventeen, "For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified." God sees the believer as holy. That means that Wesley should not have terrified Christian brethren with texts such as, "Without holiness, no one will see the Lord." The Christian is holy--it's all imputed. And then there are texts that say, "Be holy as I am holy." What would the reformers do with that? They would say we are called to be holy. But why should we be holy if we are already perfect in Christ? Because we are saved unto good works, not unto licentiousness, according to Romans chapter six; the question has been asked before.
[...]
In other words, even a Christian can be saved.

You Get What You Vote For

This is what happens when the world carefully concludes that the U.S. president has no great love for America or for liberty. It's only natural that communist tyrants are emboldened when a communist lives in the White House.

North Korea fires artillery barrage on South

North Korea fired dozens of artillery shells onto a South Korean island on Tuesday, killing one person, setting homes ablaze and triggering an exchange of fire as the South's military went on top alert.

Congressional Treason

Treason in America: Move Over ‘Hanoi Jane’ – Meet ‘Baghdad Barbara,’ ‘Weasel Waxman,’ and ‘Jihad Jodie’

Shockingly and tragically, at the same time our servicemen were staring into the eyes of evil, Senator Barbara Boxer and Congressman Henry Waxman were conspiring with radical leftist groups Code Pink and Global Exchange. Groups who were committed to America’s defeat in Iraq and were providing aid and support to our nation’s enemies. In December 2004, Boxer and Waxman (along with fellow congressmen Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Raul Grijalva of Arizona) signed letters of diplomatic courtesy to the U.S. Embassy in Amman, Jordan, facilitating the transfer of more than $600,000 in cash and supplies to the insurgents and their families who were fighting and murdering U.S. servicemen and contractors in Fallujah. Henry Waxman’s letter, dated December 14, 2004, was addressed to American Consul General Daniel Goodspeed and requested assistance on behalf of radical anti-war groups Palisadians for Peace and Global Exchange.