CRASH: Obama's "Spiritual Advisers"

Barack Hussain Obama has very strange taste in people he calls "spiritual advisers".  Very, very strange.

In addition to the most prominent and long-serving, the Wrong Rev. Wright, Obama has CHOSEN as his guide the Wrong Rev. Al Sharpton.

Rev. Al is one of the LEAST Christian people I could name.  He is one of the LEAST "post-racial" people on the planet, relying as he does on keeping the racial wounds...real OR imagined...wide open and suppurating.  It has made him rich man, and obviously put him in the highest counsels on earth.

The Wrong Rev. Jim Wallis is another strange choice.  I would call him a "whited sepulcher", but the color is wrong.  A "redded sepulcher" seems more appropriate, since the odd theology of Rev. Jim closely resembles that of...say...Trotsky.

As noted before on this blog, lying is NOT a Christian value.  Rev. Jim is a demonstrated liar, among his many other failings, one of which is an obsession with TAKING what belongs to other people, and calling that "charity".

He is also a man who seems to fit the old office of the Pharisee. 

Last month, Marvin Olasky asked Wallis to admit his affiliations on the left when reported on the money from Soros in World magazine.

George Soros, one of the leading billionaire leftists—he has financed groups promoting abortion, atheism, same-sex marriage, and gargantuan government—bankrolled Sojourners with a $200,000 grant in 2004. A year later, here's how Jim rebutted a criticism of "religious progressives" for being allied with Soros and MoveOn.org: "I know of no connections to those liberal funds and groups that are as direct as the Religious Right's ties to right-wing funders."
Since then Sojourners has received at least two more grants from Soros organizations. Sojourners revenues have more than tripled—from $1,601,171 in 2001-2002 to $5,283,650 in 2008-2009—as secular leftists have learned to use the religious left to elect Obama and others.

In a Patheos interview, Wallis suggested that Olasky was lying.

“It’s not hyperbole or overstatement to say that Glenn Beck lies for a living. I’m sad to see Marvin Olasky doing the same thing. No, we don’t receive money from Soros. Given the financial crisis of nonprofits, maybe Marvin should call Soros and ask him to send us money.

“So, no, we don’t receive money from George Soros. Our books are totally open, always have been. Our money comes from Christians who support us and who read Sojourners. That’s where it comes from. In fact, we’ve had funding blocked, this year and last, by liberal foundations who didn’t like our stance on abortion. Other liberal groups were happy to point out to them that our stance wasn’t kosher on abortion, so our funding was blocked.

“So tell Marvin he should check his facts, and not imitate Glenn Beck.”

Jay Richards of National Review and Olasky responded to Wallis. Here's Olasky again:

Want to see for yourself what someone apparently did not want you to see? Click here to download the PDF, go to page 225, and you’ll see the grant to Sojourners.

You can also see the 2006 grant by downloading the 990-PF for that year and going to page 125. And by the way, look at page 114 of the 990-PF for 2007: another $100,000 grant to Sojourners “to support the Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform campaign.”

Wallis released a statement through a spokesperson to Patheos.

I should have declined to comment until I was able to review the blog post in question and consulted with our staff on the details of our funding over the past several years. Instead, I answered in the spirit of the accusation and did not recall the details of our funding over the decade in question. The spirit of the accusation was that Sojourners is beholden to funders on the political left, which is false. The allegation concerned three grants received over 10 years from the Open Society Institute that made up the tiniest fraction of Sojourners' funding during that decade -- so small that I hadn't remembered them.

IF...IF...there is ANY truth in what Wallis said, he gets a WHOPPING lot of money for his "work".

You might read that Wallis statement over and over.  You won't find anything LIKE an apology to Olasky, much less to Beck.  Beck appears to have a MUCH better character for truthfulness than does Mr. Obama's "spiritual adviser" team.  That should suggest some things about Mr. Obama himself.

BURN: Dazed and a Bit Bewildered

By swede

It is truly mind boggling how boggled Obama's mind is. The Egghead in Chief and his Ivy League entourage seem eerily oblivious to the obvious. "Hear me, O learned ones, and your Dear Leader will speak! If this is indeed the utopian progressive wonderland, how can opposition be rational?" Is this administration actually that naive, or are they - as some believe - evil geniuses bent on mind control and global dominion??




Probably neither. More likely just stupendously condescending.

Charles Krauthammer as usual has a good take:

What's a liberal to do? Pull out the bigotry charge, the trump that preempts debate and gives no credit to the seriousness and substance of the contrary argument. The most venerable of these trumps is, of course, the race card.

-- Resistance to the vast expansion of government power, intrusiveness and debt, as represented by the Tea Party movement? Why, racist resentment toward a black president.
-- Disgust and alarm with the federal government's unwillingness to curb illegal immigration, as crystallized in the Arizona law? Nativism.
-- Opposition to the most radical redefinition of marriage in human history, as expressed in Proposition 8 in California? Homophobia.
-- Opposition to a 15-story Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero? Islamophobia.

So you see the majority of us are just dumb bigots. Actually, I do rather like my guns and Bible. The disconnect between this White House and the nation it works for is simply astounding. 82% of us are so dopey that we think the economy is the number one domestic issue. Real GDP for the second quarter is anemic at 1.6% (it was projected at 2.4%) - housing starts and home sales at a 40 year low - unemployment likely to get worse before it gets better - and consumer spending and confidence at abysmal lows. What do you do? Why, you send Bozo Joe Biden on a "Summer Recovery Tour" (or perhaps Magical Mystery Tour) telling everybody all is well...and defecation isn't malodorous! Yeah, that's the ticket...!!!


But it seems some errant soul in the White House is off message, and ironically thus on target.

From Jake Tapper at ABC:

White House Official: "We know he needs to be out there talking about the economy next week...We haven’t yet figured out the way he’s going to do that."

Ya think? Unfortunately, it seems the President's schedule is jam packed full of "other priorities" - meaning his priorities are not our priorities. Perhaps he should have been talking about the economy 18 months ago instead of government giveaways, healthcare, carbon craziness, and golf. Just a thought.

That's about all I can stand...

BURN: The Statisticians Report On Restoring Honor

Benjamin Disraeli, the great statesman, is claimed to have said, "There are lies, there are damned lies, and there are statistics".  The Collective, in reporting and commenting on the Restoring Honor rally, used statisticians.

The lies they used were both subtle and clumsy...often in the same piece.


The New York Times published a piece the day BEFORE the rally, written by the infamous Kate Zernike.  Her first lie was that Beck's Restoring Honor event was a TEA Party project.  It was not, but she needed that lie for the rest of her lies to work.


After that, her lies grew more artful;

It has become an article of faith among Tea Party groups that any racist signs at rallies — “Go back to Kenya,” directed at President Obama, is just one example — are carried by Democratic plants sent in to make the Tea Party look bad.

In March, when members of the Congressional Black Caucus accused protesters at a Tea Party rally against health care of spitting on them and shouting racist epithets, Tea Party leaders suggested that those episodes had not occurred, saying there was no video proof.

There she leaves it.  No further exposition.  She set up the "he-said-she-said" between members of Congress and TEA Party people, and failed to note the salient fact that THERE IS NO VIDEO that supports the lies the CBC members told.  The lie is that conservatives are merely "saying" there is no video evidence.

Zernike goes on to associate calls for limited government...or a return to Federalism...with racism.

In the Tea Party’s talk of states’ rights, critics say they hear an echo of slavery, Jim Crow and George Wallace. Tea Party activists call that ridiculous: they do not want to take the country back to the discrimination of the past, they say, they just want the states to be able to block the federal mandate on health insurance.

Still, the government programs that many Tea Party supporters call unconstitutional are the ones that have helped many black people emerge from poverty and discrimination.

Now, as artful lies go, that is New York quality lying.  Never mind that the empirical reality is that "black people" were doing BETTER (on their own initiative) BEFORE the Great Society programs that have fundamentally destroyed the black family.  And, NEVER MIND that Jim Crow laws were ANTI-MARKET laws, passed by segregationists who didn't want the competitive disadvantage of their discrimination.

Even if Tea Party members are right that any racist signs are those of mischief-makers, even if Glenn Beck had chosen any other Saturday to hold his rally, it would be hard to quiet the argument about the Tea Party and race.

Well, yeah, Kate...!!!  With you beating the drum and waving the bloody shirt, it will be damn near impossible to "quiet the argument"...read LIES...about the TEA Party and race.

Charles Blow was mad as hell, but not "angry".  No, no.  After calling Beck the "anti-King", and saying, "Beck wants to swaddle his movement in the cloth of the civil rights movement, a cloth soaked in the blood and tears of the innocent and oppressed, a cloth his divisiveness and self-aggrandizing threatens to defile", Blow went on to say:

And yet, I’ve come to the conclusion that anger is the wrong reaction to Beck’s rally in Washington. Anger provides too low a return on investment. It consumes a tremendous amount of energy, but yields little progress. Instead, we should each take this opportunity to listen to the “I Have a Dream” speech once more, paying particular attention to how the echoes of yesterday’s struggles reverberate in our present struggles, and to recommit ourselves to the nobility of righteous pursuits.

With which we agree.  John Avlon, the perfidious little twerp who writes for The Daily Beast (tm), cannot understand Mr. Blow's point:

Restoring America. Reclaiming the civil-rights movement. Restoring honor. This is the language of “taking our country back.” Each of these apparently uplifting statements pushes off the idea that something has been lost in America since the election of Barack Obama—not just jobs, but the character of the nation itself. They are slogans that would divide America into God-fearing patriots and secular socialists, creating the emotional argument beneath hyper-partisanship—an all-or-nothing struggle that pits “us” against “them,” with the fate of the nation at stake. In other words, exactly the dynamic that Beck spent so much time trying to disavow.

Except that is a lie.  Now, in Avlon's case, it may be he really cannot understand that you can fight an adversary, and not hate them.  Which is what Beck was saying.  Which is the same thing Blow was saying.

Beck told his audience to attend any house of worship, provided “that [it] is not preaching hate and division”—it is a standard that will have to apply to his own televangelism as well.

Beck never said, "Let's all join hands around the Collectivist bonfire of our freedoms in a big show of unity".  That would be surrender.  We are divided as a people.  We DO believe fundamentally DIFFERENT things about government, and they are not reconcilable.  That was something King understood very well, and he divided America sharply.  Beck was echoing King's call to his friends to fight clean, so the fight does not hurt them spiritually.

See, Avlon just does not get it.  You can HATE what the Collective DOES, while not hating people.  You can FEAR its destruction of your nation, and you really, really SHOULD.  And you can FIGHT people who oppose you, and that is not evil.  It is necessary.  Charles Blow understands that.

CRASH: Glenn Beck--Flushing The Collective Out Of Their Holes

In case you were unaware, there is a little "do" planned for tomorrow in Washington, DC.  In fact, on the same spot where MLK gave his "I Have A Dream" speech, Glenn Beck is holding a "Restoring Honor" rally.

This, of course, is causing the Collectivists to go crazy (crazier).

The Rev. Walter Fauntroy, the non-voting delegate who represented the District of Columbia from 1971 to 1991, called on African-Americans to organize a "new coalition of conscience" to rebut the rally scheduled for Saturday at the Lincoln Memorial featuring Fox News pundit Glenn Beck and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

"We are going to take on the barbarism of war, the decadence of racism, and the scourge of poverty, that the Ku Klux -- I meant to say the Tea Party," Fauntroy told a news conference today at the National Press Club. "You all forgive me, but I -- you have to use them interchangeably."

No, "Reverend", we won't forgive you.  You are a despicable liar and racist.  First, this is not a TEA Party event.  Second, there is nothing LIKE the KKK about the TEA Party movement.  If you wanted to come to a TEA Party event, you would be welcome.  I would accompany you, if you could assure me your hate would not cause you to do anything stupid.

"The same people who cut the cables on the night before the march, that we paid $66,000 for a sound system, they cut it," Fauntroy said. "Now from Fox News and elsewhere, they are seeking to turn the world back."

"I don't want you to think I'm angry," Fauntroy said. "[But] when this right-wing conservative exclusionary group comes to highjack our movement, we have got to respond. And I'm looking forward to that Coalition of Conscience, in defense of jobs and freedom for women."

See?  This man is out of his freaking mind.  Or he's simply another gross liar for the Collective.  He can't be aware that the TEA Party is very dominantly led by women, and the people in it are fond of their jobs (AND the jobs they create for others in their small businesses), can he?

Or this, from tax-subsidized Collective information organ NPR:

Progressive pundits are assuming that Beck is out to pervert the memory of King, a supposition not outside the realm of possibility...

Unless, of course, you ever listened to the man.  Beck loves Dr. King.  

In other words, his credentials for hosting a rally on the anniversary and location of one of history's most memorable civil rights events are shoddy at best, nonexistent at worst.

Irony overload alert...!!!  Sacred ground...free speech...tolerance...diversity...  Collective hypocricy, at it's finest!

Stoking even more suspicions is how secretive Beck is being. Little is known about the event except that there will be speeches by Beck and Sarah Palin, and attendees are prohibited from bringing signs. The fear, of course, is that it will turn into a pit of hatred a la the health-care town halls. But there may be a glimmer of hope.

On May 28, Beck devoted more than half an hour of his Fox program to celebrating the overlooked historical contributions of forgotten African-American heroes. With the assistance of David Barton, a Christian historian, and Lucas Morel, a politics professor and author of Lincoln's Sacred Effort: Defining Religion's Role in American Self-Government, Beck highlighted the accomplishments of black men like Prince Whipple and James Armistead, former slaves who went on to fight alongside General Lafayette and George Washington in the American Revolution.

Actually, Beck has devoted hours of his program to the topic.  Another, rather open, secret is that one honored guest at the Restoring Honor rally will be Martin Luther King's niece, Dr. Alveda King, a frequent guest on Beck's program.

NPR went on to note that Beck stuck up for Shirley Sherrod, but attributes that to taking a cheap shot at the NAACP and the Obama regime.  It apparently never occurs that what Beck did was show journalistic integrity...from obvious reasons in the case of NPR.

Perhaps our favorite comes from John Avlon, a perfidious little twerp who writes for The Daily Beast; I Have A Nightmare.

Tomorrow on the site and anniversary of MLK's greatest speech, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and 100,000 friends will rally against everything the civil-rights leader stood for.

Really?  EVERYTHING King stood for?  Well, here's how Avlon gets to that point;

He identifies Beck and Palin as POPULISTS (omitting that Carter, Clinton and Obama ran as populists).

He identifies George Wallace as a POPULIST (explaining away the fact Wallace was a DEMOCRAT)

Beck, Palin, and Wallace all cited to the Constitution.

Ergo, and ipso fatso...Beck and Palin are EXACTLY like Wallace, and the natural enemies of King.

In contrast [to King and Lincoln], the self-righteous conservative populism that Beck and Palin have pumped up and profited from is predicted on a fundamental vision of division—"real Americans" versus subversive secular socialists; true patriots versus the president. By dividing our country into us against them, sowing the seeds of hate and condemning the concept of a big tent, Beck and Palin represent the opposite tradition in American history as Lincoln and King—they are dividers, not uniters. We can take them at their word: They want to take our country back, not help it move forward.

OK, this demands a little truth-telling.  King and Lincoln were both men who believed in the Declaration Of Independence and the Constitution.  BOTH relied on it, and sought to reconcile terrible contradictions between those documents and their ideals, and American society.

Both Lincoln and King led IMMENSELY divisive campaigns to affect their goals.  The VERY LAST thing they wanted and would have accepted was "unity" around the status quo.  They BOTH sought to set a clear division between what WAS, and what SHOULD BE.

That is what we who fight the Collective are doing.  Like Lincoln and King, we rely on the founding ideals of our nation.  Unity with the status quo of the Collective is the LAST thing we want or will accept.  And THAT is what's driving the Collective frothing out of their holes.

BURN: Another Mosquetteer Who Can't Say The "T" Word & Hamas

The estimable Andy McCarthy very nicely, civilly, corners another Imam apologist for the Cordoba House.  Listen CAREFULLY, and learn.




So, people, here's the take-away.  Even these "moderate" Muslim apologists cannot bring themselves, on national television, to identify a terrorist organization as terrorists.  How "moderate" IS that?  CAIR also claims to be "moderate", and they are no such thing.  They are not al Qaeda, but they are not harmless, either.

Does this imply that there are no Muslims who are actually moderate, peaceful, law-abiding people?  NEVER!!!  I know many.  But the lies and disinformation on the Cordoba House just keep coming, and the people behind it just look worse and worse.

The Humanity: Fiddling While Rome Burns

by swede

The State Department announced that Hillary Clinton will broker peace talks between Israel and Palistine. Says Hillary, "Direct peace talks can end conflict in one year." In other words, "This will mean peace in our time!" Now where have I heard that before? Oh yeah...


But seriously, if anyone has the gravitas, diplomatic savy and chutzpah to bring four thousand years of intensely bitter and bloody hostilities to an enduring harmonious conclusion, it's gotta be, umm, aahhh, oh yeah...


Just one snag...There is no possibility of compromise on either side on the foundational issues - Israeli sovereignty, Palistinian sovereignty, a Palistinian military, continued Israeli development, etc. In my diplomatic parlance, "That dog won't hunt."


Other imperitive issues on our intrepid Lady of State's agenda: She pronounced the flooding in Pakistan was the result of Global Warming (our bad); she does not approve of mass rape in Congo (here! here!); and she will assist rap artist M.I.A to get a visa for her mum (bless her li'l heart).

All this would warrant naught but an yawn but for this. While Hillary practices her silly statesmanship and Barry tees off at Martha's Vinyard, Iran began fueling it's nuclear facility, significantly advancing its capacity to develop nuclear weapons. Simultaneously and "coincidentally" they rolled out their spiffy new balistic missile system. Is it just me, or did a highly significant and ominous event seriously threatening world stability and peace just pass completely under the administration and MSM radar?


The folks at NYT are good with it: U.S. Assures Israel That Iran Threat Is Not Imminent. Most of us are somewhat less confident. Hillary's "Sanctions with teeth" diplomacy is ridiculous without Russia and China onboard - both of whom have announced they will be openly trading with Iran for oil - and Russia wants to play nuki-nuki with them. By the way, Hillary's deeply profound detante line, "We will offer Iran our hand, but they must unclench their fist" was plagerized from diplomatic writings of Indira Gandhi: "You can not shake hands with a clenched fist." Just sayin'. Stay classy there, Hill.

One of the primary missions of Israel's Mossad is "Preventing the development and procurement of non-conventional weapons by hostile countries". They are of course legendary for their intelligence and special ops. They know better than the US exactly what Iran has and their capability, and will not allow Iran to posess nuclear weapons. Bank on it. Tension is high and our President is...starting the back 9. [Sigh] Golda Meir famously said, "The Egyptians can run to Egypt, the Syrians into Syria. The only place we could run was into the sea, and before we did that we might as well fight", and "We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon - no alternative."

Speaking of Golda, how does Hillary's gravitas stack up to other notable women of state?

Golda Meir: "Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short."
Indira Gandhi: "A nation' s strength ultimately consists in what it can do on its own, and not in what it can borrow from others."
Margaret Thatcher: "Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."
Hillary Rodham Clinton: "Does the aqua pant-suit make my butt look big?"



OK, I made up the last one, but you know she said it!

BURN: The Real Obama Stimulus

So, a trillion dollars later, and eighteen months on in the Obamic regime, and what do we have to show for it? 

According to numbers pushed by the Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday, we got...MAYBE...a 4.5% bump in GDP.  Maybe it was as little as 1.7%.  MAYBE it was less.  Who knows?

MAYBE all that loot we took from our children and grandchildren lowered our PRESENT unemployment rate, oh, say, from .7% to 1.8%.  Was that money well spent?

So, did the Obama "stimulus" stimulate your economy?  Because Obama HAS been stimulating some things in the economy...he and the larger Collective.

What the Obami have successfully stimulated is the flight of capital from our nation, and the cancerous growth of fascist economics, where you have the illusion of capitalism, but in reality a government controlled economy where the biggest…and most compliant…players are the chosen winners.
 
 As part of that "stimulus" the rule of law has been immensely weakened, in terms of the "certainties" it provided to capital.  The law of contract, of property, and even of bankruptcy have been plundered by the Obami.  There is real doubt about what our Constitution means; are there Federal limits any longer?


Which is why you have people like Paul Otellini, the CEO of Intel, saying things like this; 

“I think this group does not understand what it takes to create jobs. And I think they’re flummoxed by their experiment in Keynesian economics not working.”

“They’re in a ‘Do‘ loop right now trying to figure out what the answer is,” Otellini said.

As a result, he said, “every business in America has a list of more variables than I’ve ever seen in my career.”

What he was saying is that UNCERTAINTY, which is the Grim Reaper of capital formation, has gone through the roof under the Obami.  Money has no national loyalty, no religion, no ties to geography.  It tends to flow from HIGH RISK to LOW RISK, when returns are anything like equal.  UNCERTAINTY makes reading risks very difficult, which is a risk in itself.

The U.S. legal environment has become so hostile to business, Otellini said, that there is likely to be "an inevitable erosion and shift of wealth, much like we're seeing today in Europe--this is the bitter truth."

Not long ago, Otellini said, "our research centers were without peer. No country was more attractive for start-up capital... We seemed a generation ahead of the rest of the world in information technology. That simply is no longer the case."

What this means is that...especially coupled with the VERY high taxes on businesses in the U.S....money, businesses, and jobs are leaving.  They are flowing to LESS HOSTILE places, where the rule of law is more stable and certain.  They won't be back any time real soon, either.  Not as long as Obama "has the keys".

So, by converting the U.S. into Obanana Republic, Obama has CERTAINLY stimulated the flight of capital, and the long-term loss of jobs, while he has institutionalized the underpinnings of fascist economics on a level never seen in this nation before.  Heckuva job, Berry...

Crash: Hope and Change Comes Home

by swede


This intersection 1/4 mile from my house in S. Atlanta was providentially blessed with a benevolent gift from you – O kind and generous taxpayer! Thank you so much. [For reference, it’s about 7 miles south of Hartsfield International] Last fall an inspiring green and orange “American Recovery and Reinvestment” sign appeared as if from heaven and hope and change came to our humble crossroad! A tingle of “Yes We Can” began to pervade the community! Or maybe it was a flu virus…



At any rate, you may notice the critical “safety upgrade” consisted of 8 spiffy, state of the art pedestrian lights, wheelchair ramps, decorative brickwork and cross-walks…at an intersection where there are no sidewalks and absolutely no pedestrians – as in zero. Ever. Never. My neighbor has lived here thirty years and has never seen a pedestrian on this highway. The same upgrade was done at the next intersection toward the airport. From the Google Earth arials, the benefit of this awesome Hopey-Changiness becomes clear! Now, should you so desire you can push the cross walk button, walk across the highway – then pivot 90 degrees and repeat the process – then two more times to return to your starting position. If you enjoyed the experience, you can repeat it as many times as you like! Even reverse direction, if you’re daring enough! I also get a huge thrill from watching grass grow and listening to the faucet drip – But I digress…

Failing to follow my better judgment – and mind my blood pressure – I went to Recovery.Gov to see if I could find our little piece of the “American Dream/Nightmare” and…. Thar she blooooooows!!!

TRAFFIC SIGNAL UPGRADES
Fayette (GA)
Georgia Department of Transportation
FEDERAL ECONOMIC RECOVERY SPENDING. FEDERAL PROJECT YADA YADA, FAYETTE COUNTY. TRAFFIC SIGNAL UPGRADES AT VARIOUS LOCATIONS ON SR 314. (E) FEBRUARY 28, 2010 COMPLETION DATE.
Estimated Value: $506,310
Estimated Jobs: N/A - Congressional Budget Office
As compared with 2 - White House Council of Economic Advisors

Just north of $1/2 million utterly wasted on absolutely absurd projects within spittin’ distance of my front door – and it did not create one stinking job! Al told, Georgia got $6.8 billion – so far. Guess how much CA got? You can look up your own local economic rape of future generations at http://www.recovery.org/ if you’ve got the stomach for it. The most egregious and bizarre “Wreck-overy” projects are already legendary:

Via spendingcrisis

• $1 billion for the “FutureGen” not-ready-for-primetime near zero emission plant in Illinois (The IL power authority has no plans to open the plant.)
• $300 million for “green” cars for federal employees
• $5 million to create a geothermal energy system at a shopping mall in Tennessee that has been losing tenants for years and is mostly empty.”
• $144,541 to Wake Forest University for a project to “see how monkeys react under the influence of cocaine.”
• $762,372 for a Georgia Tech assistant professor to “study improvised music” and “hopefully also create satisfying works of art.”

It’s only a few but you get the picture. The immensity and absurdity of what these people are doing with my grandchildren’s future defies the imagination – and makes me crazy! I do not think even most conservatives are really grasping the scope of this – nor the long term damage it will do to this nation. God help us.

Time for a Gin & Tonic. Nite.

BURN: Would There Be Enough Evidence To Convict?

Writing in Politico, some perfidious idiot named Neal Gabler published a piece titled "Obama In Disinformationland".  In it, he asserted that Collectivists love objective truth, while non-collectivists rely on fairy tales.

OK, fair enough.  We have a testable hypothesis!  As a rationalist and son of the Enlightenment (which Gabler risibly claims for the Collective), I happily accept the challenge!

The idea that there is such a thing as verifiable truth — such as Obama being a Christian — is increasingly seen as elitist. It’s as if truth were yet another scheme by the powerful to impose their will on everyone else.

See, Gabler identifies the proposition that Obama is a Christian as OBJECTIVELY true.  The idea that people...LOTS of people...find that a dubious proposition puts those people in a "anti-elitist" group of snake-handling believers in "individual truth", of which he says G.W. is a leading proponent.  Gabler sees no irony here, as he accuses Obama's skeptics of the very keystone of the Collective's "post-modern" philosophy of "multiple truths".

A great challenge that leaders of various religions have put to their followers is this: "If you were accused of being a [insert religion here], would there be enough evidence to convict you?"

In the case of "Obama Is A Christian", I think I could get him acquitted before most juries.

OBJECTIVELY, we have this evidence that Barack Hussain Obama is a Christian; he has said he is.  For twenty years, he attended a nominally Christian church.

OBJECTIVELY, the jury would have to consider Obama's character for truthfulness; how credible a witness is he.  Here, the OBJECTIVE evidence cuts against his declaration of his faith.  The man is OBJECTIVELY a terrible liar.  Add to that his statement that, despite being present in Rev. Wright's church for twenty years, he was unaware of Rev. Wright's doctrine.  OBJECTIVELY, many people find Wright to believe the inverse of what Christ taught.

Adherents of Christianity can often be identified (as against people who only say they are Christians) by examining how they live.  Christianity does have...across its variants...certain commonly accepted tenets.

Charity--actual Christians are charitable people.  They give...freely...of their substance.  OBJECTIVELY, Mr. Obama has a history of penury that is common among Collectivists, but foreign to Christians.

Free agency--Christians today (if not in history) believe in people choosing their conduct.  That does not mean they will forebear from persuasion or social pressure.  It means that others are not to be compelled to do what a Christian believes should be done.  Mr. Obama believes the opposite, judging by his history.

The Golden Rule--This seems universally to be a Christian ideal.  Mr. Obama, based on his conduct, does not believe in this precept.

The Ten Commandments--Christ didn't suspend these, but supplemented them with some new commandments which were intended to be "higher standards".  Mr. Obama, as we know, does not tell the truth.  He also does not respect the property of others.  His use of free time suggests (which is SUBJECTIVE, but no less valid) that his first allegiance is not to God.  He supports the taking of innocent human life.

So, OBJECTIVELY, people who are skeptical about Obama's profession of faith have ample reason, based on OBSERVED conduct.  Christians are not to CONDEMN, but all of us HAVE to make judgments.

And, Mr. Gabler, facts DO matter to most Americans.  We won't ignore them because some politician CLAIMS one thing or another.  No matter how you demonize us for using our common sense and powers of OBSERVATION, we won't suspend critical thought.

Is Obama a Muslim?  I very much doubt it.  Is Obama irreligious?  That is apparently the case.  His god is the man in the mirror.  And he has no other god before him.

CRASH: Welcome Aboard Hope n' Change Airways

[Another entry by Swede.  Comments are warmly invited.]

“Controlled Flight into Terrain” is a designation the National Transportation Safety Board all too frequently uses to explain the cause of an aircraft disaster. This means an accident where highly capable, trained and experienced pilots fly a perfectly good, well equipped and technically sound aircraft into good ol’ terra firma.   

The inherent oxymoron of course is…if these folks were in fact “in control” of the aircraft, you’d think they wouldn’t fly it into the ground!?!

But we never put incapable, untrained, and inexperienced pilots behind the controls of airliners.  Now, the ship of state...

“Good afternoon non-gender, race, or sexual orientation-specific passengers, this is Captain Soetoro speaking.  Welcome aboard BarryAire Flight 44, non-stop service to Unicornia.  We realize this is not your preferred destination, but we don’t care.  We are flying this thing and we obviously know better than you do where you should go.  Due to the change in itinerary, we will require a $21,473.38 increase in your fare, which we are automatically billing to you credit card.  You also just purchased flight insurance which covers nothing specific for an unknown sum which we will decide later.  Thank you so much for your compulsory cooperation and support.”

“We will be cruising at an altitude of…well geez – there are so many dials and buttons and crap up here, how the hell are we supposed to know?  We also have no idea if we have enough fuel.  The flight engineer says we need to fly there so we can find out how much fuel we need.  If this concerns you, you will find a copy of my epic masterpiece, The Audacity of Hope in the seat pocket in front of you.  I hope we make it...and NO you can't change planes.”

“It has come to our attention that many of you have become wee-weed up due to the rapid downward trajectory of the aircraft, as well as the branches and buildings passing by your windows.  This is the result of the failed policies of the previous pilot.  Please shut up, lower your window shades and leave them closed for the remainder of the flight.  Do not bother the flight attendants.  The union requires they take a 15 minute break every five minutes.  Relax and enjoy the flight, or get the f%& out – we don’t much care.  Thank you.”

While I am rather weary of the “We’re sooooo screwed” and “Time for armed insurrection” crowd pervading conservative blogs, the election is less than three months away and – sans hyperbole – this could be the most important election in our history.  Dear Leader will be harmless if cut off at the knees by the loss of majorities in Congress.  Watch for it.  Work for it. 

CRASH: The ICE Conspiracy With Illegal Aliens

A good working definition of a conspiracy is this: an agreement between parties to do or facilitate any illegal or wrongful act, or a lawful act by illegal means.

That definition seems perfectly applicable to the actions of John Morton, the Obami who heads ICE, and his staff.

Consider this: Morton, via his staff, is circulating an internal memo for comment that calls for an ORDER directing BOTH Federal and state officials acting under ICE authority to NOT detain illegal aliens legally stopped for traffic violations.

Under item 3, "Policy"--

3.1 Only immigration officers may issue detainers [a notice that ICE intends to take someone into custody].

3.2 Immigration officers shall issue detainers only after an LEA has exercised its independent authority to arrest the alien for a criminal violation.

3.3 As a general matter, immigration officers should not issue detainers aganist an alien charged only with a traffic-related misdemeannor unless or the until the alien is convicted, unless--

• the alien has a prior criminal conviction;
• the alien previously has been...deported...or allowed to voluntarily return to his or her native country...
• the alien is the subject of an outstanding immigration warrant...
• ...is part of an existing criminal investigation;
• an articulable reason exists to believe that the alien presents a danger to national security or a genuine risk to public safety; or
• the...the misdemeanor involves driving under the influence..., physical injury to a person or property, or flight from the scene of an accident. (emphasis added)

The memo goes on to state that ICE will issue a detainer ONLY IF the LEA has made an actual arrest.  The ICE agent has the right to second-guess the LEA, and ONLY issue a detainer IF he/she feels it "comports" with the "policy", and even then says that the ICE official "MAY" issue a detainer.  If it suites ICE after issuing a detainer, the detainer can be "withdrawn or rescinded and the LEA notified".

The policy is schizophrenic on its face; EVERY traffic misdemeanor...by definition...presents a "risk to public safety".  But the ICE agents get to determine if that risk is "genuine" or not.  They MAY...or may NOT...issue a detainer, even after the LEA has jumped all the hoops, and after issuing a detainer THEN may simply blow the whole deal off.

Morton has already implemented a "catch and release" policy, whereby ICE catches removable aliens in jails or through local arrests, and then releases all but the most serious offenders from custody. Making matters worse, ICE agents are now defaulting to the most time-consuming deportation process – even obviously removable aliens are routinely dumped on the overloaded immigration court dockets to await hearings before an immigration judge – instead of using the perfectly legal and more efficient administrative procedures available to them to remove an illegal alien. This means that even criminal aliens can hang around for many months after they are discovered. While in proceedings they are usually free to continue their life of crime or impaired driving, as was the case with Carlos Montano, the drunk and illegal driver who recently killed a nun in Virginia. A very large share will not bother to show up for the immigration hearing when the day finally arrives. It's no wonder that the number of aliens removed this year is noticeably lower than last year.

But this policy goes farther, stipulating that ICE will not even take a look at the illegal aliens who expose themselves to law enforcement by committing a traffic violation. And, neither will those local officers who have discovered lots of illegal aliens in the course of enforcing traffic laws.

The locals are rightly upset. For one thing, Congress never intended for ICE to micromanage the 287(g) agencies in this way. One local officer had this to say about the proposed policy: "Just as many of us suspected, the introduction of Harold Hurtt [Yom Steel's boss, the embattled ex-police chief who kept Houston as a sanctuary city until several of his officers were killed by illegal aliens] as the director of OSLC is leading to policy proposals and changes that will slowly chip away from the little power we have at a local level to try and control the influx of illegal immigrants. Soon, the administration will make so many changes, they will then claim there is no longer any need for 287(g) and we will be back to where we were years ago – with no ability to identify illegal immigrants, beyond the ineffective Secure Communities, in our jails. That will, once again, place a larger burden on our local governments and place our citizens in danger."

Everyone SHOULD send their comments to ann.yom@dhs.gov.  Expect to get an automated response saying she's out of the office...on vacation, we guess.  No kidding.

This is one of those outrageous moves that show the Collective has revolted against the people.  It should be investigated by Congress, but that will almost certainly have to wait the seating of the NEW Congress.

BURN: The UX Key On MSM Word-Processors

There HAS to be a "UX" (for "unexpectedly") key on the word-processors used by MSM financial and economic reporters.  That key keeps getting bumped unexpectedly every time they report MORE bad news about the Obama economy.

That is the only explanation for the frequency of the term...since anyone with a brain and modicum of economic sense can PREDICT what the news will be on any given day.

Image by Sadhill News.

CRASH: The Mosquetteers Are Obvious Liars

I won't rehash here all that's been written on Cordoba House, or Ground Zero Mosque.  The bottom line for me is that the reasons for the mosque cum "cultural center" are manifest lies.  That is enough.

We WERE told (the story is mutating) that the Cordoba House was to be for "bridge-building" and "cultural exchange".  We now see that was never the purpose.

If that were your purpose for building something...anything...and you were met with a firestorm of opposition from people...the VERY people you claim to want to reach...who told you your project was an unwonted provocation and insult, what would you do? 

If you were offered meetings with the governor of the state, and the suggestion was made that another, less inflammatory site could be found with government help...and you purpose was REALLY to "build bridges"...what would you do?

Anyone with any integrity can answer those questions.  We all know the answer.  It requires no great leap of deductive logic to know, then, that the purpose given was a lie.

We've been told that by other Muslims:

The fact [is] we Muslims know the idea behind the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation to thumb our noses at the infidel. The proposal has been made in bad faith and in Islamic parlance, such an act is referred to as "Fitna," meaning "mischief-making" that is clearly forbidden in the Koran.

And what of the liars who told their lies?  Victor Davis Hanson helps--

Then we come to Imam Rauf himself. To his liberal defenders, he is a sort of respectable Deepak Chopra who at respectable places like Aspen mouths pop platitudes of interfaith tolerance — so much so that our own State Department has employed him, apparently for quite some time, for goodwill gallivanting abroad. 

But to those in the Middle East, he is known equally well for doing what he can, as a Western liberal, to contextualize terrorism, bin Laden, and Islamic extremism within the tired Western postmodern tropes of cultural relativism: “The United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened” on 9/11; “In fact, in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the U.S.A.”; “The U.S. and the West must acknowledge the harm they have done to Muslims before terrorism can end”; “The issue of terrorism is a very complex question”; “The Islamic method of waging war is not to kill innocent civilians. But it was Christians in World War II who bombed civilians in Dresden and Hiroshima, neither of which were military targets” — blah, blah, blah, like all the thinkery that one hears in the faculty lounge.

I have heard the man daintily demur to label Hamas as the terrorists they certainly are.  That is a level of "moderation" that makes the man positively dangerous...and, again, a liar.

His Cordoba House, not being what he pretends it would be, would be...what?

Abroad, the message would, of course, be interpreted quite differently: To the radical Islamists, a mosque rising near Ground Zero well before a new World Trade Center is constructed is a message of Islamic triumphalism — in the long tradition of minarets on the conquered Santa Sophia in Istanbul, the eighth-century Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem rising on the site of the destroyed Jewish Second Temple, and the great mosque at Cordoba retrofitted from the gutted Christian Church of St. Vincent. Again, there are thousands of sites in New York where another mosque could be built; but without the Ground Zero resonance, the irony would be lost. 

Then we come to the funding of the supposed $100 million, 13-story Islamic center (“mosque” has become a right-wing defamation for a complex devoted to contemplation and meditation). Mr. Rauf is not engaged in a nationwide fundraising drive of the sort Americans are used to for preserving iconic ships or refurbishing the Statue of Liberty. Instead, he is apparently counting on petrodollars from the Middle East. Given the authoritarian, and religiously intolerant, regimes in most of the Gulf sheikdoms, one can assume that donations will not be predicated on Imam Rauf’s supposed efforts at an Islamic Reformation. Otherwise, what better place to start than Saudi Arabia? 

The mutating story has now become the canard that this is a much-needed place of worship for a growing Muslim population, under-served by existing mosques.  Bull.  Everyone with a brain knows what this is, and that "a simple place of worship" could be anywhere.  But for the promoters of this Islamist Arch 'd Triumph, nowhere else will do.

I do not object to a mosque in the Lower East Side.  Actually, I'd welcome it, if that is all it is.  What I object to is an Islamist operational headquarters and iconic monument being built within sight of the place where victims' remains are today being pulled out of the rubble of the Twin Towers.

BURN: The Dog That Did Not Bark In The Gulf

Readers of Sherlock Holmes stories will remember Silver Blaze, in which the sleuth notes the singular fact that the dog on guard at the stable did not bark the night the champion horse was being stolen.

There was no deeper mischief involved than that the dog knew its master, the racehorse's trainer and stable manager.  He was the culprit.

We have noticed the singular incident of the dog that did not bark in the Gulf Of Mexico, and we reach the same conclusions as did Holmes in Silver Blaze; in the Gulf Of Mexico, the environmental groups were strangely silent in the face of Obama's calculated non-response.  They know their master's voice.

It needs hardly be said that, had this been a Booooosh President-caused disaster in the Gulf, the Green fringe of the Collective...and their reliable unwashed Luddite buddies available for all G-8 convocations...would have been out in untiring, highly publicized, and irritating force.

Where was the Greenpeace floatilla?  Where were the swarms of small craft, full of ridiculous people waving badly spelled signs condemning the President, Deemocrats, and Big Oil?  Where were the tee-pees and yurts pitched pell-mell around the parks of the nation's capital, the drum circles and chanting?  Where were the Hollywood "aware-niks", being led off in handcuffs, sputtering protests against the President?  Nowhere.

Oh, to be sure, we had the hyperbole-mills of the media...including Fox...in full churn, blowing out nonsense at rates unapproached since Katrina.  But they are not the Green industry of protest, perfidy, and polemics we all know.  Where was the Green dog?

The Green dog did not bark in the Gulf because it supported the Obamic operation, intended to heighten and extend the "crisis" of the Gulf blow-out to the end that oil and gas exploration...and eventually use...in America will be regulated to suit the Collective 's Obama regime.  The Green dog knows its master.

BURN: Maureen Dowd's Problem With The Relatives

[Note: This is a guest blog by Swede.  Your comments are warmly welcome.]

I have been a fairly frequent reader of Maureen Dowd and her kooky colleagues at the NYT, primarily for the entertainment value. I guess it’s a hobby. I rather enjoy seeing how many of the 14 classic Latin logical fallacies I can find in what is supposed to be professional, informed and insightful analysis.  I suppose I need to get out more.  My record to date is 7 tortured reasonings in a Krugman piece on the economy…something about how Keynesian economics really works unless Venus aligns with Neptune or something, which he thinks is the present problem.

At any rate, Sunday’s op-idiot rant from Mo Do, “No Love From the Lefties”, was a seriously sensational super snorter.  The progressive princess, loony liberal left leading lady refers to the “lefties” throughout the piece in the third person – “he, she, them, they…”  Hey, when the ship’s going down it’s every lib for himself/herself, right?  Nobody likes liberals now, so it’s “them there loony lefties”. 


Actually, I have another theory.  Since the universe extends infinitely in all directions from where you sit, wherever you are is the center of the universe.  It’s sort of the same thing with the political spectrum.  If you put it all on a line with, say, Lenin/Kim Jung Il on one end and maybe John Birch/Goldwater at the other, we’re all in the middle.  

Pre-Rathergate, it was almost surreal to hear Docu-Dan sincerely tell O’Reilly that he had absolutely no liberal bias.  At the same time O’Reilly who was obviously bent hard right at the time (now much slushier of course) claimed to be dead at the “fair and balanced” center.  Interesting also that in the Rathergate aftermath, Mapes and Rather (even to this day) claim that CBS News management was a right wing outfit in bed with the Bush Whitehouse – burying the “truth” and crushing heroic journalists like themselves .  CBS News? Right wing?  Only if there is a large hole in the space–time continuum. But I don’t think they are lying. They actually believe that they are – in Rather’s words – the “truth tellers” – and victimized defenders of journalistic integrity.  Mo Do, Brooks, Krugman, Chris Tingles, Madcow, Olby et al are all in the same boat.

Regardless, it is indeed entertaining and enjoyable watching the most liberal POTUS in history being eaten alive by the left-o-crats for not being progressive enough!!   Heh. Bon appetite y’all!

THE HUMANITY: Remembering FDR's Historic Shinto Shrine Speech

We all remember the historic day that FDR, while hosting a Shinto ceremony in the White House during WWII, reminded Americans that everyone had a right to worship as they chose.  Right...?

Of course we don't remember that act of political suicide, because it never happened.  No one in America would have dreamed of such a thing as we were engaged in a war with not just a people but a warped religious ideology that had brought flame and death to our home in an unprovoked attack.

Of course, in that day, no Japanese-American would have suggested they could, would, or should build a Shinto shrine a block or two from the smoking hulk of the U.S.S. Arizona even as divers sought remains of the dead aboard her.  That would have been an unthinkable affront.

The Shinto religion held that the Emperor was a literal god on earth.  No believer would dare doubt the Emperor, or his appointed minions.  Under the Emperor, Japan had undertaken to assert what the Shinto martial cult had decreed was its destiny.  They did it aggressively via a war of merciless expansion.  It was much more than a religion; it was an integrated socio-political construct that operated according to its own norms.  Those norms were at existential swords-point with Western norms.

During WWII, this was a known reality that shaped everything done by the U.S. and its allies, from the common combat soldier to the leaders of state.  But that was before the modern cult of moral relativity gained a foot-hold in American life...before we began to loath our own virtue and see atrocity as a merely "another, equally valid truth".

In WWII, a Shinto follower of the Emperor who espoused the beliefs of the martial cult in Japan...regardless of his citizenship...would have been changed, tried and imprisoned.  Sadly and shamefully, many loyal Japanese-Americans who did not follow the Emperor were put in concentration camps and their property taken.  We were better than that then, and we are today.

In America today, we are confused.  Do Muslim Americans have a right to build their mosques?  Of course, and they do.  Few would dream of denying them that right.  To the extent that they have, they have been marginalized as they should.

But what of the Islamists...that martial, expansionist element of Islam that actively seeks...today...to destroy Western pluralism?  Do they have a right to build, to preach, to recruit?  Do they have a right to build the equivalent of a Shinto shrine on the Pearl Harbor water-front, even while the remains of the 9/11 dead are still being recovered?  Our WWII generation would have been amazed at the question.

Most of America is still amazed...and angered...that anyone would pose that question.  What angers them more is the inference or declaration that opposition to the Cordoba House is the result of bigotry against all Muslims.  That, they know, is simply a lie, and they resent the lie.  They are not confused about the propriety of the Cordoba House, or the intent of its promoters.