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We have a gambling problem in Alabama. The state's governor, Republican Bob Riley, began a crackdown on illegal gambling 23 months ago. He declared, with the backing of the state's Supreme Court, that thousands of electronic bingo machines located in 16 of the state's 67 counties are, in fact, slot machines. Slot machines are illegal in Alabama. Nevertheless, thousands of them crept into our state under the phony label of “charity bingo.” Since charity bingo is allowed for things such as church fund-raisers, the gambling industry thought they could put the word "bingo" on a slot machine and get away with it.
Over the years people have played these phony bingo machines as state officials looked the other way. Governor Riley, nearing the end of his second term as governor, has chosen, at last, to address the issue. The state defines a slot machine as a gambling device that, as a result of the insertion of a coin or other object, operates, either completely automatically or with the aid of some physical act by the player, in such a manner that, depending upon elements of chance, it may eject something of value. Any fool can see that "bingo" machines are in fact slot machines.
The governor's critics point out that his claims that the machines are morally and legally unacceptable would have had more credibility had he pursued the issue during his first term...before he sought re-election. Certainly the machines were just as illegal in 2004 as they are today, however, his critics are merely making a political argument. There is no valid legal defense for allowing these machines to continue to operate.
The state Supreme Court has, time and again, validated the governor's claim that not only are the machines illegal but that he has the authority to get rid of them when local authorities prove unwilling to enforce the state's laws. This has resulted in many theatrical raids on gambling facilities across the state. The bingo operators, having already built large and impressive looking facilities that employ thousands of workers essentially dared the governor to come after them and, to his credit, he did.
Governor Riley's anti-gambling task force, led by Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson, launched raids on both the Country Crossing and VictoryLand bingo emporiums. In Chickasaw, a city of 6,000, a bingo casino opened in February. The task force raided it the same day.
"We are now free to go enforce the laws against illegal gambling in this state from one end of Alabama to the other." - Task Force Commander John Tyson
As always, proponents of gambling claim that it benefits the state both in the employment it provides as well as the tax revenue that it generates. Though there is some truth to these claims, there is also a considerable downside to gambling that has reared its head here in Alabama, just as it does everyplace that has gambling. Corruption has blossomed fantastically.
Everywhere that gambling travels its' revenues inevitably end up purchasing political favors from the government officials whose responsibility it is to regulate the "fairness" of the gambling industry. However "fairness" in the eyes of casino owners is quite a bit different than "fairness" in the eyes of others.
For all of the howling over the benefits that gambling supposedly provides through employment and tax revenues it must be remembered that this revenue is largely being earned from those least able to afford it...the poor. Whereas our tax structure is designed to progressively increase the tax rates of higher earners and essentially leave the poorest earners free of any tax responsibility. Gambling, on the other hand, entices earners of the least income to risk all they have on a shortcut to wealth. One would be hard pressed to find a more immoral business model than that. Which brings us back to the concept of fairness. Consider this:
Former Mayor Larry Langford, who was ousted after being convicted of bribery, won 555 electronic bingo jackpots over three years at a casino run by a longtime friend and supporter, according to newly disclosed tax records. The tax returns show he claimed winning about $1.5 million gambling at various casinos from 2006 to 2008, but he says he lost at least that much. On one day in 2008, he won 36 jackpots totaling $96,000 at VictoryLand, owned by Milton McGregor. - Associated Press
Ahh, fairness... If you were gambling in the same casino as the esteemed former mayor of Birmingham do you believe you would have had a "fair" chance of winning? After all, certain machines were rigged to win for the former mayor. Would it not likewise be reasonable to assume that the rest of the machines were just as rigged to lose in order to replace the revenue that was needed to bribe the former mayor? Or do you really believe he was that lucky? You are not gambling when the outcome is pre-determined. The rest of the patrons in the gambling establishment were essentially unwitting conspirators in the bribe. This is fairness in the eyes of the gambling industry.
Since our governor has been winning his legal fight against illegal gambling the casino owners in Alabama decided their next best idea was to work to get the laws changed to make it legal. This too ultimately led to failure as they were unable to get either the laws changed or a ballot referendum that would have allowed voters to have a say in the matter. Keep in mind that the state of Alabama voted against a state lottery in spite of the fact that we are surrounded on all sides by states that do have a lottery. A state that rejects a lottery is not likely to choose to legalize slot machine gambling.
However, the failed battle in the Alabama legislature has resulted in yet another fantastic debacle of corruption. Once again the air is afoul with indictments:
A vote-buying scheme in the Legislature involved four state senators, two casino owners, lobbyists and millions of dollars in bribes in an attempt to legalize electronic bingo, according to an indictment announced Monday by the Justice Department.
Federal agents swept across Alabama on Monday arresting the 11 people charged in the indictment, including Sens. Larry Means, D-Attalla; Jim Preuitt, R-Talladega; Quinton Ross Jr., D-Montgomery; and Harri Anne Smith, R-Slocomb.
Also arrested were Ronnie Gilley, developer of the Country Crossing casino in Dothan, and Milton McGregor, owner of VictoryLand casino in Shorter and a financial backer of Country Crossing.
Others arrested were lobbyists Jarrod Massey, Tom Coker and Robert “Bob” Geddie Jr.; Legislative Reference Service analyst Ray Crosby; and Country Crossing spokesman Jarrell W. “Jay” Walker.
The 39-count indictment stems from a federal corruption probe involving attempts to pass bills in 2009 and 2010 that would have allowed electronic bingo games to operate in Alabama. The bills failed, but federal prosecutors said that behind the scenes, operators of the two largest private casinos — McGregor and Gilley — and teams of lobbyists were offering millions in campaign contributions, benefit concerts by country music artists, free polling and hidden $1 million-a-year payments in return for votes.
“The alleged criminal scheme was astonishing in scope,” said Lanny Breuer, the head of the Justice Department's criminal division. “Indeed, as alleged in the indictment, the defendants' corrupt conduct infiltrated every layer of the legislative process in the state of Alabama.” - The Tuscaloosa News
A statement on behalf of Gov. Bob Riley said he had called the gambling bill that passed the Senate earlier this year, "the most corrupt piece of legislation ever considered by the Senate," and the action by the Justice Department shows he was exactly right. This is what happens everywhere gambling goes. But there are more ways to gamble. Some of the worst involve gambling with that which does not belong to you. There is another story making the rounds in Alabama and the rest of the country. It too involves gambling. It is the story of Auburn University's star quarterback Cameron Newton.
I'm sure that many of you are aware the sordid details of this evolving scandal. It is alleged that Newton's father, Cecil, (the latest in a long line of Reverends behaving badly) solicited upwards of $200,000 for his son to sign a letter of intent to play college football at Mississippi State University. Unfortunately for the younger Newton, the evidence piling up seems to, at the very least, implicate his father in this scheme whether or not any of the allegations suggesting that someone on behalf Auburn University fulfilled his demands prove true or not. As of yet there is no proof that anybody paid anyone anything. However, just the act of soliciting payment is a violation of NCAA rules that could lead to Cameron Newton being declared an ineligible player and subsequently void every game in which he participated.
New allegations and supposed evidence is is coming out daily, yet Auburn University and the fans that make up the Auburn nation have circled their wagons in defense of Cameron Newton. At the recent game against Georgia many fans could be seen holding signs suggesting that they were "All In" for Cam. The use of this gambling terminology is a suggestion that they are willing to risk everything on this one player. The look on former Heisman Trophy winner Bo Jackson, as he embraced Newton following an Auburn touchdown, was one of defiant arrogance. I've seen this look before. Democrats were wearing this look as they rammed their Health Care Law down the throats of an unwilling nation. It is clear that Auburn University and its' supporters are embracing their roles as martyrs...but for what? Some may find this display of support for the embattled quarterback admirable. I suffer no such admiration.
You see, Auburn was aware there was a problem before the season started. They knew that Mississippi State had reported the improper solicitation to the NCAA. They knew that if it were true that Cameron Newton could be declared ineligible to play. A cautious program would have suspended him pending an investigation. If, as they now claim, they truly believed in his, and their, innocence they could have just as quickly asked for him to be re-instated. That would have shielded the university from the consequences of any wrongdoing...assuming that some wealthy Auburn booster did not fulfill the elder Newton's request.
The NCAA is notoriously slow with their investigations. Had Auburn chose the cautious yet wise path, they could have been without the services of their superstar quarterback for several, if not all, of their games. Did I fail to mention that Auburn is undefeated, 11-0, and ranked #2 in the nation as of this writing? Without Newton Auburn would be lucky to be 6-5. So Auburn did what they had to do to win...they gambled.
But it's worse than that. It has become known that when Newton was a player at the University of Florida he broke the student honor code three times by getting caught cheating. It was also public knowledge that Newton was caught in possession of a stolen laptop. To be sure, it is somewhat despicable that Newton's private college records were made public in furtherance of this scandal. After all, a mountain of Freedom of information requests have failed to pry President Obama's college records out into the open, much like his mythical long form birth certificate. However, Auburn University was entitled to view Newton's college records. They were well aware of his previous behavior. Considering the seriousness of the solicitation allegations as well as an awareness of what kind of person Cameron Newton had proven to be just over a year before they sought his services, there was no justification for Auburn to gamble the reputation and integrity of their football program by playing him...yet they did.
Auburn's achievements on the field may prove to be all for naught. The NCAA is very likely to declare Cameron Newton an ineligible player and force Auburn to forfeit every game that they played with him. An 0-11 team might be about to play for the SEC championship. Perhaps LSU deserves to be there. Auburn might even play for a national championship. They would then be doing to someone else exactly as was done to them when an undefeated Auburn team was denied a chance to play for the title in 2004 because a University of Southern California team with an ineligible player was taking their spot. Auburn is at the mercy of the NCAA's interpretation of its' rules. If they are as consistent with their recent history of serious penalties for Alabama and USC, then Auburn's War Eagle is about to be cooked and served as a Thanksgiving meal.
College football in the south is big business and Cameron Newton was Auburn's shortcut to the top of that world. The people responsible for making the decision to play Cameron Newton are no different than a man or woman squandering their family's food and rent money to pull the lever on a bingo slot machine. They are no different than an elected official collecting unearned jackpots in defiance of the law. The people responsible for playing Cameron Newton are gamblers. Gamblers who were gambling with that which does not belong to them. Even if this whole thing were to magically go away and everyone were declared innocent it would not make the actions of Auburn University any less despicable. How dare they risk everything for THIS one man with documented past of questionable integrity? Regardless of what the NCAA chooses to do, someone needs to be fired. This was recklessness...but thats how gamblers behave. Perhaps Governor Riley ought to make Auburn University the target of his Gambling Task Force's next raid.
There are those who would suggest that we should just go ahead and pay college football players. After all, it is true that football and basketball programs rake in millions of dollars due to the efforts of these athletes. But I thought we ARE paying them already...or is a college education now considered to be of no value? I would dare say that a full scholarship to attend Auburn University is worth a lot more than the $200,000 Cecil Newton was looking to make by exploiting his son. I no more want to pay money to college football players than I want to legalize gambling, marijuana or homosexual marriage. Lowering standards is not the sign of a quality society. It is reflective of a society that is not as good as the one its' predecessors bequeathed to it. The people who had this world before us learned something over the first 6000 years of history. To accept lowered standards is to discard all of the knowledge that our ancestors acquired and admit our inferiority to them. If that is our choice then we are most definitely NOT the ones we have been waiting for.
We have a gambling problem in Alabama. Legalizing it won't fix it.
DUPLICITOUS MANEUVERS
It was probably the most damning morning of television ever broadcast...but was anyone paying attention? PJTV broadcast the testimony of Christopher Coates, the former voting chief for the Department Of Justice's Civil Rights Division. Coates was testifying in spite of the fact that his bosses in the Department of Justice had issued instructions for him to ignore the subpoena requesting his appearance. After his testimony it became quite clear why his superiors in the Justice Department wanted to maintain his silence.
Christopher Coates was testifying before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. This commission is tasked with investigating complaints alleging that citizens are being deprived of their right to vote by reason of their race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin, or by reason of fraudulent practices. Coates was subpoenaed to testify in regards to the ongoing investigation into the alleged New Black Panther voter intimidation that occurred in the 2008 election. His testimony given on September 24 just may have destroyed the presidency of Barack H. Obama. Can testimony this damning be suppressed for long?
"President Barack Obama’s handpicked U.S. Justice Department officials are ignoring civil rights cases in which the alleged victims are whites and they abandoned a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party that resulted in a “travesty of justice.” -Christopher Coates
Coates is alleging that Department Of Justice officials dismissed the intimidation charges against the New Black Panthers for political reasons. The New Black Panthers were videotaped outside a Philadelphia voting precinct dressed in military-style uniforms and one was brandishing a nightstick and hurling racial slurs. He was emphatic that the dismissal of the Case against the New Black Panthers "was ordered because the people calling the shots in May 2009 were angry at the filing of the Noxubee case and angry at our filing of the New Black Panther Party case." But it gets worse...
"In the spring of 2009, Ms. (Loretta) King, who had by then been appointed Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights by the Obama Administration, called me to her office and specifically instructed me that I was not to ask any other applicants whether they would be willing to, in effect, race-neutrally enforce the Voting Rights Act. Ms. King took offense that I was asking such a question of job applicants and directed me not to ask it because she does not support equal enforcement of the provisions of the VRA and had been highly critical of the filing and prosecution of the Ike Brown case." -Christopher Coates
Why did Coates feel compelled to ask whether job applicants could enforce the law in a race-neutral manner? The question became necessary because of a lack of enthusiasm among the career attorneys in the Civil Rights Division for enforcing the law when it resulted in African-American defendants rather than victims. This was an attitude that Coates said he first encountered during the administration of George W. Bush:
"Opposition within the Voting Section was widespread to taking actions under the Voting Rights Act on behalf of white voters in Noxubee County, MS, the jurisdiction in which Ike Brown was and is the Chairman of the local Democratic Executive Committee. In 2003, white voters and candidates complained to the Voting Section that elections had been administered in a racially discriminatory manner and asked that federal observers be sent to the primary run-off elections. Career attorneys in the Voting Section recommended that we not even go to Noxubee County for the primary run-off to do election coverage, but that opposition to going to Noxubee was overridden by the Bush Administration’s Civil Rights Division Front Office. I went on the coverage and while traveling to Mississippi, the Deputy Chief who was leading that election coverage asked me, “can you believe that we are going to Mississippi to protect white voters?” What I observed on that election coverage was some of the most outrageous and blatant racially discriminatory behavior at the polls committed by Ike Brown and his allies that I have seen or had reported to me in my thirty-three plus years as a voting rights litigator." -Christopher Coates
A judge agreed with Coates assessment of the case and the Department Of Justice won an injunction against Ike Brown and the Democrat Executive Committee which subsequently was upheld on appeal. That was the first time in the history of the Department Of Justice that it pursued a prosecution of an African-American defendant under the Voting Rights Act. Apparently it did NOT sit well with many within the Civil Rights Division who did not have any desire to prosecute non-traditional voting rights violations. In other words, they only wanted to prosecute white people. I suppose you could file this among those foolish claims that black people cannot be racists.
When Coates was promoted to head the Civil Rights Division, he began asking the offending question in job interviews as to whether applicants could pursue cases in a race -neutral manner in the future. This is what led Loretta King, an Obama political appointee, to order him to stop asking the question.
Coates testimony was confirmation of earlier testimony by former Department Of Justice attorney J. Christian Adams who left the department in protest after the dismissal of the New Black Panther case. Coates himself was ordered not to testify before the commission and was transfered to the U.S. attorney's office in South Carolina, a move that was designed to get Coates out of sight and out of mind...it obviously failed. Now the Obama administration, which was once promoted as the first post-racial presidency, now finds itself an enabler in the worst sort of racial discrimination.
However bad the blatant discrimination within the Department Of Justice may be, according to Christopher Coates there is something else afoot which could directly affect the upcoming election with regard to the potential for voter fraud on a massive scale:
"In June 2009, the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) issued its bi-annual report concerning which states appeared not to be complying with Section 8's list maintenance requirements. The report identified eight states that appeared to be the worst in terms of their non-compliance with the list maintenance requirements of Section 8 [of the Voting Rights Act]. These were states that reported that no voters had been removed from any of their voters’ list in the last two years. Obviously this is a good indication that something is not right with the list maintenance practice in that state. As Chief of the Voting Section, I assigned attorneys to work on this matter, and in September 2009, I forwarded a memorandum to the CRD Front Office asking for approval to go forward with Section 8 list maintenance investigations in these states."
"During the time that I was Chief, no approval was given to this project, and my understanding that approval has never been given for that Section 8 list maintenance project to date. That means that we have entered the 2010 election cycle with eight states appearing to be in major noncompliance with the list maintenance requirements of Section 8 of the NVRA, and yet the Voting Section which has the responsibility to enforce that law has yet to take any action." -Christopher Coates
Apparently the weeds that ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) planted in the last election are not going to be pulled, but instead will be fertilized and harvested...and the harvest is coming fast! Voter rolls that are not properly maintained are ripe with the deceased, illegal aliens and duplicate registrations. All have the potential for showing up and illegally influencing the outcome of elections. However this is of no concern to the Department Of Justice. Don't be surprised to find out that our elections are being manipulated...they have been for quite some time!
Christopher Coates specifically mentioned Missouri's Robin Carnahan during his testimony. He told the commission that Mrs. Carnahan, acting in her current position as Missouri's Secretary of State, has refused to remove deceased people from Missouri's voter rolls. Carnahan was entitled to this special mention because she is currently running for the office of U.S. Senate against republican Roy Blunt. Wouldn't everyone running for public office love to be in a position to influence the outcome of their own election by collecting a stash of dead voters and have them "vote" as needed? Democrats rationalize these kind of shenanigans by calling it "leveling the playing field." This is how a dangerous freedom-hating minority seizes power. They can not win elections by telling the truth or pursuing fair voting practices...and they know it.
This is not an issue that will go away. You can expect every closely contested race in this November's election to be challenged by Democrats who will be able to "find" all sorts of "extra" ballots for their candidates on the recounts they subsequently demand. They perfected this method of operation in the close 2008 race for the U. S. Senate in Minnesota. As you will recall, republican Norm Coleman had a slim lead going into the recount but Al Franken ended up with the lead after many new votes were "discovered." Some of these votes were "discovered" in the most ridiculous places...like the trunk of a poll workers car! Don't be fooled. Ill maintained voter lists are the vines that bear the fruit of election fraud. When votes are needed, they will be found...count on it. As the old axiom states: It's not the voters that decide the outcome of elections, it's the counters.
Hopefully a Republican wave is going to be strong enough to overcome these difficulties and allow them to retake control of the House of Representatives. Once that happens, they will be in a position to launch serious official investigations into the corruption within the Department Of Injustice's Uncivil Wrongs Division.
CONSTANTINOPLE FALLS...AGAIN
The whole world is aware of the controversy surrounding the proposal to build a Muslim mosque on the Ground Zero site that sustained the attack of September 11, 2001. Suddenly people who despise the idea of religion in public life and who become squeamish at the thought of public prayer are becoming misty eyed in their support for the religious freedom of the Muslims whose motives for building this mosque are rightly being questioned. Strangely, the clash of three civilizations is repeating itself at the site of Islam's expansionist rebirth. Surely you recognize the conflict of Islam and Western Christianity as it boils over into the streets of New York. But what of Eastern Christianity? It too has a role in this controversy just as surely as it was at the center of the storm that resulted in the Medieval Crusades, and once again we see how little man has "evolved" in the 915 years since the Western Christian powers came to the aid of the Christian East. It looks disturbingly as much like 1095 as it does 2010.
Apparently Father Mark Arey of the St. Nicholas Eastern Orthodox Church doesn't get it. He doesn't understand why the Muslim Mosque is all the rage in the media while his little church struggles in obscurity. You see, the St. Nicholas Church was actually located at Ground Zero BEFORE the attack of September 11, 2001. It was annihilated when the South Tower fell and consumed it. In the nine years since, the same Port Authority that so enthusiastically supported the proposal to install a Muslim Mosque at the site of one of Islam's great successes has failed to authorize the Christian Eastern Orthodox Church to rebuild.
“I dare say this, if this were a Roman Catholic church or a Baptist church or even a synagogue, we would not have had this problem. I’m not sure we haven’t been a little bit bullied because we’re tiny.” -Father Mark Arey, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
And you thought the liberal media were standing up for the minority underdog.
In the tradition of most Orthodox churches, St. Nicholas held relics of saints, including the one for which the church was named: St. Nicholas of Myra (270-346 AD). This Saint was known for his love of children and was particularly beloved by the Dutch, who called him Sinterklaas and believed that he delivered treats to children on a special night every December. Sinterklaas? Sound familiar? He was the patron saint of Amsterdam and I am sure that most of you remember your history well enough to know that New York was originally a Dutch settlement called New Amsterdam.
However I bet most of you didn't know that a church containing relics of the actual St. Nicholas was amongst the collateral damage inflicted by those Islamic barbarians on that fateful day. Had this been made known then perhaps the American public would not have weakened its resolve in the subsequent years following the attack. It's one thing to strike a blow against the economic center of capitalism in the heart of the "Great Satan," but they also attacked...Santa Clause!!! Barbarians indeed.
Soon after the Towers fell, Port Authority officials, and then Governor George Pataki, vowed to build a new St. Nicholas Church on the World Trade Center site. A location at 130 Liberty Street was agreed upon. Apparently that location would allow for a larger structure with a traditional Greek Orthodox dome, and a non-denominational center for visitors to ground zero. It was felt the church would likely attract thousands of pilgrims to the World Trade Center site who might appreciate the secular memorial but who also thirst for a spiritual memorial. If the raising of a new World Trade Center Monument is meaningful to us, then the resurrection of the site's ONLY original sacred structure would also have to be considerably meaningful. Unfortunately, that meaning may well be too politically incorrect for our time.
In 1054 the two great churches of Christendom split when the Western Church broke away from the Eastern Orthodox. The Western Church became forever known as the Roman Catholic Church. The cause of this division can be found in primarily one issue: the Primacy of the Pope of Rome.
Until the Fifth Century A.D. there was never a single instance of dissension or antagonism between the two Churches. The Bishop of Rome had always been considered the First in the order of hierarchy. This was a natural consequence of the position of Rome as the capital of the Roman Empire. When Constantinople became the new capital of the Byzantine State its Bishop assumed the second position in the ranks of the hierarchy. However, with the rise in prominence of Constantinople the Pope of Rome's claim to universal jurisdiction was soon to be contested.
The influence of Greek thought on Christian thinking led to all sorts of divergent and conflicting opinions. Theology was also used as a weapon against opponent bishops, because being branded a heretic was the only sure way for a bishop to be removed by other bishops.
The opinion of the bishop of Rome was always sought, and his approval often desired. However the Bishop of Rome's opinion was not always accepted by all.
Divisions and arguments fomented for centuries until the two entities essentially excommunicated each other. All this is fascinating in that just a few decades after the split, Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus would ask the Christian West for military assistance to help him resist Islam's expansion into Byzantine territory. An expansion that was becoming a threat to Constantinople itself. Constantinople, you will recall, is named after the Roman Emperor Constantine who himself converted to Christianity and legalized it in Rome. The help that the Christian West provided to the East has been forever known as the Crusades.
The Crusades had their own political intrigues that involved repeated betrayals by the Byzantines who were quite fearful of the Crusaders. Eventually these betrayals would lead to the Crusaders actually sacking Constantinople themselves during the fourth Crusade on April 12, 1204. In spite of all the distrust and infighting, the city remained in Christian hands until May of 1453 when Sultan Mehmed II finally conquered the city with a massive slaughter of the Christians inside. The city was renamed Istanbul and, interestingly, The Church of the Holy Wisdom, also called the Hagia Sophia, was converted into the Ayasofya Mosque. This was done in keeping with the Muslim tradition of building mosques on the sites of their great victories.
Throughout history, Muslim conquerors have demonstrated their dedication to "multiculturalism" and "inclusiveness" by purposefully erecting mosques over some of the most sacred and hallowed places of Jewish and Christian worship. The al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem is built on top of one the holiest site Judaism, the Temple Mount. The Cordoba mosque in Spain was a former Christian cathedral. Muslims have engaged in this practice for centuries, symbolizing their victories over the infidels. Significantly, the Muslims proposed to name their Mosque at Ground Zero the Cordoba House until the symbolism behind that name was brought to everyone's attention. Islam is nothing if not consistent.
Symbolism is important to Muslims. You should not believe that the date of September 11 was some random choice by Osama bin Laden. That date held an important symbolic meaning...and no, bin Laden was no fan of legendary football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant who was born on that day in 1913. Rather bin Laden was well aware that on September 11, 1683 The King of Poland, Jan III Sobieski, attacked the Muslim army that had besieged Vienna, Austria. He subsequently routed the Muslims and this defeat would represent the end of Islamic attempts to expand their territory westward. To the Muslims it was a humiliation. The attack on the World Trade Center was delivered on that date to send a message to the West that "The Religion Of Peace" is back on the offensive. How many of us got the message?
The founders of the proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque at Ground Zero say they want peace and reconciliation. They got approval for their project, and look what’s happened. They have created nothing but conflict and divisiveness. Or as Jesus might say, by their fruits you will know them. I propose that they have generated the exact results they were seeking.
The liberal politicians and media personalities that have suddenly discovered their religious tolerance are not lecturing to us because of their love for Islam. In fact, it is their continuing hatred for Christianity that motivates their support for the Ground Zero Mosque. In their world of moral relativism ALL religions are equal. Therefore their support is not intended to raise Islam up in the eyes of the public. It is rather to bring Christianity down to Islam's level. The United States was founded on Christian principles, not Islamic ones. Yet they would equate the two. As always, the evil religion of equality is behind their actions. They have offered ZERO support for the St. Nicholas Church.
“The Port Authority may be Goliath, but we’re David and you remember how that story ended.” -Father Mark Arey
Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that negotiations between the St. Nicholas Church and the Port Authority had resumed, but Father Arey says no one has reached out to him. "We are very concerned. We’re not going to be pushed out. We are very determined to rebuild the church at Ground Zero.”
How little has changed. Once again the Christians of the West are needed to rescue the Christians of the East. The Mosque itself may be a constitutional right, however, the right of the St. Nicholas Church is just as protected and, of course, they were there first. Can we be motivated like those Crusaders of old to act in defense of our brethren of the East? Or do we watch as Constantinople falls again, right before our eyes? Islam is once again wrapping itself around Christianity and constricting the life out of it. If we cannot rise to the aid of St. Nicholas Church and insist that IT have priority at Ground Zero, then Islam truly will own the battlefield and be the clear victor in the battle of New York City. A Battle they started by attacking on September 11, 2001.
C,mon...rise up and defend Santa Claus!
BURN!
As always everyone gets it wrong. Where Islam is concerned it seems everybody feels compelled to bend over as far as they can to accommodate this religion and the children that follow it. Witness the outcry over a small church that had the bright idea to burn a few Qu'rans. The Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, says it will burn copies of the Qu'ran on this weekend's ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks in protest at what it calls "the evil of Islam". This small congregation's pastor, Terry Jones, has insisted the burning will go ahead as planned in spite of the enormous amount of protest that this little demonstration in free speech has generated.
"It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort in Afghanistan. It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community." - General David Petraeus"
Protests have already gone ahead in the Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, and in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country, while Iran has warned that the burning could unleash an uncontrolled Muslim response.
Why has this expression of free speech generated so much attention? The ONLY news that should have EVER gotten attention is not “Burn a Qu'ran Day”, but the REACTION of Muslims threatening suicide bombings over this silly publicity stunt. This sort of thing happens all the time in the United States. As well it should. In a free society people will often express themselves in extreme ways. In this case Islam "doth protest too much."
We see American flags burned routinely. Politicians and their images are often altered in obscene ways...and of course religious symbols are regularly assailed by insensitive public acts of disapproval. Worse still, we have endured the infamous "Piss Christ" exhibit where a crucifix was summarily submerged in a jar of piss and we were told that this was an elaborate artistic expression. And if burning Qu'rans is considered an expression of free speech who could not love Marilyn Manson's desecration and destruction of a Bible as he coronates himself as the Antichrist Superstar?
Why does Islam have to be treated with kid gloves? Just because Muslims act like children by throwing tantrums doesn't mean that the rest of us are obligated to accommodate them.
"This is a recruitment bonanza for Al Qaeda. You could have serious violence in places like Pakistan or Afghanistan. This could increase the recruitment of individuals who would be willing to blow themselves up in American cities or European cities." -President Barack Obama
Ahh, the ole' recruitment tool argument again. This is what cowardly progressive types bring up whenever we dare to say or do anything that displeases our enemies. You know, things like invade Iraq, imprison terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, interrogate jihadists or publish Muhammad cartoons. I suppose whipping the Japanese in battle of Midway likewise increased enlistments in the imperial Japanese Navy too but our ancestors didn't seem to worry about that. They understood that they were fighting ALL the Japanese and not just the ones who show up on battlefields. We fight wars more "civilized" these days. That is why jihadists come to America posing as students and fly airplanes into our buildings. We still believe in the myth of a moderate Islam.
"People have a constitutional right to burn a Quran if they want to, but doing so is insensitive and an unnecessary provocation — much like building a mosque at ground zero." -Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin at least recognizes that the building of a mosque at Ground Zero is indeed an act of provocation. As such it certainly is justified to burn a few Qu'rans as Terry Jones wants to do or even build Greg Gutfeld's gay bar next door to the mosque as reciprocal acts of sensitive outreach.
The Dove World Outreach Center is an insignificant church of about 50 people. How impressive that by threatening burning some Qu'rans they could conceivably get a personal call from the President of The United States. Thats right, a personal call from the President of the United States. Pastor Terry Jones indicated he could be convinced to call off his burn a Qu'ran demonstration if he received a call from the White House. No need to worry. That call will come to pass. All Muslims have to do is throw a tantrum and we will appease them.
There is some worry amongst those in the White House that acceding to the Pastor's request for a call from the President might legitimize him and further encourage other people to try outlandish stunts just to get presidential attention. Still, why should the President call at all? These type of things happen all the time. In a free society people are offended constantly...especially the religious. It is the price you pay for living in a free society. Once you appease one group of people as unoffendable, you legitimize their superiority. The last thing we should ever do is allow Islam the illusion that we recognize their superiority over us.
This may have started out as relatively silly protest but now it has become bigger than the burning of a few Qu'rans. Pastor Terry Jones needs to finish what he started and President Obama needs to butt out of the issue entirely. If Muslims the world over feel the need to protest, then let them. If they attack us and ours...kill them. But we absolutely must not allow them to see us as weak and themselves as strong. Doing that guarantees more Muslim aggression...and there will be more.
When all is said and done I really like this story. It shows that a few motivated individuals can generate a huge amount of attention by shining a light on Islam. Islam and its followers do not accept criticism and their public threats and protests do a lot to destroy the Progressive Left's myth of equality. All religions are not equal. The weak ones, the ones whose god is false, have to depend on their followers to get even. The real followers of the true God just sit back and enjoy the show...we know how it ends.
A REFLECTION OF GOD?
In the world of shocking headlines this one comes as a real snoozer:
POLL: 1 in 5 thinks Obama is a Muslim
These results were derived from a Pew Research survey that was taken BEFORE the President stepped into the controversy over the Ground Zero Mosque in New York City. One can only assume that it would have been a lot higher had the survey been conducted after Obama unsurprisingly affirmed his support for the project.
A growing number of Americans now believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim while the number of people who believe he is a Christian is declining. Perhaps more impressively, a size-able segment of the public is unwilling to commit Obama's religious conscience to any particular religion...at all!.
A new national survey by the Pew Research Center finds that nearly one-in-five Americans (18%) now say Obama is a Muslim, up from 11% in March 2009. Only about one-third of adults (34%) say Obama is a Christian, down sharply from 48% in 2009. Fully 43% say they do not know what Obama's religion is. The survey was completed in early August, before Obama's recent comments about the proposed construction of a mosque near the site of the former World Trade Center. -Pew Research Center
"While the president has been diligent and personally committed to his own Christian faith, there's certainly folks who are intent on spreading falsehoods about the president and his values and beliefs." -Joshua Dubois
Dubois went on to claim that the president's Christian faith plays an important part in his daily life. He referred to six speeches that the president has given in which he talks about those beliefs. However true it may be that the president has made references to some alleged allegiance to Christianity, the fact is that he has no one to blame but himself for the public's refusal to perceive him as a Christian.
When Barack Obama became president, he promised to try and change the relationship between Islam and the West. He said his goal was to build bridges, lessen hostility, create trust, and generally reduce the volume level in the conversation between the two cultures. Shortly after becoming President he gave his first formal interview to to Al Arabiya. That was followed by the now infamous speech he gave to the Muslim world in Cairo. Obama’s speech was laced with references to the Qur'an and his own "Muslim roots.”
And just what are these "Muslim roots?" Obama's grandfather was a Muslim. His father was raised a Muslim before becoming, by Obama’s account, “a confirmed atheist.” Obama’s stepfather was a Muslim. His half-sister Maya told the New York Times that her “whole family was Muslim.” Obama spent two years in a Muslim school in Indonesia and later, in a conversation with the New York Times, described the Arabic call to prayer “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.” Given all that, it is entirely accurate and fair to describe Obama as having Muslim roots.
But it doesn't end there. Since becoming president his policies have turned decidedly against Israel. His administration came out against Benjamin Netanyahu's government after it announced a new expansion of a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem. He likewise insists on dithering with the Iranians almost as though he WANTS to provide them the time necessary to develop an atomic weapon and, perhaps strangest of all, he instructed NASA chief, Charles Bolden, that NASA’s “foremost” mission is Muslim outreach. With all of this public affection being demonstrated toward the Islamic world, and yet again affirmed by his coming out in support of the controversial Ground Zero Mosque, is it any wonder that someone with his acknowledged "Muslim roots" might be perceived to be, in fact, a Muslim?
Strangely, some evangelicals have come out in defense of President Obama. Television pastor T.D. Jakes and Kirbyjon Caldwell, a spiritual adviser to George W. Bush, have released a letter condemning "misrepresentations" of President Obama's faith.
"We are deeply troubled by the recent questioning of President Obama's faith. We understand that these are contentious times, but the personal faith of our leaders should not be up for public debate. Obama has been unwavering in confessing Christ as Lord and has spoken often about the importance of his Christian faith. Many of the signees on this letter have prayed and worshipped with this President. We believe that questioning, and especially misrepresenting, the faith of a confessing believer goes too far."
Too far? Absolutely NOT! The fact that the president claims to be a Christian means absolutely nothing. No politician would dare to claim otherwise if he holds any serious ambition to be elected to high office. This letter, signed by more than 70 pastors and other Christian leaders, calls on the media and other public officials to offer "no further airtime" or attention to those who suggest Obama is a Muslim, not a Christian. That's right, when in doubt shout down the opposition and tell them to shut up. Did you really expect this from supposedly Christian pastors? Now you can see, in the open, what I was referring to on the Babylon Mystery Orchestra record "The Great Apostasy: A Conspiracy Of Satanic Christianity." Not every church with a cross hanging on it is a tool of God. These pastors have come to the defense of their Lord.
It amazes me how quickly some people will turn to a god when they can find his influence useful, likewise, this president's religious convictions are merely a matter of political expediency. He joined Reverend Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church not out of any appreciation for Christian ideology but for its political philosophy known as Black Liberation Theology." This brand of "Satanic" Christianity teaches the lie of "collective" salvation among others. People like Obama who appreciate the redistributionist ideology of Marxism turn to such churches to get their ears "tickled." Whereas true Christianity convicts the heart of sin, Liberation Theology justifies revenge for those who comfort themselves by claiming oppression. Does that sound like the Jesus of your Bible?
The most impressive information revealed in Pew Survey, however, is not the rising number of people who suspect the president is a Muslim. It is the number of people who say they do not know what religion claims the president's true allegiance. These people, in their confusion, have actually arrived at the correct conclusion..."none of the above." Apparently the American people can see that the president's religious views are as flexible as any given situation requires of them.
This president is not a mystery. He often reveals his true religious convictions in such statements as this one made to a group of Rabbis in August of 2009:
"We are God's partners in matters of life and death." - President Barack Obama
Absolutely NO Christian could, would or should describe their relationship with God as a partnership. The president was, once again, trying to utilize religion as a tool to further his own agenda. In this case it was the monstrosity he called Health Care Reform. This is the kind of language used by someone with an ambition that knows no limits...and we have heard it before...
ISAIAH 14: 13-14 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
Even as our president shows his impatience and contempt for the people who foolishly elected him, he has his sights set on something greater. He has already established a "partnership" with God. Obviously he perceives the presidency as a job that is undeserving of his unique talents. The penultimate narcissist has made it clear that he will not be bound by constitution or country.
"We are the ones we have been waiting for." -Senator Barack H. Obama
Well what did we expect? He was at least honest with us. There is no need to waste time concerning ourselves with President Obama's religious affiliations. People who are capable of saying "we are the ones we have been waiting for" find their gods in their mirrors.
THE DESPICABLE CASE OF SHIRLEY SHERROD
In the spirit of trivializing the momentous and complicating the obvious, the Obama administration has produced its latest unforced debacle and, in the process of chewing on its own foot, introduced us to the monster known as Shirley Sherrod. Everybody who has had a hand in this outrageousness has managed to bungle their particular portion of it with one exception: Andrew Breitbart. I tell you this man is a devious genius delivering to the progressive left a full dose of their own, Saul Alinsky inspired, medicine...and this week he scored a direct hit!
Just who is this previously unknown woman and why has she become a spectacle of clumsiness for Obama and just about every media organization in America? Up until Monday, July 19, 2010 she was an insignificant political appointee in the United States Department of Agriculture. The black woman was forced to resign from the Agriculture Department and claimed the White House forced her out after recorded remarks from a March NAACP meeting unleashed a spectacular racial controversy. I say "spectacular" because it lays to rest any remaining doubt anyone could have that this president is a racial divider of the first order. The post-racial presidency is, and always has been, a myth!
These recordings of a speech given by Mrs. Sherrod came to light when Andrew Breitbart released them own his website. He threatened to expose the NAACP for its own racism after that organization had the audacity to accuse the TEA Party, a rather de-centralized but highly effective grass roots political movement, of hoarding racists within its ranks. The NAACP nonetheless issued its condemnation of the Tea Party and Breitbart, a man of his word, responded by releasing a tape that clearly shows the NAACP is more than a little comfortable with racially motivated governmental disenfranchisement against white people.
And what were these remarks?
SHIRLEY SHERROD: "The first time I was faced with having to help a white farmer with saving his farm – he took a looooong time talking – but he was trying to show me he was superior to me. I know what he was doing."
AUDIENCE: That’s right!
"But he had come to me for help."
AUDIENCE: Laughter.
"What he didn’t know while he was taking all that time trying to show me he was superior to me, was, I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him."
AUDIENCE: More laughter
"I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their land, and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land. I didn’t give him the full force of what I could of."
AUDIENCE: Laughter
"I did enough so that when he – I assume the Department of Agriculture had sent him to me – either that or the Georgia Dept of Agriculture – and, uh, he needed to go and report that I didn’t help him. So, I took him to a white lawyer that had attended some of the training that we had provided because Chapter 12 bankruptcy had just been enacted for the family farm. So, I figured if I took him to one of them that his own kind would take care of him."
"That’s when it was revealed to me that it’s about poor vs those who have. It’s not so much about white – it IS about white and black – but it’s not, you know, it opened my eyes because I took him to one of his own."
It seems rather simple. A black woman admitting that she used her government position to deprive a white man of some of the benefits that he was entitled to simply because he was white. However, Shirley Sherrod was never actually the point of the video's release...at least according to Breitbart. His reason for releasing the tape that was sent to him was to expose the open tolerance for racism by the audience listening to the speech. However, this story took a lot of interesting turns very fast.
Before the day was over Shirley Sherrod was asked to resign. According to her, this request was directed from the White House. Ben Jealous, president of the NAACP, who was actually in attendance when the speech was made, also weighed in:
Racism is about the abuse of power. Sherrod had it in her position at USDA. We are appalled by her actions, just as we are with abuses of power against farmers of color and female farmers. Her actions were shameful. While she went on to explain in the story she ultimately realized her mistake, as well as the common predicament of working people of all races, she gave no indication she attempted to right the wrong she did to this man.
The reaction from many in the audience is disturbing. We will be looking into the behavior of NAACP representatives at this local event and take any appropriate action.
It would seem an open and shut case of a rogue racist having been rightly culled from the government in a swift and effective manner. However the Obama administration, which excels at racial divisiveness, found a way to make this worse. Mrs. Sherrod took up residence at CNN and said she was forced to resign because “the stuff that Fox and the Tea Party does is scaring the administration.“ The Obama administration and a compliant media quickly went to work to change the nature of the story.
You see, the act of racism that Mrs. Sherrod was speaking of occurred 24 years ago. Suddenly the Obama administration and the media raced to tell us all how this is really a story of redemption. Everyone was accused of taking the story "out of context." Mrs. Sherrod was actually teaching us how to overcome racism by using herself as an example. Though the tape released by Breitbart does not reveal that this particular racist act took place 24 years ago, it most definitely DOES include Mrs. Sherrod's attempt to use herself as an example of overcoming her racism. Sorry, but the context was ALWAYS there. Apparently Mrs. Sherrod simply observed that poor white people could be useful in the Marxist struggle to liberate productive people of their assets and rightly redistribute them to a parasitic coalition of minorities and aggrieved intellectuals.
Everyone in the media and government went about apologizing to this racist woman just as quickly as they rushed to judgement of her the previous day. She was offered another job in the USDA and President Obama even called her to offer his personal apology for the way she was treated. The media attempted to blame the whole thing on FOX news in spite of the fact that she had already tendered her resignation before one word of her was uttered on the network. Face it...the Obama administration finally did something right and in a timely manner and it just didn't sit well with them. They had to re-assess the situation and screw it up.
The media blitz was impressive in its scale. Even such conservative stalwarts as Ann Coulter and Charles Krauthammer came out suggesting that the woman should be offered her job back. By the end of the second day of this story you would think Mrs. Sherrod was a wrongly persecuted saint. Did I miss something? No, but maybe they did. Though the overt act of racism may have happened 24 years ago, the speech Mrs. Sherrod gave was in March 2010. Breitbart claims he has had the excerpt since April. This tape most definitely reveals an overwhelming tolerance, bordering on jubilation, for the revenge racism that Mrs. Sherrod admitted to perpetrating 24 years ago. In fact the crowd was more sympathetic to Mrs. Sherrod when telling the first part of her story than it was to her when she was telling of her conversion to a more race-neutral form of Marxism. This was the entire point of releasing the tape...and it was current! Shirley Sherrod's loss of a job was merely collateral damage.
The NAACP has the master of this entire speech. If they are now convinced that she is someone who should be celebrated rather than condemned why did they jump to condemn her in the beginning? Perhaps because they know the one element of the story that wasn't being told. Yet they dutifully followed the White House's lead an issued a retraction:
"With regard to the initial media coverage of the resignation of USDA Official Shirley Sherrod, we have come to the conclusion we were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias. Having reviewed the full tape, spoken to Ms. Sherrod, and most importantly heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans." - NAACP
Of course the NAACP was following instructions issued from the White House. Ben Jealous was in attendance at Mrs. Sherrod's speech. He got it right the first time. Likewise, so too did USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack. When a potential embarrassment for the President arose in his department, he swiftly removed it. This is exactly what he should have done to a political appointee who serves at the pleasure of the President. Yet, he too was forced to call Mrs Sherrod and issue a personal apology as well as offer her another job even as the President accused him and his department of rushing to judgement in demanding her resignation. It is clear that the president is enamoured with this woman and does not want to lose her.
For their part, both Shirley Sherrod and her new-found adorers in the media would like to blame the whole thing on Andrew Breitbart and have openly expressed their desire to have his website shut down as well as have a general crackdown on internet bloggers. There is nothing unusual about the progressive left's contempt for your freedom of speech. Nobody wants to silence Shirley Sherrod, they just want to silence the people who failed to recognize her sainthood.
Sherrod even implies she would like to sue Breitbart but considering everything is in her own unedited words, she won't get far. Lets be clear: Shirley Sherrod is no victim. The only reason this is being talked about is because SHE talked about it. No one made her bring this up in the March meeting. She arrogantly volunteered it.
In spite of the attempt to deify this woman, the fact remains that she did use her position in a government administration office to commit an act of overt racism. Does anyone believe that the event she is describing is the one and only time she ever used her office to employ her ideas of racial retribution? In reviewing the language she used in her speech of March 2010 it is clear that by referring to a white lawyer as "one of his own kind" that her current attitude towards white people isn't as altruistic as she and her adoring media would have us believe.
The entire speech still has not yet been revealed and the whole story has not been told. Further releases by the NAACP have proven that Breitbart did NOT edit any of the segments that were sent to him to make her look worse. However, there is one key element that has been remarkably overlooked even to this moment, almost a full week from the breaking of the story. We know Shirley Sherrod is a racist. We know she has not repented of her racism and, in all fairness, we can fully understand why she is, and must be, a racist. You and I would most likely be one too if you had her history...and what is her history you ask?
Shirley Sherrod’s 17th year probably did more to mold her personality and set her on a path that traveled through the dangerous, volatile world of race. That year, 1965, her father was shot and killed by a white man in a dispute over cows, the family says. - Atlanta Journal Constitution
The white farmer was never prosecuted for the murder. However, we should not be too quick to judge...it may very well have been a justifiable act of self-defense. The way this story has unfolded, there is always another layer of deceit. And therein lies the problem. To the progressive left, racism is the ultimate sin of mankind when, in reality, it is and always has been the bearing of false witness against one's neighbor. In other words...lying! Half of all the racism alleged these days is false, particularly the allegation that Tea Party protesters uttered racial epithets at John Lewis and other prominent democrats who arrogantly strode through them on their way to a vote that stole the health care system of the United States. Had the NAACP not made that false accusation it is unlikely we would have ever heard of Shirley Sherrod.
"You know, I haven’t seen such a mean-spirited people as I’ve seen lately over this issue of health care. Some of the racism we thought was buried. Didn’t it surface? Now, we endured eight years of the Bush’s and we didn’t do the stuff these Republicans are doing because you have a black President." - Shirley Sherrod
Does that sound like a woman who has left her racism in the past? No, it sounds like a woman using her appointed position in the Obama administration to lash out at her perpetual enemy...white people. She played the race card and then had it played on her.
Shirley Sherrod is a narcissistic woman in love with the sound of her own false wisdom. No one made her tell this story. She gave this speech to glorify herself and present the illusion that she had outgrown racism on her climb toward a greater understanding of Marxism. Marxism is all about revenge...and make no mistake about it, Shirley Sherrod has extracted revenge for her father's murder...one white farmer at a time. Its too bad she didn't consult Christianity. She might have found the ability to forgive and be forgiven.
If you are looking for a story about the real redemption of a racist you might consider the actions of this one:
What followed was a period of reflection. "And so, one by one, he picks up the telephone and he begins calling his old enemies, the people who he had used as kind of punching bags in the 1960s and asked for their forgiveness," says Dan Carter. One of the people (He) called was civil rights leader John Lewis, who had been beaten by state troopers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965. "He literally poured out his soul and heart to me. It was almost a confession," says Lewis.
Whether it was his conscience or political expediency that sparked him to ask for forgiveness will never be known. But when he reentered politics for the 1982 governor's race, he sought and won the vote of black constituents, and he worked with black leaders once elected. - Racism to Redemption By Maggie Riechers
And who was the writer speaking about in that passage? Former Alabama governor George C. Wallace. Unfortunately, Wallace is a white man and therefore can never be redeemed.
Those who seek revenge have their reward. As it stands, Shirley Sherrod is owed nothing. She got her revenge...many times over. That she may have finally got her fill of it should disgust us, not impress us. This woman should be kept as far away from a government position as possible. She should be shunned, not celebrated. She should be ostracized, not sanctified. She is no civil rights hero.
President Obama, on the other hand, loves this woman. It is no surprise that he would rise to her defense and force every government and media apparatchik to issue her apologies. A narcissistic Marxist seeking vengeance. Now that's..."one of his own kind."
YOU"RE DESPICABLE!
SHE WANTED IT
It was the first Manowar record I ever bought: Into Glory Ride. It began with the sounds of a couple entwined in sexual copulation only to be discovered by the sixteen year old girl's none-too-happy parents. The boy tapping into the forbidden fruit gave the long established yet uncomfortable excuse that, unfortunately for many parents, happens to be true...she wanted it. Alas, this same excuse, though useless when dealing with an aggrieved father and his 12 gauge shotgun, works wonders as a defense in rape prosecutions throughout that part of the world that operates under Muslim law. In fact, once it is ascertained that the victim of a rape "consented" to the sexual act she can then be prosecuted herself, for that too is against sharia law. If you are a male unable to restrain your sexual appetite, then perhaps you should consider making Islam your religion of choice.
ABU DHABI A teenager who alleged she had been gang-raped by five men but later recanted her claim has been sentenced to a year in prison for consensual sex. The five she had initially accused were acquitted of rape by the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court today, but were found guilty of less serious charges.
The Emirati teenager LH, 18, was found to have consented to intercourse with YM, a 19-year-old military police officer who was also sentenced to a year in jail after the rape charge against him was changed to one of consensual sex by the judge. Two further defendants, both referred to as HA, were sentenced to three months in prison for being alone in the company of a woman. The fifth and sixth defendants were fined Dh5,000 (US$1,400) for violations of public decency. - The National
Islamic Sharia law requires four male Muslim witnesses who actually saw the rape to establish rape or adultery. Without those witnesses, a woman who makes such an accusation is ultimately incriminating herself. A clever rapist knows how to remedy this situation. You simply invite the girl to be alone with you. Once that happens everything she has is yours. What a religion, huh?
Genetic material recovered from the scene led the judge to convict YM of consensual sex, while acquitting HA. The forensics report found that LH was not a virgin and that there was no genital bruising. It found 12 bruises ranging from 1cm to 7cm long on her upper lip, hands, thighs, knee and behind her left ear.
"Some of the bruises are new, two to three days old, and some of them are old, seven to 15 days old," the report said. The report attributed the bruises to body pressure or being hit with a solid material. During the trial, prosecutors claimed that LH had gone for a drive on May 2 with her male Emirati friend, HA, in Baniyas, where they had intercourse. Prosecutors said the fact she agreed to go with him alone in the car partly showed her consent to sex.
Apparently beating your victim is not proof of coercion. Just so long as you do not damage the parts you were looking to play with in the first place. But hey, what's wrong with busting her in the mouth for protesting? We are Muslim men, we don't take no lip from no woman...ever!
It's too bad Mike Tyson or Kobe Bryant didn't have their little "entanglements" in a Muslim country. However, if they would convert to Islam, there are plenty of liberal judges who would consent to applying Islamic law to their cases. It's only fair that you be judged a legal code of your own choosing...isn't it?
Where are all the women's advocacy groups calling out the injustice of convicting a woman of allowing herself to be raped solely on the basis of agreeing to be in the company of a man. I suppose they are too busy fighting all the oppressive laws here in America that require a teenage girl's parents to be notified before an abortion. It's good to see that those advocates for women's rights have a good set of priorities. We must stifle those restrictive meddling parental consent laws.
My favorite part of this story, naturally, revolves around the cleverness of the initial rapist. Since Muslim law requires four male Muslims to testify as witnesses in order to prove a rape I have always contended that any witnesses would likely be participants in the crime itself. This was borne out as this story continued:
They said that, HA, 19, then called five of his friends - four Emiratis and one Iraqi - and invited them to join him in raping her in the backseat of his Nissan Altima. Charges against one defendant were later dropped.
Man do those Muslims know how to throw a party or what? If your Muslim buddy finds a woman foolish enough to be alone with him, the law encourages him to share his bounty with you so that everyone can keep their story straight. Who knew the droogs in "A Clockwork Orange" were Muslims? What's not to love about the Religion of Peace? Or is that the Religion of Piece? Where do I sign up? Allahu Akbar!
MOURN NOT FOR GENERAL McCHRYSTAL
The liberal-progressive dominated media is praising President Obama's firing of General Stanley A. McChrystal and the subsequent choice of Iraq War hero General David Petraeus as his replacement as a brilliant decision. Considering the debacle that is the Obama administration, a decision that pretty much made itself in a manner that the president couldn't screw up probably does qualify as brilliant. After all, Obama keeps setting the bar lower with each passing day. Still one has to question how firing someone that he hired qualifies as anything other than further proof of his incompetence and ineptitude.
Just over a year ago General McChrystal replaced General David McKiernan as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan with much fanfare and praise. The media wet itself in excitement over this new president's excellent choice to replace what was essentially a holdover from the Bush administration. Poor David McKiernan was never really given a chance to be anything other than a steppingstone for the new strategy that was to be implemented by a bold new president.
McChrystal for his part appeared eminently qualified. This was the man who as Commander of Joint Special Operations Command was responsible for the capture of Saddam Hussein and the later killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. There is nothing to indicate that he was anything less than a stellar soldier. However, everyone must inevitably succumb to the one law of nature that ultimately rules our society...The Peter Principle.
And just what is the Peter Principle? I'm glad you asked. The Peter Principle is the principle that in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. In other words, you will get promoted until you finally reach a job you cannot do and there you will stay. If there is anything "brilliant" in Obama's decision to accept General McChrystal's resignation it is that the General will be put out of our misery faster than normal.
General McChrystal achieved his level of incompetence by giving an interview to Rolling Stone magazine in which he and his staff made some disparaging remarks about the president and some of the civilian leaders assigned to work in the Afghanistan theater. This was the moment that brought the general's incompetence to light, however, he had long been hard at work trying to get there. You see, the problem with McChrystal has been the general’s devotion to unreasonably restrictive rules of engagement that result in the deaths of American and coalition forces. The Rolling Stone interview was particularly damning:
The night before the general is scheduled to visit Sgt. Arroyo’s platoon for the memorial, I arrive at Combat Outpost JFM to speak with the soldiers he had gone on patrol with. JFM is a small encampment, ringed by high blast walls and guard towers. Almost all of the soldiers here have been on repeated combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and have seen some of the worst fighting of both wars. But they are especially angered by Ingram’s death. His commanders had repeatedly requested permission to tear down the house where Ingram was killed, noting that it was often used as a combat position by the Taliban. But due to McChrystal’s new restrictions to avoid upsetting civilians, the request had been denied. “These were abandoned houses,” fumes Staff Sgt. Kennith Hicks. “Nobody was coming back to live in them.” - Rolling Stone
These rules of engagement were entirely the work of General McChrystal himself...but why? On September 4, 2009 there was an international uproar after an American F-15E Strike Eagle bombed a group of Taliban fighters who had apprehended two tanker fuel trucks. The trucks, naturally, exploded, and the Taliban fighters were killed along with several civilians. General McChrystal was angry over the civilian deaths and determined to tighten the American force's already-too-strict rules of engagement still further to avoid them in the future. When the general met with local leaders in Kunduz, a few days after the bombing he fully expected to get an earful of criticism. He got an earful alright...but not an earful of what he expected. What he got was a totally unanticipated sort of criticism:
McChrystal began expressing sympathy "for anyone who has been hurt or killed."
The council chairman, Ahmadullah Wardak, cut him off. He wanted to talk about the deteriorating security situation in Kunduz, where Taliban activity has increased significantly in recent months. NATO forces in the area, he told the fact-finding team before McChrystal arrived, need to be acting "more strongly" in the area.
His concern is shared by some officials at the NATO mission headquarters, who contend that German troops in Kunduz have not been confronting the rise in Taliban activity with enough ground patrols and comprehensive counterinsurgency tactics.
"If we do three more operations like was done the other night, stability will come to Kunduz," Wardak told McChrystal. "If people do not want to live in peace and harmony, that's not our fault." McChrystal seemed to be caught off guard. "We've been too nice to the thugs," Wardak continued. - Washington Post
Instead of receiving an angry lecture on America's disregard for Afghan life, the general received an angry lecture on America's hesitance to kill the enemy. Wow! How many of you knew that Afghan leaders were actually upset that the Americans are too passive in their pursuit of the war? That is not the way the war has been portrayed in the American press and for good reason: It doesn't fit their agenda...and that is General McChrystal's problem...he does fit their agenda.
There have been a lot of foolish comparisons of his dismissal to that of General Douglas MacArthur by Harry Truman or even General George McClellan back in the Civil War by Abraham Lincoln. The better comparison is the later firings of both Ambrose Burnside and Joseph Hooker by President Lincoln. Both of these were Generals who allowed politics to interfere with the prosecution of their battles largely because they received their commissions based upon...political connections. They were both subsequently routed by General Robert E. Lee who possessed a smaller, ill-equipped army. A political agenda is a liability to any commander. That, unfortunately, seems to be a weakness that General McChrystal likewise possessed.
Now it can be told. The story about him voting for Obama is not contrived. He is a political liberal. He is a social liberal. He banned Fox News from the television sets in his headquarters. Yes, really. This puts to rest another false rumor: that McChrystal deliberately precipitated his firing because he wants to run for President. - The Atlantic
And now you know why President Barack Obama chose General Stanley McChrystal as his commander in Afghanistan. He chose one of his own kind. Can you say...political connections? It was only a matter of time before this political alliance led to disaster. That time has arrived. How brilliant does the president's firing of HIS own man look to you now? Even worse, he has been forced to turn to Bush's man, General David Petraeus, to salvage his Afghanistan strategy...a man he essentially called a liar back in September of 2007.
This was General McChrystal's incompetence: He brought his liberal politics to the battlefield. To be sure he was a well loved and respected general...but so were many generals in the past that failed. There was no excuse for announcing to the world who you voted for in an election. Particularly when a majority of the military backed the other guy. However the worst thing he did was to author rules of engagement that reflected his political views over the practical realities of the fight. This is especially inexcusable when you learn that the Afghan leaders themselves were encouraging him to be more aggressive and not to worry so much about civilian casualties. He willingly chose to put the interests of Afghan civilians, many of whom by their proximity to the targets were likely Taliban allies, over the safety of the soldiers under his command...and the soldiers didn't like it.
One soldier shows me the list of new regulations the platoon was given. "Patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will not have to defend yourselves with lethal force," the laminated card reads. For a soldier who has traveled halfway around the world to fight, that's like telling a cop he should only patrol in areas where he knows he won't have to make arrests. "Does that make any f-king sense?" Pfc. Jared Pautsch. "We should just drop a f-king bomb on this place. You sit and ask yourself: What are we doing here?" -Rolling Stone
The soldiers know...they ALWAYS know.
He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword but he who lives by liberalism is always betrayed by it. General McChrystal allowed the ultra-liberal music magazine, Rolling Stone, to have full access to him and his staff for this interview. Any soldier in their right mind would know not to let this military-hating magazine anywhere near them, but since he too is a liberal like them he thought everything would be OK. Fool. They don't even like the KISS Army. How could they pass up the opportunity to embarrass the United States Army? They couldn't.
NURTURING A CRISIS
"We were stepping on the neck of BP to do everything we can do. Our job is keep our boot on the neck of British Petroleum and make sure they live up to their responsibilities." -Ken Salazar, Interior Secretary
President Barack Obama and his bureaucratic henchmen proudly boast that they intend to keep their boot on the neck of a major corporation even as they are entirely dependent on their intended victim to stifle the escalating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It would almost seem an idiotic statement were it not coming from a president who promised that "change is coming to America." Rest assured, the apparent incompetence of the Obama administration is far more nefarious than the "Keystone Cops" illusion that they are gleefully promoting to the American public.
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste" -Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief Of Staff
No, a crisis must be nurtured and cultivated to fruition. The Obama administration's animosity toward capitalism and big corporations has found the perfect vehicle with which to attack the United States economy. Just as surely as the allied bombers of World War 2 destroyed Germany's ability to survive by killing its fuel supply, so too do today's social engineers intend to cripple our economy by professionally mis-managing both the spill and its subsequent cleanup.
No one could fairly argue that President Obama could have in any way prevented the accident that has led to this disaster. Likewise, no one can suggest that anything within the president's or the federal government's power can realistically alter the situation at the point of the oil leak. This is simply something outside of their area of expertise. Therefore when it comes to containing the leak 5000 feet underwater they are entirely at the mercy of British Petroleum. Lest we be too hard on the unfortunate company, we should all realize that there is no reason that BP should want to prolong the uncontrolled release of the valuable crude into the Gulf. Every day the oil flows represents hundreds of millions of dollars in loss. Bottom line: If they could stop it they would...and they will stop it as fast as they can.
Yet, in an attempt to appear as though it is in command of the situation, the Obama administration announced that it intends to open criminal investigations into the disaster before it has either plugged the leak or made significant efforts to begin cleaning the massive spill.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in New Orleans that he planned to “prosecute to the fullest extent of the law” any person or entity that the Justice Department determines has broken the law in connection with the oil spill. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 120 points shortly after Mr. Holder’s announcement as energy stocks tumbled on expectations of the federal investigations. BP lost 15 percent of its market value during the day’s trading. - New York Times
Only an ideologically puritanical leftist could see the logic in rushing in a bunch of lawyers while the well is still spewing. You can always count on this administration to cultivate as much harm to the business climate as possible. Various elements of the American left have even gone so far as to suggest that the administration should seize British Petroleum's American assets. Considering the fact that they have already nationalized General Motors, Chrysler, AIG and the entire student loan business this is certainly not an unreasonable possibility. However even this administration, in spite of all its bumbling, is not foolish enough to seize the company until after the leak is stopped. If they did that then Obama truly would own a hole in the ground. But once the leak is plugged...BP should take the threat of seizure seriously.
The damage to the Gulf Coast economy was apparently not disastrous enough to suit the Obama administration, therefore they cleverly decided to make matters worse as fast as possible. With the seafood and tourist industry reeling from the effects of the spill the administration moved in for the kill by issuing a moratorium on new offshore drilling in the Gulf. This moratorium immediately affects 33 rigs and places a still greater burden on the flailing economy of the Gulf Coast states.
First, there are the immediate consequences as tens of thousands of oil industry workers are instantly put out of work by the moratorium. But then, there are the far more sinister long term consequences:
Brazil could benefit from the BP Gulf of Mexico spill as a U.S. moratorium on offshore drilling boosts available rigs for the country’s deep water oil exploration program. Even as an ecological catastrophe makes the future of U.S. offshore drilling less certain, Brazil is plowing ahead with a $220 billion five-year plan to tap oil fields even deeper than BP’s ill-fated Gulf well, which is still leaking crude.
With an estimated 35 rigs idled in the Gulf of Mexico, Brazil is already receiving inquiries from companies looking to move their rigs here, where vast discoveries in recent years may soon turn the country into a major crude exporter. “What is bad for some may be good for others,” said Fernando Martins, Latin America Vice President for GE Oil and Gas, which provides services to drillers in Brazil.
“Since operators are shutting down at least temporarily in the U.S. Gulf, some companies are planning to move their rigs to Brazil now,” he said, without offering details. - Reuters
These consequences are sinister in that the Obama administration is well aware that once these oil operations are moved away from U.S. waters...they won't be coming back. In his attempt to give the appearance of doing SOMETHING (anything?), this administration is further enabling our country's dependence on foreign sources of oil. Is it likewise another coincidence that the democratically controlled U.S. Senate is currently pushing to pass the presidents cap and trade energy bill?
Many others in the conservative media seem puzzled and perplexed at the environmentalists who have apparently given the president a pass on this "mother of all environmental disasters." After all, how can they be silent? If this were a republican president they would be spraying oil all over innocent bystanders at the capitol. What gives? Perhaps they are rejoicing over the fact that those operations currently shut down will be leaving for good...and with them goes the last of the "drill baby drill" crowd's political momentum...or so they believe.
Though this may be the hope of the environmentalists, this will not ultimately lead to the defeat of the "drill baby drill" movement. If you will recall, this movement came about in 2008 when gas prices at the pump were pushing $5.00 a gallon nationwide. The country may very well be lenient on Obama for his inability to stop the leaking oil but if gas prices surge again it will be as a direct result of HIS actions. He is very aware of that fact. He has other motives. It should be noted that all five Gulf Coast states have republican governors and four of the five voted for McCain in the presidential election. Coincidence?
If the president is powerless to stop the leaking oil then he should be focusing on that which his power can have an influence: containing and cleaning the oil that has escaped. This is where president Obama "appears" to be at his most incompetent. Governors from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama have been clamoring for more floating oil containment booms from the very beginning of this catastrophe. These devices, in sufficient numbers, would have been able to protect the beaches and the marshes from the oil that is now ruining them. Inexplicably these booms have not been forthcoming. For some reason, the Obama administration would like for us to believe there is a shortage of these devices as this exchange with Admiral Thad Allen, the man in charge of the administration's cleanup operations, demonstrates:
Jake Tapper, ABC: I talked to a guy who runs a company in Maine that offers boom, and he has — he says — the ability to make 90,000 feet of boom a day. High quality. BP came there 2 weeks ago, looked at it, they are doing another audit today. He is very frustrated, he says he has a lot of high quality boom to go and it is taking a long time for BP to get its act together. Don’t you need this boom right now?
Admiral Thad Allen: Oh we need all the boom wherever we can get it. If you give me the information off camera I’ll be glad to follow up.
Hmm... I hate to come down on a serviceman, but his answer is particularly disingenuous. There was no need for the admiral to ask for the information from Jake Tapper. It’s contained in a letter that has been sitting on the admiral’s desk since May 21st. Copies of letter were also sent to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and to NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco. The letter proudly touts the Auburn, Maine company Packgen and its capability of supplying the necessary boom and was written and signed by both Maine senators, Olympia Snow and Susan Collins. Unfortunately for the Obama administration this letter is widely available to the public.
Apparently Packgen has miles of floating oil containment boom in warehouse right now and they say they can make lots more on short notice. Packgen owner John Lapoint said his company is ramping up production to make 90,000 feet of oil boom per day. Packgen first alerted the government 4 WEEKS AGO that they can produce more boom than anyone in the US and abroad. And yet the governors of the Gulf states have been denied these resources even as the oil was encroaching ever closer to their shores. Did I mention that all five Gulf states have republican governors and four out of five of them voted for McCain?
Florida's state Senator, Bill Nelson, worries about yet another problem that is not being adequately addressed by the Obama administration. State emergency officials say there are not enough skimmers out in the Gulf catching oil.
“Three days after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch government offered to help. It was willing to provide ships outfitted with oil-skimming booms, and it proposed a plan for building sand barriers to protect sensitive marshlands.
The response from the Obama administration and BP, which are coordinating the cleanup: “The embassy got a nice letter from the administration that said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’” said Geert Visser, consul general for the Netherlands in Houston.” - Houston Chronicle
Now, after over 50 days of oil flowing freely into the gulf, the question must be asked: Why do effective and proven foreign clean-up ships remain unused and their offers to help unaccepted? Could it have something to do with the Obama administration’s close relationship with labor unions?
Suspicion revolves around the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, sometimes referred to as the Jones Act. The Act requires that ships that do business within the US be staffed with at least 75% American Citizens. In addition, ships that operate within U.S. waters have heavy restrictions placed on foreign manufacture. In its day, the law was made in order to protect American seamen. Today it has become a nuisance to the effort to clean up the oil spill. There are skimmer boats that wish to help clean up the oil, but the problem is they aren’t owned and operated in the United States. Therefore, under the Jones Act, they cannot work.
This is a big deal to the unions. They see it as protecting jobs. Or, more to the point, protecting UNION jobs. They don't like it when the Jones Act gets waived, and they take revenge on the politicians that do it. So is the Obama administration placating the unions and not doing everything he can to advance the cleanup of the spill? The administration continues to say that no one has requested a waiver of the Jones act. Perhaps it is simply because all foreigners and most Americans are simply unaware of the need to request a waiver. It should be noted that in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina President Bush granted a general waiver of the act so that all help that was available could be utilized...regardless of the source. But G.W. was not beholden to the unions. It should also be noted that the Obama administration has never acted against the wishes of the labor unions. The trend continues.
And then there is this...
Pursuant to 14 CFR section 91.137(a)(1) temporary flight restrictions are in effect for deepwater horizon/mississippi canyon (mc252) incident cleanup and reconstitution operations an area bounded by: 290500n/0904000w or the leeville /lev/ vortac 258 degree radial at 30.1 NM to 300000n/0890000w or the gulfport /gpt/ vortac 169 degree radial at 24.7 NM to 300000n/0870000w or the crestview /cew/ vortac 196 degree radial at 52.2 NM to 280000n/0870000w or the panama city /pfn/ vortac 208 degree radial at 149.6 NM to 280000n/0904000w or the leeville /lev/ vortac 201 degree radial at 76.3 NM to the point of beginning at and below 3000 feet AGL excluding the airspace outside of 12 nautical miles from the us coastline.
All aircraft operations are prohibited except those flights authorized by ATC, routine flights supporting offshore oil operations; federal, state, local and military flight operations supporting oil spill recovery and reconstitution efforts; and air medical and law enforcement operations.
That's right, The Federal Aviation Administration has banned all flights over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. After all, some of those flights could lead to nasty photos and more bad press for the thinned skinned Obama. The president has nurtured this catastrophe to make sure it grew to calamitous proportions...but he doesn't need for us to see a photograph of it lest we become fully aware of what he has done.
"In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come." - President Barack Obama
By comparing this disaster to the 9/11 attacks he is telling you that he fully intends to use this opportunity to push his already discredited climate/energy plan. The infamous cap and trade bill has been sitting lifeless in the senate for a year. His plans for placing huge cost increases on energy have not went away just because they are unpopular with the American people. This crisis is not going to go to waste!
America is now coming to understand that this president’s sense of identification lies not in American exceptionalism but in a belief that America is a force of evil in the world that needs to be destroyed. He never sounds convincingly like the leader of a great nation, because he is, in his heart, the product of his ideological upbringing. If you were at war with America, you could hardly do better than he has done.
He has increased the federal debt by more than all of his predecessors...COMBINED! He has coddled America's enemies even as he is undermining the alliance with our two best allies, Great Britain and Israel. He has attacked American capitalism by nationalizing companies and passing a stimulus bill that took 800 billion dollars away from the private economy and used it to bail out government unions...and he has had the audacity to ask the congress for another 50 billion to bail them out again!
By exploiting the Gulf oil disaster to promote his own, and his benefactors, political agenda he has placed the United States further into the clutches of dependence on foreign oil. If you were out to destroy America you could hardly do better than he has in just 18 months. Obama promised to change America. He never implied he had the slightest interest in running it. Destruction is change. And did I mention that the five states directly affected by his intentional mis-management of this crisis all have republican governors?
