Chuck Woolery discusses crazy budget cuts
Game show legend Chuck Woolery discusses which sacred government programs should be saved from the budget cuts.
Posted by Brian
11/30/2011
11/28/2011
Newt Gingrich's Daughter Set Record Straight That He Served Wife Divorce Papers While In Hospital
Posted by Brian
We've heard the stories now for over 30 years, and we are sure to hear them again in this election season now that Newt Gingrich is leading the Republican field for the GOP nomination. Or it could be that the media will keep it's powder dry in case he wins the nomination, using what we now know is a complete lie, perpetuated by the mainstream media and the left since 1980.
The story goes something like this: Newt Gingrich goes to the hospital, where his wife has just had cancer surgery, and is on her death bed, and callously serves her divorce papers. Total cold-hearted scumbag, right. And he would be, if it were true. But now his daughter has come out and called the whole thing a lie. From Newt serving divorce papers (his wife asked for the divorce several months earlier), to his wife being on her death bed (she wasn't and is still very much alive), the media have continued this smear for decades.
Here is the story from Newt's daughter, Jackie Gingrich Cushman:
We've heard the stories now for over 30 years, and we are sure to hear them again in this election season now that Newt Gingrich is leading the Republican field for the GOP nomination. Or it could be that the media will keep it's powder dry in case he wins the nomination, using what we now know is a complete lie, perpetuated by the mainstream media and the left since 1980.
The story goes something like this: Newt Gingrich goes to the hospital, where his wife has just had cancer surgery, and is on her death bed, and callously serves her divorce papers. Total cold-hearted scumbag, right. And he would be, if it were true. But now his daughter has come out and called the whole thing a lie. From Newt serving divorce papers (his wife asked for the divorce several months earlier), to his wife being on her death bed (she wasn't and is still very much alive), the media have continued this smear for decades.
Here is the story from Newt's daughter, Jackie Gingrich Cushman:
Setting the Record Straight
My father, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, has been in politics as long as I can remember.
And as long as I can remember, media coverage about him has contained misstatements of facts. The vast majority are simple mistakes that are easily corrected, understood and rewoven into an ongoing storyline.
But one of them seems to have taken on a life of its own, and simple corrections have not sufficed to set the record straight. Why does this happen? I can't be sure, but I suspect that the narrative created by these untruths proves to be so much more compelling and more dramatic than what actually happened that it proves irresistible.
I'm talking about the story of my father's visit to my mother while she was in the hospital in 1980.
Read More Here at Creators.comRelated articles
- Newt Gingrich's campaign gains velocity | Ana Marie Cox (guardian.co.uk)
OCCUPY DC vs. Employment Offers - "We won't do that"
After more than a month of protest demands for better employment opportunities and benefits, Accuracy in Media saw fit to test their desires with...employment applications. Our "headhunters" were treated to every excuse as to why these jobs aren't good enough for them. We guess middle management opportunities with healthcare and 401k benefits aren't desirable anymore.
h/t to Accuracy in Media
Posted by Brian
h/t to Accuracy in Media
Posted by Brian
New Video Shows Students Knew They Were Going To Be Pepper Sprayed and Didn't Mind
The War on Police
Cliff Kincaid — November 25, 2011
Rather than being victims of police brutality, a new video shows that Occupiers at UC Davis knew they were going to be pepper sprayed and didn’t mind it. Indeed, the new video evidence indicates that the entire confrontation with the police was staged for the benefit of the media, which took the bait and ran with it, making police out to be cruel and heartless villains. The new video evidence demonstrates that the police had not only warned the protesters in advance about what was going to happen but one demonstrator says to the police, “You’re shooting us?” and, after getting an affirmative answer, replies, “That’s fine.” Another tells her comrades, “Keep your eyes closed.” Several are seen covering their faces.
Read More at Accuracy In Media
Posted by Brian
Cliff Kincaid — November 25, 2011
Rather than being victims of police brutality, a new video shows that Occupiers at UC Davis knew they were going to be pepper sprayed and didn’t mind it. Indeed, the new video evidence indicates that the entire confrontation with the police was staged for the benefit of the media, which took the bait and ran with it, making police out to be cruel and heartless villains. The new video evidence demonstrates that the police had not only warned the protesters in advance about what was going to happen but one demonstrator says to the police, “You’re shooting us?” and, after getting an affirmative answer, replies, “That’s fine.” Another tells her comrades, “Keep your eyes closed.” Several are seen covering their faces.
Read More at Accuracy In Media
Posted by Brian
Related articles
Obama, Democrats "Jettison" White Working Class Voters For 2012
Posted by Brian
November 27, 2011, 11:34 PM
Obama campaign to target young, college educated students, such as the "Occupy" protestors shown above. |
The Future of the Obama Coalition
By THOMAS B. EDSALLFor decades, Democrats have suffered continuous and increasingly severe losses among white voters. But preparations by Democratic operatives for the 2012 election make it clear for the first time that the party will explicitly abandon the white working class.
All pretense of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left coalition made up, on the one hand, of voters who have gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment — professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists — and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic.
Related articles
- A Democratic Congressman Is Accusing The Democratic Party Of Rampant Voter Fraud (businessinsider.com)
- Occupy protests heat up; 4 arrested in LA - USA Today (usatoday.com)
11/26/2011
Anti-Israeli Rally In Cairo: "Kill All The Jews"
Posted by Brian
Over 5,000 people marched in a rally in Cairo to promote "battle against Jerusalem's Judaization", with calls from attendees to "kill all the Jews".
Ynet reported:
"In order to build Egypt, we must be one. Politics is insufficient. Faith in Allah is the basis for everything," he said. "The al-Aqsa Mosque is currently under an offensive by the Jews…we shall not allow the Zionists to Judaize al-Quds (Jerusalem.) We are telling Israel and Europe that we shall not allow even one stone to be moved there."
Back in March of this year, the Obama Administration was praising the riots in Egypt and across the Middle East, proclaiming it an "Arab Spring". Eight days into the riots the Obama Administration was calling on Hosni Mubarak to step down. Liberal in the U.S. and in Europe were thrilled with this "democracy" movement that was sprouting up across the Middle East, from Yemen to Libya. To the cheerleaders on the left, it never occurred to them that these were not spontaneous uprisings, but an organized movement. They were, and still are incurious as to who might be behind them. To these leftist morons the protestors were just people yearning for freedom. It was spontaneous and grass roots. It never even occurred to these useful idiots that the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, and Iran might be the catalyst and the organization behind the nearly simultaneous eruptions across the Middle East. All of the so-called "news" organizations were simply reporting what they were told by the Obama Administration and from press releases from the Muslim Brotherhood, who assured everybody that they were just a "very small minority" of the protestors, and that they had no designs on taking over the Egyptian government.
Nobody saw this coming...except some of those on the right. Talk radio (Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh), the alternative conservative media on the web, including a lot of us in the blogosphere, were saying that Cairo and the other uprisings were not spontaneous, nor necessarily a good thing. The power vacuums left behind would be filled in by radicals who would be most likely backed by Iran, and the most extreme Islamists, who will set up Islamic states ruled by Sharia, and who have an ultimate goal of a worldwide caliphate.
For a look into the minds of who we are dealing with, and what so many either don't want to, or simply refuse to see: An elementary teacher who spoke to Ynet gave this chilling look inside the minds of our enemy:
"Why is the US losing in Afghanistan? Because the other side is willing and wants to die. We have a different mentality than that of the Americans and Jews," he said.
Over 5,000 people marched in a rally in Cairo to promote "battle against Jerusalem's Judaization", with calls from attendees to "kill all the Jews".
Ynet reported:
Speakers at the event delivered impassioned, hateful speeches against Israel, slamming the "Zionist occupiers" and the "treacherous Jews." Upon leaving the rally, worshippers were given small flags, with Egypt's flag on one side and the Palestinian flag on the other, as well as maps of Jerusalem's Old City detailing where "Zionists are aiming to change Jerusalem's Muslim character."
Spiritual leader Dr. Ahmed al-Tayeb charged in his speech that to this day Jews everywhere in the world are seeking to prevent Islamic and Egyptian unity.
There were also chants from activists of: "Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, Judgement Day has come!"
Nobody saw this coming...except some of those on the right. Talk radio (Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh), the alternative conservative media on the web, including a lot of us in the blogosphere, were saying that Cairo and the other uprisings were not spontaneous, nor necessarily a good thing. The power vacuums left behind would be filled in by radicals who would be most likely backed by Iran, and the most extreme Islamists, who will set up Islamic states ruled by Sharia, and who have an ultimate goal of a worldwide caliphate.
For a look into the minds of who we are dealing with, and what so many either don't want to, or simply refuse to see: An elementary teacher who spoke to Ynet gave this chilling look inside the minds of our enemy:
...elementary school teacher Ala al-Din said that "all Egyptian Muslims are willing to embark on Jihad for the sake of Palestine."
Related articles
- Video: Shift in tone at White House over Egypt (hotair.com)
- HAMAS' Million Man March in Cairo Against "Judaization" of Jerusalem (barenakedislam.wordpress.com)
- Jordanians, Egyptians rally in support of Jerusalem (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Occupy Wall Street Sympathizer Threatens To Murder SC Governor Nikki Haley
Posted by Brian
Again I ask: Just how is the Occupy movement just like the Tea Party Movement? Rape at Tea Party events? No. Terroristic threats? No. Defecating in public? No. Riots and brawls with the police? None reported. Filthy encampments endangering public health? Hardly. The reporting by the mainstream news outlets regarding the glaring disparity between, not only the size of the events, but of the anti-capitalist money and groups behind these unsuspecting dupes, as well as the absolute lack of reporting of some of the more vile things happening at these different locations (anti-semitism, crime, health conditions, etc.) exposes even further how out-of-touch and biased so many members of the media have become. They are no longer reporting events. They have become advocates for certain views and movements which match their own.
Again I ask: Just how is the Occupy movement just like the Tea Party Movement? Rape at Tea Party events? No. Terroristic threats? No. Defecating in public? No. Riots and brawls with the police? None reported. Filthy encampments endangering public health? Hardly. The reporting by the mainstream news outlets regarding the glaring disparity between, not only the size of the events, but of the anti-capitalist money and groups behind these unsuspecting dupes, as well as the absolute lack of reporting of some of the more vile things happening at these different locations (anti-semitism, crime, health conditions, etc.) exposes even further how out-of-touch and biased so many members of the media have become. They are no longer reporting events. They have become advocates for certain views and movements which match their own.
OWS sympathizer threatens to murder Nikki Haley
POSTED AT 9:45 AM ON NOVEMBER 26, 2011 BY JAZZ SHAW
SC Governor Nikki Haley |
Nathan Shafer who threatened to murder Haley |
Ah, free speech is grand, isn’t it? Well… yes. But with certain limits. Verum Serum takes note of one couragious first amendment (and, apparently Occupy Wall Street) supporter who chose to explore those limits in a rather ill fated and short lived way. Seeing that South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley had “allowed” police to arrest some members of Occupy Columbia, he did what any rational, concerned citizen would do. He jumped on his Facebook page and threatened to murder her.
Read More at Hot Air (With Video Link of the Arrest)
Related articles
- Occupy Columbia protesters sue SC Gov. Haley (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
Executive Power In Wartime
Posted by Brian
“Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.”
Michael Mukasey
“Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.”
October 2011
Michael Mukasey
Former U.S. Attorney General
Executive Power in Wartime
Michael Mukasey served as the Attorney General of the United States from 2007-2009, as a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York from 1988-2006, and as an assistant U.S. attorney for that same district from 1972-1976. In 1995, he presided over the trial of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and others for a plot to blow up New York area landmarks. He received his B.A. from Columbia University and his LL.B. from Yale Law School.
The following is adapted from a speech delivered in Washington, D.C., on September 15, 2011, at the Second Annual Constitution Day Celebration sponsored by Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship.
President Obama campaigned for office largely on the claim that his predecessor had shredded the Constitution. By the Constitution, he could not have meant the document signed on September 17, 1787. Article II of that document begins with a simple declaration: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” Not “some” or “most” or even “all but a teeny-weeny bit” of the executive power. The President is vested with all of it. This is particularly noteworthy when compared with the enumerated legislative powers vested in Congress: “All legislative Powers herein granted.” The Founders understood, based in part on their unfortunate experience under the Articles of Confederation, that the branch of government most likely to be in need of the ability to act quickly and decisively is the executive. The branch most likely to overreach is the legislature.
Perhaps, then, candidate Obama was thinking of the Bill of Rights in claiming that President Bush shredded the Constitution. But leaving that question aside for now, let us consider how President Obama has fared in undoing the Bush policies he opposed. He began dramatically in January 2009 by issuing a series of executive orders. According to one, Guantanamo was to be closed within a year. Even though the principal planner of September 11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or KSM, had announced that he would plead guilty before a military tribunal at Guantanamo, the Justice Department announced in November 2009 that the military commission was cancelled. Instead, KSM would be brought to the mainland United States to stand trial. In response, Congress passed a statute, relying on its constitutionally-enumerated power of the purse, directing that no federal funds be used to bring any detainee from Guantanamo to the U.S. As a result, the Guantanamo military commission trial for KSM and other detainees charged in connection with September 11 is back on.
Another executive order in January 2009 suspended the CIA interrogation program. Instead of these allegedly disgraceful and unconstitutional interrogation techniques, it was announced that anyone acting on behalf of the U.S. government, even a highly trained CIA operative seeking sensitive security-related information, is limited by the Army Field Manual. This manual—because it was drafted for general use—is pitched to the capabilities of the most junior recruit in the field interrogating someone he has just captured. In fact, it has been available on the Internet for years and has been used by terrorists as a training manual for resisting interrogation.
The abandoned CIA program involved—in what is probably the most disastrous marketing term since New Coke—“enhanced interrogation” techniques which were, in fact, completely lawful. When detainees were subjected to those techniques—detainees who self-selected as both knowledgeable of Al Qaeda and resistant to lesser techniques—we learned a great deal. Three of these detainees—Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and Abdel Rahim al Nashiri—gave up a huge trove of valuable information. Not only did KSM disclose general information on how Al Qaeda moved money and people, but also specific information that helped disrupt other plots. One such plot involved airplanes attacking the Library Tower in Los Angeles. It was to be carried out by a South Asian group headed by a man named Hambali. Other information resulted in the capture of people involved in a plan to develop a biological weapons capability in the U.S. The list goes on.
Not only has this interrogation program been abandoned, but when people today are apprehended in connection with terrorist plots directed at this country—and there have been more than 20 since September 11—most are turned over immediately to law enforcement authorities, informed of their Miranda rights, and treated as routine criminal suspects.
What do we lose in this process? With the would-be Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, we lost the chance at information about who had built his bomb. From bombs that have shown up in packages originating in Yemen, it appears that the same bomb maker is still in business, and he is believed to be responsible for a bomb that injured Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, the man largely responsible for Saudi Arabia’s counter-terrorism efforts.
Although Guantanamo remains open, the President remains committed to closing it. For example, no new detainees are being brought to Guantanamo. We learned a month or two ago that a man named Warsame was apprehended and was thought to be in possession of valuable intelligence. He was placed aboard a naval vessel and debriefed for two months, after which he was advised of his Miranda rights and brought to the U.S. The administration disdains military tribunals, notwithstanding the fact that they have been used in our history from the Revolutionary War to World War II and are provided for specifically in a statute passed by Congress called the Military Commissions Act.
The administration also remains committed to figuring out a way to release those detained in Guantanamo, despite the fact that at least 20 percent of Guantanamo alumni have returned to the battlefield. We know that figure because 20 percent have been recaptured or killed. How many others are still in the fight is anyone’s guess.
So after all of this, where do we stand? The intelligence gathering techniques adopted and followed during the preceding administration not only remain on the books but are actively pursued. And thanks to a vigorous and courageous exercise of the Article II Commander-in-Chief power, and the splendid performance of a team of Navy Seals, Osama bin Laden is dead. I certainly would not minimize that achievement. He needed killing, and he and we needed it to be done at the hands of Americans. It was done in a way that allowed us to exploit the trove of intelligence that was found in his home—though one wishes that less had been said about it at the time, rendering it more effective. And his death has great symbolic significance, because of the status he had attained during the ten years since September 11. But it is impossible to gauge the significance of bin Laden’s death unless and until we recognize the simple fact that our encounter with what he stood for began much earlier than September 11, 2001.
What bin Laden stood for was Islamism, which—insofar as it holds the U.S. in a weird combination of awe and contempt—has been incubating for about as long as we have known about the other two “isms” that we successfully conquered in the last century. As a movement distinct from the religion of Islam itself, Islamism traces back to Egypt in the 1920s, when the loosely organized Muslim Brotherhood was established by a man named Hassan al-Banna. Al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood as a reaction to the modernizing influence of Kemal Ataturk, who dismantled the shell of what was left of the Muslim caliphate in Turkey, banned the fez and headscarves, and dragged his country into the 20th century.
Al-Banna’s principal disciple was also an educator—a bureaucrat in the education department of the Egyptian government named Sayyid Qutb. Qutb caused enough trouble in Egypt to get himself awarded a traveling fellowship in 1948, the year al-Banna was killed. Regrettably for us, Qutb chose to travel to Greeley, Colorado. And although it would be hard to imagine a more inoffensive place than post-World War II Greeley, Colorado, for a man like Qutb it was Sodom and Gomorrah. He hated everything he saw: American haircuts, enthusiasm for sports, jazz, and what he called the “animal-like mixing of the sexes,” even in church. His conclusion was that Americans were “numb to faith in art, faith in religion, and faith in spiritual values altogether,” and that Muslims must regard “the white man, whether European or American . . . [as] our first enemy.”
Qutb later returned to Egypt, quit the civil service, and joined the Muslim Brotherhood. He welcomed Gamal Abdel Nasser’s coup against the corrupt monarchy of King Farouk in 1952, but then became disillusioned with Nasser for failing to institute Sharia law. He opposed Nasser, and was subsequently arrested and tortured. However, he continued to write and agitate for Islam and against Western civilization, particularly against Jews, whom he blamed for atheistic materialism and considered the worst enemies of Muslims. He was released for a time, but eventually was re-arrested, convicted of conspiracy against the government, and hanged in 1966.
Many members of the Brotherhood fled to Saudi Arabia, where they found refuge and ideological sustenance. Qutb’s brother was among those who fled and taught the doctrine in Saudi Arabia. Among his students were Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian who would become a leading Al Qaeda ideologist, and a then-obscure Osama bin Laden, the pampered child of one of the richest construction families in the country. And the rest, as they say, is history.
That history did not come to these shores on September 11—or even on February 26, 1993, when a truck bomb detonated in the basement of the World Trade Center, killing six and wounding hundreds. It came at the latest in the 1980s, when a couple of FBI agents spotted a group of men taking what looked like particularly aggressive target practice in Calverton, Long Island. When they approached, they were accused of what we now call racial profiling, and they backed off. In November 1990, one of those men, El-Sayyid Nosair, assassinated a right-wing Israeli politician, Meir Kahane, in the ballroom of a Manhattan hotel. When the 1993 World Trade Center bombers demanded the freeing of Nosair from jail, it became apparent that the Kahane assassination had not been the lone act of a lone gunman. Authorities reviewed the amateur video of Kahane’s speech the night he was killed and discovered that one of those 1993 bombers had been in the hall when Kahane was shot. Further investigation disclosed that another was driving the intended getaway vehicle.
The man who served as the spiritual advisor to Nosair and the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, Omar Abdel Rahman, the so-called blind sheikh, along with Nosair and several others, were tried before me and convicted for participating in a conspiracy to conduct a war of urban terror against this country—a war that included the Kahane murder, the first World Trade Center bombing, and a plot to blow up other landmarks around New York and assassinate Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak when he visited the United Nations. The list of unindicted co-conspirators in that case included Osama bin Laden.
At the time, all of this was treated as a series of crimes—unconventional crimes, to be sure, but crimes nevertheless. This despite the fact that in 1996, and again in 1998, Osama bin Laden declared that he and his cohorts were at war with the United States.
In 1998, the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were bombed almost simultaneously. Again the criminal law was invoked, this time in an indictment that named Osama bin Laden as a defendant. Apparently he was unimpressed, or at least undeterred, because in 2000, Al Qaeda bombed the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, killing 17 sailors. It would have carried out the bombing of another naval vessel, but for the fact that the barge carrying the explosives was overloaded and sank.
Then came September 11, and to the call “bring them to justice” was added the call “bring justice to them.” We were told that we were at war more than 50 years after Sayyid Qutb determined that Islamists would have to make war on us, about 15 years after Islamists had made it clear that they were training for war with us, and five years after Osama bin Laden made it official with a declaration of war.
In fighting Islamism, we are handicapped at the strategic level by the refusal of those in authority to acknowledge the goals of our adversaries. Those goals are essentially political, and involve the recreation of an Islamic caliphate and the imposition of Sharia law over as broad a swath of the world as possible. This is a profoundly anti-democratic movement at its core, and it regards the whole idea of man-made law as anathema. Instead, we try to be inoffensive by using a term that originated in the administration in which I served, and we refer to a war on terror or terrorism. People who wish to quibble about what it is we are at war with take the discussion off into absurdity. One such person is the President’s Assistant for National Security, John Brennan, who, before an audience at the Center for Strategic Studies, ridiculed the idea of a war on terrorism or on terror, saying it is impossible to have a war on a means or a state of mind.
This lack of clarity also distorts the view of policy makers about what is happening in the Middle East, and so they daydream about democratic movements when the reality on the ground is more populist than democratic. The principal beneficiary of populism is more likely to be the Muslim Brotherhood than the local spokesman for Facebook. The credo of the Muslim Brotherhood is succinct and chilling: Allah is our goal, the Prophet Muhammad is our leader, the Qu’ran is our constitution, jihad is our way, and death in the way of Allah is our promised end.
If the death of Osama bin Laden is more than simply a spasm, or an opportunity to engage in self-congratulation—if it helps provide some insight into the nature of what it is we are fighting—then it will have been significant indeed. If not, its significance will be substantially diminished.
The signs do not seem promising. Even on September 11 itself, as was pointed out by Fouad Ajami, there was no discussion whatever of the 19 people who perpetrated the atrocity. Ajami pointed in particular to Ziad Jarrah, the most Westernized of the hijackers. Raised in Beirut, Lebanon, to be cosmopolitan in the spirit of that city, he then went to Hamburg, Germany, where he was radicalized, and he then wound up at the controls of Flight 93, the flight that was supposed to hit the U.S. Capitol. It didn’t because the passengers learned what had already happened at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, figured out what was in store for them and their country, and chose to act.
There is much to be learned from those facts. Start with the last. We learn the importance of intelligence. The passengers on Flight 93 were able to act because of what they had learned about what was going on elsewhere. Intelligence gathering must be our number one priority. The people waging war on us are part of a movement that does not occupy any particular place or country that we can demolish and then pronounce ourselves the winners. They live in some cases among us, and the only way of opposing them successfully is to find out in advance what they intend to do and to thwart it.
Second, note that Jarrah was radicalized not in the Middle East, but in the West. We must be aware of those in our society who wish to create closed ethnic zones, where Muslims essentially run their own affairs and outsiders enter only at their peril. This has already happened in the suburbs of French cities, in parts of England, and in other places you would not expect it such as Malmo, Sweden, and it allows radicalization to go on undetected. Guidelines have been put in place to allow the FBI to function for the first time in its history as an intelligence gathering organization and not simply as a law enforcement agency. If the Bureau partners with state and local law enforcement, then the kind of insular activity that allowed Jarrah to be radicalized can be broken up. Those guidelines must remain in place, and must be defended.
Doing that will require an intelligent understanding of the part of the Constitution I didn’t discuss at the outset, the part that animated so much criticism of the Bush administration by those now in charge—the Bill of Rights. This part of the Constitution provides robust protection to both public and private activity that we value, which is essential for the continuation of our civic life. But it does not require that we close our eyes when there are people plainly setting the stage for activity that is in no way protected.
The First Amendment protects free speech and freedom of worship. It permits preaching even violence in the name of religion. But it does not guarantee that such speech will go undetected. Nor does it guarantee that evidence of it cannot be presented in a court when and if it is appropriate to charge that the speaker and those to whom he spoke understood this protected speech and took it as a call to unprotected action. This includes action that itself consists only of speech—such as an agreement to commit a crime, which is itself the crime of conspiracy.
The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, and contains a separate warrant clause providing that warrants may issue only on a finding of probable cause. That does not mean that a search conducted for intelligence purposes requires a warrant, only that it be reasonable.
The Fifth and Sixth Amendments guarantee due process, counsel to those accused of crimes, and the right to confront witnesses, but their application is limited to trials occurring in Article III courts. How much process is due and what kind of evidence may be received and under what circumstances in other tribunals, such as military commissions, is an entirely different story.
The message lurking in the structure of the Constitution is that those acting lawfully under it deserve at least the benefit of the doubt when they act to protect the common good. That is not meant to be a statement or a suggestion of a jurisprudential standard, a standard of law; but it is meant as a prudential standard, a standard of civics and public discourse. This standard will help keep intact the system that we depend on to preserve the nation that Abraham Lincoln called the last, best hope of earth—words that are truer today than they were when he spoke them during another time of trouble.
11/25/2011
President Obama Rewrites History Of Thanksgiving: "A Celebration Of Community"
I guess you go with what you know. In the case of President Barack Obama, what he "knows" is community organizing. So, I guess it should come as no surprise that his 2011 Thanksgiving speech to the nation was about "community", "mutual responsibility" (or shared sacrifice), "each of us must do our part", and that the first Thanksgiving was a "celebration of community". He does give the obligatory thanks to our troops, as he should, but most of this address is simply socialist/Marxist ideals cloaked in soft, fuzzy rhetoric.
The truth is that the first Thanksgiving was not about a "celebration of community", as Obama would have us believe, but was to give thanks and praise to God, who had provided for them a bountiful harvest.
(1) Of the 101 who had originally come to Plymouth colony, half died. The original settlers actually had set up a communal lifestyle, with no private property, and all work and food was to be used for the "common good". Sound familiar? William Bradford, the first governor of the Plymouth colony soon realized the inequity, as some would feign sickness or some other ailment, while a minority, who were more industrious, were providing all of the food and work, but which was insufficient to sustain the colony. It was at this time that Bradford established "private" property rights. Now, what you produced or grew (with the help of the local Indian tribes, who showed the new settlers how to grow local vegetables) belonged to you and could be traded or bartered for other goods or services. Those who were at one time "too sick" or "too tired" to work became productive members of the colony. Suddenly, the sustainability of the colony was more secure, and their standard of living increased. The first Thanksgiving was not about a celebration of "community", but was to give thanks to God for a bountiful harvest, private property, and free-market capitalism.
George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation acknowledges this with the simple statement "acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.
The Thanksgiving holiday is not a celebration of community, but an acknowledgement that all of our blessings come from God and that we use this day to thank and praise him for the abundance that each of us has.
Posted by Brian
The truth is that the first Thanksgiving was not about a "celebration of community", as Obama would have us believe, but was to give thanks and praise to God, who had provided for them a bountiful harvest.
(1) Of the 101 who had originally come to Plymouth colony, half died. The original settlers actually had set up a communal lifestyle, with no private property, and all work and food was to be used for the "common good". Sound familiar? William Bradford, the first governor of the Plymouth colony soon realized the inequity, as some would feign sickness or some other ailment, while a minority, who were more industrious, were providing all of the food and work, but which was insufficient to sustain the colony. It was at this time that Bradford established "private" property rights. Now, what you produced or grew (with the help of the local Indian tribes, who showed the new settlers how to grow local vegetables) belonged to you and could be traded or bartered for other goods or services. Those who were at one time "too sick" or "too tired" to work became productive members of the colony. Suddenly, the sustainability of the colony was more secure, and their standard of living increased. The first Thanksgiving was not about a celebration of "community", but was to give thanks to God for a bountiful harvest, private property, and free-market capitalism.
George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation acknowledges this with the simple statement "acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.
The Thanksgiving holiday is not a celebration of community, but an acknowledgement that all of our blessings come from God and that we use this day to thank and praise him for the abundance that each of us has.
Posted by Brian
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- Ronald Reagan Thanksgiving Proclamation (dakotavoice.com)
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Global Warming: Scientists View Warming As A Political "Cause" in New E-Mails
Posted by Brian
Climategate 2.0: New E-Mails Rock The Global Warming Debate
A new batch of 5,000 emails among scientists central to the assertion that humans are causing a global warming crisis were anonymously released to the public yesterday, igniting a new firestorm of controversy nearly two years to the day after similar emails ignited the Climategate scandal.
Three themes are emerging from the newly released emails: (1) prominent scientists central to the global warming debate are taking measures to conceal rather than disseminate underlying data and discussions; (2) these scientists view global warming as a political “cause” rather than a balanced scientific inquiry and (3) many of these scientists frankly admit to each other that much of the science is weak and dependent on deliberate manipulation of facts and data.
Related articles
- Climategate 2.0: Kjellén has a better name for global warming (junkscience.com)
11/23/2011
Shock! Occupy Seattle Girl Who Claimed Miscarriage Called "Compulsive Liar" and "Drama Queen"
Posted by Brian
Police are investigating the claims of the woman in Seattle who said that she had a miscarriage due to being pepper sprayed by Seattle Police. Surprise! A made for YouTube moment to be broadcast around the world and give this little darling her 15 minutes of fame.
The Seattle Times is reporting that there are also questions as to whether she was even pregnant, as she had not told anyone who was close to her of her pregnancy, and that her former foster mother and daughter claimed that she is a "compulsive liar", has a pattern of exaggeration, and is a "wannabe drama queen".
See the viral video below:
Police are investigating the claims of the woman in Seattle who said that she had a miscarriage due to being pepper sprayed by Seattle Police. Surprise! A made for YouTube moment to be broadcast around the world and give this little darling her 15 minutes of fame.
The Seattle Times is reporting that there are also questions as to whether she was even pregnant, as she had not told anyone who was close to her of her pregnancy, and that her former foster mother and daughter claimed that she is a "compulsive liar", has a pattern of exaggeration, and is a "wannabe drama queen".
See the viral video below:
Related articles
- Occupy protester's miscarriage claim questioned (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Occupy Seattle Protester Alleges Miscarriage After Pepper Spray Incident (huffingtonpost.com)
Pentagon Tells Army To Remove Cross From Worship Tent, It Offends Atheists
Posted by Brian
Liberal PC insanity strikes again! G_d forbid that we have a cross on a HOUSE OF WORSHIP! What the hell ever happened to changing the channel, or not looking at something that offends you? Or how about just being tolerant of other peoples beliefs, which seems to me, many atheists are incapable of doing.
Liberals find a way to insult Christians and the military with one easy policy change.
The Pentagon forced an Army post in Afghanistan to remove a cross on its worship tent. It’s offensive to liberal atheists.
Read More at Gateway Pundit
Liberal PC insanity strikes again! G_d forbid that we have a cross on a HOUSE OF WORSHIP! What the hell ever happened to changing the channel, or not looking at something that offends you? Or how about just being tolerant of other peoples beliefs, which seems to me, many atheists are incapable of doing.
Liberal Policy: Pentagon Forces US Army Post in Afghanistan to Remove Cross
What a bonanza!Liberals find a way to insult Christians and the military with one easy policy change.
The Pentagon forced an Army post in Afghanistan to remove a cross on its worship tent. It’s offensive to liberal atheists.
Read More at Gateway Pundit
Classic Thanksgiving Episode OF "WKRP In Cincinnatti"
Posted by Brian
Happy Thanksgiving!!
Les Nessman's live Hindenburg-like play-by-play of a turkey giveaway gone wrong is still one of the most hilarious things I've seen to this day, and is alone worth the time to view this.
Happy Thanksgiving!!
Les Nessman's live Hindenburg-like play-by-play of a turkey giveaway gone wrong is still one of the most hilarious things I've seen to this day, and is alone worth the time to view this.
Rep. Young Takes Professor To Task Over ANWR Testimony
Oil Exploration Rig In ANWR Coastal Plain |
What Rep. Young was doing was pointing out how Dr. Brinkley, and others like him, have characterized ANWR - as this pristine wilderness with majestic mountains, flowing streams, and wildlife that has been untouched by the evils of humans, and their technology. In fact, the area that has been set aside for drilling is a mere 3,000 acres out of 119 million acres. Certainly there are large portions of ANWR that have the breathtaking views that environmentalists describe, but these areas are not even visible from the area being discussed.
Many of the arguments being made today are very similar to the arguments made against the building of the Alaska oil pipeline. We were told that Caribou herds would have their migration routes blocked, causing the deaths of thousands, maybe even millions of these beautiful animals. However, once the pipeline was built it was discovered that the Caribou actually seemed to like the pipeline, especially the warm crude that flowed through it. Caribou could be seen congregating, and even mating around the pipeline. Apparently, they like a heated environment in cold weather just as much as we do.
So who is Douglas Brinkley. For certain, he is a well-respected and knowledgable man. But he is also way to the left on environmental matters. He has been the recipient of the 2009 National Outdoor Book Award and 2009 Green Prize for Sustainable Literature. He buys into the now disproven scam about the dangers of DDT promoted by Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring", which has led to literally millions of unneeded deaths from malaria. In fact he has an upcoming book, Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Stewart Udall and the Environmental Movement 1961-1964 set to be released in the near future. He is a darling of the left, being embraced by "Think Progress" and "The Center For American Progress", both far-left/Marxist leaning groups.
Representative Young took Dr. Brinkley to task for testimony that he classified, in his opinion, as "garbage". He incorrectly addressed Mr. Brinkley as Dr. Rice (he is tenured at Rice University), at which point Mr. Brinkley not only tried to correct the Congressman, but went further, arrogantly saying to the Congressman, "“[It's] Dr. Brinkley. Rice is a university. I know you went to Yuba College and you couldn’t graduate.”
It went downhill from there.
Posted by Brian
12 Georgia Officials Arrested For Voter Fraud
Posted by Brian
12 individuals, some of whom worked in the registrar's office and others who are school board members were indicted after an unusually high absentee voter turnout in the 2010 elections. No mention was made of the party affiliation of the indicted persons (Read: They're Democrats!).
Click Link to View Video: http://www.walb.com/story/16104533/12-indicted-for-voter-fraud?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=6480183
12 individuals, some of whom worked in the registrar's office and others who are school board members were indicted after an unusually high absentee voter turnout in the 2010 elections. No mention was made of the party affiliation of the indicted persons (Read: They're Democrats!).
Click Link to View Video: http://www.walb.com/story/16104533/12-indicted-for-voter-fraud?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=6480183
Did Russian News Anchor Tatiana Limanova Flip Obama The Bird?
Wait! I thought that the election of Barack Obama was going to bring the U.S. and the Office of the President a newfound respect around the world.
Guess not.
Posted by Brian
Guess not.
Posted by Brian
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11/22/2011
Propagandist Goebbels, er Michael Moore: Pepper Spray at UC Davis Like "Tiananmen Square"
Posted by Brian
Michael Moore, in this generation's attempt to liken the pepper spray incident at UC Davis to to the massacre of students in China's Tiananmen Square, makes a complete ass out of himself once again, which has become a habit for the anti-American movie producer, ever since he has entered the public spotlight and made a fortune for himself in out capitalist society. Bless his heart.
He fashions himself as a champion of the downtrodden (or the 99%) as he lives an opulent lifestyle, separating himself from living among the less desirable downtrodden blacks, hispanics, and other "undesirables" in society, and choosing to live among his affluent lilly-white friends in "safe" gated communities. This multi-millionaire pimple on the ass of America, who holds himself up as an icon of the poor and disadvantaged, while he gorges himself on lobster and fried chicken, enlarging his corpulent waistline and ego, would do all of us a favor by just going home with a bucket of Kentucky Fried and some jelly doughnuts, and whacking off to Warren Beatty's romantic ode to Lenin's revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union, "Reds".
Michael Moore, we would hardly miss ya.
Watch video here: http://youtu.be/FsHhVtsp7yc
Michael Moore, in this generation's attempt to liken the pepper spray incident at UC Davis to to the massacre of students in China's Tiananmen Square, makes a complete ass out of himself once again, which has become a habit for the anti-American movie producer, ever since he has entered the public spotlight and made a fortune for himself in out capitalist society. Bless his heart.
He fashions himself as a champion of the downtrodden (or the 99%) as he lives an opulent lifestyle, separating himself from living among the less desirable downtrodden blacks, hispanics, and other "undesirables" in society, and choosing to live among his affluent lilly-white friends in "safe" gated communities. This multi-millionaire pimple on the ass of America, who holds himself up as an icon of the poor and disadvantaged, while he gorges himself on lobster and fried chicken, enlarging his corpulent waistline and ego, would do all of us a favor by just going home with a bucket of Kentucky Fried and some jelly doughnuts, and whacking off to Warren Beatty's romantic ode to Lenin's revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union, "Reds".
Michael Moore, we would hardly miss ya.
Watch video here: http://youtu.be/FsHhVtsp7yc
Related articles
Gingrich: Break Iran By Ending Gas Sales To Them
Posted by Brian
Gingrich: Cutting off gasoline would contain Iran
Nov 22 09:16 PM US/Eastern
WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich says the United States could "break Iran within a year" if allies worked together on a strategy instead of focusing on specific tactics.Gingrich says that ending gasoline sales to Iran and sabotaging its refineries would lead to regime change and end its nuclear ambitions. The former House speaker says the world must change regimes in Tehran before Iran acquires a nuclear weapon.
Read More at Breitbarthttp://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9R65F4O1&show_article=1
Read More at Breitbarthttp://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9R65F4O1&show_article=1
11/21/2011
Atheist Group To Marines: Cross Erected To Commemorate Fallen Soldiers "Simply Isn't Appropriate"
Posted by Brian
ATHEISTS DEMAND MARINES REMOVE CROSS COMMEMORATING FALLEN U.S. SOLDIERS
An atheist group is clashing with U.S. marines at Camp Pendleton in California. The group, the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers (MAAF), is demanding that a cross that was put up on the base to commemorate fallen soldiers be removed.
In recent months, the MAAF has made a splash by taking on Christian themes in the military and championing atheism in the U.S. Armed Forces. Led by Jason Torpy, who was a West Point graduate and who fought in Iraq, the group seems to be following along the same somewhat antagonistic path as the Freedom From Religion Foundation, among other “freethinking” groups.
Read More at The Blaze
Read More at The Blaze
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Democrat Pollsters To Obama: "Abandon Candidacy", Move Aside For Hillary Run
Posted by Brian
Updated: November 21, 2011 | 10:56 a.m.
Patrick H. Caddell and Douglas E. Schoen argued that just as Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson decided not to pursue additional runs though they could have, Obama should do the same.
Read More at National Journal
Former Democratic Pollsters: Obama Should Abandon Run for Second Term
Updated: November 21, 2011 | 10:56 a.m.
November 20, 2011 | 7:58 p.m.
President Obama should abandon his run for a second term and turn over the reins of the Democratic Party to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, two one-time Democratic pollsters wrote in Monday's Wall Street Journal, which appeared online Sunday.
Read More at National Journal
Related articles
- Dem pollsters: It's Hillary time (hotair.com)
- The Case for Obama Stepping Aside (politicalwire.com)
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