Pelosi Crazy?

Is Pelosi craz?  Aren't all liberals?

Bishop Daniel Rea

This is my friend Bishop Daniel Rea of the Christian Church of Japan.  Follow the church link and fill out the contact form to inquire how you can help the good Bishop setup a homeless day center for the homeless in Nagoya, Japan.

Bishop Rea doesn't want to just help the homeless but to move the homeless from dependence to independence.  God bless you.

Oriana Farrell Is A Liar

Good Morning America and ABC are a bunch of idiots.

Oriana Farrell who stopped in new Mexico for going 100 MPH on a New Mexico highway back in October 2003 was not treated abusively by police.  There is the full video of the police encounter on Live Leaks.

Her comments on GMA about how she felt like Trayvon Martin is complete nonsense.  Like Skittles Martin who had drugs in his system, guess what?  So did Oriana, I know big surprise, right?

Full Unedited Video Here at Live Leaks

If you watch the actual full video and not some edited version to paint cops as the bad guys, you can clearly see this lady not only endangered the lives of her family, but of other people on the road. The cop was only going to give her a ticket for speeding. He was very professional, and never once tried to yank her out of the car, he definitely should have.

After the first time she ran, then pulled over, once she finally did get out so he could speak with her, she tried to run back to drivers seat, when he stopped her that is when her son got out and started punching the officer.

FYI, it was a responding officer that shot at the van, and if you watch the video closely, he was shooting at the tires. The van was never actually hit, you can see the bullet hitting the ground near the tires as she drives away. Never once did he fire INTO the van.
And that officer lost his job for shooting at her tires trying to slow her down.

The blame is totally on her and the media for spinning a very large lie due to race.

If it was a white woman and family, not a thing would have been said, except, wow look how dumb this lady is, boy they should have tased her.

Any one who watches the entire video and still supports here, are complete morons. Think about it, she could have hit you and your family on your way to the store, or to the movies, or maybe taking your kid to a special birthday dinner, and for what??? Because she didn't want a speeding ticket? Then felt it was okay to drive 100+ miles an hour through town to get her kids to a hotel, when she had an adult passenger and an adult son that could drive her van.

The American public wants to know how much Trayvon Martins mother, Sybrina Fulton, paid you to bring up Trayvons name on GMA this morning?  Every chance she gets she brings up the drug dealing thug and well known local thief. The school police found stolen goods in his locker that he stole from houses around his school they also found bags of pot he was selling!  His mother along with her attorney Benjamin Crump along with Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson, all four of them are race baiters. And Crump is trying to make a big name for him self.  Always has his hands out for money from law suits from dead kids.      

Now the truth does not fit with the Marxist secular progressive humanist cry baby myth that white cops are evil because Montoya is Hispanic not Caucasian, so now what?  Well lets hope the judge in the new trial will now have the ACTUAL video to go by and not the edited media version.            

What Obama Can Do When He Doesn't Give A Damn

What? Me Worry.

Hat tip JD Tuccille

Ah, to be unencumbered by worries or responsibilities. It's that feeling of open horizons known by twenty-somethings with an apartment and a first paycheck, by healthy retirees with topped-off 401Ks—and by second-term presidents who have stopped giving a shit about their own political party's prospects. In an era of expanding executive power, President Obama looks like a guy contemplating a world of interesting possibilities. Even his fellow Democrats seem a bit jittery about just what the man in the Oval Office has in mind.

Timothy Cama at The Hill writes, "President Obama’s election-year plan to win a new international climate change accord is making vulnerable Democrats nervous."

So why don't they just tell the president that any such deal is DOA in the Senate? At least until after the election?

Because Coral Davenport at the New York Times suggests that Obama plans to bypass Congress entirely.

[U]nder the Constitution, a president may enter into a legally binding treaty only if it is approved by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.
To sidestep that requirement, President Obama’s climate negotiators are devising what they call a “politically binding” deal that would “name and shame” countries into cutting their emissions. The deal is likely to face strong objections from Republicans on Capitol Hill and from poor countries around the world, but negotiators say it may be the only realistic path...
American negotiators are instead homing in on a hybrid agreement — a proposal to blend legally binding conditions from an existing 1992 treaty with new voluntary pledges. The mix would create a deal that would update the treaty, and thus, negotiators say, not require a new vote of ratification.

By...umm...creatively building off an existing treaty, the president could unilaterally reach for the green-garbed legacy he covets. He would also confirm the fears of everybody who worries about executive overreach and probably torpedo the chances of at least a few Democrats in battleground states where the economic impact of such a deal would be an issue.

The proposal risks putting donkey party candidates in close races "in front of the firing squad," according to a Democratic strategist quoted by Cama.

But how likely is the unilateral strategy? When asked about such a Senate-bypassing scheme, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest coyly answered, "Because that agreement is not written, it's not yet clear exactly what sort of role Congress would be required to play."

President Obama is likely to follow a similar path on immigration issues. Karen Tumulty and Robert Costa at the Washington Post write:

Both political parties are in a state of high anxiety about the possibility that President Obama will allow millions of illegal immigrants to remain in the country, fearing that White House action on the issue could change the course of November’s midterm elections.
In the past few days, Democratic candidates in nearly every closely fought Senate race have criticized the idea of aggressive action by Obama. Some strategists say privately that it would signal that he has written off the Democrats' prospects for retaining control of the chamber, deciding to focus on securing his legacy instead.

The White House isn't even shy on the issue. When asked if Obama might "think twice about taking executive action on immigration," Earnest answered, "No...the President is determined to act where House Republicans won't."

A minority opinion among political strategists is that such a move is actually a clever plan to get GOP nativists foaming at the mouth so they hurt Republican prospects. But as reliably batshit as some Republicans can be on the immigration issue, Democrats are certain to suffer, too, from unilateral action on a controversial issue. And the whole idea of a republic based on limited govement power takes a hit when one person follows the "Stroke of the pen. Law of the Land. Kinda cool" approach to ruling a country by fiat.

Note, too, that the wisdom or lack thereof of a unilateral presidential action is irrelevant to the dangers of growing executive power. I would personally agree with some of the president's ideas on easing immigration restrictions. But the problems of a president set free to do as he damned well wishes, on his own, are problems of concentrated power, no matter how it's used.

And President Obama looks like he sees a world of interesting possibilities in using that power.

Obama A Radical Islamist? Some of us knew that already.

Hat tip to the Examiner

Today, a former CIA agent bluntly spoke out that America has switched sides in the war on terror under President Obama. Clare Lopez was willing to say what a few members of Congress have said in private, but declined to say on-the-record.

Clare M. Lopez is the Vice President for Research and Analysis at the Center for Security Policy and a Senior Fellow at The Clarion Project, the London Center for Policy Research, and the Canadian Meighen Institute. Since 2013, she has served as a member of the Citizens Commission on Benghazi. Also Vice President of the Intelligence Summit, she formerly was a career operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee from 2005-2006, and has served as a consultant, intelligence analyst, and researcher for a variety of defense firms. She was named a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute in 2011.

Lopez said the global war on terror had been an effort to “stay free of Shariah,” or repressive Islamic law, until the Obama administration began siding with such jihadist groups as the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates. Lopez believes that the Muslim Brotherhood has thoroughly infiltrated the Obama administration and other branches of the federal government. One of the most outrageous of those appointments is Mohamed Elibiary, a senior member of the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council. According to a report by the Center for Security Policy, Elibiary supports brokering a U.S. partnership with the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group. Two months ago, a firestorm erupted online after Elibiary tweeted that a “Caliphate” is inevitable and compared it to the European Union.

Ms. Lopez also believes Obama had essentially the same goals in the Mideast as the late Osama bin Laden: “to remove American power and influence, including military forces, from Islamic lands.” The former CIA operative’s perspective affects her prescription for what the U.S. should do about the terror army ISIS, as she called for caution and restraint.

While there has been a sudden chorus of politicians and military experts calling for the immediate elimination of the terrorist army after it beheaded American journalist James Foley last week, Lopez believes the U.S. should have an overall strategy in place before fully re-engaging in the Mideast militarily.Any military action would be further complicated, she told WND, if it were not clear which side the U.S. is on, either in the short term or in the overall war on terror.

Lopez felt it was impossible to understand why the president and some of his top appointees, such as CIA Director John Brennan, who is believed to be a Muslim convert, “consistently seem to apologize for Islam, even in the face of such atrocities as the Foley beheading,” adding, they “take pains to assure the world they don’t think IS, (or the Islamic State, also called ISIS) or whichever perpetrator it was, has anything to do with Islam. How can they possibly believe that genuinely when everything these jihadis do tracks directly to the literal text of Quran, hadiths and Shariah?”

“In any case, and for whatever motivations, there is no doubt this administration switched sides in what used to be called the Global War on Terror,” she said.

A real man, A real dad

Wanna see how a real dad handles things.

Obama A Threat To America

As if anyone with any intelligence had a doubt.

Hat Tip: Daily Caller Full Report

The report is in, and the review of the president’s foreign policy is clear: If there is not an immediate course-reversal, the United States is in serious danger.

In 2013, the United States Institute for Peace, “a congressionally-created, independent, nonpartisan institution whose mission is to prevent, mitigate, and resolve violent conflicts around the world,” was asked to assist the National Defense Panel with reviewing the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). The National Defense Panel is a congressional-mandated bipartisan commission that’s co-chairs were appointed by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

Dinosaur Feminazis Furious

Ancient Feminazis On CNN

Hat tip Rush Limbaugh

The feminazis, the feminazis are fried!  They're really worked up over the Ray Rice suspension, the Baltimore Ravens. The commissioner of the NFL sent a guy out to try to explain what happened. He ended up throwing gasoline on the fire, made it worse.  I watched a couple of women on CNN this morning just livid.  These were elderly feminazis.  By the way, that's another thing.  There's another story that I have in the Stack here, and we've been talking about this, this fascinating demographic stuff.

The Tyranny of Tolerance

I know that the title of this article sounds like an oxymoron, thus completely contradictory. How, you may ask, can tolerance by tyrannical? Aren’t these exclusive concepts that have no better record of mixing together than oil and water? In their true definitions, they don’t mix, but in our politically correct culture’s definition, they work rather well together. The Left has created a bastardized version of “tolerance” in which nothing but their worldview is tolerated, which is the essence of tyranny.

Full write up here 

Hat tip my friend Josh Kimbrell
 

The Liberal Christian Delusion

Can such a thing as a “liberal Christian” actually exist? Is it possible for Christianity and liberalism to co-exist?

Questions like this, when asked, may sound like they are meant in jest.  But actually, they are not meant to be funny at all. In reality, the question reflects a quiet serious inquiry. And furthermore, the answer has some serious implications for the millions around the world who call themselves Christians. Another way of asking the question is this: Is it a reality that one can be both a Christian and a liberal at the same time?

To answer this, one must first consider some basic theological tenets: Jesus came to this planet centuries ago with only one thing in mind. He wanted to provide an escape for humankind from being eternally condemned. God knew that the use of animal sacrifices, that at the time were being offered for the atonement for sin, was ultimately never going to really work in the end.  People were simply habitual sinners and had limited resources or patience for the endless sacrifices.  Something else had to be done.

So, Jesus came and died on the cross, and in doing so, created a permanent method through which any human being could be delivered from eternal condemnation.  This also made the road to salvation more direct, although not necessarily easier: One could simply be saved through faith in Christ alone. Without the cross, Christianity is without foundation and meaningless.

This is why truly dedicated Christians are known for quoting from the Word of God, the Bible, and trying to lead others to faith in Christ. Their salvation from hell is the primary motivation in everything they do.  Their desire to see others saved from the same eternal condemnation is priority to them above anything else in their lives.

A liberal Christian, however, is an entirely different thing. They choose to define themselves by their beliefs and involvement in liberal movements above anything else.  These liberal movements could be anything from abortion, to gay rights, to feminism, to racial advocacy, to affirmative action.  Maybe they choose to become advocates for large entitlements and exemptions from the government. Liberal Christianity can manifest itself in so many different ways.  However, one common aspect shared by all of these groups is that they are tied together by what they simply call the “love of Jesus.” This is a very nebulous term that is, in actuality, devoid of meaning.

Liberal Christians never talk about salvation. None of them talk at length about what Jesus did on the cross. Rather, they focus on something else. They seem to promote a type of lifestyle that is totally dependent on self. It is all about bettering one’s self, saving one’s self, relying on one’s own strength and action.

They will tell people that Jesus taught about accepting others, and for that reason, homosexuals must feel accepted and be allowed to celebrate their choice in lifestyle regardless of what the scripture says. They want to create a sort of utopia where everyone is fed and taken care of and nurtured.  In the mind of a liberal, the best way to accomplish that dream is through the government.

The liberal Christians who embrace this concept simply miss the whole aim of Christianity.  For them there is no accountability. There is no challenge for their ethos to line up with what the Bible outlines for mankind.  If one wants to do it and likes the way it feels, then go ahead.  There is a total embrace of everything in today’s society.  Liberal Christianity is not centered on Christ at all, but, instead, it is centered on the world.

What ends up being offered is a buffet style Christianity, allowing people to take the portions of the Bible that make them feel good while ignoring everything else.  When challenged on what they choose to believe, they tell the accuser that he is judgmental and misquote a verse in the Bible where Jesus told us to “judge not.”

In reality, the whole objective of that verse is not to inform the reader that it is wrong to judge, but, rather, to be painfully aware of the measuring stick that is being used.  It is, after all, very common for individuals to hold others to standards that are rather impossible.

For sure, there are many who profess Christianity who require perfection from those around themselves and ignore their own problems. There are others who will spend the majority of their time quibbling over the inconsistencies of others instead of following the commands of God in obedience.

In short, all of the warnings we find in the Bible do not mean that the act of judgment is always a negative action. The reality is that we will all be judged in the end by God’s standards as put forth in His Word.

The life of a Christian liberal is not centered on Christ nor is it based on the Bible. This is proven by their defending the right to murder an unborn child or for the homosexual lifestyle to be glorified. For this reason, a new way is needed to attract supporters.

The easiest avenue to take is often a very poorly disguised New Age form of spirituality. It gives all the right connotations of being loving and having a spiritual type theme.  They begin to use left-wing tactics to motivate their congregation and begin doing things that inflate a sense of self-worth and importance instead of the searching for and finding faith.

This New Age, feel-good type of faith, is not really faith at all. Rather, it takes the basic Christian structure of community and church and makes it into something more attractive to those who are secularists.  All through the history of the progressive movement are individuals who use their position inside their faith to garner support of causes that are extra-Biblical.

It is not enough for anyone to profess to be a Christian or even a Muslim.  To claim a faith is to actually hold to the core beliefs of that faith. Otherwise, God is being created in their image. He becomes a god who holds to what they want to be true.

In short, the answer to the original question is “no.”  Christianity and liberalism cannot coexist.  Once someone turns from faith in the scripture and from the laws of God, they have designed their own religion. This is America, and people are free to do that if they choose.  But please do not call it Christianity. 

Christianity is the coming to a relationship with God through a faith in Jesus Christ in response to the sacrifice He endured.  To call it anything else is quicksand.

A Warning to French Republicans

Hat tip: My friend Bishop Daniel Rea

The good reverend responds to a question via email about his feelings on Cantors defeat.

Cantor and Boehner never were Republicans. They are simply big government liberals who just happened to occasionally vote for other big government ideas and fellow French Republican liberals with an (R) beside their names as opposed to the big government ideas and liberals with the (D) beside their name. Not conservatives or Republicans at all.  The party didn’t abandon them it is just in the process of returning to what it was always supposed to be – a party opposed to big government liberalism in all forms.  The Tea Party is simply the resurrection of the Reagan principals minus the French Republican support (read liberal Dems who became Republican in opposition to Carter).

You say Republicans are the opposite of what they were and so are liberals. Bear in mind that liberals were Republicans at one time. What was formerly liberal is now conservative. What was formerly conservative is now liberal. This is key to undertstanding what I am saying. Liberals were for free speech, the right to own guns, the right for people to work and live as they choose. Conservatives were the status quo. So are you now saying that conservatives are the new liberals.

The right to free speech, right to dissent, the right not to lose your privacy and live under the thumb of an ever watchful and restrictive government, the right to live as you wish, the right for each person to be an individual, not part of a group or a mindset. A small government that defends liberty of the people and huge government that invades every aspect of life with regulations. What kind of toilet we can buy. What light bulbs we can have in our homes. The kind of automobile we feel is best for our family. So if you believe in those things, why aren't you conservative?

I remember when liberals loved the term 'speaking truth to power.' Now they hate it since they have become the power and dissent has become almost tantamount to a crime. It is conservatives that feel uncomfortable with an intrusive authority, that mourn the fact that it is now permissible by law to kill an American citizen overseas if he is simply 'suspected' of being a terrorist and revoking his right of due process, of collecting info on American citizens, of bringing back 'the enemies list' and using government agencies as weapons against those who speak against you. Of turning over your well-being and allowing the government to decide how insurance should be administered and how much you should pay, and deciding when you have made 'enough' money and who you owe your excess to. Maybe it's liberals that have stopped moving forward.

Let us all recall a few facts. The Demcorat Party is the party of...

... Original wars of attrition begun on lies and doctored intelligence - Korea and Vietnam 

...Slavery

...The KKK ("the terrorist wing of the democrat party")

...Jim Crow

...The Confederacy

...Segregation

...Lynching

...Blowing up little black girls at church

...Bull Connor

As recently as the 1990's, the Democrat Party proudly placed a Grand Cyclops of the KKK, one Sen. Robert Byrd, 4th in line of presidential succession.

There is a saying "there is none so devout as the recently converted." I think it important the Republican Party make it a point to consistently remind people of this point. One cannot choose their own view of history and invent “facts” that are clearly lies. Lies not mistakes because lies are intentional and meant to mislead.

The Democrat Party is so racist they couldn't even pass civil rights legislation, even though they owned the presidency, House and Senate from 1960 to 1964. Kennedy was warned continually that he would divide the Democratic Party. Want to know who had their hands dripping with JFK's blood? Consider Bull Connor in league with Robert Byrd, Strom Thurmond, Geroge Wallace, and others.

This is the continuing, now 60 year democrat-manufactured slander that has gone unchallenged, and I suspect, intentionally taught in our schools, that the Republicans are home to Americas racists. This not only requires a willful denial of easily researchable history, but a deliberately malicious twisting of the truth. It's a lie. The democrats know it's a lie. Even though they know it's a lie, they gladly and joyfully repeat it, they even print this lie on protest signs declaring it.

Which party is following the Nazi, Marxist, Fascist, and Saul Alynsky practice of telling a lie long and loud enough that it is eventually accepted as the truth? Americas national tragedy on the issue of race, is the unwillingness to put a stop to the 60 year lie. Democrat Bull Connor as the Public Safety Commissioner of Birmingham, Alabama allowed freedom riders, reporters, and ministers in support of the Civil Rights movement to be beat for 15 minutes by the KKK before he allowed Birmingham police to take action to stop them. Democrat Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, who stood in the school doorway to prevent black children from attending school with white children. Strom Thurmond left the Democratic party in 1964 as a protest of LBJ's continued support for the Civil Rights Act. Thurmond continually voiced hate for JFK and MLK. Senator Robert Byrd held the titles of Grand Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops of the KKK.

So in honesty of history and facts, which is the party of racism?  The Tea Party is bringing the party back to our true conservative roots grounded in Lincoln to Reagan minus the French Republicans who were never Republicans to begin with, I say good riddance to them and take Romney, Rubio, McConnell, Ryan, and Paul with them.

Obama Just Funded Terrorists For Years

Hat tip, my friend who is a senior intelligence official:

The Haqqanis could give a rat’s ass about prisoners, the Haqqani Network, a designated terrorist group in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the five Guantanamo Bay prisoners who were freed in exchange for Bergdahl’s release.  The people that are holding Bergdahl wanted cash and someone paid it to them.  

The Taliban is an ideologically committed group, they say, while the Haqqani Network is better understood as a tribal crime syndicate using unrest in the region not to advance an Islamist agenda but to further own financial and political interests.

When Westerners talk [about the] Taliban, we tend to use it as a generic term.  Afghans are more likely to talk about the Haqqani Network versus the Quetta Shura also known as the Afghan Taliban versus the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.

One of these things doesn’t add up.  If you were to put one of these Taliban prisoners with Haqqani in a room together, they’d beat the shit out of each other.

Haqqani benefits zero from the prisoner exchange.  Based on 10 years of working with those guys, the only thing that would make them move Bergdahl is money.

Whether the Qataris paid it, or some big oil sheik, or somebody used our petrodollars, there was a ransom paid in cash for each one of them, my guess somewhere in the round numbers of $5 or 6 million to get Bergdahl freed.

The groups do have links, but if Bergdahl was held by Haqqani and we released Quetta Shura, it seems Bergdahl’s captors were seeking something other than the Taliban prisoners, got paid off, and Obama simply used the trade as an excuse to release master terrorists from Gitmo.

Michelle Obama Wants Kids Spying On Parents

Hat tip: Daily Caller

There can be no aspect of your daily life that’s removed from politics. Now you will be monitored by your own children for expressing unapproved opinions. You’d better watch what you say at the dinner table, Mom and Dad.

Pete Kasperowicz, The Blaze:

First lady Michelle Obama is encouraging students to monitor their older relatives, friends and co-workers for any racially insensitive comments they might make, and to challenge those comments whenever they’re made.

The first lady spoke on Friday to graduating high school students in Topeka, Kansas, and in remarks released over the weekend, Obama said students need to police family and friends because federal laws can only go so far in stopping racism.

“[O]ur laws may no longer separate us based on our skin color, but nothing in the Constitution says we have to eat together in the lunchroom, or live together in the same neighborhoods,” she said. “There’s no court case against believing in stereotypes or thinking that certain kinds of hateful jokes or comments are funny.”

Oh, if only we could control what other people think and feel. But until that magic day arrives, all we can do is set people against each other based on race, under the guise of “fighting racism.”

I wonder if this extends toward hateful jokes or comments about white people? Or is that simply considered social justice? After all, those hillbillies have got it coming for possessing the same skin tone as other people who’ve said and done bad things.

Of course, this post is racist because the First Lady is black. If you don’t condemn me for disagreeing with her, you’re a racist too.

Then there is this, hat tip Cheryl K. Chumley author Police State USA

In five years, we will really start to wonder what happened to America. In 10 years, our kids won't know the same America of our youth. And in 25 years, we won't recognize America at all. The Constitution will be a relic, tossed on the same heap of living, breathing, ever-changing trash pile as the Bible. The notion of God-given rights will be replaced by government control and privacy rights will have crumbled along with Fourth Amendment guarantees that protect us from warrantless searches of home, possessions, and self. The arrival at this brave new world has been surprisingly quick-paced. Most of the ideological changes have occurred in the past few decades. Police State USA explains how America is standing on the cusp of a police state, what led to this state - including environmental and corporate influences, as well as media spin and lies - and how we might overcome and recapture our freedoms, as envisioned by the Founding Fathers. But it's not too late to reverse the police state.

What do I think about this?

To one journalist, this was more than an off-hand comment made by the first lady. In the opinion of Cheryl Chumley, a reporter for The Washington Times and the author of “Police State USA,” Michelle Obama’s remark reflects a growing trend in America to target and attack individuals for committing “thought crime.”

“Michelle Obama’s push for kids around the nation to monitor their family members for perceived racist comments is just another way the government seeks to inject itself into an area it doesn’t really belong — the American home,” Chumley told The Daily Caller Monday.

“Having the first lady wag her finger at us and send America’s youth on some sort of quest to scour the homes and backyards of our nation’s families for any mention of a racist joke, slur or slight is nanny-governance run amok — something that belongs in a George Orwell novel, not the White House, Chumley said.”

Chumley sees a troubling growth of America’s most powerful political figures now singling out private individuals for their beliefs, and using government agencies and public denunciations to intimidate opponents into silence.

“Harry Reid attacking the Koch brothers for the crime of giving money to conservative causes is just as bad. President Obama, Joe Biden and the entire cast of the White House, for slamming lawful gun owners for exercising their Second Amendment rights, and for trying to drum up emotional-fueled support to ram through gun control,” Chumley listed off. “The IRS targeting of tea party and patriotic non-profits and our nation’s highest law enforcement official, Eric Holder stonewalling on a special prosecutor appointment — does it get any more police state than that?”

The Washington Times reporter sees the creation of hate crime laws as one of the first steps in our country’s history in the direction of attacking unpopular and politically incorrect thoughts in America.

“What comes to mind when I think of the genesis for this growing trend of government to control Americans’ speech, and by extension, thoughts, is when the notion of hate crime was brought into our criminal prosecution system — as if acts of violence that are committed because of racial divides deserve a different category of ‘extra-special bad,’” Chumley stated.

“Political correctness and pandering politicians have fueled this narrative in recent years. Anybody who throws the race card on a regular basis — think Eric Holder, Al Sharpton, Harry Reid — is guilty to a certain degree of clamping down on free speech, and in turn, making Americans even wary of what they think.”

And it’s not just the government enforcing this new speech code, in Chumley’s opinion — private companies are just as complicit in regulating speech that’s deemed offensive by the government and media.

“Private companies, like A&E with the “Duck Dynasty” debacle, are getting just as bad as government when it comes to clamping down on free speech, especially when religious views are involved — or, of late, the gay rights movement,” Chumley stated. “I’m all for businesses reacting to free market pressures from their customer base — but really, they need to show a little more spine.”

In Chumley’s opinion, Americans growing a backbone and holding firm to their beliefs would be enough to resist this apparent infringement on individual rights.

“When Dan Cathy, president of Chick-fil-A, stood strong in the face of gay rights activists, you didn’t see his business crumble and fold. Rather, you saw those who believe in freedom of speech rise up and stand in Chick-fil-A lines across the nation to support him,” the “Police State USA” author stated. “The only answer is to refuse to be cowed. We’re a nation that’s founded on the belief that rights come from God, not government.”

Saudi Sentenced To Prison and 1000 Lashes For Blogging

A Saudi blogger has just been sentenced to ten years in prison and 1000 lashes for doing no more than blogging his opinion of King Abdullah.  This is not isolated and no the US does not censor bloggers.

Human rights injustices occur frequently in Saudi Arabia, particularly involving dissidents and women. In the past year, following the Arab uprisings, there have been increasing amounts of protest and dissent against the religion, politics, and cultural norms of Saudi Arabia. In 2012, thousands of people have been imprisoned for expressing their personal beliefs and critical opinions about the cultural norms of their society. The article states, “the Saudi government has gone to considerable lengths to punish, intimidate, and harass those who express opinions that deviate from the official line." In the cases mentioned in the article, some people faced imprisonment or even the death penalty for merely posting a tweet about reform or blogging about religious debates.

This is very hard to imagine, especially for people like us who have the freedom to say or believe whatever we want. It must be difficult to express oneself and impact change in Saudi Arabia, especially if he/she is subjected to punishment if one's beliefs don't agree with the expected customs. Even if they want to fight for change or for more rights, the fear of punishment prevents them from doing so.  

Another group of people that faces injustices are the women of Saudi Arabia. In some countries today, males are still socially accepted to be more dominant than females.  There is gender segregation in work places and women are not allowed to associate themselves with men. The education quality and the opportunities available are unequal for each gender. Also, there is a guardianship system in Saudi Arabia. If a woman wants to conduct business or travel, she must first get permission from her male guardian. Gender discrimination is a significant issue of human rights, particularly in middle eastern countries.

Every person should be allowed to have equal opportunities and make one's own decisions, no matter what his/her gender is. The guardianship system is surprising to hear about; it seems almost as though female adults are viewed to be treated like children.

When comparing life in America to life in Saudi Arabia, there is a drastic contrast in terms of human rights. We have the freedom to freely express our thoughts and choose our beliefs. Also, every person, no matter what race or gender, has equal opportunities for education and work. Growing up and living in America, it is very difficult to try to understand what the people in Saudi Arabia are experiencing.  Until a story like this blogger come up.

Chucky Schmucky Emerging As Part Of Benghazi Scandal

Hat tip the Examiner

In a surprise disclosure today that is sure to impact the scope and direction of the upcoming select committee's investigation into theBenghazi massacre, investigators say that U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. has emerged as a key player in the scandal. So far after a year and a half since the massacre took place, Schumer's name has never been connected to any of the events on the night a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were slaughtered by Islamist terrorists at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

But investigators now have poured over the White House visitors' log and discovered that Sen. Schumer signed into the White House on the night of the Benghazi attacks. Schumer logged into the White House at 5:30 p.m. on the evening of Sept. 11, 2012 and logged out at 11:59 p.m.

Schumer entered the White House at roughly the same time as Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There is, however, some discrepancy as to the time line. It was previously reported that Panetta and Demspey met with Obama at 5 p.m. But it is easy to account for the discrepancy. Panetta and Dempsey were meeting in the Oval Office with Obama. Schumer, on the other hand, met with his chief of staff, Michael Lynch, at Democratic Policy and Communications Center, along with former Schumer Deputy Press Secretary Christopher Scribner, and Pete Rouse, Legal Counsel to the President.

Thus, one of the objectives of Schumer's visit to the White House was to gather his top aides for a meeting with Obama's Chief Legal Counsel. But why?

Further, investigators report that long after Schumer's meeting with Rouse he stayed in the White House until roughly midnight, long after all other parties in the West Wing had logged out. Again, why?

Answers are few at this time. But at the bare minimum it is safe to say that it is highly unusual for a U.S. senator to be at the White House until midnight on the very night that a massacre that killed Americans was taking place in a volatile region of the world. Schumer's presence does not pass the smell test.

Hillary Dropped Ball On Boko Haram Terrorist Group

Hat Tip: Josh Rogin

The State Department under Hillary Clinton fought hard against placing the al Qaeda-linked militant group Boko Haram on its official list of foreign terrorist organizations for two years. And now, lawmakers and former U.S. officials are saying that the decision may have hampered the American government’s ability to confront the Nigerian group that shocked the world by abducting hundreds of innocent girls.

In the past week, Clinton, who made protecting women and girls a key pillar of her tenure at the State Department, has been a vocal advocate for the 200 Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram, the loosely organized group of militants terrorizing northern Nigeria. 

On Wednesday, Clinton said that the abduction of the girls by Boko Haram was “abominable, it’s criminal, it’s an act of terrorism and it really merits the fullest response possible, first and foremost from the government of Nigeria.” Clinton said that as Secretary of State she had numerous meetings with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and had urged the Nigerian government to do more on counterterrorism.

What Clinton didn’t mention was that her own State Department refused to place Boko Haram on the list of foreign terrorist organizations in 2011, after the group bombed the U.N. headquarters in Abuja. The refusal came despite the urging of the Justice Department, the FBI, the CIA, and over a dozen senators and congressmen.

“The one thing she could have done, the one tool she had at her disposal, she didn’t use. And nobody can say she wasn’t urged to do it. It’s gross hypocrisy,” said a former senior U.S. official who was involved in the debate. “The FBI, the CIA, and the Justice Department really wanted Boko Haram designated, they wanted the authorities that would provide to go after them, and they voiced that repeatedly to elected officials.”

In May 2012, then-Justice Department official Lisa Monaco (now at the White House) wrote to the State Department to urge Clinton to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organization. The following month, Gen. Carter Ham, the chief of U.S. Africa Command, said that Boko Haram “are likely sharing funds, training, and explosive materials” with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. And yet, Hillary Clinton’s State Department still declined to place Boko Haram on its official terrorist roster.

Secretary of State John Kerry eventually added Boko Haram and its splinter group Ansaru to the list of foreign terrorist organizations in November 2013, following a spate of church bombings and other acts that demonstrated the group’s escalating abilities to wreak havoc.

‪Being placed on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations allows U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies to use certain tools and authorities, including several found in the Patriot Act. The designation makes it illegal for any U.S. entities to do business with the group in question. It cuts off access to the U.S. financial system for the organization and anyone associating with it. And the designation also serves to stigmatize and isolate foreign organizations by encouraging other nations to take similar measures.

The State Department’s refusal to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organization prevented U.S. law enforcement agencies from fully addressing the growing Boko Haram threat in those crucial two years, multiple GOP lawmakers told The Daily Beast.

“For years, Boko Haram has terrorized Nigeria and Western interests in the region with few consequences,” Sen. James Risch told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. “The U.S. government should have moved more quickly to list them as a terrorist organization and brought U.S. resources to track and disrupt their activities. The failure to act swiftly has had consequences.”

Risch and seven other GOP senators introduced legislation in early 2013 that would have forced Clinton to designate the group or explain why she thought it was a bad idea. The State Department lobbied against the legislation at the time, according to internal State Department emails obtained by The Daily Beast.

In the House, leading intelligence-minded lawmakers wrote letter after letter to Clinton urging her to designate Boko Haram as terrorists. The effort in the House was led by then-Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King and Patrick Meehan, chairman of the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence.

Meehan and his Democratic counterpart Jackie Speier put out a lengthy reportin 2011 laying out the evidentiary basis for naming Boko Haram a terrorist organization, including the group’s ties to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and to Somalia’s al-Shabab terrorist organization.

In an interview Wednesday, Meehan told The Daily Beast that if Clinton had placed Boko Haram on the terrorism list in 2011, U.S. law enforcement agencies now being deployed to Nigeria to help search for the girls might have been in a better position.

“We lost two years of increased scrutiny. The kind of support that is taking place now would have been in place two years ago,” he said. The designation would have “enhanced the capacity of our agencies to do the work that was necessary. We were very frustrated, it was a long delay.”

Moreover, Meehan and others believe that the Clinton State Department underestimated the pace of Boko Haram’s growth and the group’s intention to plan operations that could harm U.S. critical interests abroad.

“At the time, the sentiment that was expressed by the administration was this was a local grievance and therefore not a threat to the United States or its interests,” he said. “They were saying al Qaeda was on the run and our argument was contrary to that. It has metastasized and it is actually in many ways a growing threat and this is a stark example of that.”

Not everyone agrees that Clinton’s failure to act had significant negative effects. A former senior U.S. counterterrorism official told The Daily Beast that despite the State Department’s refusal to put Boko Haram on the terrorism list, there were several other efforts to work with the Nigerian government on countering the extremist group, mainly through diplomatic and military intelligence channels.

“Designation is an important tool, it’s not the only tool,” this official said. “There are a lot of other things you can do in counterterrorism that doesn’t require a designation.”

Had Clinton designated Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization, that wouldn’t have authorized any increased assistance to the Nigerian security forces; such assistance is complicated by the Leahy Law, a provision that prevents the U.S. from giving weapons to foreign military and police units guilty of human rights violations.

“The utility was limited, the symbolism was perhaps significant, but the more important issue was how we were dealing with the Nigerians,” this official said, noting that three Boko Haram-related individuals were personally sanctioned during Clinton’s time at State.

Meehan and his Democratic counterpart Jackie Speier put out a lengthy reportin 2011 laying out the evidentiary basis for naming Boko Haram a terrorist organization, including the group’s ties to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and to Somalia’s al-Shabab terrorist organization.

In 2012, more than 20 prominent U.S. academics in African studies wrote to Clinton, urging her to not to label Bok Haram as a foreign terrorist organization. “An FTO designation would internationalize Boko Haram’s standing and enhance its status among radical organizations elsewhere,” the scholars said.

Inside the Clinton State Department, the most vocal official opposing designating Boko Haram was Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson, who served in that position from 2009 to 2013. Several officials said that the Nigerian government was opposed to the designation and Carson was focused on preserving the relationship between Washington and Abuja.

Carson defended the decision to avoid naming Boko Haram a terrorist organization in a Wednesday phone call with reporters.

“There was a concern that putting Boko Haram on the foreign terrorist list would in fact raise its profile, give it greater publicity, give it greater credibility, help in its recruitment, and also probably drive more assistance in its direction,” he said.

The U.S. has plenty of ways to assist the Nigerian government with counterterrorism even without designating Boko Haram, Carson said. The problem has long been that the Nigerian government doesn’t always want or accept the help the U.S. has offered over the years.

“There always has been a reluctance to accept our analysis of what the drivers causing the problems in the North and there is sometimes a rejection of the assistance that is offered to them,” Carson said. “None of that has anything to do with putting Boko Haram on the foreign terrorist list.”

Twenty female senators wrote to President Obama Tuesday urging him to now push for Boko Haram and Ansaru to be added to the United Nations Security Council al Qaeda sanctions list. (Earlier this year, Boko Haram’s leader express solidarity with al Qaeda affiliates in Afghanistan, Iraq, North Africa, Somalia and Yemen, according to the SITE Monitoring Service, which tracks jihadist communications.)

“In the face of the brazen nature of this horrific attack, the international community must impose further sanctions on this terrorist organization. Boko Haram is a threat to innocent civilians in Nigeria, to regional security, and to U.S. national interests,” the senators wrote.

The White House declined Wednesday to say whether or not the president will push for Boko Haram to be added to the U.N. list.

“Boko Haram, the terrorist organization that kidnapped these girls, has been killing innocent people in Nigeria for some time,” National Security Council spokesman Jonathan Lalley told The Daily Beast in a statement. “We’ve identified them as one of the worst regional terrorist organizations out there. That’s why last November we designated them as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and as Specially Designated Global Terrorists. And we're actively exploring—in partnership with Nigeria and others—broader multilateral sanctions against Boko Haram, including UN Security Council sanctions."

Representatives for Clinton did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Origination Clause Suit For Obama Care

The Affordable Care Act is back at center stage in the courts on Thursday with yet another legal challenge that aims to derail President Obama’s massive health care reform law.

Rather than attacking the individual mandate or the so-called contraceptive mandate, this lawsuit challenges a legislative maneuver used by Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D) of Nevada to pass the bill five years ago.

The little-noticed legal battle is being waged by a conservative public interest law group, the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF). It seeks to enforce a constitutional command: “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.”

Lawyers for the group charge that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was first passed by the Senate and only later approved by the House in violation of the Constitution’s Origination Clause.

The Obama administration rejects the challenge. “The Supreme Court has never invalidated an Act of Congress on the basis of the Origination Clause, and this suit presents no reason to break new ground,” Justice Department Attorney Alisa Klein wrote in her brief.

The case is set for argument on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. before three judges at the federal appeals court in Washington.

If the judges agree with the Pacific Legal Foundation, the decision would invalidate the Affordable Care Act and send health care reform back to Congress for a do-over.

If the judges agree with the Obama administration that the law was properly passed, the PLF lawyers are likely to petition the US Supreme Court to examine the issue.

It is unclear how receptive the appeals court panel will be to the PLF challenge. One of the three appeals court judges assigned to the case was appointed by Bill Clinton, the other two were appointed by President Obama.

The central issue in the case is whether in the scramble to assemble enough votes in the Senate to pass the Affordable Care Act, Democratic leaders in Congress took a shortcut that the Constitution does not permit.

The Origination Clause requires that bills seeking to raise revenue from the American people emerge first from the legislative body closest to the people themselves. The requirement is designed to maximize political accountability by forcing such measures to win initial approval among lawmakers in the House, where each member must seek reelection every two years.

Senators, with their six-year terms, are more insulated from popular pressure.

In addition to requiring that all revenue raising bills originate in the House, the Constitution permits the Senate to “propose or concur with amendments as on other bills.”

Government lawyers cite that portion of the Origination Clause as support for the Reid maneuver.   

In the runup to the vote on the ACA, Senator Reid used a “shell bill” to satisfy the technical requirement that the legislation arrive from the House.

He used the Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009 as a template for the maneuver. That law, HR 3590, offered tax credits to military members who were first-time homebuyers.

Reid eliminated the entire text of the six-page law and replaced it with the 2,000-plus page bill that became the Affordable Care Act. All that remained of the Home Ownership Tax Act was the bill number, HR 3590.

After winning Senate approval, the “amended” HR 3590 was sent to the House where the Democratic majority approved it. The bill was then sent to President Obama who signed it into law in March 2010.

In defending the procedure, Ms. Klein says HR 3590 was not a bill to raise revenue, it was a bill to reform health care, and, thus, does not trigger requirements of the Origination Clause.

She also argues that HR 3590 did, in fact, originate in the House of Representatives and that it doesn’t matter that the entire substance of that House-passed bill involving tax credits was deleted and substituted with the Senate-written ACA.

Klein says there is nothing improper or even unusual about the ACA’s passage.

Replacing the text of a House-passed bill with Senate-approved text as an amendment is permissible under the Origination Clause, Klein said.

The check against abuse of this procedure, she said, is that any bill amended by the Senate must also later be approved by the House.

Klein quotes an authority no less than James Madison, a Founding Father, for support of the government’s position.

“You may safely lodge this power of amending with the senate,” Madison told the Virginia ratifying convention in 1788. “When a bill is sent with proposed amendments to the House of Representatives, if they find the alternatives defective, they are not conclusive. The House of Representatives are the judges of their propriety.”

Lawyers with the PLF reject government claims that the ACA is a health reform measure unrelated to raising revenue.

The US Supreme Court in 2010 upheld the constitutionality of the ACA as a permissible use of Congress’s taxing power, they said. The tax penalty associated with the health care mandate is expected to raise $4 billion a year in general government revenue by 2017.

The PLF lawyers also argue that replacing the entire text of HR 3590 was not a legitimate way to amend a statute seeking to raise revenue from the people.

“This was not a lawful ‘amendment’ of HR 3590 as required by the Origination Clause, because the subject matter of the one had nothing whatsoever to do with the other,” the PLF brief says.

The lawyers said the Supreme Court has held that only Senate amendments that are germane to the subject matter of the underlying House bill can avoid scrutiny under the Origination Clause.

“If the Origination Clause has any meaning, it must be to bar the Senate from creating from scratch any bills for raising revenue,” the PLF brief says.

“While the Senate may in most cases have the power to ‘gut-and-amend’ a bill by striking and replacing its entire contents, no court has ever held that the Senate can use such a procedure to originate a bill for raising revenue,” the PLF lawyers say.

The case is Sissel v. US Department of Health and Human Services.

Christian Science Monitor