Paris Burns: DC Remains Too Cool

Paris is burning, and DC is chilly. We have seen a well planned, well executed and devastating attack in Paris. Islamic fanatics have killed scores and it appears to be a direct result of the plans and achievements of the leaders of the West.
“Refugees” from Syria, and radicalized Europeans have struck in the heart of France with bloody results.
In the US, reaction is mixed. Our president has resolutely refused to change course, with his administration standing firm in their plans to import tens of thousands of those very same refugees.
After years of minimizing the role of ISIS, and refusing to even say ‘Islamic Terror’ President Obama on Friday, the day of the massacre, was quoted once more with noted ignorance, claiming that ISIS was now contained, and not a growing threat. At the gathering of world leaders, the American president was noticeably late for the formal gathering for a memorial moment of silence to honor the dead from the ISIS assault.
Even today, when pressed by media, President Obama has steadfastly refused to respond forcefully, with this the most telling exchange:

“CNN’s Jim Accosta said…’I guess the question is, and if you’ll forgive the language is”Why can’t we take out these bastards”?
Obama scoffed at the question: “What I’m not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of ‘American Leadership’ or America winning’ He said firmly”

Via Breitbart

 

This, then is pretty decisive and clear. This man, the president of the USA is NOT interested in victory by America.

Immediately following the attacks, Obama announced that he was releasing five Yemeni prisoners from Guantanamo, including the man who was Osama Bin Laden’s body guard. He appears bent on  showing he cares more for Islamists than Americans.
Why is this? What can possibly be the answer?

Our president has sometimes been portrayed as being an islamist. He has denounced those who have questioned his Christian credentials. Recall the scrambling to rephrase and reframe this famous quote in an interview with George Stephanopolis, where he responded to a question with an answer about ” My Muslim Faith” ?  If in fact, Obama had been raised as a Muslim by his father, then later in life he became Christian, then according to the Sharia law, he is an apostate. If this were the case, he would be subject to death by true believers.  As it happens, there have not been calls for his death for this crime.  Yet he continues to show more concern for defaming Islam than defending Christianity.
Answers range from his leftist upbringing, racialist philosophy, to Al Taqiyya.
But, in truth, the answers are irrelevant. The truth, the facts, are plain enough. As long as he is in command, Obama will not lead, will not permit America to win. He has stated plainly such. He must be thwarted, his successor must be someone capable of reversing his damage.
Keep the Faith!
The Rev

Forty Seven to run EVERYTHING

For the record, I am not a follower of ‘numerology’. I don’t believe in horoscopes or most of the end times prophesies that pop up every year or so like so many whack a moles. But there is one number that has caught my attention. It’s an important number, and a far smaller than I would have imagined.  I’ll tell you about it quickly, then tell me what you think.

Forty Seven is a magical number. It is a DANGEROUS number.

That is the total number of people who are needed to destroy our republic. 1 president who is willing to act via executive decree. 5 supreme court justices willing to vote against clear language in Constitution  to enable that executive  to continue. 41 senators willing to vote to “filibuster ” to block any legislation which might rein in the lawlessness.
Of course there is a pair of spineless congressional leaders, one in the house and one in the Senate who will lay down and not fight to defend what they pretend their party  stands for.

Go Ahead.. Shout “FIRE”

OK, this is one of the things that has ground my gears for years.

The famous hoary old quote trotted out whenever the libs disagree with something a libertarian or conservative says in public that ”offends them”

Immediately they say,(harumph, harumph) “Well free speech is all well and good, and we all know that there is a First Amendment.

BUT….. We all know that YOU CAN’T YELL FIRE IN A CROWDED THEATER”

Then the speaker smiles smugly like the Church Lady, and sits back. The argument is over, and I win! So SHUT UP they explained.

OK, so the quote is not in any law, but was part of an introduction by Justice Holmes in a 1919 court ruling.( US. V Schenck) In that ruling they said a pamphlet against the draft that contained the phrases ‘Assert Your Rights” and ‘Do  not submit to intimidation”

Pretty mild stuff, eh?

What is even more interesting is that the entire decision was OVERTURNED IN 1969!!!
(Brandenburg v. Ohio)

The ruling reversed a previous Supreme Court decision setting a new precedent for the “clear and present danger” standard in First Amendment cases. The Court now held that a person’s words were protected as free speech as long as they did not directly incite unlawful action

Court held that all speech,including inflammatory speech, such as in this case by the KKK, is protected under the First Amendment, unless the speech is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. The link must be there, the speech MUST directly result in the violent action.

So, next time someone says

Well, we ALL know you can’t shout Fire in a theater and gives that stupid look, the best reply is:

“Oh? What about Brandenburg v. Ohio?

Boom!

The Vanquished Powers Were Glad

As the Obama Administration muddles through one more vacation, they take some military action which is completely representative of the entire regime and it’s mindset.

In a story posted to Stars And Stripes Lt. General William Mayville says the following:

“We assess that U.S. airstrikes in northern Iraq have slowed ISIL’s operational tempo and temporarily disrupted their advances toward the province of Irbil. However, these strikes are unlikely to affect ISIL’s overall capabilities or its operation in other areas of Iraq and Syria,”

So, we will send our military to make lots of noise and flash, but the administration knows, in advance that is all for appearance, and no long term effect. They seem to believe that there are no real enemies which require engagement and long term attention.

Time and again this regime ‘pivots’ and applies a ‘laser like focus’ to a new issue, a new geopolitical crisis, only to move on once the headlines shrink away and the network cameras are pointed into another direction.

They believe their own hype, and are confident that we are in a ‘post-modern’ world. The US secretary of state blusters that the Russian leadership simply will stop, because ‘One simply does not do that in the twenty first century’. 

You see, they just know more, they are better, they are undeniably more moral than any previous administration, or the hoi polloi over which they must rule.

Obama and his team simply imagine  because they think it, because they want it, the world will bend to conform to their statements and judgments. ISIS is ‘The JV team’ and not worth attention.

Syria will comply with Obama’s demands, because they simply must.

This regime believes their own hype and acts as if all the evil in the world will stop merely because they will it. They act as if there are no bad actors on the world state, and if only John Kerry can get a ‘sit down’ then every tyrant and dictator will see the inherent wisdom of his words and follow the lead of Obama the Great and Powerful. 

Recently I came across something written by WH Auden, which I think poetically reflects my thoughts better than my ramblings above.

So an age ended, and its last deliverer died
In bed, grown idle and unhappy; they were safe:
The sudden shadow of a giant’s enormous calf
Would fall no more at dusk across their lawns outside.

They slept in peace: in marshes here and there no doubt
A sterile dragon lingered to a natural death,
But in a year the slot had vanished from the heath;
A kobold’s knocking in the mountain petered out.

Only the sculptors and the poets were half-sad,
And the pert retinue from the magician’s house
Grumbled and went elsewhere. The vanquished powers were glad

To be invisible and free; without remorse
Struck down the silly sons who strayed into their course,
And ravished the daughters, and drove the fathers mad.

We cannot simply ignore evil, it will not vanish simply because we ‘don’t believe in it anymore’.

Another shorter quote which I also believe is appropriate  may be more familiar. 

In the words of Louis XV:

Après moi, le déluge

Keep the Faith!

The Rev

More info in IRS and Income Tax

It was all a political ploy!’

According to Jay Starkman, writing in the Wall Street Journal, the Sixteenth amendment was merely a trick, employed to allow the Congress to pass an excise tax on business.

The Senate boss, Finance Committee Chairman Nelson Aldrich, together with President William Howard Taft concocted a compromise to stop the income tax bill that the House had passed. Congress would immediately pass a 1% “excise” tax on corporate income over $5,000—in effect the rich were being taxed. As a further sop to income-tax advocates, Aldrich would sponsor an income-tax constitutional amendment.

Aldrich was quite candid about his scheme to block the House bill that had been passed, declaring to the Senate: “I shall vote for the corporation tax as a means to defeat the income tax.”

But of course it was not something which those who imposed it had any desire subject themselves to :

After the tax law was passed, judges embraced it—for everyone else, just not themselves. Judges across the land proclaimed that the Constitution prohibited diminishing their salaries (and those of the president and state employees) through taxation. They emphasized the point by issuing court rulings in their own favor, excusing themselves from the tax. This lasted until the Depression, when the force of public opinion essentially shamed them into relenting. Under a law passed in 1932, Franklin Roosevelt became the first president subject to the income tax, but he refused to pay an increased rate that he helped enact in 1934. FDR insisted on paying the lower 1932 rates.

Now they just use the IRS to attack enemies and destroy those who oppose them.

Nice work.

One sentence summary of modern issues

Reading an essay by Kevin Williamson, in National Review I came across this thought, buried in the middle of the piece.

It sums up much of what is wrong with so many, and thought it worth passing along.

It might be thought provoking to read the entire essay, (linked here)

 

But this one short sentence just made me pause and think:

 

 

 

Modernity sets us free, but it does not offer any answer to the question, “Free to do what?”

I don’t recognize my country today… or Has Carter been Reelected?

I don’t recognize my country today.

The last few days have presented a clear and obvious choice. Our Embassies, sovereign territory placed within other nations, have been attacked and defiled. Our ambassador has been killed, along with several others in planned coordinated attacks on American facilities.

While the government of Mohammed Morsi permitted his thugs to invade the grounds of the American Embassy in Cairo, the US state department was issuing apologies to Islam, condemning those who would dare to ‘Hurt the feelings’ of Muslims anyplace in the world.

When a candidate for the office of president challenged the appropriateness of this apology, he was roundly criticized, not for saying something untrue or incorrect, but for ‘the timing’ of his statement. All this while the State dept. repeated and reissued the same statement even while the flag of our nation was being pulled down, set ablaze and replaced by a flag representing the very Al Qaeda groups which have attacked us repeatedly.

Following that atrocity in Egypt, Libyan ‘extremists’ assaulted the consulate and the American Ambassador. He and others were escorted to a ‘safe location’ by Libyan guards… apparently we had no US Marines available to protect the representative of the United States in a dangerous area…

Once ensconced in said safe location, the Libyan ‘protectors’ then took to the streets, to inform the ‘small band of extremists’ as to the location of the American delegation.

Upon this felicitous discovery, the Ambassador and his aides were murdered, and their bodies carried, as trophies, through the streets in jubilant celebration of the pinnacle of Arab Muslim civilization.

To this point, there have been as many differing explanations and causes given for the death of these people as questions about ‘the motives’ of the assault.

It must have been that cheap movie; the clip was shown on YouTube. That’s why they attacked. Not because they want to extend their reach globally. So, in order to prevent them from attacking again, and to refute the statements of those who claim this is all about extending Sharia law in our modern world as it has been in their pre historic caliphate, many journalists have called out for the arrest and trial of a nominally Christian pastor who has supported the movie. He must be made to pay. We must curtail his right to speak, lest he offend some Islamic man of peace and drive him to behead someone in The Levant. We must implement the rules of Sharia in order to prove that the Islamofascists are not trying to implement the rules of Sharia.

Then our President makes his statement.

He uses one of his most useful collections of weasel words, telling us to “Make No mistake”

(This is a phrase he generally uses to ensure that we know he is about to make an intentional forced error)

“Justice will be done” Our president has promised that “Justice will be done”

This is step one. Justice, as in the Department of Justice. That great bastion of integrity and fairness which upon winning summary judgment against a group ( The New Black Panther Party) which used force to intimidate voters at polling places in Philadelphia, abandoned the case, and surrendered, dropping all charges against those who had just been convicted. That Standard Bearer of brilliance, which has stonewalled the investigation of the killing of a US agent by foreign nationals using guns purchased through a program managed by that very justice department, and denied by the head of that august body. That kind of justice.

Today after two devastating attacks, carried out on the eleventh day of September, (does that day ring any bells anyone??? Hello???) Our President, our leader, the most powerful man on the planet, has dispatched…….

The FBI to investigate and determine the motives of the attackers.

THE FREAKING FBI????? We are attacked by forces under the control of foreign governments, our representatives are murdered, our embassies defiled, our flag burned and REPLACED by the flag of our enemies, and we send in the cops???

Of course we will investigate, we will debate, and we will take an overt act of war and magically transmogrify it into an act of civil criminal disobedience, to be explained by root causes, and oppression by the evil conservative Christian right wing hate groups.

 Soon enough we will see that the attacks in Cairo and Ben Ghazi are actually the result of actions by Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and Paul Ryan, abetted of course by the Koch brothers, enabled by the Citizens United decision. The only way to prevent such attacks from happening again will be to suspend the first amendment, and permit the government to support and affirm the rights of Muslims to impose their will, to eliminate the second amendment to prevent ‘right wing terrorists’ from attacking us from within, and to ensure that Obama and his administration remain in power to protect us from the Israelis who are the real source of terror in the middle east.

Of course, that last paragraph is a farce, a parody of reality. Absurd words, meant to dramatize the reality which is much nicer and safer. It is, I promise, … or at least I pray it is.

Keep the Faith!

The Rev

You Didn’t Build That…

If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. ( B. Obama, 7/13/2012)

Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato (“Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State”) (B. Mussolini, 5/26/1927)

I have been inactive a while, but am compelled to return to my keyboard. Hearing the comments lately from our President gave me a sense of deja vu, and I went back to find the quote which it seemed to echo. I admit, it’s not exact, but it’s of a piece with the governing philosophy displayed by this adminstration.

So often when Mr. Obama says something ridiculous, his opponents rise and compare him to Hitler, or to Stalin, or call him a socialist, or a communist. While there are similarities in his politics to communism, the most clear comparison has got to be with Italian Fascism.

I don’t know why so many rush to the bait of the left. Obama is not hitler, he is not Stalin. ( aside from the fact that he is neither as intelligent, nor ruthless, and not even as charismatic).
From the inception of his campaign, the comparison to Mussolini and his collectivist, statist ideology has been clear.
His use of the coercive power of the state, eg the auto ‘bailout’…which was flat out a government take over.
The government funding, then abandonment of companies like Solyndra are close parallels to the ‘golden shares’.
Fascism is not about ‘goose stepping Nazi troops of the right wing’ it is about quasi private business being controlled by government.
The government tells business how to act, if the business fails, then government blames the fat cats. If it succeeds, then government takes credit, and takes more control. And those connected to the elite continue to make money while demonizing those who don’t follow their directives.
This is not communism, it is the original, true and clear fascism, as originally practiced by Mussolini and the Fascisti.

Even as popular site as Wikipedia in it’s article about Fascism rings loudly with comparisons.

After 1929, the Fascist regime countered the Great Depression with massive public works programs, such as the draining of the Pontine Marshes, hydroelectricity development, railway improvement

( Stimulus Bill anyone)

One truly interesting link: After forcing Chrysler into bankruptcy, the Obama administration and it’s ‘auto Czar’ sought out and found a new buyer for the recreated, and government controlled entity .

Government controlled Chrysler corp got a new partner, which was none other than fascist created and controlled Fiat Motors. Interesting how things come full circle sometimes, isn’t it?

In 1933, the Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI — Institute for Industrial Reconstruction) was established to subsidize failing companies,

(Tarp, auto bailout? Solyndra)

Look, we have to face facts. What we are seeing is the realization of a corporatist form of governance, enacted not by a doctrinaire marxist, but by someone simply craving power. This president condemns the actions of others, while simultaneously behaving in exactly the same way.

His allies in the donkey party cheer him on, knowing that they will continue to expand their personal empires. The elephant party plods along, mostly saying not so fast, not so fast, but not changing direction, only the speed with which government and the super rich like Warren Buffet take over as much as they can.

There is only possible answer, and that is to vote out any incumbent who has consistently increased the power and finances of the Central government in DC.

Senate majority leader..heave him out.

Speaker Boehner.. send him home to weep quietly to himself in a tanning booth in Ohio.

We need real change, so we can once again believe in our government.

Keep the Faith!

The Rev.

All the News That Isn’t

I know, it’s a familiar title, and not original.
this week in France, a Muslim terrorist attacked and killed jews, in he name of his religion.
He killed several elite french military men, and using a gun, held police at bay for hours, eventually jumping to his death, while continuing to shoot at the police who could not capture him.
Several things
first, all the major nets covered other stories first.
Why?
Let’s look—
Muslim terrorist Can’t say that.
he used a gun.. They are supposed to be banned, thus unavailable in France, how’d that happen?
Third, he killed Jews… Thought they were the persecutors not victims. supposed to be running the world… not hunted and killed.
And he was a TERRORIST… Thought we were done with that.
Can’t shake up the fat happy sheep watching wheel of fortune and “the voice’ on their big screen Tv while cashing their second year of unemployment checks.

No way will the big shots in charge allow anything to shake these fat blobs of gelatinous lipids from their torpor. They might just fire up a dormant neuron long enough to understand they are being misled, and maybe one or two percent of them might actually resist their slavery.

The Danger Model

I was listening to the radio the other day, and caught part of an interview with a cancer specialist.  She was discussing a recent trend in cancer treatment theory and contrasting it with traditional methodology and treatment theories.

About as close as I can get to explaining it is like this.

Traditionally we look at the immune system as border guards or police, roaming looking for foreign intruders. Once found these intruders are attacked and destroyed.  The problem is with the cancer cells. Frequently they are NOT strangers, but merely healthy cells which are growing faster and more productively than those around them. They are not different.

So, a new idea has come along, something called the Danger Model. The idea here is to compare the actions more to a fire station. There the defenders are waiting, prepared to respond when a signal is received indication danger which will generate a response.

Immune cells respond to a toxin, or the contents of a ruptured killed cell and react, attacking and destroying the dangerous cells.

In the late 1800’s Dr William Coley used such a theory to treat cancer. An example of how this worked  can be found here:

On January 24, 1893, the first patient to receive Coley Vaccine^[2] was John Ficken, a sixteen-year-old boy with a massive abdominal tumor. Every few days, Coley injected his vaccine directly into the tumor mass and produced the symptoms of an infectious disease, but did not produce the disease itself. On each injection, there was a dramatic rise in body temperature and chills. The tumour gradually diminished in size. By May 1893, after four months of intensive treatment, the tumour was a fifth its original size. By August, the remains of the growth were barely perceptible.

So, why the rambling medical history? It’s a long way around to make a salien political point.  Currently we have growth of government stimulated by a cadre of politicians who have seemed no different from any others who have come along in the past. They have built upon the foundations of the past, enlarging and expanding “Leviathan” to unprecedented scope and size.

They have moved swiftly, taking the controls of our systems and begun to direct the function and output toward their own goals.  Most of the nation has simply sat and watched, as there seemed no real danger from another bunch of politicians. The liberty which past generations have prized has been trimmed, and scaled back.  The rights and freedoms so cherished have been encroached upon, while the tumor of government growth has expanded, swelling and growing sleek and thick within the skin of the once proud and healthy nation.

Gradually some have in fact, perceived a signal and slowly started to react.  But only around the margins, and only slowly, tentatively have they begun to attempt to stop the tumor cells from expanding and taking over.

What we need is clear. Somehow, some way the body politic of this nation needs to get a fever. something must happen which will start the defenders moving, moving swiftly and with purpose.

The most common hope is that these people will make a step, take some action which finally stir enough people to react and expel the cancer cells.

The problem with waiting is that while we wait, the tumor grows enormous and sleek. It draws more and more of the resources from the healthy body until  not enough strength remains to fight it off. Then the cancer metastasizes essentially taking control of the entire body.

A look at tracking polls show that 46% of Americans strongly disapprove of the current president’s actions.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 24% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-six percent (46%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -22 (see trends).

This matches the lowest Approval Index rating yet measured for this president.

The worst performance ever. Yet still he and his party continue, acting with impunity, brazenly continuing to plunder the treasury as citizens watch. While Leviathan is feeding from the very blood of the nation, the muscles and bones which support it are being weakened and rotted.  As any cancer grows, it steals the needed resources and nutrients which the healthy tissue needs. Masquerading as part of the body, it extends its reach, feeding on the  body it is destroying from within.

Most people simply continue, going about their daily business as if there is no problem. We act as if this is merely another phase, simply a small cough which will pass. Meanwhile the tumor, which began decades ago continues to swell and pulse, threatening our  existence.  We move along with our chores, oblivious, ignoring the cries of those who see the danger.

I am not supplying answers here, just observing. But clearly somehow, something must be done. Something has to happen to waken those capable of defending the nation from the growing cancer. If we fail to react, if we allow it to continue to thrive, the killing cells will spread, taking control of, and eventually completely destroying the nation.

We have to find a way to send a danger signal that can be clearly heard, and one which will engender a strong enough response to finally and completely destroy the disease which continues to strangle our lives as it feeds and grows unchecked.

Perhaps this economic strain will act as a sort of  “Coley’s toxin”, which will cause the necessary mobilization of defenders.  Perhaps the plunder of our resources and vast deficit spending will be the signal which brings out the immune response.  Something will.  It had better happen.  We really don’t have all that much time left.

Before it is too late, we need to act.

Keep the Faith!

The Rev.