University of Delaware--We're Watching

Resident students at U of D dorms subjected to forced indoctrination

As usual, FIRE is on the case:

Update and Rejoice--this program has been ended.

FIRE Press Release

NEWARK, Del., October 30, 2007—The University of Delaware subjects students in its residence halls to a shocking program of ideological reeducation that is referred to in the university’s own materials as a “treatment” for students’ incorrect attitudes and beliefs. The Orwellian program requires the approximately 7,000 students in Delaware’s residence halls to adopt highly specific university-approved views on issues ranging from politics to race, sexuality, sociology, moral philosophy, and environmentalism. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is calling for the total dismantling of the program, which is a flagrant violation of students’ rights to freedom of conscience and freedom from compelled speech.

“The University of Delaware’s residence life education program is a grave intrusion into students’ private beliefs,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. “The university has decided that it is not enough to expose its students to the values it considers important; instead, it must coerce its students into accepting those values as their own. At a public university like Delaware, this is both unconscionable and unconstitutional.”

The university’s views are forced on students through a comprehensive manipulation of the residence hall environment, from mandatory training sessions to “sustainability” door decorations. Students living in the university’s eight housing complexes are required to attend training sessions, floor meetings, and one-on-one meetings with their Resident Assistants (RAs). The RAs who facilitate these meetings have received their own intensive training from the university, including a “diversity facilitation training” session at which RAs were taught, among other things, that “[a] racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality.”

The university suggests that at one-on-one sessions with students, RAs should ask intrusive personal questions such as “When did you discover your sexual identity?” Students who express discomfort with this type of questioning often meet with disapproval from their RAs, who write reports on these one-on-one sessions and deliver these reports to their superiors. One student identified in a write-up as an RA’s “worst” one-on-one session was a young woman who stated that she was tired of having “diversity shoved down her throat.”

According to the program’s materials, the goal of the residence life education program is for students in the university’s residence halls to achieve certain “competencies” that the university has decreed its students must develop in order to achieve the overall educational goal of “citizenship.” These competencies include: “Students will recognize that systemic oppression exists in our society,” “Students will recognize the benefits of dismantling systems of oppression,” and “Students will be able to utilize their knowledge of sustainability to change their daily habits and consumer mentality.”

At various points in the program, students are also pressured or even required to take actions that outwardly indicate their agreement with the university’s ideology, regardless of their personal beliefs. Such actions include displaying specific door decorations, committing to reduce their ecological footprint by at least 20%, taking action by advocating for an “oppressed” social group, and taking action by advocating for a “sustainable world.”

In the Office of Residence Life’s internal, these programs are described using the harrowing language of ideological reeducation. In documents relating to the assessment of student learning, for example, the residence hall lesson plans are referred to as “treatments.”

In a letter sent yesterday to University of Delaware President Patrick Harker, FIRE pointed out the stark contradiction between the residence life education program and the values of a free society. FIRE’s letter to President Harker also underscored the University of Delaware’s legal obligation to abide by the First Amendment. FIRE reminded Harker of the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), a case decided during World War II that remains the law of the land. Justice Robert H. Jackson, writing for the Court, declared, “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

“The fact that the university views its students as patients in need of treatment for some sort of moral sickness betrays a total lack of respect not only for students’ basic rights, but for students themselves,” Lukianoff said. “The University of Delaware has both a legal and a moral obligation to immediately dismantle this program, and FIRE will not rest until it has.”

FIRE is a nonprofit educational foundation that unites civil rights and civil liberties leaders, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of individual rights, due process rights, freedom of expression, and rights of conscience on our campuses. FIRE would like to thank the Delaware Association of Scholars (DAS) for its invaluable assistance in this case. FIRE’s efforts to preserve liberty at the University of Delaware and elsewhere can be seen by visiting www.thefire.org.

I have kids. I hope to impart solid values to them and its not easy with government schools and a custodial ex that's not always on the same page as me.

But I know that she would never permit this kind of pseudopolitical indoctrination. We both know a man that swam Hong Kong harbor to escape the PRC. We both know a woman that escaped the Soviet controlled Ukraine with her son knowing that her math profressor brother would come under scrutiny. We both know Poles and Romanians who rejoice in the freedoms that Reagan's challenges brought.

OK. We're (ex and I) irreconcilable on some things. But not on what's most important to our kids. As a first generation American, the Queen of Seoul knows what's important. She--and I--will NEVER let our kids fall into the mindtrap of policor as long as we have any say in the matter.

Miles Davis recorded Live Evil in 1970.

We now witness (record) Live Vile in politics, media, and college campuses (campi?)

______________________________________________________

Davis Horowitz is best known recently for organizing Islamo-fascism week at a number of universities nationwide.

He was shouted into suspending his presentation at Emory University by non-student protestors.

Horowitz published the important treatise .Indoctrination U:The Left's War Against Academic Freedom (Encounter Books, 2007.

That may be his more lasting contribution.

This is a turnpost

Guns and gun control

My good friend Beryl F. forwarded this reminder to me.

In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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In 1911, Turkey established gun control.
From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.
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China established gun control in 1935.
From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated
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Guatemala established gun control in 1964.
From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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Uganda established gun control in 1970.
From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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Cambodia established gun control in 1956.
From 1975 to 1977, one million educated people, unable to defend themselves, Were rounded up and exterminated.
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Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated by their own governments in the 20th Century because of gun control: in excess of 56 million.
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It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by their own government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500 million dollars. The first year results are now in:

List of 7 items:
Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent)!

In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 Percent. Note that while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not, and criminals still possess their guns!

The statistics for Canada, where law abiding citizens were also stripped of their guns,
are running very nearly the same.

While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months, since criminals now are guaranteed that their prey is unarmed.

There has also been a dramatic increase in break- ins and assaults of the ELDERLY. Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort and expense was expended in successfully ridding Australian society of guns. The Australian experience and the other historical facts above prove it.

In U.S. states that permit concealed carry the crime statistics are the lowest in the nation. You won't see this data on the US evening news, or hear politicians isseminating this information.

Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws adversely affect only the law-abiding citizens.

Take note my fellow Americans, before it's too late!

The next time someone talks in favor of gun control, please remind them of this history lesson.

With guns, we are 'citizens'.

Without them, we are 'subjects'.

During WWII the Japanese decided not to invade America, perhaps because they knew
most Americans were ARMED!

If you value your freedom, Please spread this anti-gun control message to all of your friends.

from Free Republic

Students for Concealed Carry on Campus Announces National Collegiate Empty Holster Protest (Wow)

Posted on 10/18/2007 5:42:02 AM PDT by DaveLoneRanger

During the week of October 22-26, 2007, college students throughout America, organized under the banner of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, will attend classes wearing empty holsters, in protest of state laws and campus policies that stack the odds in favor of armed killers by disarming law abiding citizens licensed to carry concealed handguns virtually everywhere else.

In 39 U.S. states, thousands of collegiate students and faculty—age 21 and above—are licensed to carry concealed handguns throughout their day-to-day lives. And they do so without incident. However, despite the absence of any compelling evidence that these licensed individuals would pose any more threat to college campuses than they currently do to office buildings, shopping malls, movie theaters, grocery stores, banks, etc., they are prohibited, either by state law or school policy, from carrying their firearms onto most college campuses.

On April 16, 2007, twenty-seven students and five faculty members at Virginia Tech lost their lives to a madman who possessed one distinct advantage over his victims—He wasn’t concerned with following the rules. Undeterred by Virginia Tech’s status as a “gun free zone,” this mentally unstable individual carried two handguns onto the university campus and indiscriminately opened fire.

In the last twenty years, the vast majority of the mass shootings in America—from the Texas Luby’s massacre to the Columbine High School massacre—have happened in “gun free zones.” Labeling an area “gun free” may make some people feel safer, but as the shootings at Virginia Tech taught us, feeling safe and being safe are not the same thing.

For over a year, state law in Utah has allowed licensed individuals to carry concealed handguns on college campuses. This has yet to result in a single act of violence. Numerous studies* by independent researchers and state agencies show that license holders are five times less likely than non-license holders to be arrested for violent crimes. Clearly, license holders pose little threat to college campuses.

There is a wide discrepancy between the intent of campus gun bans and the actual consequences of such bans. It is this discrepancy to which the students of SCCC hope their Empty Holster Protest will draw attention. While opponents may argue that guns have no place in institutions of higher learning, SCCC contends that it is the threat of uncontested, execution-style massacre that has no place in America’s colleges. The students of the Empty Holster Protest respectfully ask that steps be taken to take the advantage away from those who seek to harm the innocent.

For more information, contact Scott Lewis or visit www.ConcealedCampus.com.

It's been a long time since my campus days and a lot seems to have changed since. The Virginia Tech massacre last April may have had a drastically different outcome if a student or instructor had been armed.

Common sense.

This is a turnpost.

Larry Craig joins Village People

Wide-stance foot-tapping senator joins famous gay boy band

This is a turnpost

Google Earth aids Gaza terror

Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind.

One can learn the specifics of bomb building at various internet sites.

Now a terror master in Gaza is using Google Earth to locate rocket targets in Israel.

from The Guardian

Google Earth used to target Israel

Palestinian militants are using Google Earth to help plan their attacks on the Israeli military and other targets, the Guardian has learned.

video link

Palestinian militants are using Google Earth to help plan their attacks on the Israeli military and other targets, the Guardian has learned.

Members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a group aligned with the Fatah political party, say they use the popular internet mapping tool to help determine their targets for rocket strikes.

"We obtain the details from Google Earth and check them against our maps of the city centre and sensitive areas," Khaled Jaabari, the group's commander in Gaza who is known as Abu Walid, told the Guardian.

Abu Walid showed the Guardian an aerial image of the Israeli town of Sderot on his computer to demonstrate how his group searches for targets.

The Guardian filmed an al-Aqsa test rocket launch, fired into an uninhabited area of the Negev desert, last month. Despite the crudeness of the weapons, many have landed in Sderot, killing around a dozen people in the last three years and wounding scores more.

Al-Aqsa is one of several militant groups firing rockets, known as Qassams, from Gaza into Israel. A rocket attack by Islamic Jihad on a military base last month wounded more than 50 soldiers. Hamas's military wing, the Izzedine Qassam Brigades, is not believed to be firing rockets.

Abu Walid insists there is no contradiction between his group's actions and talk of peace by Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah's leader.

Hold on--the Izzedine Qassam Brigades not believed to be firing off qassams?

Give 'em a country, for Pete's sake. A section of Antarctica should do.

This is a turnpost

HellcatTM

Bitterly betrayed former fundraiser details ordeal as Hillary hides smoking gun.

Approx. 14 minutes

I call shenanigans

Deny, deflect, suppress, litigate, silence. More and more people are getting the Hellcat's number.

This is a turnpost

STARK EATS CROW

Says, "I've developed a taste for it".

Weasels can eat almost anything


This is a turnpost

Enviroweenie Roast

I can only hope that, among the 880,000 evacuees of the California wildfires, some of the human hating, civilization despising, misbegotten 'environmentalist asshats are also suffering property loss.

Court-ordered mandates brought on by the Sierra Club et al preventing the simple clearing of dead brush are largely responsible for this Katrina-scale disaster. The same folks who insist that man must not interfere with nature are partly responsible for this debacle.

If anything positive may result from this tragedy we can hope that sane, grown-up and responsible legislation can be brought that will forever allow the thoughtful stewardship of undeveloped land.

This is a turnpost.

Won Ton Money

"You give big time to Hirry, or erse".

The candidate's unparalleled fundraising success relies largely on the least-affluent residents of New York's Chinatown -- some of whom can't be tracked down.

By Peter Nicholas and Tom Hamburger, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
October 19, 2007

NEW YORK -- Something remarkable happened at 44 Henry St., a grimy Chinatown tenement with peeling walls. It also happened nearby at a dimly lighted apartment building with trash bins clustered by the front door.

And again not too far away, at 88 E. Broadway beneath the Manhattan bridge, where vendors chatter in Mandarin and Fujianese as they hawk rubber sandals and bargain-basement clothes.

All three locations, along with scores of others scattered throughout some of the poorest Chinese neighborhoods in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, have been swept by an extraordinary impulse to shower money on one particular presidential candidate -- Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Dishwashers, waiters and others whose jobs and dilapidated home addresses seem to make them unpromising targets for political fundraisers are pouring $1,000 and $2,000 contributions into Clinton's campaign treasury. In April, a single fundraiser in an area long known for its gritty urban poverty yielded a whopping $380,000. When Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) ran for president in 2004, he received $24,000 from Chinatown.

At this point in the presidential campaign cycle, Clinton has raised more money than any candidate in history. Those dishwashers, waiters and street stall hawkers are part of the reason. And Clinton's success in gathering money from Chinatown's least-affluent residents stems from a two-pronged strategy: mutually beneficial alliances with powerful groups, and appeals to the hopes and dreams of people now consigned to the margins.

Clinton has enlisted the aid of Chinese neighborhood associations, especially those representing recent immigrants from Fujian province. The organizations, at least one of which is a descendant of Chinatown criminal enterprises that engaged in gambling and human trafficking, exert enormous influence over immigrants. The associations help them with everything from protection against crime to obtaining green cards.

Many of Clinton's Chinatown donors said they had contributed because leaders in neighborhood associations told them to. In some cases, donors said they felt pressure to give.

The other piece of the strategy involves holding out hope that, if Clinton becomes president, she will move quickly to reunite families and help illegal residents move toward citizenship. As New York's junior senator, Clinton has expressed support for immigrants and greater family reunification. She is also benefiting from Chinese donors' naive notions of what she could do in the White House.

STOP. WAIT.

This 'article' goes on unquestioning of the sources of money obviously beyond the donors ability to give.

I know a little something about these Chinese immigrants. They work long hard hours for little return and they're forced to repay harsh loans. A rented tenement built for a family of four or five may house 15 or more in a makeshift dormitory.

It's more than a little disingenuous to not ask if this money is really coming from higher up the Chinese food chain by people who fear exposure and violations of campaign contribution limits.

This is another Sino/Clinton ploy exposing turnpost.

Sometimes the right question

David Horowitz asks

"Is this not puzzling? Why would the left – which claims to be anti-fascist, anti-sexist and progressive -- oppose Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week rather than support it?

Vocabulary of War

By David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com
Friday, October 19, 2007

The Left is up in arms over the effort to hold an Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week on American college campuses. The goal of the Week is to alert Americans to the threat from Islamo-Fascism and to focus attention on the violent oppression of Muslim women under theocracies in Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan and other Islamic states. It has been attacked as “Islamophobic” and “racist” by the Muslim Students Association, the Revolutionary Communist Party, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and FoxNews Channel’s Alan Colmes.

Is this not puzzling? Why would the left – which claims to be anti-fascist, anti-sexist and progressive -- oppose Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week rather than support it? Why isn’t the left outraged by the genital mutilation of women in countries such as Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen, or the sanctioning of wife-beating under Islamic law in Pakistan and other Islamic states? Across America, Women’s Studies programs will teach students about the oppression of women in Peoria and Ann Arbor but not in Teheran or Riyadh. Why not?

Why isn’t the left appalled by the jihad – the holy war that has been declared against the West, and by the sanctifying of murderers as holy “martyrs” when Muslim terrorists kill innocent Americans, Christians and Jews? Perhaps it is because the left is engaged in its own jihad or holy war – and against the same targets: the Great Satan, America, and the little one in the Middle East.

As the left’s response shows, it is not only indifferent to the issues of Islamic terror and oppression, which the campus protest hopes to discuss, it is ready to declare war on anyone who wants to raise them.

This coming Monday, October 22, marks the beginning of Islamo-fascism Awareness Week at around 100 campuses nationwide. If you think Horowitz is 'over the top' about the pushback then consider this.

From the Huffpo:

by Ali Eteraz

An ex-senator that opposes individual rights of women; a pundit that calls people "faggots" and considers Islam a "cult"; a Christian scholar who is considered a "polemicist" and an "Islamophobe" by conservative Christians themselves; and an intellectual who has received millions from "far right" organizations since 2001, are rising up for the rights of women, gays, and religious minorities in the Muslim world. This laughable spectacle is called the Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. It will be coming to a university near you on October 22 - 26.

Why are they going to universities? Why not these people go to Saudi Arabia or Pakistan and tackle extremism directly? Simple: They consider the university "the institutional base of the left." The same left which "is the enabler and abettor of the terrorist jihad."

The CAIR website reposted an article from The Minnesota Daily, a University of Minnesota student newspaper.

David Horowitz intends to spread fear and hatred under the guise of patriotism and freedom.

By Chelsey Perkins

This coming Monday, brace yourself for the excitement and thrills brought to you by the David Horowitz Freedom Center's "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," beginning Oct. 22 and ending Oct. 26.

This fun-filled week will feature an array of speakers, films, enlightening literature and the opportunity to participate in a sit-in. Student organizers can choose from a delightful list of speakers, including:

Mark Steyn, a man who calls himself a "culturalist" rather than a "racist" for finding Western culture preferable to Arab culture and who supports immigration with the condition of assimilation

Phyllis Chesler, a professor of women's studies who wrote of the new anti-Semitism, which essentially encompasses anyone opposed to Israel's policies

And, if you're really lucky, like students at the University of Southern California, Ann Coulter, who once referred to Muslims as "ragheads" and is now apparently crusading for Muslim women's rights.

The point of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is to spread the word about what Horowitz calls the two "Big lies of the left," that President Bush created the War on Terror and that global warming is a bigger problem than the threat of terrorism to our national security. Horowitz, author of the Academic Bill of Rights and a proponent of bringing a "diversity" of viewpoints to the college campus, totes (sic) the week as one which will bring attention to suppression of women's rights and Islamic attacks on Christians, Jewish peoples, gays and atheists. And of course, who better to discuss gay rights than suggested speaker Rick Santorum, who once compared consensual gay sex to polygamy and incest?

Chelsey, sweetheart-

Consensual gay sex, polygamy and incest are frowned upon biblically. Furthermore, Senator Santorum has never advocated executing gays or any other sexual deviants.

And, sweety, don't be caught dead (literally) in those Twin Cities enclaves populated by Somali gangs harmless refugees.

Hallway rape went unreported by neighbors

Surveillance video shows that five to 10 people in the St. Paul apartment building saw a man attack a woman - but did nothing.

By Anthony Lonetree and Pat Pheifer, Star Tribune
Last update: August 24, 2007 – 8:37 AM

The video shows what most witnesses in a St. Paul apartment building apparently didn't tell.

A man beat a woman, removed his pants and sexually assaulted her in a hall, and five to 10 people saw at least part of the attack but did nothing to intervene or help, according to investigators and court documents.

It was only after police were summoned on a report of two drunk people lying in the hall that they learned there had been a rape. Rage Ibrahim, 25, of St. Paul, was charged Thursday with first-degree and third-degree criminal sexual conduct. He is in Ramsey County jail.

Or this

by Burt Berlowe

One day last fall, East Phillips resident Annie Young received a most provocative e-mail from a source that prefers anonymity. It read as follows:

“Somali violence has been happening on the West Bank since before Bush was elected. Somali youth travel in groups of six to 25. They carry unbroken beer bottles in their pockets to break later and use as weapons. They also use two by fours, tire irons etc. They are undeserving of our country and its values."

"Somali elders are in denial. Teens have taken over Riverside Park and kids in my neighborhood rarely venture there anymore. The gangs are rude, uncivil and not quite human. They are cowards and like to hurt strangers while robbing them. They knock people down and beat them while stealing from them.”

The writer went on to describe an alleged incident late last year where a bartender from the Viking Bar was beaten up.

“He looked like an eggplant” and had to be taken to a hospital emergency room… The e-mail gives another example: “Some…South High School students were cooling off in the pool at Riverside Park after 10 p.m. They were surrounded by a group of 10 Somali ‘gangstas’ that terrorized them with threats of gang rape for about 10 minutes until the girls’ screams drove them away. Give me gangsters from Detroit and Gary (Indiana) any day. At least they only hurt each other. The West Bank is a war zone and it is because of our ridiculous immigration laws allowing masses of Third World refugees to move here from a culture that does not respect women, our laws, religion or values. They will never assimilate, they do not want to…”

Or this

Khat drug leads to murder
by Brandt Williams, Minnesota Public Radio
November 30, 2004

The Hennepin County Attorney's office has charged five men with second degree murder for the recent homicide of a young Somali woman in Minneapolis. They say the men -- who are all Somalis -- shot the woman over an illegal drug, a mild stimulant called khat. Some Somalis say the chewing of khat leaves is widespread and socially acceptable within their culture. However, law enforcement officials say khat, like other illicit drugs, opens the door for violence and other crime.

So the problem is racism, 'slammiphobia and poverty but Global Warming^TM is a much bigger threat.

I applaud David Horowitz's brave efforts. I don't know him but wish to someday. I suspect he's received some nasty and threatening emails but, given his stance on many issues, he probably is used to it.

College kids are the dumbest smart people I've ever met. There's hope--eventually most are mugged by life on this planet and forced to join the 'reality-based' community. Some never will.

Some hold tight the lies they believe for to shed them they must question other tenets of their belief-systems. Others will come to see the Big Lie of Islam and the Left for what it is--submission

So maybe that's the question Horowitz gets close to:

Is the confluence of Islamist and Leftist efforts simply a means to make us submit?

This is a turnpost?

Unraveling the threads of Hillary's whole cloth

Like a game of chess there are calculated moves made by opponents bent on winning a great game.

You've probably played the game--shah mat--as it was originally called in ancient Persia and you've probably thought of it as a game between two opponents.

I think of Chess as a game between two team masterminds--coaches, if you will--said teams consisting of players possessing relative strengths and weaknesses that are exploited by their masters. And their opponents.

Over the last few years a team coached by the barely visible hand of the ghost of Lenin has, with enormous financial resources, placed the pieces on the board that would give H.R.C. an almost inevitable position to lead our nation and the free world into a brave new era of international socialism.

Hillary Ensnared in Bloggergate

Thursday, October 18, 2007 10:41 AM

By: Richard Lawrence Poe

Call it "Bloggergate" — the subversion of the blogosphere by Democrat money.

To be more precise, Bloggergate is the subsidizing of left-wing bloggers with illegal Democrat campaign contributions, laundered through ostensibly “non-partisan” non-profit groups.

At a convention of left-wing bloggers last summer, Hillary Clinton announced, “We are . . . putting together a network in the blogosphere.”

Her remarks became public only three weeks ago, on Oct. 2, when an anonymous person posted a shaky, hand-held videotape of her speech on YouTube. In it, Hillary bragged that she had helped create “institutions” which had produced a left-wing “network in the blogosphere” capable of “matching” the alleged “advantage of the other side.”

Hillary’s claim raises troubling questions. On a practical level, just how exactly does a U.S. senator go about exerting her power to stack the blogosphere in her favor?

One obvious method is to buy favorable coverage. Hillary's boast carries a strong implication that she has subsidized bloggers.

The first evidence of Bloggergate emerged in January 2005 when the two most prominent left-wing bloggers on the Internet — Jerome “The Blogfather” Armstrong of MyDD and DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuñiga — both admitted to getting cash from Howard Dean's presidential campaign.

The scandal heated up in October 2006, when Republican blogger Michael B. Brodkorb of Minnesota, assailed by piranha-like swarms of leftist bloggers, revealed that his tormentors were on the take; that is, that they had been getting generous cash "fellowships" from an outfit called the Center for Independent Media (CIM). At that time, CIM was working from an office in Washington, DC owned by the Democrat front group Media Matters for America, Brodkorb discovered.

Curiously, it turns out that the co-founders of CIM, David S. Bennahum and Alexandra Savino, are both Media Matters alumni. Mr. Bennahum helped found Media Matters, serving as one of its original senior fellows. Miss Savino worked for Media Matters as a blogosphere analyst.

Clinton Claims

Now Bloggergate has spun into overdrive with Hillary Clinton's revelation, from her own lips, that she helped "start" and "support" Media Matters.

After all these years, can it be that we have finally identified the source of the Bloggergate money stream? Can it be that leaders of the leftwing blogosphere suck their nourishment directly from the swollen teat of Senator Clinton's pendulous fundraising apparatus?

Hillary made her admission at the Aug. 4, 2006 YearlyKos Convention in Chicago. Here is what she said on the now-infamous YouTube video: “I would wish that we had this active and fighting a blogosphere about 15 years ago, because we have certainly suffered over the last years from a real imbalance in the political world in our country, but we are righting that balance — or lefting that balance — I’m not sure which, and certainly are better prepared and more focused on taking our arguments and making them effective and disseminating them widely and really putting together a network in the blogosphere.

"In a lot of the new progressive infrastructure, institutions that I helped to start and support like Media Matters and Center for American Progress, we’re beginning to match what I had said for years was the advantage of the other side.”

In plain English, Hillary is saying that she "helped start and support" certain institutions tasked with correcting an alleged "imbalance" between right-wing and left-wing media. These institutions form a part of what Hillary calls "a new progressive infrastructure." According to Hillary, the "infrastructure" she "helped" build has given rise to a left-wing "network in the blogosphere" capable of "matching" the "advantage of the other side."

In this regard, she names two institutions specifically; Media Matters for America and the Center for American Progress.

My co-author David Horowitz and I described the peculiar relationship between these two groups in our book "The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Siezed Control of the Democratic Party."

We noted that the Center for American Progress was founded in July 2003 by billionaire Democratic donor George Soros, working closely with Morton Halperin, director of U.S. advocacy for Soros’ Open Society Institute. The two men appointed former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta to be president and CEO of the Center, and brought in Harold Ickes — chief fundraiser and former deputy chief of staff for the Clinton White House — to help organize it.

Noting the heavy involvement of Clintonites with the Center for American Progress, leftist writer Robert Dreyfuss remarked in the March 1, 2004 edition of The Nation: "In looking at Podesta's center there's no escaping the imprint of the Clintons. It's not completely wrong to see it as a shadow government, a kind of Clinton White-House-in-exile — or a White House staff in readiness for President Hillary Clinton.”

Eerily foreshadowing her later comments on YouTube, Hillary told The Nation's Dreyfuss, "We've had the challenge of filling a void on our side of the ledger for a long time, while the other side created an infrastructure that has come to dominate political discourse. The Center is a welcome effort to fill that void."

In 2004, the Center for American Progress launched a new organization called Media Matters for America, headed by David Brock, a former conservative journalist who had turned to the left. The stated mission of Media Matters was to serve as a “watchdog” for conservative bias in media. The New York Times reported on May 3, 2004: "Mr. Brock's project was developed with help from the newly formed Center for American Progress . . . Podesta has loaned office space in the past to Mr. Brock and introduced him to potential donors.

“Mr. Brock . . . has also spoken with Senator Clinton, Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota and former vice president Al Gore about his project . . .”

Push to Ban Rush

No sooner had Media Matters opened for business, than Brock began pressuring Congress to ban Rush Limbaugh from American Forces Radio and Television Service — an effort which continues to this day.

Much like a yeast colony, in which each bud of yeast sprouts new buds, which in turn sprout buds of their own, the Center for American Progress spawned Media Matters, which has now begun spawning offshoots of its own. One of these offshoots is the Center for Independent Media (CIM). Launched in April 2006, it initially worked from an office owned by Media Matters at 1625 Massachusetts Avenue N.W., 3rd Floor, Washington DC.

Through a system of media “fellowships," CIM recruits, trains, directs and finances a veritable army of leftwing bloggers, all subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer, thanks to the Center's 501(c)(3) tax-free status.

According to the Center’s “New Journalist” fellowship application, CIM offers bloggers a three-month, renewable fellowship which includes such perks as “a stipend of $4,500 to be paid over three months,” “editorial mentorship from experts in the field of blogging and/or journalism,” access to expensive databases such as LexisNexis, as well as free legal advice, training, and technical support.

Because CIM fellowships expire after three months, CIM "fellows" are always on the hot seat. If CIM is satisfied with the blogger's performance, it will renew his fellowship. Otherwise, it will not. Plainly, CIM bloggers have much to gain if they toe the party line — and much to lose if they fail to satisfy their benefactors.

CIM does not publish a full list of its bloggers. We can only speculate on their number. However, the CIM Web site does provide a "select" list of some of its more prominent "fellows."

Federal law prohibits national political candidates such as Hillary Clinton from using 501(c)3 tax-free, non-profit organizations such as the Center for American Progress, Media Matters for America and the Center for Independent Media as vehicles for campaign propaganda.

In this, as in so many other matters, Sen. Clinton has conducted herself as if she is above the law. And perhaps she is.

It remains to be seen whether the IRS and the Federal Election Commission will blow the whistle on Hillary’s army of paid bloggers. Who knows? They just might. But I'm not holding my breath.

* * *

Richard Lawrence Poe is a contributing editor to Newsmax, an award-winning journalist and a New York Times best-selling author. His latest book is "The Shadow Party," co-written with David Horowitz.

© 2007 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

900+ confidential FBI files. Who knows how many have much to lose if they do not inhibit legitimate investigations? Leverage in the Roman manner.

From Investors' Business Daily

Mr. Sandler's Media

Posted 10/18/2007

Media: Could a couple of left-wing billionaires really be sincere about creating a "nonpartisan," "non-ideological" center for investigative reporting? Or is the pair just paying more to drive the media agenda further left?

On Monday, the announcement of a new nonprofit news project, to be led by former Wall Street Journal managing editor Paul E. Steiger and scheduled for launch in 2008, was met with adoring press reviews.

Funded with an initial $10 million donation from banking magnates Herbert and Marion Sandler (and smaller cash from three foundations), ProPublica will crank out investigative reporting with "moral force," supposedly in the wake of falling news budgets and layoffs.

One problem: The Sandlers fund both leftist causes and the Democratic Party. In fact, they rank in the top tier of donors. In 2004 they gave MoveOn.org $2.5 million, or as much money as their philanthropic ally, George Soros.

Along with Soros and billionaire Peter Lewis, the Sandlers fund some of the most important players of what is now known as the "progressive" left. In 2003, the three together funded about a third of the Center for American Progress think tank, which has close staff ties to Hillary Clinton.

Now if this enterprise were called a "progressive" nonprofit, as other projects are, it wouldn't be news. But given the chairmanship of Herbert Sandler, and Steiger's claim that ProPublica will be run according to the "strictest standards of journalistic impartiality and fairness," there's reason to wonder if this isn't a new bid to drive the political agenda leftward under media disguise.

After all, MoveOn.org is now discredited after it tried to smear Gen. David Petraeus in a Sept. 10 New York Times ad and is probably of limited use to power players now. Suddenly, ProPublica goes online at the beginning of a campaign cycle, and we're supposed to believe its only aim is to save investigative reporting?

Steiger says ProPublica won't rule out investigations of leftist redoubts such as unions, media outlets or foundations. But ProPublica says that politics and business will be the main targets.

"We will look hard at the critical functions of business and government, the two biggest centers of power, in areas ranging from product safety to securities fraud, from flaws in our system of criminal justice to practices that undermine fair elections," its Web site says.

The first two are favorite targets of Steiger's Wall Street Journal, and the rest are favored causes of CAP and the Soros crowd.

Unlike other investigative-reporting nonprofits, a big voice seems to be important. ProPublica intends to distribute its work for free and will aggressively spread its influence through "regularly contacting reporters, editors and bloggers," the site says.
According to Steiger, seven or eight mainstream outlets have shown interest, so ProPublica is not likely to sink like a stone. The effort is very similar to CAP's in seeking to spread ideas.

Not that marrying foundation cash to the news business isn't synergistic. Foundations and news organizations are notorious for claiming they act only in the public good in a nonpartisan way.Neither, however, has been shy about supporting progressive causes.

Which brings up the real reason investigative reporting has declined as newsrooms cut back and circulations fall: a pervasive leftward bias.

Sandler himself blames "corporatization" of the media rather than tired leftist content that predictably targets profitable businesses, proves they "exploit" the little people, trots out disgruntled employees and customers, adds lots of color to maximize the emotional impact and interviews social engineers seeking new regulations.

Steiger, meanwhile, amid evidence that a reaction is building to this formula in new media platforms, says there's too much opinion out there and not enough facts.
Does that explain why the mainstream media have missed so many investigative stories? Does it explain why bloggers proved that CBS used falsified military documents in Dan Rather's bid to smear President Bush during the last election? Or that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was having an affair with a reporter? Or that Reuters doctored news photos?

With left-wing foundation cash yoked to investigative reporting, the potential for mischief in the coming election year should not be underestimated.

This project may be well-intended, but the sources of its funding and its premise about the state of the media raise questions. Let it be known by its product.

Copyright 2000-2007 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.

So if I understand this rightly the 'investigative reporting' that blossomed to fruition in the 1970's by Woodward and Goldstein is in crisis and the dyke that will hold back the sea of mis/disinformation needs to be buttressed by the moral authority of the Soros and Peter (Progressive Insurance) Lewis backed Sandlers.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

There are victories to give us hope.

The 'General Betray Us' ad clearly backfired and one of the primary organs of the left, the New York Times, has had its stock dumped by Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch. That's US 2 / Salzberger 0.

Rush Limbaugh seized the opportunity handed him by an ill-advised Harry Reid-sponsored Senate motion to deliver a 'smack-down' to Reid and 40 other leftist senators. And it's given Limbaugh an even greater platform from which to expose Hillary's lack of qualifications for even a dogcatcher position.

Useful tool Graeme Frost and family are exposed as public tit-suckers living a government sponsored life.

Just one week after Oslo awarded the Goracle with an ill-deserved Nobel Peace Prize lie-buster John Stossel devoted a segment of MSM ABC's 20/20 exposing the conspiracy to end any debate over anthroprogenic causes of global swarming warming.

Even Dems are starting to censor each other for going 'over the top'.

WASHINGTON (AP) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rebuked a fellow San Francisco Bay-area liberal Friday for what she said were "inappropriate" comments about Iraq during a congressional debate.

During a debate on children's health care Thursday, Rep. Pete Stark accused Republicans of sending troops to Iraq to "get their heads blown off for the president's amusement."

Sweeeeet.

While the spin cycle of the Hillary brain-washing machine is determined to proclaim victory by inevitable fiat, truth is inching slowly into the debate and the threads on the Clinton shroud of lies are coming loose. And visible.

For this is indeed Oz.

This is a turnpost

Global warming knowledge test

Start here.

This is a turnpost

How young is too young?

School Board Approves Birth Control Prescriptions at Maine Middle School

Thursday, October 18, 2007

PORTLAND, Maine — Pupils at a city middle school will be able to get birth control pills and patches at their student health center after the local school board approved the proposal Wednesday evening.

The plan, offered by city health officials, makes King Middle School the first middle school in Maine to make a full range of contraception available to students in grades 6 through 8, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.

There are no national figures on how many middle schools, where most students range in age from 11 to 13, provide such services.

"It's very rare that middle schools do this," said Divya Mohan, a spokeswoman for the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care.

The Portland School Committee voted 5-2 for the measure.

[snip]

At King Middle School, birth control prescriptions will be given after a student undergoes a physical exam by a physician or nurse practitioner, said Lisa Belanger, who oversees Portland's student health centers.

Students treated at the centers must first get written parental permission, but under state law such treatment is confidential, and students decide for themselves whether to tell their parents about the services they receive.

I'm getting mighty tired riled over education administrators making parental-type decisions on my 'behalf'. For that matter, I'm not at all thrilled by their choice to foist 'teaching to the test' (in our case the Maryland State Assessment or MSA) which means altering the curricula to focus almost exclusively on math and language skills.

As to provisioning children with condoms and B.C. pills--hell, no!

It's past due for parents to grow up and take back rights that we've ceded to bureaucrats and functionaries.

This is a turnpost

Iran Convergence

Chiming vs chiming in. Sometimes I'm going to editorialize big-time. Chiming in.

And sometimes I'm going to present what may be related stories--not necessarily an alarm--just a little chime about various items in the news--and let you decide with a minimum of my input.

Putin in Tehran

OK. Russia...Bushehr...US ABMs in Europe.

Turkey/Iran alliance

OK. P.K.K. are a P.I.A. for both countries and freedom loving Kurds.

Ahmadinijad at Holocaust conference: Israel will 'soon be wiped out'

What else is new?

Yoni Goldstein on Israel's (secret) air attack against Syria

Waay Coool. (Especially the few known details of the op.)

US Episcopalian visits Iran

Hmmm

Israel/Palestine Peace Must be a Priority

Same Episcopal asshat on the subject of Israeli-pali peace.


It's like a denial convention. Stinks.

Watch this...closer...closer.

Send me money.
Jewels
Bearer bonds.

This is a turnpost.

heh.

Artist

We live in amazing times.

Our culture, with current technology and social structures, allows us to pursue our pursuit of happiness--our pursuit of creativity (as Freud stated)--like never before in man's history.

More than ever before we can witness and share the exemplar--a person whose pursuit of athletic or intellectual or artistic heights are recognized as phenomenal.

Meet Andy McKee

Five fingers do a fist make.

Or a tool holder.

Or an instrumentalist.

In a mere blink of epochal time God's children have progressed from knapping flint to this.

Amazing.

This is a humbled turnpost.

Gore in '08

Prolific pundit prognosticates presidency
"Gore can beat Hillary"

Saturday, October 13, 2007 9:40 AM

By: Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

If the bumper sticker of ’92 and ’96 (Clinton-Gore) divides, and we find Gore running against Hillary Clinton, Al Gore could not only beat the former First Lady for the Democratic nomination, he could win the presidency.

Gore can seize this opportunity as the campaigns of Obama and Edwards are fading, out-fundraised, out-managed and outmaneuvered by Hillary’s campaign machine.

Al Gore – the newly minted Nobel laureate – could steal the nomination from Hillary’s well-oiled machine.

Here’s why.

I've just gone from somewhat sweaty palms and a facial tic at the thought of Hillary the cleavage Clinton as prez to Michael J. off his meds Fox-like tremors at the possibility of Al "He betrayed us!" Gore.

Dick Morris is often correct. Worse, there's a big honkin' bowel movement to draft him. Using alchemy and arcane algebra, but mostly the Algorithms that the Goracle himself used to invent the internet, clear-eyed Gorsiples are swarming the net for donations for his bidding.

So much is already in place: the netroots, The Gulfstream IV, and almost limitless money, an Oscar^TM and a coveted Nobel Peace Prize^TM. But, by far, there's a stunning poster to hang on your bedroom wall, the local Gore HQ wall, even on the padded wall.

I urge you. Hit the 'poster' link above. It's...it's...hypenotic.

Stare at the image...a little longer...longer...

Al Gore is a great man.

He should lead our nation and the world.

He can save the planet from its biggest threat.

You.

Because the Earth has a fever.

Take out your checkbook.

Make a donation to Al Gore's campaign.

Now make another donation.

To hire xXx



As a bodyguard

To protect him

From Hillary's hit squad.

This is a turnpost.

OR ELSE

Muslims tell Christians: 'Make peace with us or survival of world is at stake'

I just don't get how a kind of people can push and prod and commit acts that display an inability to get along with each other much less the entire rest of the world...

And then demand what only amounts to our submission.

It's not rational.

Move along--nothing to see here

"When thy Lord spake unto the angels, 'I will be with you: therefore stablish ye the faithful. I will cast a dread into the hearts of the infidels.' Strike off their heads then, and strike off from them every finger tip." - Sura 8:12

But if the weight of 138 'leading Muslim scholars' signing on to an open letter sent to the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury can't make the case for my reverting to Islam I don't know what will.

In the letter frequent references are made that we worship the same God (Allah doesn't get named) but doesn't mention the fact that Muslims consider Christians as polytheists and therefore infidels by our nature.

So how will the Pope and the Archbishop respond? Benedict XVI has already said his piece when he quoted a 13th century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus.. More importantly, the English and Western European people are growing restive.
Will the Pope urge Catholics to not resist? I think not.

Amber Pawlik writes

For the percentage (of passages that refer to various subjects-ed) I was most interested in, how much of the Koran is nothing but hatred at infidels, it was exactly at 53%. I was also quite happy that this sampling captured several verses about women. The confidence interval was also much better this time: with 95% confidence, we can say the proportion is somewhere between 45.8% and 59.6%. You can read the verses I took, my commentaries, and the calculation of the confidence interval here.

Here are the results of my larger study:

106/201 (52.7%) is hatred aimed at infidels, defined as
*Threats towards infidels either in the after life or this life
*Degrading infidels by calling them evil, stupid, blind, deaf, liars, thankless, etc.

50/201 (24.9%) Deals with believers, defined as
*Calls to fight against them.
*Verses that say "except the believers" when wishing death on nonbelievers were counted as hatred since avoiding death is not a positive to believers
*The threat or insult can be aimed at infidels in general or any specific infidel.

50/201 (24.9%) Deals with believers, defined as
*Mentioning them
*Saying they are righteous
*Saying they will get good things
*Any mentions of one of the prophets was snuck into this category too

23/201 (11.4%) deal with Allah,
*Who he is
*That he is almighty
*Any of his creations

10/201 (5%) deal with the Day of Doom or the Day of Judgment
*Either the Day of Doom when destruction is sent on the earth or
*Day of Judgment when all are judged before Allah
*Any message pertaining to how God records what men do was assigned this category

4/201 (2%) are anti-woman
*That it’s OK to beat a woman
*Women and slaves get married off but have no choice in the matter and is very self-serving to Muhammad or men in general.

4/201 (2%) deal with giving to the poor in some way



2/201 (1%) deal with some kind of Muslim custom or etiquette, for instance
*How to divorce your wife

1/201 (0.5%)disapproves of a man who murdered someone, but only because it was for the wrong reason to kill someone.

1/201 (0.5%) actually says it is OK for people to have their religion while Muslims have theirs

If you're more or less normal, you stopped the above video before it got gruesome. It's only there to prove a point--none of this is exaggerated.

FrontPageMagazine.com | July 24, 2007

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Laurent Murawiec, a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and the author of the new book Pandora’s Boxes, The Mind of Jihad, vol. 2, the sequel to The Mind of Jihad, vol I.


FP: Laurent Murawiec, welcome to Frontpage Interview.


Murawiec: Hello Jamie, I always enjoy returning to Frontpage.
FP: Let’s first sum up the Mind of Jihad, vol. 1. Can you talk a bit about the bloodlust characteristics of the jihadis?

Murawiec: When you look at a political movement, a terror movement, you look at what is similar, what is different, in order to understand what species, what kind of “animal” it may be. You try to see what it has in common with others, what is uniquely different. There’s one thing that uniquely differentiates the modern jihadi movement from all others: it is the bloodlust. Let me explain: the decapitation “live,” on camera, of Paul Johnson, of Nick Berg, of Daniel Pearl and of countless others is an exaltation of their raw power to kill, to be the masters of life and death.

Now, they do that in the name of God – “if God wills it, everything is permitted” – just like for the Russian Nihilists like Nechaev and his Bolshevik progeny, “if God does not exist, everything is permitted.” Nechaev said that the revolutionist was “a man of another nature.” So they are. Some say that the jihadis are “criminals” and should be treated as such. But the type of criminality is very special: it is the permanent and deliberate transgression of “Thou shalt not murder.” There is something extraordinary with the filming and especially the airing of the murders: this is a pornography of crime served as identity fare – “we are Muslims and this is what it means.” Al Jazira and others air snuff movies 24’7, there is a supply – the jihadis – and there is a demand – the viewing public. If it revolted the public, they would zap it off. They don’t, ergo… they like it. They are serving human sacrifice as snuff movies! Think of the famous pictures taken in Ramallah in October 2000, when two young reserve Israeli soldiers were lynched by a Palestinian mob. One of the mob has dipped his hands in their blood and ecstatically displays his bloody hands to the ecstatic mob: they all commune in the bloodlust. But whether jihadis or mob, they are not “criminals” in that sense; they are more like serial killers, but this is not criminality, it is like a disease of the mind.

The al-Qaida training manual speaks of killing enemies like of a “slaughter,” an animal sacrifice to Allah: it is human sacrifice. That’s what Mohammad Atta says in his last text. The jihadi practice is a return of human sacrifice in the 21st century. This is the product of more than thirty years of jihadi practice, what I call the bloodtrail. Every single type of jihadi is represented on this bloodtrail: Sunni and Shia, secular so-called and religious, Marxist-Leninist and nationalist.

You have the PLO assassin who shoots the Jordanian PM to death and kneels down to lap the blood; the video-cassettes that show the Algerian GIA ambushing draft soldiers are complacently showing the blood spurting from their severed carotid arteries; an Algerian intellectual whose tummy is sliced open in front of his family and his guts slowly pulled out by laughing killers. You have the Baathists of Iraq displaying corpses, cutting various fallen leaders into small pieces; the Syrian Baath giving public displays of hundreds of their victims, pour encourager les autres, a carnival of death. The Turkish Hizbollah torturing a kidnapped feminist, torturing her for 35 hours and filing it all. Why is that? We find an idolization of blood, of savagery, a cult of killing, of death. Gruesome murder is lionized and proffered as model, as pleasing to Allah, as opening the gates of Paradise for the “martyrs.” The highest religious authorities sanction it, governments condone it, approve of it, the media enthusiastically endorse it. Think of the notorious “Waiting Room of Paradise” at the Martyrs’ Cemetery of Tehran where a 14-feet high fountain of blood-like red liquid symbolizes the essence of Islam’s message, the guide says!

There is a theory to all that, a theology of carnage. The Saudi clerics proudly speak of Allah and Muhammad bestowing upon the Muslims “our industry of death.” Among the best-known dicta of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, there is “our art of death.” Death is central to the ethos of the Brothers. The chief ideologues of Iraqi nationalism wax endlessly and proudly on “mastering the manufacture of death.” Killing is the Eros of Baath ideologue Michel Aflaq. The same goes with the Shiites. Ali Shariati, the islamo-marxist ideologue, defines his movement as “Red Shiism,” he advises his disciples to “die before you die.” “Killing is tantamount to saying a prayer,” states a prominent Iranian Islamist. “Islam is a religion of blood for the Infidels,” says Khomeiny himself, who never tires of the subject: he positively wallows in blood. “It is war that purifies the earth.”

Read the rest

This is a turnpost

Suffer the children

Let me break this down for you.

The dems want a nationalized health care system. In their incremental approach to achieve this they're applying the tried-and-true "it's for the children" approach with an expansion of the State Childrens' Health Insurance Program--SCHIP--which additionally begs the question of "why is the US Congress meddling with states' issues?"

The dems knew they would face a Bush veto even before it came to a vote in both Houses. A search was conducted in late summer to find just the right spokesperson to deliver an impassioned plea for the dems' agenda and it came up with an erudite, privately educated kid victim who had been helped by the (fully adequate Maryland) SCHIP capable of reading prepared dem talking points in the dem radio rebuttle to Bush's Sept 29th radio address regarding his decision to veto said expansion.

Liars and spinners and pure propagandists can never again get away with their garbage. In 2004 the Bush/National Guard forgeries were exposed in HOURS because of commentors at Little Green Footballs. The word 'swiftboating' has entered the lexicon and, indeed, the Frost family has been swiftboated.

Here's a couple of telling paragraphs from a commentor:

"See those faces at Right? No, not the kids. This was never about the kids, Graeme, or otherwise. It's tragic that they were injured so severely. But it's also tragic that apparently F Halsey Frost, otherwise known as Daddy here, never learned to take responsibility for himself, or give up options he wasn't prepared to support. Why bother, one can always call on the American taxpayer for that?

This story is about the parents, Bonnie and F. Halsey Frost who grew up with all the advantages and, despite what I might assume is a liberal view on abortion, not only most likely support that free choice; if someone wants to have kids, they apparently believe it's cool to play with wood, or hold low-paying, fun, or perhaps lower stress jobs without having to worry about providing for whatever number of moppets one might feel like dropping into the world. I guess it's, let someone else pay for it, in their world view. I'm thinking F H learned that and little else from his Daddy."

And this from TIME

Typical of the tone was what Mark Steyn wrote on National Review Online: "Bad things happen to good people, and they cause financial problems and tough choices. But, if this is the face of the 'needy' in America, then no one is not needy."

So I say this--In this land of abundance and abundance of freedom, the more that one relies on government to supply the more government will demand to take away of our freedoms.

This is a turnpost

Say it ain't so

On Friday, 12 October, some of the funniest folks in Oslo--Børge Brende and Heidi Sørensenare--are set to nominate one of the (unintentionally) funniest useful tools ever to arise from America.

For the Nobel Peace Prize. (Well, good grief, dear reader--It couldn't be for science.

If he is the recipient of the award he will join the ranks of 'peacemonger' Yasir Arafat, 'oil for my profit food' Kofi Annan, and the 'all time champion get-it-wrong guy' Jimmy Carter.

Each year the Peace prize is awarded to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”


Which brings us to the Goracle of Smellphi and his tireless efforts to propagandizemote his life's work opus An Inconvenient "Truth"--a film foisted upon tens of thousands of unwitting and quite intentionally science-enfeebled middle schoolers. You know...voters of the future. Al 'nature boy' Gore (I tried fly fishing once) is the hands-down expert on why we must reverse our progress and economies, buy and sell 'carbon credits', and revert to thatched-roof wattle and daub pedestrian lifestyles while elites like Gore can fly in private Gulfstream IVs.

There is a hope (held by the goresciples) that if he's honored by the Nobel Committee he could be drafted to run for the executive office in '08. Wouldn't that be a treat? The antiwar/environmentalists can line up for Gore and the Rodhamites can vote Hillary and the reality-based will prevail.

This is a turnpost

Values

You're never going to read much about religion or Christian denominations here. Well...maybe one about the possible Anglican schism.

That said--you might read some about God here. No preachy stuff. Just some irrefutable facts.

October 06, 2007

Judeo-Christian Values

By Ronald R. Cherry

Judeo-Christian Values in America have a basis in the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..."

Since the pursuit of happiness, as Sigmund Freud surmised, is tied to human love and to creative work and play, the principles of American Judeo-Christian Values can rightly be summarized as the honoring of God-given Life, Liberty and Creativity. This seed of American social justice was then fleshed out in the U.S. Constitution through reason and common sense, unencumbered by the dysfunctional religious and secular traditions, and laws of Old Europe.

Our Founding Fathers separated church from state, but they wisely did not separate God from state; they acknowledged God as the source of our rights, and, in fact, they were careful to place Biblical morality directly into our founding documents and laws, and into our values and culture precisely to help prevent a future of totalitarian or tyrannical rule in America. The combination of keeping Judeo-Christian religious morality in the state, as opposed to the church it's self; and, additionally, setting up our laws based on reason and common sense has contributed to the American Character, and to what is known as "American Exceptionalism."

Our Founding Fathers were religious in a new way, the Judeo-Christian way, and they were the liberals of their day by deducing that our political and human rights come from a power higher than human government; but they were conservative to Biblical morality. There was and still is a connection between God and Liberty; He is the author of it. It is ironic that American Conservatives are now the champion of this our most liberal founding principle; and also an irony that most American Conservatives are wholly unaware of their connection with the liberal founding ideas of this great republic. It is also an irony that many American Liberals have turned a blind eye to the required connection between God and Liberty. As Thomas Jefferson and John Adams noted, as you will see below, Liberty cannot survive among men without its Divine connection.

In Judeo-Christian America one finds the idea of equality before God and the law, but not government forced economic equality. Modern European culture has stressed the value of economic equality rather than Liberty, and their governments unjustly enforce the principle. This has led to the failed European inventions of Socialism and Communism. Socialists in America have been lured into this failed European idea of social justice.

Socialism is a failure in that it unjustly suppresses human creativity by excessively taxing away its rewards, and by foolishly giving economic reward to many who, even though mentally and physically able, fail to honor their Divine privilege and duty to work creatively. Thus, Socialism is a dual insult to God-given creativity. Communism was much worse in that it also dishonored the sacredness of human life and liberty. Communism was the inevitable result of separating not just church from state, but separating God from state. Communism dishonored God's gifts of Life, Liberty and Creativity.

European cultures have frequently been tied to authoritarian and totalitarian systems dating back to the Roman Empire. Even European Christianity was, for a time, contaminated by its links to authoritarian rule. American Judeo-Christian Culture, on the other hand, has been linked to honoring Life, Liberty and Creativity from the outset; deriving its wisdom from the lights of reason, common sense, and both the Hebrew Bible and New Testament Christian Bible.

Thomas Jefferson, and as far as I can tell, the great majority of our Founding Fathers explicitly put God into the national life of the United States, precisely by putting the Creator into the Declaration of Independence. It is important that American Liberty has something to do with God; that is something for students to know and discuss, even if they are not particularly religious.

This does not represent some form of tyranny of the religious majority or an injustice; it was in fact the wisdom of our Founding Fathers to stand in opposition to tyranny and injustice by acknowledging the source of our rights -- those rights originating from God rather than from King George III, or for that matter from the Soviet or Chinese Politburo, or a courthouse, or a legislature. It should be self-evident that if our sacred human rights are derived from government, they can also be removed by government.

America is a melting pot of diverse people including Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Atheists; and from the Judeo-Christian perspective: all made in God's image. We have in America a multiethnic society, and that is good. What is unhealthy for America is for it to become Balkanized, which is very likely to happen with the atrophy of Judeo-Christian American Culture and Values.

Worse yet would be for America to adopt the toxic values which exist in some parts of the world and which are endemic in some foreign cultures. The values of Fascism, Nazism, Communism or Totalitarian Islamic Sharia Law for example must never metastasize in our American Culture, which traditionally has been Judeo-Christian. These values have been with us from the beginning and they have made us strong and successful. These Judeo- Christian Values should be kept central to the American spirit and culture even as we have become more multi-ethnic. Honoring foreign cultures is desirable, but we should never tolerate the values of violence, coercion, totalitarianism, supremacism, bigotry or intolerance; values which are sadly endemic in some foreign cultures.

We must recognize that our culture, too, is worth preserving.

Much has been written in the last quarter century about the amazing merge of science and faith primarily in fields Astrophysics and Cosmology. But scientists don't want to explore the stories in the Gospels, right?

WRONG.

October 06, 2007

Archaeology and John's Gospel: Is skepticism chic passé?

By James Arlandson

John is known as the spiritual Gospel because, among other reasons, it has extended metaphorical discourses, such as the bread of heaven (6:25-59), and a long, one-on-one dialogue with the religious leader Nicodemus about deep truths (3:1-15).

Until recently, much scholarship did not take seriously the topographical or historical details in John's Gospel. Scholars ignored them or preferred to see them as symbolic because surely John was not concerned with mundane matters. The more skeptical said that it was wrong in many cases.

So it may come as a surprise to readers that many archaeological discoveries match up with the historical assumptions in this spiritual Gospel. Many scholars now take John's topography and other down-to-earth matters seriously. Archaeology has turned the tide.

Read the rest here.

But here's the money quote:

It is true that this Gospel is very theological, and it is sparing in its historical details. However, "the survey reveals no credible evidence to suggest that any of the twenty sites is simply fictitious or symbolic. While some secondary meaning is possible in some instances, the intrinsic historicity and accuracy of the references should be beyond doubt" (Von Wahlde, p. 583).

Von Wahlde goes on to say that sixteen of the twenty sites examined in his article are certain. Then, "of the remaining four, two can be narrowed to within a relatively restricted locale: the place in the Temple precincts for the keeping of animals and the Lithostrotos" (ibid). The last two sites are still being debated: Aenon near Salim and Bethany beyond the Jordan.

If you want to read just the article it won't take long but the essay has many links to scholarly sources.

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Gaming the system

Wesley Clark: Nix Limbaugh From Armed Forces Radio

Wednesday, October 3, 2007 8:44 AM

In a blog to the Huffington Post, former NATO Supreme Commander Wesley Clark called for Congress to immediately take steps to remove conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh from Armed Forces Radio.

Last week, Rush Limbaugh labeled any American soldier who supports an end to the war in Iraq as "phony," noted Clark.

"We challenged Limbaugh through an email campaign to invite VoteVets.org's Jon Soltz to his show and repeat these same insults to an Iraq war veteran's face. Over 10,000 people responded and emailed Rush -- but to our disappointment, he has refused to respond to our request.

"It's time to put real pressure on Rush Limbaugh. His show is broadcast on Armed Forces Radio, and this time we are going to go straight to the lifeblood of Rush's show -- Congress. Congress has the power to remove Rush Limbaugh from Armed Forces Radio, and it won't be as easy for elected officials to ignore our call."

Clark further decried the fact that Republicans in Congress have drafted a resolution supporting Rush Limbaugh, "commending [his] relentless efforts to build and maintain troop morale through worldwide radio broadcasts and personal visits to conflict regions."

"That's outrageous," concluded Clark. "Rush Limbaugh's 'phony soldiers' comment should not be commended -- it should be condemned. And it's time to tell Congress to act swiftly to hold Rush Limbaugh accountable."

© 2007 NewsMax. All rights reserved.

Wesley Clark has some rather dubious distinctions as a US General Officer.

On September 15th, Clark officially endorsed Hillary Clinton for the upcoming 2008 election.

1993 (from Wiki)

Some critics, such as CounterPunch and FrontPageMag.com, have made allegations that Clark was, to some degree, involved in the Waco Siege, where 74 Branch Davidian followers were killed during the final raid, including their leader David Koresh. Groups making allegations of Clark's involvement note that Clark's second-in-command at the time, future General Peter Schoomaker, met with Texas governor Anne Richards and then-Attorney General Janet Reno, who were also allegedly involved with the siege. They also note that some military technology and personnel from Fort Hood, including two M1 Abrams tanks, were lent^[33] to the FBI for the operation. Some also suggest that, given the sensitive nature of the materials lent for the operation, Clark had some knowledge of and perhaps a hand in planning the Waco Siege.^[34]

1999

One of Clark's most argued decisions during his SACEUR command was his attempted operation at Priština International Airport immediately after the end of the Kosovo War. Russian forces had arrived in Kosovo and were heading for the airport on June 12, 1999, two days after the bombing campaign ended, expecting to help police that section of Kosovo. Clark, on the other hand, had planned for the Kosovo Force to police the area. Clark called then-Secretary General of NATO Javier Solana, and was told "of course you have to get to the airport" and "you have transfer of authority" in the area. The British commander of the Kosovo Force, General Mike Jackson, however refused to block the Russians through military action saying "I'm not going to start the Third World War for you." Jackson has said he refused to take action because he did not believe it was worth the risk of a military confrontation with the Russians. American General Hugh Shelton called Jackson's refusal "troubling," and hearings in the United States Senate suggested it may amount to insubordination, with Senator John Warner suggesting holding hearings regarding whether the refusal was legal and potentially changing those rules if it was^.[71] British Chief of the Defence Staff Charles Guthrie, however, agreed with Jackson and told Clark this on the day Jackson refused the order.^[72]

And that nasty Republican Congressman that, on Tuesday, October 2nd, stood on the House floor?

Lawmaker: Limbaugh Needs Defending

Wednesday, October 3, 2007 8:44 AM

Written by Nathan Burchfiel and Monisha Bansal, CNSNews.com Staff Writers

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) said Tuesday that he introduced a House resolution to support Rush Limbaugh because the conservative talk radio host "needs defending" from Democrats who have introduced resolutions and made statements condemning him for using the words "phony soldiers" on his radio show.

On his Sept. 26 show, Limbaugh used the term "phony soldiers" in setting up a story about Jesse Macbeth, a former soldier who was recently sentenced to five months in prison for obtaining veterans' benefits by falsifying his military records.

Macbeth claimed to have been an Army Ranger with a rank of corporal. He further claimed to have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and became a figure of the anti-war movement when he stated in Internet videos that he witnessed U.S. military atrocities in Iraq. In reality, Macbeth was in the Army only 44 days and never served overseas.

The liberal media group Media Matters for America (which has led a long campaign to have Limbaugh removed from taxpayer-supported Armed Services Radio) accused Limbaugh of referring to all anti-war soldiers as "phony soldiers."

Limbaugh clarified on his radio show that he was referring specifically to Macbeth and others like him.

But Democrats in the House and Senate have criticized Limbaugh and launched efforts to demand apologies and make official condemnations of his comment. On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced he was sending a letter to Clear Channel Communications asking that the broadcasting giant force Limbaugh to apologize.

Also on Monday, Rep. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) introduced a House resolution to support the military and condemn Limbaugh's comments. Udall's resolution prompted Kingston to introduce his own resolution supporting Limbaugh. Cybercast News Service sat down with Kingston Tuesday to discuss the issue.

© 2007 CNSNews.com. All Rights Reserved.

Now just who is whom here?

First and foremost CNSNews.com is the online version of the Congressional News Service and not remotely similar to the rabid Huffington Post.

Media Matters for America

In May 2004, the New York Times reported that Media Matters has received "more than $2 million in donations from wealthy liberals" and "was developed with help from the newly formed Center for American Progress".^[14] According to the Cybercast News Service, Media Matters has received financial support from MoveOn.org,^[15] Peter Lewis, and the New Democratic Network^.[15]

The Democracy Alliance, to which George Soros has donated money, was an early contributor.^[16] Bill O'Reilly and other critics contended, therefore, that Soros donated money to Media Matters.^[17] Media Matters responded that Soros has never given any money directly or indirectly to the group, and that Soros's membership or patronage of the Democracy Alliance, which receives many donations from many different people, does not mean Soros donated money to each group the Alliance did.^[18][19]

The current flap over Rush Limbaugh's "fauxny soldiers" is a work of coordinated political art--the art of 21st century MSM 24 hour news cycle manipulation and Media Matters.org.

The question is--will it work?

Some who have worn the uniform have claimed the status of 'veteran of foreign wars' that do not deserve that distinction. For a variety of reasons this claim has been used to 'game the system' in an attempt to receive VA benefits that they have not earned. For whatever reason, some of these have allowed themselves to become outspoken and supposedly honorable and authoritative war critics.

Jesse MacBeth's claim to be a Corporal in the Army Rangers, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, an elite and honorable unit, is a lie. He washed out of basic training after six weeks and two days.

44 days. None deployed. Washed out.

From Michelle Malkin (who does her homework)

I have written and reported extensively on the Winter Soldier Syndrome phenomenon. It goes far beyond Jesse MacBeth, the faker busted by the blogosphere. As I wrote in August in my column on the Scott Thomas Beauchamp fiasco:

Ever since John Kerry sat in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and accused American soldiers of wantonly razing villages “in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan,” the Left has embraced a small cadre of self-loathing soldiers and soldier wannabes willing to sell their deadened souls for the anti-war cause.

Think Jimmy Massey, the unhinged Marine who falsely accused his unit of engaging in mass genocide against Iraqis.

Think Jesse MacBeth and Micah Wright, anti-war Army Rangers who weren’t Army Rangers.

Think Josh Lansdale, the anti-war Army medic who attacked former GOP Sen. Jim Talent by spinning a bogus health care tale swallowed whole by Dem Sen. Claire McCaskill, Gen. Wesley Clark and the far Left VoteVets.org crew.

Think Amorita Randall, the NYTimes-championed former naval construction worker who told the Times magazine that she served in Iraq, was in a Humvee that blew up, and was raped twice while serving in the Navy–but, in fact, had never served in Iraq.

Why, pray tell, do Republicans that game the system end up shamed and behind bars but Dems (think William Jefferson's very cold cash) skate?

Wiki

Las Vegas land deal

On October 11, 2006, John Solomon reported that Harry Reid's member interest in a limited liability company (LLC) was allocated $1.1 million of the gross proceeds attributable to the sale of a parcel of land. In 1998, Reid bought a plot of land for $400,000, fair market value at the time. One of the sellers was a developer who arranged a land swap that Reid supported. In 2001, he transferred title of the land to the LLC. When the LLC sold the land in an arm's length transaction in 2004, Reid made a profit.^[97]

The LLC was formed by long-time friend and former casino attorney Jay Brown,^[97]. Reid's failure to disclose the change in the form of his asset holdings upon contribution to the LLC violates Senate rules according to former Federal Election Commission overseer Kent Cooper. Reid did disclose the 2004 sale as though he held the property in his individual name. In addition, Brown paid a small portion of Reid's taxes on the ownership stake, which constitutes basis for Brown and is corrected for at the land's sale resulting in higher taxes for Reid.^{[citation needed]} Since Reid continued to own the land inside the LLC with the same basis he held it before contribution, he continued to report to Congress that he owned the land for 3 years after he transferred title to the LLC he partially owned.^[97][98] Reid's staff stated that he did not initially disclose the transfer of the land to the LLC because this transfer was not a change of ownership, but was simply Reid owning the land through an LLC instead of as an individual.

Reid directed his staff to amend the 2001 financial disclosure forms to reflect the transfer of title to the LLC. He also disclosed two other land transactions on the amended reports.^[99]

Condo gifts

On October 17, 2006, John Solomon of the Associated Press reported that Reid had used campaign donations to pay for $3,300 in Christmas gifts to the staff at the condominium where he resides.^[100] Federal election law prohibits candidates from using political donations for personal use. Reid's staff stated that his attorneys had approved use of the funds in this manner but that he nonetheless would personally reimburse his campaign for the expenses. That action notwithstanding, the conservative group Citizens United announced it had filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission to investigate the matter. ^[101]

Truth is always revealed.

All any veteran needs to establish bona fides is that he or she served and was honorably discharged from service. But those that exaggerate their service records surely shouldn't that wish for a very public life.

Wiki

While running for his Senate seat in 1984, and again while running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992, Harkin has faced criticism for claiming that he had flown combat missions over North Vietnam. In a 1979 round table discussion with other Congressional Veterans, Harkin said of his service as a Navy pilot: “One year was in Vietnam. I was flying F-4s and F-8s on combat air patrols and photo-reconnaissance support missions”. These comments were later published in a 1981 book by David Broder. After subsequent inquiries by Barry Goldwater and The Wall Street Journal, Harkin clarified that that he had been stationed in Japan and sometimes flew recently repaired aircraft on test missions over Vietnam. His service flying F-4s and F-8s was later, while he was stationed in Cuba.^{[6] [7]} References to this controversy were deleted from Wikipedia by staffers from Harkin's senate office.^[1]

In June 2001, the Des Moines Register reported that Senator Harkin had “inadvertently omitted” $200,000 in Conoco stock owned by his wife Ruth and some $15,000 owned by their daughter Amy on his Senate financial statement.^{[citation needed]}

The dead tree, antique, MSM does not care about the truth. The story has been spun, thanks to Mediamatters.org,, that Rush's comments were pertinent to any Vets against the war.

From the Hildebeast's own piehole

“We are certainly better prepared and more focused on, you know, taking our arguments and making them effective and disseminating them widely and really putting together a network in the blogosphere, and a lot of the new progressive infrastructure, institutions that I helped to start and support, like Media Matters and Center for American Progress.”

We have the 'what'. The 'where' and 'when' are well established. This post provides some background on the 'who'.

Why? The 'right' side of the political spectrum doesn't seek to muzzle Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews or Al Franken. Why does the 'left' go to extraordinary measures to silence Rush Limbaugh and others?

While the MSM mostly marches to the drumbeat of the 'left', talk radio is the town crier that delivers enough information for the average Joe or Joan to come to an informed decision.

He who controls information and silences debate controls the masses. Think of the "Fairness Doctrine".

Why are these leftists so determined to make Hillary Clinton the queen? For that is exactly how this presumptive American Royal will behave.

Make no mistake--Ms. Clinton has many promises to keep; the sources who have propelled her to nominal frontrunner in money and propaganda have an agenda unlike what most of us regard as American. It will be the end of the Great Experiment.


Not just a lie but a damned lie. A tool. Not a buffoon, just a tool wielded by its lying toolmaster.

This is a turnpost