Weekend Open Thread

Feel pooped after a busy week like this squirrel?

What’s on your mind?

Got a joke to share?

It’s your chance to unload — here!

~Eowyn

Who Do You Believe?

The story below has to do with Fox News being left out of a pool interview with the head of the Treasury Dept., that was to take place yesterday. If you follow the news closely then you know all about this little kerfuffle.

Anyway, watch the video first of Major Garrett. Then read the article below. Which version, or which source do you believe is telling the truth?

Gio-

Adding to the Fox News v. White House feud today is a dust-up over an interview with pay czar Ken Feinberg. Turns out, it was a sort of miscommunication, but the White House adds that if they had left Fox out it would be a case of “Not that there’s anything wrong with that!”

The version Fox has pushed all day is that the network was excluded from an interview roundtable with Feinberg yesterday, and that bureau chiefs from ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN came to Fox’s defense.

TPMDC dug into it, and here’s what happened.

Feinberg did a pen and pad with reporters to brief them on cutting executive compensation. TV correspondents, as they do with everything, asked to get the comments on camera. Treasury officials agreed and made a list of the networks who asked (Fox was not among them).

But logistically, all of the cameras could not get set up in time or with ease for the Feinberg interview, so they opted for a round robin where the networks use one pool camera. Treasury called the White House pool crew and gave them the list of the networks who’d asked for the interview.

The network pool crew noticed Fox wasn’t on the list, was told that they hadn’t asked and the crew said they needed to be included. Treasury called the White House and asked top Obama adviser Anita Dunn. Dunn said yes and Fox’s Major Garrett was among the correspondents to interview Feinberg last night.

Simple as that, we’re told, and the networks don’t want to be seen as heroes for Fox.

TPMDC spoke with a network bureau chief this afternoon familiar with the situation who was surprised that Fox was portraying the news as networks coming to its rescue.

“If any member had been excluded it would have been same thing, it has nothing to do with Fox or the White House or the substance of the issues,” the bureau chief said. “It’s all for one and one for all.”

A Treasury spokesperson added: “There was no plot to exclude Fox News, and they had the same interview that their competitors did. Much ado about absolutely nothing.”

But the White House isn’t backing down from its feud with Fox.

“This White House has demonstrated our willingness to exclude Fox News from newsmaking interviews, but yesterday we did not,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

An administration source wondered if the networks were annoyed Fox disclosed logistical negotiations since they are treated as off the record, but the bureau chief did not view this in the same light as discussions about, for example, the president going to Iraq.

As for the ongoing battle, Earnest said: “The president and other high ranking officials and people like Ken Feinberg have done interviews with Fox in the past and will do them in the future.”

Muslim Spies On Capitol Hill?

Here’s a story that got by me, and a lot of other people too. Leave it to Fox News to be the only ones to even cover this story. Granted, it seems there was one interview with one of my States Reps, Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), but that was pretty much it.

The first article below got started on the 16th of October, but has only now gained momentum. The problem is… the momentum is coming from the left (second article). Leave it to the left to want only to defend the Muslims, and not even consider for a moment that this could most definately be a NATIONAL SECURITY issue. The only way I found out about this issue was because of an email alert sent to me today from “People For The American Way”. Yes I know, this org is a far left Marxist organization. I sign-up for their email alerts to stay informed on what the Marxist left is up to.

Well, let’s get to it! Read below to get both sides of this story. In case you are wondering… I say check out the interns, just do it in a legal, civil, manner.

Gio-

1st article:

Four House Republicans are continuing a campaign that began earlier this week against the Council on American Islamic Relations for an alleged plot to plant intern “spies” in congressional offices.

Reps. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), Paul Broun (R-Ga.), Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) and Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) formally asked the House sergeant at arms and the Justice Department to investigate the advocacy group. The effort began with a press conference on Wednesday, and has since spread to cable news networks and blogs. The liberal Web site TalkingPointsMemo has followed the story closely.
The crusade is based on revelations in a book titled “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America,” published by the notoriously conspiratorial right-wing Web site WorldNetDaily. The author’s son posed as a young Muslim convert and interned at CAIR. He stole multiple documents, including a “strategy” memo that lays out a lobbying agenda that anyone familiar with advocacy groups in Washington would consider unremarkable.

“It’s sort of a mainstream advocacy group strategy, it’s not really a new strategy, it’s not a nefarious one unless of course you happen to pursue that strategy while being Muslim,” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow said Thursday night of CAIR’s goal to place Muslim interns on Capitol Hill. Politico called the memo’s contents “a fairly straightforward public relations and lobbying strategy” and referred to the representatives’ group announcement as “unusual.”

Yesterday, the campaign went to Fox News, when Myrick appeared on the air, arguing that CAIR’s bitter response to the book was “suspicious.” Myrick wrote the foreword to the book, which is authored by former Air Force investigator David Gaubatz. Gaubatz has also claimed that he found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and has called President Obama a Muslim and a “crackhead.”

In an email blast Friday afternoon, WorldNetDaily promoted Gaubatz’s book as a “blockbuster” and called CAIR a “Hill terror front group.” The book had reached number 16 on the Amazon best-seller list on Friday.

2nd article:

87-Member Minority Caucus: Muslim ‘Intern Spy’ Hunt Smacks Of McCarthy Era

In a strongly-worded statement today, the Congressional Tri-Caucus, which represents three minority caucuses, denounced a call by four GOP lawmakers for an investigation into whether Muslim “intern spies” have infiltrated the Hill.

“These charges smack of an America of sixty years ago where lists of ‘un-American’ agitators were identified,” said Reps. Michael Honda (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), and Nydia Velazquez (D-NY). They are the chairs of the Asian Pacific American Caucus, the Black Caucus, and the Hispanic Caucus, respectively.

The statement names the four Republican members who yesterday filed a formal request with the sergeant at arms to look into whether the Council on American Islamic Relations, which they claim is tied to Hamas, has planted interns on national security committees. The charge is based on a book called Muslim Mafia, written by a man who the Tri-Caucus labels “an anti-Islamic activist.”

The Tri-Caucus statement says: “The idea that we should investigate Muslim interns as spies is a blow to the very principle of religious freedom that our founding fathers cherished so dearly.”

Here’s the full statement, which was released on behalf of the entire caucus:

This proposed investigation coincides with the launch of a book by Dave Gaubatz, an anti-Islamic activist and author of the book “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that’s Conspiring to Islamize America.” It features an introduction by Rep. Myrick, and was written after Gaubatz posed as an intern at CAIR in an effort to “infiltrate” the group.

These charges smack of an America of sixty years ago where lists of “un-American” agitators were identified. We should be affirming the importance of diversity and tolerance for all interns and staff who serve in Congress without suspicion of being identified as “spies.”

The idea that we should investigate Muslim interns as spies is a blow to the very principle of religious freedom that our founding fathers cherished so dearly. If anything, we should be encouraging all Americans to engage in the U.S. political process; to take part in, and to contribute to, the great democratic experiment that is America.

We all have experienced the sting of discrimination and we know that there will be challenges ahead. But our message should be firm that the America we believe in welcomes people of all backgrounds to the U.S. Congress.

We ask these charges be disavowed and we issue a hearty welcome to interns and staff of all creeds, color, ethnicities and sexual orientation.

Conservatives Mentally Ill

Today’s BigGovernment.com has a fascinating piece on what MSM reporters think of conservatives.

An e-mail from a Florida newspaper reporter named John Guerra is reproduced on the BigGovernment webpage. Guerra is a reporter for the Key News who is so ill-informed that he equates conservatives with Republicans. His e-mail contains the Left’s standard malicious stereotypes about conservatives.

What happened to “objective” journalism? LOL

Since the website does not enable me to copy and paste the e-mail, I’ve copied it down by hand and re-typed it to post here. This is the e-mail:

Fr: John Guerra

Sent: Tuesday, Sept 08, 2009 4:21PM

To: Dubois, Stephanie

I don’t believe one word you or other conservatives say.

The Republican Party is now a mentally ill group of people who want nothing more than to destroy Obama’s first term no matter how much the country needs his policies.

I despise your party’s activities and the hatred you spew on Fox and other sounding boards for the insurance companies.

Please don’t you dare get him killed, which is the underlying goal of you right wing nuts.

~Eowyn

Obama’s Mob Rule

DEMAGOGUE

The word “democracy” has its roots in two Greek words — demos (people) and kratia (rule) — thus, rule by the people.

But how is “rule by the people” be implemented? Should government be a direct rule by the people, via simple majority-rule? Or should the people rule indirectly, through their elected representatives? The latter is a republic.

Our Founding Fathers deliberated long and hard on the type of government the newly-independent former-colonies should install. Learned men steeped in knowledge of Western civilization and its great philosophers, the Founders eschewed direct democracy and instead settled on a republic.

The reason has to do with what the Founding Fathers feared most: a direct democracy carries with it the inherent risks of degenerating into a “tyranny of the majority” — of mob rule and demagoguery (cult of personality). They believed that unless the people’s passions were constrained via mediators, direct democracy would descend into a brute majority rule that runs roughshod over the minority who lost the election.

What the Founders feared is now reality in America.

To make our case, here are 3 pieces of evidence:

The first is of Obama, today (Oct. 22), making a speech on global warming, in which he said: “the naysayers, folks who would pretend this [climate change] is not an issue, they’re being marginalized….so we’re gonna have to work on those folks.”

Those “naysayers” are now a majority of Americans, according to the latest poll by the Pew Research Centre for the People & the Press, which finds that the number of people who believe that human activity is causing global warming had fallen to 36%.

The second piece of evidence is Obama, this past Tuesday (Oct. 20), addressing a crowd of supporters at a DNC fundraiser in New York, in which he referred to Americans who disagree with him as “the other side” who “do what they are told.” (H/t beloved GiovanniWorld members Granny and Bob!)

Our third piece of evidence is this:

On Tuesday, Oct. 20, Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee locked Republicans out of the hearing room. Democrats had the locks changed “because they [Republicans] don’t know how to behave,” Chairman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., told Politico.

What terrible thing did the Republicans do?

Last Thursday, the committee’s Democrats huddled in a back room, denying Republicans the quorum they needed to take action. So GOP staff members secretly set up a video camera outside the committee room, capturing a stream of Democrats leaving through a side door of the very committee room they were scheduled to be in — calling into question Democrats’ claim that a scheduling conflict involving another committee meeting prevented their attendance. Here’s the video:

~Steve and Eowyn

Firefighter Won!

H/t beloved GiovanniWorld member LittleMissMuffin!

Remember James Krapf, the firefighter in Chester, NY, who was suspended without pay for putting a sticker of the American flag on his locker?

Well, after protests by some 50 fellow firefighters and emergency responders from across Delaware County and as far away as Pittsburgh and Maryland, as well as ordinary citizens, Krapf is reinstated and the firestation rules are rewritten to allow American flag stickers!

American patriots won! We will NEVER let the ba*tards get us down!

~Eowyn

………….

FIREFIGHTER REINSTATED IN CHESTER

By Amy Brisson – Oct 20, 2009 – http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2009/10/20/news/doc4add30eb91e61188486954.txt

CHESTER — Linda Vasile didn’t find out until late Sunday night that members of the Chester Fire Co. would be protesting the next morning over the suspension of firefighter James Krapf, who had refused when ordered to remove an American flag sticker from his locker. (See video at end of story)

But she immediately decided she would make a cardboard sign, wake up early and drive more than an hour from her home in South Coventry, Chester County, to join in the rally.

“I’m just an American, tired of Old Glory getting stomped on,” she said after stationing herself outside the Chester firehouse.

Vasile was just one of about 50-plus supporters who joined in a flag-waving protest, while Krapf, fire company union officials and Fire Commissioner James Johnson held a meeting inside.

The dispute began last week when Krapf was suspended without pay after he refused to clear an American flag decal off the outside of his locker under a newly implemented department directive.

The directive — which required firefighters to remove all decorations from their lockers — was ordered by Johnson after one of the department’s 61 firefighters posted a cartoon that others found offensive.

Discontent within the ranks grew deeper over the weekend when one of the firefighters appeared at work with a U.S. flag stitched upside down on his hat, as a sign of protest.

After a nearly two-hour meeting, Johnson, Krapf and union leaders held a press conference outside to announce Krapf would be reinstated and the directive would be rewritten to allow displays in line with the U.S. Flag Code.

“There was never an intent to desecrate the flag,” said Johnson, who added that the controversy had “taken on a life of its own” and distracted from the company providing its normal services.

Stacy Landrum, president of Local 1400, did not specify whether Krapf would be paid for the day and a half of work he missed, but said they had reached an agreement that made all parties happy.

He also declined to say whether he expected any disciplinary action against the firefighter who wore the flag upside down. But he said, with the federal code as a guideline, resolving that issue “won’t make it the fiasco it has been.”

Krapf said he was just glad to be going back to work and thanked the public for an outpouring of support. “It’s been overwhelming,” he said. “It shows we still have patriotism.”

The protesters, who came from emergency response companies across Delaware County and from as far afield as Pittsburgh and Maryland, cheered at the announcement.

Shortly after the meeting began, police cars and an ambulance responded to the firehouse.

Asked whether there had been an altercation inside, Landrum said they had been advised by an attorney not to comment.

Jackson, Sharpton, What’s the Difference?

See ultra-liberal politically-correct racially-sensitive MSNBC do a royally huge faux pas, mistaking Jesse Jackson for Al Sharpton!

Come to think of it, anchorette Contessa Brewer does have a point!

• Both Jackson and Sharpton are black
• Both Jackson and Sharpton are “Reverends”
• Both Jackson and Sharpton are self-appointed “spokesmen” for African-Americans
• Both Jackson and Sharpton are shakedown artists

H/t beloved GiovanniWorld member LittleMissMuffin!

~Eowyn

Freaks Are Running the Show

Here’s the latest freak news.

H/t informed GiovanniWorld member Steve!

~Eowyn

…………

SUNSTEIN URGES: ABOLISH MARRIAGE

Adviser compares institution to country club membership

By Aaron Klein – October 23, 2009 – http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=113802

Cass Sunstein

The U.S. government should abolish its sanctioning of marriage, argued Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s regulatory czar.

Sunstein proposed that the concept of marriage should become privatized, with the state only granting civil union contracts to couples wishing to enter into an agreement.

Sunstein explained marriage licensing is unnecessary, pointing out people stay committed to organizations like country clubs and homeowner associations without any government interference.

“Under our proposal, the word marriage would no longer appear in any laws, and marriage licenses would no longer be offered or recognized by any level of government,” wrote Sunstein and co-author Richard Thaler in their 2008 book, “Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness.”

In the book – obtained and reviewed by WND – Sunstein explains his approach would ensure that “the only legal status states would confer on couples would be a civil union, which would be a domestic partnership agreement

between any two people.”

He proposed marriage not be recognized by the government. Marriages would instead be “strictly private matters, performed by religious and other private organizations,” he wrote.

“Governments would not be asked to endorse any particular relationships by conferring on them the term marriage,” added Sunstein.

Sunstein slammed current government recognition of marriage as “an official license scheme.”

“When the state grants marriage it gives both maternal and symbolic benefits to the couples it recognizes. But why combine the two functions? And what is added by the term marriage?” he asked.

Sunstein explained terminating the issuance of state marriage contracts would not affect the commitments of those in the “partnership.”

“People take their private commitments serious,” Sunstein wrote. “Members of religious organizations, homeowners

‘ associations, and country clubs all feel bound, sometimes quite strongly, by the structures and rules of such organizations.”

Take organs from ‘helpless patients’

Sunstein’s proposal regarding marriage is hardly the only controversial section of his book. WND reported last week that in the same book, Sunstein defended the possibility of removing organs from terminally ill patients without their permission.

He also strongly pushed for the removal of organs from deceased individuals who did not explicitly consent to becoming organ donors.

Sunstein and Thaler discussed multiple legal scenarios regarding organ donation. One possibility presented in the book, termed by Sunstein as “routine removal,” posits that “the state owns the rights to body parts of people who are dead or in certain hopeless conditions, and it can remove their organs without asking anyone’s permission.”

“Though it may sound grotesque, routine removal is not impossible to defend,” wrote Sunstein. “In theory, it would save lives, and it would do so without intruding on anyone who has any prospect for life.”

Sunstein continued: “Although this approach is not used comprehensively by any state, many states do use the rule for corneas (which can be transplanted to give some blind patients sight). In some states, medical examiners performing autopsies are permitted to remove corneas without asking anyone’s permission.”

Sunstein’s example of medical examiners removing corneas, however, applies only to patients who are already declared deceased.

After defending the position, Sunstein conceded the “routine removal” approach “violates a generally accepted principle, which is that within broad limits, individuals should be able to decide what is to be done with and to their bodies.”

Still, Sunstein did not add that the removal of organs from a living individual should be banned.

Also in the same book, CNSNews.com previously noted Sunstein argued for removing organs from deceased patients who are not registered as organ donors, a policy not without precedent. Spain and some European Union countries have been debating accepting a law of implied consent.

Writes Sunstein: “A policy that can pass libertarian muster by our standards is called presumed consent.”

“Presumed consent preserves freedom of choice, but it is different from explicit consent because it shifts the default rule,” he writes. “Under this policy, all citizens would be presumed to be consenting donors, but they would have the opportunity to register their unwillingness to donate, and they could do so easily. We want to underline the word easily, because the harder it is to register your unwillingness to participate, the less libertarian the policy becomes.”

Sunstein continues: “Although presumed consent is an extremely effective way to increase the supply of organs available for transplant, it may not be an easy sell politically. Some will object to the idea of ‘presuming’ anything when it comes to such a sensitive matter. We are not sure that these objections are convincing, but this is surely a domain in which forced choosing, or what is referred to in this domain as mandated choice, has considerable appeal.”

Sunstein advocates making it mandatory for all citizens to register either as an organ donor or as unwilling to donate their organs.

“Mandated choice could be implemented through a simple addition to the driver’s license registration scheme used in many states. With mandated choice, renewal of your driver’s license would be accompanied by a requirement that you check a box stating your organ donation preferences. Your application

would not be accepted unless you had checked one of the boxes. The options might include ‘yes, willing to donate’ and ‘no, unwilling to donate.’”

Government must fund abortion

Sunstein is not shy about his view concerning rights to life or abortion.

WND reported that in his 1993 book “The Partial Constitution” Sunstein argued the government should be required to fund abortion in cases such as rape or incest.

“I have argued that the Constitution … forbids government from refusing to pay the expenses of abortion in cases of rape or incest, at least if government pays for childbirth in such cases,” Sunstein wrote.

The Obama czar asserts that funding only childbirth but not abortion “has the precise consequence of turning women into involuntary incubators.”

Sunstein argues that refusing to fund abortion “would require poor women to be breeders,” while co-opting women’s bodies “in the service of third parties” – referring to fetuses.

Sunstein wrote he has no problem with forcing taxpayers to fund abortions even if they morally object to their money being used for such a purpose.

He wrote: “There would be no tension with the establishment clause if people with religious or other objections were forced to pay for that procedure (abortion). Indeed, taxpayers are often forced to pay for things – national defense, welfare, certain forms of art, and others – to which they have powerful moral and even religious objections.”

Important Obamacare Info

“Sen. Jay Rockefeller has a confession to make to the taxpaying American people, “We cannot promise [you] that the insurance reforms… will benefit everyone, when the reality is that this bill leaves out up to 55 percent, or 73 million people” (who are already covered by work plans).”

The AP is also reporting that the group America’s Health
Insurance Plans concludes that under the Baucus plan, costs
of private health insurance would rise by a whopping 111
percent over the next decade as compared to the current system where costs would rise by 79 percent…

President Obama said Affordable healthcare for all Americans…

Let’s be clear. This isn’t about health care. This
is about our government seizing more control over our lives!

That’s why in the days ahead I am marshaling our team to help
me launch a blistering grassroots counter-offensive to short-
circuit this socialist push!

++ Health Care Petition Delivery
Just yesterday, I sounded the alarm for Grassfire team members to help me rally and mobilize critically needed extra support in time for our petition delivery to EVERY SENATE OFFICE next Tuesday (Oct. 27).

  I’m seeing stunning results:
    25,000 citizen signers, with nearly 200 more signing  EVERY HOUR!

    We have our team members who will be taking part in our petition delivery, and another 50 + citizens who are coming to meet with their lawmakers!

I really need every member of our team urging friends and family to be part of this event by signing our petition opposing ObamaCare!

Click here to sign:
http://www.grassfire.net/r.asp?u=22378&PID=21407276

A Little Tipsy

There has to be an award for this…

Confidential

Now we know where he get's his money!

FROM: MR MOZANG ZANGA..
AUDITING / ACCOUNTING DIRECTOR
INTERNATIONAL BANK OF AFRICA(IBA/BOA)
BURKINA-FASO WEST AFRICA.

                                                                 (confidential)

My dear I am contacting you in regards to a business transfer of a huge sum of money from a deceased account. Though I know that a transaction of this magnitude will make anyone apprehensive and worried, but I am assuring you that all will be well at the end of the day. I decided to contact you due to the urgency of this transaction.
 
PROPOSITION; I discovered an abandant sum of $11.5M(Eleven Million Five Hundred thousand United states Dollars) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customers who died along with his entire family. Since his death, none of his next-of-kin or relations has come forward to lay claims to this money as the heir. I cannot release the fund from his account unless someone applies for claim as the next-of-kin to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines.. Upon
 
this discovery, I now seek your permission to have you stand as a next of kin to the deceased as all documentations will be carefully worked out by me for the funds $11.5M(Eleven Million Five Hundred thousand United states Dollars) to be released in your favour as the beneficiary’s next of kin.It may interest you to note that I have secured from the probate an order of madamus to locate any of deceased beneficiaries.
 
Please acknowledge receipt of this message in acceptance of my mutual business endeavour by
furnishing me with the following;

 

1. Your Full Names and Address.

2. Direct Telephone and Fax numbers.

 

These requirements will enable me file a letter of claim to the appropriate departments for necessary approvals in your favour before the transfer can be made. I shall be compensating you with $4.6 Million Dollars on final conclusion of this project, while the rest $6.9Million shall be for me. Your share stays with you while the rest shall be for me for investment purposes in your
country.
 
If this proposal is acceptable by you, do not take undue advantage of the trust I have bestowed in you, I await your urgent email.
Regards,

 

Your;s faithfully,
MR.MOZANG ZANGA
(Bill and exchange manager)
please:reply through my private E;mail account;moznzan002@live.fr

Obama Dis-likes Democracy

Obama must think that Democracy is over-rated!

Gio-

From The Jewish Policy Center

President Barack Obama‘s State Department has reversed the George W. Bush administration’s policies of undermining authoritarian Middle East regimes through the spread of democracy. Indeed, the President appears to have abandoned the democracy agenda.

As the BBC reports, the Obama administration “has all but dismantled the Iran Democracy Fund” – federal funding to a classified list of groups that work to foster democracy and undermine the mullahs’ tight grip on Iran. The timing of this could not be worse, as democracy advocates continue to come under attack for protesting the fraudulent June elections that handed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term. Just last week, Iran announced plans to execute three activists.

As Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) observed, “It is disturbing that the State Department would cut off funding at precisely the moment when… needed most.’”

In Egypt, democracy advocates also feel abandoned. Egyptians believe that President Hosni Mubarak, who has held a tight grip on power since 1981, will appoint his son Gamal as his successor. The Obama administration has been silent on this issue, which has many Egyptians seething. The administration has also withheld comment on the regime’s campaign of mass arrests against opposition leaders, bloggers, and other political activists.

“We are very disgruntled with President Obama,” said Kamal al-Fayoumi, an activist jailed by the government last year. “He has given the regime the green light to do what it wants with the Egyptian people.”

In Turkey, the illiberal Justice and Development Party (AKP) recently launched a campaign to bring down the Dogan Group, a private, pro-West company that owns about half of the country’s media (including CNN Turk). If the AKP succeeds, it could ultimately bring 90% of the media under its control – reminiscent of the state-controlled Russian media. This would be a devastating blow to the region’s only democracy. Liberal Turks are now beginning to ask why the administration has failed to weigh in.

Democracy advocates also are painfully aware of the President’s ambivalence about the U.S. commitment in both Iraq and Afghanistan – two countries where the shoots of democracy are sprouting, but can easily whither.

The beginning of the end of the democracy agenda can be traced back to the President’s Cairo speech in June. He referenced a “controversy about the promotion of democracy… connected to the war in Iraq.” In an attempt to create “a new beginning” with the Muslim world, he stated, “let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.”

Most Americans would likely agree that imposing any political system on others is the wrong approach. However, Obama’s policy of “anti-Bushism” is equally wrong. The democracy deficit in the Middle East has not contracted. And given recent developments in Turkey, the deficit may widen further. This could lead to further radicalization of the region. Failing to recognize this may ultimately harm American interests.

Related Topics:  Jonathan Schanzer

Obama Nominee – Gay Sex Morally Good

My mind is spinning! You have got to watch this video to understand the immorality of Obama’s inner-circle.

Gio-

Obama EEOC nominee Chai Feldblum calls for homosexual activists to argue that “gay sex is morally good.”

http://www.cnsnews.com/cnsnewstv/v/GdSU6U8zSU

Or you can watch a shorter version of Chai Feldblum’s speech here:

One more piece of insanity…

Gay Group Organizes Christmas Festival Featuring Manger with Two Josephs

Exposing Kindergartens To Homosexuality

I came across this story while working on the one from CNSNews.com about Obama and his Go Green Contest, or whatever the hell it was.

Personally, I would like to put this idea on the top of a pile of “Stupid Ideas of the Century” and set it on fire. Not only am I against teaching any sexuality to children at this age, I’m REALLY against teaching Homosexuality to children at this age. Does this make me a homophobe, maybe. If this was to happen in my childs school there would be hell to pay!

To add to the bad news, the statement below is made by one of Obama’s Czars…

God help us!

Gio-

BEWARE: This post will peg-out the Bullshit meter!

Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Says Teach Respect for Homosexuality in Kindergarten

(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration’s safe schools czar, Kevin Jennings, has accused the Baptists, the Boy Scouts and sports fans of anti-gay bias, and he has advocated a special high school for gay teens as well as gay-straight alliance clubs for every high school in America.

Jennings, who was a prominent homosexual activist before being named director of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools at the U.S. Department of Education, also has called for kindergarteners to be taught to respect all sexual orientations, while insisting that “ex-gay messages” and “Christian values” are ‘misused to isolate or denigrate lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people” and have no place in the nation’s public schools.

Recent controversy surrounding Jennings’s role in the Department of Education has revolved around a 1988 conversation in which Jennings told a high school sophomore in a relationship with an older man that he hoped he used a condom–rather than reporting the possible case to statutory rape to authorities. Jennings recently said in a written statement that he was 24 at the time and wished he had handled the situation differently. 

Last Thursday, 53 House Republicans sent a letter to President Barack Obama asking that he remove Jennings from office. 

In the years before he became a political appointee in the Obama Education Department, Jennings served as founder and executive director of the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), an organization that seeks to promote the mainstreaming of homosexuality in the nation’s schools and prevent bullying of gay students. In this capacity, he made frequent media appearances, statements and speeches, which were sometimes controversial. 

“What GLSEN does is teach young children they should not call each other names; that they should not beat each other up,” Jennings was quoted as saying in the Washington Times in November 2000. “Being gay doesn’t kill people, but homophobia does kill people.”
 
CNSNews.com could not reach Jennings for comment for this story after repeated phone calls last week to the Department of Education press office. 
 
Stressing safety for homosexuals in American schools has been a successful strategy, Jennings said in one speech to a GLSEN group.
 
“We immediately seized upon the opponents’ calling card–safety–and explained how homophobia represents a threat to students’ safety by creating a climate where violence, name-calling, health problems, and suicide are common,” World and I magazine reported that Jennings said in a 1994 speech.
 
“We knew that, confronted with real-life stories of youth who had suffered from homophobia, our opponents would automatically be on the defensive: they would have to attack people who had already been victimized once, which puts them in a bully position from which it would be hard to emerge looking good,” Jennings said. “In Massachusetts, no one could speak up against our frame [of the debate] and say, ‘Why, yes, I do think students should kill themselves.’ This allowed us to set the terms of the debate.”
 
The World and I article also reported that Jennings said in 1997: “I can envision a day when straight people say, ‘So what if you’re promoting homosexuality?’”
 
In a 2000 speech at a GLSEN event Iowa, Jennings argued that students as young as kindergarten should be taught to respect people “regardless of sexual orientation.”
The Washington Times has posted an audio of this speech on its Web site.
 
“Our curriculum at kindergarten, and first grade, and second grade–every grade until students have graduated should be ‘you must respect every human being regardless of sexual orientation, regardless of gender identity, regardless of race or religion or any arbitrary distinctions we make about people,” Jennings said in the 2000 speech. “If we cannot teach this very basic lesson in our schools we will be very surprised at how hard it is for these students to learn French or English or math.”
 
In a February 2000 speech, Jennings predicted at a GLSEN conference that the cause of making homosexuality acceptable would succeed in elementary school. “Homosexuality will become more acceptable to students, especially elementary ones,” he said, according to an article in The Post-Standard of Syracuse, N.Y. “We are at a new moment in our history.”
 
Jennings, however, has not called for respecting former homosexuals.
 
In 2004, two factions within the National Education Association – the Republican Educators Caucus and the Ex-Gay Educators Caucus – objected to the NEA awarding Jennings the Virginia Uribe Award for Creative Leadership in Human Rights, the Washington Times reported that year.
 
Much of that opposition was in response to Jennings writing in a GLSEN publication: “Ex-gay messages have no place in our nation’s public schools. A line has been drawn. There is no ‘other side’ when you’re talking about lesbian, gay and bisexual students.”
 
Jennings, the son of a Baptist minister, has expressed his frustrations with Christians critical of homosexuality, and specifically with Southern Baptists.
 
In 2003, U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige responded to a question from the Baptist Press, which asked him, “Given the choice between private and Christian, uh, or private and public universities, who do you think has the best deal?”

Paige answered, “That’s a judgment, too, that would vary because each of them have real strong points and some of them have vulnerabilities, but you know, all things being equal, I’d prefer to have a child in a school where there’s a strong appreciation for values, the kind of values that I think are associated with Christian communities.”

On April 9, 2003, GLSEN issued a press release demanding clarification from Paige.

“The language of religious values — particularly ‘Christian values’ — has often been misused to isolate or denigrate lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people,” Jennings said in a written statement.  “For Secretary Paige to suggest that the tenets of any particular religion have a place in public education is an exceedingly dangerous breach of the constitutional separation of church and state, and of tremendous concern for safe schools advocates who seek to protect LGBT students and staff from harassment, violence and discrimination in schools.”

On Nov. 19, 2000, Jennings wrote an op-ed in the Charlotte Observer that was critical of the North Carolina Southern Baptist Convention’s position on homosexuality. 

“As a native Tar Heel and a former high school history teacher, I watched in amazement last week as the North Carolina Southern Baptist Convention passed a policy excluding gay people (and anyone who welcomes them) from the denomination. All I could think was of the old aphorism ‘Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,’” Jennings wrote. 

He compared the denomination’s stance on homosexuality with racism during the days of slavery and segregation. 

“The same pious members who nodded in agreement as our preacher talked about ‘loving your neighbor’ seemed to believe that this meant loving your white neighbors. Our fellow churchgoers expressed a visceral hatred of blacks (except they didn’t say ‘blacks’), resisted the integration of schools in Winston-Salem, and generally were pretty ‘unChristian’ on the whole subject of race,” the Jennings op-ed continued. “The Southern Baptists of the 1970s were, in fact, just following the traditions and history of our denomination, which had been founded because Southern Baptists wanted to defend the institution of slavery and thus formed their own convention in the 1840s. In 1996, about 150 years after it mattered, the Southern Baptist Convention formally apologized for its role in upholding slavery and racism. Better late than never, I guess.”
 
GLSEN has back the “Day of Silence,” a national protest by gay high school students. But Jennings has dismissed the counter protest—the “Day of Truth”–sponsored by Christian student groups as “an effort by adults to manipulate some kids.”
 
“The Day of Silence was an event conceived of by students themselves in response to a very real problem of bullying and harassment they saw on their campuses,” Jennings told the Associated Press on April 13, 2005. “The Day of Truth is a publicity stunt cooked up by a conservative organization with a political agenda; it’s an effort by adults to manipulate some kids.”
 
People of faith are not the only demographic he finds “homophobic.” An Oct. 23, 2003 Jennings op-ed in USA Today carried the headline: “Homophobic fans’ ugly words spoil great games.”
 
“I am at Yankee Stadium, and it’s the top of the third inning in game one of the American League Championship Series. The guy behind me in Tier 3 (yes, you!) is screaming ‘FAGGOT’ at one of the Red Sox players for the 13th time this game. ‘Gee, I didn’t know the Red Sox had so many gay players,’ my domestic partner mutters under his breath,” Jennings wrote.
 
Jennings continues, “Ah, sports and homophobia. They just seem to go so naturally together, like peanut butter and jelly. I’d forgotten why I hadn’t ventured out to the stadium in a decade: As a gay man, I find it isn’t a lot of fun to go to pro sporting events.”

He then called for more policing of what he considered bigoted fans. 

“What to do? A good start would be for the police crawling all over Yankee Stadium to discourage this homophobic language. (Would they tolerate fans yelling the ‘N’ word?) Cutting off beer sales wouldn’t hurt, either,” he wrote. 

GLSEN issued a press release on Sept. 12, 2007 extolling the virtues of gay straight alliances (GSA) in public high schools. “A straight high school student and GLSEN founder Kevin Jennings founded the first GSA in 1988 at Concord Academy in Massachusetts, where Jennings was a history teacher. The number of GSAs registered with GLSEN grew to 1,000 by the end of 2001 and could reach 4,000 this school year,” the release said.  

“LGBT students in schools with GSAs are less likely to miss school because they feel unsafe compared to other students,” said a GLSEN release. “Students in schools with a GSA are more likely to report that school faculty, staff and administration are supportive of lesbian, gay and bisexual students.”

The Boy Scouts of America, however, is a club that does not belong in public schools, Jennings said. 

“If you want to have the right to do what you want, because you are private, you cannot expect public money and public employees spending their time to administering your program,” the Washington Times reported Jennings saying in his 2000 speech in Iowa. “The fact is that our public schools cannot be in the business of running discriminatory programs. It is wrong. It undermines the very reason why we have schools, and it must not happen. …so let the Boy Scouts hoist themselves upon their own petard. They say, ‘we’re a private group, we should be allowed to do whatever we want.’ Fine. Do it on your own time and your own money. Get out of the schools.”

Last year, Jennings voiced support for a special high school for homosexuals in Chicago. 

“The fact is these kids are not making it through school, and we have to make sure they do while also making sure that every school is safe for every kid,” Jennings said in U.S. News and World Report. 

Commenting about the matter on CNN, he said, “We can continue to do nothing, and we know the results, or we can save young people’s lives and offer them an education and a future. The choice they are making is not ‘should we have this kind of school?’ The question is: ‘Are we going to do anything we can to get these kids an education?’ And there’s only one right answer – yes.”

In the April 1, 2005 issue of NEA Today, Jennings wrote, “At the same time, the average LGBT high school student comes out between 15 and 17. So they’re coming out in school systems that have no more policies than they did when I was in high school, with teachers who have no more training. And then we’re surprised when four out of five of these kids report that they routinely experience physical or verbal or sexual harassment. What did we think was going to happen?”

Jennings told the Columbia University chapter of Everyone Allied Against Homophobia (EAAH) that lack of acceptance of homosexuals is harmful to heterosexual men.

“I think one of the reasons straight men are the highest risk group for heart attacks and other stress-related illnesses is that they’re not allowed to show affection, to hug their friends,” Jennings said, according to a November 1999 article in the Columbia Spectator.

In that same speech, according to the Columbia Spectator, Jennings accused opponents of the gay right agenda of being against American values.

“Every time the right takes a stand against immigrants, against affirmative action, against gay rights, they are flying in the face of what it means to be an American,” Jennings said, according to the student paper

Obama Makes A Military Decision – Finally!

H/T goes out to Cecil Moon over at Zion Beckons for this article.

Helping Taliban go Green!

Someone posted at CNSNews.com that Green is the new Red. And I for one, agree with them. They (Commies) are simply using the Green movement to enact a code that basically tells everyone how they must live their life, and what choices they MUST make.  The clincher for me was this comment… “Earth Day is on Lenin’s birthday”. That CANNOT be an accident.

 

Gio-

An Easy Military Decision for Obama: Asks ‘Brave’ Troops to Compete in Green Government Contest

(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama signed an executive order earlier this month requiring federal agencies to set a 2020 greenhouse gas emission reduction target within 90 days – and he followed up by asking  “our brave men and women in uniform” and government employees to compete in the GreenGov Challenge.
 
“As the largest consumer of energy in the U.S. economy, the federal government can and should lead by example when it comes to creating innovative ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase energy efficiency, conserve water, reduce waste, and use environmentally responsible products and technologies,” Obama said when he signed the order on Oct. 5.
 
“This Executive Order builds on the momentum of the Recovery Act to help create a clean energy economy and demonstrates the Federal government’s commitment, over and above what is already being done, to reducing emissions and saving money,” he added.
 
Details of the contest are given on the Whitehouse.gov home page:

“If you’re a Federal employee or one of our brave men and women in uniform, this is your chance to positively impact how your department or agency will meet its 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target,” the announcement launching the program said on Monday. “Get your clean energy ideas ready and go take the GreenGov Challenge!”
 
The contest is open only to government employees and members of the military, not to federal contractors or the general public. The best ideas will be shared with the committee responsible for carrying out the president’s executive order.
 
“Some of the top ideas will be presented to the Steering Committee on Federal Sustainability – a group comprised of a senior official from each agency who is responsible for delivering among other things, each agency’s sustainability plan,” the contest announcement says.
 
The announcement said the contest is meant “to harness the collective wisdom of the more than 1.8 million civilian employees and our men and women in uniform.”
 
The executive order said the federal government occupies nearly 500,000 buildings, operates more than 600,000 vehicles, employs more than 1.8 million civilians, and purchases more than $500 billion per year in goods and services.
 
The executive order “builds on and expands the energy reduction and environmental requirements of Executive Order 13423 by making reductions of greenhouse gas emissions a priority of the Federal government, and by requiring agencies to develop sustainability plans focused on cost-effective projects and programs.”
 
“This your chance to positively impact how your agency will meet its 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target,” the contest announcement says. “Be part of the GreenGov Challenge and help green our government!”

The Govmint Can!

If we don’t laugh, we’ll cry. So…here’s…

The Govmint Can!

Sing along, boys and girls

H/t beloved GiovanniWorld member Conservative A-hole (formerly Booyah)!

~Eowyn

26% Americans Strongly Approve of Obama

H/t persevering GiovanniWorld member Steve!

This should cheer us up a bit!

~Eowyn

…………

Today’s Rasmussen Reports’ Daily Presidential Tracking Poll shows that only 26% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. That’s the lowest level of Strong Approval yet measured for this President. 39% Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -13.

For the first time during Obama’s time in office, the Approval Index has been in negative double digits for seven straight days. 50% of Democrats Strongly Approve while 66% of Republicans Strongly Disapprove of his performance. Among those not affiliated with either major political party, 18% Strongly Approve and 42% Strongly Disapprove.

The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve.

Overall, 47% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance. 52% disapprove.

A Nation Of Idiots

The regular on Giovanni’s World are feeling really really frustrated and helpless, as we see our country go down the tubes.

Maybe this guy has the explanation!

~Eowyn

………….

AMERICA IS FILLING UP WITH DUMB PEOPLE
Immigration’s Ultimate Dilemma
By Frosty Wooldridge – Oct 22, 2009 – http://www.rense.com/general88/dumb.htm

“Transforming the American dream into the American tragedy.”

As an educator in Colorado through the 70s, 80s and 90s, I watched academic standards and expectations drop like a brick in a bucket of water, like a jet fighter plane auguring into the ground, like water cascading over Niagara Falls.

As if guided by an invisible hand nationwide, administrators forced teachers to dumb down the academic requirements. Teachers passed kids to the next grade level… whether those children performed… or not.

Good students dragged down by their illiterate peers

As they failed to cement their educational foundations with the basics- the gaps in their math, science, reading and English skills- created terrible frustrations in their personal lives. When their irritation levels became too great, they ‘gave up’ their pursuit of minimal levels of educational achievement.

Often, while being ‘pushed’ up through grade levels, they acted out their annoyances with disrespect for teachers as they became malcontents, troublemakers or shut down altogether to cope with their growing lack of self-esteem… and failures.

Cannot think critically, read at a fifth grade level or balance a check book

This year, Paul Robeson High School in Chicago, Illinois featured 115 pregnant girls. That equals not only115 dumb girls, but 115 dumb boys, which will beget 115 more troubled babies facing horrific futures on all counts. Thus, millions drop out or ‘graduate’ functionally illiterate, i.e., cannot think critically, read at a fifth grade level or balance a check book.

To completely upend and degrade the educational systems of America, the late U.S. Senator Teddy Kennedy, in 1965, passed a bill to inject 1.2 to 1.5 million immigrants into the equation annually. While some are doctors and nurses, to be sure, others come from third-world nations with precious few academic skills. They arrive with dozens of languages, cultural bias against education and hostility toward learning.

Forty years later, we have 100 million people added to the United States from disparate cultures around the world, as K-12 educational systems around America grind on in total chaos.

With a 600,000 Middle Eastern immigrant load in central and suburban Detroit, Michigan, as reported by NBC’s Brian Williams, “76 percent of high school students in Detroit schools flunked out this June other cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston feature similar dropout rates from 50 to 60 percent each year 1.2 million teens hit the streets illiterate.”

That leads up to the distressing fact that 1 in 7 Americans remains functionally illiterate.

Illiteracy Statistics

• 42 million American adults can’t read at all; 50 million are unable to read at a higher level that is expected of a fourth grader.
• The number of adults that are classified as functionally illiterate increases by about 2.25 million each year.
• 20% of high school seniors can be classified as being functionally illiterate at the time they graduate.

Source: National Right to Read Foundation

Where Illiteracy Leads

• 70% of prisoners in state and federal systems can be classified as illiterate.
• 85% of all juvenile offenders rate as functionally or marginally illiterate.
• 43% of those whose literacy skills are lowest live in poverty.

Source: National Institute for Literacy

Yet, with those disturbing figures, our U.S. Congress, by their action and by their inaction, imports an added 2.5 million legal and illegal immigrants into this country every year. That equals over 200,000 every 30 days. AND THE FOLKS FROM THIRD-WORLD NATIONS HAVE HIGH BIRTH RATES. Their kids overwhelm our schools… subverting education for our own children. The immigrants themselves face daunting challenges as to culture, language and jobs.

In Denver, we suffer 85 languages and a 67 percent Denver Public Schools flunkout rate, as reported by the now defunct Rocky Mountain News in a story ”What Happened?” Ironically, the ‘Rocky’ bankrupted in 2008 because not enough people could read! The same holds true for dozens of cities across our country.

Becoming a nation of dummies in the 21st Century

What happens when somebody cannot read, write or perform simple math?

If they cannot obtain a labor job, they pursue crime, drugs, alcohol, welfare, homelessness and worse. Such uneducated women usually become pregnant and their children become abused, live in poverty and become wards of the state. Over 13.4 million American children live below the poverty line according to Katie Couric in a recent telecast. An astounding 35 million Americans subsist on food stamps.

Massachusetts: A Glaring Example

What happens when young adult women fail their educational pursuits? Let’s use one state to show you the underbelly of what’s happening to the United States:

Nearly nine of every 10 teen-agers who gave birth in Massachusetts were unmarried, the highest percentage of out-of-wedlock teen-age births of any state in the nation. According to the most recent data available from the National Center for Health Statistics, 86 percent of the 7,018 mothers under age 20 who gave birth in this state two years ago were not married.

The percentage was higher in Boston, hitting 92 percent. In Springfield, 90 percent of teen-age mothers were unmarried. “It is staggeringly high,” said state Health and Human Services Secretary Charles D. Baker Jr. Additionally, it is estimated that 80 percent of unwed teen mothers end up welfare.

The declining quality of the American work force

In a penetrating article, Jared Taylor, “The Silent Catastrophe” October 12 2009, “One great, avoidable evil we face is the declining quality of the American work force. The Census Bureau tells us that if immigration continues at its current rate of some two million people a year, whites will become a minority of the under-18 child population in just 14 years- in 2023- and will become a minority of the working population just 16 years later.

The greatest increase will be in Hispanics, who are now dropping out of high school at higher rates than blacks, doing little better than blacks when they manage to stay in school, and are the group least likely to go to college. Demographers are beginning to warn that as well-educated, white baby boomers retire and are replaced by poorly educated blacks and Hispanics, the productivity gains of the last several hundred years will be reversed, and the United States could go into a tailspin.”

“We have the possibility of transforming the American dream into the American tragedy,” <http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0206/p02s01-legn.html>says Irwin Kirsch, senior research director at the Educational Testing Service. He warns that our increasingly non-white and immigrant workforce threatens not only our standard of living, but the very survival of republican government (the U.S. is a Republic) based on an informed middle class.

“Here are some of the facts,” said Taylor. “In 2007, 93.5 percent of white and 93.1 percent of Asian 18- to 24-year-olds had graduated from high school. The figures for blacks and Hispanics were 88.8 percent and 72.7 percent, meaning that Hispanics were more than four times more likely than whites… and 2.4 times more likely than blacks… to have failed to graduate from high school.”

Painfully, as witnessed in Detroit, so many poor people shoplifted from grocery stores and retail merchants that the businesses bankrupted or vacated the inner city. Thus, the poor cannot find a place to buy their groceries… even with food stamps. On a national scale, shoplifters hoist $35 million a day in goods from retail stores. We all pay for that massive theft. Think of the implications of adding 70 million more immigrants (half of whom are illiterate) to our cities across America.

John Wayne said, ”Life is tough, but it’s even tougher if you’re stupid!”

Mandatory Health Insurance As Constitutional As Taxes!

According to Matt Cover of CNSNews.com, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that Americans are required to buy health insurance, “like paying taxes.” He added that Congress has “broad authority” to force Americans to purchase other things as well, so long as it was trying to promote “the general welfare.”

Hoyer’s astonishing claim is completely contrary to what the Congressional Budget Office said in 1994:

“A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States. An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.”

Steny Hoyer is a very small man

At his weekly press briefing yesterday, Oct. 20, Hoyer was asked by CNSNews.com where in the Constitution was Congress granted the power to mandate that a person must buy a health insurance policy. Hoyer said that, in providing for the general welfare, Congress had “broad authority.” He compared a health insurance mandate to the federal government’s power to levy taxes, saying “we mandate other things as well, like paying taxes.”

The section of the Constitution Hoyer was referring to, Article I, Section 8, outlines the powers of Congress, including raising taxes, but not the purchasing any type of product or service. Section 8 partly reads:

“The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”

The Constitution then details the specific powers of Congress, including raising an Army and Navy, regulating commerce between states, and to “make all laws necessary and proper” for the carrying out of these enumerated powers. “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof,” concludes Section 8.

CNSNews.com also asked Hoyer if there is a limit to what Congress can mandate that Americans purchase and whether there is anything that specifically could not be mandated to purchase. Hoyer said that eventually the Supreme Court would find a limit to Congress’ power, adding that mandates that unfairly favored one person or company over another would obviously be unconstitutional.

Hoyer insisted that the insurance mandate was constitutional because Congress is not forcing Americans to buy one particular policy, just any health insurance policy. “We don’t mandate that they buy a particular insurance [policy] but what we do mandate is that like driving a car — if you’re going to drive a car, to protect people on the roadway, and yourself, and the public for having to pay your expenses if you get hurt badly – that you need to have insurance,” said Hoyer.

Under all five of the health care bills currently being considered in Congress, every American adult would have to have a policy that conformed to government standards for coverage and premiums. Each bill creates Bronze, Silver, and Gold health insurance plans and mandates that Americans buy one of them, either through their employer or through government-run exchanges.

David B. Rivkin, a constitutional lawyer with Baker & Hostetler, told CNSNews.com that Hoyer’s argument was “silly,” adding that if the general welfare clause was that elastic, then nothing would be outside of Congress’ powers. “Congressman Hoyer is wrong,” Rivkin said. “The notion that the general welfare language is a basis for a specific legislative exercise is all silly because if that’s true, because general welfare language is inherently limitless, then the federal government can do anything.“

~Eowyn

Obama’s Muslim Czar

H/t industrious GiovanniWorld member Steve!

Dalia Mogahed is advisor on all matters Islamic whom Obama has appointed to the Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.  She describes her role in the Obama administration as a communicator to the president and other public officials of “what it is Muslims want.” In other words, she is Obama’s Muslim czar. As such, her particular brand of Islam warrants some scrutiny.

According to an article by Stephen Schwartz, a prominent American convert to Islam, in the Weekly Standard on October 20, 2009, it turns out that the Islam embraced by Mogahed is decidedly fundamentalist — a brand that endorses Shariah or Islamic law (which, of course, goes against American laws), approves of a restricted role for women (including the wearing of the Muslim headdress, hajib, in public), and calls for a global Islamic government.

Dalia Mogahed in a hajib

Born in Egypt, Mogahed  was brought to America as a child; earned a master’s in business; collaborated with tireless defender of radical Islam Georgetown professor John L. Esposito in producing a controversial study, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think; and became a senior analyst and executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.

Early in October, Mogahed gave a telephone interview to a British Muslim fundamentalist television network, IslamChannel. The program also interviewed Nazreen Nawaz, a female representative of the ultra-radical Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT), or the Islamic Liberation Party, as a live guest. HT calls for a global Islamic regime (the “caliphate”), under sharia law, and the destruction of the West. The show was posted on Sunday, October 4, to HT’s UK website here.

On that program with an Islamic extremist advocate, not only did Mogahed not make any effort to establish any distance between their views, she delivered a defense of sharia law, and, in particular, its application to women. She alleged that “the perception of sharia and portrayal of sharia has been oversimplified even among Muslims,” and called for sharia to be viewed “holistically” (whatever that means). According to her, “the majority of women around the world associate sharia with ‘gender justice’” — a dignity that fundamentalist Muslims maintain is absent in the West. Mogahed further declared that Muslim women support “universal values of justice and equality” but reject “Western values,” which she associated with sexual promiscuity and male disrespect of women.

The extremist Islamic HT  spokeswoman Nawaz launched a wholesale attack on democracy and denunciation of “man-made law” as inferior to sharia. HT stands out for its anti-Jewish rhetoric, and is banned in some countries, such as Germany and Turkey, but operates legally in others, from the U.S. and Britain to Indonesia. HT has escaped wider suppression because it preaches, but does not practice, violence.

Mogahed described her role in the Obama administration as “to convey to the Advisory Council, to the president, and to other public officials what it is Muslims want.” Mogahed presented herself as “simply a researcher” capable of offering “accurately, and in a representative way, the actual views of Muslims.” But Mogahed also spoke benevolently of unidentified people, including non-Muslims, who favor “that the United States, and Britain, and other countries should be open to the concept of integrating sharia into law in Muslim-majority societies.” She stated that “of course, most Muslim-majority societies do have sharia as a part of their laws already.”

In reality, most Muslim-majority societies do not currently treat sharia as a part of public law, but as a separate corpus applicable only to exclusively religious matters. Sharia-dominated countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Sudan represent exceptions, not the rule. Muslim countries, including those ruled by sharia, have no shortage of victimized women and abusive men. In Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, crimes against women, including forced marriage, forced divorce, and female genital mutilation, are protected by sharia. This is something the whole world recognizes and many Muslims repudiate.

The reality is that sharia law is most often employed to oppress women, not to free them from the blandishments of the sinful West. The Mogahed approach discounts the widespread, moderate Muslim view that sharia, like other canons of religious law, should apply only to standards for diet, forms of prayer, and other strictly individual or personal options.

In a conference in Europe last year, Dalia Mogahed also erroneously compared and equated sharia to America’s Declaration of Independence. She said that shari’a represents to many Muslims a kind of declaration of independence, affirming that God wants to bring justice to all people and that God’s justice is higher than the distorted and haphazard tyranny of modern dictators. However repressive shari’a might appear to Westerners, it is actually a major step up for many Muslims who suffer under systems with corrupt dictators in the capital city and crooked police officers in the neighborhood.

To conclude, Obama’s Muslim czar’s views on Islam are the same as the outlook of Islamists in Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and other countries threatened by fundamentalist tyranny, in which religious governance is posed as the sole alternative to secular dictatorship. She and other fundamentalist Muslims regard democracy as Western in origin and thus not “universal.” Democracy is rejected as one of those corrupt Western practices along with free sex and male supremacy.

At a time when Muslims around the world are increasingly turning toward civil society, Dalia Mogahed offers the retrograde fantasy of sharia as liberating, even as comparable with the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Such an individual is inappropriate as an adviser to the president, and can do great harm by providing an American seal of approval to extreme sharia ideology.

~Eowyn