Britain has for the first time raised the spectre of al-Qaida operating in Syria, while at the same time accusing Damascus of brutally targeting specific communities and driving Syrians to take up arms.
The foreign secretary, William Hague, said regime forces were bombarding neighbourhoods then unleashing militia groups to murder civilians in their homes. He said more sanctions against the regime were likely if the UN-brokered peace plan continued to fail, and again appeared to leave open an option for some sort of intervention in the rapidly deteriorating situation in Syria.
Hague said security assessments had indicated the presence in Syria of al-Qaida, a group disavowed by the main opposition force, the Free Syria Army, but who regime officials insist are at the vanguard of a now raging insurgency.
"We … have reason to believe that terrorist groups affiliated to al-Qaida have committed attacks designed to exacerbate the violence, with serious implications for international security," said Hague in a speech to the Commons.
He offered no details. The US has previously said it believed al-Qaida could have been responsible for bombing a security headquarters in Damascus in December.
Violence in Syria showed no letup on Monday, with scores of opposition fighters and regime troops again killed in fierce fighting in parts of Homs city and the surrounding province. An area north of Latakia, near the Turkish border, was targeted by helicopter gunships, which also roamed the skies of central Syria near a military base that was raided by the Free Syria Army, with the help of defectors, on Sunday.
The raid, the first large-scale assault by the Free Syria Army on a military base since the start of the Syrian uprising, has given impetus to claims that the anti-regime insurgency is gaining momentum after 16 haphazard months.
Buoyed by defectors, scores of whom are thought to have aided the attack on the al-Ghanto air defence base near Homs on Sunday, opposition fighters seized large amounts of weapons and ammunition – a rare haul during many months of battles that has seen them severely outgunned by loyalist forces.
The area targeted by helicopters near the Turkish border is home to several corridors where evidence of co-ordinated arms-smuggling into Syria has recently been confirmed. A witness to one transfer said scores of AK-47s and ammunition had been smuggled across the border and paid for in cash in the days following the Houla massacre in late May, in which at least 100 died.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar have suggested since February that they supported arming opposition groups. However, evidence of state-backed weapons runs has been difficult to find in northern Syria, where Free Syria Army units are mainly using small-arms supplied by defectors, or bought from still-serving loyalist troops.
Weapons have at times also made it across the Lebanese borders, with one supply line through the Bekaa valley delivering guns and rockets from civil war era arms bazaars and another through the far north providing more modern weaponry, some of which is believed to have come from Libya.
One of the leading opposition groups, the Syrian National Council (SNC), on Monday announced it had picked a new leader, a secular Kurd, Abdulbaset Sayda, who has lived in exile for the past 17 years. Sayda immediately urged new defections, while reaching out to minority communities of Kurds, Christians, Alawaites and Druze, many of whom have feared life after the Assad regime which has ruled the country for more than 40 years.
The SNC has been crippled by infighting since its inception more than a year ago and has had a severely strained relationship with the Free Syria Army, which has been beset by its own leadership problems.
The FSA has largely been devoid of central command and control and has operated as a series of militia franchises who each call their own shots. However, an attack on parts of the capital over the weekend appeared to show heightened co-ordination. The Syrian government claims some other FSA attacks, especially near Homs, have shown a new sense of rigour and discipline.
For now, the UN plan championed by special envoy Kofi Annan remains the centrepiece of international efforts to stop Syria from unravelling across sectarian lines. The plan has called, among other things, for both sides to agree to a ceasefire and for regime forces to pull heavy weapons back from urban centres. None of its elements have been implemented.
"The coming weeks must see an intensified and urgent international effort to stop the violence and restore hope to Syria," said Hague. "Political transition must be based on democratic principles and reflect the needs of all Syria's minority communities, including the Kurds, Christians and Alawites."
Full article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/11/al-qaida-syria-william-hague
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
"Triple Standard" for Israel
By Earl Cox
Created Jun 8 2012 - 10:41am
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it accurately recently in an American TV interview. He said that the world holds Israel to a "triple standard." Not a double standard, but a triple standard. He explained that there is one standard for the world's dictatorships, a second standard for the world's democracies, and a third standard for Israel.
Prime Minister Netanyahu added that the "triple standard" for Israel has meant that Israel does not have the right to defend itself from all the terrorists and rocket attacks hurled against them over the years by their Arab Muslim neighbors. Netanyahu went on to say that the world would never expect any dictatorship or democracy to “show restraint” had they been the victims of more than 12,000 explosive rockets and missile attacks having been continually hurled across their borders by terrorists killing and maiming thousands of innocent civilians.
"What would the democracies do if 12,000 rockets were fired into their land?" he asked. "They would undoubtedly defend themselves and retaliate if more than one rocket hit them. But when Israel wants to defend itself, we are accused of being the villains, rather then the victims." He added, "No other nation would tolerate that."
The interviewer Mike Huckabee reminded Netanyahu of the great reception the Prime Minister received during his recent speech to the United States Congress where he received 29 standing ovations and 50 applause interruptions. "It was because our country has a great friendship with the United States and an important bond with its people," he said. "The Congressmen simply expressed the support of the people."
"Israel is wall-to-wall pro-American, the Prime Minister stated.”Israel has no better friend than America, and America has no better friend than Israel. We believe that we are there for you, and that you are there for us, also." He added, "Our two countries are both 'cities on a hill' for the whole world to look to."
Netanyahu further stated that he thinks most Americans see Israel as a parable. The Jewish people and the nation of Israel were left for dead 2,000 years ago, he explained. "But our people and our nation have now come back from the dead, and we are now a free and thriving people and nation. We are a story of hope fulfilled and the American people identify with that."
Concerning Iran, Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that this rogue nation is definitely the greatest threat to all humanity today, not only to Israel but to the entire Middle East and to the whole world. He added, "Iran has proven itself to be a terrorist regime, and their threats are very real. We must be prepared and ready, if necessary, to take military action."
Concerning the upheavals in numerous Arab countries including Syria, the Prime Minister stated, "We'll certainly have a safer world if we can move more toward democracy. The uprisings have shown that many Arabs truly want more democratic freedoms. If democracy triumphs, we could have genuine peace. But right now, the jury is still out."
Full article:
http://cc.org/commentary/quottriple_standardquot_israel
Sunday, June 10, 2012
High Court Backs Closing Tax Loophole Retroactively
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
Published: June 14, 1994
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/14/business/high-court-backs-closing-tax-loophole-retroactively.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
The United States Supreme Court ruled today that Congress did not violate the Constitution when it closed a tax loophole retroactively in 1987 and collected back taxes from those who had relied on the original provision.
The 9-to-0 decision involving an estate tax provision overturned a 1992 ruling by a Federal appeals court in California, which held that the retroactive application of the amended provision violated the constitutional guarantee of due process of law.
Because Congress often acts retroactively in the tax area -- most recently, in last summer's budget package that raised tax rates retroactively to the beginning of 1993 -- the decision alarmed the Government and prompted the Clinton Administration to seek Supreme Court review. This case involved an estate tax provision of the Tax Reform Act of 1986.
But in a second important decision today, the Government did not fare nearly as well. The Court ruled unanimously that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is bound by state law when it takes control of a failed savings and loan and seeks to recover losses by suing the lawyers and accountants who had advised the previous management.
As a practical matter, the decision means that certain defenses the outside professionals would have been entitled to invoke had the Federal regulators never come on the scene remain available to them.
In this case, involving the failed American Diversified Savings Bank of Costa Mesa, Calif., the decision permits a Los Angeles law firm, O'Melveny & Myers, to assert that under California law, it cannot be sued by the F.D.I.C. for its role in preparing two real estate syndications shortly before the institution was declared insolvent in 1986.
In the tax case, Justice Harry A. Blackmun's opinion for the Court was a broad vindication of Congressional authority. "Tax legislation is not a promise, and a taxpayer has no vested right in the Internal Revenue Code," Justice Blackmun wrote.
He said that retroactive tax legislation did not violate due process as long as the Congressional purpose "was neither illegitimate nor arbitrary." In a concurring opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said that the Court's reasoning "guarantees that all retroactive tax laws will henceforth be valid."
The retroactive tax case, United States v. Carlton, No. 92-1941, involved a provision of the 1986 tax law intended by Congress to help employee stock ownership plans by encouraging the sale of stock to these plans. Under the original provision, an estate could deduct from its Federal estate tax half the proceeds of the sale of a company's stock to that company's employee stock ownership plan. Big Tax Saving
Relying on that provision, the executor of a large California estate used the estate's funds to buy 1.5 million shares of MCI Communications Corporation stock, which he sold two days later to the MCI employee stock ownership plan. While the stock price had declined, and the estate lost $600,000 on the $10.6 million transaction, it saved $2.5 million in Federal estate tax.
Numerous other executors had the same idea, with the result that a provision that was supposed to cost $300 million over a five-year period was soon estimated to be draining the Treasury at the rate of $7 billion over five years. Fourteen months later, Congress closed the loophole by limiting the deduction to the sale of stock that had been owned immediately before the deceased person's death. The provision was made retroactive to the date of the original 1986 law, and the Internal Revenue Service then disallowed deductions that had been claimed for newly purchased stock. The California executor, Jerry W. Carlton, paid and sued for a refund.
Justice Blackmun's opinion was signed by five other members of the Court: Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices John Paul Stevens, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Scalia's separate concurring opinion was signed by Justice Clarence Thomas, and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor also filed a separate concurring opinion.
In its F.D.I.C. ruling, the Supreme Court rejected the agency's argument that the Federal courts should create an overriding "Federal common law" that could negate the defenses available under state law. The Court did not, however, resolve the merits of this case or declare definitively what the California law actually provides in the particular situation. The lower Federal courts in California must now examine those questions.
The decision, written for the Court by Justice Scalia, was based in large part on the Justices' interpretation of a 1989 law, the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989, or Firrea.
In that law, Congress created some special Federal rules enabling the F.D.I.C. to override some state laws in its capacity as receiver of failed savings and loans. For example, Congress explicitly extended the statute of limitations that might exist under state law, and gave the F.D.I.C. authority to sue directors and officers for gross negligence in situations that might not be permitted by state law.
Those powers have proved an important part of the F.D.I.C.'s legal strategy for recovering some costs of the savings and loan bailout. Justice Scalia said that because Congress was so precise and explicit about the situations that it addressed in Firrea, its silence on other situations must be interpreted as leaving state law in place.
The Court placed in this second category the legal question at issue in this case: whether the F.D.I.C., as the receiver of a failed savings and loan, can sue a third party when the savings and loan itself would have been unable to do so under state law.
In deciding that state law, rather than a court-created "Federal common law," governs such situations, the Court handed a substantial problem to the F.D.I.C. as well as to another Federal agency, the Resolution Trust Corporation, the authority of which is also defined by Firrea.
Jack D. Smith, the deputy general counsel of the F.D.I.C., said today that while he expected the agency eventually to prevail in this particular case, the Court's general theory would weaken the Government's position in another important category of savings and loan cases involving state statutes of limitation.
While Firrea gave the F.D.I.C. three years from the date of an institution's failure to bring its suits, some Federal courts have been dismissing cases that have not been brought within shorter state-imposed time-limits. Today, the Supreme Court refused without comment to hear the agency's appeal in one such case, F.D.I.C. v. Dawson, No. 93-1486. Mr. Smith, the F.D.I.C. lawyer, said there was some $1.5 billion at stake in cases involving the statute of limitations. The F.D.I.C. and the
Resolution Trust Corporation are seeking legislation to address the problem, he said.
Another $1.5 billion is potentially at stake in the legal question at issue in the case the Court decided today.
Under a principle known as the "general rule of imputation," corporate insiders' knowledge of wrongdoing is imputed, or attributed, to the corporation itself, so that as a legal matter, the corporation cannot be seen as the victim of a fraud that its insiders have in fact perpetrated.
In this case, O'Melveny & Myers, the outside law firm, argued that under California law, the savings and loan would not have been able to sue its own lawyers for failing to uncover the fraud that led to the institution's demise. Thus, the firm argued that the F.D.I.C. should also be barred from bringing the suit because, as receiver, the Federal agency "stands in the shoes" of the failed institution. Suit Was Reinstated
The Federal District Court in Los Angeles accepted this argument and dismissed the F.D.I.C.'s lawsuit in 1990, but the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco reinstated the suit in 1992 on the ground that there existed a "Federal common law" that permitted the F.D.I.C. to overcome the "imputation" defense that might otherwise be available to the law firm.
Nearly simultaneously, and underscoring the confusion in this area, another Federal appeals court, the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, reached the opposite conclusion on two Texas savings and loans, City Savings and Loan and Lamar Savings Association. The Supreme Court has not yet acted on the F.D.I.C.'s appeal of that ruling.
In his opinion today, O'Melveny & Myers v. F.D.I.C., No. 93-489, Justice Scalia made it clear that Congress could give the F.D.I.C. expanded powers to override state law defenses if it chose to do so. But in the absence of Congressional action, "there is no Federal general common law," he said.
Full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/14/business/high-court-backs-closing-tax-loophole-retroactively.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
Published: June 14, 1994
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/14/business/high-court-backs-closing-tax-loophole-retroactively.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
The United States Supreme Court ruled today that Congress did not violate the Constitution when it closed a tax loophole retroactively in 1987 and collected back taxes from those who had relied on the original provision.
The 9-to-0 decision involving an estate tax provision overturned a 1992 ruling by a Federal appeals court in California, which held that the retroactive application of the amended provision violated the constitutional guarantee of due process of law.
Because Congress often acts retroactively in the tax area -- most recently, in last summer's budget package that raised tax rates retroactively to the beginning of 1993 -- the decision alarmed the Government and prompted the Clinton Administration to seek Supreme Court review. This case involved an estate tax provision of the Tax Reform Act of 1986.
But in a second important decision today, the Government did not fare nearly as well. The Court ruled unanimously that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is bound by state law when it takes control of a failed savings and loan and seeks to recover losses by suing the lawyers and accountants who had advised the previous management.
As a practical matter, the decision means that certain defenses the outside professionals would have been entitled to invoke had the Federal regulators never come on the scene remain available to them.
In this case, involving the failed American Diversified Savings Bank of Costa Mesa, Calif., the decision permits a Los Angeles law firm, O'Melveny & Myers, to assert that under California law, it cannot be sued by the F.D.I.C. for its role in preparing two real estate syndications shortly before the institution was declared insolvent in 1986.
In the tax case, Justice Harry A. Blackmun's opinion for the Court was a broad vindication of Congressional authority. "Tax legislation is not a promise, and a taxpayer has no vested right in the Internal Revenue Code," Justice Blackmun wrote.
He said that retroactive tax legislation did not violate due process as long as the Congressional purpose "was neither illegitimate nor arbitrary." In a concurring opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said that the Court's reasoning "guarantees that all retroactive tax laws will henceforth be valid."
The retroactive tax case, United States v. Carlton, No. 92-1941, involved a provision of the 1986 tax law intended by Congress to help employee stock ownership plans by encouraging the sale of stock to these plans. Under the original provision, an estate could deduct from its Federal estate tax half the proceeds of the sale of a company's stock to that company's employee stock ownership plan. Big Tax Saving
Relying on that provision, the executor of a large California estate used the estate's funds to buy 1.5 million shares of MCI Communications Corporation stock, which he sold two days later to the MCI employee stock ownership plan. While the stock price had declined, and the estate lost $600,000 on the $10.6 million transaction, it saved $2.5 million in Federal estate tax.
Numerous other executors had the same idea, with the result that a provision that was supposed to cost $300 million over a five-year period was soon estimated to be draining the Treasury at the rate of $7 billion over five years. Fourteen months later, Congress closed the loophole by limiting the deduction to the sale of stock that had been owned immediately before the deceased person's death. The provision was made retroactive to the date of the original 1986 law, and the Internal Revenue Service then disallowed deductions that had been claimed for newly purchased stock. The California executor, Jerry W. Carlton, paid and sued for a refund.
Justice Blackmun's opinion was signed by five other members of the Court: Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices John Paul Stevens, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Scalia's separate concurring opinion was signed by Justice Clarence Thomas, and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor also filed a separate concurring opinion.
In its F.D.I.C. ruling, the Supreme Court rejected the agency's argument that the Federal courts should create an overriding "Federal common law" that could negate the defenses available under state law. The Court did not, however, resolve the merits of this case or declare definitively what the California law actually provides in the particular situation. The lower Federal courts in California must now examine those questions.
The decision, written for the Court by Justice Scalia, was based in large part on the Justices' interpretation of a 1989 law, the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989, or Firrea.
In that law, Congress created some special Federal rules enabling the F.D.I.C. to override some state laws in its capacity as receiver of failed savings and loans. For example, Congress explicitly extended the statute of limitations that might exist under state law, and gave the F.D.I.C. authority to sue directors and officers for gross negligence in situations that might not be permitted by state law.
Those powers have proved an important part of the F.D.I.C.'s legal strategy for recovering some costs of the savings and loan bailout. Justice Scalia said that because Congress was so precise and explicit about the situations that it addressed in Firrea, its silence on other situations must be interpreted as leaving state law in place.
The Court placed in this second category the legal question at issue in this case: whether the F.D.I.C., as the receiver of a failed savings and loan, can sue a third party when the savings and loan itself would have been unable to do so under state law.
In deciding that state law, rather than a court-created "Federal common law," governs such situations, the Court handed a substantial problem to the F.D.I.C. as well as to another Federal agency, the Resolution Trust Corporation, the authority of which is also defined by Firrea.
Jack D. Smith, the deputy general counsel of the F.D.I.C., said today that while he expected the agency eventually to prevail in this particular case, the Court's general theory would weaken the Government's position in another important category of savings and loan cases involving state statutes of limitation.
While Firrea gave the F.D.I.C. three years from the date of an institution's failure to bring its suits, some Federal courts have been dismissing cases that have not been brought within shorter state-imposed time-limits. Today, the Supreme Court refused without comment to hear the agency's appeal in one such case, F.D.I.C. v. Dawson, No. 93-1486. Mr. Smith, the F.D.I.C. lawyer, said there was some $1.5 billion at stake in cases involving the statute of limitations. The F.D.I.C. and the
Resolution Trust Corporation are seeking legislation to address the problem, he said.
Another $1.5 billion is potentially at stake in the legal question at issue in the case the Court decided today.
Under a principle known as the "general rule of imputation," corporate insiders' knowledge of wrongdoing is imputed, or attributed, to the corporation itself, so that as a legal matter, the corporation cannot be seen as the victim of a fraud that its insiders have in fact perpetrated.
In this case, O'Melveny & Myers, the outside law firm, argued that under California law, the savings and loan would not have been able to sue its own lawyers for failing to uncover the fraud that led to the institution's demise. Thus, the firm argued that the F.D.I.C. should also be barred from bringing the suit because, as receiver, the Federal agency "stands in the shoes" of the failed institution. Suit Was Reinstated
The Federal District Court in Los Angeles accepted this argument and dismissed the F.D.I.C.'s lawsuit in 1990, but the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco reinstated the suit in 1992 on the ground that there existed a "Federal common law" that permitted the F.D.I.C. to overcome the "imputation" defense that might otherwise be available to the law firm.
Nearly simultaneously, and underscoring the confusion in this area, another Federal appeals court, the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, reached the opposite conclusion on two Texas savings and loans, City Savings and Loan and Lamar Savings Association. The Supreme Court has not yet acted on the F.D.I.C.'s appeal of that ruling.
In his opinion today, O'Melveny & Myers v. F.D.I.C., No. 93-489, Justice Scalia made it clear that Congress could give the F.D.I.C. expanded powers to override state law defenses if it chose to do so. But in the absence of Congressional action, "there is no Federal general common law," he said.
Full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/14/business/high-court-backs-closing-tax-loophole-retroactively.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
Glenn Beck Promotes Kabballah
You can view this book promo by Glenn Beck where he teaches Kabbalah mysticism and says that "with your body and soul, you're complete". Notice how God is not needed. Beck says he and read and re-read this book. This is perfectly in line with Beck's new age mormon beliefs (as described in his book 7 Wonders).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GIp9tPwEI9c#!
Also check out this article about Beck's Seven [New Age] Wonders
http://www.worldviewweekend.com/worldview-times/article.php?articleid=6809
And, while at it, check out this video of how to produce perfect tears every time ...
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/glenn-becks-sobbing-secrets-revealed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GIp9tPwEI9c#!
Also check out this article about Beck's Seven [New Age] Wonders
http://www.worldviewweekend.com/worldview-times/article.php?articleid=6809
And, while at it, check out this video of how to produce perfect tears every time ...
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/glenn-becks-sobbing-secrets-revealed
Friday, June 08, 2012
How to Die
The Eugenics agenda is moving forward with this soft sell of how to save so much money by denying care to the elderly based on "outcome based health-care".
Both Newsweek (Why Did Her Husband’s End-of-Life Care Cost So Much? May 2012) and Time (How to Die, July 2012) have articles about this.
Both Newsweek (Why Did Her Husband’s End-of-Life Care Cost So Much? May 2012) and Time (How to Die, July 2012) have articles about this.
Thursday, June 07, 2012
Court: Christians can be ordered to violate beliefs
Refuse to photograph lesbians, get fined $7,000
by Bob UnruhEmail | Archive
by Bob UnruhEmail | Archive
A ruling from Judge Tim L. Garcia in the New Mexico Court of Appeals says states can require Christians to violate their faith in order to do business, affirming a penalty of nearly $7,000 for a photographer who refused to take pictures at a lesbian “commitment” ceremony in the state where same-sex “marriage” was illegal.
Judges Cynthia Fry and James Wechsler joined in the ruling by Garcia, which involved Elane Photography, whose owners, Elaine and Jonathan Huegeunin, are Christians and declined to do photography for lesbians Vanessa Willock and another woman.
The women complained under the state’s anti-discrimination requirements and a state commission, the New Mexico Human Rights Commission, imposed the penalty, which now has been affirmed by the appeals court judges. The judges explained in the 45-page ruling that the photography company is a “public accommodation” and those cannot discriminate under state law based on “sexual orientation.”
“The owners of Elane Photography must accept the reasonable regulations and restrictions imposed upon the conduct of their commercial enterprise despite their personal religious beliefs that may conflict with these governmental interests,” the judges wrote.
Officials with the Alliance Defense Fund, which has been representing Elane, said there would be an appeal.
“Americans in the marketplace should not be subjected to legal attacks for simply abiding by their beliefs,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence. “Should the government force a videographer who is an animal rights activist to create a video promoting hunting and taxidermy? Of course not, and neither should the government force this photographer to promote a message that violates her conscience. Because the Constitution prohibits the state from forcing unwilling artists to promote a message they disagree with, we will certainly appeal this decision to the New Mexico Supreme Court.”
It started in 2006 when Willock asked Elaine Huguenin to take pictures at her “commitment” ceremony. It was in 2009 when the ADF appealed a trial judge’s ruling in favor of the lesbians.
In reaching their decision the judges aligned photography with those that are “an essential service” under state law.
“Services, facilities and accommodations are available to the general public through a variety of resources. Elane Photography takes advantage of these available resources to market to the public at large and invite them to solicit services offered by its photography business,” the judges explained.
They cited the idea of a KKK rally asking an black photographer to supply his work, and the photographer refusing. Could then the KKK cite racial discrimination?
“The Ku Klux Klan is not a protected class,” opined the judges. “Sexual orientation, however, is protected.”
The judges continued, “The act of photographing a same-sex ceremony does not express any opinions regarding same-sex commitments, or disseminate a personal message about such ceremonies.”
They called the state requirement “a neutral regulation of commercial conduct” and said that it does not “infringe upon freedom of speech or compel unwanted expression.”
The judges wrote that the photography company’s claim of protection under the state constitution’s requirement that “no person shall ever be molested or denied any civil or political right or privilege on account of his religious opinion” was not applicable.
The judges suggested the interesting scenario of the photographer accepting the job, and vocally condemning the women while taking pictures.
“The owners are free to express their religious beliefs and tell Willock or anyone else what they think about same-sex relationships and same-sex ceremonies,” they said.
The district court decision had come from Alan M. Malott.
Malott’s ruling said the Christian owners were compelled to photograph the ceremony for Vanessa Willock and Misty Pascottini because of the state’s interest in preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation.
“Once one offers a service publicly, they must do so without impermissible exception,” the judge wrote. “Therefore, plaintiff could refuse to photograph animals or even small children, just as an architect could design only commercial buildings and not private residences. Neither animals, nor small children, nor private residences are protected classes,” he wrote.
When the district judge’s decision arrived, it seemed to substantiate the concerns of opponents of a federal “hate crimes” bill signed into law by President Obama during his first year in office that gives homosexuals special rights. Attorney General Eric Holder admitted in a congressional hearing that under the measure an attack on a homosexual would be dealt with differently than one on another citizen.
Benjamin Bull, chief counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, noted at that time, “Homosexuals got exactly what they wanted. In the marketplace of ideas, one side has now been censored. This [situation] is exactly what homosexual activists have in mind.”
Interestingly, a subsequent poll revealed that almost half of Americans believe that Christians in the United States are being persecuted by homosexual “marriage” advocates who take legal action against them over their religious beliefs, and almost one in three Democrats believes such persecution is “necessary,” according to the alarming results of a new poll
The results are from a WND/WENZEL Poll conducted for WND by the public-opinion research and media consulting company Wenzel Strategies.
It found that 49.2 percent of all respondents consider the legal activism against Christians and their beliefs regarding homosexuality to be “persecution.”
The question was, “There is a trend developing in which gay activists are filing lawsuits against people who refuse to do business with them on moral/religious grounds – such as when a New Mexico photographer was sued by a lesbian couple for refusing to photograph their wedding. Knowing this, which of the following statements most closely represents what you think about this?”
More than two of three Republicans called it “persecution of Christians,” along with 45 percent of independents. Even 33.1 percent of Democrats had he same answer.
But 31 percent of Democrats, as well as 12 percent of Republicans and 24 percent of independents, said, “Such tactics are necessary.”
Full article:
http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/refuse-to-photograph-lesbians-get-fined-7000/print/
Judges Cynthia Fry and James Wechsler joined in the ruling by Garcia, which involved Elane Photography, whose owners, Elaine and Jonathan Huegeunin, are Christians and declined to do photography for lesbians Vanessa Willock and another woman.
The women complained under the state’s anti-discrimination requirements and a state commission, the New Mexico Human Rights Commission, imposed the penalty, which now has been affirmed by the appeals court judges. The judges explained in the 45-page ruling that the photography company is a “public accommodation” and those cannot discriminate under state law based on “sexual orientation.”
“The owners of Elane Photography must accept the reasonable regulations and restrictions imposed upon the conduct of their commercial enterprise despite their personal religious beliefs that may conflict with these governmental interests,” the judges wrote.
Officials with the Alliance Defense Fund, which has been representing Elane, said there would be an appeal.
“Americans in the marketplace should not be subjected to legal attacks for simply abiding by their beliefs,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence. “Should the government force a videographer who is an animal rights activist to create a video promoting hunting and taxidermy? Of course not, and neither should the government force this photographer to promote a message that violates her conscience. Because the Constitution prohibits the state from forcing unwilling artists to promote a message they disagree with, we will certainly appeal this decision to the New Mexico Supreme Court.”
It started in 2006 when Willock asked Elaine Huguenin to take pictures at her “commitment” ceremony. It was in 2009 when the ADF appealed a trial judge’s ruling in favor of the lesbians.
In reaching their decision the judges aligned photography with those that are “an essential service” under state law.
“Services, facilities and accommodations are available to the general public through a variety of resources. Elane Photography takes advantage of these available resources to market to the public at large and invite them to solicit services offered by its photography business,” the judges explained.
They cited the idea of a KKK rally asking an black photographer to supply his work, and the photographer refusing. Could then the KKK cite racial discrimination?
“The Ku Klux Klan is not a protected class,” opined the judges. “Sexual orientation, however, is protected.”
The judges continued, “The act of photographing a same-sex ceremony does not express any opinions regarding same-sex commitments, or disseminate a personal message about such ceremonies.”
They called the state requirement “a neutral regulation of commercial conduct” and said that it does not “infringe upon freedom of speech or compel unwanted expression.”
The judges wrote that the photography company’s claim of protection under the state constitution’s requirement that “no person shall ever be molested or denied any civil or political right or privilege on account of his religious opinion” was not applicable.
The judges suggested the interesting scenario of the photographer accepting the job, and vocally condemning the women while taking pictures.
“The owners are free to express their religious beliefs and tell Willock or anyone else what they think about same-sex relationships and same-sex ceremonies,” they said.
The district court decision had come from Alan M. Malott.
Malott’s ruling said the Christian owners were compelled to photograph the ceremony for Vanessa Willock and Misty Pascottini because of the state’s interest in preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation.
“Once one offers a service publicly, they must do so without impermissible exception,” the judge wrote. “Therefore, plaintiff could refuse to photograph animals or even small children, just as an architect could design only commercial buildings and not private residences. Neither animals, nor small children, nor private residences are protected classes,” he wrote.
When the district judge’s decision arrived, it seemed to substantiate the concerns of opponents of a federal “hate crimes” bill signed into law by President Obama during his first year in office that gives homosexuals special rights. Attorney General Eric Holder admitted in a congressional hearing that under the measure an attack on a homosexual would be dealt with differently than one on another citizen.
Benjamin Bull, chief counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, noted at that time, “Homosexuals got exactly what they wanted. In the marketplace of ideas, one side has now been censored. This [situation] is exactly what homosexual activists have in mind.”
Interestingly, a subsequent poll revealed that almost half of Americans believe that Christians in the United States are being persecuted by homosexual “marriage” advocates who take legal action against them over their religious beliefs, and almost one in three Democrats believes such persecution is “necessary,” according to the alarming results of a new poll
The results are from a WND/WENZEL Poll conducted for WND by the public-opinion research and media consulting company Wenzel Strategies.
It found that 49.2 percent of all respondents consider the legal activism against Christians and their beliefs regarding homosexuality to be “persecution.”
The question was, “There is a trend developing in which gay activists are filing lawsuits against people who refuse to do business with them on moral/religious grounds – such as when a New Mexico photographer was sued by a lesbian couple for refusing to photograph their wedding. Knowing this, which of the following statements most closely represents what you think about this?”
More than two of three Republicans called it “persecution of Christians,” along with 45 percent of independents. Even 33.1 percent of Democrats had he same answer.
But 31 percent of Democrats, as well as 12 percent of Republicans and 24 percent of independents, said, “Such tactics are necessary.”
Full article:
http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/refuse-to-photograph-lesbians-get-fined-7000/print/
Damascus’ Cup of Wrath
From RaptureReady.com
Reports of atrocities coming out of Syria are reminders of the ongoing rage of man against man. We live in a world headed for a time in which God must deal in judgment with planet earth. We get an inkling of what faces the cities of this world with the declaration found in the book of God’s most terrible judgment. “And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath” (Revelation 16:19).
The great commercial center at the time of that judgment will suffer as perhaps no city or people have ever suffered, when God’s cup of wrath is full, and He gives it to Babylon to drink. Jesus Himself said it would be the most terrible time in human history–and that’s saying something! This earth has been witness to regimes that have dealt so fiercely with their peoples that we sometimes wonder how the Creator of all things could have allowed such treatment.
The Lord has acted at times to judge the murderous governments throughout history, of course. The Third Reich is an example. Hitler’s Reich was to last a thousand years, but lasted barely twelve, and is today looked upon as among the most heinous–certainly considered the most horrendous of the modern era. Yet there are elements among us that view the Nazi regime as a good idea, particularly because of the way that government treated the Jews.
Syria’s present tyrant-ruler is one such admirer of the Nazi attitude toward God’s chosen people. Like all Muslim states of the radical sort–and it’s difficult to find one that isn’t radical—the brutal Syrian dictatorship of Bashar Al-Assad, successor to his father, Hafez Al-Assad, hates Jews with satanic passion and has Israel in its crosshairs for annihilation. For this reason it can be said with certainty that, barring repentance, the Syrian leader and his ilk are in for some very rough times indeed. God’s Word says about the people of earth and their treatment of Abraham’s progeny: “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 12:3).
But, it is not the Jews alone that the Syrian dictator comes against with luciferian anger. He slaughters anyone who would defy his self-anointed right to rule with an iron fist of oppression. He is doing so with abandon these days, even in the face of pressure–although milquetoast pressure—by the international community.
The world of opposition to what’s going on in Damascus and surrounding area is of the spineless sort because of threats from Russia and China. Putin and the Chinese leadership have made it clear that any military action to put Assad out of power will be met with Russian and Chinese force. It is much like in the cold-war days when the Soviets and the Maoists held the nuclear threat over the heads of the world’s diplomatic community.
As the death tolls rise with Assad’s military murdering people in plain view, yet blaming the opposition rebel forces of perpetrating the killings, the international community sends the likes of former U.N. head, Kofi Annan, to plead with the Syrian dictator to stop the genocide.
During his meetings, Annan renewed an appeal to the Assad regime to end the violence against its people. Annan said he expressed the international community's concerns about the government attacks, including last week's slaughter in Houla.
"We are at a tipping point," Annan said. "The Syrian people do not want the future to be one of bloodshed and division. Yet the killings continue and the abuses are still with us today."
Eleven nations, including the United States, said they are expelling Syrian envoys in a coordinated action over the killings. Besides the United States, Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and Canada announced that they are expelling some Syrian diplomats. ("13 Bound Bodies Found in Eastern Syria," UPI.com, 5/30/12)
There seems no chance of a Jonah-Nineveh sort of repentance by Assad and his ruling henchmen. We can say with certainty, then, that God’s judgment is on its way to Syria. But, it’s not just the fact that God will judge anyone who hates Abraham’s seed, or that judgment will come because of the obvious sins of the regime in murdering the Syrian people. We can know with certainty God’s judgment is coming because of the prophecy, with which most Bible prophecy students are familiar.
“Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap” (Isaiah 17:1). Damascus’ cup of wrath is about to be poured by the mighty hand of God. But, lest the rest of the world think this city that harbors most every Islamist terrorist organization that is blood-vowed to destroy Israel is alone in the prophetic promise to drink of that cup of wrath, consider again the following forewarning to all cities of earth: “And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath” (Revelation 16:19).
--Terry
Full article:
http://raptureready.com/rap16.html
Reports of atrocities coming out of Syria are reminders of the ongoing rage of man against man. We live in a world headed for a time in which God must deal in judgment with planet earth. We get an inkling of what faces the cities of this world with the declaration found in the book of God’s most terrible judgment. “And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath” (Revelation 16:19).
The great commercial center at the time of that judgment will suffer as perhaps no city or people have ever suffered, when God’s cup of wrath is full, and He gives it to Babylon to drink. Jesus Himself said it would be the most terrible time in human history–and that’s saying something! This earth has been witness to regimes that have dealt so fiercely with their peoples that we sometimes wonder how the Creator of all things could have allowed such treatment.
The Lord has acted at times to judge the murderous governments throughout history, of course. The Third Reich is an example. Hitler’s Reich was to last a thousand years, but lasted barely twelve, and is today looked upon as among the most heinous–certainly considered the most horrendous of the modern era. Yet there are elements among us that view the Nazi regime as a good idea, particularly because of the way that government treated the Jews.
Syria’s present tyrant-ruler is one such admirer of the Nazi attitude toward God’s chosen people. Like all Muslim states of the radical sort–and it’s difficult to find one that isn’t radical—the brutal Syrian dictatorship of Bashar Al-Assad, successor to his father, Hafez Al-Assad, hates Jews with satanic passion and has Israel in its crosshairs for annihilation. For this reason it can be said with certainty that, barring repentance, the Syrian leader and his ilk are in for some very rough times indeed. God’s Word says about the people of earth and their treatment of Abraham’s progeny: “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 12:3).
But, it is not the Jews alone that the Syrian dictator comes against with luciferian anger. He slaughters anyone who would defy his self-anointed right to rule with an iron fist of oppression. He is doing so with abandon these days, even in the face of pressure–although milquetoast pressure—by the international community.
The world of opposition to what’s going on in Damascus and surrounding area is of the spineless sort because of threats from Russia and China. Putin and the Chinese leadership have made it clear that any military action to put Assad out of power will be met with Russian and Chinese force. It is much like in the cold-war days when the Soviets and the Maoists held the nuclear threat over the heads of the world’s diplomatic community.
As the death tolls rise with Assad’s military murdering people in plain view, yet blaming the opposition rebel forces of perpetrating the killings, the international community sends the likes of former U.N. head, Kofi Annan, to plead with the Syrian dictator to stop the genocide.
During his meetings, Annan renewed an appeal to the Assad regime to end the violence against its people. Annan said he expressed the international community's concerns about the government attacks, including last week's slaughter in Houla.
"We are at a tipping point," Annan said. "The Syrian people do not want the future to be one of bloodshed and division. Yet the killings continue and the abuses are still with us today."
Eleven nations, including the United States, said they are expelling Syrian envoys in a coordinated action over the killings. Besides the United States, Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and Canada announced that they are expelling some Syrian diplomats. ("13 Bound Bodies Found in Eastern Syria," UPI.com, 5/30/12)
There seems no chance of a Jonah-Nineveh sort of repentance by Assad and his ruling henchmen. We can say with certainty, then, that God’s judgment is on its way to Syria. But, it’s not just the fact that God will judge anyone who hates Abraham’s seed, or that judgment will come because of the obvious sins of the regime in murdering the Syrian people. We can know with certainty God’s judgment is coming because of the prophecy, with which most Bible prophecy students are familiar.
“Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap” (Isaiah 17:1). Damascus’ cup of wrath is about to be poured by the mighty hand of God. But, lest the rest of the world think this city that harbors most every Islamist terrorist organization that is blood-vowed to destroy Israel is alone in the prophetic promise to drink of that cup of wrath, consider again the following forewarning to all cities of earth: “And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath” (Revelation 16:19).
--Terry
Full article:
http://raptureready.com/rap16.html
Wednesday, June 06, 2012
Wiretaps show 'immense detail' about questionable Fast & Furious tactics
FoxNews.com
A House investigative committee said Tuesday it has obtained new information from wiretaps related to the Obama administration’s Operation Fast and Furious that suggests high-ranking officials know more than they are telling Congress about the flawed weapons sting.
The announcement appears to be the latest attempt by GOP Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, to press U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder into providing Congress with more information about the operation and an account of which officials knew about any problems -- and when.
“The wiretap applications show that immense detail about questionable investigative tactics was available to the senior officials who reviewed and authorized them,” Issa said in a June 5 letter to Holder. “The close involvement of these officials -- much greater than previously known -- is shocking.”
The targets of "Fast and Furious" bought nearly 2,000 weapons over several months. For reasons that are still in dispute, most of those weapons were never followed. High-powered weapons tied to the investigation ended up at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States, including the December 2010 murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
The wiretaps were intended to allow investigators in Arizona to listen to the phone calls of suspects as part of the strategy to reveal evidence of involvement by high-level Mexican cartel associates. The six applications for wiretaps, which have been sealed by a federal judge, detail specific actions taken by agents involved in the operation, the GOP-controlled committee said in a statement.
The information shows the officials made “conscious decisions” not to interdict weapons that agents knew were illegally purchased by smugglers taking weapons to Mexico, according to the statement.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House oversight committee, said Tuesday that he is concerned about Issa's possible mis-characterization of the "contents and significance" of the wiretap- related documents.
In a 10-page letter, Cummings tells Issa that he omitted a critical fact and that the omission "completely undermines your conclusion." The information in dispute was redacted.
Cummings also said the "undisputed fact" before the committee is that senior Justice Department officials never saw the wiretap applications. Cummings says the summaries of the applications were prepared by federal attorneys and reviewed by deputy assistant attorneys general, standard practice in previous Democrat and Republican administrations.
Holder has said he has given congressional investigators all of the relevant information.
Issa, R-Calif., issues a subpoena in October 2011 for the remaining documents and last month asked House Speaker John Boehner to support his plans to hold Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to meet the subpoena deadline.
The committee also said the information in the wiretaps had been requested in the subpoena. The content of the wiretaps cannot be made public because they are sealed.
The Justice Department said it cannot comment on the contents of court-sealed applications but directly challenged Issa and expressed concern about documents related to ongoing criminal cases being leaked.
“Chairman Issa continues to distort the facts and ignore the law," said agency spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler. “Senior Justice Department officials were not aware of the flawed tactics in Fast and Furious until they became public in early 2011."
Schmaler said the unauthorized disclosure of such materials is illegal.
"The committee also knows full well that Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer did not review the wiretap applications in Fast and Furious," she said. "That does not stop the committee, however, from falsely asserting ...Breuer was 'responsible for' authorizing them."
Mike Levine contributed to this report.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/05/issa-wiretaps-show-immense-detail-about-questionable-fast-furious-tactics/print#ixzz1x1XQTIoj
Monday, June 04, 2012
What We're Fighting For?
The difference between liberty and freedom.
By GEOFFREY NUNBERG
WHAT exactly are we fighting for? In his speech to the nation on Wednesday, President Bush said it was to "defend our freedom" and "bring freedom to others." Nowadays, Americans always go to war under the banner of freedom, ours or theirs: Operation Iraqi Freedom follows Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.
There was a time when the campaign would have been fought in the name of liberty. The recent efforts to rebaptize French fries as "freedom fries" contrast with the World War I renaming of sauerkraut as "liberty cabbage" and dachshunds as "liberty dogs." Freedom fries may have owed something to alliteration, but liberty was much more prominent in the patriotic lexicon back then than it is now. Americans bought liberty bonds and planted liberty gardens; factories turned out liberty trucks and liberty aircraft engines.
If it ever came to all that today, it's a safe bet that we would be talking about freedom bonds and freedom trucks. For that matter, a modern patriot who was writing the Pledge of Allegiance from scratch would probably conclude it "with freedom and justice for all."
This shift from liberty to freedom is a subtle one, which few other languages would even be able to express. The French national motto is usually translated as "Liberty, equality, fraternity," but liberté could as easily be translated as freedom.
Even in English, the words can sometimes seem to be equivalent. The philosopher Isaiah Berlin used them more or less interchangeably in his essay "Two Concepts of Liberty," and so did the historian Eric Foner in his "Story of American Freedom," which traces the evolution of the concept from Colonial times. Indeed, the words are often incanted in the same breath. "The issue is freedom and liberty," Mr. Bush said a few days before the war began. Or as the Grateful Dead said, "Ooo, freedom/ Ooo, liberty/ Ooo, leave me alone."
But English hasn't taken the trouble to retain all those pairs of Anglo-Saxon and Latin near synonyms just so its thesauruses could be heftier. There's a difference between friendship and amity, or a paternal manner and a fatherly one.
Liberty and freedom are distinct, as well. As the political theorist Hanna Fenichel Pitkin has observed, liberty implies a system of rules, a "network of restraint and order," hence the word's close association with political life. Freedom has a more general meaning, which ranges from an opposition to slavery to the absence of psychological or personal encumbrances (no one would describe liberty as another name for nothing left to lose).
But the two words have been continually redefined over the centuries, as Americans contested the basic notion of what it means to be free. For the founders of the nation, liberty was the fundamental American value. That was a legacy of the conception of "English liberty," with which Britons proudly distinguished themselves from the slavish peoples of the Continent who were unprotected from the arbitrary power of the state. Echoing John Locke, the Declaration of Independence speaks of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The text doesn't mention freedom at all. It was liberty that Patrick Henry declared himself willing to die for, and liberty that the ringing bell in Philadelphia proclaimed on July 8, 1776.
Liberty remained the dominant patriotic theme for the following 150 years, even if freedom played an important role, particularly in the debates over slavery. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address began by invoking a nation "conceived in liberty," but went on to resolve that it should have a "new birth of freedom."
But "freedom" didn't really come into its own until the New Deal period, when the defining American values were augmented to include the economic and social justice that permitted people free development as human beings. Of Roosevelt's Four Freedoms — of speech, of religion, from want and from fear — only the first two might have been expressed using "liberty.'
What's the U.S. fighting for? In the patriotic vocabulary, one word is being invoked.
The civil rights movement made "freedom now" its rallying cry. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used "freedom" 19 times in his "I Have a Dream" speech, and liberty only twice. Feminists extended freedom to cover reproductive rights, while Timothy Leary spoke of the "fifth freedom . . . the freedom to expand your own consciousness."
But as Professor Foner has observed, freedom is too central in the American consciousness to remain the property of one political side. The conservative reclaiming of the word began during the cold war, when it was expanded to include the benefits of free markets and the consumer choices they provided. Then, too, freedom was a conveniently vague label used to describe free-world allies like Franco's Spain, whose commitment to liberty was questionable.
President Ronald Reagan understood the power that "freedom" had acquired. His second Inaugural Address mentioned freedom 14 times and liberty only once. But in the mouth of Mr. Reagan and other conservatives, freedom conveyed what Isaiah Berlin called its negative sense, an absence of constraints on markets and individual action. Mr. Reagan's program of "economic freedom" included deregulation, tax cuts and a weakening of unions, which earlier conservatives had championed in the name of the "liberty of employers."
The invocation of freedom became as reflexive for the right as it had been for New Deal Democrats and those in the civil rights movement. Opponents of civil rights legislation appealed to "freedom of association," and opponents of affirmative action have spoken of "freedom from race." On the National Rifle Association's Web site, the word freedom is three times as frequent as the word liberty.
But as the expanding use of "freedom" makes every policy and program a part of the national mission, "liberty" has receded from the patriotic vocabulary. If we still venerate the word now, it's less as a rallying cry than as a stand-in for the legalistic niceties that the founders took such trouble over. That's why the word still comes up when the conversation turns to the domestic war on terrorism, whether in the expression "civil liberties" or standing alone.
Lately, Bush administration figures have been trying to wrest the word from the critics of their homeland security measures.
When a special appeals court upheld the wiretap provisions of the USA Patriot Act a few months ago, Attorney General John Ashcroft called the decision "a victory for liberty, safety and the security of the American people." And last week, the secretary of homeland security, Tom Ridge, announced Operation Liberty Shield, which will step up surveillance of those suspected of terrorist ties and authorize indefinite detention of asylum-seekers from certain nations.
BUT many still hold that liberty and safety, like guns and butter, are notions that are more appropriately opposed than conjoined. They're mindful of Benjamin Franklin's warning that "they that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Right now, "Iraqi Freedom" conveys something more basic than "American freedom" suggests — it is simply emancipation from tyranny, not a choice of S.U.V.'s or an end to double taxation of dividends. The Iraqis may someday enjoy those more advanced varieties of freedom. Ultimately, they may even enjoy liberty. But that will require more time, and as we have had ample opportunity to learn, eternal vigilance.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company. Reprinted from The Sunday New York Times, Week in Review, of March 23, 2003.
By GEOFFREY NUNBERG
WHAT exactly are we fighting for? In his speech to the nation on Wednesday, President Bush said it was to "defend our freedom" and "bring freedom to others." Nowadays, Americans always go to war under the banner of freedom, ours or theirs: Operation Iraqi Freedom follows Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.
There was a time when the campaign would have been fought in the name of liberty. The recent efforts to rebaptize French fries as "freedom fries" contrast with the World War I renaming of sauerkraut as "liberty cabbage" and dachshunds as "liberty dogs." Freedom fries may have owed something to alliteration, but liberty was much more prominent in the patriotic lexicon back then than it is now. Americans bought liberty bonds and planted liberty gardens; factories turned out liberty trucks and liberty aircraft engines.
If it ever came to all that today, it's a safe bet that we would be talking about freedom bonds and freedom trucks. For that matter, a modern patriot who was writing the Pledge of Allegiance from scratch would probably conclude it "with freedom and justice for all."
This shift from liberty to freedom is a subtle one, which few other languages would even be able to express. The French national motto is usually translated as "Liberty, equality, fraternity," but liberté could as easily be translated as freedom.
Even in English, the words can sometimes seem to be equivalent. The philosopher Isaiah Berlin used them more or less interchangeably in his essay "Two Concepts of Liberty," and so did the historian Eric Foner in his "Story of American Freedom," which traces the evolution of the concept from Colonial times. Indeed, the words are often incanted in the same breath. "The issue is freedom and liberty," Mr. Bush said a few days before the war began. Or as the Grateful Dead said, "Ooo, freedom/ Ooo, liberty/ Ooo, leave me alone."
But English hasn't taken the trouble to retain all those pairs of Anglo-Saxon and Latin near synonyms just so its thesauruses could be heftier. There's a difference between friendship and amity, or a paternal manner and a fatherly one.
Liberty and freedom are distinct, as well. As the political theorist Hanna Fenichel Pitkin has observed, liberty implies a system of rules, a "network of restraint and order," hence the word's close association with political life. Freedom has a more general meaning, which ranges from an opposition to slavery to the absence of psychological or personal encumbrances (no one would describe liberty as another name for nothing left to lose).
But the two words have been continually redefined over the centuries, as Americans contested the basic notion of what it means to be free. For the founders of the nation, liberty was the fundamental American value. That was a legacy of the conception of "English liberty," with which Britons proudly distinguished themselves from the slavish peoples of the Continent who were unprotected from the arbitrary power of the state. Echoing John Locke, the Declaration of Independence speaks of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The text doesn't mention freedom at all. It was liberty that Patrick Henry declared himself willing to die for, and liberty that the ringing bell in Philadelphia proclaimed on July 8, 1776.
Liberty remained the dominant patriotic theme for the following 150 years, even if freedom played an important role, particularly in the debates over slavery. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address began by invoking a nation "conceived in liberty," but went on to resolve that it should have a "new birth of freedom."
But "freedom" didn't really come into its own until the New Deal period, when the defining American values were augmented to include the economic and social justice that permitted people free development as human beings. Of Roosevelt's Four Freedoms — of speech, of religion, from want and from fear — only the first two might have been expressed using "liberty.'
What's the U.S. fighting for? In the patriotic vocabulary, one word is being invoked.
The civil rights movement made "freedom now" its rallying cry. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used "freedom" 19 times in his "I Have a Dream" speech, and liberty only twice. Feminists extended freedom to cover reproductive rights, while Timothy Leary spoke of the "fifth freedom . . . the freedom to expand your own consciousness."
But as Professor Foner has observed, freedom is too central in the American consciousness to remain the property of one political side. The conservative reclaiming of the word began during the cold war, when it was expanded to include the benefits of free markets and the consumer choices they provided. Then, too, freedom was a conveniently vague label used to describe free-world allies like Franco's Spain, whose commitment to liberty was questionable.
President Ronald Reagan understood the power that "freedom" had acquired. His second Inaugural Address mentioned freedom 14 times and liberty only once. But in the mouth of Mr. Reagan and other conservatives, freedom conveyed what Isaiah Berlin called its negative sense, an absence of constraints on markets and individual action. Mr. Reagan's program of "economic freedom" included deregulation, tax cuts and a weakening of unions, which earlier conservatives had championed in the name of the "liberty of employers."
The invocation of freedom became as reflexive for the right as it had been for New Deal Democrats and those in the civil rights movement. Opponents of civil rights legislation appealed to "freedom of association," and opponents of affirmative action have spoken of "freedom from race." On the National Rifle Association's Web site, the word freedom is three times as frequent as the word liberty.
But as the expanding use of "freedom" makes every policy and program a part of the national mission, "liberty" has receded from the patriotic vocabulary. If we still venerate the word now, it's less as a rallying cry than as a stand-in for the legalistic niceties that the founders took such trouble over. That's why the word still comes up when the conversation turns to the domestic war on terrorism, whether in the expression "civil liberties" or standing alone.
Lately, Bush administration figures have been trying to wrest the word from the critics of their homeland security measures.
When a special appeals court upheld the wiretap provisions of the USA Patriot Act a few months ago, Attorney General John Ashcroft called the decision "a victory for liberty, safety and the security of the American people." And last week, the secretary of homeland security, Tom Ridge, announced Operation Liberty Shield, which will step up surveillance of those suspected of terrorist ties and authorize indefinite detention of asylum-seekers from certain nations.
BUT many still hold that liberty and safety, like guns and butter, are notions that are more appropriately opposed than conjoined. They're mindful of Benjamin Franklin's warning that "they that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Right now, "Iraqi Freedom" conveys something more basic than "American freedom" suggests — it is simply emancipation from tyranny, not a choice of S.U.V.'s or an end to double taxation of dividends. The Iraqis may someday enjoy those more advanced varieties of freedom. Ultimately, they may even enjoy liberty. But that will require more time, and as we have had ample opportunity to learn, eternal vigilance.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company. Reprinted from The Sunday New York Times, Week in Review, of March 23, 2003.
Friday, June 01, 2012
Cornerstone Laid for Skyscraper at Ground Zero
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
Published: July 4, 2004
In an Independence Day ceremony with fluttering American flags and the wail of police bagpipes, a sparkling 20-ton block of granite was laid today as the cornerstone of the Freedom Tower skyscraper that will rise as the centerpiece of rebuilding at the World Trade Center site.
Gov. George E. Pataki of New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. James E. McGreevey of New Jersey watched from a stage with an audience including families of victims and survivors of the Sept. 11 attacks, as a crane heaved the block into a recess carved into the 70-foot-deep foundation.
Applause went up as the stone came to rest, guided by men in hard hats, onto a timber platform.
Morris Robinson, an opera singer, broke into an unaccompanied rendition of "God Bless America."
"I cannot imagine a more appropriate day to stand on this sacred ground and lay a cornerstone dedicated to freedom, the defining principle of our nation and the reason that we were attacked on September 11, 2001," Mr. Bloomberg said.
As the first piece of foundation, the cornerstone ceremony symbolized the start of construction of the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower, which will serve as the centerpiece structure for the rebuilding of the trade center site.
"Today we take 20 tons of Adirondack granite — the bedrock of our state — and place it as the foundation, the bedrock, of this new symbol of American strength and confidence," Mr. Pataki said.
"Today, we lay the cornerstone for a new symbol of this city and of this country, and of our resolve to triumph in the face of terror," he said.
The event was infused with religious and historical symbolism and references. A rabbi, a priest and a Muslim Imam stood together on the stage, giving speeches to emphasize religious unity.
A 13-year-old boy, Julian Davis, whose father, Clinton Davis, was killed in the attack while trying to evacuate people, read the passage from the Declaration of Independence that proclaimed equality for all.
The granite stone was flecked with the New York state gemstone, garnet, that reflected light off its facets. It is inscribed:
"To honor and remember those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001 and as a tribute to the enduring spirit of freedom — July Fourth, 2004."
After the ceremony people in the audience crowded around the stone to photograph and examine it.
Among those at the ceremony were three generations of Sheila Kaufman's family. The 44-year-old Port Authority employee was a survivor of the attacks, escaping from the 73rd floor before the first tower collapsed. She held hands with people who made it out with her. On her way down, she saw others who did not.
When she reached the lobby, she could hear a thump which she only later realized was the sound of people who had jumped or fallen, hitting the ground.
Mrs. Kaufman held her 10-month-old daughter, Kayla, as she inspected the stone up close. She came to the ceremony for her children, she said.
"For them to be part of history," she said, standing near her young son Gabriel. "And the re-birth."
The Freedom Tower skyscraper will include about 60,000 square feet of retail space at its base, followed by 2.6 million square feet of office space on 70 stories, topped by three stories including an observation deck and restaurants. Above the enclosed portion will be an open-air structure with wind turbines and television antennas. The governor's office is a prospective tenant. Occupancy is expected in late 2008.
The cost of the tower, apart from the infrastructure below, is estimated at $1 billion to $1.3 billion.
The developer, World Trade Center Properties, an affiliate of Larry A. Silverstein's Silverstein Properties, says it will be financed with insurance proceeds, but the total pool available to Mr. Silverstein has shrunk because of his losses in a legal battle with insurers.
Police employ Predator drone spy planes on home front
Unmanned aircraft from an Air Force base in North Dakota help local police with surveillance, raising questions that trouble privacy advocates.
Reporting from Washington — Armed with a search warrant, Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke went looking for six missing cows on the Brossart family farm in the early evening of June 23. Three men brandishing rifles chased him off, he said.
Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.
He also called in a Predator B drone.
As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.
But that was just the start. Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.
"We don't use [drones] on every call out," said Bill Macki, head of the police SWAT team in Grand Forks. "If we have something in town like an apartment complex, we don't call them."
The drones belong to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which operates eight Predators on the country's northern and southwestern borders to search for illegal immigrants and smugglers. The previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate.
As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.
But that was just the start. Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.
"We don't use [drones] on every call out," said Bill Macki, head of the police SWAT team in Grand Forks. "If we have something in town like an apartment complex, we don't call them."
The drones belong to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which operates eight Predators on the country's northern and southwestern borders to search for illegal immigrants and smugglers. The previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate.
Full article:
http://articles.latimes.com/print/2011/dec/10/nation/la-na-drone-arrest-20111211
Highly addictive drug blamed for cannibal attack in Miami a growing threat
Josh Visser May 30, 2012 – 4:48 PM ET
The new synthetic drug being blamed for a horrific attack in Miami in which a naked man chewed the face off of a victim in broad daylight has become popular in parts of the Maritimes and has health officials warning of the drug’s violent consequences.
Rudy Eugene, 31, was shot dead by Miami police after he refused to stop chewing on the face of his victim, 65-year-old Ronald Poppo. Poppo remains in critical condition. Local reports said most of the man’s face was gone — his nose bitten, his eyes gouged, his skin ripped away. All that remains intact was the victim’s goatee, according to the Miami Herald.
U.S. health authorities say bath salts popularity was noted by doctors to rise significantly throughout late 2010 and into 2011.
“Bath salts” — as the drug is known by on the streets — are much more dangerous than than the impression that their innocuous-sounding name leaves. Made with the active agent of either Methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDVP), mephedrone or methylone, it can result in an aggressive, chaotic response in the user, combined with intense hallucinations and extreme euphoria. It has been compared to a mix of cocaine and amphetamine.
Greg Purvis, director of Addiction Services for the Pictou, Colchester East Hants and Cumberland county health authorities in northern Nova Scotia, called the drug the most dangerous new product he’s seen in his career.
“I’ve been working in addictions for 19 years . . . and this is the first drug which really has me concerned,” he said in a telephone interview.
Since April, he says emergency rooms in Nova Scotia have had at least three cases a week of patients on bath salts, usually brought there by police.
“We are concerned about bath salts because in an unusually short period of time, anywhere from one month to two months, folks are going from using this drug to having very severe, negative consequences.
“Negative side-effects that we are seeing; Hallucinations, delusions, psychosis, being awake for one to two weeks straight with very little rest. Kidney failure. Aggressiveness, combativeness and extreme paranoia.
“And the police and emergency physicians are having problems because this is a stimulant similar to speed and you are having that amped-up extra strength and aggression and these folks are experiencing psychosis, so they don’t really know what’s going on. Imagine that in the back of your squad car.”
Purvis says while the drug became an issue in Europe two years ago, it wasn’t until this spring that health and law authorities started noticing it becoming a problem in the Maritimes.
Dr. Nancy Murphy, medical director of the IWK Regional Poison Centre and an emergency physician in Halifax, was the first doctor to encounter the drug in the Maritime’s largest city.
She said what sets bath salts apart from other amphetamines is the “degree of the psychiatric effects.
“People get this profound distortion of reality and get very paranoid and this is leading sometimes to very aggressive behavior and even to physical violence,” she said.
‘Because this is a stimulant similar to speed you are having that amped-up extra strength and aggression’
Dr. Murphy said the main focus for emergency physicians to to try to calm down bath salts users but they sometimes have to resort to using restraints while sedating them.
“You want to avoid them harming police, health-care staff and themselves, and sometimes in order to do that you have to intervene quite quickly and aggressively,” she said.
She added that there’s a number of medical side-effects in bath salt patients, including elevated core body temperatures, heart problems and muscle deterioration.
Part of what makes the drug so dangerous is that is cheap to produce and highly addictive.
Purvis says a user told him while $150 could keep him high on cocaine for five hours, $150 could keep him high on bath salts for a day and a half.
Full article:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/30/highly-addictive-drug-blamed-for-cannibal-like-attack-a-growing-threat-in-maritime-canada/
UPDATE!!!!! Something more is going on, they are just using the whole "bath salts" thing as a diversion!!!
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/27/2871098/mes-report-eugene-had-no-drugs.html
The new synthetic drug being blamed for a horrific attack in Miami in which a naked man chewed the face off of a victim in broad daylight has become popular in parts of the Maritimes and has health officials warning of the drug’s violent consequences.
Rudy Eugene, 31, was shot dead by Miami police after he refused to stop chewing on the face of his victim, 65-year-old Ronald Poppo. Poppo remains in critical condition. Local reports said most of the man’s face was gone — his nose bitten, his eyes gouged, his skin ripped away. All that remains intact was the victim’s goatee, according to the Miami Herald.
U.S. health authorities say bath salts popularity was noted by doctors to rise significantly throughout late 2010 and into 2011.
“Bath salts” — as the drug is known by on the streets — are much more dangerous than than the impression that their innocuous-sounding name leaves. Made with the active agent of either Methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDVP), mephedrone or methylone, it can result in an aggressive, chaotic response in the user, combined with intense hallucinations and extreme euphoria. It has been compared to a mix of cocaine and amphetamine.
Greg Purvis, director of Addiction Services for the Pictou, Colchester East Hants and Cumberland county health authorities in northern Nova Scotia, called the drug the most dangerous new product he’s seen in his career.
“I’ve been working in addictions for 19 years . . . and this is the first drug which really has me concerned,” he said in a telephone interview.
Since April, he says emergency rooms in Nova Scotia have had at least three cases a week of patients on bath salts, usually brought there by police.
“We are concerned about bath salts because in an unusually short period of time, anywhere from one month to two months, folks are going from using this drug to having very severe, negative consequences.
“Negative side-effects that we are seeing; Hallucinations, delusions, psychosis, being awake for one to two weeks straight with very little rest. Kidney failure. Aggressiveness, combativeness and extreme paranoia.
“And the police and emergency physicians are having problems because this is a stimulant similar to speed and you are having that amped-up extra strength and aggression and these folks are experiencing psychosis, so they don’t really know what’s going on. Imagine that in the back of your squad car.”
Purvis says while the drug became an issue in Europe two years ago, it wasn’t until this spring that health and law authorities started noticing it becoming a problem in the Maritimes.
Dr. Nancy Murphy, medical director of the IWK Regional Poison Centre and an emergency physician in Halifax, was the first doctor to encounter the drug in the Maritime’s largest city.
She said what sets bath salts apart from other amphetamines is the “degree of the psychiatric effects.
“People get this profound distortion of reality and get very paranoid and this is leading sometimes to very aggressive behavior and even to physical violence,” she said.
‘Because this is a stimulant similar to speed you are having that amped-up extra strength and aggression’
Dr. Murphy said the main focus for emergency physicians to to try to calm down bath salts users but they sometimes have to resort to using restraints while sedating them.
“You want to avoid them harming police, health-care staff and themselves, and sometimes in order to do that you have to intervene quite quickly and aggressively,” she said.
She added that there’s a number of medical side-effects in bath salt patients, including elevated core body temperatures, heart problems and muscle deterioration.
Part of what makes the drug so dangerous is that is cheap to produce and highly addictive.
Purvis says a user told him while $150 could keep him high on cocaine for five hours, $150 could keep him high on bath salts for a day and a half.
Full article:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/30/highly-addictive-drug-blamed-for-cannibal-like-attack-a-growing-threat-in-maritime-canada/
UPDATE!!!!! Something more is going on, they are just using the whole "bath salts" thing as a diversion!!!
No bath salts detected: Causeway attacker Rudy Eugene had only pot in his system, medical examiner reports
An autopsy report says testing for a number of street drugs, including “bath salts,” came back negative, and that Rudy Eugene had only marijuana in his system.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/27/2871098/mes-report-eugene-had-no-drugs.html
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Evidence of Obama's Faith
Acts of hostility toward people of Biblical faith
• April 2008– Obama speaks disrespectfully of Christians, saying they “cling to guns or religion” and have an “antipathy to people who aren’t like them.”
• February 2009- Obama announces plans to revoke conscience protection for health workers who refuse to participate in medical activities that go against their beliefs, and fully implements the plan in February 2011.
• April 2009– When speaking at Georgetown University, Obama orders that a monogram symbolizing Jesus’ name be covered when he is making his speech.
• May 2009 – Obama declines to host services for the National Prayer Day (a day established by federal law) at the White House.
• April 2009 – In a deliberate act of disrespect, Obama nominated three pro-abortion ambassadors to the Vatican; of course, the pro-life Vatican rejected all three.
• October 19, 2010 – Obama begins deliberately omitting the phrase about “the Creator” when quoting the Declaration of Independence – an omission he has made on no less than seven occasions.
• November 2010 – Obama misquotes the National Motto, saying it is “E pluribus unum” rather than “In God We Trust” as established by federal law.
• January 2011 – After a federal law was passed to transfer a WWI Memorial in the Mojave Desert to private ownership, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the cross in the memorial could continue to stand, but the Obama administration refused to allow the land to be transferred as required by law, and refused to allow the cross to be re-erected as ordered by the Court.
• February 2011 – Although he filled posts in the State Department, for more than two years Obama did not fill the post of religious freedom ambassador, an official that works against religious persecution across the world; he filled it only after heavy pressure from the public and from Congress.
• April 2011 – For the first time in American history, Obama urges passage of a non-discrimination law that does not contain hiring protections for religious groups, forcing religious organizations to hire according to federal mandates without regard to the dictates of their own faith, thus eliminating conscience protection in hiring.
• August 2011 – The Obama administration releases its new health care rules that override religious conscience protections for medical workers in the areas of abortion and contraception.
• November 2011 – Obama opposes inclusion of President Franklin Roosevelt’s famous D-Day Prayer in the WWII Memorial.
• November 2011 – Unlike previous presidents, Obama studiously avoids any religious references in his Thanksgiving speech.
• December 2011 – The Obama administration denigrates other countries’ religious beliefs as an obstacle to radical homosexual rights.
• January 2012 – The Obama administration argues that the First Amendment provides no protection for churches and synagogues in hiring their pastors and rabbis.
• February 2012 – The Obama administration forgives student loans in exchange for public service, but announces it will no longer forgive student loans if the public service is related to religion.
Acts of hostility from the military (with Obama as Commander in Chief) toward people of Biblical faith:
• June 2011 – The Department of Veterans Affairs forbids references to God and Jesus during burial ceremonies at Houston National Cemetery.
• August 2011 – The Air Force stops teaching the Just War theory to officers in California because the course is taught by chaplains and is based on a philosophy introduced by St. Augustine in the third century AD – a theory long taught by civilized nations across the world (except America).
• September 2011 – Air Force Chief of Staff prohibits commanders from notifying airmen of programs and services available to them from chaplains.
• September 2011 – The Army issues guidelines for Walter Reed Medical Center stipulating that “No religious items (i.e. Bibles, reading materials and/or facts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit.”
• November 2011 – The Air Force Academy rescinds support for Operation Christmas Child, a program to send holiday gifts to impoverished children across the world, because the program is run by a Christian charity.
• November 2011 – The Air Force Academy pays $80,000 to add a Stonehenge-like worship center for pagans, druids, witches and Wiccans.
• February 2012 – The U. S. Military Academy at West Point disinvites three star Army general and decorated war hero Lieutenant General William G. (“Jerry”) Boykin (retired) from speaking at an event because he is an outspoken Christian.
• February 2012 – The Air Force removes “God” from the patch of Rapid Capabilities Office (the word on the patch was in Latin: Dei).
• February 2012 – The Army orders Catholic chaplains not to read a letter to parishioners that their archbishop asked them to read.
• April 2008– Obama speaks disrespectfully of Christians, saying they “cling to guns or religion” and have an “antipathy to people who aren’t like them.”
• February 2009- Obama announces plans to revoke conscience protection for health workers who refuse to participate in medical activities that go against their beliefs, and fully implements the plan in February 2011.
• April 2009– When speaking at Georgetown University, Obama orders that a monogram symbolizing Jesus’ name be covered when he is making his speech.
• May 2009 – Obama declines to host services for the National Prayer Day (a day established by federal law) at the White House.
• April 2009 – In a deliberate act of disrespect, Obama nominated three pro-abortion ambassadors to the Vatican; of course, the pro-life Vatican rejected all three.
• October 19, 2010 – Obama begins deliberately omitting the phrase about “the Creator” when quoting the Declaration of Independence – an omission he has made on no less than seven occasions.
• November 2010 – Obama misquotes the National Motto, saying it is “E pluribus unum” rather than “In God We Trust” as established by federal law.
• January 2011 – After a federal law was passed to transfer a WWI Memorial in the Mojave Desert to private ownership, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the cross in the memorial could continue to stand, but the Obama administration refused to allow the land to be transferred as required by law, and refused to allow the cross to be re-erected as ordered by the Court.
• February 2011 – Although he filled posts in the State Department, for more than two years Obama did not fill the post of religious freedom ambassador, an official that works against religious persecution across the world; he filled it only after heavy pressure from the public and from Congress.
• April 2011 – For the first time in American history, Obama urges passage of a non-discrimination law that does not contain hiring protections for religious groups, forcing religious organizations to hire according to federal mandates without regard to the dictates of their own faith, thus eliminating conscience protection in hiring.
• August 2011 – The Obama administration releases its new health care rules that override religious conscience protections for medical workers in the areas of abortion and contraception.
• November 2011 – Obama opposes inclusion of President Franklin Roosevelt’s famous D-Day Prayer in the WWII Memorial.
• November 2011 – Unlike previous presidents, Obama studiously avoids any religious references in his Thanksgiving speech.
• December 2011 – The Obama administration denigrates other countries’ religious beliefs as an obstacle to radical homosexual rights.
• January 2012 – The Obama administration argues that the First Amendment provides no protection for churches and synagogues in hiring their pastors and rabbis.
• February 2012 – The Obama administration forgives student loans in exchange for public service, but announces it will no longer forgive student loans if the public service is related to religion.
Acts of hostility from the military (with Obama as Commander in Chief) toward people of Biblical faith:
• June 2011 – The Department of Veterans Affairs forbids references to God and Jesus during burial ceremonies at Houston National Cemetery.
• August 2011 – The Air Force stops teaching the Just War theory to officers in California because the course is taught by chaplains and is based on a philosophy introduced by St. Augustine in the third century AD – a theory long taught by civilized nations across the world (except America).
• September 2011 – Air Force Chief of Staff prohibits commanders from notifying airmen of programs and services available to them from chaplains.
• September 2011 – The Army issues guidelines for Walter Reed Medical Center stipulating that “No religious items (i.e. Bibles, reading materials and/or facts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit.”
• November 2011 – The Air Force Academy rescinds support for Operation Christmas Child, a program to send holiday gifts to impoverished children across the world, because the program is run by a Christian charity.
• November 2011 – The Air Force Academy pays $80,000 to add a Stonehenge-like worship center for pagans, druids, witches and Wiccans.
• February 2012 – The U. S. Military Academy at West Point disinvites three star Army general and decorated war hero Lieutenant General William G. (“Jerry”) Boykin (retired) from speaking at an event because he is an outspoken Christian.
• February 2012 – The Air Force removes “God” from the patch of Rapid Capabilities Office (the word on the patch was in Latin: Dei).
• February 2012 – The Army orders Catholic chaplains not to read a letter to parishioners that their archbishop asked them to read.
Friday, May 25, 2012
New Bill Would Make It Legal To Target Propaganda And “Psychological Operations” Directly At U.S. Citizens
Michael Snyder
The American Dream
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Should it be legal for the U.S. government to spend billions of dollars on propaganda designed to change public opinion in the United States? Should it be legal for the U.S. government to use television, radio, newspapers, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and Internet forums to conduct “psychological operations” targeted at the American public?
An amendment that has been added to a new defense bill in Congress would make it legal to target propaganda and “psychological operations” directly at U.S. citizens. The latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act would overturn the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 1987. Those two laws essentially make it illegal for propaganda that is used to influence public opinion overseas to be targeted at U.S. citizens back here at home. If those two laws are struck down, there will be essentially very few limits to what the U.S. government can do to shape our opinions. The government would be able to bombard us with propaganda messages on television, on the radio, in our newspapers and on the Internet and there would not even be a requirement that those messages be true. In fact, just as happens so often overseas, it would likely be inevitable that the government would purposely disseminate misinformation to the American public for the sake of “national security”. That is why it is imperative that this bill not become law.
As an article posted on LegalInsurrection.com correctly noted, this bill has already been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives….
Their bill was included as amendment 114 to the Defense Authorization Act and passed out of the House on Friday, May 18. It would amend two existing acts: the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and the Foreign Relations Authorization Act (1987).
Fortunately, it looks like this amendment might run into some trouble in the U.S. Senate. But during an election year, not many politicians want to appear “soft” when it comes to national security, so it is definitely not a sure thing that the Senate will reject this amendment.
This amendment has been kind of “flying under the radar”, so now would be a good time to contact your U.S. Senators and let them know exactly how you feel about this.
So precisely what would this new amendment do?
A recent article by Michael Hastings of Buzzfeed.com did a good job of explaining how it would change things….
The new law would give sweeping powers to the State Department and Pentagon to push television, radio, newspaper, and social media onto the U.S. public. “It removes the protection for Americans,” says a Pentagon official who is concerned about the law. “It removes oversight from the people who want to put out this information. There are no checks and balances. No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false.”
Do you want the Obama administration to use mass media in the United States to push a particular political or social agenda?
Do you want the State Department and the Pentagon to conduct psychological operations targeted at you, your family and your friends?
Do you want to see and hear government propaganda everywhere you go?
In a previous article I detailed 25 ways that America is becoming more like Nazi Germany, and I suppose I now have another item to add to the list.
Sadly, the government is already “pushing the envelope” when it comes to using the media. In his recent article, Michael Hastings detailed some examples of how the Pentagon is already attempting to shape public opinion in the United States….
In December, the Pentagon used software to monitor the Twitter debate over Bradley Manning’s pre-trial hearing; another program being developed by the Pentagon would design software to create “sock puppets” on social media outlets; and, last year, General William Caldwell, deployed an information operations team under his command that had been trained in psychological operations to influence visiting American politicians to Kabul.
According to U.S. Representative Mac Thornberry, one of the sponsors of the bill, current law “ties the hands of America’s diplomatic officials, military, and others by inhibiting our ability to effectively communicate in a credible way.”
Apparently we cannot think for ourselves and we need the government to help us to see things more clearly.
But when it comes to “psychological operations”, the people that run them do not always play nice.
Just check out what happened recently to two USA Today reporters….
A USA TODAY reporter and editor investigating Pentagon propaganda contractors have themselves been subjected to a propaganda campaign of sorts, waged on the Internet through a series of bogus websites.
Fake Twitter and Facebook accounts have been created in their names, along with a Wikipedia entry and dozens of message board postings and blog comments. Websites were registered in their names.
If this new bill becomes law, there will be very few limits on what the government can do.
And just like the two USA Today reporters, you could end up being a target.
If the government propaganda experts decide that they don’t like you, it is quite likely that you could end up being the target of a massive misinformation campaign.
It could come down to the fact that they simply do not like your blog or what you are saying on Facebook. They could decide that it is best to destroy your reputation for the sake of “national security”.
These kinds of “Big Brother tactics” are absolutely disgusting, but they are becoming part of who we are as a nation.
According to one recent DHS report, if you revere “individual liberty” or if you “believe in conspiracy theories” you are a potential terrorist. And if you are a potential terrorist, then it would only make sense to conduct psychological operations against you before you become an “active” threat.
Sadly, many Americans already act as if they have been brainwashed by propaganda. Recently, a shocking video from North Carolina of a teacher yelling at a high school student and telling him that disrespect of Barack Obama is not permitted in the classroom went viral all over the Internet.
The teacher honestly seemed to believe that it was forbidden to “disrespect” Barack Obama.
That is frightening.
Our founders insisted on a limited federal government for a reason.
They greatly feared what might happen if the federal government became too large and too powerful.
At this point, not only is our freedom of speech under attack, but our freedom of thought is under assault as well.
If we are not very careful, America is going to be turned into a giant prison.
Those of us that still love freedom and liberty must be willing to speak out now before it is too late.
Once our freedoms and liberties are gone they will be incredibly hard to get back.
Full article: http://www.infowars.com/new-bill-would-make-it-legal-to-target-propaganda-and-psychological-operations-directly-at-u-s-citizens/print/
Additional info:
http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/05/move-to-change-propaganda-laws-opens-up-cold-war-argumen/
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/congressmen-seek-to-lift-propaganda-ban
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/20-signs-that-the-nazification-of-america-is-almost-complete
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/congressmen-seek-to-lift-propaganda-ban
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/congressmen-seek-to-lift-propaganda-ban
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-04-19/vanden-brook-locker-propaganda/54419654/1
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/category/big-brother
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/according-to-a-new-dhs-report-if-you-love-individual-liberty-of-if-you-believe-in-conspiracy-theories-you-are-a-potential-terrorist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjpWaESn_9g
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/first-amendment-under-attack-18-examples-of-how-they-are-coming-for-our-free-speech
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/30-signs-that-the-united-states-of-america-is-being-turned-into-a-giant-prison
The American Dream
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Should it be legal for the U.S. government to spend billions of dollars on propaganda designed to change public opinion in the United States? Should it be legal for the U.S. government to use television, radio, newspapers, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and Internet forums to conduct “psychological operations” targeted at the American public?
An amendment that has been added to a new defense bill in Congress would make it legal to target propaganda and “psychological operations” directly at U.S. citizens. The latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act would overturn the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 1987. Those two laws essentially make it illegal for propaganda that is used to influence public opinion overseas to be targeted at U.S. citizens back here at home. If those two laws are struck down, there will be essentially very few limits to what the U.S. government can do to shape our opinions. The government would be able to bombard us with propaganda messages on television, on the radio, in our newspapers and on the Internet and there would not even be a requirement that those messages be true. In fact, just as happens so often overseas, it would likely be inevitable that the government would purposely disseminate misinformation to the American public for the sake of “national security”. That is why it is imperative that this bill not become law.
As an article posted on LegalInsurrection.com correctly noted, this bill has already been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives….
Their bill was included as amendment 114 to the Defense Authorization Act and passed out of the House on Friday, May 18. It would amend two existing acts: the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and the Foreign Relations Authorization Act (1987).
Fortunately, it looks like this amendment might run into some trouble in the U.S. Senate. But during an election year, not many politicians want to appear “soft” when it comes to national security, so it is definitely not a sure thing that the Senate will reject this amendment.
This amendment has been kind of “flying under the radar”, so now would be a good time to contact your U.S. Senators and let them know exactly how you feel about this.
So precisely what would this new amendment do?
A recent article by Michael Hastings of Buzzfeed.com did a good job of explaining how it would change things….
The new law would give sweeping powers to the State Department and Pentagon to push television, radio, newspaper, and social media onto the U.S. public. “It removes the protection for Americans,” says a Pentagon official who is concerned about the law. “It removes oversight from the people who want to put out this information. There are no checks and balances. No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false.”
Do you want the Obama administration to use mass media in the United States to push a particular political or social agenda?
Do you want the State Department and the Pentagon to conduct psychological operations targeted at you, your family and your friends?
Do you want to see and hear government propaganda everywhere you go?
In a previous article I detailed 25 ways that America is becoming more like Nazi Germany, and I suppose I now have another item to add to the list.
Sadly, the government is already “pushing the envelope” when it comes to using the media. In his recent article, Michael Hastings detailed some examples of how the Pentagon is already attempting to shape public opinion in the United States….
In December, the Pentagon used software to monitor the Twitter debate over Bradley Manning’s pre-trial hearing; another program being developed by the Pentagon would design software to create “sock puppets” on social media outlets; and, last year, General William Caldwell, deployed an information operations team under his command that had been trained in psychological operations to influence visiting American politicians to Kabul.
According to U.S. Representative Mac Thornberry, one of the sponsors of the bill, current law “ties the hands of America’s diplomatic officials, military, and others by inhibiting our ability to effectively communicate in a credible way.”
Apparently we cannot think for ourselves and we need the government to help us to see things more clearly.
But when it comes to “psychological operations”, the people that run them do not always play nice.
Just check out what happened recently to two USA Today reporters….
A USA TODAY reporter and editor investigating Pentagon propaganda contractors have themselves been subjected to a propaganda campaign of sorts, waged on the Internet through a series of bogus websites.
Fake Twitter and Facebook accounts have been created in their names, along with a Wikipedia entry and dozens of message board postings and blog comments. Websites were registered in their names.
If this new bill becomes law, there will be very few limits on what the government can do.
And just like the two USA Today reporters, you could end up being a target.
If the government propaganda experts decide that they don’t like you, it is quite likely that you could end up being the target of a massive misinformation campaign.
It could come down to the fact that they simply do not like your blog or what you are saying on Facebook. They could decide that it is best to destroy your reputation for the sake of “national security”.
These kinds of “Big Brother tactics” are absolutely disgusting, but they are becoming part of who we are as a nation.
According to one recent DHS report, if you revere “individual liberty” or if you “believe in conspiracy theories” you are a potential terrorist. And if you are a potential terrorist, then it would only make sense to conduct psychological operations against you before you become an “active” threat.
Sadly, many Americans already act as if they have been brainwashed by propaganda. Recently, a shocking video from North Carolina of a teacher yelling at a high school student and telling him that disrespect of Barack Obama is not permitted in the classroom went viral all over the Internet.
The teacher honestly seemed to believe that it was forbidden to “disrespect” Barack Obama.
That is frightening.
Our founders insisted on a limited federal government for a reason.
They greatly feared what might happen if the federal government became too large and too powerful.
At this point, not only is our freedom of speech under attack, but our freedom of thought is under assault as well.
If we are not very careful, America is going to be turned into a giant prison.
Those of us that still love freedom and liberty must be willing to speak out now before it is too late.
Once our freedoms and liberties are gone they will be incredibly hard to get back.
Full article: http://www.infowars.com/new-bill-would-make-it-legal-to-target-propaganda-and-psychological-operations-directly-at-u-s-citizens/print/
Additional info:
http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/05/move-to-change-propaganda-laws-opens-up-cold-war-argumen/
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/congressmen-seek-to-lift-propaganda-ban
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/20-signs-that-the-nazification-of-america-is-almost-complete
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/congressmen-seek-to-lift-propaganda-ban
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/congressmen-seek-to-lift-propaganda-ban
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-04-19/vanden-brook-locker-propaganda/54419654/1
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/category/big-brother
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/according-to-a-new-dhs-report-if-you-love-individual-liberty-of-if-you-believe-in-conspiracy-theories-you-are-a-potential-terrorist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjpWaESn_9g
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/first-amendment-under-attack-18-examples-of-how-they-are-coming-for-our-free-speech
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/30-signs-that-the-united-states-of-america-is-being-turned-into-a-giant-prison
Thursday, May 24, 2012
China fake parts 'used in US military equipment'
The failure of a single
electronic part in any military plane could pose safety and national security
risks and imposes higher costs on the Pentagon, the report said
Vast numbers of counterfeit Chinese
electronic parts are being used in US military equipment, a key Senate committee
has reported.
A year-long probe found 1,800 cases of fake parts in US military aircraft, the Senate Armed Services Committee said.
More than 70% of an estimated one million suspect parts were traced back to China, the report said.
It blamed weaknesses in the US supply chain, and China's failure to curb the counterfeit market.
The failure of a key part could pose safety and national security risks and lead to higher costs for the Pentagon, the committee said.
US servicemen rely on a variety of "small, incredibly sophisticated electronic components" found in night vision systems, radios and GPS devices and the failure of a single part could put a soldier at risk, the report said.
It highlighted suspect counterfeit parts in SH-60B helicopters used by the Navy, in C-130J and C-27J cargo planes and in the Navy's P-8A Poseidon plane.
After China, the UK and Canada were found to be the next-largest source countries for fake parts.
Continue reading the main story
Report on counterfeit electronic parts US Senate Armed Services Committee
Rather than acknowledging the problem and moving aggressively to shut down counterfeiters, the Chinese government has tried to avoid scrutiny”
'Avoiding scrutiny'
"Counterfeit electronic parts are sold openly in public markets in China," the report said.
"Rather than acknowledging the problem and moving aggressively to shut down counterfeiters, the Chinese government has tried to avoid scrutiny," it added.
But the report said that use of Department of Defense programmes such as the Government-Industry Data Exchange Program (GIDEP), designed to log suspected fake parts, were "woefully lacking".
Between 2009 and 2010 the GIDEP only received 217 reports relating to suspected fake counterfeit components, the majority of which were filed by just six companies, it said. Only 13 reports came from government agencies.
The report also said that in some cases the US defence department had reimbursed contractors for the costs they incurred as a result of their failure to spot fake components in their own supply chain - giving companies no incentive to weed out counterfeits themselves.
But it praised the National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law on 31 December 2011 by President Barack Obama, which aims to stop counterfeit parts from entering the country and would cut down on sourcing components from unknown suppliers.
The report's focus on China comes as the US is beginning the task of "pivoting" its defence strategy towards the Asia-Pacific region.
The Pentagon is also preparing to absorb about $450bn (£285bn) of cuts over the next decade.
But it could face cutbacks of a further $500bn if mandatory across-the-board spending cuts come into effect at the end of 2012, after Congress failed to reach a deficit reduction plan last year.
Full article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18155293?print=true
It doesn't pay to help Obama
Pakistan Gives Bin Laden Hero 33 Years, Obama Does Nothing
Dr. Shakil Afridi was convicted of treason in Pakistan on Wednesday for helping the United States find Osama Bin Laden. In the kind of double game that has been characteristic of the Obama era, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for his release. But where was the administration during Afridi’s arrest and trial?
Dr. Shakil Afridi was convicted of treason in Pakistan on Wednesday for helping the United States find Osama Bin Laden. In the kind of double game that has been characteristic of the Obama era, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for his release. But where was the administration during Afridi’s arrest and trial?
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
EU Super-President?
Ministers ponder creation of EU super-president
BRUSSELS - Ideas kicking around in a reflection group of select EU foreign ministers include merging the roles of the EU Council and European Commission presidents.A senior EU source told this website following a meeting of the club in the Val Duchesse stately home in Brussels on Thursday (19 April) that the new supremo would have more power than either Herman Van Rompuy or Jose Manuel Barroso do today but also more "democratic legitimacy" because he or she would be elected by MEPs.
http://euobserver.com/18/115965
On Indefinite Detention: The Tyranny Continues
Tuesday, May 22, 2012 – by Ron Paul
As Steve Vladeck, of American University's law school, wrote of this amendment:
"[T]he Gohmert Amendment does nothing whatsoever to address the central objections.... [I]t merely provides by statute a remedy that is already available to individuals detained within the United States; and says nothing about the circumstances in which individuals might actually be subject to military detention when arrested within the territory of United States.... Anyone within the United States who was subject to military detention before the FY2013 NDAA would be subject to it afterwards, as well..."
Actually, the amendment in question makes matters worse, as it states that anyone detained on US soil has the right to file a writ of habeas corpus "within 30 days" of arrest. In fact, persons detained on US soil already have the right to file a habeas petition immediately upon arrest!
I co-sponsored an amendment offered by Reps. Adam Smith and Justin Amash that would have repealed the unconstitutional provisions of last year's NDAA by eliminating Section 1022 on mandatory military detention and modifying Section 1021 to make it absolutely clear that no one can be apprehended on US soil and held indefinitely without trial or be held subject to a military tribunal. Our language was clear: "No person detained, captured, or arrested in the United States, or a territory or possession of the United States, may be transferred to the custody of the Armed Forces for detention under the Authorization for Use of Military Force, this Act, or the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013."
The term "person" is key in our amendment, as our Founders did not make a distinction between citizens and non-citizens when determining who was entitled to Constitutional protections. As the father of the Constitution James Madison wrote, "[I]t does not follow, because aliens are not parties to the Constitution, as citizens are parties to it, that whilst they actually conform to it, they have no right to its protection."
We should not forget that our Article III court system is a strength not a weakness. The right to face our accuser, the protections against hearsay evidence, the right to a jury trial – these are designed to protect the innocent and to determine and then punish guilt. And they have been quite successful thus far. Currently there are more than 300 individuals who have been tried and convicted of terrorism-related charges serving lengthy terms in US federal prisons. Each of the six individuals tried in US civilian courts for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center are serving hundreds of years in prison, for example.
Last week was discouraging and disappointing to those of us who value our Constitution. That the US government asserts the legal authority to pick up Americans within the United States and hold them indefinitely and secretly without a trial should be incredibly disturbing to all of us. Americans should check how their representative voted. Politicians should not be allowed to get away with undermining our liberties in this manner.
http://www.thedailybell.com/3909/Ron-Paul-On-Indefinite-Detention-The-Tyranny-Continues
The bad news from last week's passage of the 2013
National Defense Authorization Act is that Americans can still be
arrested on US soil and detained indefinitely without trial. Some of my
colleagues would like us to believe that they fixed last year's infamous
Sections 1021 and 1022 of the NDAA, which codified into law the
unconstitutional notion that some Americans are not subject to the
protections of the Constitution. However, nothing in this year's bill or
amendments to the bill restored those constitutional rights.
Supporters of the one amendment that passed on this matter were
hoping no one would notice that it did absolutely nothing. The amendment
essentially stated that those entitled to habeas corpus protections are
hereby granted habeas corpus protections. Thanks for nothing!As Steve Vladeck, of American University's law school, wrote of this amendment:
"[T]he Gohmert Amendment does nothing whatsoever to address the central objections.... [I]t merely provides by statute a remedy that is already available to individuals detained within the United States; and says nothing about the circumstances in which individuals might actually be subject to military detention when arrested within the territory of United States.... Anyone within the United States who was subject to military detention before the FY2013 NDAA would be subject to it afterwards, as well..."
Actually, the amendment in question makes matters worse, as it states that anyone detained on US soil has the right to file a writ of habeas corpus "within 30 days" of arrest. In fact, persons detained on US soil already have the right to file a habeas petition immediately upon arrest!
I co-sponsored an amendment offered by Reps. Adam Smith and Justin Amash that would have repealed the unconstitutional provisions of last year's NDAA by eliminating Section 1022 on mandatory military detention and modifying Section 1021 to make it absolutely clear that no one can be apprehended on US soil and held indefinitely without trial or be held subject to a military tribunal. Our language was clear: "No person detained, captured, or arrested in the United States, or a territory or possession of the United States, may be transferred to the custody of the Armed Forces for detention under the Authorization for Use of Military Force, this Act, or the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013."
The term "person" is key in our amendment, as our Founders did not make a distinction between citizens and non-citizens when determining who was entitled to Constitutional protections. As the father of the Constitution James Madison wrote, "[I]t does not follow, because aliens are not parties to the Constitution, as citizens are parties to it, that whilst they actually conform to it, they have no right to its protection."
We should not forget that our Article III court system is a strength not a weakness. The right to face our accuser, the protections against hearsay evidence, the right to a jury trial – these are designed to protect the innocent and to determine and then punish guilt. And they have been quite successful thus far. Currently there are more than 300 individuals who have been tried and convicted of terrorism-related charges serving lengthy terms in US federal prisons. Each of the six individuals tried in US civilian courts for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center are serving hundreds of years in prison, for example.
Last week was discouraging and disappointing to those of us who value our Constitution. That the US government asserts the legal authority to pick up Americans within the United States and hold them indefinitely and secretly without a trial should be incredibly disturbing to all of us. Americans should check how their representative voted. Politicians should not be allowed to get away with undermining our liberties in this manner.
http://www.thedailybell.com/3909/Ron-Paul-On-Indefinite-Detention-The-Tyranny-Continues
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Friday, May 11, 2012
Thursday, May 10, 2012
simple answers
They say we
offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a
simple answer—not an easy answer—but simple: If you and I have the
courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy
based on what we know in our hearts is morally right.
-Ronald Reagan, 1964
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Obama becomes 1st president to support gay 'marriage'
bpnews.net
The announcement came one day after North Carolinians overwhelmingly affirmed the traditional definition of marriage. Four other states will consider the issue this year, a year in which Obama is seeking re-election.
Obama seemed to be forced into stating his position after Vice President Joe Biden told NBC's "Meet the Press" three days earlier that he is "comfortable" with gays and lesbians "marrying."
Obama made the announcement during an interview with ABC News' Robin Roberts.
"I've just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married," Obama told Roberts. The full interview will air later Wednesday on ABC's "World News with Diane Sawyer."
Even before Obama was elected, some conservative and liberal pundits scoffed at the suggestion that Obama did not support gay "marriage." For instance, in 2008 he opposed California Prop 8, a constitutional amendment that defined marriage as being between a man and a woman. In 2011 he ordered the Justice Department to stop defending in court the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law that defines marriage in the traditional sense, and he also announced support for a congressional bill that would overturn the law. And this year, his spokespersons announced he opposed proposed constitutional marriage amendments in North Carolina and Minnesota. He's also spoken twice to events held by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay group. Yet all along, the White House maintained he merely was "evolving" on the issue.
Bryant Wright, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, reacted to the news with sadness.
"It is very depressing news when the president of the United States uses his power of influence to endorse same-sex marriage," Wright, pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., told Baptist Press. "... Scripture is very clear that from the beginning, God intended marriage to be between one man and one woman. It is important for us who are followers of Jesus to uphold the sacredness of marriage according to Scripture."
Wright added, "Christians are called to pray for our government leaders, and it is now more important than ever to pray for President Obama in this very misguided decision."
It remains to be seen whether it will cost Obama politically. Although some polls now show majority support for gay "marriage," it has yet to translate to the ballot. North Carolina voters Tuesday passed a constitutional amendment defining marriage between one man and one woman, and the margin of victory -- 61-39 percent -- surprised even supporters. Read More
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
PREPARING FOR MASSIVE CIVIL WAR, RE-EDUCATION CAMPS
PREPARING
FOR MASSIVE CIVIL WAR, RE-EDUCATION CAMPS
[Excerpted]
By:
Devvy
May 8, 2012
NewsWithViews.com
May 8, 2012
NewsWithViews.com
“No
nation ever did nor ever can retain its liberty after the loss of the
sword and the purse.” -- Patrick Henry
The
past few days the Internet has been burning up with these stories:
"A
shocking U.S. Army manual that describes how political activists in prison
camps will be indoctrinated by specially assigned psychological operations
officers contains numerous clear references to the fact that the policies
do apply domestically to U.S. citizens."
Why
this would shock anyone who has been active in fighting the totalitarian
thugs in Washington, DC, is beyond me.
[Excerpted]
Read
this essay I scanned and have linked to over and over trying to get people
to see what was/is coming down the pipeline:
'Our
civilian-military face-off' (Sacramento
Bee, November 30, 1997):
"Bill
of Rights No Obstacle for the [Marine] Corps. This piece exposed the mindset
way back then that at some point due to: "...the rising potential
for civil disobedience within the inner cities it is 'inevitable' the
U.S. military will be employed more often within American borders."
Read on: "The next real war we fight is likely to be on U.S. soil."
That huge essay goes on to talk about military operations against Americans
right here at home - in your state, in your town.
[Excerpted]
I am
fully aware that the Department of Fatherland Security has ordered more
than 750 million rounds of ammunition over the past few years as well
as other alphabet soup agencies.
I also
continue to get the constant barrage of emails about gun grabbing efforts,
how the IRS has the right to take away your guns and on and on and on.
The
solution to all of this is still there and continues to be ignored while
everyone keeps on whining.
Aw,
gee, Devvy, we're just trying to fight the gun grabbers in Washington.
Well, hasn't it occurred to folks by now that all that fighting ain't
fixing the problem?
The
only solution is the constitutional militia. Not private militias, but
the militia as stated in the Second Amendment "...being necessary
to the security of a free State..". As I have written before, there
are a lot of private militia in this country doing great work. Dedicated
Americans training to help law enforcement with natural disasters and
things of that sort. However, it has to be your state legislature that
writes the statute for your state and gets your governor to sign it into
law and if vetoed, override the veto.
I don't
care how busy you are, so am I. Like millions of other fellow Americans,
I have given up fun and leisure to learn the solutions, not more Band
Aids. Reading is time consuming, but it's how we all can learn the truth:
•
The
Constitutional Militia, Slavery, & Contemporary "Gun Control"
• "The Militia of The Several States" Guarantee the Second Amendment
• True vs False Militia and Why the Difference Matters
• "The Militia of The Several States" Guarantee the Second Amendment
• True vs False Militia and Why the Difference Matters
To help
everyone because of time constraints, I did put some of Dr. Edwin Vieria's
columns on the militia on a CD so you can listen in your car during your
commute to work or travels. You
can download that CD here for free; make copies and hand them out
at gun shows, group meetings and to family and friends.
Read full article at NewsWithViews.com
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Wearing "Pro-Jesus" T-Shirt "Hate Speech" and cause for Suspension
For the past six months, a yellow T-shirt with the slogan “Life is
Wasted Without Jesus” has been just another shirt in William Swinimer’s
wardrobe.
Lately, the 19-year-old Nova Scotian has worn it every single day since the vice-principal at his high school told him he couldn’t, that it was considered offensive, that it spewed, in his own words, “hate talk.”
Instead of peeling the shirt off like they wanted him to, Mr. Swinimer continued to wear it — straight through a series of in-school suspensions and straight through the five-day at-home suspension he’s currently serving.
http://life.nationalpost.com/2012/05/03/suspended-nova-scotia-student-defiantly-wears-t-shirt-with-pro-jesus-message/
Lately, the 19-year-old Nova Scotian has worn it every single day since the vice-principal at his high school told him he couldn’t, that it was considered offensive, that it spewed, in his own words, “hate talk.”
Instead of peeling the shirt off like they wanted him to, Mr. Swinimer continued to wear it — straight through a series of in-school suspensions and straight through the five-day at-home suspension he’s currently serving.
http://life.nationalpost.com/2012/05/03/suspended-nova-scotia-student-defiantly-wears-t-shirt-with-pro-jesus-message/
Anti-Christ Supporters
Doris Rosado watches her teenage daughters, Ninette and Kiara
Mongrut, get the numbers “666” tattooed on their wrists, beaming with
pride. The number typically conjures up biblical symbolism tied to the
Antichrist, but this St. Catharines, Ont., family belongs to a obscure
Christian sect for which “666” is a positive symbol of their group’s
messianic leader.
“They wanted to do it,” Ms. Rosado, 45, said at the St. Catharines tattoo parlour where her daughters were inked. “But now it’s more important because we’re counting down… I’m so proud.”
For this family, and other members of Growing in Grace International, these tattoos are a way of demonstrating their faith as true believers of Jose de Luis de Jesus — who they fervently believe is the second coming of Jesus Christ — before a day of reckoning they believe will wipe out most of humanity.
http://life.nationalpost.com/2012/05/01/the-time-is-finished-religious-sect-erects-billboards-in-toronto-ahead-of-the-transformation/
“They wanted to do it,” Ms. Rosado, 45, said at the St. Catharines tattoo parlour where her daughters were inked. “But now it’s more important because we’re counting down… I’m so proud.”
For this family, and other members of Growing in Grace International, these tattoos are a way of demonstrating their faith as true believers of Jose de Luis de Jesus — who they fervently believe is the second coming of Jesus Christ — before a day of reckoning they believe will wipe out most of humanity.
http://life.nationalpost.com/2012/05/01/the-time-is-finished-religious-sect-erects-billboards-in-toronto-ahead-of-the-transformation/
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