Weiss US bond ratings gives new meaning to "Don't Touch Our Junk"

Jack Kemp

Martin Weiss's rating service is the private industry standard. I used to get his newsletter years ago but stopped when he sent out a broadcast email urging all subscribers to vote Democratic in an upcoming election (It was somewhere between 2000 and 2004, as best I recall). Now even Mr. Weiss has admitted that irresponsibility knows no exclusive political administration or party.

From The South Florida Business Journal:
http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/blog/2011/04/weiss-ratings-give-us-debt-a-c.html

Weiss Ratings give U.S. debt a C
Kevin Gale

While Standard & Poor's gained headlines for putting U.S. debt on a watch list for a possible downgrade, Weiss Ratings says the nation is already below average among 47 nations.

The Jupiter (Florida)-based ratings service, which is known for giving opinions on a variety of investments, has ventured into the field of sovereign debt. It gives the U.S. a rating of C (fair), and ranked it 33rd among 47 nations.

“We believe that the AAA/Aaa assigned to U.S. sovereign debt by Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch is unfair to investors and savers, who are undercompensated for the risks they are taking," Weiss Ratings President Martin D. Weiss said. "An honest rating is also urgently needed to help support the political compromises and collective sacrifices the U.S. must make in order to restore its finances.”

On the Weiss Ratings scale, a C rating is similar to the lower end of investment grade among other ratings agencies. In other words, it is about two notches above a speculative grade or “junk.”

The Leaders they Deserve

Timothy Birdnow

Brian Birdnow discusses the razor thin GOP candidate field, and, well, read it for yourself.
http://townhall.com/columnists/brianbirdnow/2011/04/30/quest_2012_obama_and_his_challengers

Why can't the GOP find anyone worth a hill of beans to run? Methinks there are fundamental structural problems, and so does Dr. Birdnow.

The Bible says that a nation is given the leadership it deserves. What has America earned?

Harry Reid - Tea Partier

Timothy Birdnow

Writing in Townhall, Guy Benson chronicles the punch and counter punch of dueling leaders.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2011/04/29/smooth_mcconnell_exploits_reids_budget_vote_theatrics

According to the article:

"A very clever maneuver from Senate Republicans' under-appreciated smooth operator. Earlier in the week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made a somewhat astounding announcement: He's planning to call for an up-or-down Senate vote on Paul Ryan's House-passed 2012 budget. This is remarkable for several reasons. Traditionally, majority leaders from both parties only call for votes on legislation they support, and for which they've whipped enough votes to assure passage. Neither criteria applies in this case. Reid is playing politics:

>The idea behind Reid's plan is to force Senate Republicans to vote on the measure, which could put incumbents facing tough reelections on the spot.

The Ryan budget is not expected to pass the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats.

"I would hope they do," Reid said when asked if he thinks the Senate will reject the plan. "It would be one of the worst things to happen to this country if that came into effect."<>


That clever dog! Reid is going to force Senate Republicans -- very few of whom actually face tough re-elections -- to vote on a budget that the American people...well, don't really mind. Not to be outdone, Reid's Republican counterpart, Sen. Mitch McConnell, has orchestrated a political counter-punch to Reid's shenanigans. Brilliant:

A day after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) put Republicans on the spot by saying he will bring the House Republicans’ budget proposal up for a vote, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) turned the tables by exercising his legislative prerogative to call for a vote on President Barack Obama’s budget.

The two votes amount to legislative brinkmanship by both party leaders. Mr. Reid wants to put Republicans on record supporting legislation authored by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) that would eventually transform Medicare and Medicaid. Mr. McConnell, meanwhile, wants to force Democrats to vote on a plan that rolls back Bush-era tax cuts for people who make more than $250,000 and ignores many of the long-term costs driving the deficit.

“I understand that the Majority Leader would like to have a vote on the House-passed Ryan budget and we will,” Mr. McConnell said in a statement. “But we’ll have a vote on the President’s budget at the same time. Since there is no Democrat budget in the Senate, we’ll give our colleagues an opportunity to stand with the President in failing to address the problems facing our nation while calling for trillions in new spending, massive new debt and higher taxes on American energy, families and small businesses across the country.”<

End excerpts.

Mr. Benson misses the point, I think; Reid called for this vote precisely because HE KNOWS THE SENATE GOP DO NOT WANT THE RYAN BUDGET PLAN. Reid understands that they fear the loss of power as much as the Democrats that real budget discipline would impose, and he knows he is dealing with weak-kneed cowards. Politicians have natural instincts on such things, and you do not make such a gambit without cause. Reid understands the power of RINO.

Whether McConnell's counter is really a masterstroke remains to be seen (it probably will hurt the Democrats, but it offers the chance for a "compromise" like the one brokered on the budget by Speaker Boehner), but Reid's original move is putting the GOP on the spot, forcing them to do what I suspect many do not want.

Harry reid probably did us a favor here; he's putting heat on the fairweather friends on our own side.

Thanks, Harry!

"GOP Shouldn't Play The Trump Card"

Dana Mathewson

Good article. He lays it all out here -- we can't expect Trump to be our savior, by any means. http://townhall.com/columnists/donaldlambro/2011/04/29/gop_shouldnt_play_trump_card

Here's a question for you: for whom did Trump vote for president in 2008? Answer: B. Hussein Obama!

Insider report: Stuxnet damage to Iran's nuclear program greater than early reports

Dana Mathewson

Looks like they may have to junk the whole Bushehr facility and build a new one. Gee, that's too bad! NOT! http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/pjm-exclusive-actually-stuxnet-has-completely-paralyzed-iran%e2%80%99s-bushehr-plant/

It couldn't happen to a better bunch.

Birtherism and the Art of War

Timothy Birdnow

The Washington Examiner has an editorial bemoaning the "distraction" of Obama's birth certificate and asks us to get back to serious issues. http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/2011/04/now-can-we-get-real-debate

This is a common argument being made by many on the Right, but what does it say?

First, we CAN walk and chew gum at the same time; this argument presupposes that we can't. Second, this is every bit as much an argument over the Constitution as Obamacare; any President should be made to show his birth certificate, because the Constitution requires he be natural born. This is important for future generations; we have to clarify this now, not when Ho Chi Fu is elected and turns out to be a Chinese citizen. If we are serious about following the Constitution then we should be serious about Obama proving his citizenship. Finally, who says it is a distraction? Our primary goal is to see that Obama is not re-elected if we are to save this country, and if the birth certificate issue serves that purpose, it is well worth it.

Consider that one in four Americans think Obama was not born in the United States.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20056061-503544.html

Consider, too, that Obama had to drop this shoe (providing a birth certificate) now rather than next year; if this was a head fake it clearly loses it's impact. Consider too that they have turned to the race card, claiming that accusations that Obama is not qualified to hold the office is "hidden racism"; that is one of those charges you bring later, not now. Clearly, Obama had to do something to stem the bleeding. This was a steadily dripping wound.

Granted, what Mr. Obama released was clearly doctored, giving new life to the "distraction", something possibly calculated to have that very effect. But such a move proves the man a liar, and is quite a dangerous trick to play this early. This suggests to me that Hockey Team Obama realized he was in trouble and took a dangerous gamble; there is plenty of time for experts to dispute the veracity of this document. Frankly, if Obama were serious he would actually have the physical document examined by an impartial party - say the U.S. Supreme Court. Let the Justices consult experts. He won't because he has yet to pack the Court with partisans.

At any rate, this issue is hardly a distraction, because it pokes at what is clearly a tender spot on Obama. Remember the 1988 election, where George Herbert Walker Bush campaigned on the issue of flagburning? Many of our wizards of smart here on the Right were saying the exact same thing; it was a distraction. But it worked! People turned against Michael Dukakis not because he opposed Bush on this but because he came across as vacillating and weak. Obama is coming across as duplicitous and manipulative here. In politics, perception is everything.

And the general public is not won by dry debates about numbers and statistics. Bill Clinton should have taught us that; he remained in office despite having openly broken the law, and he did so because he made it a personal matter. There are reasons why gossip columns, why the Enquirer and Star, are such huge publications; people who can't name the Vice President can tell you about Lindsay Lohan and the Royal Wedding. These people vote, too. What will they know about the healthcare debate? They will know that Obama is lying about his birth certificate.

Granted, it IS a red herring; Obama is hiding something else. But that something else - possibly a bombshell - will never come out as long as he manages to maintain his firewall. We must breech that wall to get to other things.

That is not to say we can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Let the editors at The Examiner discuss the "real issues" and let Trump and Jerome Korsi discuss this. There is no reason why we can't hit Obama on more than one front; it worked during the Second World War, after all. And it's a venerable part of American political history. Jefferson was accused of fathering a child with a slave, for example, and Chester Arthur was accused of having a sexual liason with an underage girl, and of not being a natural born citizen. (He lost the GOP nomination when seeking a second term, I might add.) This is as much a part of politics as is scholarly debate, and it works. Remember Presidential hopeful Gary Hart? The appearance of impropriety killed his chances. Why should the Birther issue be any different?

And it is the right thing to do.

Remember, Obama said he was going to have the most transparent administration in history, and it has been the most opaque. The public needs to be made aware of that; he broke one of his first promises.

This issue isn't going away, and the elites in the GOP and Conservative movement had best learn the art of lemonade manufacture. There is great opportunity here if played right. Unfortunately, our side has never learned the art of political warfare.

What Happens at the New York Public Library, Stays at the NYPL

Jack Kemp

Jonah Goldberg has an article commenting on the allowing of access to internet porn at the NY Public Library.
http://townhall.com/columnists/jonahgoldberg/2011/04/29/a_thorny,_porn-y_issue_for_ny_public_library/page/2

He makes a limited case against it, briefly glancing over the moral factor and claiming that internet access is cost free, unlike a library subscribing to paper porn magazines (and buying porn videos), so there is no cost problem involved.

I recall going to the business center at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas in the 1990s to use their internet access/computer rental service. While attempting to access some financial related websites, a software program MGM Grand had installed to keep out porn also blocked my favorite financial sites because of sloppy settings on the anti-porn software. When asking about this, the staff told me that this blocking had to do with porn fans using the Business Center's printer to create nude photos. Even with a fee for printouts, printer ink costs money and this porn printing denied use of expensive resources for others. The very same MGM Grand had on display, in a shop on its lower level, some pretty raunchy items in a "novelties" store - and the City of Las Vegas has no shortage of other places to go for live strippers, lap dancers, "escorts," etc. In reality, the type of people who would waste their time printing out pornographic pictures at the MGM Grand Business Center are teens who would be afraid to deal with a real woman and/or would be denied access to a strip club because they were under 21 years of age.

Now the NY Public Library also has a limited number of printers and printer cartridge ink is expensive. People can pay for printouts, I believe, and the staff could be inundated with preparing porn printouts for its "visiting scholars." By the way, the Main Library of the New York system, with its famous pair of stone Library Lions out front, is only one or two blocks from the Times Square tourist area where a few of the former sleazy porn centers still exist. This is not some remote academic center. And the same is true for branches of the library in local neighborhoods where junior high kids go to do their book reports. Is this the type of “searcher of knowledge” you want sitting next to your 11 year old son or daughter doing their homework? Doesn’t the library have an obligation to protect children and operate “in loco parentis?”

Underage teens doing a book report and academic scholars will now have to sit next to porn fans - indeed, these three categories might merge into one. With the low moral level of license allowed showing porn in a library, perhaps - I have to say it because Mr. Goldberg is too polite to raise the issue - some of the library porn fans might chose to masturbate on the spot. The "cultural liberation and advancement of post modern culture" could easily make a fairly large library a more difficult place to maintain decorum then the small Business Center of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

And some people wonder why twenty-odd countries score higher on standard math and science exams than the United States. We are devolving.

Funeral for a Friend

Timothy Birdnow

In one of the worst tragedies to befall the Obama Administration, Hubert Schlafly Jr. has passed away. Mr. Schlafley was the inventor of the teleprompter.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/teleprompter-inventor-hubert-schlafly-jr-dies-91/story?id=13460891

Obama was seen by reporters wandering the halls of the White House in tears earlier today. He is expected to proclaim today "Hubert Schlafley Jr. Day" and is expected to memorialize by playing a round of golf after visiting the White House photoshop center.

The Presidential teleprompter declined to comment.

Bam's Birth Certificate

Dana Mathewson

(The attached video takes about ten minutes to watch. If you haven't seen it, I heartily recommend you watch the whole thing. It does NOT prove the president is not a citizen. It DOES prove that, once again, he sold us a bill of goods the other night on TV. I am suggesting this needs widespread distribution.)








Here's an eye opener, there's no end to this administration's corruption



Where Obama was actually born is the least of our
problems.

That being said, the document on the White House
web site is NOT a scan of a print document as the
White House claims it is.

It's a digital creation.

Which means - and why am I not surprised? - it's
a fraud.

Here's the analysis.

Video:

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/1089.html

- Brasscheck

P.S. Please share Brasscheck TV e-mails and
videos with friends and colleagues.

That's how we grow. Thanks.

Orly Taitz: Obama's Soc. Sec. Number(s)?

Jack Kemp

Before I go into this, as a matter of full disclosure, Orly Taitz criticized my piece Trump blowing his own horn - and maybe his chances" on Tea Party Nation. She stated in a comment:

orly taitz Comment by orly taitz on April 19, 2011 at 7:50am


Mr. Kemp

give it a rest. At the moment Trump is best we have. He is not perfect, he might have a big ego, but he has a back bone, that no other politician has, including Romney. romney is faceless and gutless. Trump stood up to Obama in ObamaFraudGate, he is the only one, who talks about the sanity of tariffs, that need to be brought back to stop flooding this nation with cheap junk from the third world nations and stimulate job creation in this country. At this point any vote for anyone else is a vote for destruction of this nation, its economy and its constitutional freedoms
END

This comment lead to me disputing her conclusion, saying Sarah Palin or Herman Cain or others could beat Obama.

But Orly Taitz has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal and is now asking for more evidence from Obama of his Social Security number(s) and asking about the birth certificate sequence being out of order. She mentions also the use of the term for race on the form, "African." For the yuppies who may have forged this so called birth certificate, in 1960, the common polite term for black people was "Negro," as in United Negro College Fund and Negro League baseball. As the ads say a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Ms. Taitz's words at the Wall St. Journal can be found at:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/04/27/orly-taitz-raises-a-new-issue-obamas-social-security-number/

Orly Taitz Raises a New Issue: Obama’s Social Security Number
By Jonathan Weisman

A brief quote from the piece:

"Why does is the address of the mother 6085 Kalanianaole Highway in Honolulu, not the address of the young parents but the address of Mr. Obama’s grandparents?"

Anti-War Astroturf

This from the Federalist Patriot:

"Two college professors just released a study of national protests between 2007 and 2009. What did they find? … 'After January 2007, the attendance at antiwar rallies [measured in] roughly the tens of thousands, or thousands, through the end of 2008. … After the election of Barack Obama as president, the order of magnitude of antiwar protests dropped [...] Organizers were hard pressed to stage a rally with participation in the thousands, or even in the hundreds. For example, we counted exactly 107 participants at a Chicago rally on October 7, 2009.' Amazing. Especially because the war in Afghanistan ramped up after Obama was elected. American fatalities shot up in 2009 and 2010. The protesters have remained silent over Libya."

columnist John Stossel

Birth Certificate Hockey Stick Graph; Hiding the Decline of Obama

Timothy Birdnow

So finally, Barack Hussein Obama has released his long form birth certificate. After three years of refusing to do so, and after spending several million dollars to resist being compelled to by a court of law, Obama has finally caved. Why? Donald Trump for one; he boldly went where no RINO has gone before, demanding Obama fess up. Also, Jerome Korsi's book on Mr. Obama's birth certificate forced the Bamster's hand.

But did he really? The first thing I noticed when looking at the released document is that Obi Bam Sr. is listed as African under race; a point of criticism for the earlier Certificate of Live Birth because he would have been listed as Negro or Negroid in 1961. Remember, this is an official document and a black person's race is officially Negroid (although they would accept Negro). There are three races of Man; Negroid, Caucasoid, and Mongoloid (the Mongoloids being what we call Orientals today, although it also includes Native Americans.) African would not have been inserted in the race category. Now, I have read arguments that they (Obama's people) wouldn't be so stupid as to make that mistake twice, but they would HAVE to make that mistake twice or risk proving the Certificate of Live Birth released in 2008 is a fake, which would put even more heat on the current document.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a "birther" insofar as I do think Obama meets the native born requirement of the Constitution and believe he was likely born in the U.S., but I think he has something else to hide. You simply do not spend the kind of money he has spent for the sake of a joke. I do think it is important for a variety of reasons; read here. http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2009/08/18/why-the-birth-certificate-issue-is-important/

There are other issues as well; the Connecticut social security number, the inability to produce any friends from prior to his college days, the sealing of records, etc.

In fact, one of Obama's first acts as President was to seal presidential records tight via Executive Order 13489. http://www.fas.org/sgp/obama/presidential.html Interesting first move for a guy who promised the most transparent administration in history.

Jerome Korsi explains why the long form birth certificate released by the Anointed adds to the confusion of his hatching, er, birth.

This from a piece at World Net Daily:

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=292457#ixzz1KocKbouV

"As WND reported, the long-form birth certificates issued by Kapi'olani to the Nordyke twins have certificate numbers lower than the number given Obama, even though the president purportedly was born at the same hospital a day earlier than the Nordykes.

Note, Susan Nordyke, the first twin, was born at 2:12 p.m. Hawaii time Aug. 5, 1961, and was given certificate No. 151 – 61 – 10637, which was filed with the Hawaii registrar Aug. 11, 1961.


Gretchen Nordyke, the second twin, was born at 2:17 p.m. Hawaii time Aug. 5, 1961, and was given certificate No. 151 – 61 – 10638, which was also filed with the Hawaii registrar Aug. 11, 1961.


Yet, according to the Certification of Live Birth displayed by FactCheck.org during the 2008 presidential campaign – and now according to the long-form birth certificate the White House released today – Barack Obama was given a higher certificate number than the Nordykes.


Note, Obama was given certificate No. 151 – 1961 – 10641, even though he was born Aug. 4, 1961, the day before the Nordyke twins, and his birth was registered with the Hawaii Department of Health registrar three days earlier, Aug. 8, 1961.
In 1961, the birth certificate numbers were not assigned by the hospitals.

Instead, the numbers were stamped to the birth record by the Hawaii Department of Health at the main office in Honolulu.

This is the only place birth certificate numbers were assigned.

At the last step of the process, the documents were accepted by the registrar general, with the date of registration inserted in box No. 22 on the lower right hand corner of the long-form birth certificate.

The date the birth document was accepted by the registrar general was the date the birth certificate number was stamped on the birth record.

The birth certificate number was stamped on the form by a rubber stamp that automatically increased by one each time a birth certificate was stamped.

The question, therefore, is how was it possible that the Nordyke twins had their birth certificates accepted by the registrar general in Hawaii three days later than the registrar general accepted Obama's birth certificate, when the twins' numbers are lower than Obama's number?

Eleanor Nordyke has speculated that her twins received an earlier birth certificate number because, although she gave birth later than Ann Dunham, she entered Kapi'olani earlier.

Yet, in 1961, birth certificate numbers were not assigned by the hospital, and the date the mother checked into the medical facility was irrelevant to how birth certificate numbers were assigned.

Moreover, no records for Dunham having been a patient at Kapi'olani in 1961, or of Obama having been born at the hospital on Aug. 4, 1961, have been released by the hospital."

End excerpts

In fact, The Smoking Gun (A Turner company, so hardly a right-wing kook site) pointed this out, as well as a few other oddities. See http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/barack-obama/birth-obama-certer-movement-098513

For example:

"• If the original document was in a bound volume (as reflected by the curvature of the left hand side of the certificate), how can the green patterned background of the document's safety paper be so seamless?

• Why, if Obama was born on August 4, 1961, was the “Date Accepted by Local Reg.” four days later on August 8, 1961?

• What is the significance of the smudges in the box containing the name of the reported attendant?

• David A. Sinclair, the M.D. who purportedly signed the document, died nearly eight years ago at age 81. So he is conveniently unavailable to answer questions about Obama’s reported birth.

• In the “This Birth” box there are two mysterious Xs above “Twin” and “Triplet.” Is there a sibling or two unaccounted for?

• What is the significance of the mysterious numbers, seen vertically, on the document’s right side?

• Finally, the “Signature of Local Registrar” in box 21 may be a desperate attempt at establishing the document’s Hawaiian authenticity. Note to forgers: It is spelled “Ukulele.”

End excerpt.

The comments have been fascinating. For example, there is a fellow who did an analysis of the document using Adobe Acrobat, and he was linked by Drudge. He kept leaving the link at TSG, and it kept disappearing. He hand wrote the link, but then his website went down - permanently. I received a Forbidden Access when I tried to open his site.

Here's an interesting comment:

"Submitted by beijingyank on Thu, 2011-04-28 01:32."In 1961, the hospital Obama was born in was NOT named the Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital , as shown on the above certificate. In 1961, the hospital Obama was born in was named the Kauaikeolani Children's Hospital. It did not change its name to the Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital until it merged with the Kapiolani hospital system in 1978." http://whatreallyhappened.com/content/obama-love-child-updated#comments FRAUD!!!!!!!!! "

A check on Kapiolani shows that, yes, this may well be an accurate statement.

A sizable number of links provided by commenters were recently deleted. For example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt7oi2qfxlY

Now, it could be that Obama has doubled down on this; it would fit his style, and we know he was using government agents to pretend to be regular people on the internet, so it could well be that this is a carefully crafted strategy to keep the issue alive. Why? It may be that Obama believes he can push the "kooks" over the edge and get everyone laughing at conservatives. He would not be above such a thing.

But it strikes me as too clever by half, and it would be very dangerous given public sentiment to make this kind of play. This would be a Hail Mary pass from the one yard line with four minutes left and being down by six. It would not be prudent, and I don't believe the people behind BHO are that foolish.

Kurt Nimmo has some interesting analysis at Infowars. http://www.infowars.com/new-obama-birth-certificate-is-a-forgery/ For instance:

"Upon first inspection, the document appears to be a photocopy taken from state records and printed on official green paper. However, when the government released PDF is taken into the image editing program Adobe Illustrator, we discover a number of separate elements that reveal the document is not a single scan on paper, as one might surmise. Elements are place in layers or editing boxes over the scan and green textured paper, which is to say the least unusual.

When sections of the document are enlarged significantly, we discover glaring inconsistencies. For instance, it appears the date stamped on the document has been altered. Moreover, the document contains text, numbers, and lines with suspicious white borders indicating these items were pasted from the original scan and dropped over a background image of green paper."

[...]

"There are two elements of interest, as shown in the image to the above – both entries for the date accepted by the local registry. This appears to have been modified in an image editing program."

[...]

"As Market-Ticker.org points out, it may prove to be significant that two of the boxes appear over both of the “date accepted” boxes, as well as the “Mother’s occupation box.” Was there a need to tamper with the dates on the document or other areas? The recent stamp date and issuing signature of the state registrar also contain an edited layer."

[...]

"More to the point, this certificate and others, like the one posted below it, have visible seals. No issuing seal can be seen on the document released today by Obama."

[...]

"Infowars will continue to analyze this issue as more information comes in. It is significant that the Obama Administration was pressured into responding to this controversy, whatever the final analysis of this document. However, the administration still needs to release his other records which have been sealed at great expense. Is there an issue with his being naturalized in Indonesia? Why are his college records at Columbia and Occidental sealed, and what do they contain? Did Obama travel to Pakistan on a foreign passport? These questions and many others have not been properly answered."

End excerpts.

Steve Hoft, the Gateway Pundit, consulted some experts who unanimously declared the document a fake.
http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/04/critics-obamas-latest-long-form-birth-certificate-is-a-fake/

The argument given for many of these flaws is that the White House had a negative, and had to retouch it to make it legible. Well, why don't they invite, say, Sarah Palin to view the original? Donald Trump? He's the one causing all the flap, after all. How about Jerome Korsi? His book is out any day now. When you alter a document to "prove" you have a document you cause enormous suspicion.

This reminds me of the hockey stick graph and "hide the decline" in Global Warming; a fancy "nature trick" designed to fool the public. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/26/mcintyre-data-from-the-hide-the-decline/ It won't fool everyone, but it will fool enough to perhaps allow the marginalization of those who see through it. What Briffa and Mann did with "hide the decline" was toss out data sets that showed a decline in temperatures in 1961, but they managed to cover their tracks. Obama may well have gotten the idea for this from them. To the ordinary bystander this looks legit, and those who will keep after it will appear partisan zealots and kooks. It was a nice trick; it "hides the decline" in Obama's believability.

We are in for a long, hard struggle here, folks!

Sarah Palin's Ancestors are Jewish!

Jack Kemp

Got this in an email.


OY VEY !!!!!!!

Sarah Palin is Jewish !!!!

Based on Jewish tradition that makes one Jewish if born to a mother of Jewish ethnic decent, Sarah Palin is Jewish, though she touts a mask of evangelical Christianity.
Sarah Palin's mother, Sally Sheigam, was of Lithuanian Jewish heritage and so were both of her mother's parents, Louise Sheigam and Shmuel Sheigam. Her father, Chuck Heath, also comes from Jewish blood because his mother, Beatrice Coleman, was of Jewish decent. Further information on Governor Palin's ancestors can be found in the vital records in the Lithuanian State Historical Archives in Vilnius
(http://www.archyvai.lt/archyvai/index.jsp).

The Archives holds birth, marriage, divorce, and death records for the
Lithuanian Jewish community from 1851 until 1915 when the Jews were required to leave the country because of World War I.. They are in 18th Century Cyrillic script and Yiddish. Many of these records include the mother's maiden name and town of registration.

Palin's maternal grandfather, Shmuel Sheigam, was a Lithuanian Jew,
born in 1912 in Vilkaviskis , Lithuania , The Sheigams' grandmother was a Jewess named Gower. At the Ellis Island Immigration Center , the name was entered as Sheeran, instead of Sheigam, a standard practice when immigration officers were unable to understand the pronunciation of non-English speaking immigrants. They are buried in the Jewishcemetery at Budezeriai

The Last Trump

Dana Mathewson

Katz's, about Trump, and the Thomas Sowell article he quotes in it: http://www.urgentagenda.com/PERMALINKS%20VI/APRIL%202011/26.TRUMP.HTML

End

A NOTE FROM TIM

He's right; Trump is popular because he's willing to do more than sit on his brains. Trump is also dangerous because he will wipe out more viable - and principled - candidates on his way to the comedy club.

We are always looking for the next Ronald Reagan, and are eternally disappointed. In fact, many in the GOP bemoan our "fixation" with Reagan as if he had some sort of pox we might catch. The "fixation" with Reagan comes from Reagan's status as the political titan of the GOP (and, indeed, American politics). But why was Reagan such a titan?

Reagan should have shown us the way; what he did was eminently repeatable.

The magic secret of Reagan was anything but. Pundits and media types have broken their neurons trying to decifer the supernatural svengali-like abilities of Reagan to no avail; liberals simply cannot conceive of Reagan's appeal because they would have to admit an unpalatable truth. Reagan had no trick; it was not some personal magnetism or superior marketing ability. It was his message, which was rooted in traditional American virtues. It really was that simple. Reagan was not mean or nasty, but he believed in America, defended America, and took it to those who did not. He was pleasant about it, but in the end he held their feet to the fire. Reagan did not apologize for being who he was, believing in America. He articulated what many Americans thought, and reminded many of what they once believed. Conservativism is not some novel idea; it is about restoration of those things that made our country great. We are Americans, and our ways work best for us, not some European social democratic theory, not some Ivy-league blathering theory. Our forefathers set up a truly wonderful system, and we have strayed from that system to follow the will-o-the-wisp of leftist social engineering, and it has been an abyssmal failure. By the time Jimmy Carter was in office America's elites had dismissed the American experiment as a failure, and were implementing their quasi-fascist system of government by the elites, built upon a bedrock of liberal theory. Ronald Reagan was the first politician in a long, long time to reject the Progressive agenda and demand a return to our roots - and he won the support of the People. There was a great thirst for the Truth - as there always is when lies are put in place to alter the truth - and Reagan was willing to speak it. That is all; he was an honest man in an Ocean of lies. That is the secret to the great mystery of the Reagan legacy. No smoke and mirrors, no diabolical plotting in back rooms, no strategy save the truth. The Truth shall set you free, and it did. Reagan was a political titan.

Of course, this illustrated the bankruptcy of liberal thinking. The American People were not Progressive, were not willing to allow a bunch of elite social engineers to "make fundamental change" and "do the work of remaking America"; the People were happy with America. They weren't happy with the chaos that decades of social engineering had wrought, weren't happy with the results of Progressive experimentation. They just didn't have a hook to hang their hat on; something was wrong, but they couldn't say exactly what. Reagan was willing to call that naked guy walking in the parade a nude emperor.

This explains the success of Rush Limbaugh on the radio as well. Limbaugh revitalized a.m. radio, and he did it by simply speaking the truth. Plain talk and straight dealing. Yes, Limbaugh is funny. Yes, Limbaugh is smart. But the key is that he simply looks at what is happening and tells it like it is. Innumerable liberals have sought to be the liberal Limbaugh, with no success. Why? Because in the end their viewpoint defies common sense and American values. It's that simple.

And Donald Trump is finding success for the same reason. Everyone knows about the Birth Certificate issue, but the establishment Republicans agreed to not discuss it for fear of being labeled kooks by the media. They simply don't understand that they will be labeled kooks regardless. It's often forgotten that Reagan was labeled a kook, too, but now he's given respect out of necessity. So none of these wizards of smart, these brightest and best, will touch the birth certificate issue, or go after Obama, who is dangling out there like a 15 mph fastball right over the plate for Mark McGuire.

It was said that the Muslims had to wait 70 years to retake Jerusalem from the Crusaders because the Crusader army had been so lucky that the generation of Muslims thought them invincible, and that generation had to pass away before they could find the courage to oppose the Latin kingdoms. The same holds true for Obama; the media created him, and the GOP politicians had bought into this malarky about moving to the center and courting moderates. Bush, a centrist right politician, saw his power base and popularity erode year after year as he tried vainly to govern from the middle, and McCain was clobbered by this upstart Obama. Of course, Obama ran as a moderate and has governed from the Left, and that is why he is so unpopular now; it was a bait-and-switch. People thought the change he was talking about meant straight talk and a move away from the partisan politics that had dominated during the Bush era, partisan politics caused by Bush's unwillingness to take the fight to the Democrats. His passivity invited their attack, and their attack worked. There is a reason why a defiant, proud move to the Left by Pelosi and Reid saw the milquetoast GOP lose control of first the Senate then the House; they acted ashamed of conservatism and the heart of America. (I suppose one can't blame them too much; they spend too much time in the artificial world of Washington where the media and culture are decidedly liberal and where they come to believe that America is represented by the cocktail party circuit and the lobbiests.) People wanted bold colors and were given washed out pastels. The Democrats were bold colors, and many of the disengaged hoped that they would at least get some red meat.

But Obama actually implemented their program, to the horror of the American People, and America is horrified by the hideous face behind his mask of reasonableness. America needs a leader, someone to rally around to remove this plotting alien president.

And so Donald Trump walks in, speaking plainly, going after the Anointed. Suddenly he's hugely popular, because he's willing to call a naked guy precisely that. It's the same magic that served Ronald Reagan, only Trump is no Reagan because Trump holds no strong core principles. He'll burn out because he doesn't, and people will eventually see that. But he may do untold damage until he does, just as Ross Perot handed Bill Clinton the Presidency before he burned out in the next election cycle. Trump is talking a third party run if the GOP doesn't give him the nod.

Reagan could have done that in 1976, but he didn't do it because he knew what it meant. It meant that anyway, but at least it wasn't his fault. The key to Reagan was that he had an immovable core, and his principles stood above his political nature. That is what is wrong with the current field of Republicans; no core. In the end, these guys are in politics, well, to be in politics, and their power is paramount. Reagan didn't give a damn about his power or career; he was in it for love of country, and everyone knew it.

Trump has shown the way, and the future for the GOP lies in her past. Be strong, be bold, be decisive, be principled, and you will win. Speak the truth, for the truth shall set you free. Remind the People that Americans have always been optimistic for a reason, that God is there watching over us, that ours is more than a position paper by a think tank but a way of life built on the Gospels and lived for a higher purpose. That is why Americans were always optimistic, and it is why we should be now. No amount of damage done by an Obama or the whole cadre of journo-academics can overcome a people rooted in Faith in Yahweh, in Jesus, in the holy Word of God. Ours is a system rooted in this, executed via natural law and the Constitution. As long as we stand firm, we will win.

And standing firm is a lesson our political leaders have yet to learn. Donald Trump is showing them the way. They better learn from him before it's too late.

Whose SSN is Obama Using Anyway?

Dana Mathewson

I don't have a link for this -- sorry! Please take with grainy salt:

(Will someone please forward this to Donald Trump?!)

An investigation has revealed the identity of the man whose Social Security number (SSN) has been illegally used by Obama: Jean Paul Ludwig, who was born in France in 1890, emigrated to the United States in 1924, and was assigned SSN 042-68-4425 in or about March 1977. Ludwig lived most of his adult life in Connecticut . His SSN begins with the digits 042, which are among several reserved for Connecticut residents. Obama never lived or worked in that state, so there is no reason for his SSN to start with the digits 042.

Now comes the best part. Ludwig spent the final months of his life in Hawaii , where he died. Conveniently, Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, worked part-time in the Probate Office in the Honolulu Hawaii Courthouse, and therefore had access to the SSNs of deceased individuals. The Social Security Administration was never informed of Ludwig's death, and because he never received Social Security benefits there were no benefits to stop and no questions were raised. The suspicion, of course, is that Dunham, knowing her grandson was not a U.S. citizen, either because he was born in Kenya or became a citizen of Indonesia upon his adoption by Lolo Soetoro, merely scoured the probate records until she found someone who died who was not receiving Social Security benefits, and "selected" that SSN for Obama.

Just wait until Trump gets past the birth certificate and onto the issue of Barry O's use of a stolen SSN. You will see leftist heads exploding, because they will have no way of defending Obama. Although many Americans do not understand the meaning of the term "natural born citizen," there are few who do not understand that if you are using someone else's SSN it is a clear indication of fraud.

End

A NOTE FROM TIM:

I couldn't find anything to confirm or deny this report, so it must remain in the realm of hearsay. (Snopes was silent on the matter, as far as I could find.) I did come across an interesting blogpost about BHO's ssn that is worth reading.
http://wtpotus.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/whose-identity-did-obama-steal/

Apparently the only reissued ssn in that particular series was Obamas. A man named Thomas Louis Wood, according to Orly Tiatz, was the only other ssn active during the Obama lifetime in that series. The government stonewalled the release of information regarding Wood, and redacted information on Mr. Wood when they were forced by a Freedom of Information lawsuit to dish. Mr. Wood's ssn is one number away from Mr. Obamas.

Somebody is guarding the President's Connecticut SSN quite jealously.

St. Louis college teaches Union Violent Tactics

Jack Kemp forwards this article from Big Government:

http://biggovernment.com/publius/2011/04/25/union-official-professor-teach-college-course-in-violent-union-tactics/

Union Official, Professor Teach How-to College Course in Violent Union Tactics
by Publius

If you are wondering why some folks are starting to question whether a college education is worth the cost, the video below goes a long way towards explaining it. Recently, the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) and the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) sponsored two college courses: Introduction to Labor Studies and Labor Politics and Society, to be taught simultaneously through a video conference between to two campuses.

The Professors are Judy Ancel, Director of Labor Studies at UMKC and Don Giljum, business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers at Ameren UE in St. Louis. (Bonus: he is a member of the Communist Party.)

(You can see a YouTube video of this at:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4oTooyabyA&feature=player_embedded

In the class, the Professors not only advocate the occasional need for violence and industrial sabotage, they outline specific tactics that can be used. As one of our colleagues pointed out, its the matter-of-factness of it all that is so disturbing.

And yes, the schools, and the professors’ salaries, are funded by taxpayers.
Check back for more explosive, exclusive video later today.

PART II

Earlier today, Big Government brought you video footage of a disturbing college course from University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) and University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC). In the course, Professors Judy Ancel and David Giljam instruct students on how fear, intimidation and, even, industrial sabotage are important and, often, necessary tools for union activists.

In this new video, the professors make clear that they aren’t just speaking in theoretical terms. Union official David Giljum recounts several anecdotes where he, or other union officials, used threats to strengthen their negotiating positions (or simply get two-weeks paid time off work). Professor Ancel recounts favorably a tactic used by a friend of hers in a union protest in Peru. (Her story will be particularly interesting to any cat lovers out there.)

Click here to see the video. http://biggovernment.com/publius/2011/04/25/how-to-college-course-on-violent-union-tactics-part-ii-case-studies-edition/

Jihad in Green

Our old friend and watchful guardian of the Green Gate Mark Musser has a terrific piece at Accuracy in Media dealing with the greening of Jihad.
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/radical-muslims-environmentalists-and-the-green-jihad/

Here are a couple of juicy morsels from the piece:

"Rep. Keith Ellison, the Muslim Congressman from Minnesota who shed tears in protest over the congressional hearings on the growing radicalization of Muslims in the U.S., wrote the foreword to a book entitled Green Deen: What Islam Teaches about Protecting the Planet. In Arabic, “deen” means religious creed. The author of Green Deen is Ibrahim Abdul Matin. He wrote his book to demonstrate that there is a close relationship between Islam and modern environmentalism."

[...]

"What is fascinating is that Matin works in New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s environmental planning department as a policy advisor for New York City’s long term sustainability, and was one of the Muslims promoting the idea that the new mosque being considered near Ground Zero should be a green one. In fact, Matin devotes one whole chapter of his book to “Green Mosques” and provides a list of environmentally friendly practices that can and should be implemented at each local mosque. Being the progressive Muslim that he paints himself to be, Keith Ellison was very impressed with Matin’s abilities and proudly decided to endorse his book."

[...]

"Indeed, Matin’s whole approach to energy is viewed as a green Muslim apocalyptic dichotomy between heaven and hell. Matin considers gas, coal and oil as energy from hell, i.e., from the ground: “it is dirty, and it is a major cause of pollution and climate change. Energy from hell is non-renewable; it takes away from the Earth without giving back. It disturbs the balance of the universe and is therefore a great injustice.” As such, it appears that energy from hell needs to be placed under the caliphate control of Allah to help bring about a green Muslim social ethic on the earth: “one way we can stand out firmly for justice is by ending our reliance on oil and coal. Energies from hell are particularly devastating and unjust to people and the planet.”'

Emd excerpts.

This is a must read for anyone seriously interested in environmentalism and Jihad. Mark shows how these topics tie together, and how the unholy alliance threatens our way of life.

The Welfare State

Jack Kemp

Dennis Prager has written another gem called "The Welfare State and the Selfish Society."

Here is the conclusion:http://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2011/04/26/the_welfare_state_and_the_selfish_society

"What entitlements do, and what the transformation of entitlements into rights does, is create a citizenry that increasingly lacks the most important character trait -- gratitude. Of all the characteristics needed for both a happy and morally decent life, none surpasses gratitude. Grateful people are happier, and grateful people are more morally decent. That is why we teach our children to say "thank you." But the welfare state undoes that. One does not express thanks for a right. So, instead of "thank you," the citizen of the welfare state is taught to say, "What more can I get?"

Yet, while producing increasingly selfish people, the mantra of the left, and therefore of the universities and the media, has been for generations that capitalism and the free market, not the welfare state, produces selfish people.

They succeed in part because demonizing conservatives and their values is a left-wing art. But the truth is that capitalism and the free market produce less selfish people. Teaching people to work hard and take care of themselves (and others) produces a less, not a more, selfish citizen.
Capitalism teaches people to work harder; the welfare state teaches people to want harder. Which is better?"

Winds of the Apocalypse at Canada Free Press

Timothy Birdnow

Iran is making noises about issuing an ultimatum to Saudi Arabia over Bahrain, and I dissect this at Canada Free Press. http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/35815

Folks, it wouldn't be good.

Weapons Wisdom

There ain't no second place winners in a gun fight.



---
Shooting advice:

Never let someone or thing that threatens you get inside arm’s length and never say "I got a gun". If you feel you need to use deadly force for heaven’s sake let the "first sound they hear is the safety clicking off"
and they shouldn't have time to hear anything after that if you are doing your job.

'The average response time of a 911 call is over 3 minutes....the response time of a .44 magnum is 1400 feet per second.'

Clint Smith, Director of Thunder Ranch, is a drill instructor (Thunder Ranch is a firearms training facility in Arizona ). Here are a few of his observations on tactics, firearms, self-defense and life as we know it in the civilized world.

"The most important rule in a gunfight is: Always win and cheat if necessary."

"Don't forget, incoming fire has the right of way.."

"Make your attacker advance through a wall of bullets. You may get killed with your own gun, but he'll have to beat you to death with it, cause it's going to be empty."

"If you're not shooting', you should be loading'. If you're not loading', you should be moving', if you're not moving', someone's going to cut your head off and put it on a stick."

"When you reload in low light encounters, don't put your flashlight in your back pocket.. If you light yourself up, you'll look like an angel or the tooth fairy... and you're going to be one of 'em pretty soon."

"Do something. It may be wrong, but do something."

"Shoot what's available, as long as it's available, until something else becomes available."

"If you carry a gun, people will call you paranoid. That's ridiculous. If you have a gun, what in the hell do you have to be paranoid for?"

"Don't shoot fast, unless you also shoot good."

"You can say 'stop' or 'alto' or use any other word you think will work, but I've found that a large bore muzzle pointed at someone's head is pretty much the universal language."

"You have the rest of your life to solve your problems.. How long you live depends on how well you do it."

"You cannot save the planet but you may be able to save yourself and your family."

"Thunder Ranch will be here as long as you'll have us or until someone makes us go away, and either way, it will be exciting."

More Excellent Gun Wisdom.......

The purpose of fighting is to win. There is no possible victory in defense. The sword is more important than the shield, and skill is more important than either. The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplemental.

1. Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.

2. If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.

3. I carry a gun cause a cop is too heavy.

4. When seconds count, the cops are just minutes away.

5. A reporter did a human-interest piece on the Texas Rangers. The reporter recognized the Colt Model 1911 the Ranger was carrying and asked him 'Why do you carry a 45?' The Ranger responded, 'Because they don't make a 46.'

6. An armed man will kill an unarmed man with monotonous regularity.

7. The old sheriff was attending an awards dinner when a lady commented on his wearing his sidearm. 'Sheriff, I see you have your pistol. Are you expecting trouble?' 'No ma'am. If I were expecting trouble, I would have brought my rifle.'

8. Beware of the woman who only has one gun, because she probably knows how to use it very well.

'The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.' G. K. Chesterton

A people that values its privileges above its principles will soon lose both.

"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not..." - Thomas Jefferson.

If you believe in the 2nd Amendment, please forward.

Rand Paul's Disconnect

Jack Kemp

Listening to the unabridged audiobook "The Tea Party Goes to Washington" by Rand Paul, I found much to agree with in his domestic policy ideas, particularly auditing the Fed. I even could agree with some of his criticisms of neocons and nation building, however at a certain point his foreign policy ideas don't hold up to examination.

Chapter 7 of Rand Paul's book states,

“The standard neoconservative line throughout the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars has been that America must fight terrorism there so that we don't have to fight it here. The former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit, terrorism expert Michael Sheuer stresses that they come here precisely because we are over there...that Muslim hatred is motivated by US interventionism more than any other factor.

Many like to claim that Muslim hatred for our culture - or our freedom, to use Bush's language, is what causes Islamic terrorism. This is likely a factor in terrorist efforts and recruitment but not the primary factor. Or as Sheuer says bluntly, "We are at war because of what the US government does in the Muslim world - unqualified support for Israel, support for Arab tyrannies, invading Iraq, etc. and not for who we are and how we live here in North America.

If Sheuer was wrong, and the CIA had no justification for developing the term ‘Blowback,’ and it really was Americans' way of life that was the primary factor for Islamic terrorist attacks, logic would follow that more culturally liberal nations like Sweden or Switzerland would have more to fear from radical Islam than the United States.”
END

Sen. Paul has overlooked the epidemic of rapes of Swedish and Norwegian women by Muslim immigrants
http://fjordman.blogspot.com/2005/02/muslim-rape-epidemic-in-sweden-and.html

In 2005, "The number of rape charges per capita in Malmö is 5 – 6 times that of Copenhagen, Denmark." Is Sen. Paul also aware that a Muslim clumsily blew himself up in a busy Stockholm shopping area last Christmas in an attempt to kill as many Christian Swedes as possible? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/world/europe/14sweden.html?_r=1

This poor choice of the example of Sweden leads me to ask: has Sen. Paul ever read Robert Spencer's "Jihad Watch" or Pamela Geller's "Atlas Shrugs" website for three days straight?

And exactly what belligerent actions have the Coptic Christians engaged in Egypt, causing Muslims to burn their churches? http://www.aina.org/news/20080627141703.htm

In a famous rant by Ewald Stadler of the Austrian Parliament that can be seen on YouTube,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8tMtbieDWo Stadler recounts how Catholic Archbishop Luigi Padovese was stabbed 8 times in the heart in Turkey in June of 2010. When no one came to his aid as the Archbishop ran into the street, the young man the cut his head off. Was the Archbishop the cause of this intolerance in Muslim Turkey?

Perhaps Sen. Paul would care to address the activities a prominent 1940s Islamic cleric, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who spent World War II in Nazi Germany helping to create all-Muslim SS units.
http://www.trafoberlin.de/pdf-dateien/2009_06_01/Jennie%20Lebel%20Mufti.pdf

What has changed since those times is that the watermelon (green on the outside, red on the inside) parties ability to place limitations on domestic land and offshore oil drilling in the US which has helped to make many Muslim countries very wealthy, wealthy enough to fund - either directly or as extorted money - many terrorist activities. Ironically, Sen. Paul complains about US forces bribing Taliban officials who then use that money to buy and place roadside IEDs that kill American soldiers. What does Rand Paul think happens with part of the money that Iran and Saudi Arabia get for their oil?

Perhaps Sen. Paul would care to at least address the writings and studies on the Muslim Brotherhood who specifically state they hate our Western way of life and consider it something to overthrow. These writings date from the 1920s and 1940s. Or would Rand Paul care to address the writing of Reza Safa, a Christian convert and evangelist who grew up as a devout Muslim, who wrote a book called “Inside Islam.” http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Islam-Safa-Reza/dp/0884194167/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1284135729&sr=1-2
On page 64, it quotes Sura 9:30 of the Koran which states:

‘…and the Christians call “Christ the Son of God.” This is a saying from their mouth; (In this) they but imitate what the Unbelievers of the old used to say. . Allah’s curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!’
END OF QUOTE

Or how does Sen. Paul reconcile his belief that the US caused "Blowback" when the Koran, written centuries before the US came into existence, says:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/Quran-Hate.htm

Verse 7:176 compares unbelievers to "panting dogs" with regard to their idiocy and worthlessness. Verse 7:179 says they are like "cattle" only worse.

Verse 5:60 even says that Allah transformed Jews of the past into apes and pigs. This is echoed by verses 7:166 and 2:65.

A hadith says that Muhammad believed rats to be "mutated Jews" (Bukhari 54:524, also confirmed by Sahih Muslim 7135 and 7136).

Verses 46:29-35 even say that unbelieving men are worse than demons who believe in Muhammad.
END

Sen. Rand further states in his book:

"In my proposals to end foreign aid, many critics often ask: well, what about our ally Israel? Actually, Israel's example illustrates the problem. We give about 4 billion dollars annually to Israel in foreign aid and we give about 6 billion dollars to the nations that surround Israel, many of them antagonistic towards the Jewish state. Does this make any sense at all? Does any of this have actually anything to do with America's security, much less Israel's?
END

Actually, Senator Paul is conveniently leaving out the hundreds of billions sent overseas to Muslim oil producing countries which tips the scale considerably, even as we let our domestic oil production capacity atrophy.
http://www.economyincrisis.org/content/foreign-oil-dependency-crippling-us-economy This linked article speaks of "hundreds of billions of dollars" sent overseas for oil, so I am making a modest claim that Israel's enemies are getting at least one hundred billion of it per year. I would further ask that if spending 10 billion dollars in foreign aid makes no sense, then shipping one or more hundreds of billions overseas makes literally ten times less sense?

A major foreign policy point of Sen. Paul's is that (to paraphrase) "if we act calm and let the Muslims be, they will leave us alone." For a largely reasonable population, that would make sense. But consider this following finding.

Ann Barnhardt, writing in American Thinker, has discovered a blockbuster revelation, the flaw in the argument that "Muslims will eventually assimilate like everyone else" and that they are no more prone to violence or shiftless unemployment than any other group of people. It is a Koranic approved first cousin marriage rate in Arab countries of a typical rate of 25 percent, up to 39 percent and greater. This inbreeding has been going on for Fourteen Hundred Years. And the current first cousin marriage rate among Pakistani Muslims living in Great Britain is 55 percent.

The article is entitled "The Keystone of the Islamic Milieu: Inbreeding" by Ann Barnhardt and is located at
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/04/the_keystone_of_the_islamic_mi.html

Barnhardt states:

“But there is one culture, one faux ‘religion,’ that expressly condones and encourages consanguineous marriage and breeding. That system is Islam, and the document that explicitly ratifies incest is the Koran, specifically Sura 4 verse 23:

Prohibited for you (in marriage) are your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, the sisters of your fathers, the sisters of your mothers, the daughters of your brother, the daughters of your sister, your nursing mothers, the girls who nursed from the same woman as you, the mothers of your wives, the daughters of your wives with whom you have consummated the marriage -- if the marriage has not been consummated, you may marry the daughter. Also prohibited for you are the women who were married to your genetic sons. Also, you shall not be married to two sisters at the same time -- but do not break up existing marriages.”
END

Sounds like an exhaustive list -- but it is not. It is the most lax incest prohibition in all of human culture. There is a massive omission: cousins only once removed. In the Muslim culture, marriage and breeding between first cousins has existed since day one. Mohammed himself married Zaynab, who was his father's sister's daughter. Mohammed and Zaynab were direct first cousins.

SECTION OMITTED

The Reproductive Health Journal reports the following rates on consanguinity in Muslim countries. Where a statistical range has been recorded, I have used the lower parameter:
http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/6/1/17/table/T1 (A table is found at that website which lists cousin marriage rates in Arab countries ranging from 12 percent in Lebanon to 22.6 percent in Algeria to 48 percent in Libya to 60 percent in southern Egypt).

SECTION OMITTED

According to the BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4442010.stm 55% of Pakistani-Britons are married to a first cousin, and as a corollary to that produce "just under a third" of all children in the UK with genetic illnesses, despite being only 3% of the total births.

As a direct result of inbreeding, the Muslim population is the only population on earth that is mentally and physically devolving. This inherent weakness makes Muslim populations more susceptible to nefarious, oppressive leadership and mass manipulation. The amount of objective evidence supporting this statement is colossal and obvious.
END QUOTE

Add to this the fact that roughly 75 percent of Muslims cannot read.

Reza Safa, a Christian convert and evangelist who grew up as a devout Muslim, wrote a book called "Inside Islam." In it, he points out that, very few Muslims have read the Koran because the rate of illiteracy in many Muslim countries is 75 to 85 percent. He also states that since only 20 percent of Muslims worldwide can read Arabic, they don't fully know what the Koran advocates. This makes them especially susceptible to tyrants who use demagogic tactics to whip them into an emotional fury.

I'm not saying that Muslims can't become more enlightened people, but between the genetic inbreeding and the illiteracy and the wife beating, well...let's just say that Thomas Jefferson isn't about to become the Muslim world's role model any time soon. While this grim picture could be reversed with effort (the Koran doesn't require marriage of first cousins and people can be taught to read), to say that all we have to do is leave the Middle East, keep sending them our petrodollars, and expect Islamic countries to adopt a Live and Let Live attitude is a dangerous self-delusion. I suspect that if we dug our own oil, as many conservatives have advocated, the need or desire to placate Middle Eastern despots would lessen.

There are many Rand Paul domestic issues I agree with and I don't advocate nation building and military adventurism as cheap thrill for those that don't fight themselves or send their own sons and daughters. But ignoring the mentality and values of other peoples around the world - and both their potential and very real threats to our way of life - while we send them hundreds of billions in "play money," i.e., money to play with, is not a viewpoint one should adapt.

Rand Paul states, as a generalization, that Democrats want to cut the military budget and not domestic spending, while Republicans want to cut domestic spending and not the military budget. This impasse, if no one wants to rise above it and do what is good for the Country, namely cut aspects of both, could lead to a situation where Sen. Paul may be proven at least partially right on his foreign affairs positions. If the US doesn't reform its spending habits and balance its budget, it will greatly inhibit the ability of the US military to intervene in a number of situations around the world.
Current and former allies of the US are probably looking for ways to self-finance their defense needs because they see that America will either not want to - or not be able to afford – to support its mutual alliance treaties in the same way it could in the past. Either way, Sen. Paul has pointed out the folly of our current conventional political “wisdom.”

Oh Death, Where is Thy Sting?

The Easter Gospel

In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the Week,came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the Sepulchre.
And, behold, there was a great earthquake; for the angel of the Lord descended from Heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it.
His countenance was like lightening, and his rainment white as snow:
And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.
And the angel answered, and said unto the women, fear not ye; for I know ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
He is not here, for he is risen as he said.

(MATT:28;1,6)


And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary, mother of James, and Sa-lo-me, had brought sweet spices that they might come and anoint Him.
And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came to the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.
And they said among themselves, who shall roll away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?
And when they looked they saw that the stone was rolled away; for it was very great.
And entering into the Sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment, and they were afrighted.
And he saith unto them, BE not afrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: He is risen: He is not here; behold the place where they laid Him.

(Mark:16;1,7)


Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices they had prepared and others with them.
And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.
And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.
And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments.
And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?
He is not here, but is risen: remember how He spake unto you when He was yet in Galilee,
Saying the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.

(Luke:24;1,7)


But Mary stood without the sepulchre weeping, and as she wept she stooped down and looked within the sepulchre.
And seeth two angels in white sitting, one at the head, the other at the feet of where the body of Jesus had lain.
And they say unto her, woman, why weepeth thou? She saith unto them, because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.
And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne Him hence, tell me where thou has laid Him, and I will take Him away.
Jesus saith unto her Mary. She turned herself and saith unto Him Rab-bo-ni: which is to say, master.

(John:20;11,16)

This is the Word of the Lord.


HAPPY EASTER TO ONE AND ALL.

The Meaning of Easter

Timothy Birdnow



Imagine, if you will, that you are God. You are all powerful, you have unlimited imagination, you can do anything. Now you are complete, and don't really NEED anything, but you decide you want to have some fellowship of sorts. You take it into your head to create some beings that are independent of you, that exist seperate from you, but that are intended to be your friends and cared for by you.

How do you proceed? Well, first off, if they are to have independent existence you have to create certain characteristics, and a medium in which they operate. The characteristics you want are similar to your own, albeit you aren't going to give them all of your power since they won't be able to handle it, being finite. You want them to be intelligent, kind, loving, and self-willed. You want them to be able to make free choices.

Free choices presuppose alternatives. But what alternatives can exist outside of you? You are the determinant of what is and what is not. How do you give freedom to being that can only exist in harmony with yourself?

When I was a child I had a toy robot that was amazing in it's day; it walked five paces, then threw open it's chest and laser guns came out. It spun round in circles, firing the lasers, then closed it's chest and walked another five paces and did it again. And again. And again. Within a week I tossed it in the toybox and never played with it again.

If you are to create different beings you will want them all to be different. I grew bored with that robot because it never acted any differently. It had no free will; it was preprogrammed and did what it was designed to do regardless of changing conditions. Had I had my will I would have given it independence, let it make it's own choices. I would have wanted it to be unique, individual. I would have wanted that for all of my toys.

If I, with my limited intellect and simply notions, wanted that, how much more will you, the God of our imagination here, want that for your creation?

So you make all of your creations unique, which means some have more of this and some more of that. You love them all, but there will be some who will have more of everything and some less. Do you like the one you gave less to any less than the one you gave more to?

No, but you have created a fundamentally unfair situation.

How do you square these things?

The Bible says that Angels were created before Man. What exactly are angels? They are rather like bits of free-floating information; they are software without hardware, as it were. They are alien from our way of thinking; non-corporeal entities. They exist in a number of differing species - Angels, Archangels, Powers and Principalities, Thrones and Dominions, Seraphim and Cherabim. At the top was one angel who was given the most in terms of gifts. Somewhere there lay a lowly angel with the fewest.

You claim to be all just; what would YOU do?

Hold a tournament, of course!

You have no intention of changing the creatures fundamentally, but you offer them a chance to decide their own place in existence by letting them choose how much they want to have. But you can't intervene much, because that would influence events and if you influence events you are again being unfair. So you veil yourself, recuse yourself and let your creation hash things out. You impose certain rules to act as guardrails, and you sit back and watch.

But what happens? The top dog is likely to not be top dog any more - and he's smart enough to know it. So what does he do?

He decides he isn't playing your stupid game. And he convinces as many of his fellows as he can to simply ignore it - and you.

The Bible says there was war in Heaven, and that war was an intellectual battle of wills between those who wanted to follow God's plans and those who decided they would be their own gods, thank you very much. The fall conceived by Lucifer was rather like performing a lobotomy on onesself, but it was worth it to Lucifer as he simply couldn't accept his coming loss of power. To add insult to injury, Michael, a lowly Archanger (second rank from the bottom) was his chief opponent in the war, and was given the power to expel the now aptly named Satan (adversary) from Heaven.

We can't know what this means; it was a battle between non-corporeal entities, much like a computer virus being removed by an anti-virus program, but that doesn't really give us the true picture. What did happen was that a sizable portion of the original beings created turned against God, and fell. We say they went to Hell, but it seems likely that Hell is a state within their spirits itself; the suffering of guilty consciences by beings who exist entirely in the mind rather than having their thoughts dilluted by physical bodies. They rejected love, which is God, and so suffer the lack of love - even for themselves. They no longer have friendship, they no longer have mercy, or tenderness, they no longer have anything but the torment of rage. Hatred is all that is left to them.

Is God unmerciful here? Was it terrible He let them go to Hell? He didn't force them anywhere; they chose to be there rather than to be with Him. He has simply given them what they want, which is to be cut off from Him. Hell may be a sort of place, but it is more a state of mind. Demons carry Hell with them. And since they are so much more intelligent than Man they did this with full understanding and knowledge, and they will never repent because the only way they can is to go to God to ask for the strength to repent, and they cannot do that because they have chosen to be shut of Him. Hell is the only act of kindness they will accept.

So now, you the theoretical God, decide to create a different creature, one limited by physicality. In many ways these new beings will be weaker, less attractive, less intelligent, but they will experience things very differently from the first creatures you made. But, just as with the angels, you have to give them the right to decide who and what they want to be, where their place will be in your creation. What do you do?

They are too stupid to openly rebel against you, but they can be pursuaded by someone smarter. They have to have this option, or they have no free will and end up as automatons. What to do?

You let the rebels converse with them.

The rebels have only one way of hurting you; they can drag others into their rebellion. They will use their intellects and abilities to trick and seduce, if possible. You permit this, to give the new beings freedom.

Man falls.

Now, because you let them be tricked, you are willing to give them a second chance. The only problem is that evil is a rejection of you and your love, which means they don't really WANT a second chance, except to avoid the suffering that they brought on themselves.

When you created the parameters of reality you built a fundamental justice into the fabric of reality. There are spiritual laws than, once broken, have to be reset. To reset this you need a redeemer, someone who hasn't fallen to come and pay the spiritual debt. Think of it as a bank; if you are overdrawn you can't get anything out of it. Imagine if you want to square your account, but have nothing to put in to pay the fees and penalties; your property will likely be repossessed.

Now imagine a kindly gentleman who feels bad for you, and he pays off your mortgage or car loan.

In this instance God Himself has to come and do the paying, and He has to give you an example of how to avoid getting back into debt. So He comes as a man, born, grows up, then begins teaching, knowing all the while that He has to pay your penalty, which in the laws of the Universe is death. Being perfect He will not receive the final death, which is eternal seperation from God (Himself) so His will be a real death, and a worse one than most people think, because "He decended into Hell" meaning that for a time He was completely cut off from His divine self, and He experienced the pain of all Creation that had been inflicted on Man as a result of the Fall. All of it. It was the worst agony any corporeal being could endure, and it was freely chosen by Jesus. That was for you - and for me.

But the death alone was not enough; Death, the results of Man turning to himself as his own god, had to be overcome. No man had ever come back from the dead (save a few like Lazarus whom Jesus brought back, only to die again) and it was the one thing necessary to bring triumph over Death and Hell - and over the fallen angels who sought the ruin of all Mankind. The resurrection destroyed them, for their power lay in the seperation of Man from God, which was now over. God had made peace with Man, for Man.

Now we live in an age of grace, and Man has a choice again. This ended what was refered to as a great scandal, that God continued to deal with Man after the fall, because it made Him appear hypocritical, intervening in the test we were supposed to have failed. But our failure was a result of trickery and deceit, not volition alone. We are the ones who realized our foolishness.

Much is made of the problem of pain; and many have turned against God because of the seeming unfairness of human suffering. yes, suffering is and can be terrible, but were I the God that I had asked you to imagine yourself I would not have done anything different. Yes, pain can be terrible, but it is temporary to those who choose it to be, and it results in a far better hereafter, both for yourself and for others. The suffering of the damned is only there because they choose to suffer rather than to ask for forgiveness. Once freed of their physical bodies they have true understanding of their decisions, and want to be free of God and with others of their own kind, just as criminals draw together even while they may be actively trying to hurt or cheat each-other. It's who they have chosen to be, and they refuse to seek redemption and be with those who they hold in contempt. The punishment ultimately is from themselves, not God. They know the debt they owe, and choose to continue to add to it.

Another argument made against Easter is that it only saves those who believe, and that is true. What is lft unsaid is that everyone can believe, and at the end everyone will get a final chance. This Catholics call Baptism by Desire; a God-seeking Jew, or Muslim, or Buddhist is not cast into eternal fire - unless he wants to be. BUT it is more difficult to cultivate the habits needed to make the right decisions, and Catholics believe in temporal punishments to make up for "that which is lacking in the Cross" as Paul put it, so the pius non-Christian has a harder go after death to scrape off the barnacles left from Sin. That purgation occurs in a place that is neither Earth nor Heaven, and is called by Catholics Purgatory.

There has been, in the past, another place called Limbo where virtuous pagans (and it used to be believed unbaptized children) went. This was paradise but without God; that is why Dante placed Limbo in Hell. There may be such a place, where those who, on the final vision, reject salvation but seek virtue (I can see some modern atheists ending here) may go; they will have exactly what they want, but God is absent. God is all there is, and without Him we are but prisoners in a guilded cage. A palace can still be a prison, after all.

And so, on this Easter day, we Christians celebrate the gift of salvation, the promise that all has been made right and we can eventually go home. Frankly, were I God, I wouldn't have done it any other way!

He is indeed risen!

2Samuel 12 and Donald Trump

Timothy Birdnow

Michelle Malkin tears The Donald apart over his support for Kelo and his abuse of eminent domaine to steal property in a fine piece at National Review Online. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/265450/donald-trumps-eminent-domain-empire-michelle-malkin

Trump had this to say about Kelo:

"The fact is, if you have a person living in an area that’s not even necessarily a good area, and government, whether it’s local or whatever, government wants to build a tremendous economic development, where a lot of people are going to be put to work and make [an] area that’s not good into a good area, and move the person that’s living there into a better place — now, I know it might not be their choice — but move the person to a better place and yet create thousands upon thousands of jobs and beautification and lots of other things, I think it happens to be good."

End quote.

Kelo, as you all remember, is the court decision which said that governments could use their powers of condemnation and eminent domaine to take property from private owners - homeowners in particular - and give it to private developers for fun and profit. Eminent Domaine says that government can take property, with just compensation, for public works such as bridges or lakes or roads. What has been happening in recent years is that governments have been seizing homes or buildings from private owners solely for redevelopment, giving the property at bargain prices to high-powered developers so they can make mountains of money. This bipasses the necessity of bygone days for developers to make lucrative offers to holdout owners, and negotiate a deal that is ultimately fair because the land has intrinsic value to the developer. Instead, the developer gets government to take the property at market rate FOR THE UNDEVELOPED PROPERTY and then sell it to the developer at sweetheart prices, who then reaps a bounty.

It's the swindle so prominent in old Westerns; the railroad or mining corporation wants the land owned by a poor rancher, and sends in goons to force the settler off. Only this time the goons are lawyers with writs of eminent domaine, and the hired guns are police and marshalls. Our hero is powerless to stop them; he's likely to wind up in jail. Thugs and criminals can be fought, but you can't fight city hall, as the old saying goes.

But getting back to Trump; that quote shows plainly he is a redistributionist and believer in government as a tool to intervene in people's lives - something anathema to true Conservatism.

As the inestimable Michelle Malkin concludes;

"Like most statist promises of bountiful job creation, government-engineered redevelopment math rarely adds up. Trump’s corporations have backed casino-industry bailouts and wealth-redistributing “tax-increment financing” schemes — the very kind of taxpayer-subsidized interventions we’ve seen on a grand scale under the Obama administration.

Championing liberty begins at the local level. There is nothing more fundamental than the principle that a man’s home is his castle. Donald Trump’s career-long willingness to trample this right tells you everything you need to know about his bogus tea-party sideshow."

End excerpt.

How right she is!

And Trump has been more than willing to use these tactics. From the article:

"While casting himself as America’s new constitutional savior, Trump has shown reckless disregard for fundamental private-property rights. In the 1990s, he waged a notorious war on elderly homeowner Vera Coking, who owned a little home in Atlantic City that stood in the way of Trump’s manifest land development. The real-estate mogul was determined to expand his Trump Plaza and build a limousine parking lot — Coking’s private property be damned. The nonprofit Institute for Justice, which successfully saved Coking’s home, explained the confiscatory scheme:

Unlike most developers, Donald Trump doesn’t have to negotiate with a private owner when he wants to buy a piece of property, because a governmental agency — the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority or CRDA — will get it for him at a fraction of the market value, even if the current owner refuses to sell. Here is how the process works.

After a developer identifies the parcels of land he wants to acquire and a city planning board approves a casino project, CRDA attempts to confiscate these properties using a process called “eminent domain,” which allows the government to condemn properties “for public use.” Increasingly, though, CRDA and other government entities exercise the power of eminent domain to take property"

End excerpt.

I am mindful of King David in the Bible; David's advisor came to him with a case that needed adjudicating in which a rich and powerful man stole a small lamb from a poor laborer, a lamb the man had raised and loved tenderly, and that the rich man had the laborer murdered when he demanded justice. David was furious, demanding the man's head! The advisor then pointed out that David himself WAS THAT MAN, that his affair with Bathsheeba and subsequent sending her husband into battle on the front lines made him guilty. Is not Donald Trump and his abuse of people like Vera Coking similar? Do we want to turn the rich man into the King?

If Trump is willing to essentially steal the property of others, would he not be likely to do so all the more as president?

Do we want an unjust man sitting in the highest executive office?

America knowingly re-elected William Jefferson Clinton, a liar, adulterer, oathbreaker, slanderer, and perjurer to the presidency because times were good and people thought he was funny. We have paid dearly for that; Islamic extremism got out of hand as Clinton was too busy being fellated to pay attention to growing threats, we ramped up our spending, we turned China into a superpower under his watch (which he gleefully did in exchange for illegal campaign contributions) and now many of the chickens that hatched under the Clinton feathers have now come home to roost under a far worse president (albeit a more moral one, seemingly). The point is that people did not vote their conscience, did not care what was right and wrong, and now we are paying the price. If we continue this practice, where will it lead? If we put a man who steals into office, can we expect to maintain the integrity of our goods and households? If a man like Trump took what was not his when he was outside of the halls of power, how much more will he take while inside? This is a moral question, and if conservatives want to support Trump they had better ask those questions.

Obamatizing the Church

Jack Kemp

And one could say the synagogue as well.

Janet Shaw Crouse has written an insightful analysis of "the new" liberal theology in a Townhall article called "Obamatizing the Church."

Here are some excerpts. I suggest you read the entire piece at
http://townhall.com/columnists/janiceshawcrouse/2011/04/23/obamatizing_the_church/page/full/

Just as Barack Obama wants to change what it means to be America, controversial author Rob Bell wants to change what it means to be Christian. The cover story for the Easter Week edition of Time magazine is about Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins. Bell, perhaps the most widely known of a group of young supposedly evangelical writers who emphasize “love” and dismiss the Biblical view of judgment/retribution (referred to in Christian circles as “hell), has prompted discussions throughout the church and, indeed, throughout a wide swath of American culture, about the meaning of Christianity and the basic theological doctrines that comprise Biblical Christianity.

Chris Matthews devoted a segment of his Palm Sunday show to a discussion of the issue with four non-theologian journalists/writers. Matthews asked if Bell’s theories weren’t necessary in light of the decline in church membership enabling ministers to cash in on today’s “you deserve it” attitudes. Andrew Sullivan agreed with Bell and explained, “Hell is simply the refusal to accept the love of God and Heaven is the ability to open your heart to God and let his love in.” Norah O’Donnell, though, thought the concept of hell helped keep us “on the straight and narrow.”

While most commentators freely shared their ignorance of basic Biblical doctrine without any inhibition, the Time magazine cover story (written by Jon Meacham, formerly of Newsweek magazine and a theology student in his undergraduate days) acknowledges from the outset that Bell’s views contradict traditional Christianity. Others are not as aware of what is at stake in Bell’s “soft” rhetoric about “love.”

Bell makes it clear that he thinks everyone has a place in heaven, with the implication that there is no hell. Thus, by implication, he throws out the doctrine of salvation and the necessity for Christ’s death on the cross for our sins. His views, then, dismiss the need for redemption, repentance, the Church, and much of the rest of Christian doctrine. Such views are not “Christian,” nor are they “evangelical.” Those views fall well outside the Christian faith as it is revealed in Scripture and as it has been taught in churches for more than two millennia throughout Christendom.

James Cameron's Curious Obsession with Nazi Sympathizer Leni Riefenstahl

Mark Musser

For Earth Day I put together a piece that deals with James Cameron's curious interest in Leni Riefenstahl, the infamous director of the Nazi propaganda film "Triumph of the Will." Both blockbuster movies "Titanic" and "Avatar" are heavily influenced by Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl. Americans, of course, loved both movies.

Before you say that this is a bridge too far, or too much of a stretch, read the article from start to finish and look up the links if you need to. I have been sitting on this particular article for almost a half a year pecking away at it and getting suggestions from others. There is no small amount of research in this including watching a few of her movies under my belt plus a German documtary on her. The American Thinker editor changed the title to the more generic "The Green Nazis" which actually hid the piece to some extent. Mine was "James Cameron's Curious Obsession with Nazi Sympathizer Leni Riefenstahl." The AT editor may have saved me a lot of grief perhaps - http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/04/the_green_nazis.html.

Security Check Hissy Fit by the Left

Jack Kemp

Today the Huffington Post and their associated America Online website ran an article about how “awful” it was that firemen who were at the Trade Center on 9/11 and others as well at the post 9/11 cleanup will be screened for possibly being terrorists. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/21/911-responders-screened-for-terror-ties_n_852198.html?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl1|sec1_lnk2|57655

This is a spin to cause people to be outraged. The correct way of describing this security event is that FBI will screen to keep out fraudsters and terrorists from milking the system to take monies reserved for actual victims of 9/11 and post-9/11 health problems. And yes, there are many people who make false claims in this world – especially on Medicare – and the government should be screening them.

When you attempt to cash a check, buy cigarettes if you are young or ask for a senior discount, does someone ask you to see a driver’s license to prove age and identity?

When someone goes to vote and they ask for their drivers’ license, does the Huffington Post – or the New York Times say, “Grandmas now compared illegal alien welfare cheats by The Board of Elections?” Actually, I shouldn’t be giving them any ideas.

Within the last week, Jeff Bruzzo, the Director of Island Metro Productions 9/11 Tribute Film (www.911tributefilm.com) and I were just finished shooting some background video in the World Trade Center subway passageways, walking towards the exit with the camera turned off, a New York City Police Detective approached us, showed his badge and requested we show some identification and tell him what we were up to with that camera so close to Ground Zero. We didn't complain to the Daily Kos or the New York Times, but understood that the detective was just doing his job, protecting the public.

When I went for jobs as a computer programmer in financial institutions in the 1980s, they took my fingerprints and sent them to the FBI to see if I had a criminal record. According to the Huffington Post, I should have been outraged, just like most liberals, at the unfairness of this reality. And I had to take a drug urine test as well for a number of my interviews. Too bad I didn’t have Gloria Allred to call a press conference on my behalf and a Huffington Post writer to protest the Unfairness of Life.

When my mother was in Germany after World War II, some US Army agents, who she believed to be from Army Intelligence, did not just take her word that she was in Auschwitz, but actually asked her to draw a rough layout of the camp on a piece of paper and describe what each building’s function was. Any Soviet Spy could get a tattoo on their arm such as my mother had: the Army wanted verification she was telling the truth. It was difficult – but adult life sometimes forces one to deal with unpleasant difficulties. Someone could be the nicest, most decent person in the world, but to strangers, they are…a stranger and have to offer proof of their claims.

In the United States, the German government asked my parents to contact them once a year to show they were alive and other family members were not claiming benefits for a dead person. Let’s face it, many Holocaust survivors would have no misgivings to lie in order to get the German government to get additional funds for loss and suffering. But the German government was well within its rights to ask for that proof of being alive. I personally had to send my father’s last reparations payment back because he died just before the first of the month date on that check.

I see this Huffington Post story as some leftist being upset not only with life but with Jimmy Carter’s famous admonition that “life wasn’t fair.”

The government isn’t trying to insult 9/11 survivors. It’s trying to keep out 9/11 fakers.

The Passion

Today is Good Friday, the day celebrating the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Gospel, according to Matthew:


30And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.

31Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.

32But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.

33Peter answered and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended.

34Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.

35Peter said unto him, Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise also said all the disciples.

36Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.

37And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.

38Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.

39And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

40And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour?

41Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

42He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.

43And he came and found them asleep again: for their eyes were heavy.

44And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.

45Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

46Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth betray me.

47And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people.

48Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.

49And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him.

50And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus and took him.

51And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest's, and smote off his ear.

52Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

53Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?

54But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?

55In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me.

56But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.

57And they that had laid hold on Jesus led him away to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled.

58But Peter followed him afar off unto the high priest's palace, and went in, and sat with the servants, to see the end.

59Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death;

60But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses,

61And said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.

62And the high priest arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee?

63But Jesus held his peace, And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.

64Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

65Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy.

66What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death.

67Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands,

68Saying, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he that smote thee?

69Now Peter sat without in the palace: and a damsel came unto him, saying, Thou also wast with Jesus of Galilee.

70But he denied before them all, saying, I know not what thou sayest.

71And when he was gone out into the porch, another maid saw him, and said unto them that were there, This fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth.

72And again he denied with an oath, I do not know the man.

73And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter, Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee.

74Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew.

75And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.

1When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death:

2And when they had bound him, they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor.

3Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,

4Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.

5And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

6And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.

7And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in.

8Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.

9Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;

10And gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me.

11And Jesus stood before the governor: and the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest.

12And when he was accused of the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing.

13Then said Pilate unto him, Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee?

14And he answered him to never a word; insomuch that the governor marvelled greatly.

15Now at that feast the governor was wont to release unto the people a prisoner, whom they would.

16And they had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas.

17Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?

18For he knew that for envy they had delivered him.

19When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.

20But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus.

21The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas.

22Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified.

23And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified.

24When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.

25Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.

26Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.

27Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers.

28And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe.

29And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews!

30And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head.

31And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him.

32And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross.

33And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull,

34They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.

35And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.

36And sitting down they watched him there;

37And set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

38Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left.

39And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads,

40And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.

41Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said,

42He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.

43He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.

44The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.

45Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.

46And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

47Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias.

48And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink.

49The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.

50Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

51And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

52And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,

53And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

54Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.

55And many women were there beholding afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him:

56Among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedees children.

57When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple:

58He went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered.

59And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,

60And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.