Bubba Reaching Across the Aisle to Help McCain?

A Bailout for All Our Bad Decisions?

From The Washington Post

By Governor Mark Sanford

I am worried for our country - not so much because of the tumult in the financial markets but because of the federal government's response and its implications.

After Hurricane Katrina, the federal government assumed roles traditionally handled by state and local governments. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the government federalized 25,000 workers through the Transportation Security Administration. The example of security-focused countries such as Israel, which elects to have that function handled by the private sector, did not matter. Now, our federal government is likely to commit three-quarters of a trillion dollars -- more than last year's Pentagon budget -- to a bailout based on what happened in the credit markets last week.

An ever-expanding scope of federal commitment and power is not what made this country great. Expanded power in one place comes at a cost in other places. American cornerstones such as individual initiative and an entrepreneurial spirit -- born in free and open societies with private property rights and the rule of law -- have never fit particularly well within the context of an ever-growing federal government.

For 200 years, the "business model" in our country has rested on a simple fact: that while one may reap rewards from taking risks, one should also be prepared to face the consequences of those risks. Some of the proposed actions with regard to the credit market turn that business model on its head -- absolving those who took too much risk, or bought too much house, from the weight of their own choices. If Congress passes the proposed bailout, we will be destined to have far greater problems in time, leaving those who are prudent in their finances to foot the bill for those who are not.

I am not writing to criticize Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. I respect his business judgment greatly, and his unenviable task is to find a short-term solution to problems grown by government over the long term. Whether his proposals are right or wrong is less the issue than the question of where we are, as a society, in terms of having government in the business of protecting people from their own financial decisions.

Last week's events were rooted in distressed mortgage securities whose optimistic values were facilitated by quasi-governmental entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The investment banking capital write-downs were turbocharged by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which did what too many laws do -- it fixed yesterday's problem. The amazing expansion of credit was fueled by a Federal Reserve offering an easy-money policy that led us right into a credit bubble. All this was made worse by the government enabling some people's tendency to want more house than they can afford.

With that bubble popped, we will now go through a major financial de-leveraging. It will be painful. Yet to preserve what has made this country great, we need to be on guard against Washington offering endless cures to our ills.

Many of the "cures" that are soon to be offered will have one thing in common -- telling us what others did wrong. Instead of listening to these, each of us as taxpayers must admonish those in Washington to get their own financial house in order. Washington is the master of creative and unsustainable finance, with $50 trillion in unfunded promises.

We will be told of bailouts that "won't cost anything." We should caution policymakers that this has never been the history of bailouts, and remind them of Milton Friedman's suggestion that the capitalist system never works without loss. Investment titans recently featured in Vanity Fair trading $60 million beach homes should never be sheltered from this old-fashioned concept.

We will be told of "temporary" funds and programs. We should remind our leaders of Ronald Reagan's words that the closest thing to eternal life is a government program.

We will be told "trust us" on pricing assets, and we should not -- because no matter how pure one's intentions, no one watches your money like you do. This makes transparency and open bidding incredibly important.

If we do these things right, we will weather the very rough patch ahead and be better for it as a country. If we do not, there will be more parallels between our nation and Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" than we would like to imagine. The difference lies in each of our hands.

Mark Sanford, a Republican, is governor of South Carolina. He represented South Carolina for three terms in the U.S. House and was formerly employed by Goldman Sachs.

Conley Charges Sen. Graham With Setting The Stage For Crisis

Democratic challenger Bob Conley, running for South Carolina’s U.S. Senate seat, is strongly opposed to the kind of meddling in financial markets that is supported by Lindsey Graham and which is responsible for today’s economic crisis.

“The current economic crisis is a direct consequence of the flawed legislation Lindsey Graham voted for while serving in the House of Representatives,” said Conley. “Lindsey Graham has hurt South Carolina and the Nation beyond measure.”

Graham voted in 1999 for the euphemistically-named Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 which repealed the common-sense restrictions on the financial sector imposed by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933.

This repeal of Glass-Steagall set up the current crisis by allowing Wall Street firms to integrate banking, insurance and brokerage services under the same roof, with virtually no regulatory oversight.

“Lifting Glass-Steagall restrictions launched a new era of irrational risk-taking, led to dangerous financial practices, and allowed the perilous consolidation of the financial sector into too few hands,” said Conley. “This centralization of financial power now threatens to destabilize our economy and further sink our once vibrant Middle Class into a hole from which they may never climb out.”

Lindsey Graham’s vote in 1999 had the following impact on South Carolina and the Nation:

· Feverish speculation caused the so-called “dot.com” crash that wiped out $5 trillion in market value of technology companies from March 2000 to October 2002. At the time, Fed chairman Alan Greenspan called this “irrational exuberance”.

· Lax regulatory oversight set up, accelerated and perpetuated sub-prime mortgage loans and their bundling into prime investments that promised high returns – an unsustainable proposition by any common-sense measure.

· The results: $29 billion to bail out Bear Stearns; $85 billion for 80 percent of AIG to nationalize it; $150 billion in a stimulus package to flood the nation with cash; $250 billion to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; and now $700 billion to save the national economy from the excesses of Wall Street. All this with no guarantee of success!

After helping to lead our Nation into a financial crisis of such devastating magnitude, Lindsey Graham no longer can claim to have the knowledge, insight and hands-on experience to continue representing South Carolinians in the U.S. Senate.

In financial terms, it is time for the voters of South Carolina to withdraw Lindsey Graham from the U.S. Senate and deposit Bob Conley as their sound investment in the future.

Latest Orissa Violence Destroyed 109 Homes, Convent, Three Churches

From Catholic World News

The renewed round of anti-Christian violence in the east Indian state of Orissa late last week claimed 109 homes, at least three churches, and a Missionaries of Charity convent, according to a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar and the regional superior of the Missionaries of Charity nuns. UCA News reported that ‘radical Hindu mobs armed with iron bars, machetes and swords roam villages in worst-affected Kandhamal district.’

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

* More homes, church buildings destroyed in renewed Orissa violence (UCAN)

* Former premier joins protest against anti-Christian violence (UCAN)

* Catholic leaders meet Hindus in Kochi (UCAN)

* More homes on fire; bodies fished from Orissa river (AsiaNews)

Lord Nelson on the 250th Anniversary of His Birth (1758-2008)

"England expects that every man will do his duty."

Vice-Admiral Horatio, Lord Nelson was born 250 years ago today, in Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk, England. Britain's most acclaimed combat hero, he is regarded as the greatest seaman of all time, whose daring and unconventional tactics are studied at naval colleges today. Upon this one-armed, one-eyed heroic figure turned the whole history of the world at the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805. It was the moment of Nelson's greatest triumph and also his death.

Commemorating that battle's 200th anniversary, H.M. Queen Elizabeth II spoke of its significance and "the immortal memory of Horatio, Lord Nelson" during a dinner on board his flagship, HMS Victory:

"The defeat of the combined French and Spanish fleets lifted the very real threat of an invasion of Britain. It was greeted by the nation with huge relief, and it was the first step in the process of defeating Napoleon's ambitious plans for the domination of Europe.

Success at Trafalgar was by no means a foregone conclusion. The British Fleet, under the command of Lord Nelson, faced a formidable enemy, but battles are seldom decided by statistics.

It was the qualities of the leadership and comradeship which he gave to the Royal Navy in the years leading up to his final battle that made all the difference.

He was without doubt a superb tactician and a fearless and determined commander, but he was above all a man of faith, duty and deep concern for the welfare of everyone in his fleet.

Tonight we recall his greatest battle and his death at the moment of victory, but we also remember his example of service and his humanity.

Just before the battle, Nelson sat down at the desk behind me, to compose his famous prayer in terms so typical of his character:

'May the Great God, whom I worship, grant to my Country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious victory; and may no misconduct, in anyone, tarnish it, and may humanity after victory be the predominant feature in the British Fleet.'"

The following, in six ten minute segments, is an excellent documentary on Lord Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar. May his memory and example protect Great Britain today from nefarious continental schemes and ambitions.

Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI

Belief in God 'Really Can Relieve Pain'

Sassoferrato's 17th Century Virgin Mary

Faith in God really can relieve pain, according to the results of a bizarre scientific experiment.

From The Telegraph
By Alastair Jamieson

Research at Oxford University has found believers can draw on their religion to endure suffering with greater fortitude, suggesting Christian martyrs may have been able to reduce the agony of torture or slow death.

Academics at The Oxford Centre For Science Of The Mind gave electric shocks to 12 Roman Catholics and 12 atheists as they studied a painting of the Virgin Mary.

They found Catholics seemed able to block out much of the pain. Using brain-scanning techniques, they also discovered that the Catholics were able to activate part of the brain associated with conditioning the experience of pain.

The experiment is one of a series being conducted by the academics, a group of scientists, philosophers and theologians from different departments at the university.

A sparking device was strapped to the back of the participants' left hands to deliver an electric shock.

The scientists then asked them to contemplate two paintings, Sassoferrato's 17th Century Virgin Mary and Leonardo da Vinci's 15th Century Lady With An Ermine.

The researchers hoped that the face of the Virgin Mary would induce a religious state of mind in the believers, while da Vinci's secular painting was chosen because it did not look dissimilar and would be calming.

They spent half an hour inside an MRI scanner, receiving a series of 20 electric shocks in four separate sessions while looking at either the religious or non-religious picture.

The Catholics said that looking at the painting of the Virgin Mary made them feel 'safe', 'taken care of' and 'calmed down and peaceful'.

More significantly, they reported feeling 12 per cent less pain after viewing the religious image than after looking at the Leonardo.

The front right-hand side of their brains lit up on the scanner, indicating that the neural mechanisms of pain modulation had been engaged.

There was no such brain activity among the atheists, whose pain and anxiety levels stayed roughly the same throughout the experiment.

Writing in the scientific journal Pain, the researchers concluded that at least some religious believers can moderate their pain by thinking about it more positively.

Psychologist Miguel Farias, one of the team, admitted that a similar effect may be produced by non-believers if a sufficiently powerful image was used.

He said: "We would need to find a picture of someone they feel very positive towards, such as a mother or father."

The Anglican Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev Tom Wright, welcomed the findings. He said: "The practice of faith should, and in many cases does, alter the person you are.

"It can affect the patterns of your brain and your emotions. So it comes as no surprise to me that this experiment has reached such conclusions.

The Priests: Bless Me! We're Pop Stars

From The Telegraph

Three priests have landed a £1.4 million record deal.

	Heartwarmers: The Priests

We've seen charts peppered with Benedictine monks, the Benedictine Nuns of Jamberoo, All Angels, the Choirboys, Libera (more choirboys) and Simon Cowell's Angelis (choirboys and choirgirls).

Yet none of these has created quite such an instant surge of international attention as Sony BMG's new signing, a trio of northern Irish clergymen called The Priests. The three fathers are brothers Martin and Eugene O'Hagan (who sing tenor) and their childhood friend David Delargy (bass/baritone), and they've been singing together since they were boy trebles at school more than 30 years ago.

"I suppose there are better looking groups than us, and I'm sure there are better sounding groups, but I suppose there is a kind of uniqueness to this lineup," reflects Father David, whose promotional schedule was delayed for 24 hours when he had to conduct the funeral of one of his parishioners.

"Three diocesan priests who are working full time in their parishes and have been singing together and have a friendship that stretches back decades. But obviously it's not just the story; ­ obviously the record company believes that the music we make together is of sufficiently high quality to be able to sell."

Manchester Boys' Choir - "Mary Stuart's Prayer"

The beautiful hymn, "Mary Stuart's Prayer," is based on a prayer written by Mary, Queen of Scots. The hymn is performed here by the Manchester Boys' Choir.

The choir, founded in 1981 by Adrian P. Jessett, has established itself as one of the finest boys choirs in the world. It prides itself on producing the finest voices without auditioning; no applicant is turned away.

The Joe Biden Gaffe Clock

So many people are enjoying the gaffe-a-day antics of Barack Obama's comedic sidekick, Joe Biden, the Republican National Committee has created "The Joe Biden Gaffe Clock." You'll want to check back often for laughs like this, this and this.

Obama Asked to Apologize For Calling Pro-Life Group Liars on His Abortion Vote

From LifeNews.com

A leading pro-life organization has released a new web ad asking Barack Obama to apologize for saying it lied about his abortion votes. Obama accused National Right to Life of lying when it released documents verifying he voted against medical care for newborns who survive abortions.

The dustup surrounds the votes Obama cast against bills in the Illinois legislature to make sure infants aren't left to die after they survive a failed abortion.

Obama voted against the bills, he says, because they would have violated Roe v. Wade, yet documents the National Right to Life Committee released weeks ago showed Obama opposed the measure even after supporting a successful amendment to limit its effect on Roe.

Those documents were supported by FactCheck, a nonpartisan research group at the University of Pennsylvania, yet Obama still hasn't apologized for calling NRLC officials liars.

The pro-life group told LifeNews.com on Friday that it has released a new Internet ad asking him to do so.

"In August, National Right to Life released documents proving that, in 2003, Barack Obama was responsible for killing a bill to provide care and protection for babies who are born alive after abortions and that he later misrepresented the bill's content," a female narrator says.

The ad cites the Obama remark, when the candidate said about NRLC, "I hate to say that people are lying -- but here's a situation where folks are lying."

It cites the FactCheck analysis saying, "Obama's claim is wrong. The documents ... support the group's claims that Obama is misrepresenting the contents of [Senate Bill] 1082."

The NRLC PAC ad goes on to say, "Was Obama afraid that the public would learn about his extreme position -- that he opposed merely defining every baby born alive after an abortion as deserving of protection?"

"Will Obama now apologize for calling us liars when we were the ones telling the truth?"

The message concludes: "Barack Obama, a candidate whose word you can't believe in."

The ad is currently online at YouTube but there is a chance it could be used in a television commercial or a radio spot.

Pastors Plan To Defy IRS Ban On Political Speech

Ministers will intentionally violate ban on campaigning
by nonprofits in hopes of generating a test case.

By Duke Helfand
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Setting the stage for a collision of religion and politics, Christian ministers from California and 21 other states will use their pulpits Sunday to deliver political sermons or endorse presidential candidates -- defying a federal ban on campaigning by nonprofit groups.

The pastors' advocacy could violate the Internal Revenue Service's rules against political speech with the purpose of triggering IRS investigations.

That would allow their patron, the conservative legal group Alliance Defense Fund, to challenge the IRS' rules, a risky strategy that one defense fund attorney acknowledges could cost the churches their tax-exempt status. Congress made it illegal in 1954 for tax-exempt groups to publicly support or oppose political candidates.

"I'm going to talk about the un-biblical stands that Barack Obama takes. Nobody who follows the Bible can vote for him," said the Rev. Wiley S. Drake of First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park. "We may not be politically correct, but we are going to be biblically correct. We are going to vote for those who follow the Bible."

Drake was the target of a recent IRS investigation into his endorsement last year of former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. In the end, Drake was cleared.

Drake and 32 other pastors who have signed on to the "pulpit initiative" have sparked loud condemnations by fellow clergy and advocates of the separation of church and state.

These critics, such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State, argue that Sunday's sermons at churches in Oregon, Texas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and other states will violate federal tax law by politicizing the pulpit. That, they believe, will undercut the independence churches have long enjoyed to speak out about moral and ethical issues in American life, including women's suffrage, child labor and civil rights.

"The integrity of the religious community is at stake when religion and politics become entangled," said the Rev. Eric Williams of the North Congregational United Church of Christ in Columbus, Ohio.

Williams was recruited for the defense fund but instead joined with 54 other Christian and Jewish clergy members to file a complaint against the initiative with the IRS.

The religious leaders asked the agency to stop the Arizona-based defense fund from recruiting churches and to investigate whether its efforts may jeopardize its own tax-exempt status.

Representing the religious leaders are three Washington attorneys, all former IRS officials, who also filed a complaint accusing defense fund attorneys of violating IRS rules by helping the churches break federal law.

Meanwhile, a separate group of 180 ministers, rabbis and imams also has sought to counter the "pulpit initiative."

Members of the Interfaith Alliance -- which includes the nation's top Episcopal bishop -- have signed a pledge to refrain from electioneering in their houses of worship.

"Political activity and political expressions are very important, but partisan politics are . . . . a death knell to the prophetic freedom that any religious organization must protect," said the Rev. Ed Bacon, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, who signed the pledge.

All Saints survived a nearly two-year IRS investigation after former Rector George Regas spoke out against the Iraq war on the eve of the 2004 presidential election. Bacon repeatedly said the church did not engage in campaigning.

The IRS dropped the case last year even though agency officials indicated that they still considered the sermon to be illegal.

All Saints leaders voiced frustration Wednesday at pulpit initiative backers for using the Pasadena church's fight with the IRS as fodder for their cause.

"These people are wanting to promote one candidate over another and that's a huge difference," Bacon said.

At the heart of the controversy is the Johnson amendment, named after former President Lyndon Johnson, a senator from Texas when it was enacted in 1954. The measure stated that nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations cannot participate in political campaigns for or against candidates for public office.

Many churches have appeared to step over the line, but legal scholars could recall only one church that lost its tax-exempt status -- a congregation in New York that urged voters not to vote for Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential race.

The defense fund said churches targeted by the IRS would serve as clients for lawsuits against the agency in federal court.

The defense fund issued seemingly contradictory statements about the initiative. On one hand, it insists pastors will not endorse candidates and will simply exercise their constitutional rights by addressing "the differing positions of the presidential candidates in light of Scripture."

On the other hand, the defense fund describes its efforts as a "strategic litigation plan" that seeks to "restore the right of each pastor to speak scriptural truth from the pulpit" without losing a church's tax-exempt status.

"The bottom line is that churches and pastors have a right to speak freely from the pulpit," said Dale Schowengerdt, a defense fund attorney working on the project. "They should not be intimidated into silence by unconstitutional IRS regulations or rules."

Still, recognizing the confrontational nature of their strategy and wary of protests, the defense fund released the name of only one pastor ahead of Sunday -- the Rev. Gus Booth of the Warroad Community Church in rural Minnesota, who already is the subject of a complaint filed with the IRS over a May sermon in which he urged congregants to oppose Obama and Democratic New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton because of their positions on abortion.

"There is nobody who will ever tell me what I can and cannot say from behind my pulpit," Booth said, "except the spirit of God or the word of God."

Why Obama Will Lose

From The Edmond Sun

By David Deming

When Benjamin Franklin was dispatched to France as ambassador of the United States in 1776, he won the hearts of the French through his authenticity. Rather than take on an affected and phony continental style, Franklin eschewed the powdered wig of the European gentleman and donned the fur cap of an American frontiersman. Original genius and polymath, Franklin understood that the French would see through any false pretension but respect an authenticity that sprang from an unpretentious and naive love of country.

What a contrast there is between Franklin and Barack Obama. Obama is a Harvard lawyer who is a mile wide and an inch deep. He is only the latest in a long line of shallow elites that consider it stylish and intellectual to despise their own culture and heritage.

Nothing exemplifies Obama’s antipathy for American culture better than his statement that Americans “cling to” religion and guns out of frustration or bitterness. We only can suppose that Obama regards religion or firearms as aberrations that need to be eradicated.

Of course, both guns and religion are essential aspects of American culture. The United States was founded by people seeking religious freedom. Does the word “Pilgrim” ring a bell with anyone? Our freedom and the right to self-government were won by farmers with guns.

The American Revolution started when the British marched to Concord with the intention of confiscating colonial arms. Both the right to “keep and bear arms,” and the right to “free exercise” of religion are enshrined in the Bill of Rights. We have come a long way when the presidential nominee of a major political party regards the exercise of fundamental rights as a mental aberration.

When Obama refers to “my Muslim faith,” the verbal gaffe resonates as a Freudian slip because of Obama’s thinly veiled hatred for this country’s unique culture and institutions. Obama sat for 20 years in a church where the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr preached “goddamn America.” He only resigned from the congregation when it became politically expedient to do so. When earlier this year, Michelle Obama said “for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country,” can we conclude that her husband disagrees? Is it not remarkable that Michelle Obama can be so small-minded as to find nothing in the history of the United States that merits her admiration but the personal success of her husband?

What is Barack Obama for? His campaign motto is “change.” But even a 6-year-old child understands that “change” can be either good or bad. Lacking specifics, the invocation of “change” as policy is completely empty. As we witness Obama’s minions mindlessly endorse the meaningless maxim of “change,” it only can call to mind the barnyard animals in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” chanting “four legs good, two legs bad!”

The choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate has been devastating for the Obama campaign precisely because she is everything Obama is not. Palin is not ashamed of her culture or country. She is not embarrassed by being an American, but naively embraces her birthright. Unassisted by affirmative action, Palin has risen to national prominence on the basis of her character, intelligence and natural gifts. In a word, she has guts. This is a woman who is proud of her country, not because it has granted her personal success, but because she respects what America stands for: freedom, opportunity, and individualism.

Obama is a vapid demagogue, a hollow man that despises American culture. He is ill-suited to be president of the United States. As the weeks pass, more Americans will come to this realization and elect McCain/Palin in a landslide.

DAVID DEMING is an associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma, but his opinions do not necessarily represent those of the university.

Bob Conley or Lindsey Graham?

McCain-Palin's Most Recent TV AD: "Mum"

"A Risk Your Family Can't Afford"

Empire of Yin - Part 1: The Great Unbalancing

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights (central panel) – circa 1504

From The Brussels Journal
By Takuan Seiyo

Western Civilization is now like the Three Gorges valley downriver from the biggest dam in the world, breached. Pouring in is an alluvial torrent of toxic bilge waters of unbridled license, commercialized lust, puerile 24/7 media content of unlimited choices -- all of them bad, institutionalized overconsumption of useless junk with phantom money, mindless self-mutilation and nihilism. Foaming on top of this flow are cowardice and confusion masquerading as righteousness and tolerance, and a supine acquiescence to an invasion of a hundred million – 40 million in the US alone – Third World immigrants legal and illegal who are, in the balance, a gross burden on society.

But society itself is now an Ophraised mobocracy pretending as if it were a rational republic. In the geopolitical arena this translates into the castrated plumpness of Europe and Canada and the messianic, “compassionate” braggadocio of flailing America, versus the vigorous, aggressive, virile, militaristic and self-confident thrusts of China, Russia and Iran.

In the waning days of August 2008, three events occupied a disparate share of attention of the global village’s brain conditioning supra-channel. One might call that particular nook of the gushing vulgarians’ history: Dita, D-beck and da Messiah dumbfounding da dull, dolt and Democrat.

Dita is Madonna Ciccone, the aging tart with tight thighs and penchant for S&M whom many millions believe to be a singer -- a belief they back in much hard currency. Ms. Ciccone has been reported to use the pseudonym Dita Parlo, after the German actress of the 1930s.

In this inundated world, the mechanics of sex, from shafts and pistons through sockets and gaskets take the choicest location in media content and humanity’s consciousness. So do, of course, the lubricants related to the friction coefficient. And so Ms. Ciccone named her new international tour “Sticky and Sweet,” and is wooing stadiumfuls of swooning audiences with an eponymous song plus such classics of her repertoire as “Give it 2 Me," gangsta pimp and bondage paraphernalia.

Ms. Ciccone’s global appeal is such that in a city like Cardiff, Wales, where “Sticky and Sweet” kicked off, some 40,000 fans turned up, some having flown in from as far as Australia. The future of the West is in the hands of people like these. They probably know most of Ms. Ciccone’s repertoire by heart, but don’t know how a pencil is made, let alone what’s a republic or who was Aristotle. And they vote and influence the course of their nations.

No wonder that during the song "Get Stupid," Ms. Ciccone’s show included a video sequence linking images of destruction, global warming, Adolf Hitler, Robert Mugabe and U.S. presidential contender, John McCain, juxtaposed against a sequence comprising pictures of John Lennon, Al Gore, Mahatma Gandhi, and Mr. McCain’s Democratic rival, Barack Obama. Thus are leaders of the Free World manufactured nowadays. A seat on Oprah’s couch for ten minutes is worth more in one’s resume than command of a brigade at war.

As to David Beckham, the prettiest footballer in the world emerged like Venus from the rooftop conch of a red bus in the Beijing Olympic stadium, kicking a ball into an ecstatic crowd and thus serving London’s notice to the world that it was next in line to stage that festival of the foulest corruption and feelgood consumer triggers in Nike or adidas kit. Mr. Beckham -- D-beck on the advice of his Los Angeles pal, Snoop Doggy Dog -- appeared in a long-sleeved track-suit, which was fortuitous, given that, in China, people with a collection of tattoos as vast as his are prone to be arrested on sight, whereupon they end up as involuntary heart and liver donors after a lifetime of breaking rocks in penal colonies.

But Mr. Beckham was the most sympathetic part of a cringe-inducing Olympic “handover” performance which was opened by a British girl with the Old-Saxon name of Tayyiba Dudhwala, followed by an impeccably “diverse” and aptly named ZooNation hip hop dance troupe from South London, mixed with a group of disabled -- can’t discriminate, can we? – dancers called CandoCo rushing the door of a red bus like back home, followed by a big person called Leona Lewis singing “I'm gonna give you every bit of my love” while Led Zeppelin’s old pro, Jimmy Page, worked the guitar and probably hummed to himself the original lyrics about inches rather than bits of love. Then appeared a burly man wearing an unbuttoned jacket over a badly pressed shirt with a mistied tie, who, being the Mayor of London, offended the Chinese hosts with his casual demeanor.

It was the perfect parody of a multiethnic, Third World-swamped Britain run by multiculti buffoons who no longer know which way is North, what’s up, and who they were before they forgot. It’s not coincidental that just a few days after this travesty, Mr. Sérgio Cabral, Governor of the State of Rio de Janeiro, pledged “to engage the youth of the world in a celebration and Games of social transformation,” as a sweetener in Rio’s proposal to be appointed host city for the 2016 Olympic Games.

It hardly needs stating that the last thing the world needs is for its youth to be engaged in the “celebration of Games of Social Transformation.” What the world needs is for its youth to commit to memory the multiplication tables and the 10 Commandments tablets, and to sit in one performance of a Bach choral in a white shirt and tie or a dress covering all the tattooed patches of skin, without fidgeting.

The Olympics are the clearest portal to our glorious New World Order, otherwise known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics, or regression to entropy.

CocaColaMacDonaldNikeHuyndaiCanonAllianzLenovoTataBudMTV will be running the world for the greater good of the perfect union of perfected Humanity with an advisory council consisting of Oprah, Sir Bono, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Avril Lavigne, and Al Gore, all administered by legions of UNiks and EUniks on the take from Beijing.

As though for a dry run, most of this scintillating advisory council assembled recently in Denver to pour the ceremonial oil on the pate of the Messiah. “Blinding array of stars gather for DNC climax,” gushes the media on a day when Son of Black Man accepted the US presidential nomination of the Yin Party in Denver. The blinding celestial bodies iterated are directors George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee and Davis Guggenheim; actors Forest Whitaker, Josh Brolin, Annette Bening, Fran Drescher, Ashley Judd, Jamie Foxx, Jessica Alba, Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Hudson, Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck -- who read excerpts from a book by who else but Howard Zinn; total-blanks-to-me Kal Penn, Daniel Dae Kim, Cash Warren, Rosario Dawson, Wilmer Valderrama, Wonder and Michael McDonald, Kerry Washington, Taye Diggs, Hill Harper, Joy Bryan; singers Sheryl Crow and Kanye West; people known for being famous Fergie and Star Jones; and something called will.i.am “of the Black Eyed Peas.”

There were a few heavyweights there: Muhammad Ali – a great boxer once but now appearing where planted, like a potted ficus; Forest Whitaker, a good actor marching in lockstep with his race phalanx; Steven Spielberg and George Lucas – important director-producers and walking bundles of yin -- the one as a liberal alpha mentsch in America’s most liberal industry and in its most liberal ethnic group, the other as a rotund product of the People’s Republic of San Francisco. But the rest?

This is “blinding” to the creatures of Oprah nation: the half-wit celebrity hound, the morbidly obese tabloid swallower, the council estate mom with nipple rings and serial pregnancies by different men, the sequined gay make-up man with a collection of Elton John memorabilia. A whining twit like Spike Lee or a luscious tweet like Jessica Alba is not blinding. Blinding is the greatness of the brain power of Benoît Mandelbrot, or the martial command skills of David Petraeus. A woman who has traversed the life road of Margaret Thatcher or Janice Rogers Brown is blinding. A director is blinding who can play words and actors like Krzysztof Kieslowski to compose symphonies about the greatest truths.

Thus is greatness divided from stardom, let alone celebrity. But since the great are few and the expansive yin culture needs fodder for its media noise, “blinding” celebrities are minted on an assembly line -- one-eyed kings in the country of the blind. One might even be so bold as to point out that the prototype I Am, known by his original Hebrew name, YHVH, may have been more blinding, memorably so on Mount Sinai, than will.i.am “of the Black Eyed Peas” was in Denver. And so was perhaps the first coming of the Anointed One, as distinct from the second coming in which 85,000 yin-crazed people climaxed at Mile-High Stadium in Denver at Barack Obama’s sight, with the most equals of the equals, mainly Hollywood machers, reprising the multiple orgasm a couple of weeks later at a $28,500-a-plate dinner + Babs later (separate charges apply).

Only in an upside down moonspace “proposition” country, could a pair of race-mongering, black-by-commitment Harvard lawyers – he, Elmer Gantry reincarnated as a latte metrosexual socialist, she a muscled Nadezhda Krupskaya with a $317,000 paycheck -- get to within a close probability of the presidency of a putatively “capitalist” republic, still 65% white.

Only a cancerous Western civilization could make a Messiah of a 45-year-old “community organizer” of no significant accomplishment who has drunk deeply from the wells of communist agitator Saul Alinsky, communist poet Frank Marshall Davis, terrorists William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, and white-hating black racists Jeremiah Wright and Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour.

Only in a feminized (i.e. yin) society could a willowy Pied Piper given to narcissistic blather like 'We are the ones we have been waiting for' be greeted by great swooning crowds of whites from Portland in the west to Berlin in the east, and sell two autobiographies about nothing to millions of adoring fans the Western world over. For this is the age of the postmodern narrative, and people with diversity chips implanted in their skulls by government and media propaganda find Mr. Obama’s narrative irresistibly compelling.

Only in a nation full of confused, pathetic, ignorant weaklings could a charming charlatan raise campaign funds that may well amount to half a trillion dollars (1) by telling his millions of donors that their nation is no good, that he will absolve it from its sinful past and “bring it together.” To believe this, one has to deliberately welcome clear signs that the “bringing together” is a euphemism for a racial jizzya tax extracted from a cowed ex-Eurocentric nation by a unified phalanx of black and brown race grievance-mongers in concert with tens of millions of self-flagellating white useful idiots. Five hundred years ago Mr. Obama’s extraordinary talent for selling papal indulgences would have earned him the scarlet and ermine, a marble bust by Michelangelo, and a rebuke from Martin Luther.

Only in a farce conceived in opium haze, with addled eunuchs as opinion makers and pundits, could an avowed lotus-eater like Harold Meyerson be given prime real estate acreage in The Washington Post to opine:

"In a year when the Democrats have an African American presidential nominee, the Republicans now more than ever are the white folks' party, the party that delays the advent of our multicultural future, the party of the American past. Republican conventions have long been bastions of de facto Caucasian exclusivity, but coming right after the diversity of Denver, this year's GOP convention is almost shockingly — un-Americanly — white. Long term, this whiteness is a huge problem."

We have to take a detour here, for somewhere in the basement of the ADL, in a cubicle at the Southern Poverty Law Center, or in a laptop file of a “conservative” littlegreenfootballista, someone has just written down that, in addition to a pronounced lack of respect for several iconic Afro-American figures, for the second time in this piece I have held up a Jew to scorn and ridicule, even if others are mentioned here approvingly. And I haven’t even mentioned yet the brain behind the Obamas’ phenomenal success, not to speak of the big-ticket campaign donors.

One earns another point of demerit, and lifelong career repercussions, for having read on a white ethnocentric website:

“’Long term,’ says Myerson [sic], ‘this whiteness is a huge problem’. For Jews, he means. The only way of dealing with it is more of the same ... more Rothstein, more NBA, more porn, more Brangelina, more Bratz, more Myerson [sic], indeed ... more everything. More white deconstruction, too. White Americans as people, their European selves have to be ‘solved’. Finally.”

We will delve later into the connection between Jews and liberalism – or “yin” – a connection shared in different ways by other population segments, including putatively “conservative” ones, from mainstream Christianity to the Republican Party. For now, it suffices to state that in the comments section after the above quote, a Jewish reader writes:

“I have read the Myerson [sic] article and being a Jew and Zionist, you may be
surprised that I agree with you and think Myerson [sic] is an idiot who doesnt
[sic] know what is good for the Jews.”

Back to useful idiots of all ethnicities:

“Obama’s charisma,” writes Michael Knox Beran, “is closer to what critic Camille Paglia has identified with today’s television talk-show culture.(snip) The man who would succeed in such a culture must appear to sympathize with these obscure hurts; he must take pains (snip) to appear an ‘androgyne, the nurturant male or male mother. Obama, in gaming this culture, has figured out a new way to bottle old wine (snip). Studiously avoiding the tough-hombre style of earlier charismatic figures, he phrases his vision in the tranquilizing accents of Oprah-land. His charisma is grounded in empathy rather than authority, confessional candor rather than muscular strength, metrosexual mildness rather than masculine testosterone. With the triumph of Obama’s post-masculine charisma, the patriarchal collectivism of the New Deal has finally given way to a new vision of liberal community, the empathetic mommy-state.”

All Western “progressive” parties in an arch extending west from Austria to Australia, including Mr. Obama’s, cater to the psychographics for which media events such as pop star tours, Olympics closing extravaganzas, and grand and unspecific pronouncements of hope, change and equalization of all in front of papier maché Greek temples are tailor made. It’s no coincidence that Mr. Obama’s temple set was built by the same company that works for Britney Spears. Nor should it surprise that another “blinding” specimen of shrieking Western moronism should generate the headline, “Rage Against the Machine Ask Fans to Fight ‘Fascist Republican Agenda’ at Fierce Minneapolis Gig”.

The shade-grown lachrymose fungus

It is difficult to deal with the dystopia of the West partly because we don’t have an accurate concept of its genesis. Conservatives believe that leftism, in its current mutation as liberalism, is at fault. Liberalism is, indeed, the lachrymose fungus sapping the West’s vital energy. It does so mainly through its excretion of multiculturalism and execration of the non-equal woof and warp of homo sapiens as per the grand lottery of parental DNA, natal gender, race and culture, and fate, God’s will and karma. But a Daoist would say that not only liberalism but all shade-grown, i.e. yin, creedal fungi are harmful to the West in its present condition.

Consider the main leaders of the presumably “counter-liberal” forces in the world, George W. Bush, John McCain, and David Cameron. Here are fervent believers in the Mexicanization and Balkanization of the United States, the dissolution of the ethnic base of Great Britain, faked equality of the unequals through dumbed-down education and affirmative action, fighting a war on an unnamed enemy while shilling for the “Religion of Peace,” and hollowing out the coin of the realm by riding, Don Quijote-like, to the rescue of any damsel in democratic distress, anywhere. When Conservatism thrives with the Clintons in power but is destroyed with the Bushes at the helm, there is something wrong with our political typology. As it is in England that has turned, in Mark Steyn’s words, into a Somalia with chip shops, while the Conservative Party’s priority is taxing the chip shops.

In Europe, the situation is worse. The Eurabian political elite, aided by Europe’s own millions of useful idiots, seems to have poisoned most of the 183,000,000 brains of Western Europeans as surely as if it were a Hymenoepimecis wasp, stinging a Plesiometa argyra spider to spin the cocoon of its own doom. Europeans now accept as objective truth the media’s referral to Jacques Chirac or Angela Merkel as “conservatives,” and have grown to believe that a peaceful gathering by indigenous people who desire not to be dispossessed by immigrants from alien and hostile cultures is a conclave of “racists” staged by “German fascists” as a “so-called” Anti-Islamisation Congress”. When the goal posts have been moved so far to the lunatic left, terms such as “right,” “conservative,” and “fascist” no longer carry any useful meaning.

And then, conservatives believe that secularism is the cause of the fraying, and that returning to Mother Church is the answer. But the Christian churches are destroying their hosts as surely as if they were deep-cover enemy agents. For its vigorous action in the cause of dissolving the demographic base of its host countries, the Catholic church in the US might as well be on the payroll of the Mexican government, while in countries ranging from Belgium to Australia it might qualify for financial support from Al-Qaeda.

The Episcopalians, Presbyterian, Methodist and other mainstream Protestant churches are a parody of pious “social-justice equity,” worshipful Third-Worldism, militant homosexuality, and progressive Islamification. American Evangelicals are tireless in resettling Third World refugees and “refugees,” the more primitive the better: from Meskhetian Turks planted in Virginia to Somali Bantus in Kansas to Sudanese in Illinois.

We will examine in later installments in more depth what’s on the scales in the balance that has gone awry. For now it suffices to say that according to Oriental cosmology, the forces in the eternal cosmic play are the hot, male, condensing element, or yang, and the cold and wet, female and expansive element, or yin. Arnold Toynbee, who posited that all democracies die from suicide, applied the ideas of yin and yang to discern patterns in history. For Toynbee, history is like a current alternating between the yin pole, which he equated with a quiescent civilization, and the yang pole, which he equated with turmoil, barbarian conquest and drastic change.

In his 1939 magnum opus, Study of History, Toynbee explained the rise and fall of empires according to this yin – yang paradigm, but a deeper scrutiny of applied Oriental cosmology might find that it was oversimplified. For what is most salient about the force of yin is not its quietism but its expansive femaleness, and what characterizes yang is not necessarily its dynamism but its contractive maleness.

Applied mycology, or some thoughts about wet, expansive yin

The West has careened dangerously out of balance, and its political and philosophical concepts have not been able to identify correctly what it is that’s out of balance. The forces of the West’s postmodern decay are vested disproportionately in such disparate groups as city dwellers, lawyers, teachers, actors, artists, public sector employees, people with graduate degrees and academics; Jews, Swedes, Norwegians, diaspora Irish; blacks; Muslims and Mexican and Central American mestizos (but not in their original countries); women; adolescents; homosexuals.

The entropic motors that seem to be preponderant in these groups may be, singly or in combination, a drive for power or money; identity politics stemming from racial, ethnic, or gender pride wounded in the past but pretending as the present ; utopian proclivities combined with naiveté; compassionate feelings overriding empirical analysis; displacement of personal feelings of inferiority – what Nietzsche called ressentiment; or ideological hatred such as what Islam preaches about the kuffar and Black Theology teaches about whitey. But the destruction wrought by such centrifugal forces comes not from them, but from a wilting of the respective majorities that ought to have been able to resist and countervail against these forces.

These majorities’ apathy and nihilism has also allowed their elected governments to magnify the centrifugal destruction as though by a giant lever. Everywhere in the West, governments are working on behalf of the entropic forces and against the best interest of the vast majority of their citizens. The government itself has become the chief propagator and enforcer of social decay, often under the smokescreen of elastic portmanteau concepts like “civil rights,” “tolerance,” “hate speech,” “Islamophobia” etc.

The European Union apparatus is the Trojan horse wheeling Islam into the gates of Europe. Socialistically kleptocratic and grossly incompetent federal, state and local governments in America are actively selling their country piece by piece, to China, to Mexico, to special interest lobbies, to organized racial minority pressure groups, to public employees unions. And in areas where their active involvement is desperately required, such as regulating the securities and derivatives markets, or putting up a dam against the deluge of hedonism and faked sentimentalism pouring into peoples’ brains from the mass entertainment juggernaut, Western government are strictly laissez faire.

Maybe all this is by design. For, as Bertold Brecht has written, would it not be easier for the government to dissolve the people – maybe starting with their brains -- and elect another?

Even though Western governments now do what they can to suppress it, reasonable people may have to start talking publicly about the slow-mo destruction by the black minority of every community and country where it is anywhere near majority; or the flow of Mexico’s demographic burden into the USA and Islam’s Middle Ages handicap into Europe. They have to start talking about a permanent closing of immigration doors to people from cultures incompatible with the historical West and therefore harmful ipso facto.

People of good faith ought to diagnose and combat in their personal lives the decline that feminism has wrought on them and on the West. Men are at fault here for having caved in completely, instead of employing a reverse Lysistrata tactic, or anything else that might have worked in this dire predicament. At least a varied group of courageous women has begun beating back this particular fungus. The cultural left’s reaction to Sarah Palin shows how effective that can be.

The vast heterosexual majority may want to consider that it’s time to protest the outsize din raised by the homosexual and the comically self-labeled GLBTA minorities. We will not ask if you will not tell; frankly, we don’t want to hear or see too much either. Don’t rub our faces in your orifices.

Maybe it’s time to say to the churches, if this be your retail markup, I am buying directly from the wholesaler. Because, as Chesterton has noted, some humanitarians care only for pity, but their pity is often untruthful.

However mortified by the Holocaust and appreciative of the inestimable contribution that the Jewish minority has made to the West, people of good faith and sound mind may have to start putting public Jewish figures on the spot, as Jews, for the destructive currents they propagate. Because if the establishment club of “racism” “fascism,” “antisemitism” “homophobia” and “sexism” keeps the West’s hundreds of millions of reasonable indigenous people cowering in their diminishing corners, soon the West will have decayed so much that tens of millions of newly-unreasonable people will be rising, and their numbers will be growing at an astonishing rate.

“It is those wreckers that most concern me,” wrote the English-American writer, John Derbyshire, “the arrogant judges, the academic deconstructors, the teacher-union multiculturalists, the media guilt-mongers, the love-the-world pacifists, the criminal-lovers and family-breakers, the inventors of bogus rights and destroyers of cherished traditions, the haters of normality and scoffers at restraint, the enterprise-destroying litigators and pain-feelers. I do fear that this country might be made unfit to live in, as the country of my birth has been, by a misguided and corrupt humanitarianism, sentimental wallowing in past wrongs both real and imagined, and class and race resentment petted and nurtured by opportunistic tax-eaters.”

To return to balance, the West must find ways to pull back the centrifugal forces that are hurling its frayed pieces ever outward in an expansive big-bang of emotionalism, solipsism, egalitarianism, yobbism, socialism, multiculturalism, relativism, masochism, and moralism strangely coexisting with hedonism and nihilism. This outward spiral has now lasted for a better part of three generations. Of late, we have had generations X, and Y. Soon generation Z will be abroad. And after that, what?

FedUpUSA States That $700 Billion Bailout Threatens U.S. Democracy, Sovereignty

According to Karl Denninger, of FedUpUSA, the $700 billion bailout proposed last week by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson effectively anoints Paulson “King” of American Finance.

The plan for the largest bailout in history has been rapidly crafted and is being forced through Congress a week before recess, effectively moving Wall Street’s disaster to Main Street with little discussion and less understanding, according to Denninger. The bailout does not address the issues affecting market confidence and will severely undermine the United States’ balance sheet.

“The plan has been sold using fear rather than facts to both Congress and the American people,” said Denninger, of FedUpUSA, a grassroots organization, and The Market Ticker, provider of commentary on capital markets.

“The fear gripping our financial markets flows from a lack of trust in the health of firms on both Wall Street and worldwide,” said Denninger. “Throwing money around does nothing to address the root cause and, in fact, simply creates further instability as we continue to have government fiat choose which firms succeed and which ones fail.”

Currently, interest on the national debt is the second largest expenditure besides military (this excludes Social Security and Medicare which are included in the Unitary Budget, but funded separately). The $700 billion bailout, which could potentially end up costing much more, will add even more debt interest. Debt interest has the potential of becoming the largest budget item, dwarfing the entire budget. This in turn could lead to capital flight from the United States and a devaluation of the U.S. dollar, already significantly depreciated under Secretary Paulson, among other things.

FedUpUSA and Denninger are advocating for an alternative – a plan that will restore confidence by ensuring that all market participants are able to objectively value firms, thereby calming both the credit and stock markets.

Americans concerned about this massive bailout are encouraged to visit http://financialpetition.org/petition-nobail.shtml and sign the petition to Congress, as well as phone members of Congress and tell them, “No more bailouts!” More information, including two 10-minutes videos on the problem and solution, is at http://fedupusa.org/.

We Are Losing Europe to Islam

By Diana West

With Wall Street convulsing, and the White House race intensifying, the question “Who lost Europe” is on no one’s lips, let alone minds. Indeed, the question begs another: “Is Europe lost?”

The answer to the second question is, “No, not yet.” And losing Europe, I would add, is by no means inevitable. But that doesn’t mean the continent isn’t currently hell-bent to accommodate the dictates of Islamic law, bit by increasingly larger bit. Such a course of accommodation, barring reversal, will only hasten Bernard Lewis’ famous prediction that Europe will be Islamic by century’s end.

And what do I mean by “accommodation”? Well, to take one tiny example, one snowflake in a blizzard of such examples, there are schools in Belgium that not only serve halal food to Muslim and non-Muslim alike (old news), but, according to a recent French magazine report, no longer teach authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin. (Don’t even ask about the Holocaust.)

For a more substantial, indeed, keystone example of accommodation, we can look to England, where, it pains me to write, Sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. According to press reports this week, the British government has quietly, cravenly elevated five Sharia courts to the level of tribunal hearings, thus making their rulings legally binding.

It may be difficult to quantify the impact of a Voltaire vacuum on the continent, but we can instantly see the inequities of British Sharia (I can’t believe I’m writing that phrase). Among the first official verdicts were those upholding the Islamic belief in male supremacy. These included an inheritance decision in which male heirs received twice as much as female; and several cases of domestic violence in which husbands were acquitted and wives’ charges were dropped.

In a decidedly minuscule minority, I say we ignore the spread of Islamic law across Europe, from the schoolroom to the courtroom, at our peril, particularly given that in so doing, we also ignore the vital political parties that have arisen in reaction to this threat to Western civilization. Why at our peril? Because the same type of liberty-shrinking, Sharia-driven accommodation is happening here.

Is advocating freedom of speech “extreme” or “fascist”? Is opposing Islam’s law, which knows no race, “racist”? Is supporting Israel (which these parties do far more than other European parties) “Nazi”? The outrageously empty epithets of the Islamo-socialist left seem calculated to stop thought cold and trigger a massive rejection reflex. In this way, resistance becomes anathema, and Islamic law, unchecked, spreads across Europe.

Does that sound “Islamophobic”? You bet. How can anyone who values freedom of conscience, equality before the law and other such Western jewels not have a healthy fear of Islamic law, which values none of these things? Incredibly, this is an emotion that is supposed to be suppressed — and, in Europe, on pain of prosecution. Indeed, because Filip Dewinter admitted to such “Islamophobia” in an interview, his party, the Vlaams Belang, has been taken to court in Belgium on charges of racism, and, if convicted, will be effectively shut down through defunding by the government.

That hasn’t stopped Dewinter, who, in accepting an award at a memorial event dedicated to Oriana Fallaci in Florence, last week, said: “Islamophobia is not merely a phenomenon of unparalleled fear, but it is the duty of every one who wants to safeguard Europe’s future.”

Of course, even as Dewinter admits to fearing the Islamization of Europe, he and his colleagues act with exceptional political — and physical — bravery in rallying voters against it. This coming weekend, he joins several other politicians on the Sharia-fighting right in Europe — among them two other men I interviewed, Mario Borghezio of Lega Nord, which is part of Italy’s ruling coalition, and Heinz-Christian Strache of Austria’s Freedom Party, which is expected to become part of Austria’s ruling coalition after elections this month — in Cologne, Germany. In that ancient cathedral city, where the city council recently approved the construction of a long-controversial mega-mosque, these men will address a rally against European Islamization. (Contrary to initial reports, Jean-Marie Le Pen will not be at the demonstration.) The Sharia-fighters expect 1,500 demonstrators. Police expect 40,000 counter-demonstrators.

These are frightening odds — a metaphor, perhaps, for Europe’s chances of staving off Islamic law. Who lost Europe? If it does happen, we certainly won’t be able to say we weren’t warned.

Diana West is a columnist for The Washington Times. She can be contacted via dianawest@verizon.net.

An Announcement for My Readers

I am very sorry if you have come to this site looking for my three or four most recent posts. Because of technical difficulties, I have had to remove items posted over the weekend. I will try to restore those items in the next day or two. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Supreme Knight's Letter to Biden

Dear Senator Biden:

I write to you today as a fellow Catholic layman, on a subject that has become a major topic of concern in this yearʼs presidential campaign.

The bishops who have taken public issue with your remarks on the Churchʼs historical position on abortion are far from alone. Senator Obama stressed your Catholic identity repeatedly when he introduced you as his running mate, and so your statements carry considerable weight, whether they are correct or not. You now have a unique responsibility when you make public statements about Catholic teaching.

On NBCʼsMeet the Press, you appealed to the 13th Century writings of St. Thomas Aquinas to cast doubt on the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church on abortion.

There are several problems with this.

First, Aquinas obviously had only a medieval understanding of biology, and thus could only speculate about how an unborn child develops in the womb. I doubt that there is any other area of public policy where you would appeal to a 13th Century knowledge of biology as the basis for modern law.

Second, Aquinasʼ theological view is in any case entirely consistent with the long history of Catholic Church teaching in this area, holding that abortion is a grave sin to be avoided at any time during pregnancy.

This teaching dates all the way back to the Didache, written in the second century. It is found in the writings of Tertullian, Jerome, Augustine and Aquinas, and was reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council, which described abortion as "an unspeakable crime" and held that the right to life must be protected from the "moment of conception." This consistent teaching was restated most recently last month in the response of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to remarks by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Statements that suggest that our Church has anything less than a consistent teaching on abortion are not merely incorrect; they may lead Catholic women facing crisis pregnancies to misunderstand the moral gravity of an abortion decision.

Neither should a discussion about a medieval understanding of the first few days or weeks of life be allowed to draw attention away from the remaining portion of an unborn child's life. In those months, even ancient and medieval doctors agreed that a child is developing in the womb.

And as you are well aware, Roe v. Wade allows for abortion at any point during a pregnancy. While you voted for the ban on partial birth abortions, your unconditional support for Roe is a de facto endorsement of permitting all other late term abortions, and thus calls into question your appeal to Aquinas.

I recognize that you struggle with your conscience on the issue, and have said that you accept the Churchʼs teaching that life begins at conception – as a matter of faith. But modern medical science leaves no doubt about the fact that each person's life begins at conception. It is not a matter of personal religious belief, but of science.

Finally, your unwillingness to bring your Catholic moral views into the public policy arena on this issue alone is troubling.

There were several remarkable ironies in your first appearance as Senator Obamaʼs running mate on the steps of the old state capitol in Springfield, Illinois.

His selection as the first black American to be the nominee of a major party for president of the United States owes an incalculable debt to two movements that were led by people whose religious convictions motivated them to confront the moral evils of their day – the abolitionist movement of the 19th Century, and the civil rights movement of the 20th Century.

Your rally in Springfield took place just a mile or so from the tomb of Abraham Lincoln, who in April 1859 wrote these words in a letter to Henry Pierce:

“This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.”

Lincoln fought slavery in the name of “a just God” without embarrassment or apology. He confronted an America in which black Americans were not considered “persons” under the law, and were thus not entitled to fundamental Constitutional rights. Today, children of all races who are fully viable and only minutes from being born are also denied recognition as “persons” because of the Roe v. Wade regime that you so strongly support. Lincolnʼs reasoning regarding slavery applies with equal force to children who are minutes, hours or days away from birth.

The American founders began our great national quest for liberty by declaring that we are all “created equal.” It took nearly a century to transform that bold statement into the letter of the law, and another century still to make it a reality. The founders believed that we are “endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable rights,” and that first among these is “life.”

You have a choice: you can listen to your conscience and work to secure the rights of the unborn to share in the fruits of our hard-won liberty, or you can choose to turn your back on them.

On behalf of the 1.28 million members of the Knights of Columbus and their families in the United States, I appeal to you, as a Catholic who acknowledges that life begins at conception, to resolve to protect this unalienable right. I would welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues personally with you in greater detail during the weeks between now and November 4.

Respectfully,

Carl A. Anderson
Supreme Knight

September 19, 2008

McCain Responds to Biden's "Be a Patriot, Pay More Taxes" Message

Conference Details Efforts by Pope Pius XII to Rescue Jews

One wonders if, in the whole history of the Church, there has been a Pope as unfairly maligned as Pope Pius XII. The heroic efforts of Pius XII to save Jews from the holocaust were praised by Golda Meir, Albert Einstein and the government of Israel, and yet the man who did more "than all the other world leaders and religious leaders combined" continues to be slandered. But "truth is the daughter of time" and the story is finally being told.

From Catholic World News

Jewish conference organizer: Pius ‘saved more Jews than all the other world leaders and religious leaders combined’

As a 3-day conference on Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust concludes in Rome, John Allen speaks with organizer Gary Krupp, who concludes that Pius XII "saved more Jews than all the other world leaders and religious leaders combined." Vatican Radio interviews the keeper of the archives of the late Father Robert Graham (1912-97), the Jesuit historian and defender of Pope Pius.

In a message to conference participants, Pope Benedict XVI called attention to the "vast quantity of documented material" showing the "organized assistance to the Jewish people" by "this noble Pope."

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• John Allen: American Jew comes to the defense of Pius XII (National Catholic Reporter)
• True legacy of Pope Pius XII (Vatican Radio)
• Papal message: Understanding the historical truth about Pius XII (VIS)
• Jewish leader says Pope Pius XII has been demonized falsely (Sept. 16 CWN News Brief)

The Battle for Sarah Palin's Soul

From The Telegraph

By Damian Thompson

Sarah Palin is at the centre of a furious battle behind the scenes of the US election between conservative Christian tribes who want to claim her as one of her own. "Paleocons" and "theocons" are shrieking: "She's ours!" while the Republican campaign looks on in horror, hoping they will go away.

I stumbled across this drama by the unlikeliest of routes. I noticed that the Society of St Pius X (SSPX) - anti-Zionist Catholic rebel traditionalists - are backing Palin because of her uncompromising stance on abortion. But then a link on an SSPX website led me to Patrick Buchanan, the hard-Right, anti-Israel scourge of the neocons whom Palin has been accused of supporting in the past.

Buchanan, a Catholic hero of the SSPX, said this week that "the lady is no neocon". But, clearly, he's worried that the Zionist lobby is getting to his girl:

"Will the neocons who tutored George W. Bush in the ideology he pursued to the ruin of his presidency do the same for Sarah Palin? Should they succeed, they will destroy her. Yet, they are moving even now to capture this princess of the right and hope of the party.

"In St. Paul, Palin was told to cancel a meeting with Phyllis Schlafly and pro-life conservatives. McCain's operatives said Palin had to rest for her Wednesday convention speech. Yet, on Tuesday, Palin was behind closed doors with Joe Lieberman and officials of the Israeli lobby AIPAC. There, according to The Washington Post, Palin took and passed her oral exams."

The neocons are not a religious movement. But their born-again Christian allies, the theocons, passionately support Israel because they believe that it will be attacked by the forces of the Antichrist, as predicted in the Book of Revelation. And Palin has a foot in this camp, too.

She was born a Catholic but raised a Pentecostalist. Her former church, the Wasilla Assembly of God, takes the standard fundamentalist line that the apocalypse will begin in the Middle East. Indeed, the liberal Huffington Post claims that Alaskan fundamentalism (yup, there is such a thing) may have influenced Palin's view that the US is doing God's work in Iraq.

Not so fast, says Buchanan. His CNS article quotes Palin's reaction to the "surge" in 2007: "I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our President, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place." That's not the language of "benevolent global hegemony", he says.

Meanwhile, bible-prophecy.com, a leading resource for America's 10 million or so hard-line fundamentalists, is rapidly turning into a Sarah Palin fansite. That's not what the vice-presidential candidate needs to attract swing voters – but then, neither is the support of isolationist paleocons who think Jewish money will determine the result of the election.

Even more than most candidates, Palin has to think twice before saying anything with even the slightest religious resonance. Because, as Pat Buchanan puts it, "the battle for Sarah's soul is not over".

Irish Will Be Forced To Vote Again

The Irish Republic will be forced to hold a second referendum on the Lisbon/EU constitutional Treaty, officials in Brussels have decided.

The Daily Telegraph reports that an internal EU briefing paper entitled “The Solution to the Irish Problem” says the Dublin government will give in to demands for a second vote to overturn the previous rejection of the treaty before an EU summit in October.

The briefing suggests that the second referendum would be held in the autumn of next year, leading to the final ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in 2010.

An influential group of French officials has written the document, the Telegraph says. They say Ireland will agree to a new vote because guarantees will be given on abortion, taxes, the country’s neutrality and the maintenance of the Irish Commissioner in Brussels.

However, the president of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering, wants the Irish to vote again, and give the "right" answer, before next year’s European elections. He fears the poll will become a referendum on a treaty many people in Europe do not like.

The Telegraph's story about the Irish being pressed to submit to their would-be EU masters is here.

Gregorian Chanting 'Can Reduce Blood Pressure and Stress'

From The Daily Mail

Stress levels could be reduced simply by participating in some Gregorian chanting, researchers claimed today.

Dr Alan Watkins, a senior lecturer in neuroscience at Imperial College London, revealed that teaching people to control their breathing and applying the musical structure of chanting can help their emotional state.

He said: "We have recently carried out research that demonstrates that the regular breathing and musical structure of chanting can have a significant and positive physiological impact."

The monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz sing Gregorian melodies on their new album - the chants are said to reduce stress levels.

The research involved five monks having their heart rate and blood pressure measured throughout a 24-hour period.

Results showed their heart rate and blood pressure dipped to its lowest point in the day when they were chanting.

Dr Watkins pointed to previous studies that also demonstrated such practices have been shown to lower blood pressure, increase performance hormone levels as well as reduce anxiety and depression.

The lecturer also runs Cardiac Coherence Ltd, a company that helps executives perform under stressful conditions.

The Halo computer series has supposedly made an impact on the demand for Gregorian music after it appeared on the game's soundtrack.

He said: "The control of the breathing, the feelings of wellbeing that communal singing bring, and the simplicity of the melodies, seem to have a powerful effect on reducing blood pressure and therefore stress."

"We have found that teaching individuals to control their breathing, generate more positive emotional states and connect better with those around them -- all key aspects of Gregorian chanting -- can significantly improve their mental state, reduce tension, and increase their efficiency in the workplace."

Record company Universal recently chose the monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz, Vienna to make an album after responding to a public interest in the genre.

*****

The story of the Stift Heiligenkreuz monks and a sample of their music is here.

Fears Mount for India's Christians as Violence Spreads

Christian Homes Burned in Orissa

From Catholic World News

Hindu-Christian tension mounted in the southwestern Indian state of Karnataka, where 14 churches were attacked on Sunday. UCA News’s T. S. Thomas reports, ‘Police drove around 500 protesting Catholics inside a church and locked them in from outside … In another incident, police entered a church and beat Catholics praying for atonement for church desecration.’ On Monday evening, a church was attacked in the southwestern state of Kerala, the area of India evangelized by St. Thomas the Apostle. India, which has fewer than 20 million Catholics – the US has nearly 70 million – has more seminarians than any other nation in the world and more seminarians than all of North America and Central America combined. Within India, Kerala produces the greatest number of seminarians. In Orissa, where recent anti-Christian violence began, 25,000 Catholics are still hiding in the forest. At the request of the Italian foreign minister, the persecution of Christians in Orissa will be discussed at the Sept. 29-30 summit meeting between EU member nations and India.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• Kerala church attacked, state beefs up security (ICNS)
• Tension mounts as Christians protest attacks on Karnataka churches (UCAN)
• Karnataka violence: Home Ministry seeks report (ICNS)
• Police clash with Christian protesters in India (Vatican Radio)
• Catholics in Orissa draw strength from Eucharist to cope with fear of violence (UCAN)
• Persecution of Christians in Orissa will be raised at European Union-India summit, as concern grows in Europe (UCAN)
• Laborers for the harvest: promising vocations news from Asia, Africa, and Oceania (Catholic World Report)

McCain Kicks Obama in the Fannie Mae

Senator McCain is sounding more and more like a winner at a rally in Ohio today. Although, I'm not sure "reform of Wall Street" is the answer. It was Democrat "reforms" that fueled the current crisis. Let's hope the "reform" he has in mind is a return to economic liberty and free markets.

Joe Biden and American Charity -- What His Tax Returns Mean

Who needs charity when the plan is to give your money to their causes? In the following column Byron York looks at Joe Biden's tax returns and the approximately one eighth of one percent of adjusted gross income that the Senator has given to charity over the past ten years.

From National Review Online
By Byron York

It has become a common practice, when a presidential candidate releases his or her tax returns, for reporters and pundits to examine how much the candidate gave to charity. In September 1992, for example, when the Washington Post reported that Al Gore, then the Democratic candidate for vice president, had released his tax returns, the second paragraph in the story noted that out of income of $183,558, Gore “donated $1,727 — less than 1 percent — to charity.” Other stories about other candidates routinely included figures on charitable giving.

Last Friday, Sen. Joseph Biden, the Democratic candidate for vice president, released his tax returns for the years 1998 to 2007. The returns revealed that in one year, 1999, Biden and his wife Jill gave $120 to charity out of an adjusted gross income of $210,979. In 2005, out of an adjusted gross income of $321,379, the Bidens gave $380. In nine out of the ten years for which tax returns were released, the Bidens gave less than $400 to charity; in the tenth year, 2007, when Biden was running for president, they gave $995 out of an adjusted gross income of $319,853.

Here is a chart of the Bidens’ giving for the years covered by the tax returns:

Adjusted
Gross Income Charity

1998 $215,432 $195

1999 $210,797 $120

2000 $219,953 $360

2001 $220,712 $360

2002 $227,811 $260

2003 $231,375 $260

2004 $234,271 $380

2005 $321,379 $380

2006 $248,459 $380

2007 $319,853 $995

Total $2,450,042 $3,690

To take Biden’s worst year, 1999, one percent of his adjusted gross income would have been $2,100. One half of one percent would have been $1,050. One quarter of one percent would have been $525. One eighth of one percent would have been $262. And one sixteenth of one percent would have been $131 — still a bit more than the Bidens gave.

To take Biden’s best year, 2007, one percent of his adjusted gross income would have been $3,190. One half of one percent would have been $1,595. One quarter of one percent would have been $797 — a figure Biden surpassed by nearly $200.

Looking at the ten-year total of Biden’s giving, one percent would have been $24,500. One half of one percent would have been $12,250. One quarter of one percent would have been $6,125. And one eighth of one percent would have been $3,062 — just below what Biden actually contributed.

“The average American household gives about two percent of adjusted gross income,” says Arthur Brooks, the Syracuse University scholar, soon to take over as head of the American Enterprise Institute, who has done extensive research on American giving. “On average, [Biden] is not giving more than one tenth as much as the average American household, and that is evidence that he doesn’t share charitable values with the average American.”

A spokesman for Biden, David Wade, says the figures on Biden’s tax return do not reflect the true extent of his giving. “The charitable contributions claimed by the Bidens on their tax returns are not the sum of their annual contributions to charity,” Wade said in a statement to NRO. “Like most regular churchgoers, they contribute to their church, and they also contribute to their favorite causes with their time as well as their checkbooks, whether it’s [Jill] Biden’s volunteer work with military families or the Biden breast-health initiative, or the way in which the family pitched in driving supplies to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, or the ways Sen. Biden has supported charities that help women, police, and veterans.”

Wade also suggests that Biden, who is famous for being the least wealthy member of the U.S. Senate, simply doesn’t have piles of money to give. “Like a lot of families that put three kids through college and have an aging parent move in with them, the Bidens aren’t divorced from the realities of everyday life,” Wade says. Still, Wade continues, “finding ways to give back is important to them.”

So far, at least, Biden’s tax returns have attracted little attention. On Saturday, the Washington Post published a 468-word story on the subject, the main point of which was that the release of Biden’s returns was an effort by the Obama campaign to pressure the McCain campaign to release Sarah Palin’s returns. After a few brief paragraphs on Biden, the rest of the story concerned Palin, reporting that “progressive groups” are eager to find out whether Palin “skirted tax obligations” on the per diem payments she received from the Alaska state government. The story made no mention of Biden’s charitable giving.

But for people who have studied the impressive generosity of the American public, there is news in Biden’s returns. “I’m not going to say he’s a bad guy,” says Arthur Brooks. “My only point is that his values are not typical American values when it comes to charitable giving. Americans in general are very generous.”

Byron York, NR’s White House correspondent, is the author of the book The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President — and Why They’ll Try Even Harder Next Time.

Sharia Courts in Britain Now Legally Binding

From The Brussels Journal
By A. Millar

Before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, few us knew anything about Islam, and no one had heard of sharia law. A couple of years ago even, it seemed unimaginable that Britain would adopt Islamic law.

We have sunk further and quicker than we thought possible. Today we learned that sharia courts (which have operated illegally in Britain until now) are being re-classed as tribunal hearings, making their judgments legally binding. According to the Daily Express, “new powers have been given to tribunals in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester with the network’s headquarters in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Two more courts are being planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh.” According to the Daily Mail, this “[…] new network of courts […] agree[s] to be bound by traditional sharia law, and under the 1996 Arbitration Act the court's decisions can then be enforced by the county courts or the High Court.”

It is almost unbelievable that this should occur in a modern, democratic, Western country, and, moreover, under a government that claims to be liberal, and to care about the right of women and homosexuals among others. But, tracing the actions of the pro-Islamic Labour Party, and of modern liberalism more generally, it should have been predictable. Modern liberalism is not a force for human rights and equality (though it still uses these terms where they can be of use in breaking down British tradition); it is a selfish urge for freedom for one’s own self – others be damned. Multiculturalism frees the liberal from the demands of ‘culture.’ Mass immigration frees him from the need to know his history. Invoking the Inquisition of three hundred years ago frees him from having to confront the reality of Islamic fundamentalism. The establishment of sharia law no doubt frees him from holding any position whatsoever.

I have pointed out before, that the Labour government has colluded with extremist Muslims, even employing a Holocaust denier as an advisor on Muslim affairs. Ken Livingstone, the former Left-wing Mayor of London, has also openly embraced Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a man who believes that wives can be beaten into submission, that homosexuals should be executed, and pregnant Israeli women should be murdered. The UK’s Left-wing Respect Coalition Party asserts that opposition to radical Islam is “the new racism,” and this dangerous sentiment is now received wisdom among those closer to the center of the political spectrum. But Islam is neither a race nor ethnicity, but a religion, and one that has Asian, Black, and White followers. A 2006 UK government report entitled ‘Young Muslims and Extremism,’ notes that a significant number of White Britons were being drawn into Islamic terrorism, and we have seen a few example of White Muslim jihadis since then.

The sharia courts operating in Britain, will hear and pass legally binding judgment on cases involving divorce, financial disputes, and even domestic violence. But, it will not end there. According to the Daily Mail, sharia court officials have said, that they hope, “[…] to take over growing numbers of 'smaller' criminal cases in future,” and extremist clerics have already asserted their aims to establish sharia law for everyone in Britain. Only yesterday, the Sun newspaper showed a video of radical clerics announcing plans to take over Britain:

It may be by pure conversion that Britain will become an Islamic state. We may never need to conquer it from the outside.

This, among other similar pronouncements, was made at a rally billed as a debate on whether the West had “learned the lessons” of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Apparently, we have not.

Sharia law regards women as inferior to men, and non-Muslims as inferior to Muslims, and it demands the execution of homosexuals. Sharia courts in Britain have already tried cases in domestic violence, and have issued no punishments beyond requiring the abuser get mentoring from Muslim elders and to attend anger management classes. In my opinion, this is an entirely unacceptable judgment for those who inflict violence on women. According to the Daily Mail, again:

In one recent inheritance dispute in Nuneaton, a Muslim man's estate was spit was between three daughters and two sons with each son receiving twice as much as each daughter – in keeping with sharia law.

The establishment of sharia law in Britain, even on a minor scale, not only undermines British law and culture of equality ‘under the law,’ with cases judged by a jury of one’s peers, but is implicitly menacing to people of all non-Muslim religions, atheists, conservatives, women, homosexuals, and people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Conservatives and Christians have criticized the so-called “gay lifestyle,” and liberals have always furiously denounced those conservatives and Christians for saying this. But liberals are those who have remained utterly silent when extremist Muslim clerics have called for the execution of homosexuals or the beating of women. The liberal establishment generally, and the Labour government in particular, has betrayed their professed belief in human rights and equality, and are ushering in extremism and intolerance. If their proposed new Bill of Rights for the UK goes ahead as planned, extremist Muslims may have yet another advantage, as it is proposed that religious minorities will be given additional rights, thus possibly reinforcing sharia.

Whatever their difference, the people of Britain must form a broad coalition to oppose such extremism. The homosexual man or woman, the Hindu, Sikh, and atheist, have as much to lose as the White British Christian.

King's College Choir - "Miserere Mei Deus" - Allegri's Setting of Psalm 51

ABC News Edited Out Key Parts of Sarah Palin Interview

NewsBusters has revealed that ABC News shamelessly distorted Charles Gibson's interview with Governor Palin. The recent interview is also in striking contrast to the soft-ball questions asked of Senator John Edwards in 2004. Is it any wonder that these MSM propaganda organs -- print and broadcast -- are dying?

*****

From News Busters
By P.J. Gladnick

A transcript of the unedited interview of Sarah Palin by Charles Gibson clearly shows that ABC News edited out crucial portions of the interview that showed Palin as knowledgeable or presented her answers out of context. This unedited transcript of the first of the Gibson interviews with Palin is available on radio host Mark Levin's website. The sections edited out by ABC News are in bold. The first edit shows Palin responding about meeting with foreign leaders but this was actually in response to a question Gibson asked several questions earlier:

GIBSON: Have you ever met a foreign head of state?

PALIN: There in the state of Alaska, our international trade activities bring in many leaders of other countries.

GIBSON: And all governors deal with trade delegations.

PALIN: Right.

GIBSON: Who act at the behest of their governments.

PALIN: Right, right.

GIBSON: I’m talking about somebody who’s a head of state, who can negotiate for that country. Ever met one?

PALIN: I have not and I think if you go back in history and if you ask that question of many vice presidents, they may have the same answer that I just gave you. But, Charlie, again, we’ve got to remember what the desire is in this nation at this time. It is for no more politics as usual and somebody’s big, fat resume maybe that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment, where, yes, they’ve had opportunities to meet heads of state … these last couple of weeks … it has been overwhelming to me that confirmation of the message that Americans are getting sick and tired of that self-dealing and kind of that closed door, good old boy network that has been the Washington elite.

Next we see that Palin was not nearly as hostile towards Russia as was presented in the edited interview:

GIBSON: Let me ask you about some specific national security situations.

PALIN: Sure.

GIBSON: Let’s start, because we are near Russia, let’s start with Russia and Georgia. The administration has said we’ve got to maintain the territorial integrity of Georgia. Do you believe the United States should try to restore Georgian sovereignty over South Ossetia and Abkhazia?

PALIN: First off, we’re going to continue good relations with Saakashvili there. I was able to speak with him the other day and giving him my commitment, as John McCain’s running mate, that we will be committed to Georgia. And we’ve got to keep an eye on Russia. For Russia to have exerted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable and we have to keep…

GIBSON: You believe unprovoked.

PALIN: I do believe unprovoked and we have got to keep our eyes on Russia, under the leadership there. I think it was unfortunate. That manifestation that we saw with that invasion of Georgia shows us some steps backwards that Russia has recently taken away from the race toward a more democratic nation with democratic ideals. That’s why we have to keep an eye on Russia.

And, Charlie, you’re in Alaska. We have that very narrow maritime border between the United States, and the 49th state, Alaska, and Russia. They are our next door neighbors.We need to have a good relationship with them. They’re very, very important to us and they are our next door neighbor.

GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?

PALIN: They’re our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.

GIBSON: What insight does that give you into what they’re doing in Georgia?

PALIN: Well, I’m giving you that perspective of how small our world is and how important it is that we work with our allies to keep good relations with all of these countries, especially Russia. We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it’s in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.

We also see from Palin's following remark, which was also edited out, that she is far from some sort of latter day Cold Warrior which the edited interview made her seem to be:

We cannot repeat the Cold War. We are thankful that, under Reagan, we won the Cold War, without a shot fired, also. We’ve learned lessons from that in our relationship with Russia, previously the Soviet Union.

We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it’s in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.

Palin's extended remarks about defending our NATO allies were edited out to make it seem that she was ready to go to war with Russia.

GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn’t we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?

PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you’re going to be expected to be called upon and help. But NATO, I think, should include Ukraine, definitely, at this point and I think that we need to — especially with new leadership coming in on January 20, being sworn on, on either ticket, we have got to make sure that we strengthen our allies, our ties with each one of those NATO members. We have got to make sure that that is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today.

GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.

PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.

And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.

It doesn’t have to lead to war and it doesn’t have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.

His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that’s a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen.

That answer presented Palin as a bit too knowledgeable for the purposes of ABC News and was, of course, edited out. Palin's answers about a nuclear Iran were carefully edited to the point where she was even edited out in mid-sentence to make it seem that Palin favored unilateral action against that country:

GIBSON: Let me turn to Iran. Do you consider a nuclear Iran to be an existential threat to Israel?

PALIN: I believe that under the leadership of Ahmadinejad, nuclear weapons in the hands of his government are extremely dangerous to everyone on this globe, yes.

GIBSON: So what should we do about a nuclear Iran? John McCain said the only thing worse than a war with Iran would be a nuclear Iran. John Abizaid said we may have to live with a nuclear Iran. Who’s right?

PALIN: No, no. I agree with John McCain that nuclear weapons in the hands of those who would seek to destroy our allies, in this case, we’re talking about Israel, we’re talking about Ahmadinejad’s comment about Israel being the “stinking corpse, should be wiped off the face of the earth,” that’s atrocious. That’s unacceptable.

GIBSON: So what do you do about a nuclear Iran?

PALIN: We have got to make sure that these weapons of mass destruction, that nuclear weapons are not given to those hands of Ahmadinejad, not that he would use them, but that he would allow terrorists to be able to use them. So we have got to put the pressure on Iran and we have got to count on our allies to help us, diplomatic pressure.

GIBSON: But, Governor, we’ve threatened greater sanctions against Iran for a long time. It hasn’t done any good. It hasn’t stemmed their nuclear program.

PALIN: We need to pursue those and we need to implement those. We cannot back off. We cannot just concede that, oh, gee, maybe they’re going to have nuclear weapons, what can we do about it. No way, not Americans. We do not have to stand for that.

Laughably, a remark by Gibson that indicated he agreed with Palin was edited out:

PALIN: But the reference there is a repeat of Abraham Lincoln’s words when he said — first, he suggested never presume to know what God’s will is, and I would never presume to know God’s will or to speak God’s words.

But what Abraham Lincoln had said, and that’s a repeat in my comments, was let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but let us pray that we are on God’s side.

That’s what that comment was all about, Charlie. And I do believe, though, that this war against extreme Islamic terrorists is the right thing. It’s an unfortunate thing, because war is hell and I hate war, and, Charlie, today is the day that I send my first born, my son, my teenage son overseas with his Stryker brigade, 4,000 other wonderful American men and women, to fight for our country, for democracy, for our freedoms.

Charlie, those are freedoms that too many of us just take for granted. I hate war and I want to see war ended. We end war when we see victory, and we do see victory in sight in Iraq.

GIBSON: I take your point about Lincoln’s words, but you went on and said, “There is a plan and it is God’s plan.”

Gibson took her point about Lincoln's words but we wouldn't know that by watching the interview since it was left on the cutting room floor. I urge everybody to see just how the unedited version of the first interview compared to what we saw on television by checking out the full transcript . It is a fascinating look into media manipulation via skillful editing.


—P.J. Gladnick is a freelance writer and creator of the DUmmie FUnnies blog.

Sarah Palin: An Innocent Abroad

From Chronicles
By Srdja Trifkovic

At Christmas a couple of years ago I was given a daily planner called The Worst Case Scenario Survival Calendar. It gives you advice on how to deal with seriously dire emergencies, like free-falling from 10,000 feet with a parachute that wouldn’t open, facing shark attack far from shore, being bitten by a cobra with no antidote on hand, or evading a roaring grizzly in the wilderness. The advice was tongue-in-cheek serious: based on real-life situations and special forces’ manuals, each daily snippet told you how to improve your chances of survival perhaps a hundredfold—from one-in-ten-thousand, say, to one-in-a-hundred. The booklet was fun: you don’t really believe that you’ll ever be in need of such advice, but you read on nevertheless, tickled with vivid images of horrors that happen to “others.”

The forthcoming general election is a Worst-Case Scenario Survival situation and it is happening to us. November 4 calls for the Guide approach. Let me come to the point and speak plainly.

When we look at this season’s four key names—Obama, McCain, Biden, Palin—we know what three of them signify.

Let us start with Senator Obama, that perpetually self-inventing Kenyan-Hawaiian nobody who came from who-knows-where. He may be an American citizen after all, but his disdain for the still-real and historic America is on full display even when it is wrapped in smilingly patronizing condescension for its majority population. The purpose of his presidency would be to re-educate that population in the spirit of self-loathing – his cult-like following among many white yuppies gives him great hope – and to neutralize the incorrigible segment by whatever means the postmodern therapeutic state has on offer. Abroad, we’d have the “Concert of Democracies” led by Washington deciding whom to bomb, with Zbigniew Brzezinski pulling the strings. Under Obama, America’s overall odds, at home and abroad, would be no better than those of a Dresden firefighter on February 13, 1945.

Joe Biden is the archetypical Homo Beltveicus. He’d be Pol Pot’s running mate if that served Joe Biden’s quest for power, money, and then some more of the same. He proves that in Washington we have the best Congress and the worst hair pluggers money can buy. An interventionist to boot, Biden enthusiastically supported Clinton’s bombing campaign against the Serbs in 1999, which prompted John McCain to declare three weeks into the war, “We need Joe Biden for secretary of state.” When Tim Russert asked, “Is that an offer by President McCain?” McCain replied: “Absolutely!” Almost a decade later he is on the same page with McCain on supporting Kosovo’s independence and in his visceral Russophobia, as evidenced by his recent trip to Tbilisi.

In case of a Democratic victory Biden’s chances of succeeding Obama would be no better than one-in-fifty, however – not that it would matter much one way or another. Barring a Dallas-like scenario that Hillary Clinton wished him in the primaries’ final days, Obama is good for another quarter-century of CV building and self-reinvention before finally making the Hajj.

John McCain is an unstable ignoramus who has never seen a war he wouldn’t gladly escalate. He is also obtuse, unendearingly eccentric, and morally challenged. (Let us not waste time dwelling on those traits; the evidence is ample and available to the curious.) If elected he would invent new missions and embark on new cakewalks, because he cannot do otherwise and because he’d be surrounded by foreign lobbyists (Scheunemann) and McCain clones (Lieberman) who reflect and support his mindset. He is an authentically dangerous man. His only saving grace, and the reason to vote for him under the Worst Scenario rules, is his age.

Mortality tables used by the life insurance industry and by the Social Security Administration indicate that average life expectancy for a 72-year-old man is at best about 11 years. That figure declines to about one half of that, however, when we factor in two significant variables: (1) four cancer scares, including melanoma (plus a long history of early and middle age smoking); and (2) a choleric personality (as per Hippocrates), which is dangerous when coupled with the pressures of a top office.

The probability of McCain dying before the end of the first term is a little over 20 percent before those variables are factored in, but they jump to somewhere between 33 and 40 percent when they are taken into consideration. Furthermore, the actuarial morbidity tables may significantly increase the odds of Veep Palin becoming President following the onset of an incapacitating condition that would force McCain to resign.

That leaves us with the probability of one-third or better that President Sarah Palin would be sworn in before the expiry of McCain’s first term. What would she do? I don’t know, but I am pretty certain that her foreign policies would not be any worse than those proposed by the three men. The Washingtonian “foreign policy community” would try to manipulate her, of course, but she is a tough nut to crack. Over the past few years she readily confronted an Old Boys’ Network and defeated Frank Murkowski, the sitting Republican governor, in the 2006 Republican gubernatorial primary. Before that she resigned a State sinecure, protesting the “lack of ethics” of fellow Republican members, and went on to destroy the political careers of Randy Ruedrich, GOP State Chairman, and Gregg Renkes, a former Alaska Attorney General.

Mrs. Palin’s alleged weaknesses are her strengths. Being an innocent abroad, in the dangerous world modelled on Hobbes and Darwin, is preferable to having “experience” in the obsessive attempt to tame and conquer that world. The Weekly Standard cabal and their ilk will be hard-pressed to make President Palin obey a bunch of Manhattanite intellectual pseuds, let alone to internalize their foreign policy schemes that are evil, stupid, and harmful to our troops’ safety: unlike any laptop bombardier, she has a son on his way to Iraq. I’d say that it is at least 50-50 President Palin would act as a foreign policy realist who’d refrain from new “missions,” “engagements” and “force projections.” That translates into cca 20 percent chance of America conducting a sane foreign policy, for the first time in decades, some time before 2012.

Most of our daily choices are morally ambiguous. The one based on The Worst Case Scenario Survival Calendar, which I am presenting herewith for our readers’ consideration, is no exception. In a fallen world the alternative is plague-on-all-their-houses quietism that suits the bad guys.

Governor Palin at Son's Army Deployment

In the following video Governor Sarah Palin sends her son and other soldiers off to combat. One question comes to mind; could Obama give Palin's speech without looking like Michael Dukakis in that tank?

The Daily Palin

CatholicVote Releases Election Video

As the partisans of buggery, abortion and Marxism see their once bright chance for the Presidency slipping away, they have become frantic and unable to contain their hatred. The most obvious target for their bile is the national figure who stands in starkest contrast to their culture of death, Governor Sarah Palin.

It is becoming clear with each passing day that this is truly a pivotal election. Will America continue in the path of a Christian nation "under God," or reject the ways of God and His blessings?

The CatholicVote organization has prepared the following video to help America's 67 million Catholics grasp how much is at stake.

An Epic Clash for the Dominion of Europe

Book Review by Matthew Price

Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World By Roger Crowley
Random House, 336 pp., $30

When Ottomans sacked Constantinople in 1453, Christian Europe shuddered. A fearsome Islamic empire had vanquished a city that, along with Rome, was a spiritual hub of the church. After the Ottomans took Egypt in 1517, Pope Leo fretted, "Now that the terrible Turk has Egypt and Alexandria and the whole of the Roman eastern empire in his power and has equipped a massive fleet in the Dardanelles, he will swallow not just Sicily and Italy but the whole world."

The pope's fears were perhaps exaggerated, but they were not unfounded. The Ottomans set their sites westward, pushing into Hungary, and took aim at the Mediterranean. The Ottoman ruler, Suleiman the Magnificent, fancied himself "Padisha of the White Sea," and his ambition unleashed a nearly 50-year struggle that would pit a divided Europe against a determined foe, heroic knights against crack troops of Ottoman janissaries, Christian against Muslim, and culminate in one of the most savage naval battles in history at Lepanto in 1571, where a coalition of Venetian, Italian, and Spanish ships routed Suleiman's navy off Greece.

In "Empires of the Sea," British historian Roger Crowley brings a keen grasp of early modern warfare and a gift for vivid writing to his absorbing and relentlessly bloody account of the conflict. Crowley has a fine eye for both the broad outlines of grand strategy and the horrific details of combat, as well as for the dramatis personae who shaped the conflict - the ambitious Suleiman, who led the Ottoman Empire at the height of its power; Charles V, the sickly but cunning Spanish king and Hapsburg emperor; the brave Jean de La Valette, grand master of the Knights of St. John, who led his men against a numerically superior foe at Malta; and Hayrettin Barbarossa, the ferocious corsair turned Ottoman naval commander.

Lepanto marked the close to a struggle that favored the Ottomans from the start. They first struck at Rhodes, the outpost of the knights, "a freak Christian survivor from the medieval Crusades located within touching distance of the Islamic world." The Christian presence on the island was an affront to Suleiman, who expelled the surviving knights from the island. Rhodes was a preview of things to come. The loss of the island spread alarm through Europe. Ottoman ships harassed Spanish outposts in Northern Africa. Barbarossa terrorized southern Italy, burning villages and enslaving their populations. Charles fought back, but, as Crowley points out, the Catholic monarch spent "more time, money, and energy fighting the French and the Protestants than he ever devoted to war with Suleiman."

By the 1560s, Suleiman had conquered most of the eastern Mediterranean. But the Knights of St. John remained a thorn in his side. From a base at Malta, where they settled after Rhodes, they harassed Ottoman ships in heavily armed galleys, taking Mecca-bound pilgrims as slaves.

The book highlights the siege of Malta in 1565. Once again, the knights would be on the front lines. A giant armada descended on the barren island. Here, Crowley describes the landings: It "was as if all the flamboyant spectacle of Asia had erupted onto the European shore. There were unfamiliar clothes, brilliant colors, outlandish hats: impressively mustachioed janissaries in trousers and long coats, cavalrymen in light mail, religious zealots in white, pashas in robes of apricot and green and gold, semi-naked dervishes in animal skins . . ."

The gaudy display could not conceal the fact that Malta was up against some of the best fighting men in the world. Aiming their canons at Fort Saint Elmo, "the key to all other fortresses of Malta" as one commander put it, they slowly pulverized the Maltese defenses. The battleground became a laboratory for the emerging gunpowder era. The Christians hurled primitive grenades at their foes, and deployed arquebuses - an unwieldy forerunner of the rifle - "that fired stones the size of pigeons' eggs.

The fight seesawed back and forth, leaving Malta devastated. Crowley writes, "Malta was unfinished business that lacked a conclusion." Lepanto brought about that conclusion. The last major naval engagement to feature oared galleys, a technology that looked back to ancient Greece, the fleets of the Holy League met the Ottomans - roughly 200 ships on either side - in a thunderous, five-hour collision in October 1571. A young Spanish sailor and would-be writer - Cervantes would later pen "Don Quixote" - called it "the greatest event witnessed by ages past, present, and to come." It was also a bloodbath. Historians have tended to downgrade the long-term significance of Lepanto, but a great empire suffered a catastrophe that marked a turning point in European history.

Matthew Price is a critic and journalist in Brooklyn.

The Lessons of St. Paul

From Stratfor
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

On Sept. 5, two men from Austin, Texas, were charged in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis in connection with a plot to disrupt the Republican National Convention (RNC) held in St. Paul, Minn., last week. According to the criminal complaint filed in the case, each man was charged with one count of possessing Molotov cocktails.

In the complaint, authorities noted that one of the men, Bradley Crowder, was arrested Sept. 1 for disorderly conduct. The second man, David McKay, was apparently arrested Sept. 1 but then released. McKay was arrested a second time after a search warrant on the apartment at which he and Crowder were staying in St. Paul uncovered a total of eight completed Molotov cocktails. Authorities claim that Crowder and McKay had planned to use the Molotov cocktails against police vehicles in a parking lot near the apartment where they had stayed. According to an FBI affidavit, law enforcement officers used electronic means to monitor a conversation McKay had about using the incendiary devices. In the monitored conversation, McKay reportedly said, “…it’s worth it if an officer gets burned or maimed.”

Crowder and McKay, who were part of a small cell of activists that called itself the Austin Affinity Group, also brought a rented trailer to St. Paul that contained 35 improvised riot shields made from stolen traffic barrels. According to an FBI affidavit, the shields included protruding screws — an indication that they were not just defensive shields, but offensive weapons that could be used against the police. During the execution of the search warrant on the men’s apartment, police also recovered gas masks, slingshots, helmets and kneepads — items that underscore the protesters’ plans to actively resist the police.

Crowder and McKay were not the only ones planning to use potentially deadly means to disrupt the RNC. On Aug. 30, Matthew DePalma of Flint, Mich., was arrested by agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force at a residence in Minneapolis and found to be in possession of five Molotov cocktails. DePalma was also charged in Federal District Court with possession of the devices. According to an affidavit, DePalma told an FBI source that he planned to use the Molotov cocktails on police. In one conversation, DePalma reportedly told the FBI source, “I will light one of those pigs on fire.”

Crowder, McKay and DePalma were only three among the more than 800 demonstrators arrested in connection with the efforts to shut down the RNC. Six of the primary organizers of the effort — an ad hoc group that called itself the RNC Welcoming Committee (RNCWC) — were also arrested Aug. 29 and charged with conspiracy to commit riot under Minnesota state law.

The complaints and affidavits filed in connection with this case provide an excellent look into the organization and tactics of the anarchists comprising the RNCWC. They also provide a great deal of detail regarding the combined efforts of federal, state and local authorities to infiltrate the group and to defang its most aggressive components.

RNC Welcoming Committee

The RNCWC is a self-described anarchist and anti-authoritarian organizing body created to disrupt the RNC. According to its Web site, nornc.org, the group’s purpose was to “crash the convention” and shut down and disrupt the RNC.

The RNCWC’s plan was to provide a loose organizational framework that would help integrate and coordinate the efforts of affinity groups from around the country — including the Austin affinity group headed by Crowder that included McKay. The affinity groups, which are in effect autonomous cells, were then expected to develop their own individual tactical plans and implement them. The RNCWC would provide assistance with logistics and coordination between the various affinity groups.

In September 2007, the RNCWC began its planning in earnest when it held a pre-RNC conference in St. Paul, where some 100 activists met to plan their strategy for disrupting the convention. Most participants who came from outside St. Paul were either representatives of existing affinity groups or were intending to form an affinity group when they returned home. The conference also featured a number of smaller breakout meetings that focused on issues such as nationwide communication, security, legal support, logistics, media, coalition building and direct action planning. Some of the tactics discussed during the direct action planning session included the possible kidnapping of convention delegates, arson, vandalism, occupation of federal buildings in the Twin Cities and the blockading of roads and bridges.

In the end, the delegates at the September meeting formulated a three-tiered approach to disrupting the convention. Tier one consisted of establishing 15 to 20 blockades utilizing a variety of tactics to create an inner and outer ring around the Xcel Energy Center — the site of the RNC. Tier two included immobilizing the delegates’ transportation infrastructure, including shuttle buses used to move them between their hotels and the convention site. The third tier included blocking the five bridges connecting the Twin Cities.

The RNCWC articulated general guidelines for affinity groups to use in accomplishing these three tiers in a set of principles called the “3Ss” — swarm, seize and stay. The swarm principle encourages activists to move into and around St. Paul in groups of various size and attack like bees or fire ants — in numbers large enough to overwhelm authorities at a specific location. This tactic is a staple of anarchist demonstrations, where a number of affinity groups come together to form a larger formation called a black bloc. The large congregation of similarly-dressed activists inside the black bloc is intended to make it difficult for law enforcement to identify the perpetrators of any particular illegal action as individuals find shelter within — and attack from — the large numbers of people comprising the formation. The black bloc is also intended to provide safety in numbers and keep individual activists from being arrested. The seize principle encourages activists to occupy facilities and to block streets and building entrances. Such blockades can be either fixed or moving. The stay principle, a longtime anarchist tactic, encourages activists to maintain engagement in the protest activity and to regroup with and reinforce their fellow activists as needed while the swarm group moves around.

On Sept. 30, the RNCWC published a formal call to action in which it outlined its three-tiered strategy. It also called on the various affinity group leaders to get organized, hold regional meetings and develop their own plans and tactics to implement the overall three-tiered strategy according to the 3Ss. Individual affinity group leaders were also urged to train and practice with the members of their respective affinity groups in the implementation of those tactics. Indeed, several of the RNCWC core activists practiced their blockade techniques July 2 when they used dragon sleeves — devices protesters use to lock themselves together and to buildings and other structures — during a protest at a facility belonging to military equipment manufacturer Alliant Techsystems in Anoka, Minn.

During the spring, the RNCWC conducted a nationwide tour during which it traveled to, or communicated with, affinity groups in 67 cities. On May 3 it hosted a second pre-RNC conference in St. Paul called the “5.3,” which was attended by more than 100 activists representing at least 40 affinity groups and other organizing bodies from across the country. At the conference, St. Paul was divided into seven sectors, and different organizations were assigned responsibility for the direct actions that would occur within those sectors, according to the FBI affidavit.

The RNCWC members living in St. Paul conducted extensive preoperational surveillance of the city and particularly the area around the Xcel center and created detailed surveillance packets for each of the seven sectors they had divided the city into. They then provided a packet to each nonlocal affinity group that had assumed responsibility for conducting direct action attacks within the particular sector. This provided the affinity groups with a huge head start in their tactical planning. Two of the core RNCWC members also reportedly told an informant that they conducted detailed surveillance of Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s security detail during a June 19 campaign stop in St. Paul.

From July 31 to Aug. 3, the RNCWC and a group called Unconventional Action Midwest hosted an “action camp” at Lake Geneva in Minnesota. This camp was attended by approximately 50 people from many parts of the United States. The action camp was intended to train activists in a variety of direct action tactics, ranging from the manufacture of Molotov cocktails to less violent civil disobedience such as the use of dragon sleeves, lock boxes and tripods to create human barricades that would obstruct traffic. Attendees at the action camp were expected to take the skills they learned back to their respective affinity groups.

The Long Arm of the Law

According to the search warrant affidavit approved by a state district court judge Sept. 2, anarchists were not the only people present at the action camp held at Lake Geneva. A law enforcement source referred to in the affidavit as Confidential Reliable Informant 2 (CRI 2) was also in attendance. In fact, the various complaints and affidavits filed in connection with the RNCWC arrests make it very clear that law enforcement sources and even one undercover officer had thoroughly penetrated the RNCWC since shortly after its inception and had attended the planning sessions to include the pre-RNC event in September 2007 and the pre-RNC event in May 2008.

These law enforcement penetrations appear to have allowed the authorities to identify many of the most violence-prone individuals and target them in an effort to disrupt their potentially deadly schemes. Certainly, they were able to arrest Crowder, McKay and DePalma and recover the Molotov cocktails before the devices could be deployed.

This intelligence also allowed law enforcement authorities to arrest six of the primary RNCWC organizers Aug. 29, before the RNC, and execute a series of search warrants that seized a large quantity of the demonstrators’ equipment before it could be deployed. Items seized during those search warrants included caltrops, spike strips, buckets of marbles and dragon sleeves as well as other tactically useful items such as gas masks and disguises intended to help protesters get past police checkpoints. Computers and planning maps were also seized.

However, the fact remains that many of the affinity groups were still able to launch direct action and block streets with dumpsters, fly signs from high-rise buildings, deploy dragon sleeve blockades, slash tires, throw bricks and other items from bridges onto cars, throw caltrops and spike strips on streets to flatten tires, shoot at police and convention attendees with slingshots, block delegate buses, assault delegates (physically and with noxious chemical sprays) and generally create large-scale mayhem and vandalism. These direct actions resulted in most of the more than 800 arrests during the RNC. These activities clearly showed that not all the affinity groups had been penetrated or rendered impotent.

The RNCWC was unable to fully implement its three-tiered strategy, but it did have the strength to attempt all three stages. It executed operations intended to block intersections, attack shuttle buses and block bridges. Some of these efforts met with success for a limited period of time, but the RNCWC’s goal of significantly interfering with the RNC was clearly not met.

The RNCWC meetings and its action training camp all included blocks of training on operational security — what the activists refer to as “creating a strong security culture.” Indeed, after the September 2007 gathering, the RNCWC announced that it had discovered one “local police cooperator” in attendance and had expelled him from all activities. They clearly attempted to vet attendees, but apparently their efforts did not go far enough, and the informants and the undercover officer were able to crash the protesters’ party. However, not all the affinity groups appear to have been penetrated, so it appears that some of them were apparently more security conscious than others.

Due to the legal requirements for search warrant affidavits and criminal complaints, the two confidential sources and the undercover officer used to monitor the RNCWC will be easily identified by the activists when they read those documents and apply deductive reasoning. This means that the usefulness of these particular individuals in monitoring similar groups in the future will likely be over. Essentially, their cover has been blown, and new sources will need to be developed.

Following the events of last week, the cat-and-mouse game between left-wing activists and law enforcement informants will continue, with each side seeking to learn from the experiences in St. Paul. From an outside perspective, it appears that the law enforcement agencies have gained the upper hand in this round, and clearly have learned from past law enforcement failures such as the 1999 “Battle in Seattle.”

One lesson learned from Seattle was the need to focus national attention on such events to help prevent a security failure. Now, high-profile events such as the RNC, the Democratic National Convention and even the Super Bowl are labeled as national security special events — a designation that ensures the receipt of millions in additional federal dollars for police and security coverage and, not insignificantly, greatly increased intelligence support from the federal government. These additional resources greatly bolster the efforts of local and state police agencies to protect these events from threats, whether they emanate from militant anarchists or militant jihadists. In the case of St. Paul, these efforts and funding greatly aided designs to penetrate the RNCWC organization.

The Future of the Radical Anarchist Movement

When reviewing the material posted on the RNCWC Web site, it is clear that its vision went far beyond the RNC event itself. One of the key objectives it hoped to achieve from the demonstration was to gain some momentum and build the operational capabilities of the radical anarchist movement for the future.

According to the Web site, “A new reality will not emerge by simply stopping the four day spectacle of the RNC. We need folks with an alternative vision to come to the Twin Cities and turn their dreams into reality. Start something new, be creative, and come ready to build sustainable alternatives worth fighting for and defending. The new skills that we teach, learn, and put into practice here will allow us to return to our communities stronger, smarter, and more empowered.”

This is an interesting statement to ponder when one considers the type of skills the RNCWC taught at their pre-RNC meetings and action training camp, and the skills the various affinity groups employed during the protests against the RNC.

However, since the much-publicized “Battle in Seattle,” these anarchist demonstrations have been steadily declining in size, if not in intensity. The demonstrations in St. Paul were smaller than those in Seattle in 1999 or in New York at the 2004 RNC. In fact, the NYPD arrested more than 1,800 protesters in connection with that event, compared to just over 800 arrests in St. Paul.

Certainly, police preparation in anticipation of such events has markedly improved after the 1999 Seattle protest where police were caught off guard and unprepared. As noted above, coordinated local, state and federal efforts like those seen in St. Paul to gather intelligence in order to disrupt the activists via arrests and search warrants have been increasingly effective. Despite declining numbers — a trend we believe will continue — the anarchist fringe is not going to totally disappear any time soon.

Young radical anarchists such as Crowder and McKay, in their early teens at the time of the Seattle riots, are part of a new generation of violent protesters radicalized after that event. This newer generation of radical anarchists appears to be smaller, but no less dedicated or willing to use violence against the political, corporate and governmental entities they view as enemies. They will not hesitate to damage property or — as the alleged plots and comments of Crowder, McKay and DePalma signify — hurt people to achieve their goals.

It is also significant that many of the protesters in St. Paul came from places outside Minnesota. Ultimately, when they leave St. Paul, they take the skills and disruptive tactics learned there back home with them. We are likely to see these tactics emerge in other cities in the future.

Who Is In Control?

My 9/11 Moment of Truth

From The Word Among Us
By Hallie Riedel

“God has a plan for your life.” I have heard the phrase countless times and never really doubted it. In fact, my husband and I have always loved the Scripture passage from Romans 8:28: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.”

But as often happens in my spiritual journey, it took the crucible of anxiety and uncertainty to bring this truth to an entirely new and more personal level.

It happened on September 11, 2001. The morning sun shone brightly as I got our three young children ready to go with me to my aerobics class. My husband, John, was already commuting to his new position at the Pentagon. It was a beautiful day, and my heart was light. We had just found out that we were expecting our fourth child, John and I were about a month from our fifth anniversary, and he was thrilled to be back in the Defense Department after a several-year absence. Even my aerobics class was starting a new session. Everything seemed full of the promise of new beginnings.

I was at aerobics when I heard that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon, but I refused to let myself get too alarmed. As the minutes passed, however, my fears started to rise. The class (which used contemporary Christian music) began a song based on the Book of Esther, with the refrain, “For such a time as this you have been created” (Esther 4:14). That started my questions. How could I not think of the baby I was carrying? Had this child really been created for such a time as this? Would he even know his father? How would I cope as a widow with four young children? Even as my fears rose, I clung to the song’s refrain, affirming that God has a plan for our family and a loving purpose for every situation.

Help My Unbelief

When I heard that the twin towers in New York had fallen, I decided to leave the class and return home. On the way home, I recalled one of the other songs: “God Is in Control.” I grappled with my concerns. Was God really in control?

The two hours that followed were like a pressure cooker. I reasoned with God: Why would you have given me a wonderful husband and four small children and then take my husband away from me? Why would I conceive a new baby right before losing John? How can I trust that you have a loving plan for us? Was this just a hollow promise? In my moment of crisis, I prayed, “I believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). I kept offering my fears to the Lord and interceding for those who had lost loved ones. Despite my anxiety, I began to be filled with peace. To my own surprise, I became more and more convinced that God would take care of my family no matter what happened—including even what I dreaded most.

It was after I had reached this point of acceptance that the phone rang! I jumped to answer and heard the most wonderful sound in the world—John’s voice. He was safe. The plane had hit very close to his office, knocking him to the ground and filling the office with thick smoke. But he had made it out and helped a shaken coworker to escape. It all felt surreal, he said, and he was looking forward to getting home.

Deepening Convictions

I am fortunate that John survived. There are so many who didn’t. And I am grateful for those hours God gave me to grapple with my anxiety before I received the good news. As I wrestled with my “why now?” questions and tried to accept God’s timing, I grew in my conviction that God truly did have a good and loving plan. Even before John called, I became more certain that God can bring good out of even life’s most tragic or challenging moments. And this conviction has sustained me ever since.

In fact, these past seven years have brought us even more opportunities to hold on to the truth that God works for good in all situations. Like any family, we have faced struggles, but I have found that the struggles bring me closer to the Lord and give a deeper meaning to the truths I profess. In fact, I have become grateful for these these “difficult” times because they tend to expose weaknesses in my faith and give me a chance once again to confirm God’s love and presence in my life.

One such time happened two years ago, while the family accompanied John on a one-year work assignment in Chile. It was a beautiful year for us, filled with many blessings, as well as challenging struggles and sometimes painful growth. We were on the other side of the world, away from family and old friends, learning a new language and a new culture.

We had nearly finished our year and were preparing to move back to the United States when I found out I was expecting our fifth child at age forty-two. What a surprise! A new child would be such a blessing for our family, but I had to grapple with my fears about the health risks of being such an “old” mother. The news challenged me to reaffirm my trust in God’s provision. I had to hold on once again to the truth that the blessings God gives—no matter what challenges they may involve—always come with the grace to see them through.

The week we were scheduled to leave the country, however, a new crisis arose: I began to have a miscarriage. Why would a loving God allow this to happen to me—and more importantly, to our baby? Once again I was on my knees grappling with my conflicting emotions and trying to embrace God’s will. And once again, the promise of Romans 8:28 brought affirmation, comfort, and stability.

Keeping the Right Perspective

Not every event in our lives is traumatic or monumental. However, we all face challenges to our faith. We all have moments when our time-worn platitudes are turned on their heads and we need to decide what we really believe about God; where we really stand in relation to him.

Now, whenever we face what seem to be regular reversals or challenges, John and I look at each other and say omnia in bonum—all things for the good! Sometimes that’s enough to help us say “yes’” to the Lord and get us to look at things from the right perspective. And isn’t that really what he wants from all of us as we move through this life?


Hallie Riedel, a contributing writer for The Word Among Us magazine, lives in Adamstown, Maryland

"Here's To The Heroes" -- We Will Never Forget Them

Sliming Palin: Fact Check Organization Responds to Lies

False Internet claims and rumors fly about McCain's running mate.

Summary

We’ve been flooded for the past few days with queries about dubious Internet postings and mass e-mail messages making claims about McCain’s running mate, Gov. Palin. We find that many are completely false, or misleading.

• Palin did not cut funding for special needs education in Alaska by 62 percent. She didn’t cut it at all. In fact, she tripled per-pupil funding over just three years.

• She did not demand that books be banned from the Wasilla library. Some of the books on a widely circulated list were not even in print at the time. The librarian has said Palin asked a "What if?" question, but the librarian continued in her job through most of Palin's first term.

• She was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that wants Alaskans to vote on whether they wish to secede from the United States. She’s been registered as a Republican since May 1982.
• Palin never endorsed or supported Pat Buchanan for president. She once wore a Buchanan button as a "courtesty" when he visited Wasilla, but shortly afterward she was appointed to co-chair of the campaign of Steve Forbes in the state.
• Palin has not pushed for teaching creationism in Alaska's schools. She has said that students should be allowed to "debate both sides" of the evolution question, but she also said creationism "doesn't have to be part of the curriculum."

A few of these claims were included in a chain e-mail by a woman named Anne Kilkenny. We'll be looking into other charges in that e-mail for a future story. For more explanation of the bullet points above, please read the Analysis.

Note: This is a summary only. The full article with analysis, images and citations may be viewed on our Web site:

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Persecution of the Faithful in Orissa: Christians Forced to Renounce Faith, Embrace Hinduism

From Vatican Radio

Sporadic violence continues in India, and Christians in smaller villages are being forced to renounce their faith and convert to Hinduism, as the National Secretary for the All India Christian Council, Dr. Sam Paul explains…

Michelle's Boot Camps For Radicals

From Investor's Business Daily
Hat Tip: Gates of Vienna

Election '08: Democrats' reintroduction of militant Michelle Obama in Denver was supposed to show her softer side. But it only highlighted a radical part of her resume: Public Allies.

Barack Obama was a founding member of the board of Public Allies in 1992, resigning before his wife became executive director of the Chicago chapter of Public Allies in 1993. Obama plans to use the nonprofit group, which he features on his campaign Web site, as the model for a national service corps. He calls his Orwellian program, "Universal Voluntary Public Service."

Big Brother had nothing on the Obamas. They plan to herd American youth into government-funded reeducation camps where they'll be brainwashed into thinking America is a racist, oppressive place in need of "social change."

The pitch Public Allies makes on its Web site doesn't seem all that radical. It promises to place young adults (18-30) in paid one-year "community leadership" positions with nonprofit or government agencies. They'll also be required to attend weekly training workshops and three retreats.

In exchange, they'll get a monthly stipend of up to $1,800, plus paid health and child care. They also get a post-service education award of $4,725 that can be used to pay off past student loans or fund future education.

But its real mission is to radicalize American youth and use them to bring about "social change" through threats, pressure, tension and confrontation — the tactics used by the father of community organizing, Saul "The Red" Alinsky.

"Our alumni are more than twice as likely as 18-34 year olds to . . . engage in protest activities," Public Allies boasts in a document found with its tax filings. It has already deployed an army of 2,200 community organizers like Obama to agitate for "justice" and "equality" in his hometown of Chicago and other U.S. cities, including Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Washington. "I get to practice being an activist," and get paid for it, gushed Cincinnati recruit Amy Vincent.

Public Allies promotes "diversity and inclusion," a program paper says. More than 70% of its recruits are "people of color." When they're not protesting, they're staffing AIDS clinics, handing out condoms, bailing criminals out of jail and helping illegal aliens and the homeless obtain food stamps and other welfare.

Public Allies brags that more than 80% of graduates have continued working in nonprofit or government jobs. It's training the "next generation of nonprofit leaders" — future "social entrepreneurs."

The Obamas discourage work in the private sector. "Don't go into corporate America," Michelle has exhorted youth. "Work for the community. Be social workers." Shun the "money culture," Barack added. "Individual salvation depends on collective salvation."

"If you commit to serving your community," he pledged in his Denver acceptance speech, "we will make sure you can afford a college education." So, go through government to go to college, and then go back into government.

Many of today's youth find the pitch attractive. "I may spend the rest of my life trying to create social movement," said Brian Coovert of the Cincinnati chapter. "There is always going to be work to do. Until we have a perfect country, I'll have a job."

Not all the recruits appreciate the PC indoctrination. "It was too touchy-feely," said Nelly Nieblas, 29, of the 2005 Los Angeles class. "It's a lot of talk about race, a lot of talk about sexism, a lot of talk about homophobia, talk about -isms and phobias."

One of those -isms is "heterosexism," which a Public Allies training seminar in Chicago describes as a negative byproduct of "capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and male-dominated privilege."

The government now funds about half of Public Allies' expenses through Clinton's AmeriCorps. Obama wants to fully fund it and expand it into a national program that some see costing $500 billion. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the military, he said.

The gall of it: The Obamas want to create a boot camp for radicals who hate the military — and stick American taxpayers with the bill.

A Neighbor Reflects on the Palins

The following was written by a Wasilla neighbor of Sarah and Todd Palin.

Dear Family & Friends,

Because I have received e-mails from many of you asking for any information and insight into the newly-selected Republican VP candidate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, I thought I'd put some of my personal knowledge and observations together and send it out en masse. It's information I'd like to get out as quickly as possible, and invite you to share with your own network of family and friends who might also find it useful. Warning: It is a long e-mail, but my intent is to give you specific details that will hopefully help give you a better idea of Gov. Palin's background, history, and character.

I have lived in Alaska for 15 years. I arrived as a member of the U.S. Air Force, stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base (on the outskirts of Anchorage), and 6 years later I retired from the service. My husband, also an Air Force retiree, and I decided to stay in Alaska to raise our family and take advantage of the nearly unlimited opportunities we saw here. Our first 9 years were spent living in Anchorage and its suburbs – a city of about 275,000 people – and for the last 6 years we have lived in Wasilla, the home town of Gov. Palin. Wasilla city limits encompass about 7,000 residents, but Wasilla is an integral and centrally-located part of a much larger area known as the Matanuska-Susitna (Mat-Su) Borough, which is by far the fastest growing area of the state. Mat-Su is approximately the size of West Virginia, and it currently has just over 80,000 residents. Mat-Su's population is growing at a rate of about 10 people per day. Wasilla itself is located about 40 miles northwest of Anchorage.

Sarah Palin attended Wasilla High School, the same school my 2 older children attended and the one my youngest will attend in 2 years. It has about 600 students total in grades 9-12. In 1982, the year Sarah Palin graduated, she was a point guard on the girls' basketball team, which won the state championship that year. While she left the state to attend college, she returned when finished and married and settled right here in Wasilla. Her house is about 3 miles from mine, on a beautiful lake, but it's nothing fancy (I would guess about 3-4 bedrooms, 2-3 baths). It is not a new or luxurious home, but one that has been there for many years, with a nice yard that even includes some weeds occasionally (just like mine).

After her children reached school age, she became involved in the local Iditarod Elementary School PTA. Her community involvement made her a well-known local, and she was elected to Wasilla City Council in 1994. She was elected mayor in 1996, and served two 3-year terms. She was unable to run for a third term due to term limits. She brought organization and fiscal responsibility to Wasilla, which was no easy task. She instituted a 2% city sales tax which allowed Wasilla to have its own police force. Previously, law and order was maintained by a few state troopers who happened to be in the area. She enabled the building and improvement of much of Wasilla's infrastructure. All this she was able to do without increasing property taxes.

Since we moved to Wasilla in late 2002, we didn't see her perform as mayor first-hand. However, we reaped the results of her time in office in the form of better infrastructure, new community facilities, and low property taxes (about 50% lower than in Anchorage). During the next 4 years, her political life evidently took a back seat to family. I discovered that her youngest (at that time) child attended the same elementary school as my youngest, and I often saw her at school events. She attended Christmas concerts, award assemblies, conferences, sporting events and potlucks just like other parents. It was hard to find her in a crowd; she was wearing jeans or sweatpants and sweatshirts and snow boots, mittens and a parka, just like the rest of us. I saw her occasionally at the grocery store, again, always in jeans and a t-shirt, sneakers and a smile. She was always friendly and at ease in a group, and had no trouble or hesitation with discussing common parental issues with the rest of us: growing kids, curfews, video game obsessions, etc. Her husband, Todd, is almost as much a local celebrity as Sarah is, because he participates in and once won the Iron Dog Race, a local snowmobile racing event that takes participants over several hundred miles of rugged winter terrain – kind of an Iditarod for snowmachines instead of dogs. Their older kids played local and high school hockey, and the Palins were always seen at the games, cheering on their kids, always from the 'cheap seats;' no special privileges.

Sarah revived her political career in 2006 by announcing her intention to run, as a Republican, against the incumbent Republican governor who had made many very public faux pas involving potential misuse of public money and preferential treatment for special interest groups. Sarah campaigned on a platform of reform within Alaskan Republican Party, in which many of us had lost faith. She won the primary by a landslide, and defeated her Democrat challenger (a former Alaska governor) soundly in the general election. She won the popular vote in nearly all demographic categories, including women, Alaska Natives, small business owners, city, and rural dwellers. Since her election, she has kept her promises to clean up the Alaska Republican Party, and to govern by doing what she believes is right, regardless of 'party lines' or political correctness. Believe me, she is giving the international energy companies (BP, Conoco Phillips, etc) a run for their money with her tough negotiating stances on their current oil field operations and also for the proposed natural gas pipeline. When the Democrats now say she won't or can't 'stand up to big oil,' they haven't done their homework, and they certainly don't live in Alaska.

Sarah's oldest child, her son Track, was in the same Wasilla High School Class of 2007 as my middle son. That year, both Wasilla High School boys' and girls' basketball teams won the state championship, the first time since the 1982 championship. Sarah was at the state championship games in Anchorage, and went wild with the rest of the Wasilla crowd when our teams won. It was at that event that my son was able to approach Sarah and ask her to speak at the Wasilla High School graduation ceremony, an invitation that she graciously accepted. Her speech was poignant, funny, and very engaging.. She has a remarkable stage presence that seems to be absolutely genuine and true to her real character.

At unofficial events, Sarah likes to be called, 'Sarah' or 'Mrs. Palin.' As rare and unlikely as it may seem, she truly cares about the people she represents and about using her office for their benefit. And that's what really draws me to Sarah – the fact that I know she DOES represent me, because many aspects of her life have been like mine. I've seen her enough to know that her world is (normally) my world, and that she looks at state and world events with the same concerns and mindset that I do. No, I can't honestly say that Sarah is a smooth, suave, professional politician. But that's a good thing. Look where all the 'professional' politicians have taken us in the past. Sarah would be the first person to admit she's not perfect, but then neither are any of the rest of us. I'm tired of being 'represented' by people who have never stood in line at the grocery store, worn funny-colored homemade mittens to a local hockey game, or sat in the cheap seats. Maybe the best way to bring true integrity back into politics is to elect someone whose life hasn't been so far removed from the experiences of the 'ordinary' middle class American family, what I believe to be the great silent majority.

For those concerned about Sarah's support of drilling in ANWR (Alaska National Wildlife Refuge), you must understand that NO ONE is more in love with Alaskan splendor, natural beauty and wildlife than Alaskans. It's a big reason why we choose to live here. However, we – as represented by Sarah – realize the abundance of natural resources Alaska has been blessed with; resources that we want to share with the rest of the country, but we know there is a balance to be achieved. We can harvest and benefit from these natural resources without destroying the environment. Both the technology and the methodology do exist! The oil pipeline running through the state, including ANWR, has proved this for the past 30 years. We have enacted some of the strictest legislation in the country to protect our incredible and unique environment from damage resulting from the harvesting of natural resources. Alaskans do not think we know better than other states' residents what those states should do to protect their own land and environment. We ask for the same consideration. No one will deal more with the consequences of environmental damage than those of us who live here. We have no intention of allowing our home to be maimed or destroyed. If we are satisfied with a balanced approach and plan to drill in ANWR, who is any non-Alaskan to say otherwise?

So I know this has been an excruciatingly long e-mail, but I do hope that now, at the end of it, you feel you know more about Sarah Palin than you did at the start. I know she won't appeal to everyone, and perhaps all my perceived positive aspects of her will strike some as all negative. I do know that Sarah is a unique and compelling figure in politics, and especially in this particular election. As Alaskans, we could not be more proud of our Sarah, whether or not she becomes our next Vice President. With Sarah, like most Alaskans, what you see is what you get. If what you see in Sarah is to your liking, let her know with your vote in November. I feel privileged to be able to highly recommend her!

Vicki

Islamic Group Urges Forest Fire Jihad

From Canada Free Press

By Josh Gordon

AUSTRALIA has been singled out as a target for "forest jihad" by a group of Islamic extremists urging Muslims to deliberately light bushfires as a weapon of terror.

US intelligence channels earlier this year identified a website calling on Muslims in Australia, the US, Europe and Russia to "start forest fires", claiming "scholars have justified chopping down and burning the infidels' forests when they do the same to our lands".

The website, posted by a group called the Al-Ikhlas Islamic Network, argues in Arabic that lighting fires is an effective form of terrorism justified in Islamic law under the "eye for an eye" doctrine.

The posting — which instructs jihadis to remember "forest jihad" in summer months — says fires cause economic damage and pollution, tie up security agencies and can take months to extinguish so that "this terror will haunt them for an extended period of time".

"Imagine if, after all the losses caused by such an event, a jihadist organisation were to claim responsibility for the forest fires," the website says. "You can hardly begin to imagine the level of fear that would take hold of people in the United States, in Europe, in Russia and in Australia."

With the nation heading into another hot, dry summer, Australian intelligence agencies are treating the possibility that bushfires could be used as a weapon of terrorism as a serious concern.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the Federal Government remained "vigilant against such threats", warning that anyone caught lighting a fire as a weapon of terror would feel the wrath of anti-terror laws.

"Any information that suggests a threat to Australia's interests is investigated by relevant agencies as appropriate," Mr McClelland said.

Adam Dolnik, director of research at the University of Wollongong's Centre for Transnational Crime Prevention, said that bushfires (unlike suicide bombing) were generally not considered a glorious type of attack by jihadis, in keeping with a recent decline in the sophistication of terrorist operations.

"With attacks like bushfires, yes, it would be easy. It would be very damaging and we do see a decreasing sophistication as a part of terrorist attacks," Dr Dolnik said.

"In recent years, there have been quite a few attacks averted and it has become more and more difficult for groups to do something effective."

Dr Dolnik said he had observed an increase in traffic on jihadi websites calling for a simplification of terrorist attacks because the more complex operations had been failing. But starting bushfires was still often regarded as less effective than other operations because governments could easily deny terrorism as the cause.

The internet posting by the little-known group claimed the idea of forest fires had been attributed to imprisoned Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Al-Suri. It said Al-Suri had urged terrorists to use sulphuric acid and petrol to start forest fires.

Organizer In Chief

BARACK'S CONTROVERSIAL ROOTS

From The New York Post
By Steven Malanga

Barack Obama represents the first appearance in a presidential race of a relatively new political type: the community organizer.

His past as a local activist in Chicago has provoked sneers from Republicans and questions from most voters. What the heck is a community organizer, where do these folks get their money - and why are they so controversial?

The roots of community organizing stretch back to the 1930s and the efforts of organizer Saul Alinsky, founder of the Industrial Areas Foundation and author of "Rules for Radicals," to organize people in low-income areas into a political force to combat the political machine that ran Chicago.

Alinsky won many admirers on the Left, but it took President Lyndon Johnson's War On Poverty to supercharge community organizing by directing billions of federal dollars to neighborhood groups with the naive and ambiguous goal of "empowering" communities.

The federal cash, eventually supplemented by state and local tax funds, helped create a universe of government-funded groups headed by local activists running everything from job-training efforts to recreation programs to voter-registration drives - far beyond anything Alinsky could've imagined.

Thousands of groups - eventually, 3,000 in New York City alone - arose to snatch government money. One startling sign of the growth: Today, New York now has more jobs at social-service agencies, most funded with government money, than on Wall Street.

Yet those who designed Johnson's programs endowed them with vague goals such as "community empowerment" and often failed to demand specific, achievable results from those they funded. Thus, money went to inexperienced local activists to run job-training programs that failed to find people jobs. Other grants went to local groups to help businesses in poor neighborhoods get loans - with little sense of whether their clients could actually ever pay back the money.

Nothing symbolizes the failure and waste better than a federal boondoggle known as the Community Development Block Grant program. Obama calls it "an important program that provides housing and creating [sic] jobs for low- and moderate-income people and places" - yet, over the last 40 years, the CDGB has funneled some $110 billion through community groups with little sense that it has done much good.

One visible sign of failure: Buffalo, the city that's gotten the most CDGB funding (per capita), is worse off today than it was 40 years ago. An investigation by The Buffalo News several years ago found that much of the money had been wasted in grants to organizations run by politically connected activists.

New York City has seen it, too. Earlier this year, several City Council aides were indicted for sending grants to a community nonprofit they controlled. Several years ago, investigators looking into illegal loans by a well-connected Bronx nonprofit found that it was paying its top executives hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to run such programs as "homework empowerment" for teens - with no notion of what these programs achieved or how they worked.

Despite such ongoing boondoggles, the funding keeps on flowing, largely because the activists who head these groups moved into politics, wielding the power that tax dollars had bought them to build a base of neighborhood supporters.

In New York City, operators of huge social-services groups like Pedro Espada in The Bronx and Albert Vann in Brooklyn won election to state and federal posts after heading up large, powerful nonprofits. By the late '80s, nearly a fifth of City Council members were products of the tax-funded nonprofit sector - and they were among the council's most strident advocates for higher taxes and more government spending. In cities from Chicago to Cleveland to Los Angeles, the road to electoral success increasingly runs through tax-funded social services.

Meanwhile, groups like the radical ACORN have used government funding to run voter-registration drives that are supposed to be nonpartisan efforts but that have concentrated in signing up voters in heavily Democratic districts to elect politicians who advance ACORN's political goals and protect funding for community activists.

As a result, spending to these groups has boomed while the sector has staved off reform. "The nonprofit service sector has never been richer, more powerful," former welfare recipient Theresa Funiciello wrote in her book "Tyranny of Kindness." "Except to the poor, poverty is a mega-business."

Obama began his organizing life in the mid-'80s in a community group whose progress mirrored the industry's: the Developing Communities Project, formed on Chicago's South Side as a "faith-based grass-roots organization organizing and advocating for social change." Though founded with resources from a coalition of churches, over time the DCP evolved into a government contractor, with nearly 80 percent of its revenues deriving from public contracts and grants.

Obama adopted the big-government ethos that prevails among neighborhood organizers, who view attempts to reform poverty programs as attacks on the poor. Speaking in 1995 to The Chicago Reader, an alternative weekly, Obama said, "These are mean, cruel times, exemplified by a 'lock 'em up, take no prisoners' mentality that dominates the Republican-led Congress."

He also derided the "old individualistic bootstrap myth" of achievement that conservatives were touting and called self-help strategies for the poor "thinly veiled excuses for cutting back on social programs."

Obama stuck by those ideas as a state senator. His supporters count among his biggest victories his work to expand subsidized health care in Illinois with social-justice groups like United Power for Action and Justice (an offshoot of Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation). Meeting last November with the leaders of ACORN, he declared: "I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career," including representing the group in a court case in Illinois. ACORN's affiliated political-action committee soon endorsed Obama for president.

An Obama presidency is likely to be a huge boost to tax-funded nonprofits - because his antipoverty agenda is right out of the 1960s. His platform ranges from a commitment to boost funding for CDGB to a plan for providing "a full network of services, including early-childhood education, youth-violence prevention efforts and after-school activities . . . from birth to college" to low-income neighborhoods.

The activist community knows he's one of them. As an organ of the National Housing Institute, a social-justice group, has observed: "Barack Obama carries lessons he learned as a community organizer to the political arena. Both organizers and politicians would be wise to study them closely."

Adapted from the summer issue of City Journal, where Steven Malanga is senior editor.

Contempt, Apathy and Lies - Why Britain is Crying Out For Our Own 'Pitbull With Lipstick'

From The Daily Mail
By Melanie Phillips

Across the Atlantic, Americans have been convulsed by the overnight sensation of Sarah Palin.

At a stroke, this hockeymom 'pitbull with lipstick' has galvanised John McCain's presidential ticket and given the Obama Democrats their biggest and maybe insuperable problem.

But her significance does not stop there.

Scroll down for more

Britain needs its own 'pitbull with lipstick' like U.S. vice-president nominee Sarah Palin

Despite obvious differences between the U.S. and the UK, her triumph carries important lessons for British politics, too.

Palin's storming of the political citadel is the victory of the outsider, the little person who takes on the establishment - and wins.

In Britain and America - as in other parts of the Western world, too - an enormous gulf now yawns between leaders and led.

People have concluded that politicians of all parties seem to inhabit a world apart, governed by self-interest, cynicism, corruption, incompetence, deep contempt for the electorate and an incorrigible instinct to deceive them.

Politicians know this. Which is why they all purport to stand on a platform of 'change'.

But change from what to what, precisely?

Unless there's a clear answer, 'change' becomes a pointless soundbite which risks creating an impression of yet more political sleight of hand.

This is the trap into which Barack Obama has fallen.

Yes, he has amazing gifts of charisma and oratory; along with his youth and black ancestry, this all helps create the impression that he is an outsider and embodies a fresh start.

But, on closer inspection, he looks suspiciously like yet more of the same old same old. The way he changes his political message to fit the audience he is addressing sits ill with his pitch to represent a new politics of integrity.

And his voting record and positions on social issues place him firmly among the Left-wing elite which has waged such devastating war upon the West's moral values.

By contrast, Palin has a very strong sense of right and wrong rooted in her evangelical Christian faith. Perversely, this damns her in the eyes of the Left as the 'hard Right'.

This is clearly absurd: she is a working mother of five who has shown herself as capable of felling Big Oil and other political cartels against the public interest as shooting moose.

Will David Cameron look for a British 'pitbull with lipstick'?

Moreover, her real achievement is to do what the Left assumed was utterly impossible: she makes social conservatism seem attractive.

Not only is she young, attractive, clever, witty and feisty; her love for her Down's Syndrome baby embodies hope for the future.

As for her pregnant 17-year-old daughter's proposed shotgun wedding, the priority there is the welfare of the unborn child.

By contrast, the 'right to choose' feminist Left, which also thinks all women have a right to deprive a baby of its father, appears not just callous and selfish, but even downright murderous.

Which is why so-called 'progressives' on both sides of the Atlantic have gone into paroxysms of rage and panic over Sarah Palin.

For she has taken the supposed characteristics of the Left - youth, dynamism, change, excitement and social conscience - and presented them as conservative virtues.

Since the Left habitually shores up its own position by demonising conservatives as nasty, backward-looking, mean-spirited, lifedenying, prejudiced, stupid and boring, it recognises her as a mortal threat - not just to Obama but to its whole political platform.

Accordingly, it is frenziedly hurling smears and allegations at her. And maybe she will eventually fall apart under the pressure.

But if she survives this witch-hunt, her crucial role will be to energise McCain's core vote.

Because - and here's where British Tories should be paying close attention - McCain is not popular with truly conservative Republicans.

His self-styled mission has been to detoxify the lethally unpopular Republican brand.

He seemed well placed to do so because his opinions crossed party lines and made him attractive to the centre ground. (Sound familiar?)

The problem was that in doing so he alienated core Republicans.

His views on man-made climate change (he believes in it), abortion (he's a bit iffy) or immigration (he's for it) made his core voters suspect he was a Democrat in drag.

As a result, the danger was that they would not turn out for him on election day. And exactly the same danger is lurking for David Cameron. If conservatively-minded voters want to turf Labour out but have no enthusiasm for the Tories, the risk is they will simply stay at home.

Like McCain and Obama, Cameron too has grasped the public's anti-establishment mood.

But he made the error of assuming that the reactionary old order to be overturned was conservatism, while change, hope and progress resided on the Left.

But this is a caricature which, although an article of faith among the media, bears scant relation to reality.

It is the Left which upholds the miserable social and educational status quo which causes such misery and harm to so many at the bottom of the heap.

It is the Left which preaches despair by believing that nothing can be done to stop social ills such as crime, drug addiction or teenage pregnancy.

Instead, it sets up vast infrastructures at public expense to mitigate their worst effects - which has the effect of entrenching and deepening those very social ills.

By contrast, any hope of real change for the better lies in the restoration of this country's tradition of morality rooted in Christian religious conscience, exemplified by the Tories' Social Justice Commission.

To his credit, Cameron seems to realise this. Hence his support for marriage and his endorsement of the Commission's work. But the message is still too equivocal.

For sure God, guns and abortion do not play out in Britain as they do in America. But Middle Britain is nevertheless desperate for a champion which it does not yet recognise in the Tory Party.

Middle Britain mourns that its country is being transformed by mass immigration; it is demonised for saying so.

It is aghast that it no longer governs itself but is becoming a province of Euroland; it is scorned as xenophobic for saying so.

It is furious that Britain subsidises feckless behaviour through welfare benefits; it is attacked as heartless for saying so. It is alarmed that the gay rights agenda is making a mockery of family life; it is vilified as homophobic for saying so. And so on.

The Tories are inching towards parts of this agenda. But unable to rid themselves of the fixation that only the socially liberal Left is attractive, they give out mixed or ambiguous messages - which leave people confused or suspicious that Cameron is just another slippery politician.

And, in today's world where issues no longer matter as much as personality, that's lethal.

Despite their very different opinions, McCain and Palin score because they are both mavericks - known to be true to themselves.

What the Cameroons have yet to grasp is that it was not so much conservative measures that the British public rejected, but Tory men.

There are millions who long for a conservative defence of Britain and its values by a leader they respect and admire.

Sarah Palin may well turn out to be Middle America's revenge on its elites.

Middle Britain is watching - and hoping that it will now be hunting season against the moose of the British Left, too.

Send Goober Grahamnesty Packing

It becomes clearer by the day that John McCain did his candidacy a great favor by "crossing the aisle" to the conservatives of his party and selecting a running mate with whom the base is not only comfortable, but enthusiastically embraces.

Consider what the outcome might have been had he heeded the advice of South Carolina's Lindsey Graham and chosen the pro-abortion liberal, Senator Joe Lieberman. Graham, never one to concern himself with the views of those fool enough to vote for him, wanted McCain to shake up the political landscape by choosing a man who has earned an "F" from the National Rifle Association and "zeroes" from the National Right to Life Committee, the Christian Coalition and the American Conservative Union. Take away Lieberman's hawkish votes on Iraq and any legislation benefiting Israel, and Al Gore's running mate is more liberal than half of his Democrat colleagues and all Republicans. He earns from the ADA a score of 80, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) award him an 86, and the American Civil Liberties Union an 83.

South Carolina's Republican Senator would turn his back on the Republican Party, as he has turned his back on his own electorate, to support a liberal, pro-choice, anti-Second Amendment, Democrat for the VP nominee of the Republican Party. Such a decision would likely have resulted in a floor fight and a walk-out on the part of many conservative Republicans. It would have left the base dispirited and in quest of third party candidates, and millions of Republicans would have stayed home on election day.

After outspending his Republican Primary opponent by 9 to 1, one-third of South Carolina Republicans voted against their incumbent Senator. On primary night Graham was not chastened; he rather took the victory as encouragement for even more defiance of South Carolina views and values. This is a man we need to unload now before he does even more damage and becomes more entrenched.

Fortunately, Senator McCain ignored the advice of his "Mini Me" and chose a running mate that inspires Republicans and independents. But South Carolina should think long and hard before renewing Graham's contract. We can hope that McCain might relieve the state of this embarrassment and give Grahamnesty a federal appointment; but we "bigots" who actually believe that US sovereignty, borders and laws should be respected, should not pass up the opportunity to send a message to all RINO's.

We have in Bob Conley someone who will defend the US border, support US-first trade policies and end the outsourcing of US industry and jobs. Conley supports the Fair Tax, will restore sound, honest money, and halt the fall of the dollar. Conley will oppose predatory lending practices, end the Wall Street bailouts, and put a lid on massive expenditures at home and abroad. Most importantly, he is committed to the strict interpretation of the Constitution - the rights of states and individuals, and will work to restore the federal government to its proper role and size.

Goober Grahmnesty, if in nothing else, has been straight about where he stands. It is time South Carolina sent him packing.

Reading Phoenix Choir - "God So Loved The World" (Chillcott)

From Our Canadian Friends at Piddingworth

THE SENSE OF A WOMAN

According to the 'official' feminists and their media mouthpieces, Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska and running-mate of John McCain in the American presidential election, is not an authentic' 'woman'. To quote the former campaign manager for the philandering John Edwards (no kidding), 'Governor Palin doesn't understand the needs of women'. Gloria Steinem has said that the only thing that Sarah Palin has in common with Hillary Clinton are her hormones. Thank goodness for that!

The left-wing are practitioners of 'GroupThink'. Instead of regarding individuals as persons in their own right, they lump every person into an ideological category that is based upon a selected human trait or condition. Each category is defined according to a prescribed collective history, characteristics, and status. Thus, there is for them a 'black community' to which all 'black people' belong because of the colour of their skin. There are, however, some exceptions to such membership. So, if you are Barack Obama, a thoroughgoing liberal, even if he is but half-black, he is a fully-fledged member and now a spokes'person' for the 'black community'. Robert Mugabe is black. Is he a member of that community? Clarence Thomas, the Justice of the US Supreme Court, is a black man, and unlike Mr. Obama, he is the descendant of slaves. Is he a member of the skin-selected community? No. As a conservative, his views counter those of GroupThink, and even with his pedigree, he is excluded from being an 'authentic' member. Like Condoleeza Rice, the brilliant US Secretary of State, also a descendant of slaves, Thomas has been referred to by some of the 'authentic' liberal members as an 'Oreo', i.e., like the famouse biscuit, he may have black skin but inside he's just like a white man. The left frequently resorts to dismissing people by calling them names. Engaging in ideas seems to be anathema to them.

Similarly, the most prominent and liberal brand of feminists reserve the true definition of a 'woman' as a female who believes in what that 'group' believes, i.e., permitting the killing of unborn and partially born children (euphamised as 'Choice'), government oversight of child-rearing (for those children who had the good fortune not to be aborted), e.g., Hillary Clinton's 'It Takes A Village'; the 'equality' of homosexuality with heterosexuality and the promotion of the same in school textbooks for young children; and any government programme that finances and advances their philosophy anywhere, including Africa. They love 'centralised' authority if it is liberal and even crypto-socialist. Governing, to the Left, is managing the lives of citizens according to GroupThink.

Women like the impressive Sarah Palin, are not true members of the 'Woman Community'. As the recent disgusting liberal rants against her and her family have shown, she is villified for having an orthodox Christian belief in the sacredness of human life, as well as a view of the world and of culture that reflects the importance of the 'individual' in their choices, their personal character, and manner of living. For Governor Palin, that includes fighting corruption, cutting waste of people's money, encouraging economic prosperity, being a 'hockey mum', hunting and even participating in a beauty contest.

She has been criticised for having been the Mayor of a small town and Governor of a state with a small population; even though Barack Obama, their hyped-up left-liberal hero, has been mayor and governor of nowhere. Indeed, the only thing he has run, with all his eloquence, is his campaign.

The left, especially the media, are even attacking her for having a yet-to-be-married 17 year old daughter who is five months pregnant.

If there was any doubt of the amorality of the media jackals' who are disgustingly feasting on Sarah Palin's family life, surely it is blatantly obvious now as they demonstrate the profound betrayal and vulgarity that has, in the past two decades, so overtaken their once-noble purpose. The paucity of fairness, integrity and balance has become predictably the norm. If there is any doubt of the left liberal loathing for women who embrace and live lives based upon the ancient foundation of faith and culture it has been made obvious.

There is no doubt that Sarah Palin was chosen by the legendary John McCain (who, unlike Obama, lacks the extensive experience of a 'community organiser') in part, because she is a woman; with the hope of attracting voters who would vote for her because she is a woman. But after Sarah Palin's remarks to the Republican Party on Wednesday evening, it is overwhelmingly obvious that the greatest reason he picked her is because of her personality, character, public record and personal beliefs; all of which came through brilliantly, with a mixture of wit, courage, determination, conviction and a common sense that reflects a knowledge of the common good and the legacy from which her country has been so blessed. Margaret Thatcher, also a woman, achieved her place in government and history because of who she was and what she believe in at the core. It is doubtful that many voted for her or her government because she was a female.

Joe Biden, her Democratic Party Vice-Presidential opponent has reportedly said that he thinks that Sarah Palin is 'a good looking woman'. Yes, indeed, she is. But the shallowness of the left, with it's dishonest obsession with race, gender, and sexual license does not apply to Sarah Palin...and they will increasingly discover as the election campaign continues that the ordinary citizen, by common sense, is drawn to a person more for who and what they are and stand for than what they look or sound like...or what 'group' they represent.

Sarah Palin is an inspiration and one can see it's magic as the enthusiasm for her and her heroic running-mate rapidly grows. Her femininity will add to the quality of her words and deeds and bring a fresh perspective to the issues of the day, but the simple fact of being 'female' in itself, is or ought to be, irrelevant.

One can easily respect and enjoy the sense of this wonderful and extraordinary woman!

If I was an American I would gladly support her and the old maverick John McCain.

Written and originally published by Piddingworth

GOP Platform Reverses Bush Pro-Amnesty Stance

From NumbersUSA

Republicans ratified a Party platform this week that reversed the pro-amnesty plank President Bush laid out in the 2004 platform. The platform states that the GOP opposes amnesty, supports border security, and calls for "smarter" interior enforcement against illegal workers and lawbreaking employers alike.

The platform says "smarter" enforcement necessitates the use of E-Verify:

(W)e must empower employers so they can know with confidence that those they hire are permitted to work. That means that the E-Verify system—which is an internet-based system that verifies the employment authorization and identity of employees—must be reauthorized. A phased in requirement that employers use the E-Verify system must be enacted.

Moreover, the platform calls for denial of federal funds to sanctuary cities and denial of Social Security and other public benefits, including driver’s licenses, to illegal aliens except where required under federal law.

Unfortuately, the Party also included language calling for more permanent foreign high-tech workers under the H-1B program. This abused program has displaced domestic high-tech workers and driven down their wages. As such, this part of the Party's plank would hurt, not help, struggling American workers (click here to see current unemployment statistics.)

A platform represents a Party's stances on a range of policy issues, and is normally written to satisfy its base. The Wall Street Journal reports Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the chairman of the platform drafting committee, as saying the Party had opted for a "smaller, more principled, more forward-looking" platform this year that didn't emphasize its nominee before Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was chosen as its flag bearer.

The platform runs counter to the “comprehensive immigration reform” bill pushed by Sen. McCain last year, although the candidate now says he wants to pursue border security first before legalizing the 10-20 million illegal aliens in this country. Some delegates tried to offer platform language that opposed "amnesty or any kind of comprehensive immigration reform." This amendment was rejected when some members argued it was a slap at Sen. McCain. In the end, Sen. McCain did not initiate a fight over any platform positions that ran contrary to his own beliefs.

The platform marks a dramatic shift from the 2004 platform on immigration. That platform called for amnesty and pushed brining in even more foreign workers under a "temporary" guest-worker program.

Governor Sarah Palin Bears Witness To Jesus Christ At Her Home Church

In this video Governor Sarah Palin addresses her home church several months ago in Wasilla, Alaska. If after last night's historic speech there is still any doubt, this powerful insight into the faith of our next Vice President makes clear that she is "the real deal," a Providential figure who will undoubtedly play a great role in the future history of our country.

The Governor begins speaking at 2:20 into the video.

The Dictators of Relativism

From National Catholic Register
By Mark Shea

Show me a person who cannot distinguish cleverness from wisdom or a good brain from a good heart, and I will show you somebody who is a fool.

These words to live by returned to mind a few weeks back when I read a complaint piece on Apocalypto by a scholar specializing in Mayan civilization. She protested: “They’re shown as these extremely barbaric people, when in fact, the Maya were a very sophisticated culture.”

A quote like this can only mean that somewhere in higher education impressionable minds are being formed by somebody who knows all about the Mayans — and nothing about elementary common sense. For, of course, barbarism and sophistication are not mutually exclusive. Hitler enjoyed Richard Wagner’s work; SS troops in his death camps listened to great classical music to unwind after a hard day of slaughter.

Nazi Germany, Stalin’s U.S.S.R., and Mao’s China were none of them Stone Age societies just past the level of bear skins and cave paintings. They were all highly sophisticated, technologically accomplished, scientific civilizations with a developed literature, a huge legacy in the arts, law, philosophy and architecture, and an extremely complex and well-functioning governmental structure. All of that enabled them to, among other things, handle the complex and difficult task of putting to death millions and millions of innocent people. Indeed, the fact that civilizations can be both highly sophisticated and utterly barbaric is the whole point of the film.

How do such civilizations get that way? The scholar on Mayan civilization unwittingly points us to an important clue when she declares, “It’s offensive to those of us who try to teach cultural sensitivity and alternative world views that might not match our own 21st-century Western ones but are nonetheless valid. … We have evidence to suggest that there were group sacrifices. But it would probably have been done as a pious act with solemnity.”

In the dictatorship of relativism that Pope Benedict warns against, tolerance tends to mutate into moral idiocy. That’s because the relativist is forced, by his own principles, to abandon the notion of the good (except in the sense of “what I happen to like personally”).

In the old days, it was possible to say that because God is good and human beings are made in his image, then acts which respect the dignity of the human person are good and acts which do not are bad. The goal of life was to “approximate his perfections” and to guard the fact that every person, no matter how poor or weak, was likewise a creature in his image.

So, for example, liberty and justice were good things, not just for rich robber barons but for poor widows, too. That was not “imposing values.” It was “defending the alien, the orphan and the widow” because the Lord their God was their special friend and avenger.

Of course, even people who professed to live in that moral universe did not always live up to their principles. Such violations were called “sin.”

But when we embrace relativism, the first thing to go, of course, is our belief in God’s goodness — because God himself is a mere construct of Western culture.

The next thing to go is belief in human dignity. After all, that is simply one more relic of a Christian civilization that has no more or less merit than any other.

And so, suggesting that group human sacrifice might be intrinsically evil is “privileging 21st century Western culture.” All moral judgments — all attempts to condemn a particular act as evil (such as, say, solemnly and piously cutting open an innocent man’s chest and ripping his beating heart out while he breathes his last) — are out.

We cannot impose our values.

We cannot say that anybody “ought” to do anything, because that would imply we are subject to a judge who blesses or condemns certain acts. We must give up all pretense that God exists and that our duty in life is to approximate his perfection. Our duty — our sole duty — is not to make value judgments.

The problem with all this, as C.S. Lewis points out, is that when all that says “We ought” is silenced, what says “I want” remains, for it has no pretensions to transcendent authority. It simply asserts naked force against the weak.

And so, once conscience is silenced by relativism, those without consciences will be only too happy to shout down all remaining opposition to their designs.

They may even cloak their worship of power as a kind of piety. For as we have already seen, Nazi, Stalinist and Maoist civilizations also engaged in group sacrifice (of extremely large groups), and they too considered it a pious act of devotion to, variously, the sacred purity of the Volkish blood and the sacred glory of the proletariat.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.


Mark Shea is senior content editor for CatholicExchange.com

British Muslims Offended by Christians Praying During Ramadan

From The Brussels Journal

A Christian group in Oxford has apologised to the city’s Muslims for having the audacity to organise a day of prayer during Ramadan. Oxfords Muslims found it ‘ill-conceived and insensitive’, not to mention ‘grossly insulting and inflammatory’.

The Muslim Education Centre of Oxford (MECO) has accused the Evangelical group ‘Open Doors UK’ of preaching ‘evangelical propaganda’.

Do not Muslims preach Islamic propaganda? Do the Christians in Oxford complain about this? Would the Muslims of Oxford apologise or even care if the Christians did complain about it?

But the greatest offence was taken because the Christians had dared to refer to their event as a ‘Call to Prayer’. Apparently, only Muslims may now use this term.

A Vote For Sarah Palin

From First Things
By Suann Therese Maier

Three memories have shaped my approach to this year’s general election.

Here’s the first. In the late 1970s, during a two-year break from teaching to raise our second son, an adopted child, I found myself at a Los Angeles dinner party filled with DINKs, the “double income, no kids” crowd who were just emerging as a self-aware and upwardly mobile social group. I fell to talking—or more accurately, listening—to a chatty young female attorney who said she was putting in eighty hours a week as a junior associate on a variety of important cases.

After twenty minutes or so, she finally noticed my silence and asked me what I did with my own time. So I told her. I told her about the young couple that had asked my husband and me to adopt their baby if we covered their hospital expenses. I told her about waiting outside the delivery room for our son to be born. I told her about the bureaucratic maze that came with finalizing the adoption of a newborn. I told her about borrowing money from friends so we’d look more solvent than we actually were to Social Service inspectors who checked our accounts.

“That’s wonderful dear,” she said. “You’re so lucky not to have a real job.”

Here’s the second memory. I remember my fourth child, our son Dan, being born one winter evening, purple and struggling for breath. I remember my husband pouring water over his head as we baptized him in my arms. I remember the young Filipina doctor rushing Dan to intensive care. I remember the ten days of his fighting for life. And I remember Dan’s diagnosis, when it finally came in: Down syndrome.

Here’s the third memory. I remember my father, a successful young Chicago attorney, telling me why the Democratic party was the party of “our people,” and why so many Catholics were Democrats, and why the party stood for the little guy, the poor and the defenseless. I remember listening as a young girl in our kitchen as Saul Alinsky organized my parents’ Catholic friends on racial and economic issues in our Chicago living room. And I remember the night in 1992 when Pennsylvania’s governor, Robert Casey, was denied a chance to talk against abortion at the Democratic national convention.

As I draw on those memories now, I reach certain conclusions. As a woman, mother, wife, and lifetime professional educator, I will vote, enthusiastically, for Sarah Palin as vice president this November. Even if the media pressure forces her from the ticket, I will vote against the Democratic party—partly because I respect John McCain and believe him to be the better candidate, but equally because I’m tired of the intransigence and condescension of the Democratic leadership on the abortion issue.

I will vote for Sarah Palin because I don’t need the Democratic platform’s belated affirmation of motherhood. Thanks, but I already know that motherhood is good, several times over. Moreover, the party’s rediscovery of motherhood seems rather cynical in the current news cycle, while Democratic-friendly bloggers and media types bash Palin about her daughter’s pregnancy and her own busy schedule while bringing up children. How can a real sympathy for motherhood come from the same people who wrote a platform that hardens the party’s addiction to a phony right to kill the unborn?

I will vote for Sarah Palin because she has guts. We’ve never met, but I suspect I know something about her life, and so do a great many other women. I know what it means to have a son with Down syndrome. I know what it means to talk a good line about religious faith and then be asked to prove it. I know what it means to have a daughter pregnant and unmarried.

In fact, while we’re on the subject, I also know what it means to have two grandchildren born out of wedlock, a son struggling with alcohol, two grandchildren with serious disabilities, putting myself through graduate school while simultaneously caring for a husband and children and teaching full time—and a whole lot more. This is the stuff of real human love; this is the raw material of family life. And those who think that Palin’s beliefs and family struggles are funny or worth jeering at, simply reveal the venality of their own hearts.

I will vote for Sarah Palin because she is intelligent, tenacious and talented. Nobody made her rise easy, and no one is making it easy now. And—is it only moms who notice this?—unlike Senator Biden, she does seem to act consistently on her beliefs about the sanctity of life, at considerable personal cost.

I will vote for Sarah Palin because she doesn’t come from Washington or New York or Chicago or anywhere else the political and media aristoi like to hang out. In fact, I especially like the idea that the state she governs actually produces something—like some of the oil that powers the hair dryers and klieg lights at MSNBC.

I will vote for Sarah Palin because Roe v. Wade is bad law, and it needs to fall. I don’t doubt the intelligence and character of men like Doug Kmiec, the younger Bob Casey, and others who sympathize with the Obama campaign. But I do doubt their judgment. At the end of the day, the Democratic party in 2008 has conceded nothing to pro-life Democrats. The fact that Sen. Obama listens respectfully to pro-lifers without calling them reactionary dunces does not constitute progress. Results and behavior are what matter. On both those counts, the party has again failed to show any real sensitivity to pro-life concerns. In that light, high profile Catholics who support Obama are simply rationalizing their surrender on Roe.

Finally, I will vote for Sarah Palin, not because I’ve left the Democratic party of my youth and young adulthood, but because that party has left me. In fact, it no longer exists. And no amount of elegant speaking, exciting choreography, and moral alibis will bring it back.

That’s the real tragedy of this election.

Suann Therese Maier, the mother of four and former director of non-profit support organizations for pregnant women and children with disabilities, is a teacher in Colorado.

Palin's Profound Experience

The Washington Post has an excellent column today by Dr. John Mark Reynolds on the formidable experience of Governor Sarah Palin.

Dr. Reynolds blogs regularly at Scriptoriumdaily.com along with other faculty from the Torrey Honors Institute, a great books program at Biola University for which he is founder and director.

The Nun Who Co-Starred With Elvis

Benedictine Monastic for 45 Years, She Starred with Elvis on the Big Screen

Mother Dolores Hart

From The Tablet

By Father Frank Mann

As Dolores Hart, she was a well-known and successful actress of film, stage and television in the late 1950’s and early 1960s. As Mother Dolores Hart, a cloistered Benedictine nun, she has spent the last 45 years in monastic life at the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut.

Before entering into a lifetime contract with God in 1963, she earned the distinction of becoming the first actress to kiss Elvis Presley on the big screen in their first movie, ‘“Loving You” in 1957. The following year, she again starred with Presley in “King Creole.”

Ed Wilkinson Photos

Mother Dolores Hart, former star of stage and screen, speaks with The Tablet during an exclusive interview at Regina Laudis Abbey in Bethlehem, Conn. The interview was conducted through a traditional grille which separates the monastic sisters from the general public.

“Elvis was such a sweet, personable young man,” recalled Mother Dolores during an exclusive interview with The Tablet. “He would always call me Miss Dolores. The only other persons who called me that were Clark Gable and Mother Abbess when I was a postulant.”

“I must say, however, he was the most pleasant individual, very gentle and very dedicated to his dear mother.”

Although the two were still teenagers when they made their first film together, Elvis had already gained stardom with his rock and roll music.

“Because I co-starred with Elvis, people kept coming up to me asking if I could get them a lock of his hair!” recalled Mother Dolores with a chuckle.

She recalls an incident that describes the humility and thoughtfulness of Elvis. One day while filming “King Creole,” the streets of New Orleans were jammed with people trying to get a glimpse of The King. She hopped into the back of a limo with Elvis to drive to the movie set. A young girl put her arm into the slightly opened window of the car to try to touch Elvis as the car was moving.

“I remember so well my shouting at Elvis to tell the driver to stop the car. The driver didn’t stop. Elvis then grabbed the driver and shouted that he must stop the car immediately. Elvis got out of the car to check to see if the young lady was okay. He told the girl that he was not as important as she was.

“Later, when I was here at the Abbey, I received a call from that woman thanking me for what Elvis and I did to help her. It was evident that Elvis Presley was a very caring and self-deprecating individual.”

And as for that on-camera kiss? “It was the kiss that lasted over 45 years!” she says with an impish radiance that betrays the actress still in her.

On matters of religion, spirituality or faith, Mother Dolores points out that Elvis did not discuss such topics with her “but many times on the set, in between breaks, Elvis would ask me how often I read the Bible or if I had a favorite Psalm. He seemed to always want to know if there was a Bible around somewhere.”

Elvis loved to sing and record Gospel music. “Those spiritual songs had an unquestionable depth of soul to them,” she notes. “They were like incarnational expressions for all who heard them. Elvis no doubt touched something very deep in the heart and soul of so many individuals. He reached deep down into that place that awakened a call to Christ. I have no doubt that Elvis Presley made the Lord a reality for others not only in his Gospel music but in his countless gestures of generosity and caring compassion. People seemed to be called out of darkness by his voice in those songs of deep devotion, hope and abiding faith.”

When Elvis died, Mother recalled being “deeply, deeply pained. He was so talented, so glorious.”

Spanning a fulfilling and exciting six-year period, Hart worked with such Hollywood giants as Anthony Quinn and Anna Magnani in “Wild is the Wind” (1957) and Montgomery Clift and Myrna Loy in the memorable production of “Lonelyhearts” (1958). She was the top-billing actress in MGM’s highest grossing film of 1962, “Where The Boys Are.” “It was the one film in which I had the most fun. It was an absolute blast,” she said. In that film she co-starred with Connie Francis and the seemingly always tanned, George Hamilton.

Hart also played St. Clare in the film, “Francis of Assisi” (1961) and had a role in “Come Fly With Me” (1963) with Hugh O’Brian, Lois Nettleton (a lifelong friend of Hart) and Karl Madden. Other films to her credit are a western, “The Plunderers” (1959) with Jeff Chandler, and “Sail A Crooked Ship” (1962) with Robert Wagner.

On Broadway, she appeared opposite George Peppard in “The Pleasure of His Company,” for which she received a Tony nomination. Her television work included “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Playhouse 90” and “The Virginians.”

Being an actress “....was a definitive ‘call,’” explains Mother Dolores. It was her grandfather (a projectionist at a movie theater) who was the most influential person in shaping her impassioned acting career.

“Although I had always wanted to be an actress since I was seven years old, it was really my grandfather who truly encouraged me to be one. He was the ‘patriarch’ for me and was the primary source of my continued encouragement. I prayed and prayed for years to become an actress. Acting was in the gene pool of my family (her father was an actor), it flowed through our veins, it was in the blood for sure.”

She recalls the rather unpleasant divorce of her parents and the re-marriage of her mother.

Her major ‘break’ came when she was a drama student at Marymount College, Los Angeles, where she had received a full acting scholarship.

“At Marymount, in my freshman year, I was asked to star in a play about Joan of Arc. It was during the run of that play that I was asked to have pictures of myself sent to various producers.”

At the age of 18, Dolores received a phone call from movie producer, Hal Wallis of Paramount Studios. Hart adds, “I thought it was all a joke played on me. I guess the man upstairs just took all my acting ability and put it all together. Now I would guess that’s what some people see as getting the big break."

Mother Dolores Hart escorts guests on a tour of the Regina Laudis Abbey. Stops included the chapel, shown above during noontime prayer. The Abbey grounds also include an outdoor theatre that seats over 200 people. It continues to produce musicals and plays with the help of Mother Dolores. The grounds are also available for private retreats. For information about the Abbey and its gift shop which offers the Benedictine Nuns’ Chant CDs and DVDs, please visit their website at www.abbeyofreginalaudis.com

It was the call from Wallis that led to her role as the striking beauty in “Loving You.”

For Hart, the most gratifying part of being an actress was “getting the next role, always getting the next part” and the most difficult was “...coming to the end of a particular role.”

“I made so many meaningful and delightful friendships and relationships on the set,” she explains. “When those various venues of communications were over, it became a difficult and trying time for me. Even the characters that I played would come to an end. I remember when I played Lisa in the concentration camp in the film ‘Lisa’ in 1962. I had felt that I lost a sister in Lisa when the movie was finished. I had walked with Lisa for many, many days and now she was gone. It left me with a strange and rather empty feeling.”

At the age of 24, Dolores Hart startled the film world in 1962 when she left a thriving and beloved screen career to become a cloistered Benedictine nun. But it wasn’t an easy transition. “...It was like purgatory,” she says. “I felt as if I had jumped from a 20-story building into a pool with no water.” Many times, she felt that she wanted to run out of the monastery.

But she had entered searching for the “will of God” and she wasn’t ready to give up that easily.

Visitors to the austere environment of Regina Laudis might wonder why a young woman with her entire career ahead of her would give up fame and fortune to enter a monastery. It wasn’t because she was fed up with Hollywood or the stage.

“I came here initially at the suggestion of a dear friend. I had been on Broadway for nine months in ‘The Pleasure of His Company.’ I was weary, very weary.

When I came to Regina Laudis Abbey I just knew that this was what God wanted from me. I just kept returning again and again. I guess you might say that I really didn’t come here looking for anything. Rather, I was trying to understand why I was being led into such a place that was the shocking opposite of the life I was living. There was something about the vow of stability that monastic men or women take that was very significant for me. That vow gives one a place where one can find a still center in the midst of constant change. There is that still center in the midst of all that is so unsettling and what appears as seeming meaninglessness in a society that is losing its own sense of history and purpose.”

Asked to elaborate about her “nudge” from God to enter the cloistered monastic community, she added, “It is hard to explain. I guess the best way I could answer that this is this way: if one is married, why did one marry so and so and not another? If you have a beloved pet, why did that one pet enter your life and not another? It was the monastic life that found me.”

She rather amusingly produced her BlackBerry-cell phone. “You see this? Imagine if everyone in the world had one of these and was able to ‘clock’ into the Holy Spirit? But certainly I don’t really need anything like that to explain what I have now in my life.”

In response to a question about what truly makes her happy, she looked intently with her beautiful and tranquil clear blue eyes and said, “To be with someone I love.” The loving sparkle of her caressing gaze and smile still stirs the soul. Mother Dolores has seen the loveliness of the Lord in her life at Regina Laudis. Visitors still may be amazed at her choice of vocation and seek more of an explanation. But for Mother Dolores, no explanation is necessary.

The New Democrat

From The New American
By Jim Capo

According to Bob Conley, the Democrat nominee for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina, “The New Democrat is the Old Democrat.” And that Democrat is pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, and fiscally conservative.

Bob Conley actively supported Pat Buchanan's presidential bid on the Reform Party ticket in 2000. More recently, he supported Republican Congressman Ron Paul's presidential bid. He is now running for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina- as a Democrat.

Though he is still largely ignored by the establishment media, Bob Conley has already won the Democratic primary and his name will appear on the ballot in November as the Democratic nominee. His primary victory should be added to those of John McCain's and Barack Obama's on the list of improbable but notable outcomes thus far in 2008. On a shoestring budget, and with only a few months under his belt in his new party, Bob Conley won his primary race against Michael Cone, a Charleston lawyer, by 1,049 votes out of 147,287 cast.

The commercial pilot, professional engineer, and flight instructor is now up against Lindsey Graham, the Republican incumbent, who in the current Congress (to date) has scored a mediocre 56 percent in The New American's "Freedom Index," a congressional scorecard that rates all members of the House and Senate based on their adherence to the Constitution. Conley often refers to Senator Graham as "McCain's Mini Me" and "Grahamnesty" (a moniker coined by Rush Limbaugh). Graham was one of the key Republican senators who tried (unsuccessfully) to push through the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform (read: amnesty) bill last year.

If a Democrat running to the right of the Republican seems a bit odd, it should be kept in mind that the Republican Party has been moving to the left. In fact, many Republicans are "neoconservatives" who promote a corporate-socialist-internationalist agenda under the banner of Republican conservatism. Neoconservatism has become so prevalent within the Republican Party that some conservatives have left the party in disgust. For example, former GOP Congressman Bob Barr migrated to the Libertarian Party and is now the Libertarians' presidential nominee. Pastor Chuck Baldwin is running for president under the Constitution Party banner. And Bob Conley, the engineer-pilot-pragmatist, with a signature flattop haircut, thinks he has a better idea: run and actually win as a Democrat. Since his plan has worked so far, we caught up with "FlatTop Bob" to flat out ask him, "What's up?"

The New American: With your conservative views, why are you running as a Democrat and how were you able to win the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina?
Bob Conley: I had a simple opening message for voters, "I'm the Democrat your grandfather voted for." The "Blue Dog" is the wave of the future. The New Democrat is the Old Democrat. You can campaign and win as a Democrat on a pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, traditional values, fiscally conservative platform. The 2006 elections proved this. Jeffersonian ideals can still win in the party that Jefferson founded. Outside of a few elitist, urbanite white folks, the message of Ted Kennedy doesn't play in South Carolina - even among rank-and-file Democrats.

TNA: You have described yourself as a "Jeffersonian Democrat." How do you define that term?
Conley: A Jeffersonian Democrat believes in small government; he believes that the government that governs least governs best. Like Thomas Jefferson, I believe that government power must be limited and that those entrusted with exercising that power must be held in check. As Jefferson put it, we must not put confidence in man, but "bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

TNA: You have also called yourself a "Larry McDonald Democrat." What's a Larry McDonald Democrat?
Conley: A champion of the Constitution. Larry McDonald, a member of Congress from Georgia, was a modern Jeffersonian Democrat. He served in the U.S. House from 1975 until 1983, when he disappeared on Korean Airline Flight 007. Dr. McDonald was a traditional Southern Democrat, and was the most conservative member of that body. In fact, he was chairman of the John Birch Society.

TNA: You mentioned earlier that a Democrat who's pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, pro-traditional values, and fiscally conservative can win. What are a couple of the other issues you are campaigning on?
Conley: The U.S. has suicidal immigration problems that must be fixed; amnesty is not a solution, and will only exacerbate the problem; the importation of foreign nationals to take Americans' jobs and drive down wages must stop. I'm running against the occupation of (not war in) Iraq. We need to end the occupation now.

TNA: How fast is "now"?
Conley: As rapidly as is consistent with the safety of the troops. Complete redeployment may take three, six, or nine months, but must begin now. I would be surprised if the process takes more than a year.

I also support our veterans. Compare our treatment of our honorable veterans to how we treat dishonorable bankers on Wall Street with subsidies and bailouts. Corporate welfare has to end. I'm a reemergence of the traditional Democrat: think William Jennings Bryan.

TNA: What role do you see the Federal Reserve Board playing in our growing economic debacle?
Conley: The Fed is a banking cartel that should be abolished. It is a major part of the problem. It will never be part of the solution. I support constitutional money - including Lincoln's Greenbacks. We have to free ourselves from the Fed's debt-based money. As noted Austrian economist Murray Rothbard said in response to what should happen to the Fed, "It should just go away!"

TNA: You also support the FairTax. Why is that?
Conley: Three points: First, it will do away with the IRS and move towards repeal of the 16th [income tax] Amendment. Second, the special breaks for the corporate lobbyists will go away. And third, South Carolina has lost so many textile jobs to Communist China, it will help level the playing field on international trade. That is, it will allow our domestic manufacturers to compete under the so-called "free trade" agreements. It will counter the tax penalties Duncan Hunter talked about in his presidential campaign. Hunter used a football analogy to describe the 17-percent subsidy Communist China gives their exporters while at the same time penalizing our producers 17 percent. Team U.S.A. is down 34-0 on the scoreboard at the start of the game - and this doesn't even take into account the Chi-Coms' devaluation of their own currency.

TNA: How do you reconcile your Jeffersonian principles with the fact that the FairTax is supposed to be revenue neutral - that is, the federal government would collect as much money under the FairTax as it does now?
Conley: We did not get to where we are today in one step. The FairTax eliminates, among other things, the income tax and payroll taxes. This is a step in the right direction. Once that is accomplished, the next step to reduce the size of the federal government is by cutting spending-then paying off the national debt, then reducing the tax rate.

TNA: Getting back to your upset primary victory, how were you able to pull it off without mega bucks for advertising?
Conley: Our victory was just a lot of hard work along with lots of dedicated volunteers. Everywhere we went we handed out a lot of business-card-sized pass-along cards to build name recognition. We went where the votes were, and where I could connect with enough voters to win. Our goal was half plus one; we received half plus a little more than five hundred! I do believe God helps those who make the effort.

TNA: What is your strategy for beating Lindsey Graham on November 4?
Conley: We need more name recognition, and that will take at least a little bit of money, by no means parity with Graham, but between 10 and 20 percent. Remember, Tom Coburn was outspent 11:1 in his 2004 primary race for U.S. Senate in Oklahoma, but through a grass-roots effort he won the primary and went on to win the Senate seat in November. And through our own grass-roots effort here in South Carolina we will win this Senate seat. Certainly, we think there will be an increased turnout for Obama in South Carolina. Graham has been declared the worst Republican senator, and is widely despised; we need to take 10 percent of his base, and believe we can take at least 25 percent.

TNA: Do you see a Ron Paul-type candidate on the horizon in the Democratic Party?
Conley: I am that candidate.

Interview of Bob Conley by Jim Capo

NBC to ‘Gay’ Journalists: ‘Your Victories Are Our Victories’

From The Culture and Media Institute
By Brian Fitzpatrick

It’s spelled NLGJA, but they pronounce it “Negligee."

The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) just held its annual convention here in Washington D.C., attracting hundreds of journalists – and ringing endorsements – from virtually every major publication and broadcaster in the news media.

In a full-page ad in the convention program, NBC Universal declared it is “proud to support NLGJA,” under the bold headline: “YOUR VICTORIES ARE OUR VICTORIES"

After listening to speaker after speaker express hatred and contempt for political and religious conservatives while plotting how to advance the homosexual activist agenda through journalism, I’m left wondering whether Americans know the extent of the media’s bias on homosexual issues. Do they know that the news media have thrown themselves fully behind the gay rights movement? Every major news organization sponsored the convention, bought space in the program or had recruiting booths.

Hatred

NBC/National Journal reporter Matthew Berger said he experienced “reverse Stockholm syndrome” while on the campaign trail covering GOP religious conservative Mike Huckabee. “Stockholm syndrome” is what afflicts hostages who come to love their captors. If Berger’s feelings changed after traveling with the Huckabee campaign, they went in the opposite direction. He acknowledged how difficult it is for a journalist to do his job when you “hate” the people you’re covering. Berger said he was happy when he was transferred to the “gay-friendly” Rudolph Giuliani campaign.

Sending an outspoken activist like Berger, the former president of NLGJA’s Washington D.C. chapter, to cover the Huckabee campaign is like sending a hard-right activist to cover the Obama campaign. What was NBC thinking? Maybe they had no choice. Does NBC have anybody on staff who doesn’t hate religious conservatives?

Kerry Eleveld, news editor for a homosexual-themed magazine appropriately named The Advocate, described as “refreshing” Pastor Rick Warren’s questions to the presidential candidates at the Saddleback Church forum on August 16. However, she also got big laughs when she said she understood how others might find the pastor’s participation in the political process “nauseating.”

Discussing attitudes toward homosexuality, Los Angeles Times opinion pages editor Robin Rauzi revealed Big Media contempt for the rubes in Flyover Country: “We feel our readers are ahead of where they are in Kansas City.”

Political Activism

During a sparsely attended (11 out of hundreds of conferees) session promoting objectivity in news coverage, a reporter from a Florida newspaper acknowledged his biases: the “public’s right to know,” and “equality.” By “equality,” he meant the homosexual activist political agenda. He revealed the tension that ought to have bedeviled every journalist at the conference: how to avoid ideological bias while covering the news.

On a partisan level, the conferees clearly leaned toward the Democrats. One speaker frankly admitted that the homosexual activist community generally expects most gays to be Democrats. Two panels touched on a partisan controversy raging in the homosexual community: James Kirchick, Assistant Editor of The New Republic, said gays are “shocked” and “up in arms” because the owner of “Manhunt,” a very popular same-sex “dating” site, contributes money to presumptive GOP presidential candidate John McCain.

Even Patrick Sammon, president of the organization for homosexuals in the GOP, the Log Cabin Republicans, stressed that his organization does not support social conservatives. Sammon called former Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Rick Santorum a “bigot.” Another journalist observed that “some people” in D.C. make it their business to “out” homosexual staffers of GOP congressmen with an “anti-gay agenda.”

A panel supposedly intended to foster accurate coverage of religion quickly turned into a political strategizing session aimed at “retaking Christianity” from conservatives. The moderator and organizer of the panel, furniture magnate Mitchell Gold, is the founder of Faith in America, a homosexual activist organization targeting the religious community.

Gold said, “The single biggest [obstacle] to gays having equal rights in the country is religion,” so “I set myself to learn about it.” One of the panelists, Ann Craig, director of Religion, Faith & Values for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), said, “We’re not getting anyplace until we begin conquering the debate” in the religious community.

How to do it? Panelist Jimmy Creech, the former United Methodist pastor defrocked in 1999 for conducting same-sex “marriages,” told the journalists to seek out “other voices” rather than quote the 700 Club’s Pat Robertson and Focus on the Family founder Dr. James Dobson. According to Creech, conservative Christian leaders like Robertson and Dobson are “the most radical Christians in America today,” and represent “a very minority point of view.”

The sole journalist on the panel was David Waters, editor of the Washington Post/Newsweek “On Faith” blog. Waters urged reporters “not to go” to established leaders like Robertson and Dobson, contrasting them to “real people” in the pews.

Sponsorship

Who paid for this blend of journalism and activism? The NLGJA convention was underwritten by most of the biggest names in the news business. At the $25,000 level: the McClatchy Company. At the $15,000 level: CBS, CNN, Gannett Foundation, ESPN, and Hearst Newspapers. Kicking in $10,000 were NBC, Fox Business, Fox News, News Corporation, and The Washington Post. Good for $5,000 were ABC News and Bloomberg. Publisher and broadcaster Cox Enterprises bought the inside cover of the program, and CBS News “salutes NLGJA” on the back cover. Gannett (USA Today) “salutes” NLGJA in a full-page ad, as does The New York Times in a half-page ad. A.H. Belo Corporation (Dallas Morning News, Providence Journal) declares it is a “proud sponsor” in a full-page ad, while The Washington Post “congratulates” NLGJA in its full-page ad.

Recruiting

NLGJA members generally view themselves as members of an oppressed minority group, which suggests they’re likely to bring a political agenda to their journalism. The NLGJA convention doesn’t seem to be a likely place to find objective reporters. Nevertheless, most of the top organizations in journalism sent recruiters: The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, AP, NPR, Bloomberg, even conservative-leaning Fox. The poor Fox recruiter seemed lonely.

The political and ideological bias so readily apparent at the NLGJA convention reflects a glaring problem in the news industry as a whole. Reporting the news objectively is still a matter of professional pride to most journalists, but many also have bigger fish to fry.


Brian Fitzpatrick is senior editor at the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the Media Research Center.

Now, Senator, Touch the Tip of Your Nose

We all knew it would only be a matter of time before Senator Biden said something really inappropriate, but who knew he'd do it three sheets to the wind? The media has been so focused on the private lives of Governor Palin's family, they completely overlooked a well fortified Biden shuffling and slurring in this public performance.

Money Bomb to Retire Lindsey Graham-nesty

This November we not only have the opportunity to remove a senator who has been whittling away at liberties, but we now have someone who will champion the ways of the Constitution.

His name is Bob Conley.

Even if you don't live in South Carolina, you can help take down Lindsey Graham and elect someone who will be a champion for liberty. This Monday, September 1st, a local Campaign for Libery Meet-Up group is calling for a Money Bomb for Bob Conley. You can donate at Bob Conley's website: aimhighwithbob.com.

Here is a statement from a founding member of the Meet-Up group, Vicki Simmons:

Lower Your Gas Prices: Bob Conley sees solutions to reduce your gas prices through the use of alternative energy and conservation. To end our dependence on foreign oil, we need to change our energy policy. Bob will fight for this change by: encouraging more energy production at home, promoting the development of alternative energy sources, wider use of proven alternative energy solutions, and encouraging the use of energy-saving technologies. We’ll regain energy independence and create good jobs in the process!

Iraq: Bob Conley believes it is time to end the occupation, and support our troops by bringing them home!

Jobs & Immigration: Bob supports secure borders and wants South Carolinians to have first choice of jobs in South Carolina.

Jobs & Trade: Bob Conley says no to trade agreements that send our good, well-paying jobs to foreign lands. The U.S. needs to withdraw from trade agreements that have cost us 3.5 million of our good manufacturing jobs since 2001!

Bob will promote and restore America First trade policies. We need to follow the Constitution – Congress is to regulate trade with foreign nations. We must end most favored nation status for Communist China. Bob is our fighter to change trade policies, correct our massive trade imbalance, and keep our good jobs here at home.

Economy: We must implement fiscal policies to end deficit spending. Bob Conley believes we must change our monetary policy, restore sound, honest money, and halt the fall of the dollar. We must stop predatory lending practices, end the Wall Street bailouts, and put a lid on massive expenditures abroad.

Military: Overseas deployments of occupation are breaking our military. Deployments in recent years have left 80% of our National Guard units without the necessary equipment for training – and the missions they should be prepared to serve here at home. Our National Guard needs to be rebuilt.

Veterans: Bob Conley believes veterans need to be given adequate care, not shuffled around in a Veterans’ Administration that should be overhauled. Bob will work to pass a new GI Bill for our veterans who have fought in the twenty-first century.

Constitution and the Bill of Rights: Bob Conley will fight to repeal the Big Brother legislation passed by rubber-stamp Republican Congresses. We cannot afford to give up essential liberties under the false pretense of security. Measures that infringe on our individual liberties protected by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights must be repealed! We must restore the Constitution and respect the principles on which our Republic was founded.

Bob Conley is the freedom candidate.