Ohio Speaker Reverses Decision, Will Allow Honor for Pro-Life Teen

From LifeSiteNews
By Kathleen Gilbert

Ohio House Speaker Armond Budish (D-Beechwood) has reversed a decision to disallow the presentation on the House floor of a routine legislative honor to a local pro-life teen, and will make room in the Ohio General Assembly's schedule for the honor, according to the speaker's office.

Ohio teen Elizabeth Trisler had been set to be presented on February 3 with an honorary legislative resolution, authored by Rep. John Adams, which recognized her accomplishment as the winner of the 2009 National Right to Life Oratory Contest. However, as LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) reported yesterday, the planned presentation was scuttled by Speaker Budish, apparently because Budish disagreed with Trisler's pro-life values.

But Keary McCarthy, communications director for Speaker Budish, contacted LSN today to say that "the Speaker has reconsidered the request and will allow for the resolution presentation to occur at the next general assembly session or whenever they can schedule it."

McCarthy said the Speaker nonetheless plans to "tighten and clarify" parameters for such honors in the future to ensure that the opportunity is not used as a political platform.

"We're pleased that the speaker saw the error of his ways," Mike Gonidakis, the executive director of Ohio Right to Life, told LSN. Gonidakis praised the decision, which he said will allow the recognition of of Trisler's "enormous accomplishment" in winning the national competition.

"It's really unfortunate that it had to come to this, but at the end of the day it's a victory for Miss Trisler, her family, and for free speech," said Gonidakis.

Obama's Fascist Pressure on Switzerland Threatens Collapse of UBS Bank

In an attempt to obtain protected banking information pertaining to 4500 Americans, the Obama tax police are threatening the collapse of one of the world's major banks and more ruin and economic misery in Switzerland and the United States.

If American money is being driven overseas by fascistic socialists in Washington, one wonders how many job-creating, freedom-loving entrepreneurs are also becoming refugees.

From Bangkok Post

Switzerland's justice minister warned in an interview on Sunday that top bank UBS could collapse if sensitive talks with the United States over a high-profile tax fraud investigation fall through.

"The actions of UBS in the United States are very problematic. Not just because they are punishable but also because they threaten all of the bank's activities,'' Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf told Le Matin Dimanche newspaper.

"The Swiss economy and the job market would suffer on a major scale if UBS fails as a result of its licence being revoked in the United States,'' she said.

Switzerland and the United States have negotiated an agreement under which UBS would hand over information on some 4,500 account holders to US tax police.

But a Swiss court ruling earlier this month put the deal in doubt.

Many in Switzerland, where banking secrecy is a source of pride and a key part of the economy, have accused the government of failing to protect UBS.

"We have nothing to blame ourselves for. I don't think anyone could prove that we acted badly,'' Widmer-Schlumpf said in the interview.

Churchill's Parrot: "High Marx for Mr. Obama"

Our friends at Churchill's Parrot are champions of the "Churchillian Spirit" and embody the great man's wit and insight. We think the following post is a particularly apt summary of America's current regime.

Click on graph for larger view

“We are just five days away from fundamentally transforming America!”

- President Barack Obama, October 31, 2008

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In his recent tête-à-tête with Oprah Winfrey (the original BIG O), President Barack Obama awarded himself the grade of B+ for his performance after nearly a year in office. Naturally, those on the Right disagree and award Barry an F. Somewhat surprisingly, those to the Left are not much more generous in their assessment.

We submit, however, that would-be graders, both right and left, are applying the wrong standard in grading Mr. Obama. This is understandable. For 220 years, presidents of The United States have performed, more or less, according to a common motivation: to win re-election and their place in history by leaving the nation more prosperous, powerful, and peaceful than it was when they assumed office. Many have failed in this regard, of course, but this was due to incompetence. Certainly were Barack Obama performing according to this same motivation he should be given a grade of F. The country is far less prosperous, increasingly less powerful, and in danger of becoming much less peaceful at this point in his tenure.

But Barack Obama does not share the same motivations as his predecessors and he is not incompetent. He is a radical Marxist who understands well that in order to successfully transform a free market republic he must first facilitate the collapse of its existing socio-economic order. And by this standard, it is our contention, Barry is doing an outstanding job.

He has accelerated the debauchment of American currency; he has committed Her to irrecoverable debt; he has impaired Her free markets with myriad regulation; he has handicapped Her military with impossible rules of engagement; he has befuddled and demoralized Her intelligence gathering operations; he has made Her economy vastly more dependent upon federal whim; and he has signaled to the world that he will not defend Her interest so much as negotiate them away.

Why? Does Barack Obama hate America? No. He possesses, however, a radically different idea of what America is supposed to be. His is the Jeremiah Wright-Bill Ayers-Howard Zinn-Saul Alinsky-Richard Cloward-Frances Fox Piven vision of America: a nation that has grown too rich and too powerful and done so primarily through the exploitation of the disadvantaged and the extortion of the powerless. In the name of justice, therefore, such a polity must be made to pay restitution, to make amends, to be humbled by any means necessary, so that it cannot and will not abuse its fellow nations and citizens of the world ever again.

It is descriptive, not pejorative, to identify this mindset and worldview as Marxist, for indeed Marx’s fundamental assertion was that the so-called free market thrives only through the exploitation of the worker and is thus, at its core, evil. In his mind, therefore, Mr. Obama is doing what is right, just, and necessary in making a shambles of the American socio-economic order. And in this he is doing a right bang-up job! We refer you to the chart illustrated above from a liberal professor of economics at a major Midwestern University.

Americans must understand that this is not incompetence, it is a promise kept: the fundamental transformation of America, Phase One. The sooner the majority realizes this, the more vehemently they will – we continue to hope – actively reject it.

Understanding the Democrats' Scheme

From American Thinker
By John F. Gaski

Poor Bill O'Reilly and Brit Hume. There they were on the O'Reilly show a few weeks ago, puzzling over why Barack Obama and the Democrats are doing so many things that are damaging to our country. Bill and Brit agreed that they couldn't possibly be harming the nation intentionally, because negative voter reaction would redound to them politically and electorally. Can't the Democrats see this? Did they suddenly get stupid politically? This is so unlike them. How to explain this anomaly?

Poor Bill and Brit, and many others, indeed. It is time to think the unthinkable and speak the ineffable. Apart from the troubling question of intent, or whether Obama-Pelosi-Reid just have a novel view of the public interest, the national Democrats are unnaturally and mysteriously sanguine despite growing backlash by the American people. Why? One reason: The Dems don't believe they will ever have to face a real election again. Is their plan not becoming obvious? It is very straightforward:

(1) Grant amnesty to the illegal aliens (the correct term for lawbreaking invaders, regardless of their natural and rational motives) which will create up to 30 million reliably Democrat voters -- especially after being registered at least once each by ACORN. That is cushion enough to carry any national election. Why else could Dems be so fixated on this agenda item?

(2) Speaking of which, between ACORN and the SEIU, the Democrats will be stealing all the elections they really need anyway, starting next November. (The New Jersey and Virginia governorships aren't quite as big a prize as control of the U.S. Congress, are they? And one wonders what the real margin of Republican victory in New Jersey was, absent ACORN's intervention.)

Many laymen still don't understand how the ACORN scam works. To them, ACORN's excuse that they are merely committing voter registration fraud, not vote fraud, seems plausible. Here's the deal: Register 100,000 phony voters such as Mickey Mouse and the Seven Dwarves, thus expanding the nominal voter rolls, and the Democrat vote counters then have the latitude to create 100,000 extra votes out of thin air on election night. This is what "community organizer" really means, and Barack Obama is forever stained by his ACORN background. Not that it matters to him.

America should brace for the biggest vote fraud and election theft caper of all time on election night 2010 -- and in the months following. We now know as well that the Dems are guaranteed to win any statewide recount where there is a Democrat Secretary of State. And who, we must ask, is there to enforce the election laws now?

What of Florida 2000? It is easy to correct the prevailing misconception. One can usually tell what offenses against the commonweal the liberal Democrats are committing by what accusations they make against others (into which they project their own tendencies). In November 2000, Democrats did everything they could to try to steal a national election for the second time in forty years, right before a nation's very eyes, with local partisan functionaries inventing Gore votes out of those dimpled chads. Still, the Democrats have claimed since Y2000 that George W. Bush stole that year's election, even though every Florida recount, including those sponsored by the media, demonstrated that Bush 43 really won under the law. Republicans have been so ineffective in publicizing these true results in answer to the Democrat mantra that the propaganda has largely taken hold in the public consciousness.

(3) As if they need it, the Dems will be secretly encouraging (maybe even hiring) third-party candidates wherever they need them, because they know that is the way to split the opposition vote. It almost always happens that way to the Democrats' benefit. If people such as Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck don't realize this soon, instead of talking up the third-party route, they will only help to ensure a permanent Democrat stranglehold on Congress and the presidency -- although any one of this litany of methods would probably be sufficient for that. So the Dems are actually conservative in the sense of wanting some built-in redundancy!

(4) What do we suppose the extra trillion dollars of "stimulus" money to be spent from 2010 to 2012 is really for? Just a coincidence, or a ready-made election slush fund? How much has already been committed to ACORN and SEIU?

(5) Then there is the "universal voter registration" plan that the Wall Street Journal's John Fund has spotlighted, granting automatic voting privilege to anyone who has ever registered for practically anything, anywhere, anytime. The Democrats and their henchmen could work with that, couldn't they? Or why are they so eager to enact it? Their entire history has been to oppose laws that prevent vote fraud, after all. (What could be their motive for that particular laxity?)

These five strategies should be enough to ensure permanent Democrat control of our federal government -- a virtual dictatorship. For them, it is a royal flush. But another part of the scheme may be the most pernicious of all. The worst is yet to come.

(6) When you become dependent on the decision of a Democrat bureaucrat for crucial medical treatment -- after the health care takeover -- how much power does that give the Democrats over you? Elderly voters tend to vote more conservative than younger voters, so letting the elderly dies because care is "too expensive" can reshape the political profile of the electorate. But can we reasonably foresee that party registration or political contributions might enter the bureaucrat's calculus? Might it occur to the intense partisans of the Obama administration to grant lifesaving treatment to those they regard as "their people," but not to others? What a neat way to eliminate the opposition! Party registration is already public information. And if they can overturn the secret ballot for union elections via "card check," how long before they try to impose the same more generally, so they will always know how you have voted? Do not trust the judiciary to save us, either, after President Obama packs the courts with more ultra-leftists.

Chilling, isn't it? But not extreme: Obama himself has notoriously displayed his disregard for human life by the stated willingness to sacrifice "grandma" to a pain pill and his coarse support for unrestricted abortion -- even opposition to the Infant Born Alive Act, which he has tried to subvert.

When the Democrats achieve literal death-grip power over the lives of all our citizens, that's when they also achieve their long-cherished dream of absolute power in a virtual one-party state. Now is it becoming transparent (so to speak) what the real scheme behind their mania for "health-care reform" is? Now does it all make sense? This is not your father's Democrat party.

This issue is not about health care, ultimately. It is about raw political power and the long-promised radical takeover of the United States. For anyone who hasn't thought of all this before, I guarantee that Obama and his party's other leaders have.

Dictatorship in a one-party state indeed seems to loom for us. As one prominent commentator has pointed out, the normal order of the human condition is tyranny, subjugation, and dictatorship, with only a couple of respite periods throughout history, including our time in the West over the past two centuries or so. It just took that long for the totalitarian types to gain near-total power in our country, which they are now consolidating over the coming year. What are the betting odds that they will ever let it go voluntarily?

No wonder the national Democrats aren't concerned about having to face the electorate again. Pity the naïve, hapless Republicans who actually imagine they have a fair chance later this year and in '12!

The long-time president of my university, Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, used to say, "At our school, we ask all the questions, even the tough ones." How'd I do, Father?

The most troubling aspect of my analysis is that it represents the logical extension of irrefutable, objective facts. At least five of the six premises are no more and no less than observable Democrat behavior, and the other is a mild extrapolation at most. This is not good.

It's over, America. We are now living under a proto-dictatorship in the United States. In less than a year, the full reification of it will be apparent to all. Have a nice day. R.I.P., U.S.A.

John F. Gaski, Ph.D. is Associate Professor, Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame, and is author of the recently-published Frugal Cool: How to Get Rich-Without Making Very Much Money (Corby Books). He is also a specialist in social and political power and a long-time registered Democrat.

Obama Honors Mass Murderer Chairman Mao with Ornament on the White House Christmas Tree

Photo: Mao Zedong ornament from the White House Christmas tree in the Blue Room.

The Christian Defense Coalition and Generation Life are outraged that an ornament of a man who crushed human and religious rights, trampled on freedom and oversaw the deaths of 50,000,000 of his own people would be honored by a display on the White House Christmas tree during this holy season.

If these reports are true, President Obama has shown a profound disrespect for Christianity and the message of the Christ-child which was heard so loudly on Christmas morning; "Peace on earth, goodwill toward man."

Both organizations are calling for the ornament to be removed and an apology to be issued by the White House to all people of faith, Christians and the Chinese people, many of whom are still in prison because of Mao's policies.

The attorney for Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, contacted the White House and was told that they could neither confirm if the ornament was ever on the tree or if had been removed.

This episode is especially troubling in light of the fact that President Obama covered up a white cross at Georgetown University and a symbol for the name of Jesus. It now appears the President is continuing his disrespect and lack of sensitivity toward symbols and traditions of the Christian faith by insulting the birth of Christ with an image of brutal dictator on the White House Christmas tree.

The faith organizations wonder what next years' ornaments might look like? Perhaps a tribute to Joseph Stalin or Bull Conner.

Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, was arrested twice and forcefully dragged out of Tiananmen Square at 2008 Summer Olympics in front Mao's tomb. He was there to speak out against the human rights abuses of the Chinese government against their own people and to speak out for free speech and religious liberties.

All these abuses started under Mao.

Rev. Mahoney states;

"I am stunned and profoundly disappointed by reports of an ornament with the image of Mao Zedong hanging on the White House Christmas tree. It is hard to understand during this most holy season that President Obama would display an ornament of a man who brutalized and murdered his own people and his legacy still haunts the Chinese and the world.

"It is a direct slap in the face to Christians who honor the birth of Christ and the Savior of the world during this special time of year. The message of Christ on that Christmas morning was 'peace on earth, goodwill toward man.' Yet the White House tramples that glorious message, with the image of a dictator who only brought tyranny and oppression to millions.

"By displaying this ornament, the White House has shown a profound disrespect and lack of sensitivity to Christianity and all faith traditions. Quite frankly, it is an insult to the Christmas holiday and all those who cherish the timeless and powerful message of Christ.

"Mr. President, please remove this offensive ornament and apologize to the American people. Sir, you are free to hang dictators and tyrants on the Christmas tree in your house. But this is not your house. It belongs to the American people and should symbolize freedom, hope, tolerance and respect. Especially during the Christmas season."

Brandi Swindell, Director of Generation Life, was also part of the group of Christian and human rights leaders that were arrested at the Summer Olympics in Beijing. Ms. Swindell adds;

"I went to China last year to speak out against the human rights abuses against the Chinese people that began under the regime of Mao Zedong. Chairman Mao oversaw the deaths of 50,000,000 of his own countrymen under one of the most brutal governments in history. The policies and government he put in place still continue to crush, trample and terrorize the wonderful people of China.

"In light of this fact, it is an outrage that President Obama would put an ornament on the White House Christmas tree with an image of this brutal leader. To display an image of Mao at the White House would be an outrage at any time of the year, but to have it on display during the celebration of Christmas is an absolute disgrace.

"Sadly, these are the actions of a White House that has no respect or regard for the message of Christmas or the feelings of millions of Christians. Our message is clear; Mr. Obama remove the ornament, apologize to the American people and embrace the powerful message of Christmas. That message is one of hope not hate."

'Tyranny Eve': Early Morning Christmas Eve Gathering on Capitol Hill to Protest Health Care Reform Bill

As the Senate prepares to vote on historic health care legislation on Christmas Eve morn, concerned citizens from across America organized through TyrannyEve.com will be gathering on the Capitol steps at 6:00am to peacefully protest the move by lawmakers to assume greater control of the private sector. "Tyranny Eve" -- a term meant to describe what's at stake with tomorrow's health care vote -- was coined by Peter Bradrick, a concerned North Carolina father who is spearheading tomorrows effort to assemble freedom loving Americans in Washington who oppose further statist encroachments into arenas beyond the governments rightful purview.

"Tomorrow, the day that the world celebrates as Christmas Eve, has been uniquely positioned to become 'Tyranny Eve,'" stated Peter Bradrick, founder of TyrannyEve.com. "Liberal lawmakers have scheduled two monumental votes on bills which, if carried into law, will propel us deeper toward statist socialism than many of us ever believed possible in America."

"While most citizens across America will be enjoying cozy pajamas and crackling fires, we call upon 'Sons of Liberty' to recognize this crucial moment -- to eschew comfort and stand with us on the Capitol steps," continued Bradrick. "To stand not only against socialistic health care and unlimited government spending, but for our children and their freedom."

Bradrick was compelled to launch TyrannyEve.com as he observed a change in public mood over the past few months from outspoken protests toward the health care bill in late summer to one of complacency in recent weeks as the legislation has moved through Congress. "Several months ago, town hall meetings across America pulsed with the outrage of concerned citizens who said 'enough is enough' with the government's attempts to encroach on our freedom by taking greater control over the private sector," Bradrick noted. "Now, on the eve of an historic vote on health care legislation in the Senate, that spirit has waned as the passage of this behemoth bill that will deprive us of liberties and bankrupt our children's future is considered inevitable. Now is not the time for apathy. Now is the time to stand."

Bradrick explained that, while others who have stood against the health care bill have gone home to be with their families, he believes it is vital for citizens to stand in Washington now as the critical vote in the Senate is put to the floor: "Why are we gathering while others have gone 'home for the holidays'? Because we believe that American patriots should not be lulled into easy peace while such a galactic blow to American Liberty is being dealt. The festive cheer of the season cannot mask the ugly reality that is being advanced on 'Tyranny Eve' by legislators drunk, not with spiked eggnog, but with the sense of unchecked power that is run amok."

Bradrick also indicated that his call for Americans to stand with him tomorrow was about much more than the health care debate; it is a battle over liberty.

"We are not gathering merely to protest these bills," remarked Bradrick. "We are gathering to oppose the idea that it is the government's place to solve our problems. We say with the founding fathers of America that it is not. The solution is in our homes, our businesses, and our churches across America. We affirm our constitution's bill of rights which states 'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.'"

"Join us as we peacefully stand together to defy tyranny and proclaim our allegiance to the God who this nation was founded upon." Bradrick concluded.

"Stand with us as we proclaim to lawmakers in Washington DC that statist power grabs are not the solution. They are the problem."

For more information about the event or to interview Peter Bradrick visit: www.tyrannyeve.com.

Religious Left Pro-Censorship Campaign Hits Rough Water

"Whether or not churchgoers agree with Limbaugh, Dobbs and Beck, the move to use the churches to silence them should be chilling to free speech advocates." -- Mark Tooley, IRD President

From The Institute on Religion and Democracy

A campaign effectively to censor conservative voices on the airwaves and sponsored by a Religious Left coalition has been suddenly dropped. Sponsored by George Soros' Open Society Institute and the ACORN-supporting Wallace Global Fund, the "So We Might See" campaign called for advertisers to stop supporting the Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs programs, as well as the firing of Dobbs. The "Color of Change" campaign targeting Beck has been removed from the "So We Might See" website, as has the "Drop Dobbs" campaign.

The move comes as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) joins a growing list of denominational agencies, including United Methodist Communications, which have removed their names from support for an FCC petition promoted by "So We Might See," a coalition that includes agencies of the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), and the National Council of Churches, as well as the Islamic Society of North America and the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops Office of Communications. The petition invokes the name of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh as an alleged purveyor of "hate speech" and seeks to effectively silence conservative talk radio voices.

IRD President Mark Tooley commented:

"Shouldn't liberal religious voices defend free speech against an intrusive government? Regrettably, these Religious Left groups are all too willing to censor speech when it works against their political agenda.

"In the free-flowing marketplace of ideas, the truth usually emerges. Efforts to re-define 'hate speech' and intimidate targets by threatening to have them removed from the air are brutal tactics designed to suppress dissent. "Whether or not churchgoers agree with the likes of Limbaugh, Dobbs and Beck, the move to use the churches to silence them should be chilling to free speech advocates."

The Institute on Religion and Democracy, founded in 1981, is an ecumenical alliance of U.S. Christians working to reform their churches’ social witness, in accord with biblical and historic Christian teachings, thereby contributing to the renewal of democratic society at home and abroad.

How Dare the Little People Question the Rush to Socialism!

Remember this video in which Joe Biden was indignant at questions about "spreading the wealth around" and Obama's socialist intent?

Now Madam Speaker refuses to explain where the Constitution authorizes Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance.

After all, what does the Constitution have to do with anything they are doing?

Why I Hate Obama's America

By Ben Shapiro

According to the left, I am now a member of a treasonous group. I cheered when President Obama and his newly made-over milquetoast wife made asses of themselves in Copenhagen while attempting to wheedle the Europeans into granting Chicago the 2016 Olympics. And I gnashed my teeth when the Nobel Prize Committee decided to fete Obama with the Peace Prize. So, that makes me an America-hater.

"Why, oh why, do conservatives hate America so?" asks Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, singling out Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck as paradigmatic of the conservative "hate America" movement. "The problem for the addlebrained Obama-rejectionists is that the president, as far as they are concerned, couldn't possibly do anything right, and thus is unworthy of any conceivable recognition."

No, Eugene, that isn't the problem for us. Here's our problem: President Obama seeks an America that resembles modern France far more than the free and prosperous America our forefathers fought and bled and died for. President Obama's America is not America: It is the United Nations writ large, with socialist redistribution at its center and moral relativism at its core. I root against President Obama's America because I don't want to see it become a reality. And the only way it will become a reality is if President Obama is able to make it a reality.

And so I root for events that drain away Obama's political capital.

I rooted against him when he visited Copenhagen to bring the Olympics home. That's not because I opposed the Olympics going to Chicago -- a Chicago Olympics would have been great. I rooted against Obama because if he had achieved his goals with regard to the Olympics, too many Americans would have thought that such success somehow legitimated his agenda here at home -- an agenda totally at odds with all notions of constitutionality, limited government, and liberty of enterprise and thought. By winning in Copenhagen, he would have raised his chances of ramming through his domestic and foreign policy programs -- and that's the last thing I want to see.

I was enraged when Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. That's not simply because I think he didn't deserve it, though he clearly doesn't. It's because the Peace Prize was just another sop to Obama's inflated ego. It was a blatant attempt by the "world community" to hand Obama a personal consolation prize for his fiasco in Copenhagen. It was their attempt to screw his courage to the sticking place, to reinforce his self-inflicted perception that he is a world leader destined to direct America toward a more global future.

The Nobel Committee gave Obama the Peace Prize because he has already demonstrated real commitment to undermining American strength on the world stage, and they want to see him follow through on that commitment.

In short, I don't root against President Obama because I hate America. I root against President Obama because I hate his vision for America. It is those like President Obama who see America as a dark and dangerous place that requires earth-shaking change along European lines.

It is those like President Obama who feel that Americans are nothing special -- and that America is nothing special. As Obama himself put it: "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." In other words, America is not exceptional -- it's just because we live here that we feel it is. And the American people are not exceptional -- they are merely Greeks or Brits or Russians or Chinese or Frenchmen born within our borders, with values no better or worse than their foreign compatriots.

Obama's belief in America's unexceptionalism -- his view that America's government, not her people, is the formative force in her values; his view that the American people bear the stain of racial, sexual and military guilt; his view that America must abandon her scrupulous adherence to equality of opportunity in favor of equality of result, traditional morals in favor of alternative ethics, and liberty of enterprise in favor of redistributionism -- that set of beliefs is antithetical to what makes America great.

So yes, I hate Obama's America. Because Obama's America isn't America -- it's the European view of America, implemented from high office. Opposing the total redefinition of America isn't anti-American; it's patriotic. And opposing those, like Obama, who push for that drastic redefinition, isn't "hating America" -- it's fighting in favor of the America that ended slavery, built the greatest economic empire in world history and liberated tens of millions around the globe. If that isn't patriotic, I don't know what is.


Mr. Shapiro is a student at Harvard Law School. He is the author of author of "Project President: Bad Hair and Botox on the Road to the White House", "Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future" (Regnery, a Human Events sister company and "Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctinate America's Youth" Thomas Nelson).

Obama 'Extremist' Green Advisor Quits Amid Controversy

From OneNewsNow
By Will Lester - Associated Press Writer

President Barack Obama's environmental adviser Van Jones, who became embroiled in a controversy over past inflammatory statements, has resigned his White House job.

The resignation, announced early Sunday, came as Obama is working to regain his footing in the contentious health care debate.

Jones, an administration official specializing in environmentally friendly "green jobs" with the White House Council on Environmental Quality was linked to efforts suggesting a government role in the 2001 terror attacks and to derogatory comments about Republicans.

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The Indoctrinator-in-Chief to Address Nation's Children

A suggested lesson plan that calls on students to write letters to themselves about what they can do to help President Obama following his address to students nationwide is troubling and establishes the president as a "superintendent-in-chief," education experts told FOXNews.com.

From Fox News
By Joshua Rhett Miller

A suggested lesson plan that calls on school kids to write letters to themselves about what they can do to help President Obama is troubling some education experts, who say it establishes the president as a "superintendent in chief" and may indoctrinate children to support him politically.

Obama will deliver a national address directly to students on Tuesday, which will be the first day of classes for many children across the country. The address, to be broadcast live on the White House's Web site, was announced in a letter to school principals last week by Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

Obama intends to "challenge students to work hard, set educational goals and take responsibility for their learning," Duncan wrote. Obama will also call for a "shared responsibility" among students, parents and educators to maximize learning potential.

But in advance of the address, the Department of Education has offered educators "classroom activities" to coincide with Obama's message.

Students in grades pre-K-6, for example, are encouraged to "build background knowledge about the president of the United States by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama."

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Bill Would Give President Emergency Control of Internet

From CNet News
By Declan McCullagh

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.

"I think the redraft, while improved, remains troubling due to its vagueness," said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which counts representatives of Verizon, Verisign, Nortel, and Carnegie Mellon University on its board. "It is unclear what authority Sen. Rockefeller thinks is necessary over the private sector. Unless this is clarified, we cannot properly analyze, let alone support the bill."

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Staffing Up the FEMA Detention Camps

Based on Google searches leading to our posts here and here on FEMA's unexplained detention camps scattered across the nation, many Americans are concerned about the government's intentions and our Constitutionally protected rights. Now comes news that prison guards, or in government-speak, "Internment/Resettlement Specialists," are being recruited for the empty concentration camps. Could the Kenyan and Mrs. Pelosi have plans for those "angry mobs" that bother them so much? Giving ACORN prison jobs and putting your enemies on the inside is one way to address rising unemployment rates.

National Guard asked to explain 'internment' jobs

Campaign recruiting for workers at 'civilian resettlement facility'

From WorldNetDaily
By Bob Unruh

An ad campaign featured on a U.S. Army website seeking those who would be interested in being an "Internment/Resettlement" specialist is raising alarms across the country, generating concerns that there is some truth in those theories about domestic detention camps, a roundup of dissidents and a crackdown on "threatening" conservatives.

The ads, at the GoArmy.com website as well as others including Monster.com, cite the need for:

"Internment/Resettlement (I/R) Specialists in the Army are primarily responsible for day-to-day operations in a military confinement/correctional facility or detention/internment facility. I/R Specialists provide rehabilitative, health, welfare, and security to U.S. military prisoners within a confinement or correctional facility; conduct inspections; prepare written reports; and coordinate activities of prisoners/internees and staff personnel.

The campaign follows by only weeks a report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warning about "right-wing extremists" who could pose a danger to the country – including those who support third-party political candidates, oppose abortion and would prefer to have the U.S. immigration laws already on the books enforced.

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Obama to Apologize to Germany for World War II?

The Atlas Shrugs blog has distilled several recent news stories and scholarly articles that suggest Obama is about to apologize to the Germans for World War II. Were this any other American politician of the Left, we would consider such an idea sheer lunacy. Of course many of them hate America, its history, and all that it has stood for in the world. But most have enough political pragmatism to keep such impulses in check. In Obama we have an ideologue whose hatred and arrogance surpasses base political pragmatism. He is a narcissist whose hatred and evil is on a grand scale. Once he has finished apologizing to the world for all the evils of America, can reparations be far behind?

As you reflect this Memorial Day weekend on the hundreds of thousands who gave all for their country, consider the fact that all they fought against now occupies the White House.

From Atlas Shrugs

The latest inconceivable Obamaction is yet another unbecoming apology in Europe, this time in Germany for WWII. John Rosenthal suggests, "As bizarre as it may seem, President Obama’s impending trip to Dresden suggests that German revisionists have a friend in the White House".

And American Thinker adds, "the message Obama intends to send by visiting both sites is clear; while the Germans did bad things during World War II, they were also victims of Allied atrocities."

The latest German reports suggest Obama’s principal German destination will be Dresden. According to an article in the local paper Die Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, representatives of the German and American governments met in Dresden last Wednesday to discuss preparations for the visit. An American security detail is reported to have already scoped out sites in the city: presumably for a public speech.

The symbolic significance of a visit to Dresden by the American president — especially one undertaken in connection with a D-Day commemoration in France — may be missed by some Americans, but it is absolutely unmistakable for the German public. For Germans, Dresden is the symbol bar none of German suffering at the hands of the Allies. The city was heavily bombed by British and American air forces in February 1945, toward the end of the war. According to the most recent estimates of professional historians, anywhere from 18,000 to at most 25,000 persons died in the attacks. These numbers come from a historical commission established by the city of Dresden itself. But far higher numbers — ranging into the hundreds of thousands — have long circulated in Germany and beyond. The bombing of Dresden is commonly described as a “war crime” in German discussions.

Alleged crimes committed by the Allies against Germans and Germany have indeed become a sort of German literary obsession in recent years, with numerous books being devoted to the subject. The taste of the German public for the theme was made particularly clear by the enormous success of author Jörg Friedrich’s 2002 volume The Fire [Der Brand], which is about the Allied bombardment of Germany. The book’s success was so great that Friedrich and his publisher quickly followed up with a picture book on the same topic titled Scenes of the Fire: How the Bombing Looked.

Obama should spend the day tending to the graves of our brave and glorious dead, who sacrificed their lives so that Europe could live on to descend into a pathetic, amoral collectivism. Europe owes us an apology for squandering our blood and treasure on a morally bankrupt transnational gobbledy goop EU wallowing in pathetic collectivism.

Time for a history lesson. What better day to teach the foreign exchange student in the White House a lesson about American exceptionalism, heroism, and greatness?

America's European Arrogance (hat tip Joan S)

1. The American Cemetery at Aisne-Marne, France. A total of 2,289 of our military dead. We apologize.


2. The American Cemetery at Ardennes, Belgium. A total of 5,329 of our dead. We are so ashamed of our arrogance.


3. The American Cemetery at Brittany, France. A total of 4,410 of our military dead. Excuse us.


4. Brookwood, England American Cemetery. A total of 4,680 of our dead. We are such an evil country.


5. Cambridge, England. 3,812 of our military dead. What on earth were we thinking?


6. Epinal, France American Cemetery. A total of 5,525 of our military dead. Please forgive us.


7. Flanders Field, Belgium. A total of 3,680 of our military. We are so sorry.


8. Florence, Italy. A total of 4,402 of our military dead. We are a bully nation.


9. Henri-Chapelle, Belgium. A total of 7,992 of our military dead. They deserved what they got.


10. Lorraine, France. A total of 10,489 of our military dead. FDR and Truman were lying war criminals.


11. Luxembourg, Luxembourg. A total of 5,076 of our military dead. Arrogant oppression, pure and simple.

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12. Meuse-Argonne. A total of 14,246 of our military dead. Just think of how many civilians they killed.


13. Netherlands, Netherlands. A total of 8,301 of our military dead. They were murderers.


14. Normandy, France. A total of 9,387 of our military dead. Baby killers, one and all.


15. Oise-Aisne, France. A total of 6,012 of our military dead. They were torturers, too.


16. Rhone, France. A total of 861 of our military dead. Remorseless killers doing the bidding of an evil nation.


17. Sicily, Italy. A total of 7,861 of our military dead. What can America ever do to redeem itself?


18. Somme, France. A total of 1,844 of our military dead. Arrogant war-mongers of an arrogant nation.


19. St. Mihiel, France. A total of 4,153 of our military dead. War criminals.


20. Suresnes, France. A total of 1,541 of our military dead. Oh, God in heaven, please forgive us for being such an arrogant country.


The total number of Americans buried at the cemeteries above is 104,366 -- a mere fraction of those who died liberating Europe -- and yet an American president who confuses arrogance with leadership feels the need to apologize in Europe for the country he obviously holds in contempt.

It is virtually unthinkable that Obama could give a speech in Dresden and not allude to the bombing of the city. Most of the city’s historical monuments — which Obama’s advance team were apparently inspecting — were severely damaged or destroyed in the bombing and had to be rebuilt. Moreover, for Obama to visit both Dresden and Buchenwald would suggest precisely the sort of outrageous parallels that have become commonplace in Germany at least since the publication of Friedrich’s The Fire.

(As so happens, although tens of thousands of persons died there, Buchenwald was not one of the camps specifically devoted to the extermination of Jews. But far be it from Obama to know that. When, during the election campaign, he first referred to his Uncle Charlie’s WWII exploits, he said that his uncle had helped to liberate “Auschwitz.” Moreover, Charlie Payne did not really participate in the liberation of Buchenwald either, but rather in that of Ohrdruf: a lesser-known, affiliated camp some sixty kilometers away.)

Europe traded the lives of 6 million Jews for 55 million Muslims. Good luck with that.

And Ovamit is apologizing.

Obama Is Said to Consider Preventive Detention Plan

What's a President to do with 800 empty FEMA detention camps? Round up the right wing extremists already identified by the Department of Homeland Security -- bloggers, veterans, tax objectors, right to lifers, and border security supporters.

From The New York Times
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg

President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a “preventive detention” system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried, two participants in the private session said.

The discussion, in a 90-minute meeting in the Cabinet Room that included Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and other top administration officials, came on the eve of a much-anticipated speech Mr. Obama is to give Thursday on a number of thorny national security matters, including his promise to close the detention center at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Human rights advocates are growing deeply uneasy with Mr. Obama’s stance on these issues, especially his recent move to block the release of photographs showing abuse of detainees, and his announcement that he is willing to try terrorism suspects in military commissions — a concept he criticized bitterly as a presidential candidate.

The two participants, outsiders who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was intended to be off the record, said they left the meeting dismayed.

They said Mr. Obama told them he was thinking about “the long game” — how to establish a legal system that would endure for future presidents. He raised the issue of preventive detention himself, but made clear that he had not made a decision on it. Several senior White House officials did not respond to requests for comment on the outsiders’ accounts.

“He was almost ruminating over the need for statutory change to the laws so that we can deal with individuals who we can’t charge and detain,” one participant said. “We’ve known this is on the horizon for many years, but we were able to hold it off with George Bush. The idea that we might find ourselves fighting with the Obama administration over these powers is really stunning.”

The other participant said Mr. Obama did not seem to be thinking about preventive detention for terrorism suspects now held at Guantánamo Bay, but rather for those captured in the future, in settings other than a legitimate battlefield like Afghanistan. “The issue is,” the participant said, “What are the options left open to a future president?”

Mr. Obama did not specify how he intended to deal with Guantánamo detainees who posed a threat and could not be tried, nor did he share the contents of Thursday’s speech, the participants said.

He will deliver the speech at a site laden with symbolism — the National Archives, home to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Across town, his biggest Republican critic, former Vice President Dick Cheney, will deliver a speech at the American Enterprise Institute.

Mr. Cheney and other hawkish critics have sought to portray Mr. Obama as weak on terror, and their argument seems to be catching on with the public. On Tuesday, Senate Democrats, in a clear rebuke to the White House, blocked the $80 million Mr. Obama had requested in financing to close the Guantánamo prison.

The lawmakers say they want a detailed plan before releasing the money; there is deep opposition on Capitol Hill to housing terrorism suspects inside the United States.

“He needs to convince people that he’s got a game plan that will protect us as well as be fair to the detainees,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who agrees with Mr. Obama that the prison should be closed. “If he can do that, then we’re back on track. But if he doesn’t make that case, then we’ve lost control of this debate.”

But Mr. Obama will not use the speech to provide the details lawmakers want.

“What it’s not going to be is a prescriptive speech,” said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser. “The president wants to take some time and put this whole issue in perspective to identify what the challenges are and how he will approach dealing with them.”