French journalist is prosecuted under 19th century press law for questioning Islam during a radio debate

UK Daily Mail   "He was summoned to court under strict press laws which date back to the 19th Century following a complaint from a pressure group called the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF).
‘In seeking to undermine liberty of expression, a sacred principle of our civilisation, the Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) takes the risk of appearing like a menace to democracy,’ said Mr Rioufol.

We Are The Nation: The poster by the Collective Against Islamophobia In France, which Mr Rioufol referred to in the radio debate

....
"A spokesman for CCIF said it had a duty to challenge ‘Islamophobia’ and the
press laws were a logical way of challenging journalism it objected to."

The Park Police; Another Obama Scandal. Did anyone notice?

Weekly Standard
“We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around.”
—Ronald Reagan

"The conduct of the National Park Service over the last week might be the biggest scandal of the Obama administration. This is an expansive claim, of course. Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the IRS, the NSA, the HHS mandate​—​this is an administration that has not lacked for appalling abuses of power. And we still have three years to go.

 

"Even so, consider the actions of the National Park Service since the government shutdown began. People first noticed what the NPS was up to when the World War II Memorial on the National Mall was “closed.” Just to be clear, the memorial is an open plaza. There is nothing to operate. Sometimes there might be a ranger standing around. But he’s not collecting tickets or opening gates. Putting up barricades and posting guards to “close” the World War II Memorial takes more resources and manpower than “keeping it open.”

 

"The closure of the World War II Memorial was just the start of the Park Service’s partisan assault on the citizenry. There’s a cute little historic site just outside of the capital in McLean, Virginia, called the Claude Moore Colonial Farm. They do historical reenactments, and once upon a time the National Park Service helped run the place. But in 1980, the NPS cut the farm out of its budget. A group of private citizens set up an endowment to take care of the farm’s expenses. Ever since, the site has operated independently through a combination of private donations and volunteer workers.

 

"The Park Service told Claude Moore Colonial Farm to shut down."....

....

"It’s one thing for politicians to play shutdown theater. It’s another thing entirely for a civil bureaucracy entrusted with the privilege of caring for our national heritage to wage war against the citizenry on behalf of a political party."

They all work for Obama.

Democrats to America: We Own the Government!

Ann Coulter

"In the current fight over the government shutdown, Republicans are simply representing the views of the American people.

"Americans didn't ask for Obamacare, they don't want it, but now their insurance premiums are going through the roof, their doctors aren't accepting it, and their employers are moving them into part-time work -- or firing them -- to avoid the law's mandates.

"Contrary to Obama's promises, it turns out: You can't keep your doctor, you can't keep your insurance -- you can't even keep your job. In other words, it's a typical government program, but this one wrecks your health care."....

Tired of being told they couldn’t, school board OKs student-led prayer

OneNewsNow   "Even though they were warned there could be trouble, a Kansas school board nevertheless voted to allow student-led prayers and even use of the school's public address system to do so.

"At its meeting on September 23, the school board in Liberal voted unanimously (7-0) to allow student-led prayers at all school activities and to provide access to the school's public address system. According to the Leader & Times newspaper, the item was added “spontaneously” to the agenda near the end of that meeting.

“ 'We do live in a democratic society, and I personally feel like our community would support that decision, regardless of the rest of the world,” said board member Nick Hatcher, who introduced the idea."....

Hat tip to: Liberals Tired of PC Crap
"Well, in the city of Liberal, Kansas that is…

Urban Legend: Obama Administration Threatens To Arrest Military Chaplains For PRAYING During Govt. Shutdown

Snopes calls it a mixture of true and false

MIXTURE:

	TRUE: Contract priests are prohibited from conducting religious functions on U.S. military bases during the federal government shutdown.
	FALSE: President Obama ordered that military priests be arrested for holding Mass during the federal government shutdown.

...."Therefore, a subset of Catholic military personnel who are stationed at bases that have no active duty Catholic chaplains and are instead being staffed by contract priests will have to go elsewhere for religious services for the duration of the shutdown — if they wish to attend Mass or take part in a baptism, for example, they will have to go to local churches or other off-base locations for those functions. (U.S. military personnel stationed in some parts of the world may not be able to find local English-speaking priests, or any priests at all, however.)

"It isn't true, however, that "President Obama ordered that military priests be arrested for saying the Mass during the government shutdown...."  Read more.

Alan Caruba; The Absent Superpower

Warning Signs   

"Just as in the past, the threat of Islamic fanaticism looms large again and just as in the past we are seeing its most potent instrument of conquest, terror, being used. From 9/11 to the slaughters in Sudan’s Darfur region, the attacks in Nigeria, and tumult everywhere the Muslim population reaches a tipping point, the headlines are a reminder of its former history. Islam and bloodshed are synonymous."

....

"What is astonishing and dismaying is that Obama recently said that the world is more stable now than in the last five years. What world is he talking about?

"His foreign policy failures in the Middle East are ceding much of it and the African Maghreb to militant Islamists."

National Park Service Gone Wild; Fed-up Vacationers Fight Back

Rosslyn Smith  "Top of the World is a residential development around Lake in the Sky in Blount County, Tennessee.  It borders Smoky Mountain National Park.  Foothills Parkway, a national scenic parkway managed by the National Park Service, is the only major road  to the development.  There are school children in this development.  As part of the shutdown, Bambi's Brownshirts have barricaded Foothills Parkway, effectively stranding this community and its children.  
....
"Can you imagine the outrage among the media/government complex if this had happened under a Republican President or a Republican governor.  They'd be accused of being anti-public education and child endangerment."  Read More

National parks invaded by fearless family vacationers

"It turns out families on vacation are enjoying America’s national parks even without the government’s blessing. Families are throwing orange cones aside at Mount Rushmore, ignoring barricades at Zion National Park and taking grinning selfies next to signs in the Badlands announcing the National Park Service facility is closed. ...determined dads driving straight over traffic cones or throwing them aside to clear the way for the family vacations they’ve been planning long before a government shutdown was announced."

 

Defying government shutdown, national park visitors play ‘catch me if you can’  “We’ve gone from ‘this land is your land, this land is my land,’ to the government saying this land is its land,” writes University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds in an e-mail. “President Obama said that government is just a word for the things we do together. Apparently that includes kicking WWII veterans off their memorial.” 

UPDATE: How's this for pure arrogance? Obama demands Boehner stop the shutdown.

 

The leaks of thousands of files by CIA spy Edward Snowden have caused “enormous damage” and handed terrorists the “gift” to attack the UK “at will”.

Some call Snowden a hero : “Snowden did what he did because he recognised the NSA’s surveillance programs for what they are: dangerous, unconstitutional activity. This wholesale invasion of Americans’ and foreign citizens’ privacy does not contribute to our security; it puts in danger the very liberties we’re trying to protect.”

But others see the damage Snowden has done to our security and the help he has given to those who want to kill us by the millions:
UK Telegraph  "It is feared around Whitehall that the revelations have resulted in a “guidebook for terrorists” while there is frustration that the American is being heralded as some kind of heroic whistleblower. 

"Sources find it incomprehensible that exposing spy agency techniques for tracking terrorists has been argued to be in the public interest."....

Dershowitz: Ted Cruz one of Harvard Law’s smartest students

Daily Caller  "Famed Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz ranks Sen. Ted Cruz among the school’s smartest students, adding that the Canada-born Texan can run for president in 2016.
Cruz was a “terrific student,” Dershowitz told The Daily Caller. “He was always very active in class, presenting a libertarian point of view. He didn’t strike me as a social conservative, more of a libertarian.”
“He had brilliant insights and he was clearly among the top students, as revealed by his class responses,” Dershowitz added.
Ouch! This one hurts:
"Dershowitz also gave a high estimate of Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren — who has decidedly different political views than Cruz." And remember Warren's claim that she is, well, a redskin and thereby rating two notches above Cruz's Hispanicness.

....Cruz “wa s an outstanding student in my class,” Dershowitz said. “Without a doubt he is among the smartest students I’ve ever had… I’ve had great students but he has to be at the top of anyone’s short list, in terms of raw brain power.”

The father of Ted Cruz gives this stirring speech that gives us the perspective of someone who has seen this country from a socialist country.

 Hat tip to Don Standlee, Arlington, TX

The Roots of the Government Shutdown and International Consequences

STRATFOR  "In general, Stratfor deals with U.S. domestic politics only to the extent that it affects international affairs. Certainly, this topic has been argued and analyzed extensively. Nevertheless, the shutdown of the American government is a topic that must be understood from our point of view, because it raises the issue of whether the leading global power is involved in a political crisis so profound that it is both losing its internal cohesion and the capacity to govern. If that were so, it would mean the United States would not be able to act in global affairs, and that in turn would mean that the international system would undergo a profound change."   Emphasis added,TD
....
Mr. Friedman sums up the issue with this pessimistic conclusion:
"Each faction is deeply committed to its beliefs, and feels it would be corrupt to abandon them. Even if it means closing the government, even if it means defaulting on debt, ideology is a demanding mistress who permits no other lovers. Anyone who reads this will recognize his enemy at work. I, however, am holding everyone responsible, from left to right -- and especially the indifferent center. I hold myself accountable as well: I have no idea what I could do to help change matters, but I am sure there is something."
Full article.

George Friedman is the Chairman of Stratfor, a company he founded in 1996 that is now a leader in the field of global intelligence. Friedman guides Stratfor’s strategic vision and oversees the development and training of the company’s intelligence unit.

Double Down: Obamacare Will Increase Avg. Individual-Market Insurance Premiums By 99% For Men, 62% For Women

Forbes  via the Galen Institute   ....HHS releases a trickle of data and a load of spin
"Earlier this month, I and two colleagues from the Manhattan Institute—Yevgeniy Feyman and Paul Howard—published an interactive map that detailed Obamacare’s impact on individually-purchased health insurance premiums in 13 states plus D.C. As the accompanying article described, Obamacare increased premiums in those states by an average of 24 percent.

"But those states were largely blue states that had set up their own, state-based insurance exchanges. The big data dump that we’ve been waiting for, since then, is from the majority of states that didn’t set up their own state-based exchange. That data is the responsibility of the Obama administration, namely HHS. Finally, with less than a week to go before the exchanges are supposed to go on-line, HHS has released a slim, 15-page report and a press release that summarize some of the premium data."

Interactive map to help you estimate What Will Obamacare Cost You?

ABOUT THE MAP from the Manhattan Institute:

 

Vindictive Shutdown Theater

Vindictive Shutdown Theater

"This may simply be an extreme version of the Democrats’ usual strategy of closing the Washington Monument, but it is notable extremism: throwing people out of their homes and forcing the shutdown of non-federal facilities. It is, if anything, an excellent illustration of why conservatives believe that the tentacles of the federal government are too long and too many."