Alan Caruba; Freedom OF Religion, Not Freedom FROM Religion

Warning Signs

 

"The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution do not abandon religion, they embrace it. They do not, however, require that Americans believe in God, nor punish them for failing to do so.

"Central to the liberties enshrined in these documents is the belief that they come from a higher power and America exists because of that belief. Without it there would have been no America. There are those among us who insist that, as a nation, we abandon faith in God and, if we do, America will cease to be a power for good in the world.

 

"When Thomas Jefferson presented the Declaration to those who would pledge their lives and their sacred honor to achieve independence from England John Adams asked that it include the words “They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” after the phrase “all men are created equal” and Benjamin Franklin agreed, suggesting that “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence” be added as well.” In their 2004 book, “Under God” by Toby Mac and Michael Tait, said “The changes demonstrated Congress’s strong reliance upon God—as delegates added the words “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions.' ”  Full article...

Peacemakers in Ferguson, Mo.

Church leaders strive to be peacemakers in Ferguson  ..."The Rev. Ivan James, an African-American and pastor of predominantly African-American Asbury United Methodist Church in downtown St. Louis, viewed the shooting and its aftermath with mixed emotions.

"He worked with Johnson to help in Ferguson, and volunteers from his church helped provide childcare at Wellspring.

“ 'We need to keep a calm head,” he told United Methodist News Service. “We need to keep a loving heart and we need justice for what actually occurred. We understand we need to find ways to bring better resources to that community, so people have hope.' ”...

 

Clergy Members Act as Peacemakers in Ferguson Protests   ... "One member of the clergy on the front line was Bishop Derrick Robinson from the Kingdom Destiny Church. As tensions began into increase, armed will a bullhorn, Bishop Robinson became one of the peacekeepers standing his ground between riot clad police and protestors.

“ 'I was just trying to keep everybody calm, letting them know that hey, they’re here to protect us, not to harm us, they’re here to guard us,” he says. “We had a direct line of communication with Capt. Johnson tonight keeping the people calm, keeping the people together, so it worked really, really well.' ”

 

Malik Zulu Shabazz

 

Not all so-called "mediators" are as honorable as these above.

 

Dubious ‘Peacemakers’ in Ferguson 

 "The New Black Panthers, Sharpton, Jackson, and the DOJ do not inspire confidence."

 

... " Indeed, the Independent Journal Review reported that Shabazz himself was in the streets last Saturday leading a crowd in a chant for the death of Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot Michael Brown: “What do we want?” “Darren Wilson!” “How do we want him?” “Dead!' ”

 

Eric Holder, Racial Profiler; The color of Darren Wilson’s skin is his only evidence.

Andrew C. McCarthy   

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder arrives in Missouri, August 20, 2014.

"Why has a federal civil-rights murder investigation arisen out of the tumult in a St. Louis exurb? There is only one plausible reason: Eric Holder is guilty of racial profiling.

"To be clear, we are not talking here about whether there was justification for the shooting of a young black man, 18-year-old Michael Brown, by a young white police officer, 28-year-old Darren Wilson. Was the shooting a legitimate exercise in self-defense by an officer under attack? Was it an overreaction for which Officer Wilson should suffer serious civil and criminal consequences? Such questions can only be answered by a thorough and fair investigation, the kind of due process owed to both the victim and the subject of the investigation — the kind that, as National Review’s editors
point out, will be tough to mete out with political thumbs pressing on the scales.

hopenchangecartoons

"Whatever the outcome, though, murder — including homicide caused by a policeman’s application of excessive force — is generally not a federal crime. It is a concern of state law. Only a few categories of murder are within the jurisdiction of federal investigators. In the main, they are far afield from Ferguson: the assassination of a U.S. government official, for instance, or a killing incidental to offenses that have interstate or international repercussions — racketeering, drug-trafficking, and terrorism." ...
...
"Based on what is known about the unblemished six-year record of Officer Darren Wilson and the facts surrounding his shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, there is no reason to suspect racism, much less that any thought was given to Mr. Brown’s federal rights during the sudden, violent exchange. There is no way this is a civil-rights case . . . unless you are a backward-thinking dolt who spots racism based on nothing more than the fact that the police officer is white and the victim is black." 

Ferguson Democrats
 

ISIL: We’re At War With America! US STATE DEPT: No You’re Not

American Glob
"ISIL has vowed to fly their flag over the White House but state department spokeswoman Marie Harf insists that ISIL is not at war with America.

"While she is correct in saying that ISIL kills anyone and everyone who disagrees with their ideology, it’s absolutely absurd to suggest that ISIL isn’t at war with the US.

"What would it take for the state department to admit they’re at war with us? I shudder to think.

So typical of the mediocre people the politically correct left chooses to handle America's affairs in the world. Do you think you can sense this reporter's respect of lack thereof for the US State Department?

"Via the Washington Free Beacon…
 

 

How would Ms. Harf address this? Chicago A Top Terror Target; Ominous Tweet Connects ISIS Threat In City

 

In George Orwell's words, "The quickest way to end a war is to lose it" . We could have spared the world so much bloodshed if we had simply refused to defeat Hitler. Churchill was called a warmonger by the antiwar left when he wanted to prepare Britain for war with the Nazis. The left was strangely silent when it became obvious how wrong they were. TD

Al Gore vs. Al Jazeera; A plague on both your houses.

The Washington Times

 

"How do you say “buyer’s remorse” in Arabic? The Qatari royal family likely feels the pangs of regret for paying the princely sum of $500 million to Al Gore and friends to give Al-Jazeera America a slot on satellite-TV and cable channels. Ratings for the news channel, now a year old, remain deep in the Dumpster. That’s hardly surprising. Nobody watched the channel when it was Mr. Gore’s Current TV, either."  Read more:
 

Al Gore vs. Al Jazeera vs. the Truth Sadly, you have to subscribe to read this one from the Wall Street Journal.

Via Althouse

How Responsible Are Michael Brown’s Parents for His Demise?

PJ Media

St. Louis Post-Dispatch video of the "gentle giant"

"As the events in Ferguson, MO, continue to unfold, we learn yet again that a young black teenager tragically lost his life. While we do not have all the facts as to the events that transpired just before the Ferguson police officer shot and killed young Michael Brown, it is clear from what the media is reporting that all the blame for his death will be placed on Officer Darren Wilson.  To my knowledge, neither his mother nor his father has been asked publicly about their whereabouts or their son’s actions on that day. Do the parents not share the bulk of the blame for the demise of this young man?
"While we wait for all the facts to come in, can we at least have an honest discussion about the role that parents play in the untimely demise of young men like Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin?

"It is clear by the video images showing Michael Brown grabbing a much older and smaller store clerk by the throat that the young man did not have respect for authority. The fact that there was some kind of confrontation with a police officer reveals that this young man had issues with authority. The first authority figure in a child’s life is the parent. If parents do not teach and demand that children respect them, there is a good chance that the child will not respect any other person in authority (e.g., teachers, police, and other adults).

 

"No one in the media dare ask Lesley McSpadden, Michael Brown’s mother, about the video images of her son while she’s making the rounds on all the network shows demanding justice for his death." ...

Officer Darren Wilson Support Page on Facebook

Breaking: Mike Brown’s Rap Lyrics Surface: “LIGHTS OUT, Gonna Knock Your A$$ Out” (Audio)

Gateway Pundit   " Michael Brown flashing gang signs before his death. The family released this photo to reporters after his death.

"Big Mike Brown recorded a few raps before his death.

"The Riverfront Times posted the collection.

The family of Mike Brown, an eighteen-year-old Ferguson teenager shot and killed by police on Saturday, August 9, has said that the young man recently took up a passion for music, with an interest in sound engineering and plans to study at Vatterott College next week. According to his grandmother, Desuirea Harris, “All he wanted to do is make music.”
“Everyday he made one or two more records,” she explains. “He rapped about life in general — about what he went through and people went through. Just life.”
Brown rapped under the name “Big Mike.” If his SoundCloud page is any indication, his musical fascination was a recent one — according to his family, he had become obsessed with making it as a rapper after graduating high school this spring. His first upload on the music-streaming service is dated July 24, only eighteen days ago.
While Brown has been described as a “gentle giant” and “a big teddy bear,” his tracks are filled with the usual guns-and-money bluster one might expect from a trap-rap artist.

Obama Stands Alone: Even the media are baffled by his deepening isolation

http://www.uclick.com/client/wpc/po/

 

Howard Kurtz    ... "What is striking now is a growing sense, fairly or unfairly, that Obama is not capable of rising to the occasion, that he just doesn’t like politics, that he’s disengaged, that despite his soaring rhetoric in 2008 he has a passion deficit.

"All the criticism about him playing golf and being at Martha’s Vineyard is kind of a code for his supposedly being unplugged from the job." ...

 

When Barry gets blue  ... "Today Peter Baker and Julie Hirschfeld Davis give us the perspective of the New York Times crowd in “A terrorist horror, then golf: Incongruity fuels Obama critics.” Baker and Davis report that (despite appearances created by the incongruity of his joyous golf game) Obama was “unusually emotional” as a result of Foley’s beheading. The joyous photos of Obama’s golf outing — how to put it? — tend to belie the description of Obama’s state of mind as presented by Baker and Davis. Funny, he doesn’t look bluish." ...

 

Contempt   ... "The same trend is under way internationally. Thus, from Israel’s liberal Haaretz, formerly a staunch Obama backer: “Will the Middle East ruin Barack Obama’s summer vacation?”

It isn’t very hard to pretend to be president: Obama did it for five years or so. But now, he can’t be bothered. He leaves his allies with no ammunition with which to defend him, thereby showing, one might argue, even more contempt for them than for his enemies. There is an adage, Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned. If that is true, Obama is in for a long two years."

From Maureen Dowd in the New York Times:   Alone Again, Naturally    ... "Almost everything else — from an all-out push on gun control after the Newtown massacre to going to see firsthand the Hispanic children thronging at the border to using his special status to defuse racial tensions in Ferguson — just seems like too much trouble.

 

"The 2004 speech that vaulted Obama into the White House soon after he breezed into town turned out to be wrong. He misdescribed the country he wanted to lead. There is a liberal America and a conservative America. And the red-blue divide has only gotten worse in the last six years.

 

"The man whose singular qualification was as a uniter turns out to be singularly unequipped to operate in a polarized environment."    Continue reading the main story

 

This is the candidate who stood alone on the stage at his acceptance speech in Colorado, a stage far removed from the Greek columns behind, and with nobody else in sight.

A Vacation is All Obama Ever Wanted   "Apparently, after seeing a British subject execute an American citizen, David Cameron couldn’t, with a clear conscience, have spent another minute at the Surfside Cafe in Polzeath, Cornwall sipping tea and enjoying the balmy weather.

"Meanwhile, Barack Obama had zero compunction about returning to Martha’s Vineyard after coming home for a couple of days toting oldest daughter Malia. 

"The president couldn’t break away from his golf game to attend Major General Greene’s funeral, with full military honors, at Arlington Cemetery on Friday, but was able to land at the White House early Monday morning and hang around for less than 48 hours." ...

 

Stopping the worst people on Earth; Obama acts as a U.S. president should

Charles Krauthammer     "Baghdad called President Obama’s bluff and he came through. He had refused to provide air support to Iraqi government forces until the Iraqis got rid of their divisive sectarian prime minister.

 

"They did. He responded."


A Kurdish peshmerga fighter looks at smoke rising in the horizon  following
 US airstrikes targeting Islamic State (IS) militants at Mosul Dam.

"With the support of U.S. airstrikes, Iraqi and Kurdish forces have retaken the Mosul dam. Previous strikes had relieved the siege of Mount Sinjar and helped the Kurds retake two strategic towns that had opened the road to a possible Islamic State assault on Irbil, the capital of Kurdistan.

 

"In following through, Obama demonstrated three things: the effectiveness of even limited U.S. power, the vulnerability of the Islamic State and, crucially, his own seriousness, however tentative.

...

 

"Obama was slow to bring American power to bear. And slower still to arm the Kurds. But he was right to wait until Baghdad had gotten rid of Nouri al-Maliki, lest the U.S. serve as a Shiite air force. We don’t know how successful Haider al-Abadi will be in forming a more national government. But Obama has for now wisely taken advantage of the Abadi opening."

...

We have now seen what air cover for Kurdish/Iraqi boots on the ground can achieve. But for a serious rollback campaign, Obama will need public support. He has to explain the stakes and the larger strategy. His weak and passive rhetorical reaction to the beheading of American journalist James Foley was a discouragingly missed opportunity.

...

Writing of Obama's claim that these animals will ultimately fail, Krauthammer reminds us that the "role of a great power, as Churchill and Roosevelt understood, is to bring that day closer."

 

When this president gets an attaboy from Mr. Krauthammer, you know he has done well.

Terrorist horror, then golf.

http://terrellaftermath.com/

 

CHENEY: Obama Would 'Rather Be On The Golf Course' Than The Situation Room   "Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney strongly criticized President Barack Obama on Wednesday night for going golfing immediately after delivering a statement on the beheading of American journalist James Foley.

" 'Every day we find new evidence that he’d rather be on the golf course than he would be dealing with a crisis that’s developing rapidly in the Middle East," Cheney declared during an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity." 
...
"I noticed the reaction of David Cameron, the British prime minister, when he found out that the individual who apparently did the beheading was speaking with a British accent. He wanted to immediately leave his vacation," Cheney said. "Of course, our president headed to the golf course as soon as he made his relatively, I thought, ineffective statement."     Read more:

 

Media Stop Defending Obama's Serial-Golfing  Video     "We all remember the media endlessly hectoring George W. Bush about his golfing, fundraising, and vacations at his ranch in Texas. We also remember this very same objective, unbiased, not-at-all-liberal media excusing and even defending (with false reporting) President Obama's seemingly serial vacations, golf outings, and fundraisers (even the day after an American ambassador was brutally murdered in Libya.)"

 

CNN Politics        ✔ @CNNPolitics Follow

This is what President Obama did after his speech on #ISIS http://cnn.it/1ogTu0C 

 

Yes! Even the New York Times! A Terrorist Horror, Then Golf: Incongruity Fuels Obama Critics

"He had just hung up the telephone with the devastated parents before heading in front of the cameras. Unusually emotional, President Obama declared himself “heartbroken” by the brutal murder of an American journalist, James Foley, and vowed to “be relentless” against Islamic radicals threatening to kill another American.

 

"But as soon as the cameras went off, Mr. Obama headed to his favorite golf course on Martha’s Vineyard, where he is on vacation, seemingly able to put the savagery out of his mind. He spent the rest of the afternoon on the links even as a firestorm of criticism erupted over what many saw as a callous indifference to the slaughter he had just condemned."

Not everybody beside MSNBC admires Al Sharpton

Bill O'Reilly Came Back From Vacation To Rage At MSNBC For Employing 'Charlatan' Al Sharpton
Normally I find it hard to like Mr. O'Reilly, but do appreciate his words in this segment.


I think the video of Michael Brown robbing that store was what dishonored his name by showing us what he was like.

"But his sharpest criticism was aimed at Sharpton. At one point in the program, O'Reilly played a clip of Sharpton declaring "we have had enough" of police violence.

" 'Enough of what Al? Enough what? Police efficiency?" O'Reilly asked, citing statistics to show police shootings are rare compared to the total number of arrests. "Sharpton has the nerve to insult the American police community — men and women risking their lives to protect us. This charlatan has the gall to do that and NBC News is paying him. My God, why is that acceptable?' "  Read more:

CNN's Granderson, Wall Slam 'Charlatan' Al Sharpton  (Video)

"Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," network contributor LZ Granderson and political analyst Tara Wall hammered activists like Al Sharpton for being a "charlatans" who come into situations like Ferguson to "make names for themselves.' "

Riot cops ready for Sharpton rally on Saturday

In school suspension for saying “Bless You” after a sneeze. For real?

Momdot.    About 5 minutes ago one of my very good blogger friends shared that a family member of hers was allegedly sent to in school suspension for saying ‘Bless You’ in a high school class today.
 

"Bless you.

"As in someone sneezed and she said “Bless You.' ”

(Photo of the criminal below.)

 

... "I am blown away that in a society that claims itself to be so progressive and free, we have stripped away our religion so far down to the roots that our kids cannot say Bless You without fear of retribution.

"I was so shocked about this situation that I asked Kendra to reach out to me and she did.

"Here are her words on what happened [then]:"  Full article.

Hat tip to Walt Stier;  Santa Maria, CA. Post from American Family Association