"Good" Friday: The Opinion of Thieves

Bing Images

Faith Readers  "He listened only to Jesus. He tuned out the pain, the suffering and all that was going on and in that public place he found himself alone with Jesus and he said, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom." There were no words of doubt. Now he knew that Jesus was about to receive a kingdom that few understood and he wanted with everything in him to be a part of it. Jesus responded, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise." So much could be said about this. But for now I only want to ask you, "What is your opinion?" "

AMAZING LOVE

He is risen, INDEED!    In the early Church, when one Christian would greet another, often he would say: "He is risen."  

And the other would respond, "He is risen, indeed!"

....

Finally, René López observes that Christianity itself would have died, along with its Founder, if it all ended at the cross: "Christianity would have died if Christ had not risen from the dead. There's no possible way to explain the growth of the church....That in itself must be answered by the critics today."

 He is risen. He is risen, indeed!

The Origins of Communism in California

Noisy Room  "Many lament what California has become and, despite the beauty of this State, people and businesses are leaving as fast as they can. On the other hand, Communists like Van Jonesand the Union leaders who control this State enjoy calling California their “home” while they live in the lap of luxury courtesy of people like George Soros and Barack Obama(through our tax dollars, of course).

"Here is Communist California today…"

"So, as you can see, the communists and the union members intermingled as the march progressed.  In case you were wondering what SEIU was saying during all of this, there is a video of SEIU chanting: “Legalization or REVOLUTION!” Clear enough?"

The Nutty Professor

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/michaelramirez/2012/04/05/98117

Coming Soon to Obama's America

Neal Boortz   "What do you get when you combine progressive global warming policies with progressive social medicine policies … this story from the UK! 

 "An elderly woman has been told that she must find a new doctor.  Her current doctor is one mile from her house and she has been going there for 30 years.  Why was she told she needed to find a new doctor?  Because the government is concerned that her two-mile round trips are making her “carbon footprint” too large." 

Notice that many of these silly rules are from the UK. They are on the cutting edge of Western socialism and offer a good look at where America is headed.

UK Telegraph

Stupid EPA Regulations   "The list of stupid EPA regulations is endless. Utilizing favorable court decisions that have proved elastic for their purposes, the EPA is seeking to exercise control over nearly every facet of American industry."

The crazy world of health and safety rules  "Graduating students at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge were told not to pose for pictures throwing their hats in the air in case someone was injured by the falling headgear."

http://www.conservativedailynews.com/2012/04/name-that-tune/

The legacy of Zimmerman/ Martin (Updated)

Man, 78, recounts assault by 6 youths in E. Toledo

"The boy, again, allegedly told his friends to "take him down.""

"At one point, the victim recalled being lifted from the ground so one of the boys could "drop-kick" him in the chest.

"One boy, he said, put his foot on the back of the victim's neck, with another shouting, "Kill him."

"While Mr. Watts was down the boys kicked him, over and over, shouting, "[Get] that white [man]. This is for Trayvon ... Trayvon lives, white [man]. Kill that white [man]," according to a police report.

"The boys fled when a man shouted at them, according to the report."

NBC Stonewalls On ‘Zimmerman Edit’ Probe    "Given how central these 911 calls are to this story, it is impossible to believe that these staffers "who have been working on the Trayvon Martin story for several weeks," would not have known the 911 transcript word for word.

"Which puts the lie to their claim that nobody at NBC noticed the "mistake" at the time it aired.

"No, they are only "in shock" that anyone noticed and called them on it. That isn’t supposed to happen. Which is why they are so desperate to get back their monopoly on the news.


Update: Breaking: NBC Fires Producer Who Created False Zimmerman Audio

While NBC has taken a good first step toward rectifying the situation, until the network releases the name of the person and explains its theory that the edit was not deliberate, its credibility is still under question.

Full Times story is here.

From Weasel Zippers: Obama Campaign Scrubs Website of Alarmist Videos Targeting Black Voters…

"The Daily Caller has a compilation of the vids that were removed including the one that invokes Saint Trayvon."

In one video that the campaign yanked from the “African-Americans for Obama” section of its website Tuesday, actress Tatyana Ali seemed to predict that a second Obama term would bring a host of benefits to African-Americans once the president no longer had to concern himself with campaigning.“What really excites me … is that a U.S. president has only two terms,” a laughing Ali said in the footage that the Obama campaign scrubbed from its website Tuesday. “In the second term, ‘it’s on,’ because we don’t have to worry about re-election.”

A secret to the great prose of President Obama

 American Glob: Obama’s Ability To Give An Original Speech Still Evolving
"Do you ever get the feeling that every time Obama speaks David Axelrod is crouching behind him pulling a plastic ring attached to a cord somewhere on Obama’s body?"

...."You know, if Obama was a Republican all of America would be laughing too because this video would be on all the American late night comedy shows. Instead of a YouTube clip from a Danish TV show"

Hot Air has this on the subject:  Paul Ryan told ABC yesterday when they asked him about O’s latest smear job that he’s “become accustomed to this kind of rhetoric from the president,” but wait until you see this. He didn’t know the half of it.


More examples of majestic oratory by this great communicator:
"Here’s one from January 2012 which I referred to as Obama the Broken Record."
Just words? "Here’s a golden oldie from 2008 where Obama used a speech by MA Governor Deval Patrick word for word."

A look at the state of our culture

Why David Letterman Has (Almost) Always Creeped Me Out  "I realize I’m in the minority. I hate to think there are that many cynical, mean spirited people out there, to keep Letterman’s ratings high, but obviously that’s the case."


Alana Goodman: Obama Grandstands About the Masters   "The media is now running out to track down a Republican who will defend the Augusta National policy and serve as a useful foil for Obama’s completely uncontroversial stance on the subject. They had no luck with Romney or Boehner, but maybe Rush Limbaugh can weigh in on it."


Harry Reid's dilemma  "American broadcasting this week featured the worst example of hateful religious bigotry broadcast to a national audience since the days of Father Coughlin's antisemitic rants.  MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell, a former Democrat congressional staffer, launched an astonishing attack of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints, the religion of Mitt Romney."


Obama Labor Dept. glorifies Sharpton, Jackson in protest-preaching poster  

"The photo depicts Solis acting as an emissary of the Obama administration protesting against Alabama’s strict new law combating illegal immigration. Solis has her arms locked with Sharpton, and Jackson is a few feet away. The poster also carries a message for federal government employees — who are traditionally expected to be apolitical in the performance of their duties."

This is the picture that Hilda Solis wants everyone at the Labor Department to see: 

"On her right arm is SEIU exec R. Eliseo Medina.  On her left is, of course, MSNBC host Rev. Al Sharpton.  And that’s Jesse Jackson on the other side of Delores Huerta and AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker. The experience clearly affected Secretary Solis. The Daily Caller reports that images from the event have now been turned into a poster that will hang in elevators at the Labor Department:"...

‘Good Christian’ Bashing Show Gets Racial  " “GCB” is suffering in the ratings. According to The Wrap, “'GCB' slid 10 percent,” dropping to 5.8 million total viewers."


Klavan On The Culture: What Liberals Believe

"Today, the intrepid Klavan, whoever he is, tries to understand the liberal mindset, an expedition into the heart of darkness worthy of Stanley Livingstone, whoever he is."

Palin "Smacks Down" NBC's Lauer: GOP Ticket Will Be 'Clobbered' By 'Lamestream Media'   "I would say it doesn't matter if that person has national level experience or not, they're going to get clobbered by the lamestream media, who does not like the conservative message. And it doesn't matter if that person has been a known commodity to the mainstream, lamestream media or not."

"The GOP ticket, to tell you the truth, Matt, doesn't know what's coming. They don't know what's going to hit them in terms of double standards being applied to them and the positions that they hold, and the records that they are running on, from, you know, personal family issues to anything else. There will be that double standard applied no matter who it is."

Ann Coulter:Verilli Not Administration's Worst Lawyer After All / Thomas Sowell on Obama's ability to say "things that are demonstrably false, and make them sound not only plausible but inspiring".

Ann Coulter  "Alas, we still have Rick Santorum saying Obamacare is the same as what he calls "Romneycare"; the otherwise brilliant Mickey Kaus sniffing that if states can mandate insurance purchases, then we're "not talking about some basic individual liberty to not purchase stuff" (no, just the nation's founding document, which protects "basic individual liberties" by putting constraints on Congress); and the former law professor, Barack Obama, alleging that a "good example" of judicial activism would be the Supreme Court (in his words, "a group of people") overturning "a duly constituted and passed law."

"I don't know how a court could overturn a law that hasn't been "passed." Otherwise, it wouldn't be a law, it would be a bill. If it hasn't even been "constituted," it wouldn't be anything at all.

"Of course the courts can overturn laws -- constituted and passed alike! If anything, the Supreme Court isn't striking down enough laws.

....What liberals figured out -- and were mendacious enough to exploit -- is that there is no obvious recourse for the other branches if the Supreme Court issues an insane ruling. So, beginning in the 1960s, liberals on the court started issuing insane rulings on a regular basis."...

 

....http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/

Thomas Sowell: Political Word Games  "Nor is it likely that Barack Obama has never heard of it. He has a degree from Harvard Law School and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. In what must be one of the most famous Supreme Court cases in history 

Marbury v. Madison - in 1803 -Chief Justice John Marshall established the principle that the Supreme Court can declare acts of Congress null and void if these acts violate the Constitution.

They have been doing so for more than two centuries. It is the foundation of American constitutional law. There is no way that Barack Obama has never heard of it or really believes it to be “unprecedented” after two centuries of countless precedents.

"In short, he is simply lying." 

...."But what is the Constitution’s Bill of Rights supposed to protect the ordinary citizen from? Government institutions! If judges are to defer to the very institutions that the Bill of Rights tries to protect the citizen from, what is the point of having a Bill of Rights?"*

...."Obama’s lies are just as big but not as visible, and the media that exposed Nixon is covering for Obama."  (Emphasis added)

 Former Obama Con Law Student Embarassed by His Former Teacher’s Ignorance  Ironically, that same student now clerks for this judge.  More on Judge Jerry Smith here

* Just wanted to make sure you saw this.

White House in damage control over Obama Supreme Court remarks; From Lucianne, 

who states that "O's own mouth may be the author of his eventual demise."

'What a Bully President Obama Has Suddenly Become,' Says SC Gov. "The man who took office on a promise of 'hope and change' is now bullying people to get his way, Haley told Fox & Friends. "He's bullying his way on Paul Ryan, saying he's not coming up with an adequate budget. Now he's bullying the Supreme Court, saying no, they won't reverse (the health care law) --they won't go against us on this."

Volokh Conspiracy:  Impeach John Roberts? " Professor David Dow of the University of Houston argues that Supreme Court justices should be impeached if the individual mandate is struck down because “Supreme Court justices who undermine the principles of the Constitution ought to be impeached.” " Much comment and background at this site.

Rush Limbaugh: Ryan Reacts to Obama's Demagoguery  Paul Ryan takes each point made by Obama and rebuts it.  "I don't even really know how to describe all of this stuff, but I think he's just getting sort of desperate and demagogic.  And it's just part and parcel of the kind of campaign I think we're gonna expect this fall."

Democrats and energy

Germany Cuts Solar Subsidies, Has Its Solyndra Moment

Using the government’s generous subsidies, Germans installed 7.5 gigawatts of photovoltaic capacity last year, more than double what the government had deemed “acceptable.” It is estimated that this increase alone will lead to a $260 hike in the average consumer’s annual power bill.

 "As Winston Churchill famously said, “All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes.” The U.S. should learn from its subsidy mistakes and end all energy subsidies. The best way for the government to promote energy exploration is to open access to locked-up resources and reduce onerous regulations. Only then will energy sources compete on their own merits, unleashed from government restraint and freed from government intervention."

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2012/04/04/98083

Obama has the "best" energy policy? C'mon, Joe!   "But to the Obama administration, to be the “best” means to weaken big oil by weaning Americans off of their product and artificially boosting the demand from “green” sources of energy.  Being able to stand up in front of a now-bankrupt Solyndra is better than allowing oil companies to rake in record profits.  Here’s just a smattering of headlines from Obama’s “green” industry:"... Neal Boortz.


 Victor Davis Hanson: The Second Oil Revolution  "The Canadian tar sands, deepwater exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, horizontal drilling off the eastern and western American coastlines, fracking in once-untapped sites in North Dakota, and new pipelines from Alaska and Canada could double North American gas and oil production within a decade.
"Given that North America in general and the United States in particular might soon be completely autonomous in natural-gas production and without much need of imported oil within a decade, life as we have known it for nearly the last half-century would change radically.
"Take the Middle East. The United States currently devotes about $50 billion of its military budget to patrolling the Persian Gulf and stationing thousands of troops in the region."
Who of us can disagree with this argument for opening up American oil sources? But any administration attempting to do this, even with a sympathetic Congress will find their efforts tied up for years by environmentalist's law suits. TD

It’s Not ‘All of the Above’ After All   "So now we know that when President Obama says he wants an “all of the above” strategy for energy, “the above” doesn’t include the energy source in which America has the biggest advantage over the rest of the world: coal."
 Obama Subsidizes Dirty Chinese Coal Power  "The United States may be the first country in history to colonize itself, reducing the world’s most advanced and complex economy to a raw-materials supplier for sophisticated manufacturing economies abroad."


The EPA Abuses First, Apologizes Later  "The statute is so vague that the only natural way to read it is as a grant of power for EPA to commandeer anybody — totally at random if EPA so chooses — and force him to clean up, at his own expense, a problem that he can immediately prove he had nothing to do with."

If Romney loses to Obama, it will be because of his supporters not his opponents

Legal Insurrection Jamie Weinstein at The Daily Caller (via HotAir) writes that Newt’s legacy will be that his criticisms of Romney will be featured in Obama ads:
....

"No, the problem Romney faces is that his campaign and his supporters have run such a foul campaign.

"Think of all the negative things said against other candidates by Romney and his supporters.  Did they give a damn how their words would be played back against Newt or Santorum if either of them were the nominee?"

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2012/04/02/97986

...."By going massively negative on everyone else and using his campaign wealth to smother others.  His carpet bombing of Newt in Iowa and Florida is the only thing that kept Romney from the abyss.  I still see non-stop anti-Santorum ads on TV.
"Romney has embittered a large segment of the people he will need to rally around him.  Profound and historic dislike of Obama is the only thing that will prevent a third party movement or a massive stay-at-home movement.
"And it hasn’t stopped.  Romney supporters have shown themselves to be sore winners, and there’s nothing worse than sore winners heading into a general election.

http://wpcomics.washingtonpost.com/client/wpc/po/2012/03/29/

The president's strange words on the economy/ Did Obama "jump the shark"?

The President’s Curious Speech Lacks Solutions "Contrast the President’s total failure to confront America’s debt crisis with the Ryan plan, which includes proposals similar to those in Heritage’s Saving the American Dream plan. Heritage’s Alison Fraser explainsthat under Ryan’s plan, the debt crisis is squarely addressed; Obamacare is repealed and health care is moved from the hands of bureaucrats to patients and doctors; Medicare is preserved with a premium support system that allows America’s seniors to pick the plan that suits them best; and the tax code is reformed not to punish the productive, but to increase growth, wages, and jobs. But under Obama’s vision, Fraser writes, “we close our eyes and pretend that big government has all the answers to every risk and problem in society, real or perceived.” "

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2012/04/03/98036

White House press secretary Jay Carney goes it at with FOX News' Bret Baier in an interview that aired on the network's news program "Special Report."
White house responses to tough questions often begin with something like: "Come on, Bret..." That's something you expect to hear from your rebellious junior-higher.


John Fund: President Petulant / Obama makes Berkeley liberals look like statesmen.  "There appear to be few limits on how far President Obama will distort facts. In truth, his health-care plan passed the House by only 219 to 212, despite that body’s overwhelming Democratic majority. It was the first major piece of social legislation within memory to pass Congress without a single vote from the opposition party.

"Even some liberals believe the president went too far yesterday.  Ruth Marcus, an editorial writer who covers the Supreme Court for the Washington Post, said Obama’s assault 

 “stopped me cold . . . for the president to imply that the only explanation for a constitutional conclusion contrary to his own would be out-of-control conservative justices does the court a disservice.” 

 

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/

Andrew C. McCarthy: Statism Goes to Court; Health care should not be a federal concern at all.  "The premise of the states’ challenge to Obamacare is that, in taking direct aim on the whole citizenry, the individual mandate crosses a new threshold."

Krauthammer: Obama Trying To Bully The Supreme Court While Liberals Are In Shock (video) " "On every count he doesn't have an argument. This is liberals in shock over watching their side being demolished in oral argument and trying to bully the Supreme Court into ending up on their side in a case which they clearly lost intellectually and logically,"...

JAWA: Supreme Court Scolds Obama For Warning  

The three branches of government are co-equal to prevent this sort of tyrannical behavior. But, Obama thinks he’s the only branch of government and the other two just interfere.

Peter Wehner: The Week Obama Jumped the Shark  "For Justices to invalidate a law they deem to be unconstitutional is precisely what the Supreme Court is supposed to do. (“No legislative act … contrary to the Constitution, can be valid,” is how Alexander Hamilton put it in Federalist #78.) If one takes Obama’s words literally, he believes an unjust and unconstitutional law, if passed by a strong majority* of a democratically elected Congress, cannot be overturned."  *"219-212, hardly a “strong majority."

....I don’t know what the political effect of all this will be. But intellectually, this is the week where Barack Obama jumped the shark. In a deep, fundamental way, he is no longer a serious man. Nor an honest one. His public words are now purposefully bleached of truth. And that is a painful thing to have to say about an American president. (Emphasis added)

Ann Althouse, Obama voter in 2008, offers some campaign advice: "It's Moderate Obama that American voters find so appealing. You don't need all that left-wing economics and race-and-gender demagoguery. I think what people like about you — you, who are famously, sublimely likeable — is the normal person who seems to be in harmony with everyone. We — many of us — voted for you because you seemed to offer to bring us together, to end the rancor."

WaPo: The three political objectives of Obama’s speech: ..."Obama’s push for tax fairness will turn on how effectively he makes the case that the GOP’s approach wouldn’t actually bring down the deficit without sacrifice from somebody." 

Obama targets Paul Ryan   "It was only intense tutoring from some Marxist friends back then that convinced Obama that the communist revolution would not come to America through violent means, but only through political change.  Have you read his books?   Have you ever wondered why Obama gravitated, by his own admission, to Marxist professors and student groups in college?  Does it even matter to you that Obama chose the warm bosom of the living room of his dedicated communist friends Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn to announce his entry into politics?  Obama referred to the private sector in his book as “the enemy.” " 

...."Obama’s speech yesterday was absolutely no accident but a calculated move to polarize the country against the Republicans."

Paul Ryan rebuts Obama's statements, point by point

Does the West Have to Be So Weak on Syria … and Everywhere Else?

Barry Rubin  "They’ve been saying it in Arabic, in public, for most of President Barack Obama’s term in office. The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood said it in August 2010: he pointed to Obama’s weakness as a reason for launching a revolution. But the American mass media has ignored it all."

"Well, now we have some leaked Syrian regime internal documents that make the same point. In talking points for President Bashar al-Assad prepared by his staff and given him on December 31, 2011, Assad is told to warn pro-Arab Western countries:

America has started to leave our region and there will be no ally left to you but your Syrian neighbor.

"And Iran, of course, but Assad didn’t want to mention his non-Arab ally".

...".The message: you can’t depend on America to be a firm ally, and you can depend on America to be a weak enemy. The U.S. position in the region is eroding away.

"And yet almost all we hear from the mass media and “experts” is how successful Obama’s policy has been, how America is now loved in the Middle East, and how the radical Islamists are moderate democrats.

"Assad’s advisor also provided a piece of advice that would be well-heeded by Obama or his successor after the November elections:

The people need to see a powerful president defending the country.

 

Jerusalem Post

Bear in mind if we elect a strong president with a good grasp of Middle East strategic necessities that any strong action serving to bring stability to that region will be demagogued in the press and media; expect Hollywood to make movies casting that president as evil and a warmongering "cowboy". One has to wonder: can America be governed in such a way that we remain safe, protected and prosperous?


This is how the American left sees Obama's Middle East policies:  "Eventually, Barack Obama will be seen as the man who doubled oil prices and Islamic power, or the leader who shuffled in an genuine era of democracy in the Middle East.  The key is Iran.  The leaders of Iran believe in a Muslim planet before all else.  If things work out like they seem to be working out Mr. Obama’s words that the “United States will never be at war with Islam” may be overruled by a future U.S. President.   However, I’m rooting for the Obama administration’s brilliance on this one.  They were very clever in how they usurped the will of the American public and beat the Republicans in passing ObamaCare.  Let’s see how that cleverness plays out on the world stage."  From Yes, But However