Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Thomas Sowell on Obama’s Transparency and Other Things

Random thoughts by Thomas Sowell  ... "The biggest issue in this fall’s election is whether the Obama administration will end when Barack Obama leaves the White House or whether it will continue on, by appointing federal judges with lifetime appointments who share President Obama’s contempt for the Constitution. Whether such judges will be confirmed by the Senate depends on whether the Senate continues to be controlled by Democratic majority leader Harry Reid." ...
...
"Who says the Obama administration is not transparent? They are constantly telling our enemies overseas when we will pull out our troops and where we will not put boots on the ground."  More...
 
..."I must have heard the word “diversity” proclaimed in ringing tones as a great benefit to society at least a thousand times — and probably closer to a million — without even once hearing a speck of evidence provided or even suggested as a way to test whether that is true or false."

Obama will pay a price for blaming intelligence services for ISIS failures. The only question is how high it will be.

 
Be sure to read this excellent piece:
 
Thomas Lifson  "President Obama’s 60 Minutes interview, taped last Friday and aired Sunday, is turning out to be a disaster for him, and may even be a tipping point of sorts. There are six dimensions to the disaster." 
 
The UK Daily Mail made sure we all knew this:
A national security staffer in the Obama administration said the president has been seeing 'highly accurate predictions' about the rise of the ISIS terror army since 'before the 2012 election'
 ...
"Even Ron Fournier of the National Journal (and former AP White House correspondent), no raging rightie, could not restrain himself, and tweeted:
I, me, my. It's their fault. I, me, my. It's their fault. I, me, my. It's their fault. I, me, my. It's their fault. I, me, my ...
 More...

They Lost Their Bakery, Now Face Bankruptcy: Government’s ‘Discrimination’ Fine Brings Baker to Tears

Oppression by "tolerant" liberals in the "Land of the Free":

The Daily Signal   "A bakery owner in Oregon broke down in tears while discussing the fallout of her and her husband’s decision not to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple on the basis of their Christian beliefs."
 

 
"Earlier this year, the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries found “substantial evidence” that Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, discriminated against the lesbian couple.
Oregon bakery owners face a $150,000 discrimination fine for not baking a wedding cake for lesbians.
"They now face a fine in excess of $150,000." ...
“It’s horrible to see your own government doing this to you,” says Aaron Klein of Sweet Cakes by Melissa.



Monday, September 29, 2014

"What does it say about our culture when the esteemed Metropolitan Opera succumbs to the most comfortable form of bigotry? "

 
 
 

About the opera, "The Death of Klinghoffer"  ... " First produced in Brussels and New York in 1991, the opera is based on the hijacking of the passenger liner Achille Lauro by the Palestine Liberation Front in 1985, and the hijackers' murder of wheelchair-bound Jewish-American passenger Leon Klinghoffer." ...

... "The dramatic expression of Palestinian historical grievances in a theatrical context was one source of accusations of 'sympathy' with Palestinian terrorism. Others accused the creators of anti-Semitism for their portrayal of fictional Jewish-American neighbours of the Klinghoffers, the Rumors, in a scene in the original version. The couple were characterized in a way many Jews believed to be offensive and inappropriately satirical. Following the American premiere, Adams deleted this scene while revising his opera for all future productions."
...So a line like this is to be understood: “Whenever poor men are gathered they can find Jews getting fat.” Gelb understands.
A blight at the opera   "The Met’s shameful exploitation of the murder of Leon Klinghoffer."
NYC PAPERS OUT. Social media use restricted to low res file max 184 x 128 pixels and 72 dpi

... "In 2012, when Morris directed a London production of “The Death of Klinghoffer,” Bohn wrote an essay for the program. There, he draws lessons that parallel the opera’s amoral attempt to cast Klinghoffer’s murder in a rational light." ...

... "Judea Pearl, father of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter slain by Al Qaeda in 2002, would be an ideal candidate. Here is some of what Pearl said at a protest rally last Monday:

“We do not stage operas for rapists and child molesters, and we do not compose symphonies for penetrating the minds of ISIS executioners.”


Op-Ed: At the Met, A Convenient Bigotry   ... "If bigotry is to be your life or your art, pick the safest bet, the Jews. Right, Jews don’t make trouble. We’re easy. We’re used to getting bullied.

"Now even in New York.    

"So the opera that’s the hottest ticket in New York is not “La Boheme” but rather “The Death of Klinghoffer,” and if you are new to this story let’s just say that this is a nasty piece of work that the Met is scheduled to stage in a few weeks. Proponents argue that it gives voice to the “other side,” those Palestinian Arab murderers. Their grievances must be heard and understood." ...

Recall…back in 1985 Palestinian Arab terrorists, the ISIS of yesterday and still today, hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship. They tossed Leon Klinghoffer overboard, a Jewish New Yorker, 69, and World War II hero -- while he was on deck sunbathing from his wheelchair. 

Their grievances? Infidels must submit.


Should New York Taxpayers Fund Pro-Terrorism and Anti-Semitism at the The Metropolitan Opera?
... "Some rightly fear that between this and the American Studies Association resolution, European style anti-Semitism thinly disguised as anti-Zionism is being pipelined into the United States." ...

 

The Moral Failures of Eric Holder

Michael Ramirez Cartoon
 
eric_holder_race_card_forward_big_9-28-14-1
"Eric Holder’s left many baleful legacies: being censured by the House of Representatives; withholding subpoenaed documents, proving untruthful about a failed gun-walking caper in Mexico; failing to enforce laws on the books, from immigration to the elements of the Affordable Care Act; illegally billing the government for his own private use of a government Gulfstream jet; snooping on Associated Press reporters; giving de facto exemptions to renegade IRS politicos; and trying to create civilian trials for terrorist killers like KSM, one of the architects of the 9/11 attacks. But he will be known mostly for re-teaching Americans to think of race as essential, not incidental, to our characters." ... 
 Political Cartoons by Gary Varvel
 
Political Cartoons by Bob Gorrell
 
Political Cartoons by Steve Kelley

'Bizarre coincidence': Another Oklahoma Muslim threatened co-worker with beheading last week. White House not convinced motive was Islam

Thomas Lifson  "ISIS may have called on Muslims the world over to attack Americans (and the “filthy French”), but when two Muslims in Oklahoma act on that call using beheading (or the threat thereof) as their method, The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City’s daily newspaper, calls it a “bizarre coincidence.” Nolan Clay writes:
In a bizarre coincidence, a fired Oklahoma City nursing home employee was arrested Friday after a co-worker reported he threatened to cut her head off.
...
"It isn’t until paragraph 8 that readers learn:
Muriithi identified himself as a Muslim and said he “represented ISIS and that ISIS kills Christians,” the detective told a judge in the affidavit. The two had not worked together before. (snip)
The woman said she asked him why they kill Christians and he replied, “This is just what we do,” the detective reported.
"This is what we do"! Obama's pastor, Rev. Wright would say we have it coming. Liberals would ask what have we done to offend you? What can we do to please Islam? Full article here.

White House ‘Not Going to Get Ahead’ of Motive Investigation in Oklahoma Beheading   "Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken told Fox News this morning that “we don’t know” if the beheading of a woman by a Muslim co-worker in Oklahoma last week was terrorism.

"Alton Nolen, 30, a recent convert to Islam, reportedly tried to convince co-workers at the Vaughn Food processing plant in Moore, Okla, to convert before last week’s murder. His Facebook page was under the name Jah’Keem Yisrael and included images of jihadists and Quran citations." ...

The Khorosan Group Does Not Exist; It’s a fictitious name the Obama administration invented to deceive us.

Political Cartoons by Gary Varvel

Andrew C. McCarthy   .... "You haven’t heard of the Khorosan Group because there isn’t one. It is a name the administration came up with, calculating that Khorosan — the –Iranian–​Afghan border region — had sufficient connection to jihadist lore that no one would call the president on it.

"The “Khorosan Group” is al-Qaeda. It is simply a faction within the global terror network’s Syrian franchise, “Jabhat al-Nusra.” Its leader, Mushin al-Fadhli (believed to have been killed in this week’s U.S.-led air strikes), was an intimate of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the emir of al-Qaeda who dispatched him to the jihad in Syria. Except that if you listen to administration officials long enough, you come away thinking that Zawahiri is not really al-Qaeda, either. Instead, he’s something the administration is at pains to call “core al-Qaeda.”

“ 'Core al-Qaeda,” you are to understand, is different from “Jabhat al-Nusra,” which in turn is distinct from “al-Qaeda in Iraq” (formerly “al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia,” now the “Islamic State” al-Qaeda spin-off that is, itself, formerly “al-Qaeda in Iraq and al-Sham” or “al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant”). That al-Qaeda, don’t you know, is a different outfit from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula . . . which, of course, should never be mistaken for “al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb,” “Boko Haram,” “Ansar al-Sharia,” or the latest entry, “al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent.”

... "Coming soon, “al-Qaeda on Hollywood and Vine.” ..."

Here is where Mr. McCarthy lays it out for even the low-information reader:

"For a product of the radical Left like Obama, terrorism is a regrettable but understandable consequence of American arrogance. That it happens to involve Muslims is just the coincidental fallout of Western imperialism in the Middle East, not the doctrinal command of a belief system that perceives itself as engaged in an inter-civilizational conflict. For the Left, America has to be the culprit. Despite its inbred pathologies, which we had no role in cultivating, Islam must be the victim, not the cause. As you’ll hear from Obama’s Islamist allies, who often double as Democrat activists, the problem is “Islamophobia,” not Muslim terrorism.


Read the full article here.

Saudi prince and Emirate's first female fighter pilot take part in Syria air strikes



UK Telegraph   ... "Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador to the United States, confirmed on Thursday that the country’s first female fighter pilot, Major Mariam Al Mansouri, 35, took part in her own kingdom’s military action. 
 
"Mansouri graduated from Abu Dhabi's Khalifa bin Zayed Air College in 2007 and is veteran pilot of F-16 warplanes.
 
"Mr Al Otaiba discussed the UAE’s commitment in combating ISIL and fighting extremism on the live-broadcast American television show Morning Joe, a weekday morning talk show on MSNBC.
During the show, Mr Al Otaiba said: “We will bring whatever it takes to defeat Isis [Isil] and other forms of extremism.”
 
However women in nearby Saudi Arabia cannot drive cars.

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Woman beheaded in Oklahoma attack was grandmother who just lost her home in tornado; attacker was let out of jail early

UK Daily Mail

 
"The woman beheaded by a Muslim convert was a grandmother who had lost her home in a tornado, it emerged today. 
"Alton Alexander Nolen, 30, is accused of killing Colleen Hufford, 54, and stabbing Traci Johnson, 43, who apparently were attacked randomly at the Vaughan Foods facility in Moore on Thursday, after he was fired from his job 
"Hufford, who had been married for 25 years, had lost her family home in the Moore tornado." ...
 
Hufford, 54, who had been married for 25 years, had lost her family home in the Moore tornado

Below: Traci Johnson, the second victim.

Traci Johnson

Please, Doctor Ben Carson, do NOT run for president.


I fear for Dr. Carson and what will be done to him if he should be lassoed into running for president. All we know and admire about this man will be destroyed by the left when they superimpose the image of him that they create over all that he actually is.


I see Dr. Carson as a political innocent whose impact is stronger as the voice of reason in the hurricane of demagoguery swirling around the election campaigns. I see him perhaps as a surgeon general, but as honorable as he is, he will be vulnerable to attacks from the left.

Foreign policy and terrorism are coming to the forefront of concern and it will take a president skilled and courageous in international affairs, but I do not see anything in Dr. Carson's resume' that would create those qualities. In fact all the shortcomings in Obama's background are the same as those in Ben Carson's, save for the decency and humanity I see in the doctor.


Only those who have been governors of states seem to have been properly prepared to run a nation, deal with political opposition and get their hands dirty if they must. (That last characteristic has been a resume enhancement for Democrats.)  Mr. Obama has not been the least afraid to get his hands dirty, but that quality alone has not made him an effective president. There is mostly the ability to unify national leadership behind a well-defined cause and that takes leadership qualities Obama lacks. I fear these also may not be sufficient in a man of the quality and experience of Dr. Ben Carson and to put him in the position of a presidential candidate will only harm this good and decent man. If we elect this national treasure as president I fear we will set Dr. Carson up for failure.


If Dr. Carson is our candidate, make no mistake: I will vote for him, if for no better reason than to cancel a Democrat vote.  But please, Dr. Carson, for all our sakes, but especially your own, I beg you not to run for president.

The Tunnel Dweller

Al Sharpton Empowered

John Fund & Hans von Spakovsky

 
... "Many principled liberals are privately appalled that President Obama and Eric Holder have exalted the status of Al Sharpton, and they fear that any new attorney general will also be in thrall to him. Some have even gone public. Liberal journalist Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg News wrote last year: “We’ve gone from Martin Luther King to the Reverend Al Sharpton, and . . . it’s very dispiriting.”

"Indeed, in King’s famous 1963 speech at the Washington Mall, he told of his “dream” that his four children would “one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

"That dream remains as noble as ever, but it won’t be advanced by the Reverend Sharpton and his “I have a scheme” method of activism. One of the saddest legacies of the Obama-Holder years will be that while they claimed MLK’s mantle as their own, they left the country more racially polarized than before and cynically worked overtime to give credibility to the Al Sharptons of the world.

The Lie That Will Start a World War


American Thinker   ... "No one but the Jews has a genuine religious claim to the 35 acres of the Temple Mount, and anyone who has studied the history knows this.  Even Christians – who do have legitimate claims to other sites in the area – do not contest the Mount.  This is not arcane knowledge.  It can be gleaned in a few minutes of relatively light reading.

"Yet our media deceptively hides this from the public.  We are being lied to whenever the media tells us that the area is sacred to Muslims, rather than apprising us that the claim is an Islamic fraud, so obvious that even the imams have to know that they are lying.  That five-year gap does not go away."..   By Mike Konrad