Imagine your loved one has died. Cement shipped from Egypt is too expensive. As a Christian family, you are denied the most basic and dignified burial and funeral procession or ceremony. In the Muslim world that surrounds you in the West Bank, you must contend with digging the grave of your own family member, covering that family member with sand and small stones, and hope no one disturbs the unmarked grave. It is the cruel plight of Christians in this part of the world.
As many as 300 million Christians around the world today live under persecution, 80 percent of them in Muslim nations. Christians living under Palestinian rule periodically speak out regarding the persecution they endure, but for the most part keep silent for fear of their Muslim neighbors. The situation is much worse in the Gaza Strip, where less than 3,000 Christians live among 1.3 million Muslims, than it is in the so-called "West Bank."
The biggest loser was President Obama, who campaigned tirelessly for Corzine, even giving up golf on several occasions and skipping a quarter-million-dollar "date night" with Michelle to stump for the Democrat.
Just two days before the election, Obama was at a rally in New Jersey assuring voters that Corzine was "one of the best partners I have in the White House. We work together. ... Jon Corzine helped get this done."
Except the problem is that voting for Obama a year ago was a fashion statement, much like it was once a fad to buy Beanie Babies, pet rocks and Cabbage Patch Kids. But instead of ending up with a ridiculous dust-collector at the bottom of your closet, the Obama fad leaves you with higher taxes, a reduced retirement fund, no job and a one-year wait for an MRI.
President Obama said this week that his health care plan won't cover illegal immigrants, but argued that's all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage.
(We at the Saloon think the President owes Congressman Joe Wilson one BIG apology! - Roland)
I've been a committed conservative and, with the exception of one year where I listed myself as an independent, a registered Republican since 1978. What makes that rather unremarkable statement more intriguing is that I'm an American who happens to be black...Until February 10, 2007, most of my black friends and associates tolerated my status as a conservative and Republican, dismissing me as a novelty or something less flattering but essentially harmless. After that date, and especially after the Iowa caucuses in the 2008 Presidential election, I became an enemy and someone who needed to be silenced at all costs.
What changed? The emergence of Barack Hussein Obama as the first viable black candidate for the Presidency, an occasion that called for racial solidarity over ideological purity or party loyalty.
I know I didn't change. I saw in Barack Obama not a black man but another liberal Democrat out to convince Americans to surrender their liberty for the benevolent dictatorship of government.
President Barack Obama's adviser Van Jones has resigned amid controversy over past inflammatory statements, the White House said early Sunday.
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.
(I personally couldn't care less what he said against Republicans. He's a bigoted communist fascist and is wholly inappropriate for having the ear of the POTUS. Period. It shouldn't have had to take this long to dump him. - Roland)
The Boston Globe: "Obama shows an ability to transcend race”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Obama's success suggests we can transcend race”
But of course that hasn’t happened. Jonah Goldberg writes:
It was Obama’s supporters who hinted, teased, promised, and prophesied that Obama would help America “transcend race.” But now, it is they who shrink from their own promised land…
From Day 1, Obama’s supporters have tirelessly cultivated the idea that anything inconvenient for the first black president just might be terribly, terribly racist.
Self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals in all 50 states of the union, according to the Gallup Poll.
At the same time, more Americans nationwide are saying this year that they are conservative than have made that claim in any of the last four years.
In 2009, 40% percent of respondents in Gallup surveys that have interviewed more than 160,000 Americans have said that they are either “conservative” (31%) or “very conservative” (9%). That is the highest percentage in any year since 2004.
Only 21% have told Gallup they are liberal, including 16% who say they are “liberal” and 5% who say they are “very liberal.”
(H/t: Semra)
More>>> New Poll Shows Obama Approval Dropping Among Key Supporters
Under health care legislation on Capitol Hill, undocumented workers would technically not be covered. But the reality, immigration analysts say, is that the legislation is missing any mechanism to keep them out of the system. And if they exploit that loophole, taxpayers could be on the hook for billions to cover health care costs that employers don't!
In reality, only Whalen, the woman who called 911 on July 16 to report a possible break-in at the Cambridge, Mass., home of Gates, acted responsibly from beginning to end in this whole affair.
And she doesn’t even get a free drink out of it.
Instead, she has been reviled. She has been scorned. She was pilloried in the mainstream media and abused in the blogosphere. “Whites like Lucia have bigotry programmed into them,” one Cambridge blogger wrote. “Her description of the two black males is just so, so bigoted. Not only that, it could have led to people getting shot unnecessarily.”
Facts? Truth? We don’t need no stinkin’ facts! And the truth is too slow! In this age of instant communication, we must publish conclusions first — no matter how hurtful or how dangerous — and then let the truth catch up.
As everyone who's read the police report knows, Gates is described as going on an extended tirade against the officer, calling him a racist, saying the officer didn't know who he was messing with, acting irrationally, following the officer outside to continue haranguing him, and engaging in "tumultuous behavior" in and outside his house, drawing a small crowd of alarmed onlookers and police.
Suppose a cop didn't arrest a guy who was ranting and raving -- in his own home -- and, an hour later, the hothead assaults someone. Policeman: I was as surprised as anyone that he shot his girlfriend! Every liberal in the country would demand the cop's head.
And by the way, try screaming at a judge that he's a racist and see what happens.
Public Trust: Judge Sonia Sotomayor has record negative ratings, and the popularity of the president himself is declining. Americans seem to be getting tired of being looked in the eye and told tall tales.
After two days of hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, it appears that her strategy for confirmation is to contradict herself at every turn. She spent much of yesterday claiming not to have meant the things she actually said or not to have ruled the way she actually ruled. For the first time, therefore, it is not just her judgment but also her integrity that is in question.
Miss Green is dubious about whether Mr Brown, whose duties will include organising contract labour, overseeing the water and sewer systems and distributing any grant monies, can deliver. “He says there’s going to be lots of changes and everything with all these kids running around here.
"But he do the same thing they do, drinking beer and stuff. You’ve got to stay at home and study the town. Alligator is the kind of place where if you leave your door open, when you come back there ain’t nothing in your house.
"There’s guns. Kids knock on your door asking for a beer at three and four in the morning. I get 14-year-olds asking me if I want weed or whatever.
Rarely does the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights vote unanimously on anything. A partisan divide has made the commission contentious in recent years. Yet the Department of Justice's decision to forfeit its voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party and three individual defendants drew a 6-0 vote with one abstention by the commission. What unified the commission was outrage at the Justice Department for letting the Black Panthers off the hook.
Judge Sotomayor was clear enough. In a broad discussion about sex/race discrimination cases and their history, she said judges' ethnicity and gender make them better or worse at what they do.
Judge Sotomayor also once complained, "We [Latinos] have only 10 out of 147 active circuit court judges and 30 out of 587 active district court judges. Those numbers are grossly below our proportion of the population." Aside from Judge Sotomayor's notion that federal jobs should be parceled out on the basis of race, what exactly does she mean in an America that is intermarrying, integrating and assimilating as never before?
And why were the same people who are holding up Judge Sotomayor's background as a qualification for the Supreme Court so quick, when George W. Bush was president, to rally to deny Miguel Estrada a court-of-appeals judgeship?
Thomas Sowell: As the mainstream media circles the wagons around Judge Sonia Sotomayor, to protect her from the consequences of her own words and deeds, its main arguments are distractions from the issue at hand. A CNN reporter, for example, got all worked up because Rush Limbaugh had used the word "racist" to describe the judge's words.
Since it has been repeated like a mantra that Judge Sotomayor's words have been "taken out of context," let us look at Rush Limbaugh in context. The cold fact is that Rush Limbaugh has not been nominated to sit on the highest court in the land, with a lifetime appointment, to have the lives and liberties of 300 million Americans in his hands.
Whatever you may think about his choice of words, those words and the ideas behind them do not change the law of the land. The words and actions of Supreme Court justices do. Anyone who doesn't like what Rush Limbaugh says can simply turn off the radio or change the station. But you cannot escape the consequences of Supreme Court decisions. Nor will your children or grandchildren.
TOTUS: "The danger, I think, is when the United States, or any country, thinks that we can simply impose these values on another country with a different history and a different culture"
In Washington, the clearer a statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by a ''clarification'' when people realize what was said. The clearly racist comments made by Judge Sonia Sotomayor on the Berkeley campus in 2001 have forced the spinmasters to resort to their last-ditch excuse, that it was ''taken out of context."...someone should ask her to explain just what those words mean when taken in context
More>>> Howard Dean Says Sotomayor's Race Comment Taken Out of Context -- Then Admits He Doesn't Know the Context
At a briefing Monday afternoon, Little Rock police chief Stuart Thomas identified the suspect as Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23, of Little Rock. Thomas says Muhammad also goes by the name Carlos Bledsoe...At the Monday-afternoon briefing, Thomas said investigators believe Muhammad acted alone, and likely carried "political and religious motives." Thomas said the gunman targeted the military but was not believed to be part of a broader scheme.
Muhammad faces one capital murder charge, and 15 counts of terroristic acts.
The FBI (web) has opened an investigation into the incident, said Steven Frazier, spokesman for the agency's Little Rock office. "Based on what we find, we will determine whether there is any federal jurisdiction to prosecute," he said.
According to Army Lt. Col. Thomas F. Artis, Long and Ezeagwula were not recruiters, but part of a recruiting program called "hometown recruiting assistance." Artis says recruiters use soldiers to tell their stories and talk to potential recruits while they are visiting or based back in their home region.
(Sounds like a hate crime to me. Or do only white Christian males get charged with that in this country? - Roland)
President Obama and his administration told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting last week the U.S. foresees the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, according to a top PA official speaking to WND.
"The American administration was very friendly to the position of the PA," said Nimer Hamad, Abbas' senior political adviser.
"Abu Mazen (Abbas) heard from Obama and his administration in a very categorical way that a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital is in the American national and security interest," Hamad said.
Another PA official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told WND today that Obama informed Abbas he would not let Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "get in the way" of normalizing U.S. relations with the Arab and greater Muslim world
The Obama administration won the case last month, but moved to dismiss the charges on May 15.
The complaint says the men hurled racial slurs at both blacks and whites.
A poll watcher who provided an affidavit to prosecutors in the case noted that Bartle Bull, who worked as a civil rights lawyer in the south in the 1960's and is a former campaign manager for Robert Kennedy, said it was the most blatant form of voter intimidation he had ever seen.
In his affidavit, obtained by FOX News, Bull wrote "I watched the two uniformed men confront voters and attempt to intimidate voters. They were positioned in a location that forced every voter to pass in close proximity to them. The weapon was openly displayed and brandished in plain sight of voters."
He also said they tried to "interfere with the work of other poll observers ... whom the uniformed men apparently believed did not share their preferences politically," noting that one of the panthers turned toward the white poll observers and said "you are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker."
(And why isn't there more outcry about it? CBSNBCABCWaPoNYTMSNBCCNN, why aren't you doing your jobs and investigating this? - Roland)
In every trial — every single trial — judges solemnly instruct American citizens who are compelled to perform jury duty that they will have a sworn obligation to decide cases objectively — without fear or favor. If a person is unwilling or unable to do that, if the person believes he or she has a bias or prejudice, especially one based on a belief that people are inferior or superior due to such factors as race, ethnicity, or sex, the person is not qualified to be a juror. Indeed, prospective jurors are told that they are not qualified if they harbor even the slightest doubt about their ability to put such considerations aside and render an impartial verdict. If the judge or the lawyer for either side senses bias, the juror is excused "for cause"...Here is the standard instruction:
You have two duties as a jury. Your first duty is to decide the facts from the evidence in the case. This is your job, and yours alone. Your second duty is to apply the law that I give you to the facts. You must follow these instructions, even if you disagree with them…. Perform these duties fairly and impartially. Do not allow sympathy, prejudice, fear, or public opinion to influence you. You should not be influenced by any person's race, color, religion, national ancestry, or sex
Would Judge Sotomayor be qualified to serve as a juror? Let's say she forthrightly explained to the court during the voir dire (the jury-selection phase of a case) that she believed a wise Latina makes better judgments than a white male; that she doubts it is actually possible to "transcend [one's] personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law"; and that there are "basic differences" in the way people "of color" exercise "logic and reasoning." If, upon hearing that, would it not be reasonable for a lawyer for one (or both) of the parties to ask the court to excuse her for cause? Would it not be incumbent on the court to grant that request?
(Additionally, the American Bar Association's Model Code of Judicial Conduct, Canon 4, clear states that a judge shall conduct all of the judge’s extra-judicial activities so that they do not cast reasonable doubt on the judge’s capacity to act impartially as a judge. When she said that she believed that she could make better decisions based on her "experience" as a latina woman than a white man, she proved that she's incapable of acting impartially. She must be disqualified. - Roland)
The war being waged against the West also is a war against modernity. For nearly a thousand years, Islam reigned supreme in much of the world. However, with the coming of the modern era -- generally seen as beginning in the 18th century -0 Christendom outpaced the Muslim world by almost every measure. Islamists believe the destruction of modernity is necessary if Islam is to regain the power to which it is entitled.
Last week, I called the Justice Department to inquire about an unusual decision they made to dismiss default judgements in a voter intimidation lawsuit the government filed under the Bush administration against the New Black Panther Party.
You remember the case of the menacing NBPP thugs who threatened voters at a Philly precinct. I blogged about it many times since the fall.
The Bush DOJ filed suit against Malik Shabazz and two of the local NBPP radicals who were on site — one with a billy club. None of them filed an answer to the lawsuit, putting them all into default. I am told this is the easiest way to win a lawsuit. But instead of taking the default judgment that DOJ is entitled to against all of the defendants, the department last week dismissed the lawsuit against two out of the three defendants. As Election Journal (which broke the story with exclusive video of the intimidation) notes, one of the individual defendants who was dismissed, Jerry Jackson, “is an elected member of the Philadelphia Democratic Committee and was a credentialed poll watcher.”
According to a legal source familiar with DOJ procedures, dismissing a lawsuit won by default is unheard of.
And so within hours of posting my Gregalogue, a bilious blogger did what bilious bloggers do best: call me a racist. Which is awesome, because it proves my point. In the world of racial politics, all you have to do is call someone a racist, and you win!
As columnist Michelle Malkin reports, La Raza seeks to inculcate young people with its worldview by funding a number of charter schools that advocate ethnic separatism and anti-American, anti-white attitudes.
With regard to national security concerns, La Raza has strongly opposed most of the U.S. government’s post-9/11 counterterrorism efforts, alleging that they have “undermined” the rights of “noncitizen Latinos.”
For example: La Raza was a signatory to a March 17, 2003 letter exhorting members of the U.S. Congress to oppose Patriot Act II on grounds that it “contain[ed] a multitude of new and sweeping law enforcement and intelligence gathering powers … that would severely dilute, if not undermine, many basic constitutional rights”; it has endorsed the Community Resolution to Protect Civil Liberties campaign, a project that tries to influence city councils to pass resolutions to be non-compliant with the provisions of the Patriot Act; it endorsed the December 18, 2001 “Statement of Solidarity with Migrants,” which was drawn up by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and called upon the U.S. government to “end discriminatory policies passed on the basis of legal status in the wake of September 11″; and it endorsed the Civil Liberties Restoration Act of 2004, which was designed to roll back, in the name of protecting civil liberties, vital national-security policies that had been adopted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
NCLR’s major policy positions also include the following:
God save us from liberal "empathy." After President Barack Obama announced his empathetic Supreme Court nominee this week, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, we found out that some people are more deserving of empathy than others.
For example, Judge Sotomayor apparently "empathized" more with New Haven, Conn., government officials than with white and Hispanic firefighters who were denied promotions by the city on the basis of their race.
Let's hope she's as empathetic to New Haven residents who die in fires fought by inferior firefighters as a result of her decision.
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