Author: kingsjester

64 year old Christian Conservative husband, father, and grandfather who has been writing since April 2010.

“Big Brother” to Be Spying on Americans Through Our Computers?

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

obamabigbroWe don’t have a domestic spying program.

What we do have are some mechanisms where we can track a a phone number or an e-mail address that we know is connected to some sort of terrorist threat, and that information is useful. But what I said before, I want to make sure I repeat, and that is we should be skeptical about the potential encroachments on privacy. None of the revelations show that government has actually abused these powers, but they’re pretty significant powers. And I’ve been talking to Congress and civil libertarians and others about are there additional ways that we can make sure that people know that nobody is listening to your phone calls? – President Barack Hussein Obama, The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, August 6, 2014

Uh huh. 

The Guardian reported the following on Friday, August 9, 2013…

The National Security Agency has a secret backdoor into its vast databases under a legal authority enabling it to search for US citizens’ email and phone calls without a warrant, according to a top-secret document passed to the Guardian by Edward Snowden.

The previously undisclosed rule change allows NSA operatives to hunt for individual Americans’ communications using their name or other identifying information. Senator Ron Wyden told the Guardian that the law provides the NSA with a loophole potentially allowing “warrantless searches for the phone calls or emails of law-abiding Americans”.

The authority, approved in 2011, appears to contrast with repeated assurances from Barack Obama and senior intelligence officials to both Congress and the American public that the privacy of US citizens is protected from the NSA’s dragnet surveillance programs.

The intelligence data is being gathered under Section 702 of the of the Fisa Amendments Act (FAA), which gives the NSA authority to target without warrant the communications of foreign targets, who must be non-US citizens and outside the US at the point of collection.

Let’s look at a couple of stories which hit the news, yesterday. Which, although, on the surface,are seemingly unrelated, are quite thought-provoking when reviewed together.

The first story revolves around the fact that “Big Brother” has been spying on our enemies through their computers. The New York Times reports that

The National Security Agency has implanted software in nearly 100,000 computers around the world that allows the United States to conduct surveillance on those machines and can also create a digital highway for launching cyberattacks.

While most of the software is inserted by gaining access to computer networks, the N.S.A. has increasingly made use of a secret technology that enables it to enter and alter data in computers even if they are not connected to the Internet, according to N.S.A. documents, computer experts and American officials.

The technology, which the agency has used since at least 2008, relies on a covert channel of radio waves that can be transmitted from tiny circuit boards and USB cards inserted surreptitiously into the computers. In some cases, they are sent to a briefcase-size relay station that intelligence agencies can set up miles away from the target.

The radio frequency technology has helped solve one of the biggest problems facing American intelligence agencies for years: getting into computers that adversaries, and some American partners, have tried to make impervious to spying or cyberattack. In most cases, the radio frequency hardware must be physically inserted by a spy, a manufacturer or an unwitting user.

The N.S.A. calls its efforts more an act of “active defense” against foreign cyberattacks than a tool to go on the offensive. But when Chinese attackers place similar software on the computer systems of American companies or government agencies, American officials have protested, often at the presidential level.

Among the most frequent targets of the N.S.A. and its Pentagon partner, United States Cyber Command, have been units of the Chinese Army, which the United States has accused of launching regular digital probes and attacks on American industrial and military targets, usually to steal secrets or intellectual property. But the program, code-named Quantum, has also been successful in inserting software into Russian military networks and systems used by the Mexican police and drug cartels, trade institutions inside the European Union, and sometime partners against terrorism like Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan, according to officials and an N.S.A. map that indicates sites of what the agency calls “computer network exploitation.”

The other story that caught my eye concerns the 44th President of these United States, Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) and an off-the-cuff remark he made, yesterday.

The CBS Affiliate in Washington, DC has the story…

Calling for “all hands on deck” to assist the economy, President Barack Obama is urging his Cabinet to identify ways to keep his administration relevant to people struggling in the up-and-down recovery.

With two weeks left before delivering an economy-focused State of the Union address to Congress, Obama is picking up the pace of his jobs message and demonstrating how he can advance his economic agenda administratively and through his ability to coax action from important interest groups.

“We’re not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help they need. I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone,” Obama said Tuesday as he convened his first Cabinet meeting of the year.

Obama continued: ”And I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward in helping to make sure our kids are getting the best education possible, making sure that our businesses are getting the kind of support and help they need to grow and advance, to make sure that people are getting the skills that they need to get those jobs that our businesses are creating.”

Okay. I can hear all the Liberal Trolls who read my Blog (slowly,. because of the big words) shrieking at the top of their lungs, “The president is talking about using Executive Powers to make make things better for normal folks and…and…to create jobs….and…and…to save families! He would not do anything to harm us! He loves us!”

Uh huh. Well, please ask Check Heath, Sr. how much POTUS loves him. Since 2008, he has received a Proctological Exam, courtesy of the Internal Revenue Service, no less than 6 times! His Crime? He’s Sarah Palin’s Dad.

Given Obama’s previous track record of using the IRS as his Palace Guard, I would say that the odds of Obama allowing the Computer-Invasive Technology to be used domestically are pretty good.

Everybody sing: 

Every step you take, every move you make, every vow you break, I’ll be watching you.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Declassified Documents Prove That Obama Knew the Truth About Benghazi As It Happened.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

BenghaziWhiteHouseOn September 11, 2012, 4 brave Americans, including US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stephens, were savagely murdered on the grounds of the US Embassy Compound in Benghazi.

On September 25, 2012, United States President Barack Hussein Obama, appeared before the United Nations General Assembly, to address the circumstances of the massacre. Here are the words he spoke, before representatives of the entire world:

…At times, the conflicts arise along the fault lines of race or tribe; and often they arise from the difficulties of reconciling tradition and faith with the diversity and interdependence of the modern world. In every country, there are those who find different religious beliefs threatening; in every culture, those who love freedom for themselves must ask themselves how much they are willing to tolerate freedom for others.

That is what we saw play out in the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world. Now, I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity. It is an insult not only to Muslims, but to America as well – for as the city outside these walls makes clear, we are a country that has welcomed people of every race and every faith. We are home to Muslims who worship across our country. We not only respect the freedom of religion – we have laws that protect individuals from being harmed because of how they look or what they believe. We understand why people take offense to this video because millions of our citizens are among them.

…The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. But to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see in the images of Jesus Christ that are desecrated, or churches that are destroyed, or the Holocaust that is denied. Let us condemn incitement against Sufi Muslims, and Shia pilgrims. It is time to heed the words of Gandhi: “Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.” Together, we must work towards a world where we are strengthened by our differences, and not defined by them. That is what America embodies. That’s the vision we will support.

When he gave this speech, in front of representatives of countries all over the world, Obama already knew that the murders of Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods were committed by Muslim Terrorists…members of al Qaeda.

Let that sink in for a moment.

The Leader of the Free World LIED.

Last night, James Rosen of Fox News reported that

Minutes after the American consulate in Benghazi came under assault on Sept. 11, 2012, the nation’s top civilian and uniformed defense officials — headed for a previously scheduled Oval Office session with President Obama — were informed that the event was a “terrorist attack,” declassified documents show. The new evidence raises the question of why the top military men, one of whom was a member of the president’s Cabinet, allowed him and other senior Obama administration officials to press a false narrative of the Benghazi attacks for two weeks afterward.

Gen. Carter Ham, who at the time was head of AFRICOM, the Defense Department combatant command with jurisdiction over Libya, told the House in classified testimony last year that it was him who broke the news about the unfolding situation in Benghazi to then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The tense briefing — in which it was already known that U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens had been targeted and had gone missing — occurred just before the two senior officials departed the Pentagon for their session with the commander in chief.

According to declassified testimony obtained by Fox News, Ham — who was working out of his Pentagon office on the afternoon of Sept. 11 — said he learned about the assault on the consulate compound within 15 minutes of its commencement, at 9:42 p.m. Libya time, through a call he received from the AFRICOM Command Center.

“My first call was to General Dempsey, General Dempsey’s office, to say, ‘Hey, I am headed down the hall. I need to see him right away,'” Ham told lawmakers on the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation on June 26 of last year. “I told him what I knew. We immediately walked upstairs to meet with Secretary Panetta.”

Ham’s account of that fateful day was included in some 450 pages of testimony given by senior Pentagon officials in classified, closed-door hearings conducted last year by the Armed Services subcommittee. The testimony, given under “Top Secret” clearance and only declassified this month, presents a rare glimpse into how information during a crisis travels at the top echelons of America’s national security apparatus, all the way up to the president.

Also among those whose secret testimony was declassified was Dempsey, the first person Ham briefed about Benghazi. Ham told lawmakers he considered it a fortuitous “happenstance” that he was able to rope Dempsey and Panetta into one meeting, so that, as Ham put it, “they had the basic information as they headed across for the meeting at the White House.” Ham also told lawmakers he met with Panetta and Dempsey when they returned from their 30-minute session with President Obama on Sept. 11.

Armed Services Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., sitting in on the subcommittee’s hearing with Ham last June, reserved for himself an especially sensitive line of questioning: namely, whether senior Obama administration officials, in the very earliest stages of their knowledge of Benghazi, had any reason to believe that the assault grew spontaneously out of a demonstration over an anti-Islam video produced in America.

…”In your discussions with General Dempsey and Secretary Panetta,” McKeon asked, “was there any mention of a demonstration or was all discussion about an attack?” Ham initially testified that there was some “peripheral” discussion of this subject, but added “at that initial meeting, we knew that a U.S. facility had been attacked and was under attack, and we knew at that point that we had two individuals, Ambassador Stevens and Mr. [Sean] Smith, unaccounted for.”

…The day after the attacks, which marked the first killing of an American ambassador in the line of duty since 1979, Obama strode to the Rose Garden to comment on the loss, taking pains in his statement to say: “We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.” As late as Sept. 24, during an appearance on the talk show “The View,” when asked directly by co-host Joy Behar if Benghazi had been “an act of terrorism,” the president hedged, saying: “Well, we’re still doing an investigation.”

The declassified transcripts show that beyond Ham, Panetta and Dempsey, other key officers and channels throughout the Pentagon and its combatant commands were similarly quick to label the incident a terrorist attack.

Remember when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton finally appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, last January, one month after being called?

Senator Ron Johnson interrogated her about the administration’s conflicting explanations for the Sept. 11th attack.

She rudely replied,

With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.

Right off-hand, Hil, I can think of a way to ensure that the Dereliction of Duty and downright treasonous non-action which took place in the White House on the night of September 11, 2012, will never be repeated.

And, I quote:

The Constitution, Article II, Section 4:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

The Constitution, Article I, Section 3:

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

Judgment in Cases of Impeachments shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust, or Profit under the United States, but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment, and Punishment, according to Law.

The President of the United States and his Administration intentionally lied about the murders of American citizens to further their own Political/Religious Ideology and Political Machinations.

And, for this, both Obama and his Administration, who are supposed to be working for us, need to answer to us for their Dereliction of Duty and the sacrificing of 4 Brave Americans for Political Expediency.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Supreme Court to Rule on Obama’s Abuse of Executive Powers

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

obamaburningconstitution…He [the President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session. – Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution

TheHill.com reports that

Nothing less than the boundaries of executive power are at stake Monday as the Supreme Court considers whether President Obama violated the Constitution during his first term.

Oral arguments slated for Monday will center on a trio of recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that were deemed unconstitutional by lower courts.

If they uphold the decision, experts say the justices could endanger hundreds of NLRB decisions.

Even more significant are the ramifications for future presidents, with the court poised either to bolster or blunt the chief executive’s appointment powers.

“Rulings like this have implications that last for centuries,” said Michael Lotito, an employment and labor attorney and co-chairman of Littler Mendelson’s Workplace Policy Institute.

Presidents have for decades used recess appointment powers when the Senate is away to install judges and fill top federal vacancies that ordinarily would be subject to confirmation proceedings.

But with the disputed NLRB appointments, Obama became the first president to appoint nominees when the Senate was in a “pro-forma” session, when the upper chamber is briefly called to order and adjourned every few days.

The sessions are intended to prevent recess appointments, and usually only a handful of senators are present for them. In filling the NLRB posts, the Obama administration claims that the Senate is generally not available to conduct business during the sessions, so the president’s recess appointment power is in effect.

“The sham pro-forma sessions are nothing more than that,” said Catholic University law professor Victor Williams, who filed a brief backing the government’s position.

The impetus for recess appointments has faded now that Senate Democrats have changed their chamber’s rules to allow for a simple majority vote on presidential nominees. Nevertheless, the case could stunt Obama’s and future presidents’ authority when it comes to staffing administrations.

The case was brought by Noel Canning, an Oregon-based soft drink bottling and distribution company that challenged the appointments as unconstitutional.

In January of last year, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.

The appellate court ruling under now review at the Supreme Court found a narrow window for the president to make recess appointments. Under its decision, the president can only make such appointments when the Senate is in recess between sessions of Congress, and only if a vacancy occurred in that same time period.

That goes well against protocol adopted by past Democratic and Republican presidents. A Congressional Service Research report found 329 such appointments since 1981 that would not meet that criteria and would be ruled void if the appeals court decision was law.

Some see the fight against the labor board as a broader effort in which opponents have sought to stymie the Obama administration’s rules and regulations.

“I think the battle against the NLRB over the last few years has been a proxy war about the proper role and scope of government,” said Wilma Liebman, who served as chairwoman of the NLRB from January 2009 to August 2011.

Yesterday, on Fox News, Senator Ted Cruz said,

The pattern we’ve seen under President Obama, disregarding the law, is really one of the most troubling aspects of this presidency,” he said. “When he disagrees with the law…he simply refuses to comply with it.

He is exactly right. For instance, he had his Attorney General, Eric Holder, announce the other day that the Administration would not recognize the will of voters in Utah concerning their banning of Gay Marriage in that state. An activist judge had previously struck down the vote, only for the judge’s decision to be “stayed” by the Supreme Court.

An out-of-control Executive Branch is the antithesis of what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they created our Constitutional Republic. Those wise men created a government unlike any other on God’s green Earth, devising a government whose system of checks and balances would provide a natural defense against a megalomaniac assuming dictatorial powers and bypassing the Constritution, in the manner in which the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue most certainly has.

Just as we are facing today, our founders knew that we would face challenges as a nation.

Once they had won their Freedom, and formed their new nation, our Founding Fathers set upon the task of putting quill to paper, creating a Constitution, stating for all the world to know, the rights, given to them by their Creator, which they would put in place as the guidelines upon which they would carry this new nation to its destiny.

Outside Independence Hall, when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

A ruling today against Obama’s usurpation of Executive Powers will be a great step in ensuring that we keep our Constitutional Republic.

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. – James Madison

Until He Comes,

KJ

The Push For “Income Equality”: “From Each According to His Abilities, to Each According to His Needs”

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

Obama-Shrinks-2The capitalist maintains his rights as a purchaser when he tries to make the working-day as long as possible, and to make, whenever possible, two working-days out of one. On the other hand, the peculiar nature of the commodity sold implies a limit to its consumption by the purchaser, and the laborer maintains his right as seller when he wishes to reduce the working-day to one of definite normal duration. There is here, therefore, an antinomy, right against right, both equally bearing the seal of the law of exchanges. Between equal rights force decides. Hence is it that in the history of capitalist production, the determination of what is a working-day, presents itself as the result of a struggle, a struggle between collective capital, i.e., the class of capitalists, and collective labour, i.e., the working-class. – Marx, Das Kapital, an excerpt from the personal blog of Rick Bookstaber, Research Principal, Office of Financial Research, (an office created by the Dodd-Frank Law) May 7, 2012

For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it. We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class. We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work; when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship. We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American; she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own. – Second Inaugural Address of Barack Hussein Obama, January 21, 2013

On December 4. 2013, before he and his family left for a $4 million dollar Holiday Vacation, paid for by the citizens of the United States of America, which First Lady Michelle Obama has yet to return from, President Barack Hussein Obama delivered a speech on “Income Inequality”  to a handpicked group from the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress. Here is an excerpt,

As values of community broke down, and competitive pressure increased, businesses lobbied Washington to weaken unions and the value of the minimum wage. As a trickle-down ideology became more prominent, taxes were slashed for the wealthiest, while investments in things that make us all richer, like schools and infrastructure, were allowed to wither. And for a certain period of time, we could ignore this weakening economic foundation, in part because more families were relying on two earners as women entered the workforce. We took on more debt financed by a juiced-up housing market. But when the music stopped, and the crisis hit, millions of families were stripped of whatever cushion they had left.

And the result is an economy that’s become profoundly unequal, and families that are more insecure. I’ll just give you a few statistics. Since 1979, when I graduated from high school, our productivity is up by more than 90 percent, but the income of the typical family has increased by less than eight percent. Since 1979, our economy has more than doubled in size, but most of that growth has flowed to a fortunate few.

The top 10 percent no longer takes in one-third of our income — it now takes half. Whereas in the past, the average CEO made about 20 to 30 times the income of the average worker, today’s CEO now makes 273 times more. And meanwhile, a family in the top 1 percent has a net worth 288 times higher than the typical family, which is a record for this country.

So the basic bargain at the heart of our economy has frayed. In fact, this trend towards growing inequality is not unique to America’s market economy. Across the developed world, inequality has increased. Some of you may have seen just last week, the Pope himself spoke about this at eloquent length. “How can it be,” he wrote, “that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?”

But this increasing inequality is most pronounced in our country, and it challenges the very essence of who we are as a people. Understand we’ve never begrudged success in America. We aspire to it. We admire folks who start new businesses, create jobs, and invent the products that enrich our lives. And we expect them to be rewarded handsomely for it. In fact, we’ve often accepted more income inequality than many other nations for one big reason — because we were convinced that America is a place where even if you’re born with nothing, with a little hard work you can improve your own situation over time and build something better to leave your kids. As Lincoln once said, “While we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else.”

The problem is that alongside increased inequality, we’ve seen diminished levels of upward mobility in recent years. A child born in the top 20 percent has about a 2-in-3 chance of staying at or near the top. A child born into the bottom 20 percent has a less than 1-in-20 shot at making it to the top. He’s 10 times likelier to stay where he is. In fact, statistics show not only that our levels of income inequality rank near countries like Jamaica and Argentina, but that it is harder today for a child born here in America to improve her station in life than it is for children in most of our wealthy allies — countries like Canada or Germany or France. They have greater mobility than we do, not less.

The idea that so many children are born into poverty in the wealthiest nation on Earth is heartbreaking enough. But the idea that a child may never be able to escape that poverty because she lacks a decent education or health care, or a community that views her future as their own, that should offend all of us and it should compel us to action. We are a better country than this.

Dr. Thomas Sowell, the brilliant American Economist (who just happens to be black) wrote the following profound statement in an article titled ” “Who Are the ‘1 Percent’?”, posted on nationalreview,com, on August 1, 2012

All sorts of statements are made in politics and in the media as if that top 1 percent is an enduring class of people, rather than an ever-changing collection of individuals who have a spike in their income in a particular year for one reason or another. Turnover in other income brackets is also substantial.

There is nothing mysterious about this. Most people start out at the bottom, in entry-level jobs, and their incomes rise over time as they acquire more skills and experience.

Politicians and media talking heads love to refer to people who are in the bottom 20 percent in income in a given year as “the poor.” But, following the same individuals for 10 or 15 years usually shows the great majority of those individuals moving into higher income brackets.

The number who reach the top 20 percent greatly exceeds the number still stuck in the bottom 20 percent over the years. But such mundane facts cannot compete for attention with the moral melodramas conjured up by politicians and the media when they discuss “the rich” and “the poor.”

There are people who are genuinely rich and genuinely poor, in the sense of having very high or very low incomes for most, if not all, of their lives. But “the rich” and “the poor” in this sense are unlikely to add up to even 10 percent of the population.

Ironically, those who make the most noise about income disparities or poverty contribute greatly to policies that promote both. The welfare state enables millions of people to meet their needs with little or no income-earning work on their part.

Most of the economic resources used by people in the bottom 20 percent come from sources other than their own incomes. There are veritable armies of middle-class people who make their livings transferring resources, in a variety of ways, from those who created those resources to those who live off them.

These transferrers exist in both government and private social-welfare institutions. They have every incentive to promote dependency, from which they benefit both professionally and psychically, and to imagine that they are creating social benefits.

For different reasons, both politicians and the media have incentives to spread misconceptions with statistics. So long as we keep buying it, they will keep selling it.

With his “empire” and popularity rapidly tanking, Obama and his enablers have decided to ramp up the politic rhetoric used so well and so often by followers of Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky…and, not-so-coincidentally,  Community Organizers, as will:  the incendiary rhetoric of Class Warfare.

The harsh truth of the matter is the fact that America remains the Land of Opportunity…if you are willing, Pookie, to get your Cheetos-eating rear end up of the couch and work for it.

The Founding Fathers established a nation found on the principle that

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

“Income Equality” (i.e., Marxism) was never mentioned.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Common Core: Political Ideological Goals Trumping Educational Ones

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

pledgeofallegianceBy now, if you haven’t been living under a rock, like those guys in the old Geico Commercial, you have probably heard of  Common Core.

This is a curriculum being taught in 45 states, whose official purpose is to set a national standard for what American Students in our public schools should know at each grade level.

In other words, it is a “cookie cutter” approach to education.

And, according to Conservative Pundit, Michelle Malkin, it is something that definitely needs to be watched over by concerned parents…

For decades, collectivist agitators in our schools have chipped away at academic excellence in the name of fairness, diversity, and social justice. “Progressive” reformers denounced Western-civilization requirements, the Founding Fathers, and the Great Books as racist. They attacked traditional grammar classes as irrelevant in modern life. They deemed grouping students by ability to be bad for self-esteem. They replaced time-tested rote techniques and standard algorithms with fuzzy math, inventive spelling, and multicultural claptrap.

Under President Obama, these top-down mal-formers — empowered by Washington education bureaucrats and backed by misguided liberal philanthropists led by billionaire Bill Gates — are now presiding over a radical makeover of your children’s school curriculum. It’s being done in the name of federal “Common Core” standards that do anything but set the achievement bar high.

Common Core was enabled by Obama’s federal stimulus law and his Department of Education’s “Race to the Top” gimmickry. The administration bribed cash-starved states into adopting unseen instructional standards as a condition of winning billions of dollars in grants. Even states that lost their bids for Race to the Top money were required to commit to a dumbed-down and amorphous curricular “alignment.”

In practice, Common Core’s dubious “college-ready” and “career-ready” standards undermine local control of education, usurp state autonomy over curricular materials, and foist untested, mediocre, and incoherent pedagogical theories on America’s schoolchildren.

You may be saying to yourself, “Malkin’s gone off the deep end again. It’s just a simple Educational Program. Right?

Wrong.

Fox News reports that…

It’s exactly what critics of the Common Core school curriculum warned about: Partisan political statements masquerading as English lessons finding their way into elementary school classrooms.

Teaching materials aligned with the controversial national educational standards ask fifth-graders to edit such sentences as “(The president) makes sure the laws of the country are fair,” “The wants of an individual are less important than the well-being of the nation” and “the commands of government officials must be obeyed by all.” The sentences, which appear in worksheets published by New Jersey-based Pearson Education, are presented not only for their substance, but also to teach children how to streamline bulky writing.

“Parents should insist on reviewing their children’s school assignments,” said Glyn Wright, executive director of the Eagle Forum, a think tank that opposes implementation of Common Core. “Many parents will be shocked to find that some ‘Common Core-approved’ curriculum is full of inappropriate left-wing notions, disinformation, and fails to teach the truth of American exceptionalism and opportunity.”

The politically charged lesson appears in a worksheet titled “Hold the Flag High,” in which students are taught about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. The assignment asks students to make examples of sentences; “less wordy by replacing the underlined words with a possessive noun phrase.” They are then presented with a half-dozen sentences describing the job duties of a U.S. president.

But if the lessons are meant as a primer on the Constitution, there’s another problem, note critics. The job of making sure laws are fair is not the president’s, but the judicial branch’s. The executive branch’s duty is to administer laws. And the example that places the well-being of the nation above the “wants of an individual” appears to run counter to the basic principles of the Bill of Rights.

There is another danger with Common Core…one that you would find in the old Soviet Union or Modern China.

Conservative/Libertarian Talk Show Host Glenn Beck explains…

One of the aspects of Common Core that hasn’t been discussed at any great length is the idea of creating a new generation, a new work force that has been educated in a specific way.

“Could we, could we just look at that, though, for a second because on the surface, that does sound good. That, oh, they’re going to train for a job. Okay. You’ve got a corporation training people not by choice,” Glenn said. “Let’s say the Glenn Beck School of Broadcast. If you want to come to the Glenn Beck School of Broadcast, you can come to the Glenn Beck School of Broadcast and I’ll teach your kids about history and everything else, all the way up because it will provide great new reporters for TheBlaze, great new filmmakers for TheBlaze. That’s great. That would be your choice.”

“But if Glenn Beck was putting in all of this money and dumping it in because I say ‘I’m going to have all these new trained workers and I’m going to help design the curriculum and everything else,’ if I and a group of other industrialists were all getting together and saying, ‘Let’s do this because this is going to be good for us,’ that’s evil,” he continued.

“That’s one of the aspects of this Common Core thing we haven’t really talked about much is that part of this plan is to pigeonhole the kids into a certain line of work. And they are going to decide, by the time they are in junior high or something, middle school. The plan is to know whether they are going to be a technician, a mechanic or a doctor. And then you funnel them through that system.”

[MICROSOFT’S BILL] GATES: For the first time, there will be a large uniform base of customers eager to buy products that can help every kid learn and every teacher get better.

“So let’s just translate. So this is great because it’s going to help kids learn. But, listen to me. There are going to be a long line of customers. Uniform customers,” Glenn said. “I just have to make one product because nobody’s going to get out of that product line… He starts in the beginning talking about how this is a state run, state run, state run. No, it’s not. Why is the U.N. involved in this? It’s state‑run. The governors have been convinced, ‘Oh, they came up with this. No, they didn’t. Don’t you see, you governors, you’ve been played. Now, an honest governor will come out in an honest moment and reflect and say, ‘Gosh, was I played? Wait a minute. What?’ These governors are all taking ownership of this and they didn’t have anything to do with it. And they want to believe that they are changing everything for the better, and they are not.”

“We are dealing with evil. And if you want to look at it just from the standpoint of not manipulating our children with their data and everything else, just look at it. Leftists, just look at it as gigantic corporations going in and controlling your children’s future. Don’t you want your child to be able to say, ‘No, there’s more to me than an employee of Microsoft.’ ‘There’s more to me than an employee of GE or an employee of Google,’” Glenn continued. “Maybe my kid wants to put Google and Microsoft out of business. There’s more to me than just a worker for somebody else. I mean, it’s incredible how we are enslaving ourselves and doing it so clearly.”

For example, in the state of Mississippi, the preparation for a student’s “Common Core Career Path” starts with a computer survey, taken in Middle School. The student answers questions about their likes and dislikes, and, if they have a future job already chosen. After the Guidance Counselor and other School Officials analyze the results of the Survey, they sit down with the students, and map out the rest of their scholastic days, setting a class schedule which would best prepare them for their “Career Choice”.

Since I heard about this “Brave New World” in Education, my question has always been: What if, in, say, 12th Grade, they decide that they would rather have a different job than what they chose for themselves in Middle School?

By that time, they are out of luck, having only had those courses which met the criteria of being applicable to their original job choice.

It seems to me that between the Socialist Ideology being taught in Common Core English Lessons, and the pigeon-holing of students through the use of the “Career Path” initiative, American kids are being programmed by the State (as in the Federal Government).

Sound familiar?

If you put together the information I reported on yesterday, concerning the Discipline Guidelines, issued by the Department of Justice and the Department of Education, the anti-bully (pro-homosexual) national campaign still going on in schools, and the attempts to bar Christianity from America’s Public Schools, it creates a scenario, in many ways, reminiscent of the old Soviet Union.

Somehow, I believe that our Founding Fathers would not have viewed this as the the purpose of an American Education,do you?

Until He Comes,

KJ

DOJ to America’s Schools: “Spare the Rod”…or, You’re Racists!

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

children41313On Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Department of Justice, on behalf of the Obama Administration was issuing a national set of disciplinary guidelines for America’s Public Schools to follow.

According to Breitbart.com:

The Obama administration is urging schools to abandon overly zealous discipline policies that civil rights advocates have long said lead to a school-to-prison pipeline that discriminates against minority students.

The wide-ranging series of guidelines issued Wednesday in essence tells schools that they must adhere to the principle of fairness and equity in student discipline or face strong action if they don’t. The American Civil Liberties Union called the recommendations “ground-breaking.”

“A routine school disciplinary infraction should land a student in the principal’s office, not in a police precinct,” Attorney General Eric Holder said.

Holder said the problem often stems from well intentioned “zero-tolerance” policies that too often inject the criminal justice system into the resolution of problems. Zero tolerance policies, a tool that became popular in the 1990s, often spell out uniform and swift punishment for offenses such as truancy, smoking or carrying a weapon. Violators can lose classroom time or become saddled with a criminal record.

Police have become a more common presence in American schools since the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999.

In American schools, black students without disabilities were more than three times as likely as whites to be expelled or suspended, according to government civil rights data collection from 2011-2012. Although black students made up 15 percent of students in the data collection, they made up more than a third of students suspended once, 44 percent of those suspended more than once and more than a third of students expelled.

More than half of students involved in school-related arrests or referred to law enforcement were Hispanic or black, according to the data.

The recommendations encourage schools to ensure that all school personnel are trained in classroom management, conflict resolution and approaches to de-escalate classroom disruptions.

I obtained a copy of the Guidelines, which I found rather easily online. According to the DOJ and the Dept. of Ed.,

The Departments recognize that disparities in student discipline rates in a school or district may be caused by a range of factors. However, research suggests that the substantial racial disparities of the kind reflected in the CRDC data are not explained by more frequent or more serious misbehavior by students of color. Although statistical and quantitative data would not end an inquiry under Title IV or Title VI, significant and unexplained racial disparities in student discipline give rise to concerns that schools may be engaging in racial discrimination that violates the Federal civil rights laws. For instance, statistical evidence may indicate that groups of students have been subjected to different treatment or that a school policy or practice may have an adverse discriminatory impact. Indeed, t e De me s’ investigations, which consider quantitative data as part of a wide array of evidence, have revealed racial discrimination in the administration of student discipline. For example, in our investigations we have found cases where African-American students were disciplined more harshly and more frequently because of their race than similarly situated white students. In short, racial discrimination in school discipline is a real problem.

The CRDC data also show that an increasing number of students are losing important instructional time due to exclusionary discipline. The increasing use of disciplinary sanctions such as in-school and out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, or referrals to law enforcement authorities creates the potential for significant, negative educational and long-term outcomes, and can contribute to what is called the “school to prison” pipeline.” Studies have suggested a correlation between exclusionary discipline policies and practices and an array of serious educational, economic, and social problems, including school avoidance and diminished educational engagement; decreased academic achievement; increased behavior problems; increased likelihood of dropping out; substance abuse; and involvement with juvenile justice systems.

As a result, this guidance is critically needed to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to learn and grow in school.

In other words, School Administrators and teachers who actually expect “children of color” to behave themselves in class are nothing but a bunch of RAAACIIISTS.

The problem is , nowadays the children are already out-of-control by the time they get to Pre-school.

For example: 

A Nebraska toddler who repeated a slew of profanities in an online video has been taken into child protective custody, Omaha police said Wednesday.

While authorities found nothing criminal in the video, officials from the Omaha police’s Child Victim Unit and the Nebraska Child Protective Services took the infant and three other children into custody on Wednesday, the police department said on its Facebook page.

The joint investigation found safety concerns, the statement said.

…In the video, the diapered child is bombarded with obscenities and racial slurs by the adults around him.

The African-American toddler knocks down a chair and gives nearly as good as he gets, responding to some of the comments with an upraised middle finger and telling one of the adults at one point, “Shut up, bitch.” The adults laugh and prompt him to repeat other crudities.

Within the last couple of years, I have had the occasion to work inside of a Middle School. I watched School Administrators and Teachers, black and white, deal with kids rolling their eyes and mouthing off at them.

In the state where I live, corporal punishment is still allowed, although parents can opt out, in favor of a home suspension.

I watched appropriate discipline being administered fairly.

In fact, I marveled at the patient of educators dealing with those “problem children”. Back in my day, their “discipline problem” would have been taken care of at home.

The problem educators are facing, quite frankly, can be traced back to the fact that 72% of black babies are being born out-of-wedlock, and grow up without a stable male authority figure in their life.

The life lessons that are essential to the development of a child and that encourage their ability to learn, are not being taught at home. And, due to the “popular culture”, neither is respect for authority, especially women in authority.

The Department of Justice and the Department of Education are targeting the wrong adults in these children’s lives.

They need to address those responsible for the behavior: the parents and the children.

They are the arsonists responsible for this fire. America’s School Administrators and Teachers, black and white, are Firefighters trying to keep the blaze under control…and, they’re running out of water.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Are New Jersey’s “Governor Zeppelin’s” Presidential Aspirations Going Down in Flames? Oh, The Humanity!

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

Chris Christie CartoonNew Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the Keynote Speaker of last year’s Republican Convention, finds himself at the center of some political chicanery, that just may shoot out of the sky any aspirations he may be floating to be the Republican Presidential Candidate in 2016.

The political shenanigans involve lane closures on the George Washington Bridge.  Gov. Christie spoke out on the matter yesterday, as the local CBS affiliate reported:

“What I’ve seen today for the first time is unacceptable. I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge. One thing is clear: this type of behavior is unacceptable and I will not tolerate it because the people of New Jersey deserve better. This behavior is not representative of me or my Administration in any way, and people will be held responsible for their actions,” the governor said in a statement.

As CBS 2’s Jessica Schneider reported, Christie had said previously that no one in his office or his campaign knew about the lane closures back in September.

But the email and text messages between Christie’s deputy chief of staff and the governor’s appointees to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey show a seemingly deliberate effort to create traffic gridlock by shutting Fort Lee’s access to the George Washington Bridge after its mayor refused to endorse Christie for re-election.

“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” Christie aide Bridget Anne Kelly wrote to David Wildstein, a top political appointee at the Port Authority, which runs the George Washington Bridge, one of the world’s busiest spans.

“Got it,” Wildstein reportedly replied before ordering the closures.

Kelly wrote the email on Aug. 13, about a month before two of three local access lanes to the bridge were diverted, causing hour-long backups in Fort Lee during the first week of school. The lane closures were not announced in advance.

“They are the children of Buono voters,” Kelly joked – referring to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Barbara Buono who was challenging Christie.

Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat, said the now-public documents have confirmed his suspicions.

“I didn’t want to jump in to this arena because I’ve got enough to do in Fort Lee. But it’s now pretty clear that there’s intentionality involved,” he told WCBS 880′s Levon Putney.

State Democrats have long said the gridlock-inducing lane closures were political retaliation.

“I don’t know if this is comical or if it’s criminal. We went through absolute hell and misery here in Fort Lee for four days,” said Sokolich.

For those of you who have not been paying attention, Chris Christie, or “Goveror Zeppelin” as he was named by my friend, New Jersey native Gene Hoyas, has long been considered to be the Republican Establishment’s top choice to be their Presidential Candidate in 2016.

Never mind that he betrayed 2012 Republican Candidate Mitt Romney by having a bromance with President Barack Hussein Obama, as he visited New Jersey on a photo op, touring the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy.

The fact of the matter is that Reagan Conservatives, down here in America’s Heartland, “Flyover Country”, if you will, never trusted Gov.  Zeppelin to begin with.

Let’s face it: Christie is not a Conservative. He claims to be one…but he isn’t. He is, at best, a Political Moderate, or a “Squish”.

Kurt Schlichter, writing for Townhall.com in an article posted last November, nails the way Conservatives feel about the Vichy Republican’s potential 2016 Presidential Nominee:

We feel you’re in it for yourself and that if you get elected your administration will be a festival of squishiness that would make George W. Bush look like Ted Cruz.

Getting up to talk about Mitt Romney and talking about yourself? Classless. Getting in a micturition contest with conservative warrior Rand Paul? Lame. And don’t delude yourself that we are mad because you hugged the President on the eve of the election. Our beef was your evident glee, as if you were publicly repudiating our imagined “irrational hatred.” We had beefs with Mitt Romney, but we respected him as a decent man and we saw your act as a cheap backstab designed to promote yourself when he needed you most.

…We think that you think we’re stupid. Call it a feeling or a vibe, but we are used to a certain class of Republican acting as if conservatives are drooling morons. Inevitably, these same GOP geniuses are the ones who prattled on and on about the electability of McCain and Romney. Note that they’re also giddy about you.

Whenever the fawning mainstream media – let’s see how fawning it is once you start endangering Hillary – interviews you, you always have a long list of things we conservatives have done wrong. You never offer us much credit for the little things we’ve done right, like – oh, I dunno – winning back the House.

We suspect your attitude demonstrates a willingness to disregard our concerns. After all, who cares what a bunch of dummies thinks, right? Just keep in mind that if these “dummies” stay home, you get to spend 2017 running out the clock in the Garden State while being the Curley of the Three Stooges of GOP presidential failure.

You have a real problem. Right now, a lot of conservatives – I need to emphasize, a lot – are threatening to stay home if you get nominated. Go ask Presidents McCain and Romney how that works out on election night.

Of course, now that it appears that the big man is up to his suspenders in a political scandal, we Conservatives may not have to worry about staying home or holding our noise and voting for a Republican Squish, as we did in 2012.

Even if he escapes from this political crash virtually unscathed, it will damage Gov. Zeppelin’s political reputation enough to where he will be lucky to hold on to his current job.

And, that will be just fine. Americans have had enough of the Republican Presidential Candidates, chosen by the Republican Establishment.

2016 will be our Golden Opportunity.

In his 1975 speech to CPAC Ronald Reagan said that,

Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people.

Talking straight to the American People will win the day. 

Squishiness will lose…again.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Former Secretary of Defense Gates Spills the Beans About America’s Prevaricator-In-Chief

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

ObamalyingThe hottest story in the News today revolves around the revealing White House Insider Information from a soon-to-be published memoir by Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

To set up these stunning revelations properly, let’s hop in the Wayback machine, Sherman,so that we can ponder the words of a rising young wunderkind…a certain Democrat Senator from the great state of Illinois…

I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.

– then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., January 10 2007, discussing then-President Bush’s proposal for a surge of troops in Iraq

Today, 1518 days after it began, the war in Iraq rages on, with no sign of a resolution. The Iraqi people appear no closer to the settling their differences. The Iraqi government is more divided and dysfunctional than ever. The Iraqi parliament speaks of adjourning for the summer, without addressing the major issues standing in the way of a ceasefire. And our brave young servicemen and women are still fighting and dying to police someone else’s civil war… In January, I introduced a plan that already would have begun redeploying our troops out of Iraq, with the goal of removing all of our combat troops by March 31. But it also would offer enough flexibility to delay our exit in the event that the Iraqis responded with meaningful steps toward peace. I still believe in that approach, which the President vetoed earlier this month. Ultimately, I think it will become the framework for a bipartisan coalition the President can’t resist.

Today, I have reintroduced that plan.

Tomorrow, I expect cloture votes on two other proposals. One is the Reid-Feingold plan, which would begin a withdrawal of troops in 120 days and end all combat operations on April 1. The other is Senator Levin’s proposal, which would create standards and benchmarks for additional funding.

I will support both, not because I believe either is the best answer, but because I want to send a strong statement to the Iraqi government, the President and my Republican colleagues that it’s long past time to change course.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to press for my own plan, and work to find the 16 votes in the Senate to pass it with a veto-proof majority and bring our troops home quickly, safely and responsibly.

– Statement of Sen. Obama on May 15, 2007, before voting to withdrawal US combat troops from Iraq within four months, with all troops gone by March 31, 2008

The surge is not working.

– Obama for American website changed in July 2008

Now, I’m certain that Sen. Obama gathered all the pertinent facts about the proposed surge before he made those statements, aren’t you?

Are you kiddin’?

Dailymail.co.uk reports that

Hillary Rodham Clinton, a likely Democratic Party standard-bearer in the 2016 presidential contest, staked out her military-related positions in the 2008 race based on how they would play politically, according to a former secretary of defense who served in both the Obama and Bush administrations.

Describing a ‘remarkable’ exchange he witnessed, Robert Gates writes in a book due out next week that ‘Hillary told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary.’

Obama, too, ‘conceded vaguely that [his] opposition to the Iraq surge had been political,’ Gates recounts. ‘To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.’

And Gates recounts how, as the president lost faith in Gen. David Petraeus’s handling of hostilities in Afghanistan, he – Gates – lost faith in Obama’s commitment to accomplishing much of anything.

‘As I sat there,’ he recalls, ‘I thought: The president doesn’t trust his commander, can’t stand [President Hamid] Karzai, doesn’t believe in his own strategy and doesn’t consider the war to be his.’

‘For him, it’s all about getting out.’

Hillary Clinton staked out her Iraq policy in late 2006 not on a military calculation, but based on how she could aid her soon-to-come presidential campaign, according to Gates’ memoir.

Gates puts on paper his reflections about Obama’s own troop surge, a move of 30,000 armed personnel into Afghanistan meant to stabilize the country in advance of a final all-out troop withdrawal.

The commander-in-chief, he says, was ‘skeptical if not outright convinced it would fail.’

‘I never doubted Obama’s support for the troops,’ Gates insists, ‘only his support for their mission.’

Ultimately, Gates nearly quit over Obama’s hand-wringing about Afghanistan, he writes.

The Bush administration hold-over reveals in his memoir that he was ‘deeply uneasy with the Obama White House’s lack of appreciation – from the top down – of the uncertainties and unpredictability of war.’

Describing a contentious day when Obama evaluated his Afghanistan strategy, Gates recalls: ‘I came closer to resigning that day than at any other time in my tenure, though no one knew it.’

Mrs. Clinton’s cameo in the book is more brief but equally damning.

While a U.S. senator and former first lady, she announced in the days leading up to her entry in the 2008 White House race that that she opposed the George W. Bush administration’s ‘surge’ of 20,000 troops in Iraq. 

At the time, she proposed a freeze in the number of active military troops there, and suggested instead that more U.S. forces should be sent to Afghanistan to protect against a feared Taliban offensive. 

In late 2006, nearly two years before the Democrats’ nominating convention, Clinton could not afford to be seen as hawkish when other Democrats – especially Obama, her presumed principal opponent – were blaming President Bush for putting ever-more boots on the ground in the Middle East.

In the Senate, she had voted in favor of an October 2002 use-of-force resolution that put the United States on war footing against Iraq, following allegations that the dictator Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

So, Obama, a Former Collegiate Protester and Far Left Radical, can’t stand our Brightest and Best.

I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

The feeling is mutual. Back on October 23rd, 2013, theblaze.com reported that

Nine senior commanding generals have been fired by the Obama administration this year, leading to speculation by active and retired members of the military that a purge of its commanders is underway.

Retired generals and current senior commanders that have spoken with TheBlaze say the administration is not only purging the military of commanders they don’t agree with, but is striking fear in the hearts of those still serving.

The timing comes as the five branches of the U.S. armed forces are reducing staff due to budget cuts, and as U.S. troops are expected to withdraw from Afghanistan next year.

“I think they’re using the opportunity of the shrinkage of the military to get rid of people that don’t agree with them or not tow the party line. Remember, as (former White House chief of staff) Rahm Emanuel said, never waste a crisis,” a senior retired general told TheBlaze on the condition of anonymity because he still provide services to the government and fears possible retribution.

“Even as a retired general, it’s still possible for the administration to make life miserable for us. If we’re working with the government or have contracts, they can just rip that out from under us,” he said.

Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, an outspoken critic of the Obama administration, said the White House fails to take action or investigate its own, but finds it easy to fire military commanders “who have given their lives for their country.”

“Obama will not purge a civilian or political appointee because they have bought into Obama’s ideology,” Vallely said. “The White House protects their own. That’s why they stalled on the investigation into fast and furious, Benghazi and Obamacare. He’s intentionally weakening and gutting our military, Pentagon and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged.”

I don’t know why the Major General is so concerned. I’m sure that Obama’s firing of America’s Military Leadership was nothing personal.

Like his opposition to the Iraq Surge…it was strictly political.

Now…doesn’t that make everyone feel better? …And, safer?

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama and Kerry Negotiating With the Israelis…on Behalf of the Palestinians. Are You Kiddin’ Me?

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

americanisraelilapelpinAs if Obama’s failed Syrian Pep Rally and allowing Iran to continue their Uranium Enrichment Program wasn’t embarrassing enough, now the purveyors of “Smart Power!” are trying to negotiate an “agreement” between Israel and the Palestinians, which gives part of the Land of Abraham to the Palestinians.

Reuters.com reports that

Saudi King Abdullah offered his “enthusiastic support” to U.S. efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday.

The U.S. diplomat made the comment after some two hours and 40 minutes of talks with the Arab monarch, who in 2002 floated a plan to try to bring peace to the Israelis and Palestinians.

During that meeting, as well as one with the king of Jordan earlier in the day in Amman, Kerry briefed the Arab leader on his three days of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

“I want to thank his majesty for … his enthusiastic support for the efforts that are being made with respect to the peace process,” he told reporters after seeing Abdullah at a desert palace outside Riyadh under a winter rainfall.

“Today, his majesty was not just encouraging but supported our efforts in hopes that we can be successful in the days ahead,” Kerry added, saying the Saudi ruler believed a peace deal could bring “great benefits” throughout the Middle East.

On his 10th peace-making trip to the region during the last year, Kerry had tried to establish what U.S. officials call a “framework” for guidelines for any eventual peace accord.

The U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian talks resumed in July after a three-year halt, with Kerry pushing for an accord within nine months despite skepticism on both sides.

Kerry has previously asked Israel to reconsider the 2002 Arab peace plan, originally proposed by King Abdullah, which offers Israel full recognition in return for giving up land it captured in 1967 and a “just” solution for Palestinian refugees.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal also emerged from the desert talks upbeat, calling the rainfall a “great” omen and describing the meeting as “excellent.”

“There is really no meeting that could have been smoother and more productive than this meeting,” Saud al-Faisal told reporters while seated beside Kerry in an airport reception room.

“It’s a meeting that … belies any bad vibes about relations that were expressed in many of the media lately,” he added, referring to widespread reports of U.S.-Saudi strains over U.S. policy toward Iran, Syria and Egypt.

The foreign minister did not specifically echo Kerry’s comments about Saudi support for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process but he said an agreement that meets the Palestinians’ aspirations “will receive the full support of Saudi Arabia”.

From discoverthenetworks.org:

…The term “Palestine” (Falastin in Arabic) was an ancient name for the general geographic region that is more or less today’s Israel. The name derives from the Philistines, who originated from the eastern Mediterranean, and invaded the region in the 11th and 12th centuries B.C. The Philistines were apparently either from Greece, Crete, the Aegean Islands, and/or Ionia. They seem to be related to the Bronze Age Greeks, and they spoke a language akin to Mycenaean Greek. Their descendents, still living on the shores of the Mediterranean, greeted Roman invaders a thousand years later. The Romans corrupted the name to “Palestina,” and the area under the sovereignty of their city-states became known as “Philistia.” Six-hundred years later, the Arab invaders called the region “Falastin.”

Throughout subsequent history, the name remained only a vague geographical entity. There was never a nation of “Palestine,” never a people known as the “Palestinians,” nor any notion of “historic Palestine.” The region never enjoyed any sovereign autonomy, remaining instead under successive foreign sovereign domains from the Umayyads and Abbasids to the Fatimids, Ottomans, and British.

During the centuries of Ottoman rule, no Arabs under Turkish rule made any attempt to formulate an ideology of national identity, least of all the impoverished Arab peasantry in the region today known as Israel.

The term “Palestinian,” ironically, was used during the British Mandate period (1922-1948) to identify the Jews of British Mandatory Palestine.

…According to Palestinian revisionism, the Palestinians lived from time immemorial in historic Palestine, which is portrayed as a veritable paradise of flourishing orchards and fertile vineyards, teeming with happy peasants. Then, according to the mythic narrative, the Zionists came and, with the support of the British, stole the Palestinians’ land, exiled the people, and initiated a reign of terror and ethnic cleansing that has not abated until this very day.

Since the Six Day War of 1967, the Arab world’s most powerful leaders — in Egypt, Libya, Arabia, Syria, and Iraq prior to Saddam Hussein’s demise — have waged a war of words against Israel. Having failed to defeat Israel by means of naked military aggression, these leaders and their advisors decided, sometime between the end of the war and the Khartoum Conference of August-September 1967, to bring about the destruction of Israel by means of a relentless terror war.

To justify to the world their ruthless murder of Israeli civilians and their undying hatred of the West, these leaders needed to invent a narrative depicting Israel as a racist, war-mongering, oppressive, apartheid state that was illegally occupying Arab land and carrying out the genocide of an indigenous people that had a stronger claim to the land of Israel than did Israel itself.

Thus the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), under the tutelage of the Soviet KGB, invented “The Palestinian People” who allegedly had been forced to wage a war of national liberation against imperialism.

To justify this notion, Yasser Arafat, shortly after taking over as leader of the PLO, sent his adjutant, Abu Jihad (later the leader of the PLO’s military operations), to North Vietnam to study the strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare in the hopes that the PLO could emulate Ho Chi Minh’s success with left-wing sympathizers in the United States and Europe. Ho’s chief strategist, General Giap, offered advice that changed the PLO’s identity and future:

“Stop talking about annihilating Israel and instead turn your terror war into a struggle for human rights. Then you will have the American people eating out of your hand.”

Giap’s counsel was simple but profound: the PLO needed to work in a way that concealed its real goals, permitted strategic deception, and gave the appearance of moderation. And the key to all this was creating an image that would help Arafat manipulate the American and Western news media.

Arafat developed the images of the “illegal occupation” and “Palestinian national self-determination,” both of which lent his terrorism the mantle of a legitimate peoples’ resistance. After the Six Day War, Muhammad Yazid, who had been minister of information in two Algerian wartime governments (1958-1962), imparted to Arafat some wisdom that echoed the lessons he had learned in North Vietnam:

“Wipe out the argument that Israel is a small state whose existence is threatened by the Arab states, or the reduction of the Palestinian problem to a question of refugees; instead, present the Palestinian struggle as a struggle for liberation like the others. Wipe out the impression . . . that in the struggle between the Palestinians and the Zionists, the Zionist is the underdog. Now it is the Arab who is oppressed and victimized in his existence because he is not only facing the Zionists but also world imperialism.”

So, President Barack Hussein Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are asking Israel to “give back” land to the Palestinians, the Gypsies of the Middle East,who would rather kill them than look at them, in order to provide a country for them, that never existed in the first place.

This is “Smart Power”?

No. This is betraying a friend and embracing an enemy.

EPILOGUE: 

Genesis 12: 1-3 (NKJV)

12 Now the Lord had said to Abram:

“Get out of your country,

From your family

And from your father’s house,

To a land that I will show you.

2 I will make you a great nation;

I will bless you

And make your name great;

And you shall be a blessing.

3 I will bless those who bless you,

And I will curse him who curses you;

And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Now…about that “Polar Vortex”… 

Until He Comes,

KJ

Michelle Obama to Extend Hawaiian Vacation…ON OUR DIME

On By kingsjesterIn Politics7 Comments

Spain Michelle ObamaWell, President Barack Hussein Obama and his daughters are back from their Christmas Vacation in Hawaii.

However, the First Lady is not with them. She’s not through partying, yet.

According to The New York Times,

When President Obama departed Hawaii Saturday evening he left behind one notable thing — his wife, Michelle.

Mrs. Obama will be staying on Oahu for several days to spend time with friends in advance of her upcoming 50th birthday. The extended visit to the Obamas’ annual tropical getaway is part of the president’s birthday gift to his wife, who turns 50 on Jan. 17.

On Saturday, before he left, Mr. and Mrs. Obama also went on a brief, 15-minute hike on the Na Pohaku O Hauwahine trail, before the president hit the golf course for a final time.

Mr. Obama’s daughters, Sasha and Malia, joined him on the Air Force One to return to Washington. The girls are scheduled to return school on Monday.

Before the Obamas arrived in Paradise, The Hawaiian Reporter crunched a few numbers…

The President and his friends pay for the private home accommodations that rent for $25,000 per week, however taxpayers – both federal and county – pick up the majority of the bill for the rest of the trip.

Michael Tasselmyer of the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, estimates the 18-hour roundtrip aboard Air Force One, which he said costs $179,750 per hour for flight and operation, will total $3,235,500 for the roundtrip. A Congressional Research Service report released in May 2012 matches that figure.

There are reports the President might also stop on the island of Maui, a 30-minute flight from Oahu, which would add additional expense.

The cost for USAF C-17 cargo aircraft that transports the Presidential limos, helicopters and other support equipment to Hawaii has never been disclosed, but the roundtrip flight time between Andrews Air Force Base and Hawaii is 21.5 hours, with estimated operating cost of $12,000 per hour. (Source: GAO report, updated by C-17 crew member).

The U.S. Marine Corps provides a presidential helicopter, along with pilots and support crews for the test flights, which travel on another C-17 flight. That is $258,000, not including costs for the 4-to-6-member crew’s per diem and hotel.

U.S. Secret Service, Navy Seals and Coast Guard rent homes along the canal and ocean for $250 per room per night, according to residents renting their homes. Real estate source said the delegation rents at least 7 homes in the area, and arrive ahead of the President, costing taxpayers more than $183,750 for the length of the visit.

White House staff who do not stay in Kailua secure hotel rooms at the posh Moana Surfrider, A Westin Resort & Spa on Waikiki Beach. Hotel rooms typically rent for $670 a night, but the hotel offers discounted government rates for about $255 per night, according to hotel public relations manager Diana Su. The hotel does not disclose information about The White House visit. However, estimating prices for room, as well as Transient Accommodation Tax and General Excise Tax, for about two dozen staff, totals more than $100,000.

The President is accompanied by 22 vehicles, whether he goes golfing and to a basketball game with friends at his Punahou alma mater or to body surf at Sandy Beach and local favorite restaurants such as Nobu’s and Buzz’s Steakhouse.

Honolulu Police are on special duty, paid $250,000 by city taxpayers, and another $10,000 is spent on around-the-clock ambulance detail.

There are several costs the White House annually refuses to release, citing security.

For example, The White House rents an entire floor of an office building in Kailua on the canal during the President’s stay

Security upgrades, such as bulletproof glass, and additional phone lines, are added to private homes, while existing security systems are disabled.

Rental cars and fuel for staff and security, as well as additional travel costs Secret Service and White House staff traveling ahead of the President, are kept secret.

The White House has not released expenses, citing security concerns. However, the most conservative estimate, based on what is known, for a 17-day vacation in Hawaii for the President and his family and staff and security is more than $4 million.

That’s right, boys and girls, the First Lady is throwing herself a Birthday Par-tay in Paradise…ON OUR DIIME.

Must be nice. My bride and I could only afford to celebrate our birthdays together (they’re one week apart) with a dinner at Texas Roadhouse.

But, I digress…

By the way, does anyone else find it both ironic and hypocritical that, just two weeks before this extravagant vacation taken by the First Family ON OUR DIME, that Obama was making a stump speech about “Income Inequality”?

Seems to me like he’s doing pretty well for himself.

Regarding the First Lady…

In the March 10th, 2008 edition of The New Yorker, a 10 page article titled The Other Obama,  covering the future First Lady was published.  Here’s an excerpt:

Obama begins with a broad assessment of life in America in 2008, and life is not good: we’re a divided country, we’re a country that is “just downright mean,” we are “guided by fear,” we’re a nation of cynics, sloths, and complacents. “We have become a nation of struggling folks who are barely making it every day,” she said, as heads bobbed in the pews. “Folks are just jammed up, and it’s gotten worse over my lifetime. And, doggone it, I’m young. Forty-four!”

On 1/11/12, on CBS News This Morning,Michelle Obama said,

You know, I guess it’s more interesting to imagine this conflicted situation here and a strong woman and a, you know, but that’s been an image that people have tried to paint of me since, you know, the day Barack announced, that I’m some angry black woman.

Gosh, ma’am. I don’t know where we could of gotten that idea about you from.

By the way, I hope you’re enjoying your Extended Hawaiian Vacation paid for by us cynics, sloths, and complacents.

In January 2009, before he signed the colossal failure that was the $787 billion stimulus bill into law, Barack Obama lectured America saying,

Everyone must sacrifice for the greater good… Everyone must have some skin in the game.

We foolishly thought that Obama was speaking about sacrificing for the good of the country. Little did we know that he was talking about the American Public’s financing of his Family’s Extravagant Lifestyle.

Until He Comes,

KJ