Author: kingsjester

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

Obama: Of Bad Spelling and Ignored Sovereignty

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

Have you ever heard the old spelling riddle about the Buckeye State?

What’s high in the middle and round on both ends?

Evidently the 44th President of the United States never has.

The hill.com has the story:

President Obama needed a do-over to spell “Ohio” correctly on the campus of Ohio State University this week.

Although Obama and several students at a campaign stop Tuesday morning at Sloopy’s Diner on the campus of OSU tweeted out photos of the president correctly posing as the “I” in Ohio, another student supplied a photo of a spelling mishap to Mitt Romney’s campaign.

The photo, tweeted by Romney’s Ohio communications director, Christopher Maloney, shows Obama and three students all a little confused about how to spell the state’s name, with Obama holding his hands up in what seems to be an “H” and as the third letter.

“A word of advice to @BarackObama: It’s ‘O-H-I-O’ that has 18 electoral votes, not ‘O-I-H-O,’ ” Maloney tweeted.

The Washington Post incorrectly reported the photo was doctored, but Maloney told The Hill it is authentic. He said the photo was passed along to him directly by a student. There were several photos being taken by students at the diner.

More from The Hill:

♦ Obama’s Charlotte convention lacks star power of Denver

♦ Tropical Storm Isaac puts GOP convention organizers on alert

♦ Joint Chiefs head ‘disappointed’ by ex-officers anti-Obama video

♦ Akin says Ryan asked him to exit race, slams GOP ‘party bosses

♦ Soros trumps Exxon over payments to foreign governments

♦ Romney’s GOP convention bounce: How high will it go?

♦ Obama to campaign in swing states during GOP convention

“I’m sure President Obama would like a do-over of his first term as well,” Maloney added. “Ohio isn’t going to let that happen.”

Neither the White House press pool nor local reports such as the Columbus Dispatch noted the original spelling error, suggesting the confusion was brief. The pool report from the stop reads:

As he greeted another group of young women, Obama posed for a photo with three students pantomiming the O-H-I-O of Ohio State. Obama put his hands up as the letter “I.”

According to a Texas judge, if Obama somehow gets re-elected, we’ll have a lot more to worry about than just bad spelling.

DFW.CBSlocal.com reports:

A Texas leader is warning of what he calls a ‘civil war’ and possible invasion of United Nations troops if President Barack Obama is re-elected.

Lubbock County Judge Tom Head is convinced that Mr. Obama winning a second term would lead to a revolt by the American people and he’s is pushing a tax increase for the district attorney’s office and the Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office. He says the money is needed to “beef up” it’s resources in case President Obama wins the November election.

In the event of civil unrest Judge Head said he’s concerned the President would hand over sovereignty of the United States to the U.N. and that the American public would react violently.

“He’s going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the U.S. to the United Nations, what’s going to happen when that happens?” Judge Head told FOX 34 in Lubbock.

“I’m thinking worse case scenario,” Judge Head explained. “Civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe…we’re not just talking a few riots or demonstrations.”

The West Texas judge’s proposed tax increase is to help the sheriff’s office hire a law enforcement large enough to protect the county and to drive away the invaders.

“I don’t want rookies,” Head said flatly. “I want trained, equip and seasoned veteran officers to back me.”

The republican judge said that he himself will meet the enemy, “in front of their armored personnel carriers” to tell them they are not welcome, and has the county sheriff to back him up. “I don’t want U.N. troops in Lubbock County,” he said.

Tom Head, a graduate of Highland Park High School, has been a county judge since 1999.

The judge is not quite as crazy as you might think.  Back on May 31st, townhall.com reported that

The latest threat to U.S. sovereignty is the United Nations’ Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) that is being pushed by the Obama administration. LOST rises from the dead every few years. For more than thirty years, the United States has refused to become a party to LOST for good reasons. But this could be the year that the United States surrenders its sovereignty over the seas to an international body if Obama gets his way.

Under this treaty, the U.N. would have control over 71 percent of the Earth’s surface. This would be a huge step towards global governance. The Senate may vote to ratify the sea treaty as early as next week. President Ronald Reagan rejected LOST back in 1982, stating it would grant the U.N. the power to tax U.S. companies and redistribute wealth from developed to undeveloped nations.

For the first time in history, the U.N. would have the authority to collect taxes from U.S. citizens. The thought of global taxation should send goose bumps down the spine of every American.

Well, luckily, that didn’t happen. But the fact that it could have, is unthinkable.

America is a Sovereign Nation of Free People, blessed by God since its founding. We are not some third-rate European Socialist country, As Mitt Romney made very clear yesterday.

The presumptive Republican Candidate spoke at LeClaire Manufacturing in Bettendorf, Iowa, yesterday, and said that…

It is free men and women that drive our economy. Freedom is what makes America work. And President Obama, bless his heart, has tried to substitute government for free people–and it has not worked, and it will never work.

C’mon, November 6th!

Stimulating Propaganda

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

On December 13, 2010, in a post titled Obama’s Two Year Descent, I wrote the following:

Almost two years later, we have found out that the total cost of the Stimulus was 862 billion dollars, 75 billion more than expected.  Americans have also found out that it is a miserable failure.  Here is a breakdown by the numbers, courtesy of gop.com:

3.5 MILLION: Jobs Obama Promised Stimulus Would Create By End Of 2010.

3.3 MILLION: Jobs Lost Since Obama Made That Promise.
 
6.8 MILLION: Jobs Obama Must Now Create To Keep Promise By End Of 2010.
 
1.1 MILLION: Jobs Obama’s Economists Project Will Be Created By End Of 2010.
 
5.7 MILLION: Jobs By Which Obama’s Economists’ Projection Leaves Him Short In Keeping Promise. 
 
6 PERCENT: Not Surprisingly, Number Of Americans That Say Obama’s Stimulus Created Jobs.
7.7 PERCENT: Unemployment Rate When Obama Was Selling Stimulus In January 2009.
8 PERCENT: Unemployment Rate Obama Pledged Stimulus Would Prevent Us From Reaching.
9.7 PERCENT: Current Unemployment Rate.
16.5 PERCENT: Current Unemployment Rate When Underemployed And Discouraged Workers Are Included.
334,000: Americans That Have Given Up Looking For A Job Since Stimulus Was Signed.
47: States That Have Lost Jobs Since Stimulus Was Signed.
10: States That Moved From Single-Digit To Double-Digit Unemployment Rate Since Stimulus Was Signed.
$862 BILLION: Updated Cost Of Stimulus, $75 Billion Increase From Last Year’s Cost Estimate.
440: Number Of Nonexistent Congressional Districts That Received Stimulus Funds.
$6.4 BILLION: Amount Of Stimulus Funds That Went To Nonexistent Congressional Districts.
$18 MILLION: Cost Of Stimulus Website, Recovery.gov.
This catastrophic failure of a bill was actually written by the Apollo Alliance. Per discoverthenetworks.org:
Apollo Alliance exerts a powerful influence on the views and policies of the Obama administration. AA helped craft portions of the $787 billion “stimulus” legislation (officially called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) that President Obama signed into law in early 2009. Specifically, AA had a hand in writing the “clean energy and green-collar jobs provisions” of the bill, for which $86 billion was earmarked. This included funds “to build new transit and high speed rail lines, weatherize homes, develop next generation batteries for clean vehicles, scale up wind and solar power, build a modern electric grid, and train a new generation of green-collar workers.” AA recommended that the stimulus bill allocate $11 billion for the development of a so-called “Smart Grid,” which would use digital technology to deliver electricity from suppliers to consumers; ultimately the bill allocated precisely that amount to Smart Grid-related projects, including a $100 million provision for job training related to Smart Grid technology.

Confirming the magnitude of AA’s role in shaping the stimulus bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reidsaid in mid-2009: “The Apollo Alliance has been an important factor in helping us [the U.S. Senate] develop and execute a strategy that makes great progress on these goals and in motivating the public to support them.”

Now, in 2012, we have found out that “Obama Money” (as those women in Detroit called it) can buy him friends…or, at least more propaganda.

Per The Washington Times:

The Labor Department paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal stimulus funds to a public relations firm to run more than 100 commercials touting the Obama administration’s “green training” job efforts on two MSNBC cable shows, records show.

The commercials ran on MSNBC on shows hosted by Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann in 2009, but the contract didn’t report any jobs created, according to records reviewed recently by The Washington Times.

Spending reports under the federal Recovery Act show $495,000 paid to McNeely Pigott & Fox Public Relations LLC, which the Labor Department hired to raise awareness “among employers and influencers about the [Job Corps] program’s existing and new training initiatives in high growth and environmentally friendly career areas” as well as spreading the word to prospective Job Corps enrollees.

The firm ultimately negotiated ad buys for “two approved spots” airing 14 times per week for two months on “Countdown With Keith Olbermann” and “The Rachel Maddow Show,” according to a project report, which listed the number zero under a section of the report asking how many jobs had been created through the stimulus contract.

David Williams, president of the nonprofit watchdog Taxpayers Protection Alliance, called the contract “questionable” because it created no jobs and because of the placement of the ads on shows viewed as friendly to the administration’s policies.

“Hiring a PR firm does not create jobs, and this was obviously meant for selling a particular political agenda,” Mr. Williams said. “The placement really reeks of a political ad rather than a job ad, and taxpayers see through this.

“Taxpayers would be a lot happier at the end of the day to see a completed road rather than a bunch of ads on cable television,” he said.

The public relations firm did not respond to inquiries from The Times about who directed the ads to appear on MSNBC, but Labor Department officials defended the expenditures, saying the decision to place the ads on the network — now NBC News — had nothing to do with politics.

And, I’m Elvis.

Thankyaverymuch.

Akin: Was It Something I Said?

On By kingsjesterIn Politics12 Comments

Words have weight, something once said cannot be unsaid. Meaning is like a stone dropped into a pool; the ripples will spread and you cannot know what back they wash against.                                – Phillipa Gregory

Take the example of Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO).

From washingtontimes.com:

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus appeared on CNN’s Out Front on Monday evening and spoke to Erin Burnett about the controversial statements made by Rep. Todd Akins, Missouri Republican, regarding rape. He called for Mr. Akin, who is running for Senate against Democrat Claire McCaskill, to “step aside and let someone else run for that office.” Chairman Priebus also said that he “prefer that Todd Akin do the right thing for our party and our candidates” and “not come” to the upcoming RNC Convention in Tampa.

I half-expected Reibus to cover his mouth and start yelling “Unclean! Unclean!”

If you haven’t heard what Akin said, yet, Fox2now.com has a recap of the story for you:

U.S. Rep. Todd Akin says he misspoke when making a comment about rape and abortion during the taping of The Jaco Report on FOX 2. That remark made national headlines and sparked responses from both Akin’s opponent, Sen. Claire McCaskill and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.

During that interview the congressman and U.S. Senate candidate was asked whether abortion should be allowed in the case of rape.

Akin’s response was that it was his understanding from doctors that it’s rare for someone to become pregnant from rape. He said, “The female body has ways to try and shut that whole thing down.”

He went on to say that punishment should be on the rapist and not the child. Democrats started circulating his comment after the show aired citing statistics regarding rape and pregnancy.

“It is beyond comprehension that someone can be so ignorant about the emotional and physical trauma brought on by rape,” said Sen. McCaskill through a statement sent to FOX 2.

The Akin camp responded with a statement indicating the congressman misspoke.

‘But I believe deeply in the protection of all life and I do not believe that harming another innocent victim is the right course of action.’

The resulting hue and cry from Republicans, Democrats, Liberals, “Fiscal” Conservatives (oops…repeated myself) vaulted this story to the top of the news cycle.

Nationalreview.com has posted the following editorial:

Some voters may nevertheless find a candidate’s theoretical view so abhorrent that they cannot support him, and it is a perfectly legitimate issue for opponents to raise. Most Republicans who hold the view that unborn children have a right to life regardless of the circumstances of their conception will have the wit to explain themselves in a way that prevents most voters who disagree from vetoing them for that reason.

While Akin is a stalwart conservative and an honorable man, we regret to say that he inspires no such confidence. That is one reason why Senator Claire McCaskill, the sitting Democratic senator, boosted him during the Republican primaries with ads calling him a “true conservative.” She knew that she is the weakest Senate incumbent on the ballot this year and that her only hope was to draw a weak opponent. Akin won a three-way primary with a plurality of the vote; there was no run-off. McCaskill’s strategy is now paying off.

Akin has backed off from his remarks, albeit with the politician’s excuse of “misspeaking.” People who make such remarks on television are typically capable of making more like them, or rather incapable of exercising the judgment to refrain. We suspect that this same lack of judgment will cause Akin to blow past tomorrow evening’s deadline for him to leave the race and allow the Republicans to select a better nominee. We hope the congressman, who surely wants to see a Senate with as much conservative strength as possible next year, will prove us wrong.

Abhorrent to some. Just plain stupid to others.

As a Christian man, who was born a month premature, with underdeveloped lungs, my heart is always on the side of the unborn.

My daughter was born with complications, and had to undergo cranial surgery at 5 weeks of age. I had to endure watching my precious little girl being split open from ear-to-ear.

Now she is a wonderful 25 year old, who meets her challenges of a “special” life head-on, with an ear-to-ear grin.

I. along with many others, understand Akin’s heart, but, unfortunately, while Democrats tend to shore up their ranks and defend their own, like a lioness defends her cub (see Bubba Clinton), Republicans tend to banish our wounded, like a leper to a Leper Colony.

And, Rep. Akin shot himself in both feet.

On June 23, 2009, for that very same nationalreview.com, that is now calling for Akin’s resignation, the great American, Dr. Thomas Sowell, wrote the following prophetic words:

The current intramural fighting among Republicans does not necessarily mean any fundamental rethinking of their policies or tactics. These tussles among different segments of the Republican party may be nothing more than a longstanding jockeying for position between the liberal and conservative wings of the party.

The stakes in all this are far higher than which element becomes dominant in which party or which party wins more elections. Both the domestic- and foreign-policy direction of the current administration in Washington are leading this country into dangerous waters, from which we may or may not be able to return.

…Unfortunately, the only political party with any chance of displacing the current leadership in Washington is the Republican party. That is why their internal squabbles are important for the rest of us who are not Republicans.

The “smart money” says that the way for the Republicans to win elections is to appeal to a wider range of voters — including minorities — by abandoning the kinds of positions Ronald Reagan held and supporting more of the kinds of positions that Democrats use to get elected. This sounds good on the surface, which is as far as many people go when it comes to politics.

A corollary to this is that Republicans have to come up with alternatives to the Democrats’ many “solutions,” rather than simply be naysayers.

However plausible all this may seem, it goes directly counter to what has actually happened in politics in this generation. For example, Democrats studiously avoided presenting alternatives to what the Republican-controlled Congress and the Bush administration were doing, and just lambasted them at every turn. That is how the Democrats replaced Republicans at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Ronald Reagan won two elections in a landslide by being Ronald Reagan — and, most important of all — by explaining to a broad electorate how what he advocated would be best for them and for the country. Newt Gingrich likewise led a Republican takeover of the House of Representatives by explaining how the Republican agenda would benefit a wide range of people.

Neither of them won by pretending to be Democrats. It is the mushy “moderates” — the “kinder and gentler” Bush 41, Bob Dole, and John McCain — who lost disastrously, even in two cases to Democrats who were initially very little known, but who knew how to talk.

And, unfortunately for Akin, “words have weight”.

Ryan Re-energizes Republican Base

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

Paul Ryan, the Vice-Presidential pick of the presumed Republican Nominee for President, Mitt Romney, sure does have everyone’s attention, including that of Niall Feguson.

Who’s he? well…

Per his website:

Niall Ferguson, MA, D.Phil., is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford.

Here is an excerpt of a 4-page piece  he has written for Newsweek, appearing on thedailybeast.com:

I first met Paul Ryan in April 2010. I had been invited to a dinner in Washington where the U.S. fiscal crisis was going to be the topic of discussion. So crucial did this subject seem to me that I expected the dinner to happen in one of the city’s biggest hotel ballrooms. It was actually held in the host’s home. Three congressmen showed up—a sign of how successful the president’s fiscal version of “don’t ask, don’t tell” (about the debt) had been. Ryan blew me away. I have wanted to see him in the White House ever since.

It remains to be seen if the American public is ready to embrace the radical overhaul of the nation’s finances that Ryan proposes. The public mood is deeply ambivalent. The president’s approval rating is down to 49 percent. The Gallup Economic Confidence Index is at minus 28 (down from minus 13 in May). But Obama is still narrowly ahead of Romney in the polls as far as the popular vote is concerned (50.8 to 48.2) and comfortably ahead in the Electoral College. The pollsters say that Paul Ryan’s nomination is not a game changer; indeed, he is a high-risk choice for Romney because so many people feel nervous about the reforms Ryan proposes.

But one thing is clear. Ryan psychs Obama out. This has been apparent ever since the White House went on the offensive against Ryan in the spring of last year. And the reason he psychs him out is that, unlike Obama, Ryan has a plan—as opposed to a narrative—for this country.

Mitt Romney is not the best candidate for the presidency I can imagine. But he was clearly the best of the Republican contenders for the nomination. He brings to the presidency precisely the kind of experience—both in the business world and in executive office—that Barack Obama manifestly lacked four years ago. (If only Obama had worked at Bain Capital for a few years, instead of as a community organizer in Chicago, he might understand exactly why the private sector is not “doing fine” right now.) And by picking Ryan as his running mate, Romney has given the first real sign that—unlike Obama—he is a courageous leader who will not duck the challenges America faces.

The voters now face a stark choice. They can let Barack Obama’s rambling, solipsistic narrative continue until they find themselves living in some American version of Europe, with low growth, high unemployment, even higher debt—and real geopolitical decline.

Or they can opt for real change: the kind of change that will end four years of economic underperformance, stop the terrifying accumulation of debt, and reestablish a secure fiscal foundation for American national security.

I’ve said it before: it’s a choice between les États Unis and the Republic of the Battle Hymn.

I was a good loser four years ago. But this year, fired up by the rise of Ryan, I want badly to win.

So do us commoners, Niall.

I like what I’m seeing out of Ryan, so far. He’s definitely got Obama nervous, as yahoo.com reports:

Romney’s choice of Ryan as his running mate has put a spotlight on the Wisconsin congressman’s best-known achievement – a budget plan that would slash Medicare’s projected costs by converting it to a program that provides limited subsidies to buy coverage.

But on the campaign trail, Ryan has moved away from his plan to emphasize less contentious proposals by Romney.

Talk of shrinking the health program for the elderly could lose votes in the November 6 election in the hotly contested state of Florida, home to the highest concentration of retirees in the country.

“Their plan would put Medicare on track to be ended as we know it,” President Barack Obama said to a crowd of about 2,300 at a campaign event on Saturday in Windham, New Hampshire.

“You’d think they’d avoid talking about Medicare given the fact that both of them have proposed to voucherize the Medicare system. I guess they figure the best defense is to try to go on offense,” Obama said.

Polls show Romney and Obama running neck-and-neck in Florida, where the cliffhanger 2000 presidential election was decided.

Republicans accuse Obama of cutting $716 billion from Medicare to pay for the healthcare overhaul law that the Democratic president signed in 2010.

But Ryan’s plan also would cut that money from Medicare, even as he proposes repealing the broader healthcare law. Romney says he would keep those funds for Medicare.

Ryan talked on Saturday about his grandmother who had Alzheimer’s disease and moved in with him and his mother when he was in high school.

“Medicare was there for our family, for my grandma when we needed it then. And Medicare is there for my mom, when she needs it now. And we have to keep that guarantee,” he said.

“But in order to make sure that we can guarantee that promise for my mom’s generation, for those baby boomers who are retiring every day, we must reform it for my generation.”

Medicare benefits nearly 50 million elderly and disabled Americans, but its financing will be squeezed by the growing numbers of retirees.

Concerns about the program’s future have become the top healthcare issue in the 2012 election, surpassing worries about Obama’s controversial healthcare law, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll found earlier this week.

Joseph Bulla, 62, a Romney supporter at The Villages, said he liked Ryan’s voucher plan for Medicare. “It will give us a chance to choose what we want instead of being dictated to,” he said.

With Obama’s VP Joe Biden, sent home to Delaware to keep him from destroying Obama’s re-election bid by spewing forth more gaffes over the weekend, the nation is wondering what ol’ Scooter is going to do.

He says that he’s going to keep crazy Uncle Joe. But then again, Michael Corleone reassured Fredo, too.

If he doesn’t dump him, the Vice-presidential Debate will be the biggest massacre America has witnessed, since Custer said,

Hey! would you look at all of those Indians!

Will Obama Take a Stand For or Against Israel?

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics4 Comments

Our ally, Israel, is surrounded on all sides by her enemies and all eyes are turning toward Washington, D.C.

The Jerusalem Post has the story:

Former Military Intelligence head Amos Yadlin on Saturday urged President Barack Obama to visit Israel to allay fears that the US is not fully committed to stopping the Iranian nuclear program.

“The US president should visit Israel and tell its leadership – and, more important, its people – that preventing a nuclear Iran is a US interest, and if we have to resort to military action, we will,” Yadlin said in an opinion piece published in The Washington Post.

Yadlin also asked the US to provide Israel with advanced military technology and intelligence, contingent on Israeli pledges to delay a strike.

Yadlin presented a five-point plan to the Obama administration designed to convince “allies and adversaries alike that military action is real, imminent and doable.”

He called on Obama to notify Congress in writing that he reserves the right to use military force on Iran. He added that the US should increase its military presence in the Persian Gulf, and should also publicly commit to the security of its allies in the region.

Yadlin, who left his IDF post in 2010 and is currently the head of the Institute for National Security Studies, has been a vocal supporter of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who have both hinted that Israel would not leave the fate of Israel in the hands of the US.

“Israel cannot afford to outsource its security to another country,” Yadlin wrote in the Washington Post. “But if the United States wants Israel to give sanctions and diplomacy more time, Israelis must know that they will not be left high and dry if these options fail.”

Yadlin, one of the pilots who took part in the 1981 attack on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, hinted that Israel was capable of hitting the heart of the Iranian nuclear program, but said Israel would need US support “both the day after and the decade after a strike.”

President Ronald Wilson Reagan said the following in a speech he made in 1982:

America has long been committed to bringing peace to this troubled region. For more than a generation, successive United States administrations have endeavored to develop a fair and workable process that could lead to a true and lasting Arab-Israeli peace.

Our involvement in the search for Mideast peace is not a matter of preference; it’s a moral imperative. The strategic importance of the region to the United States is well known, but our policy is motivated by more than strategic interests. We also have an irreversible commitment to the survival and territorial integrity of friendly states. Nor can we ignore the fact that the well-being of much of the world’s economy is tied to stability in the strife-torn Middle East. Finally, our traditional humanitarian concerns dictated a continuing effort to peacefully resolve conflicts.

When our administration assumed office in January of 1981, I decided that the general framework for our Middle East policy should follow the broad guidelines laid down by my predecessors. There were two basic issues we had to address. First, there was the strategic threat to the region posed by the Soviet Union and its surrogates, best demonstrated by the brutal war in Afghanistan, and, second, the peace process between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

With regard to the Soviet threat, we have strengthened our efforts to develop with our friends and allies a joint policy to deter the Soviets and their surrogates from further expansion in the region and, if necessary, to defend against it.

With respect to the Arab-Israeli conflict, we’ve embraced the Camp David framework as the only way to proceed. We have also recognized, however, solving the Arab-Israeli conflict in and of itself cannot assure peace throughout a region as vast and troubled as the Middle East.

…Tragic turmoil in the Middle East runs back to the dawn of history. In our modern day, conflict after conflict has taken its brutal toll there. In an age of nuclear challenge and economic interdependence, such conflicts are a threat to all the people of the world, not just the Middle East itself. It’s time for us all — in the Middle East and around the world — to call a halt to conflict, hatred, and prejudice. It’s time for us all to launch a common effort for reconstruction, peace, and progress.

It has often been said — and, regrettably, too often been true — that the story of the search for peace and justice in the Middle East is a tragedy of opportunities missed. In the aftermath of the settlement in Lebanon, we now face an opportuntiy for a broader peace. This time we must not let it slip from our grasp. We must look beyond the difficulties and obstacles of the present and move with a fairness and resolve toward a brighter future. We owe it to ourselves — and to posterity — to do no less. For if we miss this chance to make a fresh start, we may look back on this moment from some later vantage point and realize how much that failure cost us all.

Back in March of 2011, the Palestinians wanted Israel to return to the little narrow strip of a country that it was before the 1967 war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sat across from President Barack Hussein Obama and told him:

What we are in complete accord about is that a true peace can only occur if the ultimate resolution allows Israel to defend itself against threats, and that Israel’s security will remain paramount in U.S. evaluation of any prospective deal.

The ball is firmly in Obama’s court. Let’s see if he sinks a game-winner or throws up an air ball.

I’m not holding my breath.

Genesis 12: 1 – 3: 

1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Iran, Egypt, and Israel: Guess Who Obama Funded?

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics1 Comment

Friends, I hoped y’all are all prayed up. We’re going to need it.

Yahoo.com has the story:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told an annual anti-Israel protest in Tehran on Friday that the Jewish state was a “cancerous tumour” that will soon be excised, drawing Western rebukes.

Washington said Ahmadinejad’s statements were “reprehensible”, while Paris viewed them as “outrageous.”

Ahmadinejad’s diatribe against Israel in his Quds (Jerusalem) Day address was the latest in a long line to have drawn criticism from Western governments.

“The Zionist regime and the Zionists are a cancerous tumour,” he said.

“The nations of the region will soon finish off the usurper Zionists in the Palestinian land…. A new Middle East will definitely be formed. With the grace of God and help of the nations, in the new Middle East there will be no trace of the Americans and Zionists,” he said.

The diatribe took place amid heightened tensions between Israel and Iran over Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme.

The Jewish state has in recent weeks intensified its threats to possibly bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities to prevent it having the capability to produce atomic weapons.

Iran, which is suffering under severe Western sanctions, denies its nuclear programme is anything but peaceful. Its military has warned it will destroy Israel if it attacks.

“They (the Israelis) know very well they don’t have the ability” to successfully attack Iran, foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

“If they make a mistake, our nation’s reaction will lead to the end of the Zionist regime,” he said.

Meanwhile, Obama’s favorite “civic (religious) organization” in the region is showing everyone how cultured they are:

The Arab Spring takeover of Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood has run amok, with reports from several different media agencies that the radical Muslims have begun crucifying opponents of newly installed President Mohammed Morsi.

Middle East media confirm that during a recent rampage, Muslim Brotherhood operatives, “crucified those opposing Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi naked on trees in front of the presidential palace while abusing others.”

Raymond Ibrahim, a fellow with the Middle East Forum and the Investigative Project on Terrorism, said the crucifixions are the product of who the Middle Eastern media call “partisans.”

“Arabic media call them ‘supporters,’ ‘followers,’ and ‘partisans’ of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Ibraham said.

Ibrahim also says the victims can be anyone, including Egyptians and Christians.

“It’s anyone who is resisting the new government,” Ibrahim said. “In this particular case, the people attacked and crucified were secular protesters upset because of Morsi’s hostile campaign against the media, especially of Tawfik Okasha, who was constantly exposing him on his station, until Morsi shut him down.”

Ibrahim said extra brutality is reserved for Christians, but the crucifixions are because of Islamic doctrine, and are required by the Quran. The time and other details about the crucifixions were not readily available.

“Mideast Beast: The Scriptural Case for an Islamic Antichrist” sorts out what this clash of civilizations is all about

Center for Security Policy Senior Fellow Clare Lopez cited chapter and verse from the Quran to explain that crucifixions are not simply normal for Islam; they’re demanded.

“Crucifixion is a hadd punishment, stipulated in the Quran, Sura 5:33, and therefore an obligatory part of Shariah,” Lopez said. “It’s been a traditional punishment within Islam since the beginning, even though it’s not exclusively Islamic. The Romans used it too.

“So, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood haven’t the option to not include crucifixion within their legal code. It’s obligatory to comply with Shariah. And yes, it’s for shock value also to be sure,” Lopez said.

And, just think, Americans, the Muslim Brotherhood is killing Christians, USING OUR MONEY!

Back on April 7th, Andrew McCarthy reported the following in a article on nationalreview.com:

This week, the Obama administration quietly released $1.5 billion in foreign aid to the new Egyptian government, now dominated by a Brotherhood-led coalition in parliament — soon to be joined by an Ikhwan (i.e., Brotherhood) luminary as president.

It is not easy to find the announcement. With the legacy media having joined the Obama reelection campaign, we must turn for such news to outlets like the Kuwait News Agency. There, we learn that, having dug our nation into a $16 trillion debt hole, President Obama has nevertheless decided to borrow more money from unfriendly powers like China so he can give it to an outfit that views the United States as an enemy to be destroyed.

This pot of gold for Islamic supremacists is the spoils of a Brotherhood charm offensive. Given the organization’s unabashed goals and hostility towards the West, it was U.S. policy, until recently, to avoid formal contacts with the Brotherhood — although agents of the intelligence community and the State Department have long engaged in off-line communications with individual MB members. By contrast, the Obama administration from its first days has embraced the Ikhwan — both the mothership, whose leaders were invited to attend Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo despite its then-status as a banned organization under Egyptian law, and the Brotherhood’s American satellites, which have been invited to advise administration policymakers despite their notorious record of championing violent jihadists and repressive sharia.

Obama has overlooked the MB’s intimate ties to Hamas, which self-identifies as the Ikhwan’s Palestinian branch and is formally designated a terrorist organization under American law. Administration officials have absurdly portrayed the Brothers as “secular” and “moderate,” although the organization, from its founding in the 1920s, has never retreated an inch from its professed mission to establish Islam’s global hegemony.

Funding our enemies against our allies and the faith of 78% of our population.

Hopefully, the next Administration will have more sense.

Campaign 2012: Racist Allusions and the “N” Word

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

The Democratic and Republican Conventions have not even been held yet, and the Democrats are panicking…Big Time.

Joe Biden only said “chains”. MSNBC Host Toure’ (Who?) invoked the “N” word.

Mediaite.com reports:

On Thursday’s edition of MSNBC’s The Cycle the group discussed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney‘s assertion that President Obama should “take [his] campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago.” Co-host Touré saw what he believes to be explicit racial connotations beneath what Romney was saying, calling it the “niggerization” of the campaign.

“That really bothered me,” he said. “You notice he said anger twice. He’s really trying to use racial coding and access some really deep stereotypes about the angry black man. This is part of the playbook against Obama, the ‘otherization,’ he’s not like us.”

“I know it’s a heavy thing, I don’t say it lightly, but this is ‘niggerization,’” Touré said to the apparent shock of his co-panelists. “You are not one of us, you are like the scary black man who we’ve been trained to fear.”

Naturally this led to a battle between Touré and conservative co-host S.E. Cupp. She took particular issue with the fact that Touré admitted that VP Joe Biden‘s “chains” comments were divisive, but is now calling Romney a “racist” for saying the Obama campaign is “angry.”

“Do you see how dishonest that is?” she asked.

Touré denied calling anyone a racist, which prompted Cupp to say, “Certainly you were implying that Mitt Romney and the base will respond to this dog-whistle, racially-charged coding, and hate Obama, the angry black man?”

“Absolutely,” he replied.

“That’s so irresponsible,” Cupp answered back.

“This is not a revolutionary comment,” Touré later said. “This is a constituency all-white party that rejects the black vote.”

“You have two white guys in Joe Biden and Mitt Romney,” Cupp clarified. “Joe Biden made the overtly racial comment and has a history of making bigoted remarks. Mitt Romney was responding to the comment. Yet he is the one responsible for the whole Republican history of racism in politics?”

“That’s not what Touré is saying,” co-host Krystal Ball interjected. “You’re twisting his words.”

“No, he can speak for himself,” Cupp shot back.

“He’s using the playbook Republicans have been using for decades now,” Touré concluded.

So, who is this young…ummm…genius?…no…that’s not the word…I’ll think of it in a minute.

Touré is the author of four books, including Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means to Be Black Now. He is the co-host of MSNBC’s show The Cycle. He is also the host of the Fuse show The Hiphop Shop and On the Record and is a professor at NYU’s Clive Davis School of Recorded Music.

This isn’t the few time that this young man has been…ummm…controversial.

Breitbart.com gives us the lowdown:

During a discussion on the political atmosphere after the Aurora shooting, Toure said he had “hoped” that the whole incident would provoke a “Trayvon Martin situation,” but that in the end it all boiled down to what he felt was the common racist attitude of making sure that “law abiding white people have access to guns” while “black criminals” don’t.

How Toure got from a white shooter with no past run-ins with either law enforcement or mental health professionals and who shot up a mostly white audience to the idea that all people care about afterward is keeping African Americans from observing their Second Amendment rights is anybody’s guess.

Here is what he said in the July 23 show:

We never have this debate until we have a tragedy and then its over emotionalized, its over fraught [sic], you can’t have a substantive debate when everybody’s so sensitive.

Day to day crime, as we’ve talked about, has fallen over the last 20 years so I think the average voter feels less of the fear that would motivate lawmakers to do something. These spectacular mass killings are way up from when our dads were kids — I think there was something like 11 in the 50s and 60s and over 550 in the last part of the lat century a decade ago.

So, those things sort of make us think about these things, but we understand those are outlier crimes, somebody going to shoot up the mall or shoot up the school. I would hope that it would be something like a Trayvon Martin situation that would make people think, ‘Wow. wrongful death, even though it’s a legal gun owner. How do we move forward from this situation?’ But so much of this issue, I think comes down to, ‘Let’s make sure law abiding white people are able to have access to guns and make sure that black criminals are not and that becomes part of the locus of the problem.

And we don’t even want to talk about that sort of racial, black sort of bottom of it all, but that’s definitely part of it.

In his short tenure at MSNBC, Toure has unleashed a torrent of left-wing tropes. Early in July he was all atwitter over Obama mandates hoping to see big daddy government grown immensely. The previous month he asserted that any criticism or interruptions of Obama are based solely on the fact that he’s black. On yet another show he outrageously hinted that the military might have murdered Pat Tillman to silence him from criticizing the Army. On still another episode he tried to ridicule a college student for having the temerity to be a Republican.

Toure doesn’t just keep his rants on MSNBC. In March Toure got into a heated public feud with CNN host Piers Morgan over an interview that Toure didn’t like with accused killer George Zimmerman. Morgan invited the bomb thrower on his show to talk about their feud and eventually Toure proceeded to unleash an epic race-baiting meltdown after which Morgan said, “I like to think of myself as a professional journalist, Touré. I think that you are something else.”

President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight: 

We’re going around the country, talking about, ‘How do we put people back to work? How do we improve our schools? How do we make sure that we’re producing American energy? How do we lower our debt in a responsible way?’ And I don’t think you or anybody who’s been watching the campaign would say that in any way we have tried to divide the country. We’ve always tried to bring the country together.

You don’t have to try to divide the country, Mr. President. You have sycophants like Toure’ to do it for you.

Ohhh…now, I remember the word.

It’s RAACIIIST.

Ahhh…I feel much better, now.

The War Against Christianity: Showdown at the FRC

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

Once again, a nutjob with a gun has opened fire on innocent people. Only this time, he was not successful in carrying out his planned killing spree.

Thank God.

A security guard at the Family Research Council’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. is being hailed as a hero after he stopped a gunman posing as an intern, taking a bullet in the arm before wrestling the suspect to the ground.

The gunman entered the lobby of the organization’s Chinatown headquarters around 10:45 and expressed disagreement with the conservative group’s policy positions, Fox News has learned. When the guard, who was not identified, asked him where he was going, he opened fire, according to police.

“The security guard here is a hero, as far as I’m concerned,” D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said. ”He did his job. The person never made it past the front.”

The guard, who was not identified, was shot in the arm and was conscious after the shooting and was in stable condition. The gunman, who also was not identified, was being questioned by the FBI, sources said. Sources said he is in his twenties.

The suspect “made statements regarding their policies, and then opened fire with a gun striking a security guard,” a source told Fox News. WJLA-TV7 reported the suspect was also shot. Sources also said the gunman may have been carrying a bag from Chick-fil-A, the embattled fast-food restaurant whose president came under fire from gay activists after he said he did not agree with same-sex marriage.

Sources told Fox New that after guard took away his gun, the suspect said, “Don’t shoot me, it was not about you, it was what this place stands for.”

Authorities were treating the attack as a case of domestic terrorism, although James McJunkin, the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, said authorities do not yet know the gunman’s motive.

CBS News sheds some more light on the gunman:

A man suspected of shooting and wounding a security guard in the lobby of a Christian lobbying group had been volunteering at a community center for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

A law enforcement official has identified the suspect arrested in Wednesday’s shooting as Floyd Corkins II of Herndon, Va. Investigators were interviewing his neighbors.

Another official says the shooter made a negative reference about the work of the Family Research Council before opening fire. The officials spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.

David Mariner is executive director of The DC Center for the LGBT Community. He says Corkins had been volunteering at the center for about the past 6 months. Mariner describes Corkins as “kind, gentle and unassuming.”

While police have not yet stated what motivated Corkins, a coalition of 25 gay rights groups released a statement through GLAAD condemning the shooting.

“The motivation and circumstances behind today’s tragedy are still unknown, but regardless of what emerges as the reason for this shooting, we utterly reject and condemn such violence. We wish for a swift and complete recovery for the victim of this terrible incident,” the statement read.

Why would anyone want to kill people working at a place that espouses Traditional American Values, which happens to represent the ideology of the overwhelming majority of the American people?

Perhaps, they are spurred on by groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Founded in 1971 by a pair of Alabama lawyers, Morris Dees and Joe Levin, the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) quickly built a reputation as America’s leading “civil rights law firm,” suing Southern institutions resistant to desegregation, publicizing hate crimes, and using the media to denounce the perpetrators of those crimes. At the time of SPLC’s founding, Julian Bond, who currently chairs the NAACP, was named the fledgling group’s first President.

…As part of the Intelligence Project, the SPLC website currently features a map of “Active U.S. Hate Groups.” Deeming racism the the nearly exclusive province of the “radical right,” Intelligence Project reports mostly ignore groups on the left. And although SPLC denounces extremist religious organizations like the Jewish Defense League and Westboro Baptist Church, no mention is made of any extremist Muslim groups. (In 2007, SPLC identified 888 separate “active hate groups” in the United States.)

This “tolerant” organization has written the following description of the FRC:

Family Research Council

Founded: 1983

Location: Washington, D.C.

Ideology: Anti-Gay

The Family Research Council (FRC) bills itself as “the leading voice for the family in our nation’s halls of power,” but its real specialty is defaming gays and lesbians. The FRC often makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science. The intention is to denigrate LGBT people in its battles against same-sex marriage, hate crimes laws, anti-bullying programs and the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

To make the case that the LGBT community is a threat to American society, the FRC employs a number of “policy experts” whose “research” has allowed the FRC to be extremely active politically in shaping public debate. Its research fellows and leaders often testify before Congress and appear in the mainstream media. It also works at the grassroots level, conducting outreach to pastors in an effort to “transform the culture.”

…The Family Research Council (FRC) emerged from a 1980 White House conference on families. James Dobson, founder of the religious right powerhouse Focus on the Family, met and prayed with a group of eight Christian leaders at a Washington hotel, leading ultimately to the creation of the FRC in 1983 under the initial direction of Gerald Regnier (formerly of the Department of Health and Human Services). The group became a division of Focus on the Family in 1988 under Gary Bauer, a religious right leader who would use his post as a launching pad for a failed 2000 run for the presidency. Bauer had been the undersecretary of education and a domestic policy advisor to President Reagan.

Bauer raised the FRC’s profile, increased its effectiveness, and built a national network of “concerned citizens” during the Clinton Administration. But the FRC separated from Focus on the Family in 1992 over concerns that its very political work might threaten Focus’ tax-exempt status; Dobson and two other Focus officials joined the FRC’s newly independent board. As an independent nonprofit, the FRC continued its work in “pro-family” areas, working against abortion and stem cell research, fighting pornography and homosexuality, and promoting “the Judeo-Christian worldview as the basis for a just, free, and stable society.” That work would establish FRC as one of the most powerful of the far right’s advocacy groups.

America has been fighting a culture war for a while now. As traditional families seem to be dwindling, and God is taken out of our schools, our homes, and our American culture, we find that His grace has been replaced by an egocentric vulgarity of spirit in many of our citizens.

More and more, this “Shining City on a Hill”, founded on a Solid Rock…finds itself resting on shifting sands.

Hatred has no Political Ideology.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Ephesians 6:12

Campaign 2012: Chain of Fools

On By kingsjesterIn Politics7 Comments

Just when you thought that he couldn’t say anything more inapproriate or stupid, Herr Gaffemeister, Vice-President Joe Biden, has done it again.

Unchain My Heart…

Realclearpolitics.com has the story:

Vice President Joe Biden told supporters that Republicans would “put y’all back in chains,” during a campaign speech Tuesday in Danville, Va.

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: They’ve said it. Every Republican’s voted for it. Look at what they value and look at their budget and what they’re proposing. Romney wants to let the—he said in the first 100 days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules–unchain Wall Street. They’re going to put y’all back in chains. He’s said he’s going to do nothing about stopping the practice of outsourcing…

Per businessweek.com:

The Romney campaign said the remarks show that President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign wants to steer voters away from concerns about the economy.

“Whether it’s accusing Mitt Romney of being a felon, having been responsible for a woman’s tragic death or now wanting to put people in chains, there’s no question that because of the president’s failed record he’s been reduced to a desperate campaign based on division and demonization,” said Andrea Saul, a Romney spokeswoman said in a written statement.

The Obama campaign’s deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, defended the vice president’s remarks, saying that Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan, Romney’s running mate, and House Speaker John Boehner, both Republicans, “have called for the ‘unshackling’ of the private sector from regulations that protect Americans from risky financial deals and other reckless behavior that crashed our economy.”

And, realclearpolitics.com adds this quote:

Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter says the campaign has “no problem” with Vice President Joe Biden’s comment about putting people back in chains.

“I think he probably agrees with Joe Biden’s sentiments,” Cutter said on behalf of President Obama. “He’s using a metaphor to talk about what’s going to happen.”

“I appreciate the faux outrage from the Romney campaign,” Cutter said in reaction to a statement from the campaign. “If you want to talk about the use of words then take a look at Mitt Romney’s stump speech where he basically calls the president un-American.”

“The bottom line is that we have no problem with those comments,” Cutter said.

Uh-huh. Stephanie, precious, the sound you’re hearing as the result of Obama’s failed economic plains? That’s “The Sound of the Men Working on the Chain Gang”.

Remember a couple of weeks ago, the hue and cry from the concerned about a special pair of tennis shoes?

The London Daily Mail reported at the time, that

Adidas has come under fire for creating a pair of trainers with ‘shackles’.

Critics have compared the ‘JS Roundhouse Mids’, to be released in August, to the chains worn by black slaves in the 19th century.

The firm unveiled the trainers on its Facebook page. They feature plastic orange ‘shackles’ attached to the ankles by chains in the same colour.

The shoes have sparked an angry debate online. More than 2,000 Facebook users have commented, with many calling the design ‘offensive’ and ‘ignorant’, saying the firm has ‘sunk to new lows’ with its ‘slavewear’ product.

One, ‘Kay Tee’, said: ‘It’s offensive and inappropriate in many ways… How would a Jewish person feel if they decided to have a shoe with a swastika on it and tried to claim it was OK in the name of fashion?’

Dr Boyce Watkins, writing for Your Black World, said: ‘Shackles. The stuff that our ancestors wore for 400 years while experiencing the most horrific atrocities imaginable.

‘Most of which were never documented in the history books and kept away from you in the educational system, all so you’d be willing to put shackles on your ankles today and not be so sensitive about it.’

The Professor at Syracuse University said he accepted some people would accuse him of overreacting.

But he added: ‘There is always a group of negroes who are more than happy to resubmit themselves to slavery.

‘I’m offended by these shoes as there is nothing funny about the prison industrial complex, which is the most genocidal thing to happen to the black family since slavery itself.’

Others have likened the shoes’ orange ‘bracelets’ to the shackles worn by prisoners across the America, or said the firm is ‘promoting slavery’.

Kay Tee added: ‘Regardless if the company was saying the shoes are so hot you have to chain them to you, or they were capitalising on the whole prison style popularity.

‘But corporate business has a social responsibility above all to consider these perceptions before releasing a product like this.

Adidas has not yet commented.

So…when VP Biden alludes to slavery it’s okey-dokey, but producing a pair of tennis shoes with orange chains on the top of them is egregious?

Sounds like the Libs are singing the same ol’ “Unchained Melody”.

Ryan Vs. Harris-Perry…Freedom Vs. Spreading the Wealth Around

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

This past weekend, Rep. Paul Ryan, the Vice-Presidential pick of the presumptive Republican Nominee, Mitt Romney, talked abut the idea of America, and where our rights come from.

Realclearpolitics.com has the quote:

“We look at one another’s success with pride, not resentment, because we know that as more Americans work hard, take risks, succeed, more people will prosper, more communities will benefit. And individual lives will be improved,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said today at the Romney campaign event announcing him as the VP.

“America, America is just more than a place, though. America is an idea. It’s the only country founded on an idea. Our rights come from nature and God, not from government. That’s right. That’s who we are, that’s how we built this country. That’s who we are. That’s what made us great. That’s what made us great. We promise equal opportunity, not equal outcomes,” Ryan said.

Of course, Liberal heads exploded. Especially, the one belonging to the weekend host on the seldom-watched, Obama boot-licking cable news channel, known as MSNBC.

Realclearpolitics.com has this quote, also:

“The thing I really have against him is actually how he and Gov. Romney have misused the Declaration of Independence,” MSNBC host Melissa Harris Perry said on Saturday in reaction to the the Paul Ryan decision. “I’m deeply irritated by their notion that the ‘pursuit of happiness’ means money for the richest and that we extricate the capacity of ordinary people to pursue happiness. When they say ‘God and nature give us our rights, not government,’ that is a lovely thing to say as a wealthy white man.”

So, who is this “little ray of sunshine and tolerance”?

Per thenation.com:

Melissa Harris-Perry is professor of political science at Tulane University, where she is founding director of the Project on Gender, Race, and Politics in the South. She is author of Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America. She is also a contributor to MSNBC.

Back on Independence Day, the birthday of this blessed land, this “contributor” to the seldom-watched MSNBC, said:

“It’s ours, all of it,” she said. “The imperialism, the genocide, the slavery, also the liberation and the hope and the deeply American belief that our best days still lie ahead of us.”

“Independence Day is more aspirational than actual,” she began her monologue. “We have longed defined the American Dream with commodities, a home of ones own, better education for the kids, family vacation and a car to the vacation in. And if we measure the dream by acquisitions, we’re in trouble. National unemployment remains above 8 percent. Wages have dropped, and the median net worth of American families plummeted by almost 40 percent.”

Harris-Perry noted that “financial security is important, but it’s only an outward manifestation of the American Dream. Freedom itself is both more elusive and more complicated.” She explained that America’s founding wasn’t about profits and loss but that “our founding is an unlikely narrative of young men, so inspired by an age of ideas that they threw off the yoke of colonialism and founded a free nation — men who were embarrassingly imperfect.”

The imperfections she listed: “The land on which they formed this Union was stolen; the hands with which they built this nation were enslaved; the women who birthed the citizens of the nation are second class.”

“But all of this is our story,” she continued. “Each of us benefits from the residuals of oppression and each of us is harmed by the realities of inequality. This is the imperfect fabric of our nation, at times we’ve torn and stained it, and at other moments, we mend and repair it. But it’s ours, all of it: The imperialism, the genocide, the slavery, also the liberation and the hope and the deeply American belief that our best days still lie ahead of us.”

She continued on to explain that her favorite story for this Fourth of July is one of people who are “not technically free.” She described a group of 27 inmates who recently completed their GEDs at the jail on Rikers Island. “Despite being incarcerated, they hold fast to the optimistic belief that education, hard work and second chances are still the stuff of America. And that they have a right to take part in the dream.”

“So on the Fourth of July,” Harris-Perry concluded, “I’m going to think of the Rikers Island graduates, and I’m going to wave a flag without hesitation — not because I’ve forgotten my nation’s many wrongs, but because I remember them. And I am nonetheless proud of my country, not for its perfection, because the alternative is too grim, the alternative is to give up on the dream of the nation founded in the belief, if not yet the practice that all are created, all deserve freedom, and all have the right to pursue happiness. Now, that is a dream worth celebrating — with fireworks.”

Karl Marx, the Father of Communism said,

Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.

And, he also said

In a higher phase of communist society… only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

After watching and hearing Ms. (Dr.) Harris-Perry, both quotes seemed strangely appropriate.