Author: kingsjester

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

A Tale of Two Julias

On By kingsjesterIn Entertainment, Politics3 Comments

It was the best of women.  It was the worst of women.

Let’s compare a couple of famous “Julias”, shall we?

Julia, a half-hour comedy premiering on NBC in September 1968, was an example of American network television’s attempt to address race issues during a period of heightened activism and turmoil over the position of African-Americans in U.S. society. The series was the first to star a black performer in the leading role since Beulah, Amos ‘n’ Andy, and The Nat “King” Cole Show all left the air in the early and mid-1950s. By the mid-1960s, a number of prime-time series began featuring blacks in supporting roles, but industry fears of mostly southern racial sensibilities discouraged any bold action by the networks to more fully represent African-Americans in entertainment television. Series creator, Hal Kanter, a Hollywood liberal and broadcasting veteran whose credits included writing for the Beulah radio show in the 1940s, initiated Julia’s challenge to what remained of television’s colour bar. Kanter had attended a luncheon organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and been inspired enough to propose the project to NBC. The network agreed to run the show, but programmers did not expect it to do well since it was scheduled opposite the hugely popular Red Skelton Show. The show proved to be a surprise hit, however, jumping into the top ten list of most watched programs during its first year, and continuing to be moderately successful during its remaining two seasons on the air.

The series revolved around the lives of Julia Baker, (Diahann Carroll) a widowed black nurse and her young son, Corey (Marc Copage). Julia’s husband had been killed in a helicopter crash in Vietnam, and the series began with the now fatherless Baker family moving into an integrated apartment building in Los Angeles while Julia secured employment at the medical offices of Astrospace Industries. She worked with a gruff but lovable elderly white physician, Dr. Chegley (Lloyd Nolan), and a homely but spirited white nurse, Hannah Yarby. Julia’s closest friends were her white neighbors, the Waggedorns–Marie, a scatter-brained housewife; Len, a police officer; and Earl J. Waggedorn, their son and Corey’s pal. While Julia lived in an almost exclusively white environment, she managed to find a series of impeccably refined African-American boyfriends. Paul Winfield played one of her more long-standing romantic partners. Performed with elegance and dignity by Carroll, Julia represented a completely assimilated–and thoroughly non-stereotyped–African-American image to prime-time viewers.

This week, desperate to show how wonderful a socialist society under “The Lightbringer” would be, the Obama Administration, last week, presented for our edification and illumination,the fictional, err, I mean compressed, life story of a young lady named Julia.

Rich Lowry, writing for nationalreview.com, summarizes it:

Julia begins her interaction with the welfare state as a little tot through the pre-kindergarten program Head Start. She then proceeds through all of life’s important phases, not Shakespeare’s progression from “mewling and puking” infant to “second childishness and mere oblivion,” but the Health and Human Services and Education Departments version: a Pell grant (age 18), surgery on insurance coverage guaranteed by Obamacare (22), a job where she can sue her employers for more pay thanks to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (23), free contraception (27), a Small Business Administration loan (42) and, finally, Medicare (65) and Social Security (67). (In a sci-fi touch, these entitlements are presumed to be blissfully unchanged sometime off in the 2070s.)

No doubt, the creators of Julia — imagine a dour and featureless version of Dora the Explorer who grows old through the years — weren’t seeking to make a major philosophical statement. But they inadvertently captured something important about the progressive vision.

Julia’s central relationship is to the state. It is her educator, banker, health-care provider, venture capitalist, and retirement fund. And she is, fundamentally, a taker. Every benefit she gets is cut-rate or free. She apparently doesn’t worry about paying taxes. It doesn’t enter her mind that the programs supporting her might add to the debt or might have unintended consequences. She has no moral qualms about forcing others to pay for her contraception, and her sense of patriotic duty is limited to getting as much government help as she can.

Back in October of 2009, 35,000 people were waiting in line outside of Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan when trouble ensued. These people were so desperate for help with mortgage and utility bills that threats were made, fights broke out, and people were nearly trampled.

Ken Rogulski was there, reporting on WJR in Michigan. He decided to interview two people there in line for Obama cash.

ROGULSKI: Why are you here?

WOMAN #1: To get some money.

ROGULSKI: What kind of money?

WOMAN #1: Obama money.

ROGULSKI: Where’s it coming from?

WOMAN #1: Obama.

ROGULSKI: And where did Obama get it?

WOMAN #1: I don’t know, his stash. I don’t know. (laughter) I don’t know where he got it from, but he givin’ it to us, to help us.

WOMAN #2: And we love him.

WOMAN #1: We love him. That’s why we voted for him!

WOMEN: (chanting) Obama! Obama! Obama! (laughing)

I wonder if they were “Julia’s” Aunts?

In the span of 24 years, we have gone from a Julia who was a successful, self-sufficient, hard-working, single, American mom, to a “Julia” who is a leech, living off the money of American taxpayers, and doesn’t know what the words “self-sufficient” mean.

We have to boot the present occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC out on his derriere on November 6th, 2012.

It will be a far, far better thing we do than we have ever done before.

More Chens Than a Chinese Phonebook

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.

– John F. Kennedy

Obama’s “Smart Power!” Foreign Policy is looking like anything but, in his handling of the case of a blind gentleman from China who wants to defect to America.

Thehill.com has the story.

The Chinese dissident at the center of a political firestorm called a hearing Thursday and told lawmakers he wants to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng called a hearing set up to explore his efforts to leave China and escape persecution—apparently from a Chinese hospital room.

“I want to meet with Secretary Clinton,” he said on the phone. “I hope I can get more help from her. I also want to thank her face to face.”

Chen added that he is most concerned with his family, and said, “I really want to know what’s going on with them.”

“I want to thank all of you for your care and your love,” he added, through a translation by Pastor Bob Fu, Founder and President, ChinaAid Association. Fu was a witness at Thursday’s hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

Chen is at the center of a diplomatic row between the U.S. and China that has become a political liability for President Obama.

Chen was under house arrest for several months for protesting China’s one-child policy, but escaped to the U.S. Embassy, where he stayed for several days.

The U.S. and China appeared to reach a deal Wednesday that allowed Chen to remain in China, where he said he wished to stay.

But after Chen was released to a Chinese hospital to have his injuries treated, the dissident said he did not want to stay in China and requested political asylum in the U.S.

Administration officials insisted they did not pressure Chen to stay in China and that he decided on his own initially that he wanted to remain in his country.

But the about-face has led to criticism from Republicans that U.S. officials never should have allowed him to leave the U.S. embassy.

Speaking of the Republicans, the unofficial/official Republican Nominee for President was not shy about voicing his opinion concerning this fiasco:

Mitt Romney condemned the Obama administration’s handling of blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, calling the episode “a dark day for freedom” and “a day of shame” for President Obama if, he couched, reports are true that American officials communicated threats to Chen’s family.

At the same time Romney was speaking about the Chen story, about which there are conflicting reports, CNN was reporting that Chen told the network that he blamed a “misunderstanding” with the U.S. government for impressions that the Americans abandoned him and expressed “deep gratitude” to American officials.

Several times on Thursday, Romney couched his comments with disclaimers like “if the reports are true,” but the takeaway was clearly intended that the incident is a black eye for President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

“Just in the last day or two we’ve heard some disturbing things from across the world that suggest that, potentially, if the reports are true, some very troubling developments there,” Romney said. “Where an individual, Mr. Chen, has sought freedom in a bastion of freedom, an embassy of the United States of America. Aren’t we proud of the fact that people seeking freedom come to our embassy to find it?”

Romney continued: “The reports are, if they’re accurate, our administration willingly or unwittingly communicated to Chen an implicit threat to his family. And also probably sped up, or may have sped up, the process of his decision to leave the embassy because they wanted to move on to a series of discussions that Mr. Geithner and our secretary of state are planning on having with China.”

The likely GOP presidential nominee added: “It’s also apparent, according to these reports, if they’re accurate, that our embassy failed to put in place the kind of verifiable measures that would assure the safety of Mr. Chen and his family. If the reports are true, this is a dark day for freedom and it’s a day of shame for the Obama administration. We are a place of freedom, here and around the world and we should stand up and defend freedom wherever it is under attack.”

But, according to the Twitter feed of CNN executive producer Ram Ramgopal, Chen offered praise to the Americans who helped him.

“Chen Guangcheng speaks to CNN; says he believes U.S. will help him, expresses “deep gratitude” to American officials in Beijing,” Ramgopal wrote. “Chen also blames a ‘misunderstanding’ for the impression that the U.S. govt. abandoned him in the hospital.”

Romney, who has made a get-tough attitude toward China a central part of his foreign policy, on Sunday released a statement professing concern for Chen’s treatment, but had not previously spoken about the case from the stump.

Good for Mitt.  Well done.

On the subject of freedom, the greatest president in my lifetime, Ronald Wilson Reagan,  said:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.

In 1974, in a speech titled, “The Shining City Upon a Hill”, Reagan said:

Standing on the tiny deck of the Arabella in 1630 off the Massachusetts coast, John Winthrop said, “We will be as a cityupon a hill.The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world.”

Everyone’s watching, Mr. President.  It’s your move.

Of Lies and Compression

On By kingsjesterIn Politics6 Comments

Fiction – something invented by the imagination or feigned;specifically: an invented story

President Barack Hussein Obama evidently assisted “Bomber” Bill Ayers in writing a work of fiction when they sat down to compose the supposed memoir “Dreams From My Father”.

Dylan Byars posted the following, yesterday, on politico.com:

One of the more mysterious characters from President Obama’s 1995 autobiography Dreams From My Father is the so-called ‘New York girlfriend.’ Obama never referred to her by name, or even by psuedonym, but he describes her appearance, her voice, and her mannerisms in specific detail.

But Obama has now told biographer David Maraniss that the ‘New York girlfriend’ was actually a composite character, based off of multiple girlfriends he had both in New York City and in Chicago.

“During an interview in the Oval Office, Obama acknowledged that, while Genevieve was his New York girlfriend, the description in his memoir was a “compression” of girlfriends, including one who followed Genevieve [Cook] when he lived in Chicago,” Maraniss writes in his new biography, an excerpt of which was published online today by Vanity Fair.

“In Dreams from My Father, Obama chose to emphasize a racial chasm that unavoidably separated him from the woman he described as his New York girlfriend,” Maraniss writes, offering a passage from the book in which they go to see a play by a black playwright:

One night I took her to see a new play by a black playwright. It was a very angry play, but very funny. Typical black American humor. The audience was mostly black, and everybody was laughing and clapping and hollering like they were in church. After the play was over, my friend started talking about why black people were so angry all the time. I said it was a matter of remembering—nobody asks why Jews remember the Holocaust, I think I said—and she said that’s different, and I said it wasn’t, and she said that anger was just a dead end. We had a big fight, right in front of the theater. When we got back to the car she started crying. She couldn’t be black, she said. She would if she could, but she couldn’t. She could only be herself, and wasn’t that enough.

“None of this happened with Genevieve,” Maraniss writes. “She remembered going to the theater only once with Barack, and it was not to see a work by a black playwright. When asked about this decades later, during a White House interview, Obama acknowledged that the scene did not happen with Genevieve. “It is an incident that happened,” he said. But not with her. He would not be more specific, but the likelihood is that it happened later, when he lived in Chicago. “That was not her,” he said. “That was an example of compression I was very sensitive in my book not to write about my girlfriends, partly out of respect for them. So that was a consideration. I thought that [the anecdote involving the reaction of a white girlfriend to the angry black play] was a useful theme to make about sort of the interactions that I had in the relationships with white girlfriends. And so, that occupies, what, two paragraphs in the book? My attitude was it would be dishonest for me not to touch on that at all … so that was an example of sort of editorially how do I figure that out?””

Broadway Books, a division of Random House’s Crown Publishing Group, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

UPDATE: In the reissue of “Dreams from My Father,” Obama writes in the introduction that “some of the characters that appear are composites of people I’ve known.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this blog post stated that Obama had acknowledged using composite characters in the reissue. In fact, Obama acknowledged the use of composite characters in the first edition of the book.

Okay.  So, if he acknowledged that he…ummm…compressed, why is it considered an autobiography and not a work of fiction?

Especially, as this article from The American Thinker shows, even Google lists Bill Ayers as the author of the book, not President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm).

Google, which sits atop more data than anybody outside the NSA, is presenting Bill Ayers as the author of Barack Obama’s purported first autobiography, Dreams from My Father. Follow this link and see it while you can. If it is gone by the time you read this, a screen shot of the page, and a close-up on the Dreams entry are provided for posterity.

Google knows so much about us already that privacy activists are alarmed. What data are its algorithms sifting through to come to the conclusion that yes, the stylistic parallels to Ayers’ other books are formidable and Barry never showed any sign of an ability to write this way before or after, and yes, Christopher Anderson’s friendly biography includes the information that Obama found himself deeply in debt and “hopelessly blocked.” At “Michelle’s urging,” Obama “sought advice from his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers.”

So the company that supposedly knows more about us than we know ourselves also knows who wrote Dreams from My Father.

I thought that the only compression that “Bomber” Bill Ayers was familiar with was how to compress explosives into an innocent-looking container.

So, was Obama compressing when he called Ayers “just another guy in the neighborhood”?

Or, did Congressman Joe Wilson hit the proverbial nail on the head during that State of the Union speech in 2009, which now seems so long ago?

The Afghanistan Agreement…Thank You, Neville Chamberlain

On By kingsjesterIn Politics6 Comments

Last night, at 6:30 p.m. Central, the 44th president of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, gave a 15 minute address concerning the “end of the war” in Afghanistan.

The speech was given at Bagram Air Force Base, in front of a phony backdrop consisting of the machines of war, while our Brightest and Best were barred from the area.

And, with good reason.  Their CIC sounded more like he was repeating “Peace in Our Time” than the end to a successful military campaign.

He announced a five-step plan to end our military involvement in Afghanistan:

First, we’ve begun a transition to Afghan responsibility for security. Already, nearly half of the Afghan people live in places where Afghan security forces are moving into the lead. This month, at a NATO Summit in Chicago, our coalition will set a goal for Afghan forces to be in the lead for combat operations across the country next year. International troops will continue to train, advise and assist the Afghans, and fight alongside them when needed. But we will shift into a support role as Afghans step forward.

As we do, our troops will be coming home. Last year, we removed 10,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Another 23,000 will leave by the end of the summer. After that, reductions will continue at a steady pace, with more and more of our troops coming home. And as our coalition agreed, by the end of 2014 the Afghans will be fully responsible for the security of their country.

Second, we are training Afghan security forces to get the job done. Those forces have surged, and will peak at 352,000 this year. The Afghans will sustain that level for three years, and then reduce the size of their military. And in Chicago, we will endorse a proposal to support a strong and sustainable long-term Afghan force.

Third, we’re building an enduring partnership. The agreement we signed today sends a clear message to the Afghan people: As you stand up, you will not stand alone. It establishes the basis for our cooperation over the next decade, including shared commitments to combat terrorism and strengthen democratic institutions. It supports Afghan efforts to advance development and dignity for their people. And it includes Afghan commitments to transparency and accountability, and to protect the human rights of all Afghans — men and women, boys and girls.

Within this framework, we’ll work with the Afghans to determine what support they need to accomplish two narrow security missions beyond 2014 — counter-terrorism and continued training. But we will not build permanent bases in this country, nor will we be patrolling its cities and mountains. That will be the job of the Afghan people.

Fourth, we’re pursuing a negotiated peace. In coordination with the Afghan government, my administration has been in direct discussions with the Taliban. We’ve made it clear that they can be a part of this future if they break with al Qaeda, renounce violence and abide by Afghan laws. Many members of the Taliban — from foot soldiers to leaders — have indicated an interest in reconciliation. The path to peace is now set before them. Those who refuse to walk it will face strong Afghan security forces, backed by the United States and our allies.

Fifth, we are building a global consensus to support peace and stability in South Asia. In Chicago, the international community will express support for this plan and for Afghanistan’s future. And I have made it clear to its neighbor — Pakistan — that it can and should be an equal partner in this process in a way that respects Pakistan’s sovereignty, interests and democratic institutions. In pursuit of a durable peace, America has no designs beyond an end to al Qaeda safe havens and respect for Afghan sovereignty.

“Peace in Our Time” was delivered by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938, in defense of the Munich Agreement, which he made with those infamous barbarians, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist Party, or as the world came to call them, the Nazis, and Hitler’s good buddy, the Italian Fascist, Benito Mussolini.

The following is an excerpt:

…I would like to say a few words in respect of the various other participants, besides ourselves, in the Munich Agreement. After everything that has been said about the German Chancellor today and in the past, I do feel that the House ought to recognise the difficulty for a man in that position to take back such emphatic declarations as he had already made amidst the enthusiastic cheers of his supporters, and to recognise that in consenting, even though it were only at the last moment, to discuss with the representatives of other Powers those things which he had declared he had already decided once for all, was a real and a substantial contribution on his part. With regard to Signor Mussolini, . . . I think that Europe and the world have reason to be grateful to the head of the Italian government for his work in contributing to a peaceful solution.

In my view the strongest force of all, one which grew and took fresh shapes and forms every day war, the force not of any one individual, but was that unmistakable sense of unanimity among the peoples of the world that war must somehow be averted. The peoples of the British Empire were at one with those of Germany, of France and of Italy, and their anxiety, their intense desire for peace, pervaded the whole atmosphere of the conference, and I believe that that, and not threats, made possible the concessions that were made. I know the House will want to hear what I am sure it does not doubt, that throughout these discussions the Dominions, the Governments of the Dominions, have been kept in the closest touch with the march of events by telegraph and by personal contact, and I would like to say how greatly I was encouraged on each of the journeys I made to Germany by the knowledge that I went with the good wishes of the Governments of the Dominions. They shared all our anxieties and all our hopes. They rejoiced with us that peace was preserved, and with us they look forward to further efforts to consolidate what has been done.

Ever since I assumed my present office my main purpose has been to work for the pacification of Europe, for the removal of those suspicions and those animosities which have so long poisoned the air. The path which leads to appeasement is long and bristles with obstacles. The question of Czechoslovakia is the latest and perhaps the most dangerous. Now that we have got past it, I feel that it may be possible to make further progress along the road to sanity.

We all know what happened next:  World War II.

That’s what happens when you negotiate with barbarians.

Happy May…errr…Labor Day

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

The 44th President of the United States appears to have that rule down pat.

In advance of a major Occupy rally planned for Tuesday, President Obama delivered a speech this [yesterday] morning filled with class warfare rhetoric.

The president warned union members that Republicans would rather give “rich folks” more tax breaks, than invest in the American worker.

“Republicans in Congress would rather put fewer of you to work rebuilding America than ask millionaires and billionaires to live without massive new tax cuts on top of the ones they’ve already gotten,” Obama declared in a speech to to construction union members at the Hilton hotel in Washington.

Obama added that Republicans’ economic plan depended on tax cuts for the rich and “dismantling your unions.”

“I mean, if you ask them, what’s their big economic plan in addition to tax cuts for rich folks, it’s dismantling your unions. After all you’ve done to build and protect the middle class, they make the argument you’re responsible for the problems facing the middle class,” Obama added.

The president praised the unionized middle class as the for contributing to an economy based on the middle class.

“You believed prosperity shouldn’t be reserved just for a privileged few; it should extend all the way from the boardroom all the way down to the factory floor.”

According to marxists.org:

Out of its traditions the American labor movement has given the international working class two fighting days which the revolutionary workers consider as mile posts and which they must pass each year on their way to ultimate victory. Those who were midwives at the birth of these “days” have renounced them as soon as they have acquired revolutionary meaning. The A. F. of L. helped with the inauguration of May Day. It has long expiated that sin against American capital and it is never held against it.

The Socialist Party, a close, even if poor, relation of the A. F. of L., must be considered as having contributed to the origin of International Women’s Day, celebrated each year on March 8. About twenty years ago the Socialist women of New York organized, in contradistinction to the bourgeois suffrage movement, a mass participation of proletarian women in the movement for woman suffrage. This particular action took place on March 8. The success of the New York demonstration led to the establishment of March 8 as Women’s Day on a national scale. The International Socialist Congress in 1910 made March 8 international.

With the granting of woman suffrage in the United States, March 8 was abandoned by the S. P., since the ballot and election to office has always been the alpha and omega of that party. The Russian working women did not forget March 8 and, following the October Revolution, rejuvenated this important fighting labor day. The Communist International made International Women’s Day again a living reality. As in the case of May 1, only the Communist parties are carrying on the traditions of March 8, with men and women workers jointly utilizing this day to call upon the proletarian women to take their place in the struggles beside the men workers.

For the May Day, 1923, edition of the Weekly Worker, C. E. Ruthenberg wrote: “May Day – the day which inspires fear in the hearts of the capitalists and hope in the workers – the workers the world over – will find the Communist movement this year stronger in the U. S. than at any time in its history…. The road is clear for greater achievements, and in the United States as elsewhere in the world the future belongs to Communism.” In a Weekly Worker of a generation before, Eugene V. Debs wrote in a May Day edition of the paper, published on April 27, 1907: “This is the first and only International Labor Day. It belongs to the working class and is dedicated to the Revolution.”

Bloomberg.com reports that the Occupy Wall Street movement is ready to celebrate today, in their own inimitable classless style.

Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, whose anti-greed message spread worldwide during an eight-week encampment in Lower Manhattan last year, plan marches across the globe today calling attention to what they say are abuses of power and wealth.

Organizers say they hope the coordinated events will mark a spring resurgence of the movement after a quiet winter. Calls for a general strike with no work, no school, no banking and no shopping have sprung up on websites in Toronto, Barcelona, London, Kuala Lumpur and Sydney, among hundreds of cities in North America, Europe and Asia.

In New York, Occupy Wall Street will join scores of labor organizations observing May 1, traditionally recognized as International Workers’ Day. They plan marches from Union Square to Lower Manhattan and a “pop-up occupation” of Bryant Park on Sixth Avenue, across the street from Bank of America’s Corp.’s 55-story tower.

“We call upon people to refrain from shopping, walk out of class, take the day off of work and other creative forms of resistance disrupting the status quo,” organizers said in an April 26 e-mail.

Occupy groups across the U.S. have protested economic disparity, decrying high foreclosure and unemployment rates that hurt average Americans while bankers and financial executives received bonuses and taxpayer-funded bailouts. In the past six months, similar groups, using social media and other tools, have sprung up in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Alinsky and Marx would be very proud of these “useful idiots”.

Come, Mr. Taliban…

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

When is a conspiracy theory, not a conspiracy theory?  When evidence is found to prove it as a fact.

Guardian.co.uk has the story:

Documents found in the house where Osama bin Laden was killed a year ago show a close working relationship between top al-Qaida leaders and Mullah Omar, the overall commander of the Taliban, including frequent discussions of joint operations against Nato forces in Afghanistan, the Afghan government and targets in Pakistan.

The communications show a three-way conversation between Bin Laden, his then deputy Ayman Zawahiri and Omar, who is believed to have been in Pakistan since fleeing Afghanistan after the collapse of his regime in 2001.

They indicate a “very considerable degree of ideological convergence”, a Washington-based source familiar with the documents told the Guardian.

The news will undermine hopes of a negotiated peace in Afghanistan, where the key debate among analysts and policymakers is whether the Taliban – seen by many as following an Afghan nationalist agenda – might once again offer a safe haven to al-Qaida or like-minded militants, or whether they can be persuaded to renounce terrorism.

One possibility, experts say, is that although Omar built a strong relationship with Bin Laden and Zawahiri, other senior Taliban commanders see close alliance or co-operation with al-Qaida as deeply problematic.

Western intelligence officials estimate that there are less than 100 al-Qaida-linked fighters in Afghanistan, and last year the United Nations split its sanctions list to separate the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Both David Cameron and US secretary of state Hillary Clinton have said that some kind of political settlement involving the Taliban is key to the stability of Afghanistan once most western troops have withdrawn by 2014.

Some communications in the documents date back several years but others are said to be from only weeks before the raid on 2 May last year in which Bin Laden died.

The Obama Administration has been reaching out to negotiate with the Taliban within the last year, in the misguided notion that you can negotiate with barbarians who want your whole nation to be wiped off the face of the earth.

Last week, thehill.com explained why this was a very stupid strategy:

The Taliban’s recent multi-pronged attacks, coming just a month after suspending talks with the U.S. is a stark reminder that peace negotiations remain a long shot at best, escalating an increasingly contentious debate over whether the insurgent group has any serious intentions of reaching a political settlement. Given the unpredictable nature of the enemy, adopting either policy — cease to participate, or stubbornly pursue peace talks — is irresponsible and extremely risky. Before making any decision, we must first understand why the Taliban might not be vested in reaching a compromise at this point in time. Only then the Afghan government could craft strategies that would strengthen its leverage in any serious peace talks and maintain security in case the enemy abandons negotiations all together.

For starters, the Taliban, who have waged a war of attrition against the Afghan government and its allies for more than ten years now, have seemed more interested in waiting out the international forces that are scheduled to leave the country by the end of 2014. Why? There are three plausible reasons.

First, President Obama’s premature declaration of a withdrawal date and the expected “race to the exits” by other countries have only reassured the Taliban that their plan to exhaust America’s commitment is working — and that sooner rather than later the early 90s scenario would repeat itself. The recent transfer to Afghan security forces of authority over detainees and the conduct of night raids, and Australia’s panicky announcement to pull out its troops nearly a year earlier than planned (although they took a “U-turn to fine-tune the coalition’s plan”) are affirmations of that realization.

Secondly, Taliban’s belief that their worst days are soon to end and that the fight will only get easier have boosted its morale. It should not come as a surprise from an insurgent group that lost thousands of fighters—yet remained steadfast against mighty forces in the decade-long war—that they would give themselves an extra five-year window to test out its ability to take over Kabul after foreign troops withdraw. In fact, it would be a quite rational step forward, especially when the Taliban’s leaders expect the tide to turn in their favor post-2014.

Third, this ideology-driven terrorist group believes that God and time are on its side, resulting in an unwavering commitment to stay the course to oust what they consider the soon-to-be-vulnerable puppet Afghan government militarily.

In the face of a foe like the Taliban, it is clear that hinging all hopes for a sovereign and peaceful Afghanistan on a political settlement would be foolhardy. Yet it does not mean that Afghans should refuse to welcome talks. Either way is an extreme position that will only limit the government’s options. Instead, a middle ground strategy is needed to limit the enemy’s options and possibly its ambitions before any serious negotiations are possible and fruitful.

So, now it turns out that Obama and his minions have been attempting to negotiate with people who were close confidants with those instrumental in the largest Terrorist attack ever on U.S. soil on September 11, 2001.

Smart Power?  Nope.  More like Chamberlain-esque.

Anti-Bullying “Savagery”

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics3 Comments

Did you know that the Obama Administration has a defacto “Anti-Bullying Czar”?  No, it isn’t any of the wrestlers from the WWE, which has its own “Be A Star” Anti-Bullying Campaign.

It is syndicated writer Dan Savage, author of a syndicated sex-advice column titled “Savage Love”.

The column appears weekly in several dozen newspapers, mainly free newspapers in the US and Canada, but also newspapers in Europe and Asia. It started in 1991 with the first issue of the Seattle weekly newspaper The Stranger.

Since October 2006, Savage has also recorded the “Savage Lovecast”, a weekly podcast version of the column, featuring telephone advice sessions. Podcasts are released every Tuesday.

The openly gay author uses the column as a forum for his strong opinions that reject conservative views on love, sex, and family. He generally encourages advice-seekers to pursue their fetishes, so long as activities are legal, consensual, safe, and respectful. The tone of the column is humorous, and Savage does not shy away from using profanity.

…For the first six years of the column, Savage had his readers address him with “Hey faggot”, as a comment on previous efforts to recapture offensive words.

This weekend, Savage more than proved my often-stated observation that

Those among us (Liberals) who claim to be the most tolerant are actually the least tolerant of all.

Citizenlink.com broke the story:

A group of high school journalism students attending a conference called “Journalism on the Edge” in Seattle over the weekend felt they were pushed over the edge by syndicated sex advice columnist Dan Savage.

Savage, the creator of the two-year-old It Gets Better Project, which encourages teens struggling with same-sex attractions to embrace homosexuality, was invited to give a keynote address last Friday at the JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention.

Students were expecting him to talk about bullying. But they also got an earful about birth control, sex, and Savage’s opinions on the Bible.

A 17-year-old from California who was attending with half a dozen other students from her high school yearbook staff, was one of several students to walk out in the middle of Savage’s speech.

“The first thing he told the audience was, ‘I hope you’re all using birth control!’ ” she recalled. Then “he said there are people using the Bible as an excuse for gay bullying, because it says in Leviticus and Romans that being gay is wrong. Right after that, he said we can ignore all the ‘B.S.’ in the Bible.

“I was thinking, ‘This is not going a good direction at all,’ Then he started going off about the Bible. He said somehow the Bible was pro-slavery. I’m really shy. I’m not really someone to, like, stir up anything. But all of a sudden I just blurted out, ‘That’s bull!’ ”

As she and several other students walked out of the auditorium, Savage noticed them leaving and called them “pansies.”

Though recordings of the keynote speech are unavailable, Savage has made similar comments in the past, which can be found on YouTube. Among them:

“Most people that you wind up arguing with about religion and homosexuality have not ever read the Bible without their, you know, moron glasses on.”

“If you believe it is the divinely inspired word of God, if you believe in the literal truth of the Bible, I challenge you to read the first five (expletive) pages. There are two creation myths in Genesis.”

“We ignore the (expletive) in the Bible about race, about slavery, and we’re going to have to get there for homosexuality.”

The student’s father is a public school teacher. Though he said Savage’s comments were inappropriate, he thinks the organizers of the conference are ultimately responsible.

“I’m well-versed in the rules of the game, the captive-audience ethic,” he said. “You have a bunch of kids. They’re required to go to school. They don’t have the option of walking out on you as a teacher, so you guard your speech.

“If Dan Savage was a teacher, they’d suspend him without pay for this behavior,” he added. “He didn’t take account of who his audience was. If he was doing this with a bunch of college journalism kids, that would be a different story — that’s more rough and tumble. How many of the kids who didn’t walk out felt backed into a corner? To me, that’s bullying behavior. It has all the symptoms, as far as I’m concerned.”

In a related story from 9/29/2010, abcnews.go.com posted that

At a backyard town hall in Albuquerque, NM, Tuesday, President Obama was asked “Why are you a Christian?” The question, from teacher’s assistant Elizabeth A. Murphy, 42, was one of three “hot topics” she raised with the president.

“I’m a Christian by choice,” the president said. “My family didn’t — frankly, they weren’t folks who went to church every week. And my mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew, but she didn’t raise me in the church.”

The president said he “came to my Christian faith later in life and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead — being my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, treating others as they would treat me. And I think also understanding that Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility we all have to have as human beings, that we’re sinful and we’re flawed and we make mistakes, and that we achieve salvation through the grace of God. But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people and do our best to help them find their own grace.”

The president said “that’s what I strive to do. That’s what I pray to do every day. I think my public service is part of that effort to express my Christian faith.”

By endorsing vulgar, anti-christian heathens like Dan Savage, Mr. President?

Divide et Impera

On By kingsjesterIn Politics1 Comment

As I have written in previous posts, I was born, raised in, and lived for 39 years in Memphis, TN.  I now reside right across the state line (literally) in Southaven, MS, after former Mayor W.W. Herenton told middle class folks like myself that we were no longer welcome there.

I left out the aspect of race from the preceding paragraph as to not beat a dead horse, but racial division in this country is being used as a political tool in an attempt to “divide and conquer” (divide et impera) through a deliberate campaign strategy by Obama and his minions, reinforced by Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice.

Commercialappeal.com has the following story from my hometown:

Black juveniles in Memphis are more likely to be locked up, to receive tougher punishments and to be transferred to adult court than white juveniles, U.S. Department of Justice officials announced at a news conference Thursday.

Following a three-year probe of Shelby County Juvenile Court and its detention center, the DOJ found a pattern of constitutional rights violations for all youths, discrimination against black youths and unsafe jail conditions, according to the department’s 66-page report.

“We found serious and systemic failures,” Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general who oversees the department’s Civil Rights Division in Washington, said during Thursday’s news conference in Memphis. “African-American children were being treated differently and more harshly.”

Justice Department attorneys and outside consultants visited the court and detention center in 2010 and 2011 and analyzed more than 65,000 youth files.

The report concluded that “the juvenile court fails to provide constitutionally required due process to all children appearing for delinquency proceedings, that the court’s administration of juvenile justice discriminates against African-American children and that its detention center violates the substantive due process rights of detained youth by not providing them with reasonably safe conditions of confinement.”

U.S. Atty. Ed Stanton, who hosted the news briefing at the Memphis federal courthouse, told reporters: “While the Civil Rights Division’s findings are serious and compelling, I am encouraged that the leadership and staff of the Shelby County Juvenile Court and Juvenile Detention Center have demonstrated that they intend to take immediate action.”

The investigation followed allegations from Shelby County Commission member Henri Brooks and other African-American commissioners of discrimination and misconduct.

Brooks’ complaint, filed with the DOJ in 2007, alleged mistreatment of juveniles based on race, discriminatory hiring practices, nepotism and political patronage and disregard for federal anti-discrimination laws.

Brooks said she took action after reviewing documents showing that white youths in the suburbs were being sent to school or home after the same infractions that resulted in jail trips and a juvenile record for black youths.

“I’m very happy the Justice Department validated the concerns and allegations of the complaint that I took to D.C,” Brooks said Thursday. “There is something seriously wrong with Juvenile Court.”

The commissioner, a Juvenile Court employee for 11 years, said that in 2007 she was besieged with criticism that she was making Memphis look bad by unfounded claims of racism.

“I don’t want to say ‘vindication,’ but it’s kind of like: ‘Now you know you’re wrong,’ ” she said of her critics.

Juvenile Court Judge Curtis Person, who attended the news conference, told reporters he didn’t agree with all of the report’s findings, particularly those alleging tougher treatment for black juveniles.

“It’s a subjective finding,” the judge said. “I don’t think race enters into the decision-making in Juvenile Court.

“I deplore and will not tolerate discrimination of any kind.”

It’s not just the Obama Administration sewing the seeds of racial division.  It’s those charged with teaching young minds full of mush in Obama’s hometown, also.

Per Breitbart.com:

Jones College Prep, a Chicago Public Schools “selective enrollment” school, held “Social Justice Week” in March, a collection of events geared towards turning students into activists. See the schedule of events here.

According to a flyer on the school’s website:

Social Justice Week was created to promote community advancement through dialogue and community service based activism. Moreover, we hope to unify the voice of various JCP and community organizations in which to facilitate collaboration for the betterment of the community at large and promote a unified human rights advancement initiative.

The school is, according to U.S. News & World Report, a Top 100 high school in the country. It’s one of the best of the best–the cream of the crop.

Demographically, Jones College Prep is fairly balanced. Statistics from 2007-2008 show black enrollment is 23.4%, white enrollment is 29.5% and Hispanic enrollment is 33.7%.

Yet the school administrators, through Social Justice Week, gave a platform to community organizers who in turn provided students biased information and encouraged them to take specific steps to protest, EAGnews.org reports exclusively.

When we heard about the week, we contacted school officials requesting to observe and record the events. All parties consented.

…On Wednesday of Social Justice Week, Black Star Project, a Chicago-based community organizing group, was brought into the school after school hours to teach students about “non-violent” protesting. Led by Phillip Jackson, former “Chief of Education” under former Mayor Richard Daley, the optional discussion was focused on students fighting back against gun crime.

Black Star Project, according to its website, is funded by Open Society Foundations (i.e. George Soros), Best Buy, ING and Toyota Motor Sales, among others.

But Jackson apparently had no interest in allowing students to come to their own conclusions on gun ownership.

NPR.org’s Carrie Johnson, in an post titled, Holder: “‘More Work to Do’ Before the Term is Over”, describes her interview with Attorney General Eric Holder:

But every generation has its own civil rights struggles. Holder knows that all too well.

He said the killing in Florida this year of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin prompted him to sit down and talk with his own teenage son, an experience he shared for the first time publicly.

Before the Martin incident, and the outcry that followed, Holder said, he didn’t think he’d have “the conversation” with his son. But he changed his mind.

“It brought back to me experiences that I had as a young man: getting stopped by the police on the Jersey Turnpike, getting stopped running to a movie in Georgetown by the police simply because I was running to get to a movie,” he said. “I was mad, I was angry, I was humiliated. But I didn’t do anything to put my safety at risk. And that’s what I tried to convey to my boy.

Follow police instructions, however wrong you think they might be, Holder told his son, and don’t let anger guide your actions.

“It’s a sad thing that my father had to have that conversation with me, that I thought I had to have that conversation with my son,” he said. “We are a nation that’s made great progress, great progress — the fact that I’m the attorney general of the United States is an indication of that. But we still have some work to do.”

Like refusing to investigate the Black Panthers for voter intimidation, Mr. Attorney General?

Hopefully, you’ll be unemployed soon.

Our Federal Government: Public Servants Serving Themselves?

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

Remember “Hope and Change”?  After 3 years of Obama, all we’ve gotten is “Mope and Blame”…and Americans seem to be fed up with the present occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and all of his minions on Capitol Hill.

Per Politico.com:

Today, just one in three has a favorable view of the federal government — the lowest level in 15 years, according to a Pew survey. The majority of Americans remain satisfied with their local and state governments — 61 percent and 52 percent, respectively — but only 33 percent feel likewise about the federal government.

In 2002, nearly double that figure, 64 percent viewed the federal government favorably, and Americans held their local and state governments in similar esteem, at 67 percent and 62 percent, respectively.

There’s the expected partisan gap: A majority of Democrats, 51 percent, view the Obama-led government favorably, compared with 27 percent of independents and 20 percent of Republicans. During the Bush presidency, a majority of Republicans viewed the federal government favorably, while support for it faded among Democrats.

The poll also reveals that more Americans trust their state governments to be honest, efficient and less partisan than the federal government.

The survey of 1,514 people was conducted Apr. 4-15, with a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.

Of course, William Jefferson Clinton was president 15 years ago. You know, the womanizer whom Liberals remember so fondly…the guy Obama left to finish answering questions at a press conference…the smooth operator who crawled around the Oval Office rug with Monica Lewinsky.

In 1997, Clinton had a popularity rating of 57%, a result of the illusion of bi-partisanship between him and a Republican Congress.

Since then, thanks to out-of-touch public servants, Americans have grown to literally despise those whom they have elected to serve them in the nation’s capital.

This hatred has been brought on by incompetency and avarice.  These “public servants” seem to lose their minds when they arrive in Washington, D.C.  They decide that our money is their money, to freely spend as they wish, on causes both noble and ignoble.

Ronald Wilson Reagan spoke about these “public servants” during a memorable speech titled “A Time for Choosing” delivered during a broadcast in 1994 in support of the presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater:

…The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, “What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.” But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we’re denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we’re always “against,” never “for” anything.

We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem. However, we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments….

We are for aiding our allies by sharing our material blessings with nations which share our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world.

We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him…. But we cannot have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure….

Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? . . . Today in our country the tax collector’s share is 37 cents of every dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp.

Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor’s fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can’t socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.

If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what’s at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that “the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits–not animals.” And he said, “There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.

So now, after another 15 years of a federal government consumed by incompetency and avarice, we once again stand on that precipice which Reagan was talking about, looking into the abyss.

Will America fall into that endless chasm, or will we leap toward a brighter future?

The choice is up to us.

Obama Vs. The Family Farm

On By kingsjesterIn Politics6 Comments

So ev’ry mornin’ ‘fore I went to school…I fed the chickens and I chopped wood too.

Patches, as performed by Clarence Carter

If Patches was trying to help his mother by working on the family farm nowadays, he wouldn’t stand a chance.

The Department of Labor is poised to put the finishing touches on a rule that would apply child-labor laws to children working on family farms, prohibiting them from performing a list of jobs on their own families’ land.

Under the rules, children under 18 could no longer work “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.”

“Prohibited places of employment,” a Department press release read, “would include country grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and livestock auctions.”

The new regulations, first proposed August 31 by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, would also revoke the government’s approval of safety training and certification taught by independent groups like 4-H and FFA, replacing them instead with a 90-hour federal government training course.

Rossie Blinson, a 21-year-old college student from Buis Creek, N.C., told The Daily Caller that the federal government’s plan will do far more harm than good.

“The main concern I have is that it would prevent kids from doing 4-H and FFA projects if they’re not at their parents’ house,” said Blinson.

“I started showing sheep when I was four years old. I started with cattle around 8. It’s been very important. I learned a lot of responsibility being a farm kid.”

In Kansas, Cherokee County Farm Bureau president Jeff Clark was out in the field — literally on a tractor — when TheDC reached him. He said if Solis’s regulations are implemented, farming families’ labor losses from their children will only be part of the problem.

“What would be more of a blow,” he said, “is not teaching our kids the values of working on a farm.”

The Environmental Protection Agency reports that the average age of the American farmer is now over 50.

“Losing that work-ethic — it’s so hard to pick this up later in life,” Clark said. “There’s other ways to learn how to farm, but it’s so hard. You can learn so much more working on the farm when you’re 12, 13, 14 years old.”

Why are family farms so important, anyway?

Sustainabletable.org answers that question in no uncertain terms:

In addition to producing fresh, nutritious, high-quality foods, small family farms provide a wealth of benefits for their local communities and regions.

Perhaps most importantly, family farmers serve as responsible stewards of the land. Unlike industrial agriculture operations, which pollute communities with chemical pesticides, noxious fumes and excess manure, small family farmers live on or near their farms and strive to preserve the surrounding environment for future generations. Since these farmers have a vested interest in their communities, they are more likely to use sustainable farming techniques to protect natural resources and human health.

The existence of family farms also guarantees the preservation of green space within the community. Unfortunately, once a family farm is forced out of business, the farmland is often sold for development, and the quality land and soil for farming are lost.

Independent family farms also play a vital role in rural economies. In addition to providing jobs to local people, family farmers also help support small businesses by purchasing goods and services within their communities. Meanwhile, industrial agriculture operations employ as few workers as possible and typically purchase supplies, equipment, and building materials from outside the local community. Rural areas are then left with high rates of unemployment and very little opportunity for economic growth.

Finally, family farmers benefit society by boosting democratic values in their communities through active civic participation,v and by helping to preserve an essential connection between consumers, their food, and the land upon which this food is produced.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack recently spoke to students at Kansas State University. He talked about…what else? the importance of agriculture:

Agriculture is a job creator and responsible for 10 percent of American exports. That amounts to $137 billion of agricultural products America traded all over the world last year, Vilsack said. For 50 consecutive years we’ve had a trade surplus of agriculture and last year we had a record $37 billion surplus. To put that in context, he added, for every $1 billion in agricultural export sales, there are 8,400 jobs created here at home, Vilsack said.

“As we look at how we rebuild and reshape our middle class in this country, the formula is pretty clear,” he said. “Yes, we’ll be a government that spends less but we need to be a government that continues to invest in education and research.” If we want to create wealth in America, we need creative and innovative solutions, and that innovation will appeal to the rest of the world.

“We invested in the debt-ridden days of the 80s,” Vilsack said. It was a tough time, but we didn’t give up in rural America, he added. Instead farmers reduced debt, invested in new technology, expanded their capacity, and began to meet our needs and at the same time meet the needs of expanding export markets.

“Bottom line, for the first time in the history of our country we had more than $1 billion in net farm income last year,” Vilsack said. But that income didn’t just stop at the farm level, it flows to the storage and transportation sectors, the processing and packaging sectors and the retail and consumer sectors of our economy, he added. Agriculture is responsible for 1 out of every 12 jobs in America, and as we expand our productivity and figure out new ways to use agricultural products, whole new industries will crop up to support agriculture, he said. From sophisticated farm equipment that uses precision instruments to improve efficiencies on the farm, to diversified renewable energy sources that help our country become energy self-sufficient.

The opportunity for our economy to become bio-based is extraordinary, Vilsack said. With 3,100 companies today that are producing something from plant-based, residue-based, livestock-based feedstocks, agriculture is letting us move from a petroleum-based manufacturing economy, he said. And that creates jobs and wealth here.

Vilsack has basically been a shill for Monsanto and other “Big Agriculture” stalwarts, as well as being instrumental in the disastrous “let’s burn our food for fuel” ethanol policy disaster.

Does his devotion to “Big Agriculture” have something to do with this ignorant proposal from the Department of Labor, attacking family farms?

Y’know…I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.