Author: kingsjester

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

He is Risen!

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity3 Comments

Wow. It’s really been amazing around here since they crucified Jesus. Did you feel that earthquake? The veil of the temple was torn in half! And did you hear? A bunch of people that had died years ago, were seen walking around the city! But that’s not all. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard?

Listen to this: He has risen! He arose from the dead and was seen by several people. It’s true! I know it sounds unbelievable. I can scarcely take it in myself. Mary Magdalene and Mary, James and Salome’s mother, went to the tomb to perform the anointing of His body and it wasn’t there! On top of that, there was this young guy there, dressed in a white robe. They said he must have been 9 feet tall. He said, “You are seeking Jesus of Nazareth. Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here. See the place where you laid him.” So they went and told the disciples. But you know how Peter is. He just had to go run up there and see for himself.

Jesus even approached two of them on the road to Emmaus. They didn’t recognize him. He even broke bread with them that night. They realized who He was and He disappeared! They ran to tell the disciples and as they were telling them, Jesus appeared right in front of them! They were all starting to panic. Jesus said, “Peace to you.” But they couldn’t believe it was him, especially Thomas. So he had him touch him in the hole in his hand where they drove the nail and where the spear pierced his side.

Jesus ate with them and performed other signs and miracles in front of them and they understood scripture as never before. He also came to them at the Sea of Tiberius. Peter took the disciples fishing and they weren’t catching anything. Jesus told them from the bank to cast the net down on the right side. They did, and they could hardly bring it in the boat! When they got back to land, Jesus already had a fire going and some fish and bread ready to eat. He asked Peter three times if he loved Him, and each time He told him “Feed my sheep’. Hey, isn’t that the same number of times Peter Denied Him?

Anyway, He taught them many things before He left. They watched as He was taken straight up into heaven. Can you imagine?

The disciples are making plans now to go out and starting spreading the Good News about Jesus’ Resurrection. They are talking about going out in pairs. Man. Nothing is ever going to be the same again.

“For God so loved the word, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” – John 3:16

I originally wrote and published the above post on Easter, April 4th, 2010.

As you read this post today:

33% of the world’s population are  Christian.

The top 3 countries with the largest national Christian populations are :

USA – 224,457,000 (85%)

Brazil – 139,000,000 (93%)

Mexico – 86,120,000 (99%)

There are approximately 38,000 Christian denominations in the world. This statistic takes into consideration cultural distinctions of denominations in different countries.

Today, in the United States of America, about 78% (244, 140,000) of adults identify themselves as Christian. In comparison, the next largest religions in America are Islam and Judaism. Combined they represent only about one to two percent of the United States population.

There are more than 1500 different Christian faith groups in America.

All this and more, because of the sacrifice of the Son of God.
Within the editorial, Jesus, the Perfect Man, published on Christmas Day 1912, C.P.J. Mooney, Editor of the Memphis Commercial Appeal, wrote the following excerpt:

After the experience of 2,000 years no man can find a flaw in the governmental system outlined by Jesus.

Czar and kaiser, president and Socialist, give to its complete merit their admiration.

No man today, no matter whether he follows the doctrine of Mill, Marx or George as to property, can find a false principle in Jesus’ theory of property.

In the duty of a man to his fellow no sociologist has ever approximated the perfection of the doctrine laid down by Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount.

Not all the investigations of chemists, not all the discoveries of explorers, not all the experiences of rulers, not all the historical facts that go to make up the sum of human knowledge on this day in 1912 are in contradiction to one word uttered or one principle laid down by Jesus.

The human experiences of 2,000 years show that Jesus never made a mistake. Jesus never uttered a doctrine that was true at that time and then became obsolete.

Jesus spoke the truth, and the truth is eternal.

History has no record of any other man leading a perfect life or doing everything in logical order. Jesus is the only person whose every action and whose every utterance strike a true note in the heart and mind of every man born of woman. He never said a foolish thing, never did a foolish act and never dissembled.

No poet, no dreamer, no philosopher loved humanity with all the love that Jesus bore toward all men.

WHO, THEN, was Jesus?

He could not have been merely a man, for there never was a man who had two consecutive thoughts absolute in truthful perfection.

Jesus must have been what Christendom proclaims Him to be — a divine being — or He could not have been what He was. No mind but an infinite mind could have left behind those things which Jesus gave the world as a heritage.

He is risen indeed!

The Origin of Easter Traditions Plus KJ’s Top 10 List

On By kingsjesterIn Entertainment6 Comments

Here we are, the day before Easter Sunday.  Here in America, Christians will go to church in the morning, usually followed by a meal later in the day, and ABC’s annual four and one-half  hour airing that evening of the classic movie “The Ten Commandments”.

Cue Edward G. Robinson as Nathan:

Where’s your Moses, Naaaooow?

So, how did Easter Traditions begin?  And, where did they come from?

The origins of our Easter Traditions are quite fascinating, per infoplease.com:

According to the Venerable Bede, Easter derives its name from Eostre, an Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. A month corresponding to April had been named “Eostremonat,” or Eostre’s month, leading to “Easter” becoming applied to the Christian holiday that usually took place within it. Prior to that, the holiday had been called Pasch (Passover), which remains its name in most non-English languages.

(Based on the similarity of their names, some connect Eostre with Ishtar, the Babylonian and Assyrian goddess of love and fertility, but there is no solid evidence for this.)

It seems probable that around the second century A.D., Christian missionaries seeking to convert the tribes of northern Europe noticed that the Christian holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus roughly coincided with the Teutonic springtime celebrations, which emphasized the triumph of life over death. Christian Easter gradually absorbed the traditional symbols.

In Medieval Europe, eggs were forbidden during Lent. Eggs laid during that time were often boiled or otherwise preserved. Eggs were thus a mainstay of Easter meals, and a prized Easter gift for children and servants.

In addition, eggs have been viewed as symbols of new life and fertility through the ages. It is believed that for this reason many ancient cultures, including the Ancient Egyptians, Persians, and Romans, used eggs during their spring festivals.

…Orthodox Christians in the Middle East and in Greece painted eggs bright red to symbolize the blood of Christ. Hollow eggs (created by piercing the shell with a needle and blowing out the contents) were decorated with pictures of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and other religious figures in Armenia.

Germans gave green eggs as gifts on Holy Thursday, and hung hollow eggs on trees. Austrians placed tiny plants around the egg and then boiled them. When the plants were removed, white patterns were created.

…Hares and rabbits have long been symbols of fertility. The inclusion of the hare into Easter customs appears to have originated in Germany, where tales were told of an “Easter hare” who laid eggs for children to find. German immigrants to America — particularly Pennsylvania — brought the tradition with them and spread it to a wider public. They also baked cakes for Easter in the shape of hares, and may have pioneered the practice of making chocolate bunnies and eggs.Easter cards arrived in Victorian England, when a stationer added a greeting to a drawing of a rabbit. According to American Greetings, Easter is now the fourth most popular holiday for sending cards, behind Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Mother’s Day.

After their baptisms, early Christians wore white robes all through Easter week to indicate their new lives. Those had already been baptized wore new clothes instead to symbolize their sharing a new life with Christ.

In Medieval Europe, churchgoers would take a walk after Easter Mass, led by a crucifix or the Easter candle. Today these walks endure as Easter Parades. People show off their spring finery, including lovely bonnets decorated for spring.

In honor of the holiday, I composed the following list:

The Top 10 Reasons I Miss an Old-Fashioned Easter

(Or, the Ruminations of a Cantankerous Old Man) 

Being an **ahem** older American, an empty nester, if you will, I have found my mind wandering back to memories of Easters past. Here is a list of those memories I’d like to share with you…in no particular order. 

  1. I truly miss the smell of boiled eggs and vinegar of Good Friday. 
  1. I miss dyeing eggs. Paas rules! 
  1. Why did my parents always hide my Easter Basket in the top of their closet? 
  1. Why did my Daddy always cut the yard on the Saturday before Easter? 
  1. Somewhere, there is an Easter picture of me wearing a crew cut, a blue and brown plaid sports coat and a blue bow tie. No. That wasn’t last year, I was in First Grade. 
  1. Who grieves for all of the ear-less Chocolate Bunnies? 
  1. Why did we always have deviled eggs with our Easter meal? Wasn’t dyeing the eggs enough? 
  1. The is nothing like the smell of an Easter Ham in the oven.
  1. When you’re a parent/grandparent hiding Easter eggs, you suddenly gain a new found respect for what your parents went through. 
  1. Why didn’t the preacher just go ahead and wish everyone a “Merry Christmas” to cover those he wouldn’t see again until next year? 

Happy Easter, everyone!


Spinning Obama’s Supreme Court “Gaffe”

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

You can take a president away from Chicago Politics, but you can’t take the practice of Chicago Politics away from a president.

Per foxnews.com:

Obama, during a joint press conference Monday with the leaders of Canada and Mexico, said he’s “confident” the law will be upheld, but cautioned the “unelected” court against reaching any other conclusion. In doing so, Obama invoked what he described as conservative concerns about judicial activism.

But Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, called it a “fantasy” to think “every law you like is constitutional and every Supreme Court decision you don’t is ‘activist.'”

“Judicial activism or restraint is not measured by which side wins but by whether the Court correctly applied the law,” he said.

The president’s challenge to the high court drew widespread attention, on the eve of the Republican presidential candidates’ next round of primaries — Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia are voting Tuesday. All the candidates oppose the health care law, though front-runner Mitt Romney has come under fire for his role in passing one with similar provisions while governor of Massachusetts.

Romney, who describes the federal law as an overreach, also slammed Obama for his Supreme Court comments on Tuesday.

Romney, in an interview on Fox News, said an activist court is one that “departs” from the Constitution and legislates from the bench. In this case, he said, the judges simply are weighing whether a law is constitutional.

“That will not be an activist court — that will be a court following the Constitution,” Romney said.

Now, the Obama Administration is spinning faster the turnstile at Disney World.

White House press secretary Jay Carney tells the press corps that President Obama’s attack on the Supreme Court was misunderstood because he was speaking in “shorthand” since he is a former professor of law.

Henry: The president is a former constitutional law professor. One of his professors is Laurence Tribe. He now says, in his words, the president “obviously misspoke earlier this week”, quote “he didn’t say what he meant and having said that in order to avoid misleading anyone, he had to clarify it.” I thought yesterday you were saying repeatedly that he did not misspeak. What do you make of the president’s former law professor saying he did?

Carney: The premise of your question suggests that the president of the United States in the comments he made Monday, did not believe in the constitutionality of legislation, which is a preposterous premise and I know you don’t believe that.

Henry: Except this is from Laurence Tribe, who knows a lot more than you and I about constitutional law.

Carney: What I acknowledged yesterday is that speaking on Monday the president was not clearly understood by some people because he is a law professor, he spoke in shorthand.

Former Obama Law Student Thom Lambert wrote the following article, My Professor, My Judge, and the Doctrine of Judicial Review, which was posted on foxnews.com:

Imagine if you picked up your morning paper to read that one of your astronomy professors had publicly questioned whether the earth, in fact, revolves around the sun. Or suppose that one of your economics professors was quoted as saying that consumers would purchase more gasoline if the price would simply rise. Or maybe your high school math teacher was publicly insisting that 2 + 2 = 5. You’d be a little embarrassed, right? You’d worry that your colleagues and friends might begin to question your astronomical, economic, or mathematical literacy.

Now you know how I felt this morning when I read in the Wall Street Journal that my own constitutional law professor had stated that it would be “an unprecedented, extraordinary step” for the Supreme Court to “overturn[] a law [i.e., the Affordable Care Act] that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.” Putting aside the “strong majority” nonsense (the deeply unpopular Affordable Care Act got through the Senate with the minimum number of votes needed to survive a filibuster and passed 219-212 in the House), saying that it would be “unprecedented” and “extraordinary” for the Supreme Court to strike down a law that violates the Constitution is like saying that Kansas City is the capital of Kansas. Thus, a Wall Street Journal editorial queried this about the President who “famously taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago”: “[D]id he somehow not teach the historic case of Marbury v. Madison?”

I actually know the answer to that question. It’s no (well, technically yes…he didn’t). President Obama taught “Con Law III” at Chicago. Judicial review, federalism, the separation of powers — the old “structural Constitution” stuff — is covered in “Con Law I” (or at least it was when I was a student). Con Law III covers the Fourteenth Amendment.

Okay.  So how do Obama’s Law Professors feel about his shorthand?  One of them seems to be spinning as hard as the Administration.

President Obama’s former law-school professor said yesterday the president “obviously misspoke” when he challenged the authority of the US Supreme Court to overturn his historic health-care law.

“He didn’t say what he meant. . . and having said that, in order to avoid misleading anyone, he had to clarify it,” Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe told The Wall Street Journal.

Tribe, who called Obama one of his best students, tried to downplay the president’s remarks by insisting everyone already knows he wants the law to survive.

“I don’t think anything was gained by his making these comments and I don’t think any harm was done, except by public confusion,” Tribe said.

By the way…

Lawrence Tribe is an American constitutional scholar and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at the Harvard Law School. A longstanding proponent of liberal jurisprudence, in 2001 Tribe helped found the American Constitution Society a supposed liberal counterweight to the conservative Federalist Society and was long considered a possible Supreme Court nominee by a Democratic administration.

This situation has me singing an old Blood, Sweat, and Tears song:  Spinning wheel got to go ’round…The Attorney General is singing too:

“The longstanding, historical position of the United States regarding judicial review of the constitutionality of federal legislation has not changed,” Attorney General Eric Holder wrote in a letter filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. “The Department has not in this litigation, nor in any other litigation of which I am aware, ever asked this or any other Court to reconsider or limit long-established precedent concerning judicial review of the constitutionality of federal legislation.”

Methinks Justice Kagan has spilled the beans to her former boss and things aren’t going to go Obama’s way when the Supreme Court’s decision is given.

In the meantime…pray.

The Muslim Brotherhood Visits the White House

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

The Obama Administration’s Bizarro World Smart Power! Foreign Policy Minions are at it again…treating our friends like they’re our enemies and our enemies as our friends.

For example…

White House officials held talks with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood in Washington this week, as the Islamist group threw itself into the fray in Egypt’s presidential election.

The meeting on Tuesday with low-level National Security Council staff was part of a series of US efforts to broaden engagement with new and emerging political parties following Egypt’s revolution last year, a US official said.

The White House pointed out that Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain, and other US lawmakers and officials had also met with Brotherhood representatives in Egypt and elsewhere in recent months.

“We believe that it is in the interest of the United States to engage with all parties that are committed to democratic principles, especially nonviolence,” said National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor.

“In all our conversations with these groups, we emphasize the importance of respect for minority rights, the full inclusion of women, and our regional security concerns.”

The Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, said on Saturday it would nominate Khairat al-Shater, a professor of engineering and business tycoon, to contest Egypt’s first presidential election since a popular uprising ousted Hosni Mubarak last year.

The Islamists, who control parliament, had repeatedly said they would not put forward a member for the election in order to mitigate fears that they were trying to monopolize power.

So…just who are these welcomed representatives of the “religion of peace”?

Founded in 1928 by the Egyptian schoolteacher/activist Hasan al-Banna (a devout admirer of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis), the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) — a Sunni entity — is one of the oldest, largest and most influential Islamist organizations in the world. While Egypt historically has been the center of the Brotherhood’s operations, the group today is active in more than 70 countries (some estimates range as high as 100+). Islam expert Robert Spencer has called MB “the parent organization of Hamas and al Qaeda.” In 2003, Richard Clarke – the chief counterterrorism advisor on the U.S. National Security Council during both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations – told a Senate committee that Hamas, al Qaeda, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were all “descendants of the membership and ideology of the Muslim Brothers.”

MB was established in accordance with al-Banna’s proclamation that Islam should be “given hegemony over all matters of life.” Toward that end, the Brotherhood seeks to establish an Islamic caliphate, or kingdom — first spanning all of the present-day Muslim world, and eventually the entire globe. The organization further aspires to dismantle all non-Islamic governments wherever they currently exist, and to make Islamic Law (Shari’a) the sole basis of jurisprudence everywhere on earth. This purpose is encapsulated in the Brotherhood’s militant credo: “God is our objective, the Koran is our Constitution, the Prophet is our leader, struggle [jihad] is our way, and death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations.”

Consistent with the foregoing credo, MB since its founding has supported the use of armed struggle, or jihad, against non-Muslim “infidels.” As al-Banna himself wrote: “Jihad is an obligation from Allah on every Muslim and cannot be ignored nor evaded.” Added al-Banna: “It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”

…

Embracing Hasan al-Banna’s belief that Islam is destined to eventually dominate all the world, MB today is global in its reach, wielding influence in almost every country with a Muslim population. Moreover, it maintains political parties in many Middle-Eastern and African countries, including Jordan, Bahrain, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, and even Israel. Not only does the Brotherhood exist in Israel proper, but its Palestinian chapter created the terrorist organization Hamas, through which MB has supported terrorism against Israel ever since. Article II of the Hamas charter explicitly identifies Hamas as “one of the wings of Moslem Brotherhood in Palestine.” In January 2006 Hamas defeated the rival Fatah party to win the Palestinian legislative elections, thereby becoming the first branch of MB to control an official government.

Outside of the Middle East, MB exercises a strong influence in Muslim communities throughout Europe. Among the more prominent Brotherhood organizations in the region are: the Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations, the Muslim Association of Britain, the European Council for Fatwa and Research, the Islamische Gemeinschaft Deutschland (IGD), and the Union des Organisations Islamiques de France (UOIF).

…In early February 2011, Muhammad Ghannem, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, told the Iranian news network Al-Alam that “the people [of Egypt] should be prepared for war against Israel,” emphasizing that “the Egyptian people are prepared for anything to get rid of this regime.” That objective was entirely consistent with former MB Supreme Guide Muhammad Mahdi Othman Akef’s 2007 assertion that his organization had never recognized Israel and never would: “Our lexicon does not include anything called ‘Israel.’ The [only thing] we acknowledge is the existence of Zionist gangs that have occupied Arab lands and deported the residents. If they want to live among us, it will have to be as [residents of] Palestine.”

And these are the people that President Barack Hussein Obama and his Administration have chosen to support.

Schmucks.

The United States of America Vs. Sheriff Joe Arpaio

On By kingsjesterIn Politics7 Comments

The man who swore to take an oath to protect American citizens seems more concerned with protecting those here illegally.

Reuters.com reports that

The Obama administration on Tuesday said it was preparing to sue Arizona county sheriff Joe Arpaio and his department for violating civil rights laws by improperly targeting Latinos in a bid to crack down on illegal immigrants.

The sheriff’s high-profile crackdown on illegal immigrants has helped thrust the issue onto the national political stage with some states passing tough new laws aimed at pushing out those in the country illegally.

The administration’s Justice Department and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office have been in settlement talks for months over allegations that officers regularly made unlawful stops and arrests of Latinos, used excessive force against them and failed to adequately protect the Hispanic community.

Those negotiations have broken down because of a fight over the Justice Department’s demand that an independent monitor be appointed by a federal court to oversee compliance with the settlement, which has now reached 128 pages in draft form, according to the Obama administration.

“We believe that you are wasting time and not negotiating in good faith,” Roy Austin, deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said in a letter to the lawyer for Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO).

Austin said in the letter that Arpaio’s team demanded that a meeting slated for Wednesday include for the first time negotiations over the monitor and previously had demanded that the Justice Department provide more details about its findings.

“MCSO’s refusal to engage in good faith negotiations requires us to prepare for civil (court) action,” Austin said. He added that the Justice Department has recently discovered more information about the “failure to reasonably investigate sex crimes” by Arpaio’s office.

The Justice Department in a December report outlined numerous alleged civil rights violations, including that Latino drivers were four to nine times more likely to be stopped than non-Latinos by Arpaio’s force.

The sheriff has steadfastly denied any wrongdoing and lashed out at the Obama administration for targeting his department and failing to deal with the problem of illegal immigration with some 11.5 million believed to be in the United States.

In a strongly worded statement on Tuesday, Arpaio said the appointment of a monitor would force him to abdicate responsibility for his police force, including decisions about policies, operations, jail programs and enforcement.

“To the Obama administration, who is attempting to strong arm me into submission only for its political gain, I say: This will not happen, not on my watch!” Arpaio said in the statement.

Arpaio’s force has been under investigation by federal authorities since 2008 during the Bush administration. Obama’s Justice Department spent months fighting for access to documents and to some of his deputies. Arpaio was interviewed twice during the probe.

Where was the concern of the Obama Administration when a good, hard-working American was gunned down by an illegal in Arizona.  Remember this story?

Police say Robert Krentz, whose family has been ranching in southern Arizona since 1907, was gunned down early Saturday morning, March 27th, 2010, by an illegal immigrant while out on his ATV tending to fences and water lines on the family’s 34,000-acre cattle ranch.

Reached by phone early Tuesday at his family’s ranch, Andy Krentz, Krentz’s oldest son, said his father was a churchgoing man who routinely went out of his way to help those in need.

“My father was a very good family man,” Krentz told FoxNews.com. “He supported his kids, supported his family. He went out of his way to help anybody we could without regarding to who they were. It didn’t matter who they were.”

Sue Krentz, Krentz’s wife, said she was “pretty overwhelmed” by her husband’s death, which coincided with her parents’ deteriorating health.

“This is icing on the cake,” Krentz said.

Yes, it was. The public outcry was deafening.

Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law Friday, April 23rd, 2010, a bill supporters said would take handcuffs off police in dealing with illegal immigration in Arizona, the nation’s busiest gateway for human and drug smuggling from Mexico.With hundreds of protesters outside the state Capitol shouting that the bill would lead to civil rights abuses, Brewer said critics were “overreacting” and that she wouldn’t tolerate racial profiling.

“We in Arizona have been more than patient waiting for Washington to act,” Brewer said after signing the law. “But decades of inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation.”

Do you realize that there are parts of Arizona where Americans are not allowed to travel because of the danger of violence from Mexican Drug Lords?

Roughly 3,500 acres of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge — about 3 percent of the 118,000-acre park — have been closed since Oct. 6, 2006, when U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials acknowledged a marked increase in violence along a tract of land that extends north from the border for roughly three-quarters of a mile. Federal officials say they have no plans to reopen the area.

Elsewhere, at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, which shares a 32-mile stretch of the border with Mexico, visitors are warned on a federally-run website that some areas are not accessible by anyone.

“Due to our proximity to the International Boundary with Mexico, some areas near the border are closed for construction and visitor safety concerns,” the website reads.

On another page titled “Border Concerns,” the website warns that visitors should be aware that “drug smuggling routes” pass through the park.

“If you see any activity which looks illegal, suspicious, or out of place, please do not intervene,” the website reads. “Note your location. Call 911 or report it to a ranger as quickly as possible. Each year hundreds of people travel north through the park seeking to enter the United States.”

Visitors are also warned to be mindful of illegal immigrants within Ironwood Forest National Monument, a 129,000-acre federal parkland in the Sonoran Desert.

Excuse me, Mr. President and Mr. Attorney General…Before you attempt to embarrass and verbally crucify a fine public servant like Sheriff Joe, why don’t you take care of those in Arizona who are in violation of our country’s laws and endangering the lives of American citizens, first?

Your priorities seem to be just a wee bit out of order.

Mr. Robert Krentz remains unavailable for comment.

Obama Vs. the Supreme Court: Falls Count Anywhere

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

The day after Wrestlemania XXVIII, President Barack Hussein Obama did his impression of “The Rock”, as he called out the Supreme Court.

Does ol’ Scooter know something that we don’t?

Reuters.com has the story:

President Barack Obama took an opening shot at conservative justices on the Supreme Court on Monday, warning that a rejection of his sweeping healthcare law would be an act of “judicial activism” that Republicans say they abhor.

Obama, a Democrat, had not commented publicly on the Supreme Court’s deliberations since it heard arguments for and against the healthcare law last week.

Known as the “Affordable Care Act” or “Obamacare,” the measure to expand health insurance for millions of Americans is considered Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement.

A rejection by the court would be a big blow to Obama going into the November 6 presidential election.

Republican presidential candidates, who are vying to take on Obama in November elections, have promised to repeal the law if one of them wins the White House.

Obama’s advisers say they have not prepared contingency plans if the measure fails. But the president — who expressed confidence that the court would uphold the law — made clear how he would address it on the campaign trail if the court strikes it down.

“Ultimately, I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress,” Obama said at a news conference with the leaders of Canada and Mexico.

Conservative leaders say the law, which once fully implemented will require Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty, was an overreach by Obama and the Congress that passed it.

The president sought to turn that argument around, calling a potential rejection by the court an overreach of its own.

“And I’d just remind conservative commentators that, for years, what we have heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism, or a lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law,” Obama said.

“Well, this is a good example, and I’m pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step,” he said.

AFP reporting on yahoo.com continues the story:

Obama’s comments will be seen as a warning shot to the court, one of the three branches of the US government, and could draw complaints from critics that he is trying to influence the deliberations.

Gee, DiNozzo.  Ya think?

The health care case is the most closely watched Supreme Court deliberation since a divided bench handed the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush over Al Gore, and could have far reaching political implications.

Obama also argued there was a “human element” to the health care battle, as well as legal and political dimensions.

He said that without the law, passed after a fierce battle with Republicans in 2010, several million children would not have health care, and millions more adults with pre-existing conditions would also be deprived of treatment.

And, with additional taxes levied on the American people, in order to finance Obamacare, small companies will begin to fold, and an already bad economy will become worse.

Opponents of the health care law argue that the government has overreached its powers by requiring all Americans to purchase health insurance.

But supporters say that the government is within its rights to regulate the health industry as it has the power to oversee commerce across state borders.

Without the mandate, they say, the costs of insuring an extra 32 million Americans would be prohibitive to the private health insurance industry.

The Affordable Care Act is highly polarizing in US politics as the election approaches and Obama is yet to get a political dividend for the huge expenditure of political capital required to pass the legislation.

If the court upholds the law, and he wins reelection in November, the legislation will likely stand for years, as it will be fully implemented by 2014, two years before his second term draws to a close.

But Republicans running to replace him in the November 6 election have all vowed to repeal ObamaCare.

“I think it’s important… to remind people that this is not an abstract argument,” Obama said.

“The law that’s already in place has already given 2.5 million young people health care that wouldn’t otherwise have it.

“There are tens of thousands of adults with preexisting conditions who have health care right now because of this law.”

Before you start breaking out the hankies over Scooter’s noble sentiments concerning his wonderful, heaven-sent Affordable Care Act, remember what the Congressional Budget Office reported recently:

President Obama’s landmark healthcare overhaul is projected to cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, reports the Congressional Budget Office, a hefty sum more than the $940 billion estimated when the healthcare legislation was signed into law. To put it mildly, ObamaCare’s projected net worth is far off from its original estimate — in fact, about $820 billion off.

Backtracking to his September 2009 remarks to a joint session of Congress on healthcare, Obama asserted the following: “Now, add it all up, and the plan I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years — less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration.”

When the final CBO report was released before the law’s passage, critics surmised that the actual 10-year cost would far exceed the advertised projections. In other words, the numbers were seemingly obscured through a political ploy devised to jam the legislation through Congress.

I pray that the Supreme Court puts a stake in the heart of Obama’s vampiric National Healthcare Monster.

This nation’s health…and our pocketbooks…simply cannot afford it.

Romney and Those Darned Christians

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics3 Comments

On March 27th, 2012, gallup.com released the following lists of the 10 Most Religious and Least Religious states in America. Most Religious States, Based on % Very Religious, 2011 Least Religious States, Based on % Very Religious, 2011

As of the writing of this blog, Mitt Romney has come in First Place in the following states’ Republican Primaries: Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming.

The only state that Romney will possibly win among the Most Religious List is Utah.  Excuse me for being politically incorrect, but, the only reason he will carry that state, is the fact that he is a Mormon. (Yeah, I said it.)

The Pew Research Center released some interesting information last month.

A poll by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life has found that nearly 60% of Romney supporters believe that churches should step back from political and social issues, while 60% of Santorum supporters believe churches should play a more active role. These sentiments were echoed by another sharp divide found between the candidates’ supporters regarding their views on whether there’s too little expression of religious faith by political leaders. For Romney’s camp, there’s little concern, with 24% agreeing that there’s not enough religious discourse. But 55% of Santorum supporters see a deficit in religious speech by politicians. As for the nation on a whole, the poll unearthed another interesting trend. The largest number of Americans in the poll’s 10-year history believe there is too much expression of religious faith by politicians. In 2010, the last national election year, 37% said there was too little expression compared to 29% saying there was too much. Now, the numbers are nearly reversed, at 30% and 38% respectively. Democrats were found to be nearly twice as likely as Republicans to say there’s too much talk of religion by politicians, 46% to 24%. Among white evangelicals, Santorum’s most prominent base of supporters, only 14% thought politicians focused on religion too much. As such, it comes as no surprise that 54% see the Republican Party as being friendly toward religion, compared to 35% for Democrats. The largest divides in the poll were on President Obama’s perceived friendliness to religion. A majority of Republicans, 52%, categorize him as unfriendly, compared to 5% of Democrats, while 15% of Republicans see him as friendly, compared to 59% percent of Democrats. The poll was conducted between March 7-11 with 1,503 individual interviews and has a sampling error of 3 percentage points.

If I’m interpreting this poll correctly, both the majority of Romney supporters and the Majority of Democrats have an aversion to religious values playing a part in the governance of our country. With 78% of Americans, per Gallup, identifying themselves as Christians, this could be a problem for Romney, if he continues on to the nomination.

But, is it his Mormonism or his flip-flipping Political Ideology that has alienated the Conservative Base of the Republican Party?

TheBlaze.com reported the following on March21st:

Following a win in the Illinois GOP primary Tuesday and a key endorsement from former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney’s top adviser Eric Fehrnstrom appeared on CNN where he answered questions concerning whether his candidate had gone “so far right” in the primary campaign.

“Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign,” Fehrnstrom said. “Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.”

Fehrnstrom’s answer is likely to rehash concerns from many critics within the conservative base and general electorate who have long alleged that Romney is a “flip-flopper“ and has ”no core values.”

The campaign of Romney’s strongest rival Rick Santorum has immediately pounced on the gaffe.

“We all knew Mitt Romney didn’t have any core convictions, but we appreciate his staff going on national television to affirm that point for anyone who had any doubts,” Santorum’s National Communications Director Hogan Gidley said in a statement.

“With the two year anniversary of the signing of ObamaCare upon us, can voters really believe that the man who urged the President to use his healthcare plan in Massachusetts as a model would really repealObamaCare? Or is that promise just something they would ‘shake up and restart’ with when Romney hits the general election.”

If you have spent any time at all on Conservative Blogs during the Republican Nomination Process, you have seen Mitt Supporters label Christians, especially Evangelicals, as narrow-minded bigots, if they express any concern of the political ideology of Mitt Romney.  These “fans” stand at the ready to identify genuine concerns as anti-Mormon bigotry, where there is none.

The simple fact of the matter is, as Rush Limbaugh himself stated on February 2nd:

There is a Republican primary going on right now, and who votes in a Republican primary?  Starts with a C.  Conservatives.  There are elements of conservatism that are fundamental.  And we conservatives, we have radar.  We know when somebody isn’t.

Additionally, if the Romney supporters knew their Christianity, they would be familiar with the gift of discernment.

What is a Christian American Conservative?

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics20 Comments

I have been asked to define what it means to be a Christian American Conservative.  After all, that’s how I identify myself and that is what it says on the top of this blog, since I began this exercise in ranting and raving in April of 2010.

Let’s perform a dissection, shall we?

First word:  Christian – A follower of Jesus Christ.

I was raised as a Christian by my parents and accepted Christ as my personal Savior many years ago.

Here are some interesting things about Christianity to consider, written by Dr. Ray Pritchard and posted on christianity.com:

1) The name “Christian” was not invented by early Christians. It was a name given to them by others.
2) Christians called themselves by different names—disciples, believers, brethren, saints, the elect, etc.
3) The term apparently had a negative meaning in the beginning: “those belonging to the Christ party.”
4) It was a term of contempt or derision.
5) We can get a flavor for it if we take the word “Christ” and keep that pronunciation. You “Christ-ians.”
6) It literally means “Christ-followers.”
7) Over time a derogatory term became a positive designation.
8) Occasionally you will hear someone spit the term out in the same way it was used in the beginning. “You Christians think you’re the only ones going to heaven.”
9) There was a sense of suffering and reproach attached to the word in the New Testament.

In working my way toward an answer to “What is a Christian?” I decided to check out the dictionary. I found these two definitions:

1. One who professes belief in Jesus as Christ or follows the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus. 2. One who lives according to the teachings of Jesus.”

That’s actually quite helpful because it gives some content to the word. To be a Christian means that you . . .

Believe Something
Follow Something
Live Something
A Fully Devoted Follower To borrow a contemporary phrase, we could simply say that a Christian is a “fully devoted follower of Jesus.” As I think about that, two insights come to mind.

1) It doesn’t happen by accident. You are not “born” a Christian nor are you a Christian because of your family heritage. Being a Christian is not like being Irish. You aren’t a Christian simply because you were born into a Christian family.
2) It requires conversion of the heart. By using the term “conversion,” I simply mean what Jesus meant when he said that to be his disciple meant to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him (Luke 9:23). The heart itself must be changed so that you become a follower of the Lord.

Second word: American – A citizen of the United States of America.

Stephen M. Warchawsky, wrote the following in an article for americanthinker.org:

So what, then, does it mean to be an American? I suspect that most of us believe, like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in describing pornography, that we “know it when we see it.” For example, John Wayne, Amelia Earhart, and Bill Cosby definitely are Americans. The day laborers standing on the street corner probably are not. But how do we put this inner understanding into words? It’s not easy. Unlike most other nations on Earth, the American nation is not strictly defined in terms of race or ethnicity or ancestry or religion. George Washington may be the Father of Our Country (in my opinion, the greatest American who ever lived), but there have been in the past, and are today, many millions of patriotic, hardworking, upstanding Americans who are not Caucasian, or Christian, or of Western European ancestry. Yet they are undeniably as American as you or I (by the way, I am Jewish of predominantly Eastern European ancestry). Any definition of “American” that excludes such folks — let alone one that excludes me! — cannot be right.

Consequently, it is just not good enough to say, as some immigration restrictionists do, that this is a “white-majority, Western country.” Yes, it is. But so are, for example, Ireland and Sweden and Portugal. Clearly, this level of abstraction does not take us very far towards understanding what it means to be “an American.” Nor is it all that helpful to say that this is an English-speaking, predominately Christian country. While I think these features get us closer to the answer, there are millions of English-speaking (and non-English-speaking) Christians in the world who are not Americans, and millions of non-Christians who are. Certainly, these fundamental historical characteristics are important elements in determining who we are as a nation. Like other restrictionists, I am opposed to public policies that seek, by design or by default, to significantly alter the nation’s “demographic profile.” Still, it must be recognized that demography alone does not, and cannot, explain what it means to be an American.

So where does that leave us? I think the answer to our question, ultimately, must be found in the realms of ideology and culture. What distinguishes the United States from other nations, and what unites the disparate peoples who make up our country, are our unique political, economic, and social values, beliefs, and institutions. Not race, or religion, or ancestry.

Third word: Conservative -A person who holds to traditional values and attitudes.

J. Matt Barber wrote in the Washington Times that

Ronald Reagan often spoke of a “three-legged stool” that undergirds true conservatism. The legs are represented by a strong defense, strong free-market economic policies and strong social values. For the stool to remain upright, it must be supported by all three legs. If you snap off even one leg, the stool collapses under its own weight.

A Republican, for instance, who is conservative on social and national defense issues but liberal on fiscal issues is not a Reagan conservative. He is a quasi-conservative socialist.

A Republican who is conservative on fiscal and social issues but liberal on national defense issues is not a Reagan conservative. He is a quasi-conservative dove.

By the same token, a Republican who is conservative on fiscal and national defense issues but liberal on social issues – such as abortion, so-called gay rights or the Second Amendment – is not a Reagan conservative. He is a socio-liberal libertarian.

Put another way: A Republican who is one part William F. Buckley Jr., one part Oliver North and one part Rachel Maddow is no true conservative. He is – well, I’m not exactly sure what he is, but it ain’t pretty.

Even the Brits understand what American Conservatism is.

Per blogs.telegraph.co.uk:

Conservatism is thriving in America today because liberty, freedom and individual responsibility are at the heart of its ideology, one that rejects the foolish notion that government knows best. And its strength owes a great debt to the conviction and ideals of Ronald Reagan, who always believed that America’s best days are ahead of her, and for whom the notion of decline was unacceptable. As the Gipper famously put it, in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in 1988:

Those who underestimate the conservative movement are the same people who always underestimate the American people.

In conclusion, I, a Christian American Conservative, am a follower of Jesus Christ and a citizen of the United States of America (by the Grace of God), who holds to traditional values and attitudes.

I pray that you, the reader, are able to glean that from my blogs.  Because, as Matthew 6:21 tells us:

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

May God bless you and yours,

KJ

Reverend Al Sharpton: Doing for Trayvon What He Did for Tawana?

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

MSNBC Host Al Sharpton has made a living for years out of race-baiting.

Remember Tawana Brawley?

Museumofhoaxes.com tells the story:

On November 28, 1987, a 15-year-old black girl named Tawana Brawley was found lying inside a trash bag outside an apartment building located in Wappingers Falls, New York. She was covered in feces and racial insults had been scrawled on her body. When questioned by police she claimed that a group of white men, including police officers, had raped and beaten her. The black community rallied around her, and a prominent black leader, the Reverend Al Sharpton, appointed himself her spokesman. Support for Brawley reached its peak on June 15, 1988 when her advisers held a meeting at the Bethany Baptist Church in Brooklyn that was broadcast to an audience of ten million viewers.

However, the material evidence did not back up Brawley’s claims. Her body displayed no signs of rape or assault. She was not frostbitten, even though she had supposedly been kept naked in the freezing woods for days. The feces on her body turned out to be from a neighbor’s dog, and even more damningly, a local resident of the apartment community where she was found claimed to have seen her climb into the trashbag alone and lie down of her own accord.

In October 1988 a grand jury issued a report following a seven-month investigation. It concluded that Brawley’s claims were a hoax. Many speculated that Brawley had made up a wild story in order to avoid punishment at the hand of her stepfather for having run away from home for three days. But Brawley herself insisted that she was telling the truth, a stance which she has maintained to this day. More than anything else, the episode and its bitter aftermath displayed the deep racial divisions that still haunted American society.

Now, in 2012, the Reverend Al Sharpton, MSNBC Host, is race-baiting once again.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that

If George Zimmerman is not arrested in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin soon, theRev. Al Sharpton will call for an escalation in peaceful civil disobedience and economic sanctions.

Sharpton would not say the efforts would be taken against the city of Sanford specifically, but he has been critical of the police department’s handling of the case.

The NAACP, who is sponsoring a march in Trayvon’s hometown of Sandford, Florida today, immediately tried to distance itself from Sharpton’s threat. Read this and decide for yourself if this was a “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” moment:

Turner Clayton, the Seminole County chapter president of the NAACP, reacted immediately to Sharpton’s warning, saying, “We hope that the citizens of Sanford will govern themselves accordingly. We are not calling for any sanctions, against any business or anyone else. And, of course, what Rev. Sharpton does, that’s strictly the [National] Action Network. We can’t condone that part of the conversation, if that’s what he said.”

“I don’t think they can confuse that,” Clayton said. “It’s just that they will have to make a judgment as to whether they want to follow the mission of the NAACP or follow what the Rev. Sharpton said.”

Clayton said that the rallies are going to show support from the community and show the special prosecutor that “we are interested in what happened, and we’re not going to stand by and let them do something that the people of Sanford will not accept.”

Saturday’s rally will begin with a march from the Crooms Academy to the Sanford Police Department on 13th Street. The march begins at 11 a.m. and is hosted by the NAACP.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson is expected to attend, along with Sharpton, who is expected to deliver specifics on his warning.

Sanford city workers spent the day discussing security and preparing for the rally, including setting up barricades, signs, cones and a stage.

Zimmerman, a 28-year-old neighborhood watch leader, shot and killed Martin, 17, last month, in a gated community in Sanford. Zimmerman claims the shooting was in self-defense.

Is it a “conflict of interest” for the Reverend Al to be a wild-eyed, race-baiting, camera-hogging activist and a cable news program host for MSNBC?

Evidently not, per comments his boss, Phil Griffin,  made to The Christian Science Monitor (I’m shocked):

Sharpton’s dual role would have been unthinkable on television 20 years ago and still wouldn’t be allowed at many news organizations. While opinionated cable news hosts have become commonplace over the past decade, Sharpton goes beyond talking.

“It certainly represents a change in our traditional view of the boundaries between journalism and activism,” said Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank. “Al Sharpton is clearly an activist.”

Sharpton, a Baptist minister, runs the Harlem-based National Action Network, a civil rights organization. He’s been a frequent presence as an advocate in racially-charged cases dating back to Tawana Brawley‘s accusations of an assault that turned out to be a hoax in the late 1980s.

He joined MSNBC’s roster of hosts last summer after extensive discussions about how his activist role would continue while on the air.

MSNBC chief executive Phil Griffin said his chief requirement was that Sharpton discuss his activism with network bosses so they could decide, on a case-by-case basis, how it would affect “Politics Daily,” which begins at 6 p.m. ET.

“We didn’t hire Al to become a neutered kind of news presenter,” Griffin said. “That’s not what we do.”

Griffin, talking before Monday’s show, said he hadn’t seen any conflict with Sharpton’s role on and off the air in the Martin case. He said Sharpton had fulfilled his requirement to honest and upfront about his activities, and credited “Politics Daily” with helping to make it a national story.

And somewhere, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. is sadly shaking his head.

Moochelle’s Vegas Trip: Let Them Eat Arugula!

On By kingsjesterIn Uncategorized4 Comments

President Barack Hussein Obama has had a testy relationship with Las Vegas during the three years of his reign…err…presidency.

Boston .com has the story:

President Barack Obama has a Sin City problem that won’t go away.

Obama is counting on Nevada’s support for re-election next year. He easily won the Las Vegas Valley in 2008 and will probably win the largely Democratic, urban center again next year.

But some Nevada state officials and residents of this economically ravaged state have been fuming over comments they perceived as rants against the tourism industry since he first made them two years ago, and Republicans are hoping that fury will point voters in their direction.

The friction resurfaced as Obama visited a Las Vegas neighborhood Monday as part of a nationwide tour to sell his jobs plan. The stop came as Republican presidential candidates, business titans and former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman maintain that Obama has twice disparaged Las Vegas tourism — this Western swing state’s largest employer.

The jabs are notable because casino-dependent Nevada has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, and Obama can’t afford to have voters blame him as his Republican rivals try to convince the nation that they would do a better job of turning the stalled economy around. Nevada’s unemployment remained steady at 13.4 percent last month.

“He said it more than once,” said former Nevada Gov. Bob List, a national Republican committeeman. “You can’t un-ring the bell. You have to live with what you say. It just shows a lack of understanding of the engine that drives the state.”

The feud began in 2009, when Obama admonished corporations using federal bailout money: “You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer’s dime.” A year later, Obama warned families against gambling away college tuition: “You don’t blow a bunch of cash in Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.”

The call for financial responsibility didn’t sit well with some Las Vegans, and Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Nevada all lashed back at the time. Even Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Obama’s most prominent ally in Congress and Nevada’s senior senator, told Obama to “lay off Las Vegas.”

With Obama campaigning for a second term, the president’s critics are eager to call the outcry to mind.

“Perception is reality,” said Republican Rep. Joe Heck, who represents southern Nevada. “After those statements were made, we had conventions call and pull out, so it did in fact cost Las Vegas business.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who won Nevada’s caucuses in 2008, pointed to Obama’s Vegas statements while campaigning here last week. He reminded voters of them in a statement sent out before Obama landed in Nevada Monday.

“My guess is it did not help when he talked down Las Vegas as a convention city, did it?” Romney told dozens of supporters gathered at his campaign headquarters in Las Vegas last week.

Obama tried to make amends Monday during a fundraiser with business leaders at the Bellagio casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

“I love coming to Vegas,” he said. “The only people who love coming more is my staff. I would not be surprised if some of them missed the plane accidentally.”

But the president did not allude to the tensions when he later spoke on a residential street in Las Vegas. In all, he spent only three hours in Nevada Monday.

Amanda Hulsizer, 31, said she appreciated that Obama stopped by her street, but she said he hadn’t completely redeemed himself for his earlier comments.

“You don’t only blow money in Las Vegas, you can just as easily blow money in California at Disneyland,” she said after the president’s speech. Her husband lost his job on the Las Vegas Strip.

Las Vegas saw 3.3 million visitors in August, 2.8 percent more than the same month last year, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. But gambling revenues were down 6.7 percent for the same period in Clark County, home to the glittering Las Vegas Strip and the vast majority of Nevadans.

Just like his promises, it seems that all of Obama’s opinions come with an expiration date, also.

ABCnews.go reports that.

It’s spring break for the Obama daughters and mom has taken them West for the week. Michelle Obama and her daughters visited Mount Rushmore Wednesday to see the monument where four U.S. presidents are immortalized in stone on the soaring mountainside.

Now the Obamas have arrived in Las Vegas for a private family visit.

At the depths of the recession, President Obama seemed to disparage Las Vegas visits, at one point warning hard-pressed Americans, “You don’t blow a bunch of cash in Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.”

There is lingering dismay in the Las Vegas travel and tourism industry but, during the political campaign, Obama has been a frequent visitor on official and political trips to the swing state of Nevada.

The first lady’s private schedule with Sasha and Malia in Las Vegas is short. They travel on to California for publicly announced events, including a San Francisco political fundraiser Friday, the Saturday commissioning of a new Coast Guard ship in Alameda, and then a chance to meet music sensation Taylor Swift.

Michelle Obama is to present Swift with an award at the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards in Los Angeles.

Bless Taylor Swift’s big ol’ Christian heart.  I know she’ll be gracious in accepting the award from Moochelle.

“You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer’s dime.”

The president told corporations that they couldn’t…but, evidently, it’s okay if his family does.