Author: kingsjester

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

Bad Dog. No Biscuit.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics7 Comments

President  Barack Hussein Obama (peace be unto him) went off-script at a pep rally for labor union members in Milwaukee yesterday.

Some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for a very long time and they’re not always happy with me. They talk about me like a dog. That’s not in my prepared remarks, but it’s true.
 

Not very presidential, huh?

After Scooter listed his self-approved accomplishments, He went on to blame those wascally wepublicans for his horrible economic policies: 

To steal a line from our old friend, Ted Kennedy: what is it about working men and women that they find so offensive?

Excuse me, Mr. President.  That 9.6 % unemployment number is your responsibility.

When we passed a bill earlier this summer to help states save the jobs of hundreds of thousands of teachers, nurses, police officers and firefighters that were about to be laid off, they said “no” to that, too. In fact, the Republican who’s already planning to take over as Speaker of the House dismissed them as “government jobs” that weren’t worth saving. Not worth saving? These are the people who teach our kids. Who keep our streets safe. Who put their lives on the line for our own. I don’t know about you, but I think those jobs are worth saving.

We made sure that bill wouldn’t add to the deficit, either. (We’ve heard that before.)  We paid for it by finally closing a ridiculous tax loophole that actually rewarded corporations for shipping jobs and profits overseas. It let them write off the taxes they pay foreign governments – even when they don’t pay taxes here. How do you like that – middle class families footing tax breaks for corporations that create jobs somewhere else! Even a lot of America’s biggest corporations agreed the loophole should be closed, that it wasn’t fair – but the man with the plan to be Speaker is already aiming to open it up again.

Bottom line is, these guys refuse to give up on the economic philosophy they peddled for most of the last decade. You know that philosophy: you cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires; you cut rules for special interests; you cut working folks like you loose to fend for yourselves. They called it the ownership society. What it really boiled down to was: if you couldn’t find a job, or afford college, or got dropped by your insurance company – you’re on your own.

Well, that philosophy didn’t work out so well for working folks. It didn’t work out so well for our country. All it did was rack up record deficits and result in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

I’m not bringing this up to re-litigate the past;  (No, you’re bringing it up to pass the buck.) I’m bringing it up because I don’t want to re-live the past. It would be one thing if Republicans in Washington had new ideas or policies to offer; if they said, you know, we’ve learned from our mistakes. We’ll do things differently this time. But that’s not what they’re doing. When the leader of their campaign committee was asked on national television what Republicans would do if they took over Congress, he actually said they’d follow “the exact same agenda” as they did before I took office. The exact same agenda.

When it comes to just about everything we’ve done to strengthen the middle class and rebuild our economy, almost every Republican in Congress said no. Even where we usually agree, they say no. They think it’s better to score political points before an election than actually solve problems. So they said no to help for small businesses. No to middle-class tax cuts. No to unemployment insurance. No to clean energy jobs. No to making college affordable. No to reforming Wall Street. Even as we speak, these guys are saying no to cutting more taxes for small business owners. I mean, come on! Remember when our campaign slogan was “Yes We Can?” These guys are running on “No, We Can’t,” and proud of it. Really inspiring, huh?

Inspiring?  Project much?

I thought this was supposed to be a Presidential Labor Day address on the economy, designed to motivate Americans, not a whiny pity party in front of a hand-picked bunch of labor union sycophants. 

According to the Bureau of Labor statistics, the unemployment rate was at 4.6 percent back in January of 2007, when Democrats took control of the House and Senate. Now, a little over 3 and 1/2 years later, unemployment stands at 9.6 %, over eight million jobs have been lost, and under-employment is higher than its ever been.
 
From 2002-2007, Republican-written budgets grew an average of 6.6 percent on a year-over-year basis.  Because of that,  Americans threw Republicans out on their backsides in November of 2006.

However, the worse was yet to come.  Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took those spending levels from an average of 6.6 percent to 11 percent year-over-year growth. Spending is now so out of control that for the first time in forty years, Congress has refused to put forward a budget for FY2011. So not only were the Democrats driving the car into the ditch, but it also appears that Reid and Pelosi decided to perform a Thelma and Louise imitation and drive the car off a cliff.

The immature display that the petulant president put on yesterday did nothing to endear himself to the American people as a whole and, more specifically, those Democrats who are running for office in the Midterm Elections.  His Labor Day speech did nothing to raise the hopes of Americans, who are struggling to survive the worst economy in decades.  And you had better believe that Democratic candidates will be distancing themselves from this administration and their Congressional leaders at an even faster rate than they have been.

America is looking for a leader and this guy’s still campaigning…for himself.

  

Giving Beads to the Indians

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

Happy Labor Day!  With 57 days to go until the biggest massacre since Little Big Horn,  President Barak Hussein Obama (peace be unto him) is bringing his legendary laser-like focus to his tanking economic policy in a vain attempt to save as many Democratic Congressional positions as he can.

Obama  is pitching a proposal calling for long-term investments in the nation’s roads, railways and runways that will cost American taxpayers at least $50 billion.

The infrastructure investments are just one of a bunch of targeted proposals the White House is expected to announce in the days leading to the November election.

The proposal calls for investments over six years, with an initial $50 billion front-loaded into it to “help create jobs in the near future”.

Because nothing will save our economy like more unneeded pork-barrel projects.

According to the administration elements of the infrastructure plan include: rebuilding 150,000 miles of roads; constructing and maintaining 4,000 miles of railways, enough to go coast-to-coast; and rehabilitating or reconstructing 150 miles of airport runways, while also installing a new air navigation system designed to reduce travel times and delays.

Obama is also calling for the creation of a permanent infrastructure bank that would focus on funding national and regional infrastructure projects.

This package follows the infrastructure investments that were a part of the $814 billion Porkulous Bill.  Officials said this infrastructure package differs from the previous package because it’s aimed at long-term growth, while still focusing on creating jobs in the short-term.  Uh huh.

Meanwhile, as small businesses struggle to survive, public attention is turning to what is destroying American small business owners: higher taxes, new accounting procedures and health-care mandates.  While Obama and his minions boast about plans to help the situation with an array of small-business initiatives, many owners say the government intervention is as much a deterrent to hiring as the faltering economy.

Their perceptions are important because the Obama administration is counting on small-business owners, whose ranks represent more than half the U.S. workforce, to jump-start the economy, much like they did after downturns in the early 1990s and 2001.

The White House is seeking artful solutions to the legitimate concerns of businesspeople about the crush of higher taxes. Among the ideas being floated are a temporary payroll-tax holiday and permanent extension of the expired research-and-development tax credit, being touted as ways to offset the impending elapse of tax cuts for the top 2 percent of households.

Those “in-the-know” believe that small businesses would be willing to expand their payroll if capital were more readily available to them.  Small businesses naturally suffered more in the credit crunch than their larger counterparts because they rely almost solely on banks for their financing.

To date, existing loan programs haven’t induced a whole lot of hiring. Surveys conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Small Business Association show owners much less optimistic in recent months about their prospects of hiring and growing than they were late last year and earlier this year.

Even those supporting the loans admit that the government investment likely won’t pay off until consumers start spending and business owners start feeling more confident.

If that’s the case, why not simply extend the Bush tax cuts for everyone?

In all, Scooter and the gang have created about a dozen small-business programs, including a health-care tax credit; more opportunities for women business owners to receive government contracts; and cuts in capital gains taxes.

Gene Sperling, counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner on small-business issues, says:

Our view is that the financial crisis put multiple barriers in the way of small businesses and the appropriate policy response has to be aggressive and multifaceted instead of looking for one silver bullet.

However, the chief U.S. financial economist at IHS Global Insight, Brian Bethune, firmly believes that the initiatives coupled with numerous other new regulations are making owners feel overburdened, overregulated and less secure about the economy:

They may see it as more interference.  They see it as bureaucratic intrusion.

Business owners and advocates complain that some of the programs contradict one another. Stephanie Cathcart, spokeswoman for the National Federation of Independent Business, said benefits from the payroll tax exemption business owners use when they hire unemployed people are wiped out by provisions in the health-care overhaul law that reduce a tax credit when businesses hire:

It’s counterintuitive.  Frankly, a lot of these initiatives fall short.

Every economic measure presented to the public by Obama and his administration, in the next 57 days, will be nothing by weak, blatant attempts to save the Democratic Party’s positions of power within America’s Legislative Branch. 

It’s too late.  The public will not be fooled.   Obama holds the responsibility for our horrible economic situation and he will not able to stop the upcoming re-enactment of the Little Big Horn on November 2nd by giving beads to the Indians.

A Heritage of Love

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity3 Comments

I have had a lot on my mind today.   Our grandson, Robert, is visiting for a couple of days.  Robert will be 3 on October 30th.  What kind of world will Robert grow up in?  What can I give him?  I’m having trouble, like millions of other Americans, simply paying the monthly bills.  Sitting in early service this morning, something that I have always known hit me harder than ever.  I can give him the heritage that my late father gave to me.  A heritage of love.  A love of God, Family, and Country.  If I can instill that love in him, he will anchored in Christ the Rock, able to withstand whatever obstacles he faces in his life.

In 1912, Memphis Commercial Appeal Editor C.P.J. Mooney, wrote the following as a Christmas gift to his readers.  It remains immensely populat to this day.

Jesus, the Perfect Man

There is no other character in history like that of Jesus.

As a preacher, as a doer of things, and as a philosopher, no man ever had the sweep and the vision of Jesus.

A human analysis of the human actions of Jesus brings to view a rule of life that is amazing in its perfect detail.

The system of ethics Jesus taught during His earthly sojourn 2,000 years ago was true then, has been true in every century since and will be true forever.

Plato was a great thinker and learned in his age, but his teachings did not stand the test of time. In big things and in little things time and human experience have shown that he erred.

Marcus Aurelius touched the reflective mind of the world, but he was as cold and austere as brown marble. …

Thomas a Kempis’ ”Imitation of Christ” is a thing of rare beauty and sympathy, but it is, as its name indicates, only an imitation.

Sir Thomas More’s ”Utopia” is yet a dream that cannot be realized.

Lord Bacon writing on chemistry and medicine under the glasses of the man working in a 20th century laboratory is puerile.

The world’s most learned doctors until 150 years ago gave dragon’s blood and ground tails of lizards and shells of eggs for certain ailments. The great surgeons a hundred years ago bled a man if he were wounded.

Napoleon had the world at his feet for four years, and when he died the world was going on its way as if he had never lived.

JESUS TAUGHT little as to property because He knew there were things of more importance than property. He measured property and life, the body and soul, at their exact relative value. He taught much more as to character, because character is of more importance than dollars.

Other men taught us to develop systems of government. Jesus taught so as to perfect the minds of men. Jesus looked to the soul, while other men dwelled on material things.

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.

Please allow me to leave you today with a song from a group that got started at Heartland Church in Southaven, MS and now tours throughout the South.  Here’s Dave’s Highway.  God Bless, KJ:

Obama: We’re Bailing….Just Not Fast Enough.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

Surrounded by his clueless economic team, including outgoing chief pinhead of the Council of Economic Advisers, Dr. Christina Romer, whose replacement has yet to be named, President Barack Hussein Obama (peace be unto him) tried to be “Little Mary Sunshine” yesterday while ignoring the fact that August saw a net job loss of 54,000 jobs:

In the month I took office, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month.  This morning, new figures show the economy produced 67,000 private sector jobs in August, the eighth consecutive month of private job growth.  Additionally, the numbers for July were revised upward to 107,000. Now that’s positive news, and it reflects the steps we’ve already taken to break the back of this recession.

The net job loss for August is largely because of the layoffs of 114,000 Census temporary workers.

When May’s job numbers showed a net increase of 431,000 jobs, 411,000 of which were Census jobs , Obama bragged that

…most of these jobs this month that we’re seeing in the statistics represent workers who’ve been hired to complete the 2010 census.

However, when Scooter spoke on June 4th, he did not say just how many of the 431,000 jobs were Census jobs:  95% of them.  Instead, the Great Prevaricator cited the overall report, and its deceptively large number as evidence that businesses are

…starting to hire again. Workers who were laid off, they’re starting to get their jobs back. Companies that were almost forced to close their doors are making plans to expand and invest in new equipment.

Yeah?  Notice he did not name these “companies”.

As I mentioned earlier, nonfarm payrolls fell by 54,000 last month, matching the level of revised losses recorded the previous month.  The revision in July layoffs to 54,000 followed an original estimate of a 131,000 drop in payrolls.

The U.S. economy has shed jobs for three straight months, though the losses in August were about half the 110,000 predicted by economists in a Dow Jones Newswires survey.

The unemployment rate, calculated using a separate household survey, edged up to 9.6%, as expected, after holding at 9.5% for previous two months.

According to the U. S, Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult men (9.8 per-cent), adult women (8.0 percent), teenagers (26.3 percent), whites (8.7 per-cent), blacks (16.3 percent), and Hispanics (12.0 percent) showed little
change in August. The jobless rate for Asians was 7.2 percent, not seasonally adjusted. 

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) declined by 323,000 over the month to 6.2 million. In August, 42.0 percent of unemployed persons had been jobless for 27 weeks or more. 

In August, the civilian labor force participation rate (64.7 percent) and the employment-population ratio (58.5 percent) were essentially unchanged.

The number of persons employed part-time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) increased by 331,000 over the month to 8.9 million. These individuals were working part-time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

Yesterday the president tried to deflect attention away from his horrible economic policy with all his might .  He said that the 67,000 private sector jobs created were “not nearly good enough” and said he would “in the weeks ahead” be detailing

…further steps to create jobs and keep the economy growing, including extending tax cuts for the middle class and investing in the areas of our economy where the potential for job growth is greatest.

Great.  Because everything you and your theoretical economists have tried so far has been a blazing success, hasn’t it, Scooter?

As he did Monday, the president again pleaded with Congress

…to make passing a small-business jobs bill its first order of business when it gets back into session later this month.

 He then scolded Senate Republicans for having

…blocked this bill, a needless delay that has led small-business owners across this country to put off hiring, put off expanding and put off plans that will make our economy stronger.

Asked what the other incentives will be, the president said he would be “addressing a broader package of ideas next week.”

When a report dared to ask to what degree he regrets his administration’s decision to call this Recovery Summer, Scooter started stammering.  Then he said:

I don’t regret the notion that we are moving forward, but because of the steps that we’ve taken.  And I’m going to have a press conference next week, where, after you guys are able to hear where we’re at, we’ll be able to answer some specific questions.

…the key point I’m making right now is that the economy is moving in a positive direction, jobs are being created; they’re just not being created as fast as they need to, given the big hole that we experienced…We’re moving in the right direction.  We just have to speed it up.

Rest assured, Scooter’s been responsible for on this since Day One.

Yesterday afternoon, the first family left for Camp David, for another vacation. On Monday, Scooter will make a campaign stop  in Milwaukee at Laborfest, an annual event put on by his campaign donors and personal advisors in the AFL-CIO.   He’ll also travel to Cleveland next week on Wednesday, where he will address another hand-picked pep rally on the economy.

Then, on Friday, he’ll have a press conference at the White House, his first solo session with reporters since his May news conference on the BP oil spill.

Maybe he’ll actually give an honest answer to an honest question….nawwww.  Probably not.

The DOJ’s New Immigration Policy: Sue Sheriff Joe!

On By kingsjesterIn Politics6 Comments

How does Barak Hussein Obama (peace be unto him), Eric Holder, and their Department of Justice reward a dedicated lawman for decades of service?   They sue him. 

The DOJ sued Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Thursday, claiming the Arizona lawman refused for more than a year to turn over records in an investigation into allegations his department discriminates against Hispanics.

The lawsuit calls Arpaio and his office’s defiance “unprecedented,” and claimed that the federal government has been trying since March 2009 to get officials to comply with its probe of alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and having English-only policies in his jails that discriminate against people with limited English skills.

Wow.  You would think this is America…or sumpin’.

Arpaio had been given until Aug. 17 to hand over documents the DOJ asked for 15 months ago.

Sheriff Joe”s attorney, Robert Driscoll, would not comment on the lawsuit, saying he had just received it and hadn’t yet conferred with his client.

Arpaio’s office had said it has fully cooperated in the jail inquiry but won’t hand over additional documents into the examination of the alleged unconstitutional searches because federal authorities haven’t said exactly what they were investigating.

This is just the latest in a series of harassing actions taken against Arizona by our own federal government, which remains determined, regardless of what this administration publically says, to continue to allow the massive influx of illegal aliens across our Southern border..

Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the department’s civil rights division claims:

The actions of the sheriff’s office are unprecedented .  It is unfortunate that the department was forced to resort to litigation to gain access to public documents and facilities.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix and names Arpaio, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and the county.

Many of the policies Arpaio has put into place in the greater Phoenix area are similar to Arizona’s new law, most of which a federal judge has put on hold.  Sheriff Joe has set up a hot line for the public to report immigration violations, conducts crime and immigration sweeps in heavily Latino neighborhoods and frequently raids workplaces for people in the U.S. illegally.

Oh, my gosh.  He actually enforces the law!  Oh, the horror!

Sheriff Joe rightfully believes that the inquiry is focused on his immigration sweeps, patrols where deputies flood an area of a city, in some cases heavily Latino areas, to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders.

Critics complain that his deputies pull people over for minor traffic infractions because of the color of their skin so they can ask them for their proof of citizenship.

Arpaio denies these allegations of racial profiling, saying people are stopped if deputies have probable cause to believe they’ve committed crimes and that it’s only afterward that deputies find many of them are illegal immigrants.

According to Sheriff Joe’s office, half of the 1,032 people arrested in the sweeps have been illegal immigrants.

Last year, the Obama administration stripped Arpaio of his special power to enforce federal immigration law. The sheriff continued his sweeps through the enforcement of state immigration laws.

Last year, the nearly $113 million that the county received from the federal government accounted for about 5 percent of the county’s $2 billion budget. Arpaio’s office said it receives $3 million to $4 million each year in federal funds.

In a separate investigation, a federal grand jury in Phoenix is examining allegations that Arpaio has abused his powers with actions such as intimidating county workers by showing up at their homes at nights and on weekends.

Can you say “witch hunt”?

Meanwhile, the federal government has posted signs along a major interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers.   According to a local sheriff, Mexican drug cartels are now in control of some parts of the state.

The signs were posted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, a major east-west corridor linking Tucson and Phoenix with San Diego.

The signs caution travelers that they are entering an “active drug and human smuggling area” and they may encounter “armed criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of speed.” Beginning less than 50 miles south of Phoenix, the signs encourage travelers to “use public lands north of Interstate 8” and to call 911 if they “see suspicious activity.”

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, whose county lies at the center of major drug and alien smuggling routes to Phoenix and cities east and west, has said that his deputies are outmanned and outgunned by drug traffickers in the rough-hewn desert stretches of his own county:

Mexican drug cartels literally control parts of Arizona.  They literally have scouts on the high points in the mountains and in the hills and they literally control movement. They have radios, they have optics, they have night-vision goggles as good as anything law enforcement has.

This is going on here in Arizona. This is 70 to 80 miles from the border – 30 miles from the fifth-largest city in the United States.

The sheriff said that he asked the Obama administration for 3,000 National Guard soldiers to patrol the border, but what he got were 15 signs.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer condemned what she called the federal government’s “continued failure to secure our international border,” saying the lack of security has resulted in important natural recreational areas in her state being declared too dangerous to visit.

In a recent campaign video posted on YouTube, Gov. Brewer – standing in front of one of the BLM signs – attacked the administration over the signs, calling them “an outrage” and telling President Obama to “Do your job. Secure our borders.”

BLM spokesman Dennis Godfrey in Arizona said agency officials were surprised by the reaction the signs generated when they were put up this summer.  Did he expect people to like under attack by Mexican Drug Lords?

By, hey, don’t worry.  Obama and Holder are on the case.  According to Sheriff  Babeu, requests by Arizona law enforcement personnel and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) for 3,000 National Guard troops along the state’s border with Mexico have been answered so far with 1 percent of that number deployed there this week:

 
We have a whopping 30 [National Guard troops] this week that are showing up.  It’s less than a half-hearted measure designed to fail.

Through their actions, this president and his administration have given the impression that they care more about the fictitious “civil rights” of those who have entered our county illegally than they do about the safety and welfare of citizens of the country that Obama swore an inaugural oath to.

Earl and the Peace Talks

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics6 Comments

As Hurricane Earl steams toward the East Coast of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama (peace be unto him) and his administration are brokering the first face-to-face negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in almost two years.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will sit down together today for the first of what Obama and his State Department hope will be a series of meetings that lead in a year’s time to an agreement on the creation of a Palestinian state.

According to Obama, speaking from the White House:

This moment of opportunity may not soon come again.

Obama said he was “cautiously hopeful” about the talks, which begin with dim expectations and have been marred by two shooting attacks against Israelis in as many days.

Held at the State Department by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and special Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell, the two leaders’ discussions face numerous obstacles, not least renewed violence and provocations from Israelis and Palestinians opposed to Obama’s goal of an independent Palestine and secure Israel.

Gunmen from the militant Palestinian Hamas group, which opposes the talks, killed four Israeli residents of a West Bank settlement on Tuesday as Netanyahu, Abbas and the leaders of Egypt and Jordan convened in Washington. And on Wednesday, hours before the leaders were to eat dinner together at the White House, gunmen wounded two Israelis as they drove in their car in another part of the West Bank. Hamas claimed responsibility for that attack as well.

The top Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip rejected compromise with Israel in a fiery speech Wednesday.

Addressing Hamas members, Gaza strongman Mahmoud Zahar said the movement would resist peace efforts and criticized the Palestinian president for joining the negotiations:.

Today marks the start of direct negotiations between someone who has no right to represent the Palestinian people and the brutal occupier, to provide a cover for Judaizing Jerusalem and stealing the land.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas have been battling each other since the group seized Gaza from Abbas’ forces in a violent takeover in 2007, leaving him only in control of the West Bank.
Before the White House dinner with Netanyahu, Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Obama said they all had a stake in the peace efforts as leaders and fathers.

 Obama asked in the packed East Room of the White House:

Do we have the wisdom and the courage to walk the path of peace?

Each of the leaders expressed hopes for a breakthrough, with the U.S. playing the role of peace broker, but the event was subdued, reflecting broad pessimism about chances of success after nearly two decades of failed peace talks.

Israelis “recognize that another people shares this land with us,” Netanyahu said at the White House on Wednesday. However, he added that any agreement must guarantee Israel’s security and could not be a repeat of Israel’s unilateral withdrawals from Gaza and Lebanon, where territory evacuated was seized by Iran-backed militants who launched further attacks on Israel.

Netanyahu said:

We left Lebanon, we got terror. We left Gaza, and we got terror once again. We want to ensure that territory we concede will not be turned into a third Iranian-sponsored terror enclave aimed at the heart of Israel.

Abbas joined Netanyahu in declaring that it was time to seize the moment:

We don’t want blood to be shed, neither that of Palestinians nor of Israelis. We want peace, we want normal life. We want to live as partners and neighbors

But Israel, Abbas added, needs to give the Palestinians tangible signs, including freeing all Palestinian prisoners and freezing all settlement construction on land the Palestinians want for their future state.

The talks will face their first test within weeks, at the end of September, when the Israeli government’s declared slowdown in settlement construction is slated to end.

According to Palestinians, settlement construction will torpedo the talks. The Israeli government is divided over the future of the slowdown, and a decision to extend it could tear apart Netanyahu’s coalition. Netanyahu has given no indication so far that it will continue beyond the deadline. Speaking to Clinton on Tuesday, Netanyahu said his government’s decision on a 10-month freeze that would end in September remained in effect.

Direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations broke off nearly two years ago, in December 2008, and the Obama administration has spent its first 20 months in office trying to get the two sides back to the bargaining table. Despite the success in launching the talks, gaps between the sides are wide, distrust remains after years of violence and deadlock, and expectations are low.

But American officials are pushing to get the two sides to agree to a second round of talks, likely to be held in the second week of September.

That could be followed by another meeting between Obama, Netanyahu and Abbas on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly near the end of the month in New York. The stated goal is to reach a final peace settlement within one year.

After listening to the Mideast leaders he convened Wednesday night, Obama pronounced himself carefully optimistic:

I am hopeful, cautiously hopeful, but hopeful.

As Obama attempts to complete his plan to divide Israel, Hurricane Earl is barreling toward America’s East Coast.  Coincidence?  Not according to believers like William Koenig, author of Eye to Eye – Facing the Consequences of Dividing Israel.

On the back cover of this book, last updated in 2006, Koenig asks:

What do these major-record setting events have in common?

 The ten costliest insurance events in U.S. history

The twelve costliest hurricanes in U.S. history

Three of the four largest tornado outbreaks in U.S. history

The two largest terrorism events in U.S. history

All of these major catastrophes and many others occurred or began on the very same day or within 24-hours of U.S. presidents Bush, Clinton and Bush applying pressure on Israel to trade her land for promises of peace and security, sponsoring major land for peace meetings, making major public statements pertaining to Israel’s covenant land and /or calling for a Palestinian state.

In his book, Koenig presents significant events during Israel’s struggle for existence from its forming to 2006 and their correlation with natural disasters and terrifying events that occurred at the same time that Israel’s sovereignty was threatened in some way.

These two events happening simultaneously gives those of us who believe in the Sovereignty of God and His promises to His chosen people, pause to reflect on the administration’s policy toward Israel and its consequences.

Muslim Congressional Staffers: You’re all Islamaphobes!

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics5 Comments

The Congressional Muslim Staff Association (CMSA) convened a panel discussion on Capitol Hill Tuesday to whine about the way that Americans view Islam.  You see, they are upset that the overwhelming majority of Americans are opposed to the proposed Cordoba Initiative, err, Park51 Islamic center and mosque project to be located at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan.

All three panel participants agreed that those who oppose Muslim initiatives, such as the Ground Zero mosque, are Islamaphobic and ignorant. 

I’m shocked, I tell you.  Shocked.

 A recent CBS poll revealed that 71% of Americans believe it is inappropriate to build a mosque so close to the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Since it’s a poll from CBS, I would advise you to adjust that total upward about 10 %.

Salam Al-Maryati, president of Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), Dr. Azizah Al-Hibri, chairwoman of KARAMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights, and Dr. James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute (AAI), were members of a panel entitled,“Muslims in America: Myths and Realities — A discussion on faith in the wake of the Park 51 Controversy.”

The panel was moderated by Suhail Khan, senior fellow at the Institute for Global Engagement (IGE).  He started the round of condemnation by complaining that the uproar about the Cordoba Initiative has brought a bunch of  conspiracy theories, that had once been relegated to Internet message boards, out into the open:

There are all kinds of accusations that are swirling around.  We thought here we’d assemble a panel of experts to really take on some of these myths.

At first, he tried to minimize the importance of the Ground Zero mosque, but then , Salam Al-Maryati reversed himself, criticizing the way in which the American public has come to view the project:

The nomenclature of this particular story — it started out as the Ground Zero mosque controversy and I think by now, everybody acknowledges that the place is not at Ground Zero and it is not a mosque.  It is a few blocks away, where you can’t even see Ground Zero, and it is a community center that was actually intended to develop interfaith dialogue.

Al-Maryati claims that, because of all the demonstrations, anti-Islamic sentiment has increased. As an example, he brought up a planned 9/11 Koran burning ceremony in Gainesville, Florida.  Al-Maryati said that the more anti-Islam America appears, the more anti-Americanism will increase abroad. However, Al-Maryati concluded that he still feels that “America is the best place for Muslims.”

Yessir.  There are a lot less beheadings here.

Dr. Azizan Al- Hibri, the lone woman on the panel, , said that Islamaphobia is not a new phenomenon in America.  They allowed her to speak?  She claimed that in her research of the Founding Fathers, she read multiple instances in which there were explicit examples of anti-Muslim views and activities by America’s founders.

You mean, like the Barbary Wars?  Yeah, I know.  Those pirates were just trying to make a living.  I wonder if she actually cited any of those “anti-Muslim views and activities”?

Al-Hibri added that Muslims are hardly the only minority group that have been demonized in America. She went on to catalogue various groups throughout American history that had been marginalized.

She said:

So in some ways I want Muslims to know we are not being singled out one way or the other.

Al-Hibri whined about  “the false information” that she claims is fueling American ignorance about Islam. According to Al-Hibri, the Koran is a freeing document that even incorporates the principles of the First Amendment.

Historically Islamic communities have practiced religious tolerance. This is nothing new. It did not start with the United States.

Time out.  I just spewed my Cinnamon Toast Crunch all over my monitor.

Religious Tolerance?  You mean like the Americans working in Saudi Arabia that have to worship God in their homes?  And that’s just the non-violent intolerance.

Dr. James Zogby was exasperated that he was having to have another “conversation” about Islam, as he said that it feels as though he is always having to explain the faith after a crisis due to American overreaction and misunderstanding.

It’s all because of that pesky “Jihad” thingy, Doctor.

Zogby said that the Cordoba Initiative controversy was a misunderstanding perpetuated by various pundits and experts who appear on radio and television, and who write misleading books about Islam. However, when pressed, Zogby shied away from naming names:

What troubles me is that what is at stake with this Park51 story is that it is not about a building and it’s not about a place.   It is about the narrative of who we are as a people, and if these guys win, whatever the outcome, but if these guys win then America will not be America anymore.

When asked why there is so much backlash against the Cordoba project, Zogby said it is one of the many symptoms of the current social and economic unrest in the country, which, according to him, is all because some people do not like having an African-American president:

I think it is part and parcel of the broader social unravelling. I think that is taking place. We saw it begin last summer. I think some of it has to do with the fact that we have elected an African-American president and some folks just can’t accept it. There is no question that the economic distress and social dislocation which has occurred is part of it and I think at the same time that eight to nine years of misinformation has taken its toll.

The topic of sharia was discussed in length by the panel.  According to them, sharia is the “the way to God,” and “moderate” sharia differs greatly from the harsh brand of sharia implemented in some Muslim countries.

Al-Hibri said:

The word sharia law has been batted around as a threat. I don’t know where this came from. Why is it being discussed in the United States as a threat?

Gosh.  Maybe because little caveats in Sharia Law, like HONOR KILLINGS , just don’t sit well with Americans?

She also fantasized that the Founding Fathers, specifically Thomas Jefferson, took into account some of the principles in the Koran when they were building the legal framework for the United States.

There is a verse in the Koran that says there is no compulsion in religion — that is the freedom of action.

Don’t you just love Revisionist History?   Jefferson read the Koran in order to better combat the Barbary pirates.

In order to combat Americans’ perceived negative view of Islam, the panelists want members of the Muslim community to spend September 11 participating in service projects.    Gosh, hasn’t President Barack Hussein Obama (peace be unto him) suggested this for Americans as well?  Hmmm.

Al Maryati complained that the media only focuses on the bad followers of the faith:

The moderate Muslim story still has yet to be told.

You’re right, Al Maryati.  Their silence is deafening.

By the way, you Muslim Congressional Staffers need to quit complaining about Americans with your mouth full.

 

False Pride, Phoney Niceties, and Political Expediencies

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

As President Barack Husein Obama (peace be unto him) prepares to make a purportedly self-congratulatory speech tonight concerning the end the lengthy and divisive U.S. combat operation in Iraq, he’ll personally thank some of the soldiers who fought there for their service to a mission he forcefully opposed from the start.

Many of those soldiers that went to Iraq deployed from Fort Bliss, the huge Army base in El Paso, Texas, that Obama will visit Tuesday. After a victory lap photo op with the troops, Obama will return to Washington to address the nation from the newly renovated Oval Office.  Did they put a Persian rug in there?

He will formally announce the end to a combat mission in Iraq that lasted more than seven years, leaving more than 4,400 U.S. troops dead and thousands more wounded.

Obama remains a critic of the war, speaking out against it during the U.S. invasion in early 2003 and promising his Far left Base, during his presidential campaign, to bring the conflict to an end.   The White House is promoting Tuesday’s benchmark as a promise kept and has gone to great lengths to make sure that everyone can revel in Obama’s glory.  They are accomplishing this by sending Vice President Joe Biden to Iraq to preside over a formal change-of-command ceremony and raising Tuesday night’s remarks to the level of an Oval Office address, something His Eminence has graced us peons with only done once before.

Among Obama’s Public Relations goals on Tuesday is honoring those who have served in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, many returning to the battlefield for multiple tours of duty. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday that while the Iraq war would have never happened had Obama been commander-in-chief at the time, the president holds the service and sacrifice of the troops in high regard.  Uh huh.

According to Baghdad Bob:

Whether you are for the invasion or whether you opposed the invasion, you had our men and women in uniform who undertook the commands of their commander-in-chief, and should be held up and celebrated for what they’ve done in allowing combat troops now to come home.

200,000 personnel from Fort Bliss have deployed to Iraq, serving in every major phase of the war. Fifty-one soldiers from the base died there and many more were wounded.

Last week, some 600 soldiers from the 1st Brigade Combat Team returned to the base as part of Obama’s self-imposed Aug. 31 deadline for having all U.S. combat troops out of Iraq. Just about 50,000 U.S. troops will remain, down from a peak of nearly 170,000 in 2007. U.S. troops will no longer be allowed to go on combat missions unless requested and accompanied by Iraqi forces.

Administration officials are trying with all their might to avoid equating the end of the combat mission with a mission accomplished.

So, the war is not really over .  Gibbs said:

You won’t hear those words coming from us.  Obviously tomorrow marks a change in our mission. It marks a milestone that we have achieved in removing our combat troops. That is not to say that violence is going to end tomorrow.

Under a security agreement between the U.S. and Iraq, all U.S. forces must be out of Iraq by the end of 2011.  The Terrorists have marked their calendars.  But the Obama administration insists the U.S. is not abandoning Iraq and is ramping up a diplomatic corps to help stabilize the country’s government and economy over the coming years.

Because there’s nothing an Islamic Terrorist fears more than a stern talking to.

Listen to the logic of Baghdad Bob:

This redoubles the efforts of the Iraqis.  They will write the next chapter in Iraqi history, and they will be principally responsible for it. We will be their ally, but the responsibility of charting the future of Iraq first and foremost belongs to the Iraqis.

Ahead of Tuesday night’s remarks, Obama also planned to call President Bush. While Bush’s decision to invade Iraq was criticized by wild-eyed Liberals all over the world, including Obama, the troop surge Bush ordered in 2007 has been credited with striking a several blow against violence in Iraq and helping keep the country from falling into a civil war.   However, all bets are off as to whether Obama will be man enough to give Bush any credit for the role the surge played in leading the war to its end.

Meanwhile,  as mentioned before, Vice President Joe Biden is in Iraq, “presiding” over the formal end to U.S. combat operations in Iraq.   However, the majority of Iraqis are not very happy about it.

Iraqis, who for years have voiced opposition to the U.S. occupation, are generally happy to see that American forces will not be there forever.  However, at the same time, they are scared about their country being overrun by Islamic barbarians.

Johaina Mohammed, a 40-year-old teacher from Baghdad, is worried:

It’s not the right time.  There is no government, the security is deteriorating, and there is no trust.

While there, Biden has been pleading to Iraqi leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, to end the political deadlock and seat a new government.   March 7 parliamentary elections left Iraq without a clear winner, and Terrorists have since exploited the uncertainty to hammer Iraqi security forces.

Iraqi forces have improved the number of  attacks have gone down a lot since the dark days of 2006 and 2007.  But rarely a day goes by without some loss of life, and spectacular attacks such as the violence on Wednesday that killed 56 people still happen with disturbing regularity.

Biden and U.S. officials have blown off suggestions they are abandoning Iraq at a crucial time. The vice-president Tuesday said militants’ attempts to again wreak havoc in Iraq have been unsuccessful.

Biden said Tuesday in comments to al-Maliki before the two met privately:

Notwithstanding what the national press says about increased violence, the truth is, things are still very much different, things are much safer.   

But many Iraqis do not share his optimism.

Mohammed Hussein Abbas, a Shiite from the town of Hillah south of Baghdad, said:

They should go, but the security situation is too fragile for the Americans to withdraw now. They should wait for the government to be formed and then withdraw.

However,  U.S. military officials are not basing their reduction in troop numbers on Iraq forming a new government, but on the ability of Iraqi forces to handle security on their own.

The decision to draw down to 50,000 troops was made by President Barack Obama, and is not part of the security agreement between Iraq and the U.S. in 2008 under President Bush.

Ali Mussa, a 46-year-old engineer from eastern Baghdad is worried about his country’s neighbor:

The U.S. withdrawal will put Iraq into the lap of Iran.

Iran and Iraq are both majority Shiite countries. Since America got rid of Saddam Hussein, Iran has been working to secure greater leverage in Iraq, using centuries-old religious and cultural ties.

Even former Sunni insurgents in Fallujah, who supported armed resistance against two American assaults on the city in Iraq’s western province of Anbar, are worried about U.S. troops leaving after they joined forces and fought extremists together.

Col. Abdelsaad Abbas Mohammad, a Fallujah commander in the government-supported Sunni militia, known as the Awakening Councils, said:

Of course we were against the occupation, but in 2007 the Americans came up with a good plan for fighting al-Qaida, not Iraq.  Americans have committed many mistakes, but they did not go into houses and chop people’s heads off.

Riyadh Hadi, a 47-year-old Shiite from the southern city of Basra, said the frustration over power shortages and unemployment has reached the boiling point in Iraq and:

The U.S withdrawal will worsen the situation.  Corruption is now clandestine, but after the American withdrawal it will be out in the open and widespread among Iraqi officials.

Many Iraqis believe that the U.S. drawdown and emphasis on the end of combat operations means that Obama is playing to domestic politics instead of assessing what is truly right for Iraq,

Sheik Ali Hatem Sulaiman al-Dulaimi, an influential tribal leader from Anbar province cautions:

The Americans should think about the door they’re walking out of.  This is the destiny of a nation.

It appears that the Iraqis have figured out what the majority of Americans have:  All of Obama’s promises have expiration dates which are subject to change for the benefit of the greater good:  his.

An Unbecoming Arrogance

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

His eminence, President Barack Hussein Obama (peace be unto him) sat down for an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams Sunday Afternoon.

In it, he dismissed a recent poll showing that a third of Americans don’t know he’s a Christian.  Instead of humbly finding fault within himself, he blamed an “online campaign of misinformation” by his conservative enemies for perpetuating the myth that he’s a Muslim.

Obama also turned his nose up at conservative talk show host Glenn Beck. According to the petulant president, he didn’t watch the Fox host’s Saturday rally in Washington but wasn’t surprised that Beck was able to “stir up” people during uncertain economic times.

Somewhere between 300,000 and 1 million  people were at the Lincoln Memorial Saturday.  That’s a whole lot of “stirring up”, Scooter.

Brian Williams conducted the interview with Obama under a rain-soaked tent in New Orleans,  where the president and his family flew in for a photo op and speech commemorating the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.  The NBC anchor asked Scooter why so many people were uncertain about something so fundamental as his faith.  Was it simply an failure to communicate?

The President of the United States snarkily replied:

I can’t spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead.

Obama went on, visibly annoyed:

The facts are the facts. We went through some of this during the campaign — there is a mechanism, a network of misinformation that in a new media era can get churned out there constantly.  I will always put my money on the American people, and I’m not going to be worried too much about what rumors are floating around there.

You mean, you will always take the money of the American people…in a heartbeat.

According to a Pew poll released earlier this month, 18 percent of Americans identify Obama as Muslim.   Only a third identified Obama, who speaks about his faith in his autobiography, as Christian.

Perhaps it is the fact that he spent 20 years under the teachings of a racist preacher in a Black  Liberation Theology Church, perceived as being Marxist in their philosophy and sympathetic to Islam and its teachings.

Or, maybe, it’s this Actual quote from “The Audacity of Hope” [pg. 261]:

Of course, not all my conversations in immigrant communities follow this easy pattern. In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction. 

Obama, who just returned from a long, garish vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, feebly claims that didn’t watch Glenn Beck’s massive rally at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, adding that he was focused on the long-term, not on the “Nightly News.”

And if you believe that garbage, I have beachfront property for sale in Arizona.

Obama explained:

It’s not surprising that someone like a Mr. Beck is able to stir up a certain portion of [the American people]. … That’s been true throughout our history.

Obama doubled down on his support for a mosque and community center planned for a site two blocks north of ground zero in lower Manhattan, denying reports that he tried to back away from backing the controversial project:

I didn’t walk it back it all.  I was very specific with my team… The core value and principle that every American is treated the same doesn’t change… At [a White House Ramadan celebration], I had Muslim Americans who had been in uniform fighting in Iraq… How can you say to them that their religious faith is less worthy of respect?… That’s something that I feel very strongly about.

Although, you had no problem cancelling the White House Day of Prayer Breakfast the first year you ascended to the throne, huh, Scooter?

Obama added:

I respect the feelings on the other side.

No, you don’t.

Obama has been a very vocal and very harsh critic of the Bush administration’s sluggish response to Katrina.  So, naturally when Williams dared to ask him if the BP Gulf oil spill was his administration’s Katrina, because of a failure to act quickly enough, he got his widdle feewings hurt.  Awww.

Scooter responded:

It’s just not accurate.  The only thing in common with the Katrina response was [oil spill incident commander] Thad Allen… We had immediately [deployed] thousands of vessels, tens of thousands of people.

The spill has wreaked less havoc on the Gulf Coast “because of the sturdiness and steadiness” of his administration’s response, Obama added.

Sturdiness?  Steadiness?  The only sturdiness and steadiness you displayed during the Deepwater Horizon Disaster was your determination to continue playing golf as often as possible.

By the way, according to Drudge, while the president was in Martha’s Vineyard, workers at the White House have been busy installing new carpets, drapes, painting, etc. in the Oval Office. 

I wonder if they put a Persian rug in there?

How Do You Ridicule “Honor”?

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics4 Comments

That’s the problem facing the Progressive/Liberal/Democrat pundits today, in the aftermath of the Restoring Honor Rally, held on the Washington Mall, in front on the Lincoln Memorial, yesterday.

Obama’s name was not mentioned once in the whole event.  There were no threatening speeches (unless you have something against God).  However, according to the Libs:

…political overtones were unmistakable, and the rally drew an enormous crowd – including many who said they were new to activism – that was energized and motivated to act – washingtonpost.com

With Glenn Beck organizing the event  and Sarah Palin playing a role, Liberal heads are exploding.

For instance, Rev. Al Sharpton and others marched in a separate and much smaller event, to the Mall from Dunbar High School in Northwest Washington, to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech 47 years ago.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said at the Sharpton rally, referring to King’s speech:

The ‘March on Washington’ changed America.  Our country reached to overcome the low points of our racial history. Glenn Beck’s march will change nothing.

That was very weak, Eleanor.  You obviously were not paying attention.

The simultaneous rallies rendered the country’s political and racial divisions in stark relief.

Sharpton drew a mostly black crowd of union members (think SEIU), church-goers, college students, and civil rights activists.  The Obama administration weighed in, too, with Education Secretary Arne Duncan speaking of education as the “civil rights issue of this generation.”   Extremely generous people have estimated the crown size at 3,000 (including pets, probably).

The Beck crowd, meanwhile, was anywhere between 300,000 and 1 million.  We won’t know until Beck releases the official total.

The mood was peaceful and calm at both events.  By the time the Sharpton march arrived on the Mall, the crowd from Beck’s rally had largely dispersed. The events appeared to produce none of the politically damaging imagery that emerged from some earlier tea party rallies, although there were tweets from the event that some Left-wing whackos tried to start trouble on the periphery of the Restoring Honor Rally.

The attendance at Beck’s gathering is sure to be underestimated by the Main Stream Media.  They are already using the excuse that crowd sizes on the Mall are often controversial and notoriously difficult to estimate, so much so that law enforcement agencies have stopped providing numbers.

Beck knows this.  When he came on stage to being the rally, Beck joked that he had “just gotten word from the media that there are over a thousand people here today.” Later, he told the crowd he heard it was “between 300,000 and 500,000.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), speaking soon after the Beck rally at her own impromptu event nearby, said:

We’re not going to let anyone get away with saying there were less than a million here today – because we were witnesses.

Beck, warned Saturday that “our children could be slaves to debt.”  However, during the rally, he kept repeating that the event:

…has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with God, turning our faith back to the values and principles that made us great.

Martin Luther King’s niece Alveda King, an anti-abortion activist, addressed the rally with a plea for prayer “in the public squares of America and in our schools.” Referencing her “Uncle Martin,” King called for national unity by repeatedly declaring “I have a dream.”

Many in the audience said they had come because they fear that the country is at a perilous moment.

By the way, the Washington Post is begging for pictures of political t-shirts from the rally, to try to denigrate the message somehow.  Even they realize that their arguments are weak.

Others said they were motivated more by their deep appreciation of Beck, whose talk-radio show is the third-most popular in the country and who heavily promoted “Restoring Honor” on radio and on his television program on Fox News.

You will start hearing that Beck has a “Messianic Complex”.  I guarantee it.

Some came because they are frustrated at what they call the “ruling class,” at the health-care bill they say few supported, at schools that no longer require that students say the Pledge of Allegiance, and at elected officials who run on one platform and govern on another.

Linda Adams, 52, a university administrator who said her ancestors were on the Mayflower and fought in the American Revolution, said:

We want our country to get back to its original roots. 

John Sawyers, 47, an engineer who grew up on a farm in Virginia, said:

It’s not anger.  It’s more, ‘Guys, why are we going this way?’ It’s time for the silent majority to say it’s wrong.

Sawyers, a registered Republican, and Adams, an independent, said they were moved to attend by Beck’s theme of honor:

Both of us are unhappy with the perception Obama is apologizing for everything we ever did.

 Adams added:

And we felt we had to do something.

Democrats have desperately attempted to launch an offensive designed to link it to the Republican Party, trying to portray Republicans as extremists beholden to the tea party agenda.   Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, assailed Republicans for pursuing a “destructive agenda” and called out the tea party movement for pushing the GOP to the “extreme right.”

Unfortunately for the Democrats, the  reverent tone of Beck’s Rally will make this attack about as effective as a water balloon fight.

The event had a strong military theme, (another reason Libs’ heads were exploding) with Beck paying tribute to three soldiers. Beck asked for donations to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which funds scholarships for children of service members killed in action. During the rally, Beck announced that the foundation had raised $5.5 million for the event.

The idiots at the Washington Post intimated that Beck took money from this Foundation to hold the event.  He did not.  Epic fail.

Sarah Palin said she was at the rally speaking not as a politician but as the mother of a combat veteran.

She said the military is “a force for good in this country, and that is nothing to apologize for.” She honored three military veterans, hugging them onstage, and told people to look to them as inspiration, even when the nation’s challenges might sometimes seem “insurmountable.”

She added:

But here today, at the crossroads of our history, may this day be the change point.  Look around you. You’re not alone. You are Americans! You have the same steel spine and the moral courage of Washington and Lincoln and Martin Luther King. It is in you. It will sustain you as it sustained them.

The crowd responded with chants of “USA! USA! USA!”

In the short hours since the rally, it has been both amusing and baffling to watch the Liberals try to spin this event.  The Democrats know that they cannot attack God.  They cannot attack those who watched it on C-Span or the 130,00 that watched live stream on the Facebook page effectively either.  They can and will attack Beck and Palin.  However, that’s getting old and increasingly ineffective.  The appearance of professional race-baiter Rev. Al Sharpton on Fox News’ Geraldo at Large last night was an exercise in watching someone who does not realize that they are irrelevant.  Every argument he brought up was ineffective.  Even Geraldo was forced to say complimentary things about the event.  I know that killed his Progressive soul.

Once again, the Libs face a crisis that they have brought upon themselves.  75 % of Americans identify as Christians.  21 % of Americans claim to be staunch Liberals.  Did Obama and his Far Left Base really expect to impose their ideology upon Americans without awakening a Sleeping Giant?