Category: Politics

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

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2016 will be our Golden Opportunity.

In his 1975 speech to CPAC Ronald Reagan said that,

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

Talking straight to the American People will win the day. 

Squishiness will lose…again.

Until He Comes,

KJ

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

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

Today, I have reintroduced that plan.

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

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

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

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

The surge is not working.

– Obama for American website changed in July 2008

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

Are you kiddin’?

Dailymail.co.uk reports that

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until He Comes,

KJ

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

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

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

Reuters.com reports that

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From discoverthenetworks.org:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is “Smart Power”?

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

EPILOGUE: 

Genesis 12: 1-3 (NKJV)

12 Now the Lord had said to Abram:

“Get out of your country,

From your family

And from your father’s house,

To a land that I will show you.

2 I will make you a great nation;

I will bless you

And make your name great;

And you shall be a blessing.

3 I will bless those who bless you,

And I will curse him who curses you;

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

Now…about that “Polar Vortex”… 

Until He Comes,

KJ

Michelle Obama to Extend Hawaiian Vacation…ON OUR DIME

On By kingsjesterIn Politics7 Comments

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

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

According to The New York Times,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But, I digress…

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

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

Regarding the First Lady…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until He Comes,

KJ

Rocky Mountain High, Colorado: No Man is an Island

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

The huge smoke cloud obamamacdaddyAmericans are viewing in the Western Horizon is coming from the state of Colorado.

Time.com reports that

A few days into the experiment, the new world of legal recreational marijuana sales in Colorado appears to be a big success—so much so that pot shops are finding it impossible to keep up with demand.

According to the Denver Post, at least 37 stores in Colorado were licensed to sell recreational pot to anyone 21 or over as of New Year’s Day. The Associated Press and others reported long lines outside Denver pot shops, with some eager customers forced to wait three to five hours before getting a chance to go inside, step up to the counter, and make a purchase.

Prices have been steep—in some cases, stores were charging $50 or even $70 for one-eighth of an ounce of pot that cost medical marijuana users just $25 the day before—and taxes add on an extra 20% or so. Even so, sales have been brisk.

The two operational pot shops in Pueblo collectively sold $87,000 of marijuana on January 1, per the Pueblo Chieftain, and store owners say that if demand persists anywhere near the current high, they’ll be sold out in the very near future. Likewise, Toni Fox, owner of the 3D Cannabis Center in Denver, told the Colorado Springs Gazette that a sellout is imminent. “We are going to run out,” she said on Thursday, day 2 of legal recreational marijuana sales. “It’s insane. This weekend will be just as crazy. If there is a mad rush, we’ll be out by Monday.”

Another Associated Press story noted that some shops had to close early on Wednesday because they’d didn’t have enough marijuana on hand to oblige customers.

For more than a month, many have speculated that Colorado pot shops would not be able to meet demand due to the limited number of stores open in the state, as well as tough regulations regarding how marijuana is grown and distributed at the wholesale level. Of course, strong demand—especially from “smokebirds,” a.k.a. out-of-state tourists visiting Colorado for legal marijuana purchases—also plays a big role. By most accounts, since January 1 more than half of pot sales have gone to non-Coloradans.

Prices in legal pot shops have already risen to upwards of $400 an ounce. Once you factor in taxes, as well as the fact that it looks like shops may periodically be sold out for a while, and some are saying the situation is one that could push pot enthusiasts back to buying marijuana on the black market. “People will get real tired of paying the taxes real fast,” one street dealer in Pueblo named Tracy told the Chieftain. “When you can buy an ounce from me for $225 to $300, the state adds as much as $90 just for the tax.”

“So, choomers in Colorado are getting “Rocky Mountain High”, KJ. So what? Their actions do not affect anyone else!”

Let’s examine this harmless wonder drug, shall we?

What exactly do we know about marijuana and it’s effects?

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse:

Scientists have learned a great deal about how THC acts in the brain to produce its many effects. When someone smokes marijuana, THC rapidly passes from the lungs into the bloodstream, which carries the chemical to the brain and other organs throughout the body.

THC acts upon specific sites in the brain, called cannabinoid receptors, kicking off a series of cellular reactions that ultimately lead to the “high” that users experience when they smoke marijuana. Some brain areas have many cannabinoid receptors; others have few or none. The highest density of cannabinoid receptors are found in parts of the brain that influence pleasure, memory, thinking, concentrating, sensory and time perception, and coordinated movement.

Not surprisingly, marijuana intoxication can cause distorted perceptions, impaired coordination, difficulty with thinking and problem solving, and problems with learning and memory. Research has shown that, in chronic users, marijuana’s adverse impact on learning and memory can last for days or weeks after the acute effects of the drug wear off.2 As a result, someone who smokes marijuana every day may be functioning at a suboptimal intellectual level all of the time.

Research into the effects of long-term cannabis use on the structure of the brain has yielded inconsistent results. It may be that the effects are too subtle for reliable detection by current techniques. A similar challenge arises in studies of the effects of chronic marijuana use on brain function. Brain imaging studies in chronic users tend to show some consistent alterations, but their connection to impaired cognitive functioning is far from clear. This uncertainty may stem from confounding factors such as other drug use, residual drug effects, or withdrawal symptoms in long-term chronic users.

Addictive Potential

Long-term marijuana abuse can lead to addiction; that is, compulsive drug seeking and abuse despite the known harmful effects upon functioning in the context of family, school, work, and recreational activities. Estimates from research suggest that about 9 percent of users become addicted to marijuana; this number increases among those who start young (to about 17 percent) and among daily users (25-50 percent).

Long-term marijuana abusers trying to quit report withdrawal symptoms including: irritability, sleeplessness, decreased appetite, anxiety, and drug craving, all of which can make it difficult to remain abstinent. These symptoms begin within about 1 day following abstinence, peak at 2-3 days, and subside within 1 or 2 weeks following drug cessation.

Marijuana and Mental Health

A number of studies have shown an association between chronic marijuana use and increased rates of anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia. Some of these studies have shown age at first use to be an important risk factor, where early use is a marker of increased vulnerability to later problems. However, at this time, it is not clear whether marijuana use causes mental problems, exacerbates them, or reflects an attempt to self-medicate symptoms already in existence.

Chronic marijuana use, especially in a very young person, may also be a marker of risk for mental illnesses – including addiction – stemming from genetic or environmental vulnerabilities, such as early exposure to stress or violence. Currently, the strongest evidence links marijuana use and schizophrenia and/or related disorders. High doses of marijuana can produce an acute psychotic reaction; in addition, use of the drug may trigger the onset or relapse of schizophrenia in vulnerable individuals.

About a year ago, I was watching the local news when they announced that a fellow I graduated high school with, had escaped from custody, after trying to commit suicide, because the authorities were about to commit him to the looney bin for long-term treatment.

Even back in ’76, this guy had hung out outside the school building in what was affectionately called “the smoke hall”. And, of course, it was well known that he liked to smoke pot.

Even as I type this, I hear thousands of potheads, young and old (picture Tommy Chong), yelling at their monitors, and, among the words I can repeat, are words describing me as a clueless out-of-touch Bible-thumping old man, who doesn’t know what the He@@ he is talking about.

They’re screaming that pot is harmless, non-addictive, and safer than alcohol.

And, they also probably voted for Ron Paul.

…so, their judgement is questionable.

What matters to me, is the fact that no man is an island. No man stands alone. (Hey. That could be a nifty song title. But…I digress.)

And, people struck and killed by a stoned driver, are just as dead as those killed by a drunk driver.

So, stop eating your Cheetos, slackers, and listen tight: Your actions affect others. You are responsible to others. You are not alone in this world.

So, get up out of your bean bag, turn off the TV, move out of Mom’s Basement, and get a job.

Useless, clueless, and stoned is no way to go through life, son.

…Unless, of course, you’re the president.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The War Against Christianity: Obama Vs. The Little Sisters of the Poor

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics5 Comments

American FreedomWhen I was a child, I was taught by my parents to respect others. Quite frankly, I was raised to be a Southern Gentleman.

Any slip in saying “Yes, ma’am” or “No, sir” was met by a swift correction by my mother.

That same respect went out to everyone, regardless of their religion. I suppose that it was because my folks were members of America’s Greatest Generation, as I have recorded before, who all pulled together in the dark days of the Depression, the terrifying days of Word War II, and the uncertain days of the Cold War, when there was a nuke hidden around every corner.

They had to work hard, and with one another, for everything they had, and, in doing so, they became determined that their children would be raised with American values, principles, and ethics.

A couple of examples that I remember of that “mutual respect”, centered around my Mother. When I was in Second Grade, around 1965, she came down with severe Diabetes. Her doctor was a wonderful, old Jewish gentleman, whom my Mother had worked the Front Desk for.  He made sure that she got the best of care in the hospital, because she was not only his past employee, but his friend, as well.

While I was visiting my Mother in St. Joseph Hospital, in Memphis, TN, in walked this big, Black man, wearing a suit, with a red liturgical shirt and collar. His name was Parker, and he worked the loading dock at the 20 story Sears Building in Midtown Memphis, where my folks worked. He was another friend of their’s.

I remember his big old smile, and soft gentle demeanor, as his huge hands enveloped mine and my Mother’s, as he led us in a prayer for her recovery.

Not to beat a dead horse, but, please remember, this was Memphis, TN, in 1965.

Blows your Southern Stereotypes all to Hades, doesn’t it?

But, I digress…

Anyway, I was sitting at my desk in my office at work yesterday, when a Bing Update flashed across the top of my computer screen that President Barack Hussein Obama, still blowing $4,000,0000 OF OUR MONEY in Hawaii on his Family Vay-cay and his Administration, were urging the Supreme court to ignore Justice Sotomayor’s unexpected temporary injunction, stopping the Administration from forcing Catholic Institutions to provide free Birth Control, including abortiafacients, under Obamacare.

Politico.com summarizes the situation…

On New Year’s Eve, Sotomayor granted the Denver nursing home a last-minute, temporary reprieve from the health care law requirement that health coverage for employees include contraception. She will now have to decide whether to keep the temporary order in place, dissolve it, or take the issue to the other justices, who could decide to review the whole case in the coming months.

Justice Department lawyers in their response Friday said that the Little Sisters for the Poor Home for the Aged uses a Christian health insurer that is recognized as a church under U.S. employment law — and is already exempt from the Affordable Care Act contraception requirement.

“Applicants have no legal basis to … complain that it involves them in the process of providing contraceptive coverage,” government lawyers wrote to the court.“This case involves a church plan that is exempt from regulation” under a 1974 labor law that predates the president’s health care law.

The Little Sisters, in their reply to the government’s brief on Friday afternoon, said that signing a piece of paper allowing contraception — even if it doesn’t result in contraception being handed out —is itself a violation of their religious protections. That certification is part of the current legal process for religious non-profits that object to providing the contraception.

No matter which path Sotomayor takes, the central questions on contraception and religious nonprofits could eventually work their way through the legal system and return to the high court through this case or a different one.

The court has already agreed to take two separate challenges to the contraceptive requirement, but they involve religious owners of for-profit businesses, not religious nonprofits like this Denver nursing home. Dozens of religious-affiliated groups, dissatisfied with the Obama administration’s attempts to address their concerns, have petitioned federal courts to eliminate the requirement.

Anything the court does in the Little Sisters case could also affect nearly 500 religious non-profits that work with the Little Sisters and others on the lawsuit.

In all, more than 90 legal challenges have been filed around the country. A Supreme Court decision against the contraceptive rule would undercut but not cripple the health law. The birth control rule is a small piece of the overall law, but it’s been another source of ongoing political controversy for President Barack Obama’s signature law.

The Obama administration argues that employer health plans need to include contraception to ensure that women and their babies are healthy. Opponents of the policy — notably, the Catholic bishops — say that the administration is requiring some businesses to forgo religious beliefs against the use of contraception.

The case brought by the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged falls into an unexpected loophole in the ACA’s contraception coverage.

Earlier this year, the Obama administration tried through regulations to accommodate religious-affiliated nonprofits over contraception. It allowed groups like the Little Sisters to tell their insurance company or third-party administrator that they objected on religious grounds. The insurer or administrator would then have to provide contraceptives to the employees at no charge.

The premise was that an insurer or administrator would not have the same objection to providing such products. But the catch here is that the Little Sisters’ administrator — the Christian Brothers Employee Benefits Trust — is also run by a religious order.

The Christian Brothers, who joined the Little Sisters on the lawsuit, qualify as a church under employment law known as ERISA. And under that law, if they don’t want to provide contraception, the federal government has no recourse to force them to do so.

So, why is the Obama Administration so desperately trying to make Catholic Institutions provide services which are diametrically opposed tho the tenents of their faith?

I believe that it is all about respect for Americans’ Faith.

With this Administration, more so than any Administration which has gone before, the insensitivity and, downright blatant opposition to the role of Christianity in American Everyday Life, has led to the heretofore unthinkable situation of the Department of Justice and the American Court System being used as a bludgeon to keep us “uppity” Christians in line, so that we do not interfere with the plans of a Secular All-powerful State.

Sound familiar?

The Obama Administration’s ongoing war with the Catholic Church over providing these services is just one example of a deliberate movement to isolate Christianity from American’s Everyday Lives and regulate our relationship and following of Jesus Christ to a 2-hour window on Sunday Mornings.

However, try as it may, this Administration may have Pyrrhic Victories, but in the long run, it will not succeed.

Y’see….I know how this thing ends.  I’ve read The Book.

Until He Comes,

KJ 

More Than Half of Female Marine Recruits Can’t Pass Their Annual Physical Fitness Test

On By kingsjesterIn Politics8 Comments

bettyboopfatiguesThe subject of placing American Women in the military into combat roles has been a contentious issue, to say the least.

Beginning last year, the Administration decided that it would begin to place American Women into combat roles within our Armed Forces.

However, as with everything else that has been done to our American Culture, during the Obama Administration, is does not matter if the Administration’s Plan actually works. It only matters that they feel better about themselves for having implemented it.

On February 3rd, 2013, the President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, gave a live interview before the Super Bowl, during which he discussed the subject of Women in Combat.

Thehill.com reported that

President Obama defended the Pentagon’s decision to lift the ban on women in combat roles, saying that he had no hesitation sending female troops into harm’s way.

“Women as a practical matter are now in combat,” Obama said during a live interview Sunday on CBS before the Super Bowl. “They may not get treated as if they are in combat, but when they are in theater, in Iraq or Afghanistan, they are vulnerable, they are wounded and they’ve been killed.

“They have carried out their jobs with extraordinary patriotism and distinction,” he added.

Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey last month lifted the ban on female servicemembers being in ground combat units, a move which could open up as many as 237,000 new positions to female troops.

The military services, though, have until 2016 to make the case for leaving some positions or occupations closed to women.

Obama said that female troops had shown that they could handle the rigors of military life. The president said there were already “extraordinary women in uniform who can do everything a man can.”

“One of my military aides is about 5-feet tall, probably weighs 100 pounds. You put a 50-pound pack on her and she can do things that you or me would keel over doing,” he added.

“The truth is that women are serving, they are taking great risks. What we should not do is somehow prevent them from advancing in an institution that we all revere,” said Obama.

Yes, Mr. President. Women are serving…and taking great risks. However, what happens if a woman is not physically able to lift the weaponry that she will be called upon to use in combat?

The Washington, DC Fox Affiliate reports that…

More than half of female Marines in boot camp can’t do three pullups, the minimum standard that was supposed to take effect with the new year, prompting the Marine Corps to delay the requirement, part of the process of equalizing physical standards to integrate women into combat jobs.

The delay rekindled sharp debate in the military on the question of whether women have the physical strength for some military jobs, as service branches move toward opening thousands of combat roles to them in 2016.

Although no new timetable has been set on the delayed physical requirement, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos wants training officials to “continue to gather data and ensure that female Marines are provided with the best opportunity to succeed,” Capt. Maureen Krebs, a Marine spokeswoman, said Thursday.

Starting with the new year, all female Marines were supposed to be able to do at least three pullups on their annual physical fitness test and eight for a perfect score. The requirement was tested in 2013 on female recruits at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, S.C., but only 45 percent of women met the minimum, Krebs said.

The Marines had hoped to institute the pullups on the belief that pullups require the muscular strength necessary to perform common military tasks such as scaling a wall, climbing up a rope or lifting and carrying heavy munitions.

Officials felt there wasn’t a medical risk to putting the new standard into effect as planned across the service, but that the risk of losing recruits and hurting retention of women already in the service was unacceptably high, she said.

Because the change is being put off, women will be able to choose which test of upper-body strength they will be graded on in their annual physical fitness test. Their choices:

-Pullups, with three the minimum. Three is also the minimum for male Marines, but they need 20 for a perfect rating.

-A flexed-arm hang. The minimum is for 15 seconds; women get a perfect score if they last for 70 seconds. Men don’t do the hang in their test.

Officials said training for pullups can change a person’s strength, while training for the flex-arm hang does little to adapt muscular strength needed for military tasks.

The delay on the standard could be another wrinkle in the plan to begin allowing women to serve in jobs previously closed to them such as infantry, armor and artillery units.

The decision to suspend the scheduled pull-up requirement “is a clear indication” that plans to move women into direct ground combat fighting teams will not work, said Elaine Donnelly, president of the conservative Center for Military Readiness and a critic of allowing women into infantry jobs.

“When officials claim that men and women are being trained the same, they are referring to bare minimums, not maximum qualifications that most men can meet but women cannot,” Donnelly wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “Awarding gender-normed scores so that women can succeed lowers standards for all. Women will suffer more injuries and resentment they do not deserve, and men will be less prepared for the demands of direct ground combat.”

While, as human beings, men and women share biological similarities, the two sexes are most decidedly different…especially in the bodily strength department. That’s not just this Southern Gentleman’s opinion, it is a scientific fact.

From science.howstuffworks.com:

Women’s lower body strength tends to be more closely matched to men’s, while their upper body strength is often just half that of men’s upper body strength. In a 1993 study exploring gender differences in muscle makeup, female participants exhibited 52 percent of men’s upper body strength, which the researchers partially attributed to their smaller muscles and a higher concentration of fatty tissues in the top half of the female body. Another study published in 1999 similarly found women had 40 percent less upper body skeletal muscle. Even controlling for athletic aptitude doesn’t tip the upper body strength scales in favor of the female; an experiment comparing the hand grip strength of non-athletic male participants versus elite women athletes still revealed a muscle power disparity in favor of the menfolk.

Liberals, in their zeal to turn America’s Armed Forces into a Social Engineering Laboratory, have done both our nation and the American Women, who wish to serve in our military, a grave disservice. 

While American Women are most certainly bright, intelligent, and capable, they clearly do not possess the upper body strength to pass the same physical standards required for combat duty, that their male counterparts must pass.

And, in a combat situation, the difference in upper body strength between the sexes, could also mean the difference between life and death, not just for the female combatant, but for her fellow Americans in that combat situation, as well.

To lower the Physical Standards for the Marines,or any other branch of our Armed Forces, will cost lives.

No political point is worth that.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The “Big Apple” is Now the “Red Apple”

On By kingsjesterIn Politics9 Comments

de blasioThere is a new Politboro in New York City.

Politicker.com reports that

During the election season, Bill de Blasio was often painted by conservatives as a leftist radical. But at his inauguration today, it was not Mr. de Blasio who dropped the most aggressive lines, but the first two speakers at the event.

In particular, Rev. Fred Lucas Jr., who was among several chaplains representing the city’s uniformed workers, surprised many observers by comparing the five boroughs to a “plantation.”

“Let the plantation called New York City be the city of God, a city set upon the hill, a light shining in darkness,” he declared. “Elevate our valleys. Make low our mountains. Make our crooked places straight and our rough places smooth. Oh God, oh God, oh God, break every chain, break every chain, break every chain.”

Mr. Lucas had several additional references to slavery in his short address, citing shackles, bondage, auction blocks, the Emancipation Proclamation, Civil War and Reconstruction Era.

“Oh God, on this first day of January–the anniversary of the first Emancipation Proclamation–sound forth the trumpets of heaven proclaiming a new Emancipation Proclamation in New York City,” he invoked. “From your divine leadership, emancipate every New Yorker from the shackles of fear, futility and frustration …. Oh God, end the civil wars and usher in a new Reconstruction Era that builds upon the many successes and achievements of yesterday while proclaiming the beginning of a new beginning.”

The speaker before Mr. Lucas, civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, was also blunt as he discussed racial tensions and injustices cemented by government policies. (Mr. Belafonte, of course, is not known to be a bashful speaker; during the campaign, he caused controversy after comparing the billionaire Koch brothers to the KKK.)

“New York, alarmingly, plays a tragic role in the fact that our nation has the largest prison population in the world. Much of that problem stems from issues of race perpetuated by the depth of human indifference to poverty. Changing the stop-and-frisk law is … only the tip of the iceberg in fixing our deeply Dickensian justice system,” he argued, referencing the controversial police tactic Mr. de Blasio has vowed to overhaul.

But Mr. Belafonte, one of Mr. de Blasio’s endorsers in the campaign, said the new mayor was the right man to help undo these systemic injustices.

“We have seen America wrestle with her conscience. We have seen her struggle to become her better self. I think the solution to what most people want America to become resides here in New York. We can become America’s DNA for the future,” he said. ”Bill de Blasio gives New York another opportunity to open the door of possibilities.”

Mr. Belafonte concluded, “We New Yorkers must not let him fail.”

At the same time, the new “Hizzoner” was being portrayed as a “Populist” and “Man of the People”…

Mr. de Blasio, looking confident between indecipherable small talk and endless photos–chugging a can of Limoncello to keep fresh in his dark suit and red tie–was feted as the sudden hero of progressives and good-government advocates across the city.

But the inauguration, which was touted before-hand as “one of the most open and accessible swearing-in events in New York City history,” also provided a window into how the new administration will handle the new crush of attention, with Mr. de Blasio–a former political operative known to be image-conscious–keping certain aspects of the event tightly controlled.

Along with Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, Andrew Cuomo and the other stars who graced the inauguration stage, various non-political New Yorkers were asked to join them, lending the event an even more populist tinge. Hours before the speeches began, those New Yorkers sat quietly on folding chairs in the City Hall rotunda. But when Politicker approached a man to ask him about how it felt to take part in the inauguration, security quickly circled and demanded the interview end.

Later, when reporters tried to approach volunteers at the event, staffers quickly swooped in, saying the volunteers were barred from talking to the press.

And after Mr. de Blasio’s speech, reporters gathered inside on a carpet awaiting the Clintons were ordered by security guards off the carpet and behind columns where several refused to go. When asked who was inside, a de Blasio aide guarding the entrance was terse.

“Keep wondering,” he offered.

Okay, so we have a leader who is building his power through preaching class and race war, while restricting press coverage of his opulent lifestyle and the inner workings of his Political Machine. Sound familiar?

To say that de Blasio is a Radical Leftist, is an understatement.

Rush Limbaugh explains…

…in 1983, when he was still at NYU, De Blasio “toured parts of the communist Soviet Union and at one time served as an organizer with the anti-nuclear, anti-American organization called physicians for social responsibility, was hired to work as a political organizer bay Maryland-based Catholic social justice organization.” That was Marxist. “In ’88 he was an ardent supporter of the Marxist Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and he joined a number of his Maryland-based Catholic social justice organization colleagues on a 10-day trip to Nicaragua to help distribute food and medicine.”

No wonder Obama called him up! Obama’s saying, “I had to support this chump McAuliffe, but this de Blasio? Now, there’s my guy! There’s my guy.” When de Blasio got home from Nicaragua, he joined the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York, which was an organization that held meetings and fundraisers on behalf of the Sandinista communists. He subscribed to the Sandinista party newspaper, Barricada, and he speaks admirably of the Sandinistas to this day.

He’s a communist.

Additionally, he and his wife honeymooned in Cuba in 1991.

De Blasio has big plans for the Big Apple. 

He has already said that he is going to do away with horse-drawn carriages, calling them “inhumane”.

He is against “income inequality”.

In other words,

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.

Wherever Marxism has been tried, it has failed. New York City will be no different.

Until He Comes,

KJ

New Years Day 2014: Once Again, “A Time For Choosing”

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics13 Comments

happynewyear20141As I sat down this morning to write something to summarize 2013, while looking forward to 2014, I was greeted on drudgereport.com by such headlines as

MSNBC host apologies after mocking Romneys’ black grandchild…

NBC’s Chief Medical Editor Forced Kids to Sign Up for Obamacare as ‘Patriotic Duty’…

Denver Warns Against Public Celebrations Over Legalized Pot…

ESPN Host: ‘N-word’ 2013 ‘Sports Person of Year’…

Court overturns pedophile conviction because girl, 11, was ‘in love’…

And I wondered how the “Shining City on a Hill”, which the greatest American President in ouor generation, Ronald Wilson Reagan, so wonderfully described, has fallen so far, into a morass of relative morality and situational ethics.

In 1964, in his famous stump speech, “A Time for Choosing”, The Great Communicator said,

It’s time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, “We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government.”

This idea — that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power — is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream–the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, “The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.”

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

So, is our present state of unrest and strife which we are experiencing in America, simply a matter of choice?

I believe that it is…one of individual freedom or subjugation to “princes and principalities”.

Here is a a radio message which the late, great American News Commentator Paul Harvey delivered on April 3, 1965:

If I were the devil, I wouldn’t be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree—Thee. So I’d set about however necessary to take over the United States. I’d subvert the churches first—I would begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: “Do as you please.” “Do as you please.” To the young, I would whisper, “The Bible is a myth.” I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. I would confide that what is bad is good, and what is good is “square”. And the old, I would teach to pray. I would teach them to pray after me, ‘Our Father, which art in Washington…’ 

And then I’d get organized. I’d educate authors on how to lurid literature exciting, so that anything else would appear dull and uninteresting. I’d threaten TV with dirtier movies and vice versa. I’d pedal narcotics to whom I could. I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. I’d tranquilize the rest with pills. 

If I were the devil I’d soon have families that war with themselves, churches that war that themselves, and nations that war with themselves; until each in its turn was consumed. And with promises of higher ratings I’d have mesmerizing media fanning the flame. If I were the devil I would encourage schools to refine young intellects, and neglect to discipline emotions—just let those run wild, until before you knew it, you’d have to have drug sniffing dogs and metal detectors at every schoolhouse door.

Within a decade I’d have prisons overflowing, I’d have judges promoting pornography—soon I could evict God from the courthouse, and then the schoolhouse, and then from the houses of Congress. And in His own churches I would substitute psychology for religion, and deify science. I would lure priests and pastors into misusing boys and girls, and church money. If I were the devil I’d make the symbols of Easter an egg and the symbol of Christmas a bottle.If I were the devil I’d take from those, and who have, and give to those wanted until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. What do you bet I could get whole states to promote gambling as the way to get rich? I would question against extremes and hard work, and Patriotism, and moral conduct. I would convince the young that marriage is old-fashioned, that swinging more fun, that what you see on the TV is the way to be. And thus I could undress you in public, and I could lure you into bed with diseases for which there is no cure. In other words, if I were to devil I’d keep on doing on what he’s doing.

Paul Harvey, good day.

So, are we doomed as a nation to continue to slide down this slippery slope we are traveling on? In the conclusion of “A Time for Choosing, Ronald Reagan reminded us that the choice was ours to make…

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

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

As a Christian American Conservative, I believe that there is a divine spark withing each one of us.

It is up to us , whether we choose to listen to that still, small voice, as He guides us through our choices we make everyday.

I also believe that this nation was forged by Christian Men, who were led by their Creator to seek the FREEDOM to worship him as they chose.

In 2014, we have an opportunity in 2014 to begin the journey back to reclaim the vision of our Forefathers.

It is, once again, “A TIME FOR CHOOSING”.

Happy New Year!

Until He Comes,

KJ

The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics…Munich Revisited?

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

Sochi OlympicsAs we approach the start of the Winter Olympics, Russian Officials have their hands full, dealing with with Muslim Terrorists.

USAToday reports that

The deaths of at least 16 people in a suicide bombing in southern Russia on Sunday fit a pattern of recent terror attacks and increased the focus on already-heavy security for the Sochi Olympics in six weeks, U.S. scholars of Russia say.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing in Volgograd, but it came several months after Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov called for attacks against civilian targets in Russia, including the Sochi Games. Umarov, the self-proclaimed emir of a terrorist group that calls itself the Caucasus Emirate, has called on Muslims to prevent the Olympics from occurring.

“An open question is how much authority he really has over these different groups,” said Jeffrey Mankoff, deputy director and fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Russia and Eurasia Program. “A lot of the attacks seem to be inspired by Umarov but may not be directly controlled by him.”

“If you are a terrorist group in the Caucasus, the Sochi Olympics are going to be a very inviting target,” said Steven Pifer, director of the Brookings Institution’s Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative. “I think you’re going to see at the Sochi Olympics a very heavy security presence.”

The government has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers, police and other security personnel to protect the Games.

Some Muslim terrorists view the Olympics as a provocation, Mankoff said. Sochi, like other cities in the region, was conquered militarily in the middle of the 19th century. “They view it as a provocation on territory they consider stolen from Muslims in the 19th century,” he said.

“It’s a very tense environment,” Mankoff said, noting that Muslim insurgency in the region began around 1990 in Chechnya. “Chechnya has been relatively pacified, but the insurgency has spread out to surrounding areas,” he said.

Russian Officials, and every nati0n attending, including the USA, have every right to be worried.

The XXth Olympic Games took place in Munich, Germany in September of 1972.

The few few days went off without a hitch.

A little after 4 a.m. on September 5, as the Israeli athletes were asleep in their rooms, eight members of the Palestinian terrorist organization, Black September, climbed over a six-foot high fence and entered the Olympic Village.

The barbarians headed straight for 31 Connollystrasse, the building where the Israeli team was staying. the terrorists entered the building entered the building around 4:30 a.m. They immediately attacked the occupants of apartment 1 and then apartment 3. Several of the Israelis fought back; two of them were killed. A couple of others were able to escape out windows. Nine were taken hostage.

By 5:10 a.m., the police had found out about it and news of the attack had begun to spread around the world. The terrorists then dropped a list of their demands out the window: they wanted 234 prisoners released from Israeli prisons and two from German prisons by 9 a.m.

Through negotiations the deadline the Muslim Terrorists set was delayed to noon, then 1 p.m., then 3 p.m., then 5 p.m. However, the terrorists would not forego their demands and Israel refused to release the prisoners.

Things were going to get bad…and, in short fashion.

At 5 p.m., the terrorists asked for two planes to fly both the terrorists and the hostages to Cairo, Egypt, hoping that they would have more leverage in another Middle Eastern country. The Germans agreed, but knew that they could not let the terrorists leave Germany. In a last-ditch bid to end the international situation, the Germans came up with Operation Sunshine, a plan to storm the apartment building.

Unfortunately, the terrorists found out about the plan by watching television. The Germans then modify their plans to attack the terrorists on their way to the airport, but again the terrorists found out their plans.

Around 10:30 p.m., the terrorists and hostages were taken to the Fürstenfeldbruck airport by helicopter. The Germans had snipers waiting for them there. Once on the ground, the terrorists realized, too late. that there was a trap. Snipers started shooting at them and they shot back. Two terrorists and one policeman were killed. Then a stalemate developed. The Germans called for armored cars and waited for over an hour for them to arrive on the scene.

When the armored cars arrived, The Muslim Terrorists knew that it was over, so they became suicidal. One of the terrorists jumped into a helicopter and shot four of the hostages, then threw in a grenade. Another terrorist hopped into the other helicopter and used his machine gun to kill the remaining five hostages. The snipers and armored cars killed three more terrorists in this second round of gunfire. Three terrorists survived the attack and were taken into custody.

Less than two months later, the three surviving terrorists were released by the German government after two other Black September members hijacked a plane and threatened to blow it up unless the three were released.

Following the massacre, the Israeli government organized a retaliation against Black September, called Operation Wrath of God.

For those of us who are old enough to remember the Munich Massacre, the horrible description of it, as given by the late, great ABC Sports Announcer and former newspaper reporter, Jim McKay, haunts us to this day:

They’re all gone.

I pray that we do not hear similar words at Sochi.

Because, as Iran is proving, by continuing their Uranium Enrichment, after playing Secretary of State John Kerry and President Barack Hussein Obama for suckers, the sponsors of Islamic Terrorism have no respect for the United States of America. We remain, despite the Administration’s flagrant courtship of these barbarians, “The Great Satan”.

And, Muslim Terrorists, such as the ones who killed Israel’s Olympic Team in 1972, whether they are Chechen or Palestinian, if given the opportunity, will not hesitate to kill Russia’s, Israel’s, or America’s Olympians, gay or straight, in 2014.

Until He Comes,

KJ