Category: Politics

Anti-American Creative Director of 9/11 Memorial/Museum was an Anti-Vietnam War Activist at Harvard.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics11 Comments

According to the official website of the 911 Memorial and Museum,  911memorial.org…

911firefightersThe National September 11 Memorial Museum will open as the country’s principal institution concerned with exploring the implications of the events of 9/11, documenting the impact of those events and exploring 9/11’s continuing significance.

However, the iconic photograph, which accompanies this post, was almost left off the museum’s collection…and you are not going to believe the reason why…

Michael Shulan, the museum’s creative director, was among staffers who considered the Tom Franklin photograph too kitschy and “rah-rah America,” according to “Battle for Ground Zero” (St. Martin’s Press) by Elizabeth Greenspan, out next month.

“I really believe that the way America will look best, the way we can really do best, is to not be Americans so vigilantly and so vehemently,” Shulan said.

Shulan had worked on a popular post-9/11 photography exhibit called “Here is New York” in Soho when he was hired by Alice Greenwald, director of the museum, for his “unique approach.”

Eventually, chief curator Jan Ramirez proposed a compromise, Greenspan writes. The Franklin shot was minimized in favor of three different photos via three different angles of the flag-raising scene.

“Several images undercut the myth of ‘one iconic moment,’ Ramirez said, and suggest instead an event from multiple points of view, like the attacks more broadly,” the book says.

“Shulan didn’t like three photographs more than he liked one, but he went along with it.”

Shulan told The Post he didn’t know that the way Greenspan described the discussion about the photographs “is the way that I would have.”

“My concern, as it always was, is that we not reduce [9/11] down to something that was too simple, and in its simplicity would actually distort the complexity of the event, the meaning of the event,” he said.

Shulan was living in Soho on Sept. 11, 2011. He helped organize the “Here is New York” exhibit shortly after the attack, and it grew to include thousands of photographs taken by professionals and ordinary New Yorkers. The collection was later donated to the New-York Historical Society.

Being me, I began to research Mr. Shulan’s background. As the article explains, his claim to fame  is the collection of striking photographs of the Big Apple, which he took in the aftermath of the horrific events of September 11, 2001. So…why was he named Creative Director of the museum? On his artistic ability alone?

Au contraire, mon frere.

It was his political ideology which got him the job.

Posted at the online version of the Harvard University Student Newspaper, thecrimson.org, I found the following article titled, “Freshmen Discuss Action in Case Congress Ends Student Deferments”, dated March 10, 1971…

Nearly 200 Harvard freshmen met in the Freshman Union Monday night to discuss possible ways of counteracting President Nixon’s proposed abolition of H-S deferments granted after April 23, 1970.

The freshmen agreed to meet again next Monday in the Union Lounge to focus on specific proposals, including suggestions for a letter campaign to Congressmen and civil disobedience at Boston draft boards.

Monday night’s meeting grew out of a series of discussions among several members of the freshman class about the now-imminent threat of the draft. Nixon asked Congress on April 23, 1970, for the abolition of all student deferments granted after that date, and Washington sources expect passage of the proposal this spring.

“The important thing that came out of the discussions was a really strong feeling of togetherness.” said Mark Hunter ’74, one of the participants.

At the Monday meeting, a large group favored political action to fight for retention of II-S deferments, but others claimed that the problem was greater than just the question of student deferments.

Michael Shulan ’74, one of the members of the original discussion group, said, “We got scared into thinking about the draft, but now that we’ve started thinking it doesn’t much matter whether they take away the II-S.”

One freshman proposed financing an antiwar, antidraft drive through a 10 per cent surcharge on all dope dealing. “It would provide antiwar revenue and a moral justification for smoking,” he said.

Mmmm…a Far Left Activist and a Hahvahd Graduate…mmmm…isn’t President Barack Hussain Obama a Hahvahd Graduate? And wasn’t he a Far Left Political Activist, also? Small World,  Huh, y’all?

Why would a former Collegiate Anti-American Far Left Activist be appointed the Creative Director for a Museum memorializing the worst ever Terrorist Attack on American Soil?

It is all a part of Obama and the rest of the “Progressives’ quest to “radically change” America. They do not believe in America Exceptionalism, American Patriotism, and Love of God and Country.

To them, America is just another nation, and to them, we “had it coming” on 9/11/01. Somehow, in their feeble little minds, they believe that America slighted or aggrieved the Muslim World so horribly, that they were driven to attack us.

The ungrateful ignorance that Liberals, or Progressives, demonstrate, through their damaging Machiavellian schemes to bring down this “shining city of a hill”, proves to me that they just don’t understand the cost that our fellow countrymen have had to pay to defend and preserve our American Freedom, whatsoever.

So, why have these Progressives failed, so far, to bring down this nation?

The answer is simple.  Allow me to present a very special teacher to explain it to you, gentle reader:

Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock, did something not to be forgotten.  On the first day of school, with the permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she removed all of the desks out of her classroom.

When the first period kids entered the room they discovered that there were no desks.

‘Ms. Cothren, where’re our desks?’

She   replied, ‘You can’t have a desk until you tell me how you earn the right to sit at a desk.

They thought, ’Well, maybe it’s our grades.’

‘No,’ she said.

‘Maybe it’s our behavior.’

She told them, ’No, it’s not even your behavior.’

And so, they came and went, the first period, second period, third period. Still no desks in the classroom

By early afternoon television news crews had started gathering in Ms. Cothren’s classroom to report about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her room.

The final period of the  day came and as the puzzled  students found seats on the floor of the desk less classroom, Martha Cothren said, ‘Throughout the day no one  has been able  to tell me just what he/she has done to earn the  right  to sit at the desks that are  ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you.’

At this point, Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it.

Twenty-seven (27) U.S. Veterans, all in uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. The Vets began placing the school desks in rows, and then they would walk over and stand alongside the wall. By the time the last soldier had set the final desk in place those kids started to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, just how the right to sit at those desks had been earned.

Martha said, ‘You didn’t earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. Now, it’s up to you to sit in them.  It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so that you could have the freedom to get an education. Don’t ever forget it.’

By the way, this is a true story. And this teacher was awarded Teacher of the Year for the state of Arkansas in 2006.

Most Americans understand the Cost of Freedom.  Freedom is not free. 

Never forget September 11, 2001.

Until He Comes, 

KJ

Keeping the Faith: Lighting a Candle in the Darkness

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics21 Comments

WashingtonPrayingI am an anachronism.

I was told that, in no uncertain terms, yesterday, by “Libertarians”, on a Conservative website I frequent.

My crime? I refused to be in favor of legalizing marijuana, and I had the nerve to say that I felt that it was more dangerous than alcohol. What’s more, I refused to say that there was a moral equivalency between them.

But, that’s a discussion for another day.

Dictionary.com defines an anachronism as

something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time, especially a thing or person that belongs to an earlier time.

I suppose that’s me.

I started this Blog as a way to vent my frustrations with the ever-evolving “societal norms” and political mayhem around me. A lot of things just grated on my nerves. They still do.

I was “reared” (as we say in Dixie) by a Mother and Daddy (Southern colloquialism for a Male Parental Unit) who were members of the Greatest Generation. In fact, I was born 3 days before my mother’s 40th brithday. To this day, I believe that they were going to name me “Oops”.

My view of the world around me was shaped and nurtured by my Daddy, a Christian American, and the finest man I’ve ever known, who served with an Army Engineering Unit, as a Master Sergeant, in World War II, and who jumped off of a perfectly good boat into a hail of gunfire to join his American Brothers in the tide-turning American Victory known as “D-Day”.

Between him and my Mother, they taught me what it was to be a hard-working, Middle Class Christian American Conservative….and, to be proud of it.

But now, at 54 years old, having just seen an anti-American, Muslim-sympathizing, political-pandering, class warfare-preaching, card-carrying Communist, get re-hired for a job in which, if he were in the private section, his butt would have gotten canned  within the first 7 months, I’m beginning to feel like I’m beating my dadgum head against the wall until it’s bloody, and for no cotton-pickin’ reason at all.

Why am I feelng that way?

Well, there are several reasons.

1. This country re-elected an idiot. Now, I realize that’s been done before. But, they all paled in comparison to this guy. I believe that “Scooter”, my pet name for Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmm), burnt up the vast majority of his gray matter during his “Choom Gang” days in Hawaii, and now, as an old friend, a former Meth-head, who, sadly, later committed suicide this time of year, used to tell me, he has “2 brain cells left and they’re fighting to the death”. I pray we survive the next 4 years.

2.  Evidently, Americans, at least the majority of the ones that actually got up off the couch (Pookie, included) to vote on November 6th, want the Federal Government to take care of them, cradle to grave. Rush Limbaugh labelled this symptom, “The Baracky Claus Effect”.  I pray, that, just as the Proletariat eventually figured out in the old Soviet Union, Americans are going to wake up one day, to find that mega-dependence on The State to run your life, leads to the loss of personal freedom. And those, who believe that they are “the most enlightened people in the room”, will be the first ones hollering, when they discover that their freedom has been taken away.

3. America seems to be devolving into a collection of Libertines. Notice, I did not say “Libertarians”, although, both descriptive words come from the same root word. A Libertine is, per Merriam-Webster.com,

a person who is unrestrained by convention or morality: one leading a dissolute (lacking moral restraint) life

Being a Libertarian used to mean you wanted less Government in your life and less restrictions on your personal happiness. Notice I said used to mean. Now, Libertine and Libertarian both seem to mean the same thing to the majority of posters self-identifying as members of the latter group on Internet chat boards.

Caligula’s Horse approves.

I suppose I could pontificate on the fallen nature of Man at this point, but, that’s fairly self-evident…and, as the late Freddie Prinze used to say, “Ees not my yob, man.”

4. Finally, I was told the other day, during the before-mentioned “discussion” on that Facebook Page, that my blog was considered a “joke”. I allowed this to hurt me very deeply. You see, since April of 2010, I have devoted a lot of time and effort to putting my ideas, however old-fashioned and cornball they are, down on paper. I truly enjoy doing it. I must. I haven’t made a dadgum dime off of it. Although, as I’ve previously written, it did help me land my present job.

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

Let’s perform a dissection, shall we?

First word:  Christian – A follower of Jesus Christ.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

J. Matt Barber wrote in the Washington Times that

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

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

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

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

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

Even the Brits understand what American Conservatism is.

Per blogs.telegraph.co.uk:

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

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

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

So, where do I go from here? Do I run away, with my tail between my legs, and live out the rest of my days in quiet desperation?

To any of you who repled, “yes”…you don’t know me very well.

Greater is He who is in me, than he who is in the world.

My Creator, while endowing me with certain inalienable rights, also endowed me with an indomitable will. Then, somewhere along my journey, He gave me the gift of being able to express my thoughts and feelings on this computer keyboard.

I will not give up. I will not surrender my Christianity, my love of the greatest nation on God’s green Earth, or my Conservatism, to appease those who wish everybody would just get in line and acquiesce to the prevailing “societal norms”.  I follow another set of guidelines, written a long time ago, but which remain as relevant as the moment in which the Hand of God guided those who wrote them down.

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, – Colossians 3:23 (ESV)

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

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

May God bless you and yours,

KJ

Obama Compares Vietnamese Despot, Ho Chi Minh, to Our Founding Fathers

On By kingsjesterIn Politics6 Comments

Obama and Founding FathersThursday, President Barack Hussein Obama met with Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang at the White House

During the meeting, which was held in the Oval Office, Obama says he and Sang “discussed the challenges that all of us face when it comes to issues of human rights,” which was a wussified reference to Vietnam’s horrible record on human rights.

Obama went on to say that,

And we had a very candid conversation about both the progress that Vietnam is making and the challenges that remain.

After the “Rice Wine Summit”, as he was leaving, Sang offered Obama a gift of a “copy of a letter sent by Ho Chi Minh to Harry Truman.”

And, then our Marxist-in-Chief proceeded to show his true colors, once again.

…And we discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson. Ho Chi Minh talks about his interest in cooperation with the United States. And President Sang indicated that even if it’s 67 years later, it’s good that we’re still making progress.

Liberals’, like Barack Hussein Obama, possess a passionate love  for Revisionist History, which is no more apparent than in the mythology they have built up since the 60s, concerning the Communist Despot, Ho Chi Minh.

Allow me to give you a little history, Mr. President…courtesy of the Blog, freedomforvietnam.wordpress.com, created by Ian Pham…

…Ho Chi Minh was a dictatorial, megalomaniacal, and extremely cunning man. Behind that fatherly smile was a diabolical mind that was capable of deceiving the entire world, leading us to believe that he had the country’s interest in mind. Ho Chi Minh claimed to live his life with only one goal in his mind: liberating the Vietnamese people from the grips of the French. Apparently his one and only ambition in life was to free the country and lead it to prosperity. Whether or not he meant it in the beginning is debatable, but the horrifying outcomes of his actions later on are absolutely undeniable.

…Throughout his entire rule, Ho Chi Minh labeled his forces the protectors of Vietnam, attacking the South on the pretext of “liberating our southern brothers from the American invaders.” Instead of the name Communist Party, Ho Chi Minh named his group the Labor Party, looking to gain support from the working population. This worked quite well, not only for the people inside Vietnam, but also to the observers from outside the country.

Besides the People’s Army in the north, Ho Chi Minh created another military force in the south, cleverly labeled as the “National Liberation Front (NLF).” In creating this alternate force, Ho Chi Minh wanted to simulate the illusion of rebellion and revolt in the south. Ho’s plan was to make the world think that Vietnam had two separate groups who fought for the same cause, defeating the Republic of Vietnam. In reality, the NLF (aka Vietcong) were directly under Ho Chi Minh’s command and was not a separate entity in the war.

The Mind of Modern Vietnam’s Greatest Villain

As you can see, Ho Chi Minh was a political genius who fooled the world into supporting his cause. Through propaganda, terror, and betrayals of his many allies, Ho Chi Minh formed the Communist movement in Vietnam, putting himself at the top of the pyramid. He incited the patriotism of his soldiers, tricking them into thinking that what they were doing was best for Vietnam. He used the entrance of the Americans to trash South Vietnam, calling them tools of foreign imperialism, and created anger and hatred in the hearts of his soldiers.

Many of his policies during the war were cruel and atrocious. The land reform programs resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Vietnamese civilians in the north. His murderous policies in treating southern civilians was also disturbing and destructive. One such example was the Hue Massacre in 1968. His soldiers captured the city of central Vietnam, brutally murdering thousands of defenseless people, simply because they lived under the government of South Vietnam.

Sympathy From the West

Even while he was committing these evil deeds, Ho Chi Minh was able to cultivate a positive image in the eyes of the world. Throughout the 1960′s, many people in the west bought into his propaganda, protested the South, and praised the North. They didn’t know of his brutal massacres or his selfish intentions. They only saw what was on the surface, an elderly smile of a charming old man, backed by thousands upon thousands of biased media outlets. The “experts” in America believed that he was a saint, comparing him to real heroes such as Gandhi, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King. Judging by the evidence of all the Communists’ crimes, whoever made these comparisons should feel really stupid now.

They Should. Unfortunately, Liberals have no shame.

Lt. Col. Allen West posted on his Facebook Wall yesterday, that

My older brother was a Vietnam Marine wounded in a shelling at Khe Sanh. i find it perplexing and disturbing that our current Commander-in-Chief would refer to Ho Chi Minh as being “inspired” by our American founders. The individuals who inspired Ho were Karl Marx and Josef Stalin. I shudder to think President Obama regards them as our founders. Regardless, an apology is due to our men and women who served in the Vietnam War. I would have taken a walk with the new Vietnamese president over to the Vietnam War Memorial and made him see every name on that wall.

Indeed.

If Our founding Fathers were alive today to hear the Manchurian President compare the Communist Despot Ho Chi Minh to them, Obama would be picking up teeth….or challenged to a duel.

Our Founders were Men of Honor, not Men of Convenience, like the Prevaricator-in-Chief.

As his second term as president continues its descent down the porcelain receptacle, Obama’s mask has slipped down so far, it has fallen completely off. He’s either being extremely careless about maintained his persona as an American “just like us”, or Obama simply does not care what average Americans think about him any more. He’s going to do and say what he wants to.

Which explains how rapidly his poll numbers, currently at 41%, have started to fall.

The combination of Obama’s pomposity, Marxist/Alinsky-ite political ideology, and downright cluelessness as to the values and dreams of the average American, makes for a very dangerous United States President.

He’s dangerous, in that he can seemingly do and say whatever he wants, thanks to having no restrictions placed upon him by the RINOs in the House and the Democrats in the Senate.

In that one off-hand comment, he insulted our brave men and women who fought in the horrible conflict known as the Vietnam War.

An American President would have never made that statement.

Lt. Col. West is right. He needs to publicly apologize.

But, he won’t.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The Obama Administration Wants YOUR Internet Passwords.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics6 Comments

obamabigbroYesterday, I  wrote a post about the Prevaricator-in-Chief’s first of a series of speeches on the horrible economy he has delivered to us. In the speech, he assured Americans that all the scandals hanging over his head were “phoney”.

He lied…again…additionally, here comes another one…and it’s a doozy. First though, a little warm-up pitch…

During a U.S. House Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill Tuesday, Rep. Michele Bachmann defended the government’s recently disclosed surveillance programs and called the man who revealed them a traitor.

The director of the National Security Agency, Army Gen. Keith Alexander, testified that the programs – which collect U.S. phone records and track the use of U.S.-based Internet servers by foreigners with possible links to terrorism – are critical to national security.

Bachmann agreed and blasted the actions of Edward Snowden, a former government contractor, who leaked information on the programs to news agencies. Snowden had worked for a year in an information technology job at the NSA office in Hawaii.

“It seems to be that the problem here is that an individual who worked within the system … broke laws and chose to declassify highly sensitive classified information,” Bachmann said.

“It seems to me that’s where our focus should be on how there could be a betrayal of trust and how a traitor could do something like this to the American people. It seems to me that’s where our focus must be and how we can prevent something like that from ever happening again.”

Through her votes to extend the Patriot Act in 2011 and the Foreign Service Intelligence Act in 2012, Bachmann has voted to preserve the government’s power to collect private data, presumably to prevent terrorist attacks. She asked Alexander if Snowden’s disclosures put the United States at risk and aided the country’s enemies.

Alexander answered in the affirmative, saying the leaks caused “irreversible and significant damage to this nation.”

Now…here comes the fastball…right down “Broadway”…

The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users’ stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.

If the government is able to determine a person’s password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused.

“I’ve certainly seen them ask for passwords,” said one Internet industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We push back.”

A second person who has worked at a large Silicon Valley company confirmed that it received legal requests from the federal government for stored passwords. Companies “really heavily scrutinize” these requests, the person said. “There’s a lot of ‘over my dead body.'”

Some of the government orders demand not only a user’s password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. A salt is a random string of letters or numbers used to make it more difficult to reverse the encryption process and determine the original password. Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts.

We should have known what Obama was going to throw at us, based on his past “pitching starts”…

Back in January of 2011, pcmag.com reported the following…

The Obama administration is planning to place authority for developing an Internet ID for Americans in the Commerce Department.

The news came at an event at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, where U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke spoke.

Details on the plans are essentially nonexistent, but Locke and others said a lot about what the IDs would not be: “We are not talking about a national ID card,” Locke said. It also won’t be government controlled. The goal is “…enhancing online security and privacy and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities.”

White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt, who also spoke at the event, said that the ID, which they refer to as “trusted identities,” would not become mandatory. Anonymity and pseudonymity will remain possible on the Internet. There will be no central database and private industry will take the lead in implementation.

A vague outline for the program was released in June entitled the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC). That document was as vague as this week’s event; trusted identities will do good things and avoid doing bad things.

It’s not surprising that details are scarce. Designing an identity that is robust, affordable, secure, easy to use, and all the other things you’d want it to be, is not easy. In fact, many of the design goals operate at cross purposes with the others. Don’t be surprised if this program takes a long time to come to a deliverable, or if the deliverable is irrelevant by the time it’s here.

After some “pre-season games” during his first term, Obama and the rest of his team have decided to go full Marxist, and wear their Mao Uniforms with pride.

Because, God knows, it’s dangerous for us Americans to express our thoughts and feelings to other Americans on the Internet. I mean, something awful might happen…like …umm…Freedom of Speech, or something. And, when American Freedom is in the way, it is very difficult for our “benevolent despot” to follow through with his plans to “radically change” America into a Socialist Paradise.

As an incurable Internet Surfer, who hangs out on Conservative Websites and Facebook Pages, and follows Conservatives on Twitter, I can testify to the fact that millions of Americans have found a commonality in their thoughts about, ideas concerning, and wishes for, the future of this great nation.

It is wonderfully reassuring to know that good, old-fashioned American Patriotism…love of God and Country, is not passe, as Obama and all his minions would want us to believe.

And, that is why this Administration is moving so rapidly to suppress it.

 American Individualism and Exceptionalism stands between the Obama Administration and their Socialist Utopia.

And, Patriotic Americans scare the mess of these weasels. So, stay strong Americans.

Stay vigilant. Stay FREE.

Until He Comes.

KJ

Obama’s Economic Soliloquy: “Sound and Fury…Signifying Nothing”

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

Obama-Shrinks-2Yesterday, President Barack Hussein Obama spoke for one hour and six minutes at Knox College in Illinois. The speech was longer than all but one of his State of the Union Addresses.

The bad news? It was just the first in a series of speeches he’ll be giving under the title “A Better Bargain for the Middle Class”.

That’s right, boys and girls, our Petulant President is campaigning again, this time to distract and obfuscate.

A better title for this traveling lecture series would be “The Magical Mystery Tour”.

The Prevaricator-in-Chief has literally run out of ideas. So, he is recycling his “Growing the Economy From the Middle Class Out” bogus economic theory, praying that it distracts the nation from all of the scandals that are hanging over his head, like a piano in a Tom and Jerry Cartoon.

The problem he’s got is that he doesn’t sound like a U.S. President, who has a vision for our nation. Instead, he sounds like a visiting collegiate lecturer who has no lesson plan prepared.

You can tell by all the insipid double-talk he filled his soliloquy with . A straight talker, he ain’t.

Today, five years after the start of that Great Recession, America has fought its way back.

Together, we saved the auto industry, took on a broken health care system, and invested in new American technologies to reverse our addiction to foreign oil and double wind and solar power.

Together, we put in place tough new rules on big banks, and protections that cracked down on the worst practices of mortgage lenders and credit card companies. We changed a tax code too skewed in favor of the wealthiest at the expense of working families, locking in tax cuts for 98% of Americans, and asking those at the top to pay a little more.

Add it all up, and over the past 40 months, our businesses have created 7.2 million new jobs. This year, we are off to our strongest private-sector job growth since 1999. And because we bet on this country, foreign companies are, too. Right now, more of Honda’s cars are made in America than anywhere else. Airbus will build new planes in Alabama. Companies like Ford are replacing outsourcing with insourcing and bringing more jobs home. We sell more products made in America to the rest of the world than ever before. We now produce more natural gas than any country on Earth. We’re about to produce more of our own oil than we buy from abroad for the first time in nearly 20 years. The cost of health care is growing at its slowest rate in 50 years. And our deficits are falling at the fastest rate in 60 years.

Thanks to the grit and resilience of the American people, we’ve cleared away the rubble from the financial crisis and begun to lay a new foundation for stronger, more durable economic growth. In our personal lives, we tightened our belts, shed debt, and refocused on the things that really matter. As a country, we’ve recovered faster and gone further than most other advanced nations in the world. With new American revolutions in energy, technology, manufacturing, and health care, we are actually poised to reverse the forces that have battered the middle class for so long, and rebuild an economy where everyone who works hard can get ahead.

…A growing number of Republican Senators are trying to get things done, like an immigration bill that economists say will boost our economy by more than a trillion dollars. But a faction of Republicans in the House won’t even give that bill a vote, and gutted a farm bill that America’s farmers and most vulnerable children depend on.

If you ask some of these Republicans about their economic agenda, or how they’d strengthen the middle class, they’ll shift the topic to “out-of-control” government spending – despite the fact that we have cut the deficit by nearly half as a share of the economy since I took office. Or they’ll talk about government assistance for the poor, despite the fact that they’ve already cut early education for vulnerable kids and insurance for people who’ve lost their jobs through no fault of their own. Or they’ll bring up Obamacare, despite the fact that our businesses have created nearly twice as many jobs in this recovery as they had at the same point in the last recovery, when there was no Obamacare.

With an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball. And I am here to say this needs to stop. Short-term thinking and stale debates are not what this moment requires. Our focus must be on the basic economic issues that the matter most to you – the people we represent. And as Washington prepares to enter another budget debate, the stakes for our middle class could not be higher. The countries that are passive in the face of a global economy will lose the competition for good jobs and high living standards. That’s why America has to make the investments necessary to promote long-term growth and shared prosperity. Rebuilding our manufacturing base. Educating our workforce. Upgrading our transportation and information networks. That’s what we need to be talking about. That’s what Washington needs to be focused on.

And that’s why, over the next several weeks, in towns across this country, I will engage the American people in this debate. I will lay out my ideas for how we build on the cornerstones of what it means to be middle class in America, and what it takes to work your way into the middle class in America. Job security, with good wages and durable industries. A good education. A home to call your own. Affordable health care when you get sick. A secure retirement even if you’re not rich. Reducing poverty and inequality. Growing prosperity and opportunity.

Some of these ideas I’ve talked about before, and some will be new. Some will require Congress, and some I will pursue on my own. Some will benefit folks right away; some will take years to fully implement. But the key is to break through the tendency in Washington to careen from crisis to crisis. What we need isn’t a three-month plan, or even a three-year plan, but a long-term American strategy, based on steady, persistent effort, to reverse the forces that have conspired against the middle class for decades.

Obama did his very best Lt. Frank Drebin impression in addressing his scandals,

Nothing to see here. Move along. Nothing to see here.

He begged the American public to ignore them.

Ambassador Chris Stevens, Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty, and Sean Smith remain unavailable for comment.

And, Mr. President, a series of didactic lectures designed to distract from America’s growing dissatisfaction with your lousy performance as an American President, is not a ‘debate”.

Especially, when your staff hand-picks the audience.

Oh, about the Vichy Republicans who you say are working with you. You had better work quickly, because they won’t be around after November of 2014.

And, as far as acting on your own, you do so at your party’s peril. 

As far as we hard-working members of the middle class are concerned, we would appreciate it, if you stopped generating twice as many Food Stamp Recipients as your idiotic Economic Policies produce jobs.

That, as least, would show you are actually accomplishing something positive.

But, you won’t. Just as the scorpion explained to the frog, after stinging him in the middle of riding piggy-back across a lake, you can’t help destroying a once robust American Economy.

It’s just your nature.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama and the Vichy Republicans

On By kingsjesterIn Politics7 Comments

McCainObamaNews came out yesterday, that President Barack Hussein Obama’s (mm mmm mmmm) popularity had dropped to 41% in the polls. Now, just when Americans are finally waking up to the Manchurian President, he is about to be bailed out…by the “Maverick” and his merry band of Vichy Republicans.

“We have been looking literally for years for someone we can cut deals with, and finally someone has stepped up,” a White House official said. West Wing aides say they now talk with McCain roughly every other day.

McCain, to hear fellow Republicans tell it, has finally found The Two he has needed to make such conversations worth the bother: Sen. Chuck Schumer, a Democrat who can actually get things done in the Senate, and Denis McDonough, a White House chief of staff who actually cares what senators say and think and do.

While Obama and party leaders clash endlessly and hopelessly, these three men are showing it is possible to put aside political and personal grievances to get consequential stuff done, even in Washington’s currently twisted state.

They would never say it this way, but more often than not, they do it by going around those party leaders — their bosses — who seem stuck in fights they will never be able to end.

This new alliance has resulted in an immigration bill and a deal to avoid the nuclear option for confirming nominees, and is in preliminary conversations to avert a government shutdown over the budget. It has created trust — tenuous but real — among these three officials (and others) who can deliver results.

The House no doubt will kill most or all of their compromises. But three men from the three power centers talking, much less agreeing, is something this city hasn’t seen in the Obama years.

The return of McCain the Maverick rankles many Republicans, but he can reliably count on seven to 10 GOP senators to back him, including Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.

Isn’t it nice to know that we can always count on good ol’ Maverick and his pet dog, Grahamnesty to stab us in the back, y’all?

But wait, they’re not the only members of the Vichy Republican Brigade…There is their Fearless Leader, Mr. Speaker. But, hey, at least the Libs over at slate.com speak of Cryin’ John in glowing terms…

In an interview on “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Boehner said his job was not to dictate to Republican members what legislation they should support but merely to “facilitate” a process where they found their own outcome. He didn’t dare offer an opinion about comprehensive immigration reform because it would interfere. “It’s not about me,” the speaker told Bob Schieffer. “It’s not about what I want. What I’ve committed to, when I became speaker, was to a more open and fair process. And as difficult as this issue is, me taking a hard position for or against some of these issues will make it harder for us to get a bill … If I come out and say, ‘I’m for this’ and ‘I’m for that,’ all I’m doing is making my job harder.”

…Boehner’s constraints are self-imposed. He could make a deal with Democrats to pass immigration reform, and he has done that before on the fiscal cliff deal, the Violence Against Women Act, and Hurricane Sandy relief funding. But those issues were not as volatile in Republican ranks as immigration and did not risk a conservative crack-up. If he cut a deal, would he lose his speakership? There would have to be a viable alternative candidate who wanted to herd the cats. But even if he retained the job, that kind of crack-up would make passing bills, which will require cajoling the same conservatives, that much harder.

There has been a lot of speculation on whether Boehner will stick to the so-called Hastert Rule, allowing no bill to come to the floor unless it can pass with a majority of the majority. He has said he will not break this promise. That may be his heart’s true desire, but we can’t really know right now. Boehner understands that the more Democrats think he needs them for passage of a comprehensive bill, the more they’ll demand from him. So even if Boehner were planning on passing immigration reform with a minority of his party, he will maintain his firm stance on the Hastert Rule until the very last minute.

In the end, the question is not whether John Boehner is a leader. He is—he’s just a leader with modest ambitions. In the study of House speakers, the debate splits along lines familiar to presidential observers. Presidents are either “at liberty … to be as big a man as he can,” as Woodrow Wilson wrote when he was a Princeton political science professor. Or presidents are circumscribed by the political conditions they face, as Wilson discovered when he actually had the job. In congressional studies, the split is over whether a speaker is merely an agent carrying out the will of his conference or whether a powerful speaker can make his own weather.

At a time when the current president is going down in flames, instead of roasting marshmallows over the bonfire, Vichy Republicans are “reaching across the aisle” to help save the Prevaricator-in-Chief.

These RINOs are so consumed by their avarice and quest to be just like their Democratic allies, that they have forgotten why they were elected in the first place. If their constituents had wanted to elect Democrats, they would have pulled the lever marked “DEMOCRAT”.

It’s time for Maverick, Grahamnesty, Cryin’ John, and the rest of the GOP Elite girly-men to put their big boy pants on, and do the job they were elected to do: work for the betterment of this country, not for its destruction at the hands of Barack Hussein Obama. He’s doing fine with that…all by his lonesome.

And, as I’ve said before, if the Vichy Republicans think that the new “Americans” they’re creating will actually vote for them, replacing us worrisome members of the Conservative Base, I have two bridges over the Mississippi River at Memphisa to sell them. 

And, in the spirit of the nickname I’ve given them, and the courage they are showing, I will throw in two French Rifles from World War II….dropped once…never fired.

Until He Comes,

KJ

“Little Pink Houses For You and Me”

On By kingsjesterIn Politics9 Comments

littlepinkhousesFrom the get-go, President Barack Hussein Obama’s motto has been “Share the Wealth”. Not his, of course, but, ours.

This “Quest for Equality”, i.e., lack of individualism, i.e., forming a collective society, if you will, springs from his love for the teachings of  Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky, and his upbringing within an American Communist Family, which led to his association with people who wanted, with all their hearts to “radically change” America…by any means necessary.

Obama wants to limit our freedom…by making our choices for us.

For example…

Obama decided early on in his presidency that he would use America’s fighting men and women as his personal guinea pigs, by doing away with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, so that he could perform a Social Engineering Experiment by bringing Homosexuality out of Americans’ private homes and into our military barracks.

And, while ol’ Scooter was busy doing that, the First Lady, Michelle, or “Mooch” as she is known, was busy telling America’s parents and grandparents that were did not know how to feed our children, and she was going to show us how by making their lunches so” healthy”, they did not get enough calories at lunch, and kids were getting sick.

Now, the Communist in the White House, as Victoria Jackson sang, wants to tell us where to live…and whom to live beside.

CNSNews.com reports that

To ensure that “every American is able to choose to live in a community they feel proud of,” HUD has published a new fair-housing regulation intended to give people access to better neighborhoods than the ones they currently live in.

The goal is to help communities understand “fair housing barriers” and “establish clear goals” for “improving integrated living patterns and overcoming historic patterns of segregation.”

“This proposed rule represents a 21st century approach to fair housing, a step forward to ensuring that every American is able to choose to live in a community they feel proud of – where they have a fair shot at reaching their full potential in life,” said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan.

“For the first time ever,” Donovan added, “HUD will provide data for every neighborhood in the country, detailing the access African American, Latino, Asian, and other communities have to local assets, including schools, jobs, transportation, and other important neighborhood resources that can play a role in helping people move into the middle class.”

According to HUD, long-term solutions include “helping people gain access to different neighborhoods and channeling investments into under-served areas.” The mapping tool may guide development and zoning decisions, for example.

In a July 16 speech to the NAACP, Donovan said the American Dream still isn’t within equal reach of all communities. He lamented the lack of diversity in America’s boardrooms, schools, and the nation’s “strongest neighborhoods.”

“We have got to shape a future where ladders of opportunity are available for all Americans,” Donovan said. “For African Americans, this is critically important. Historically, for this community, the rungs on these ladders have been too far apart -– making it harder to reach the middle class.”

Donovan said HUD’s new neighborhood mapping tool, which uses Census data, will “expand access to high opportunity neighborhoods and draw attention to investment possibilities in under-served communities.”

“Make no mistake, this is a big deal,” Donovan said. “With the HUD budget alone, we are talking about billions of dollars. And as you know, decades ago, these funds were used to support discrimination. Now, they will be used to expand opportunity and bring communities closer to the American Dream.”

Under the Fair Housing Act, HUD requires grantees, such as cities, that receive federal housing funds to “affirmatively further fair housing.”

Under the proposed rule, the neighborhood data provided by HUD will be used to evaluate patterns of integration and segregation, racial and ethnic concentrations of poverty, and access to “valuable community assets.” HUD wants to know if existing laws and policies — such as zoning, financing, infrastructure planning and transportation — create, perpetuate or alleviate segregation.

The proposed rule explicitly incorporates fair-housing decision-making into existing planning processes and “other decision-making that influences how communities and regions grow and develop.”

“Forced Integration”?

Are we still in America?

How does that work in cities that are already 90 % minority population, like Detroit or Memphis?

As Charles Barkley pointed out the other day, Racism is not just a one-way street.  How do you think that these cities go this way? Not all of their White citizens moved out because they wanted to.

But, I digress.

On a Sunday, in October of 2008, outside of Toledo, Ohio, Democratic Presidential Nominee Obama met a plumber named Joe Wurzelbacher. Joe, who owned his own plumbing company, dared to ask Obama about his proposed tax hikes. In fact, he told Obama that he did not want to pay higher taxes, he was already paying enough. Obama told him,

Now, I respect the disagreement. I just want you to be clear – it’s not that I want to punish your success – I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you – that they’ve got a chance at success too.”

…I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.

Evidently, the “fairness” Obama seeks, includes making everyone’s housing “fair”, too.

No individuality allowed in the Proletariat.

Welcome to the USSA, “komrades!”

Until He Comes, 

KJ

From Detroit to Memphis: A Problem of Stewardship

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

monopoly2The city of Detroit filed bankruptcy this past week. Are they a harbinger of things to come?

Detroit may be alone among the nation’s biggest cities in terms of filing for bankruptcy, but it is far from the only city being crushed by a roiling mountain of long-term debt.

At the heart of Detroit’s problem is a growing unfunded debt on benefits owed to current and future retirees — some $3.5 billion, according to its emergency manager, Kevyn Orr — which mirrors a circumstance being seen across the U.S.

From Baltimore to Los Angeles, and many points in between, municipalities are increasingly confronted with how to pay for these massive promises. The Pew Center for the States, in Washington, estimated states’ public pension plans across the U.S. were underfunded by a whopping $1.4 trillion in 2010.

For years, watchdog groups and public-sector analysts have warned of the threat posed by unfunded liabilities. Much like the legacy pension costs that weighed on Detroit’s automakers before the Chrysler and General Motors restructurings of 2009, the worry is that revenues can’t keep up with growing debt and that rosy predictions for market returns downplay the actual financial risk.

As examples of the results: Chicago recently saw its credit rating downgraded because of a $19-billion unfunded pension liability that the ratings service Moody’s puts closer to $36 billion. And Los Angeles could be facing a liability of more than $30 billion, by some estimates.

It’s no surprise — given the pressure public pensions are putting on municipal budgets — that any move to ease those liabilities, especially through a bankruptcy court order like what’s happening in Detroit, is being watched carefully nationwide by state and municipal officials, union leaders, bond traders and retirees.

“We’re just at the front of the line here,” Michigan Treasurer Andy Dillon said Friday. “It could be a landmark case.”

One of those cities who are having money problems is my hometown of Memphis, TN. However, just like the Egyptian city it’s named after, Memphis’s Leadership is in denial (Get it? That’s a pun, son.)

Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. is rejecting comparisons between his financially challenged city and Detroit, the largest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy.

Wharton told reporters Friday he reluctantly called a news conference to address questions about Memphis ending up like Detroit, which filed for bankruptcy this week. He said Memphis is not in denial about its financial challenges, but stressed that they are not as bad as the Michigan city.

“I’ve gotten a number of questions and they just get straight to the bottom line of, ‘Well, is Memphis like Detroit?” Wharton said. “My initial reaction was to say ‘I’m not going to dignify it by starting to try to make that kind of comparison.'”

He added: “I do hurt for what has happened in Detroit. This is not a time for piling on and saying how bad they are. After all, it’s not a government that will suffer. It will be citizens that will suffer.”

In June, Memphis received a letter from the state comptroller that warned the city about its practice of delaying debt payments year after year. Comptroller Justin Wilson said failure to address long-term debt could lead to state action.

Wilson also said the city needed to deal with low fund reserves, a shrinking tax base and budgetary imbalance.

The City Council passed a budget in June that addressed long-term debt payments, fund reserves and other concerns. Still, the state continues to keep a close eye on Memphis’ finances.

Wharton said it is frustrating to be compared with Detroit, whose situation has been blamed on a long, slow decline in population and auto manufacturing. He said Memphis $2.2 billion city pension plan is adequately funded, and recent changes in the pension systems will make them more manageable.

Wharton said Detroit was “basically a one-industry town.”

“When the auto industry went down, Detroit went down,” he said. “Fortunately, we have a diverse economy” that includes manufacturing, tourism and the health care industry, he said.

Wharton said Memphis is doing a good job of attracting new businesses. Large companies such as Electrolux and Mitsubishi Electric agreed to build factories in Memphis, though they were lured to the area by large tax incentives.

Memphis, a city of about 650,000, has seen population decline by about 3,000 since the 2000 Census. Its unemployment rate in April was 10.3 percent, compared with 16 percent in Detroit, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Memphis also has been beset by home foreclosures and a relatively high poverty rate that have caused blight in several parts of the city. Crime also has been a problem.

Wharton says Memphis is the only city facing financial and social challenges.

“What makes a difference between this city, Memphis, and others, is that we recognize it, we’re straight up-front about it,” Wharton said.

Uh huh.

Several years ago, Former Mayor W.W. Herenton , during a push to raise taxes, injected race into the matter, as he always did, and told Memphis’ White Citizens that, if they did not like the absurdly high tax rate, that they should leave town.

And, sure enough, we did.

Both Detroit, and my beloved hometown of Memphis, have been gutted by decades of poor financial stewardship, brought about by Democratic Leadership, who never saw a dollar they couldn’t spend, or a relative or friend that they couldn’t give a job with the city to.

And now, Detroit has filed for Bankruptcy, and Memphis is struggling with its budget, and sparring with the police and fire unions, who are justifiably concerned about the future of their pension plans.

And, what is amazing to me, the Mayor and City Council act like they don’t know why this is happening.

Let’s see, you raised taxes on the people who pay your “public servant” salaries, you then tell them to leave town, and you expand your municipal government to the size of a small city.

Gosh, Memphis, Detroit..where did all that money go?

Until He Comes,

KJ

The Glorification of Evil: Oiling Up Society’s Slippery Slope

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics3 Comments

American FreedomPresident Ronald Reagan used to refer to the United States of America as “the shining city on a hill”. In the past 4 1/2 years, that shine has gotten tarnished.

This “Great Experiment” has been slowly turned into a Frankenstein’s Monster.

What was the very first thing that Barack Hussein Obama did when he took office? He signed an order giving American money to fund abortions all over the world. Yes, that’s right. His first priority was the taking of innocent lives.

And, it’s all gone downhill from there.

Just look at our military. Obama and his Liberal minions have treated them as if they were a bunch of lab rats to be used for the purpose of social engineering.

First, there was the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which now allows Homosexuals to basically flaunt their sexual preference while in the service of the United States of America.

In July of 2012, several hundred members of the US Armed Forces, marched, in uniform, in Sand Diego’s Gay Pride Parade.

Also, last year, First Lady Michelle Obama announced that she was putting our servicemen and women of a restrictive diet “for their own good”. Her “diet program” for the public schools is a colossal failure, with kids not getting enough to eat. So why take away hearty meals from our military?

Because she can.

And, now, after those attacks against our Brightest and Best, the Obama Administration is basically outlawing the free expression of Christianity in our Armed Forces, labeling Evangelical Christians as radicals.

Hey, y’all. Reverend Billy Graham’s a radical!

However, this molding of our society by the Progressives doesn’t end with the military.

They have attacked the most vulnerable of us, our children.

Through the Department of Education, and programs like “anti-bullying” and Common Core, all the things, such as Christian morality and ethics, which average Americans, living in the Heartland, have always taught our children and grandchildren, are being undone by the government, in a scenario eerily reminiscent of the Soviet Union or Communist China.

Uncle Sugar is telling our kids that it is alright for heather to have two Mommies, and Bobby not to know who his Daddy is.

They are also being taught in our schools that individual achievement is secondary to the welfare of everyone around them. In other words,

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

Hey, kid. You didn’t build that.

Vladimir Lenin once said,

Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever.

What happens when you give “The State” 12 years to indoctrinate your child. Or, 16 years, if they go to college?

Scary, when you think about it, huh?

But, what about us average adults?

How could they possibly indoctrinate us?

Have you heard the expression the “one-eyed monster”? Yep. Our indoctrination by the Progressives takes place through our wide-screen televisions every evening and on the weekends.

For instance, one of the most popular series on TV has been “Two and a Half Men”. The actor who has played the “Half” in the series, Angus T. Jones, is being written out, because he dared to declare, as a Christian young man, that the series was “a bunch of garbage”.

Who are they replacing him with? They are bringing in a beautiful lesbian character, a n unknown product of Charlie Sheen’s character, who, after having a psychotic meltdown in real life, was killed off in the series.

However, it’s not just sexual immortality that we are being bombarded with on a daily basis. It’s the normalization of relative morality and situational ethics, as well.

The Golden Rule’s place in American Society has been replaced by “whatever means necessary”.

Hard-working Americans are finding themselves out of their jobs, thanks to an over-taxing government, which is ignoring an oppressive, stagnant economy.

The desperation of the unemployed, and under-employed, has caused them to seek relief from Uncle Sugar, joining the already-dependent class, causing 47% of Americans to be on some form of government assistance.

This, in turn is destroying our citizens’ ambitions and turning the American Dream into a nightmare.

This past week has seen the slippery slope upon which “the shining city on a hill” has been cascading down, become slicker and steeper.

Yesterday, in 100 cities across our nation, Black Americans and their Liberal sympathizers, protested for “Justice for Trayvon”, seeking “justice for a Not Guilty verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman, a “White Hispanic” neighborhood watch member, who was jumped by a 17-year-old troubled Black kid.

Trayvon Martin, being egged on by his worthless girlfriend, broke Zimmerman’s nose with one punch, then sat on him, beating his face in, while slamming the back of it into the sidewalk. When he would not get off of Zimmerman, as he pleaded for him to, Zimmerman shot him though his heart.

It was later revealed that this high school football player was an aspiring petty criminal, who had been suspected of burglaries in the area, and suspended from school several times for carrying around a burglary tool, and pot in his backpack, had pot in his system at the time of his death.

This is someone to build a “movement” around?

Piling on, on top of everything I have written about today, is something that has been the cherry on top of a “Slippery Slope Sundae”.

Rolling Stone Magazine, a Liberal publication, which has been at the forefront of trends in music and pop culture since the 1970’s, went beyond the pale this week, by featuring a very flattering portrait on its cover of the remaining Boston Bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The picture goes along with a story titled “Jahar’s World.” It presents the 19-year-old Islamic Terrorist with his long, curly hair tousled, in manner which is reminiscent of the magazine’s legendary portraits of rock ‘n’ roll icons like The Doors’ Jim Morrison and Bob Dylan.

When asked why he featured a mass murderer in such a positive light on the cover of his magazine, Senior Editor Christian Hoard tweeted,

I guess we should have drawn a d*** on Dzhokhar’s face or something?

The tweet has since been deleted and Hoard has apologized…because he had to.

As I write this post this morning, my thoughts are somewhere between a state of mourning and right indignation for what is happening to my country.

By ignoring and insulting Our Creator, through the acceptance of relative morality and situation ethics, those who govern us, and those of us who meekly accept the bankrupting of our society, are traveling down the same pathway that led to the fall of many great civilizations, such as the Roman Empire.

President Ronald Reagan once said, 

If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

Galations 6:7 (ESV) tells us,

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.

Those who ignore history, are doomed to repeat it.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The Summer of Hollywood’s Hiroshima

On By kingsjesterIn Entertainment, Politics7 Comments

lone ranger and tontoTo say that Hollywood is having a bad summer would be an understatement. The Liberal Intelligentsia, in all of their pompous glory, incorrectly assumed that Americans would pay our hard-earned money to go see anything they put out on a movie screen, schlock or not.

Once again, the “smartest people in the room” turned out to be the dumbest.

The costliest failure so far has been The Lone Ranger, starring Johnny Depp, which cost $250 million (£165 million) to make, and had a huge marketing budget. It was savaged by critics as a “bloated, unfunny, sometimes downright bizarre train wreck” amid a “summer of garbage blockbusters.”

Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer in The Lone Ranger (Rex Features)

Disney may have to write off up to $150 million losses on the movie, which was largely ignored by cinemagoers despite being released over the July 4 holiday weekend. It took in just $29 million that weekend in North America, losing out heavily to the animated comedy Despicable Me 2.

Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum in White House Down (Rex Features)

White House Down, starring Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum, took just $25 million on the June 28 weekend, while Pacific Rim, a story of alien monsters, while praised by many critics, still brought in only $38 million over the July 11 weekend. More people went to see the Adam Sandler comedy Grown Ups 2.

R.I.P.D, a $130 million science fiction film about police officers fighting villains in the afterlife, is predicted to take in only around $20 million this weekend.

To be considered successful, blockbusters aim to take in about half their budget over the first weekend.

The movie is being released at the same time as Red 2, a tale of retired hitmen starring Bruce Willis and Dame Helen Mirren, which is expected to split the audience.

The series of big budget disappointments has come just a month after Steven Spielberg warned that Hollywood was facing a “meltdown” because of its over-reliance on blockbusters.

Speaking at the University of Southern California in June, Spielberg predicted “an implosion where three or four, or maybe even a half dozen, mega-budget movies are going to go crashing into the ground.”

Analysts said the failures were partly a result of competing studios trying to release too many big movies at the same time. There are more than 20 films with a budget of more than $100 million being released this summer, six more than last year.

The studios have ploughed resources in to so-called “tent pole” films, which are accompanied by costly marketing, and are expected to make large profits. But, to do so, they all need to arrive in cinemas over the summer months.

Until late June, Hollywood had been on course for a record summer, following the success of early hits including Iron Man 3, Star Trek Into Darkness. and Fast & Furious 6.

However, as fatigue set in with audiences the movie industry entered what has been labelled the “dud zone,” in which big releases have fared less impressively than lower budget productions. A slew of expensive films remain to be released in late July and August.

One exasperated studio head told The Hollywood Reporter: “You had too many $100 million-plus movies, not to mention $200 million-plus movies, jammed on top of each other. There isn’t enough play time, and the result has been more movies that wipe out.”

I believe that there are other reasons for the horrible summer movie receipts.

First, Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck. Why should we blow $50 dollars at the movies, when we can stay at home, and watch our cable or satellite television programs, or watch a movie on DVD or Blu Ray? There are other downsides, to going out to watch a movie besides the outrageous cost: The idiots you have to sit next to.

When my bride and I went to see Iron man 3, earlier this summer, I was seated next to a woman who played and talked on her cellphone, sighed loudly, and talked to her friends during the movie, all in an effort to make us move somewhere else in the crowded theater. My crime? Do the words “creepy a@@ cracka” ring a bell?

The other problem that these summer movies have, is simple: They aren’t worth seeing.

Hollywood has been losing their collective mind for a while now. While our soldiers were fighting and dying in Iraq, they were releasing films that criticized our brave military and our country. Those movies bombed spectacularly as a result.

Earlier this summer, There was a movie about Liberace and his young protegé/confidant/lover Scotty Thorson, featuring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, in those roles. The studio released it to Europe first, where the heathens over there, gave it rave reviews.  It was never released to American theaters, because American capitalists refused to distribute it. They knew that Americans would not pay their hard-earned money to watch a movie denigrating an American Icon, like the legendary, beloved showman, Lee Liberace.

One of the movies expected to be a blockbuster this summer, “The Lone Ranger, cast Johnny Depp as Tonto, and rewrote the legend to center around him, instead of the title character.

The audience simply did not buy Captain Jack Sparrow as Tonto.

When we envision the crime fighting duo of the old west, Americans see Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels. Two outstanding gentlemen, both on and off the television screen.

The last point I want to make, is the total disconnect of “Hollyweird” from the average American’s belief system of ethics, values, and faith. All the great movies and television shows my generation watched growing up, reinforced those values.

We knew that the Ranger and Tonto would beat the snot out of the bad guys, and rescue the rancher’s daughter. We knew that James Bond would defeat SPECTRE and get the beautiful Bond Girl.

We smiled when we heard that Superman fought for “truth, justice, and the American Way”. We threw our rubber tomahawks at the trees in our front yards, just like “Daniel Boone”. We knew that John Wayne would rescue Dean Martin in “Rio Bravo”.

And, all the guys wanted a red Gran Torino with a white stripe down the side, like “Starsky and Hutch” drove.

You want to know why the Sherlock Holmes movies, the Iron Man movies, and the Star Trek movies have all done so well? It’s simple.

They are throwbacks. They are entertaining. They are not dirty or vulgar. There is plenty of action with a great story line wrapped around it, and GOOD TRIUMPHS OVER EVIL.

Americans have to deal with enough ugliness trying to survive under the harsh reality of America under Obama. 

We go to movies to be entertained, not to be lectured to by a bunch of snotty-nosed, America-hating, relative morality and situational ethics-loving Liberals. 

Average Americans are more perceptive than Liberals think we are.

This summer’s movie failures have proved it.

Until He Comes,

KJ