Tag: America

Is Obamacare on Its “Deathbed”?

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

obamadoctorNo government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth! – Ronald Reagan

The big story in the news yesterday came as no surprise to me. President Barack Hussein Obama signature legislation known as Obamacare, has reached an all time low in popularity, coming in at 26% on an Associated Press poll.

Never in all of my life, or at least since I’ve been aware of our government and the way things work, have I seen such a relentless propaganda campaign by the American Government to force upon their citizens something that they did not want in the first place.

Government- run healthcare has been the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for the Democratic Party for decades.

Back in the 90’s, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to get a Nationally-run Healthcare System of her own design put in place. Her dreams were dashed when United States citizens melted down the Congressional Phone Lines with a unified shout out of “NO WAY!”,  that could be heard from here to Asgard (a reference for you “Thor” fans out there).

Since then, the Democratic Party had no doubt been plotting in smoke filled rooms, biding their time, waiting for the chance to spring a nationally-run healthcare system upon the unsuspecting American people again.

And then came Barack Hussein Obama, a “clean and articulate” candidate, who was “down with the struggle” and intimate with a teleprompter.

When he ascended to the throne, Barack the Magnificent made no secret of his plans to nationalize and therefore ruin the greatest healthcare system in the world.

And, with both houses of Congress controlled by the Democrats, there was no way to stop him.

When America asked what specifically was in the “Affordable Care Act”, San Fran Nan Pelosi told us that she didn’t know either, and that Congress would have to pass  the bill to find out what was in it.

All the while, , “Baracky Claus” was assuring all of us good little girls and boys that” if we liked our doctor, we could keep our doctor. If we liked our health insurance plan, we could keep our health insurance plan.”

So on Christmas Eve of 2009, Baracky Claus’ little elves in Congress gave America a present we didn’t want.

Once the Democrats passed this bill into law, Americans soon found out why they were so reluctant to tell us exactly what was in the bill.

It turned out to a bill conceived on the misguided pretense that young Americans in their 20’s would be willing to pay the insurance bill for elderly people.

Heck, young folks are usually borrowing money from the grandparents…not giving it to them.

As this sick, twisted excuse for law started to be revealed, Americans found out that not only where we going to go trillions of dollars in debt, additionally, we were going to have to provide birth control for free to easy young women like Sandra Fluke. (Yeah. I said it.)

However, that wasn’t the worst of it.

We also found out the cancer treatments would be cut off at the age of 70. So,if you come down with cancer at the age of 70…tough.  But hold on…that’s not all: the government will decide what sort of treatment you get as you journey through your twilight years.

Oh, you broke her hip grandma? Well…here’s an aspirin.

And, that brings us to present day.

Obama has issued so many Executive Orders and made so many corrections to this awful law, that it is even more confusing than before he started making the corrections.

And, who could forget the launch of the Obamacare website?

It has turned out to be the biggest bomb since Rosie O’Donnell Variety Show. We found out that the company that designed it had an executive on that staff who went to college with First Lady Michelle Obama. They had previously screwed up jobs  in Canada, but the Obama administration hired them anyway.

After we got rid of them, it seemed like things were going better. However, now we find out that the back end of the website, the part that involves the insurance companies, is not completed.

And yet, the administration claims at least six million people have signed up.

You figure that one out. It gives me a headache.

So, it’s no surprise that Obamacare’s popularity is down to 26%. Heck,  its probably not even that high. The Associated Press probably polled more Democrats than anybody else.

In fact, Obamacare is so horrible that Democrats have been told not to run on it in the upcoming midterm election. A Campaign Adviser has told them to tell the gullible among us, that they will “fix it”.

Uh huh. And, the check’s in the mail.

However, don’t expect the GOP Establishment, or Vichy Republicans, as I call them, to do the politically-savvy thing and call for Obamacare to be shut down. Oh no. They want to “fix it” as well.

The harsh reality is, these “Beltway Bubble” Republicans, just like their buddies “across the aisle”, view a Nationally-run Healthcare System as a way to further expand the power and reach of the Federal Government and line the Federal Vaults with money…and, at least for some of them, keeping the travesty known as Obamacare gives them the opportunity to further line their pockets with money, as well.

The only ones hollering to do the right and logical thing, and  shut it down, are Ted Cruz and the rest of the Tea Party, or Reagan Conservative Republicans.

And, those are the ones we need to support and vote for this November.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

“The Prankster” Vs. Putin: Laugh Until You Cry

On By kingsjesterIn Politics1 Comment

obamaputin31814The very deadly International Soap Opera in Crimea rolls on.

In an extraordinary day which redrew the map of Europe, fears were growing that widespread violence would erupt in the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

An Ukrainian officer was killed in a confrontation in Simferopol, just hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered an incendiary speech justifying Moscow’s reclamation of the former Ukrainian territory.

Several others were injured and the Ukrainian commander captured as the military facility in the Crimean capital was stormed by troops dressed in Russian camouflage kits and balaclavas.

The Ukrainian Prime Minister warned that “the conflict is shifting from a political to a military stage” and claimed that “Russian soldiers have started shooting at Ukrainian servicemen and that is a war crime”. His government, he added, has now authorised the use of firearms for its forces surrounded in their bases in Crimea.

However, there were indications that it was the separatist Crimean government’s recently created “Self Defence Forces” who had actually carried out the fatal attack. Local officials, meanwhile, claimed that “fascist snipers” had fired the first shot from a residential building and one of the injured was one of the defence force members.

The Ukrainian and Russian governments had agreed to a ceasefire until 21 March, aimed at preventing hostilities breaking out at the blockaded bases. But there was apprehension that the assault and the resultant death and injuries may break the delicate accord, with highly dangerous consequences.

The shooting began three and-a-half hours after Mr Putin had claimed Crimea for his country in a speech laced with invectives against the West and a robust reassertion of Russian power. At the end of his 66-minute address , punctuated by repeated applause, came the signing of documents which, the Kremlin declared, transferred control of Crimea from Ukraine to Russia once and for all.

There were expressions of outrage from the US, the European Union and the government in Kiev, but no immediate ratcheting up of the international sanctions Moscow has publicly derided as ineffectual. The G7 group of countries are to hold an emergency summit, at President Barack Obama’s request, in the Hague next week, when announcements of further measures are expected.

Obama recently issued sanctions against 7 Russian officials over Russia’s ongoing annexation of the Ukraine. They basically laughed in his face. In fact, one of them, a Deputy Foreign Minister, referred to Obama as a “prankster”.

Political Pundit Dr. Charles Krauthammer said about Obama’s announcement and the resulting laughter from Russia,

He’s being ridiculed by Russia, especially, because the statement and the policy are ridiculous. He doesn’t have a lot of cards, but he has some cards, and if he thinks that sanctioning seven Russians, out of a population of, what, 150 million, is a sanction, he’s living in a different world. The one thing that we could do is to respond to the Ukrainian request, when the president was here last week, they asked the Pentagon for weapons, and we said no, because somehow, to arm the victim of aggression is a provocation. … This response of, you know, we are not going to calibrate, as if Putin is, they’re going to sanction 11 Russians now, so I’ll have to stop where I am, is really preposterous. Again, if you’re going to do something, do it. Otherwise, say nothing, but this really is a humiliating response by a president who can’t even get the Europeans to join him in effective sanctions, which we could do.

“Humiliating” doesn’t even begin to describe Obama’s Foreign Policy ineptness.

Did you ever imagine, that in our lifetimes, we would hear the Leader of the Free World being referred to as a “prankster” in a International Crisis, such as this?

Now, we have had some pretty sorry United States Presidents during our life spans.

We had LBJ, who started the Great Society and effectively sentenced generations of Americans to live their lives dependent for their very survival on the Federal Government.

We had Richard M Nixon, who while a trendsetter in Foreign Policy, did not do so well in the Ethics Department.

Then we had Jimmy Carter, whom I have spoken of before, the peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia, who served aboard a nuclear submarine and wound up being an ineffectual and incompetent commander in chief, whose Foreign and Domestic Policies put us in a hole as a nation which we thought that we would never climb out of.

And, how about old Billy Jeff Clinton, or “Bubba” as I call him. While thanks to a Republican Congress, he did manage to balance the budget, his foreign policy was weak and brought us such terrorist acts as the USS Cole and the one perpetrated in New York City by the Blind Shiek.

Which brings us to the Foreign Policy Debacle which we find ourselves in.

Obama’s weakness and inexperience at organizing anything more complicated than a community, has been apparent to our friends and foes alike for quite some time now.

And, that, boys and girls, is why Obama had to pull all Official American Personnels out of Syria, yesterday.

It is also why Iran is still building a nuclear bomb. They fear Obama and his Administration about as much as Charles Barkley fears dandruff.

On September 23, 2009, Obama said the following words to the United Nations General Assembly:

In an era when our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero-sum game. No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold. The traditional divisions between nations of the South and the North make no sense in an interconnected world; nor do alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long-gone Cold War.

Evidently, Obama failed to tell Putin that the Cold War was “long-forgotten”.       

Until He Comes,

KJ

November 2014: A Chance for Redemption (A KJ Op Ed)

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics3 Comments

americaneagleflagYou 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.” – Ronald Reagan, Address to the nation, October 27, 1964

I miss the country I used to know.

The America that was respected all over the world. ..”One nation under God…indivisible…with liberty and justice for all”…where children were raised to love God and country and were taught that anyone could be successful in this great land, if they worked hard enough.

When did the American Dream turn into our National Nightmare?

I know it wasn’t during my parents generation. After all, they were the greatest generation. When all of our American Heroes returned home from World War II, they set upon the task of building a better life for themselves and their families. Then, somewhere along the way, as things got better and better, things started to change for the worse.

Remember how they referred to the Kennedy Administration as Camelot?

It was because there was still a hopefulness in America…an unbounded optimism that we could not only make a difference in our own nation, but that we could go out and make a difference in countries not as fortunate as ours. Then, after the tragic assassination of JFK, something changed. President Lyndon Baines Johnson somehow turned the country’s optimism into pessimism, concerning the future of minorities in our nation.

He told America’s minority population that they could not achieve the American Dream of their own accord. They had to be assisted by a benevolent nanny-state government.

This pessimism became entrenched in the very fabric of our society, as young people began to tune in, turn on, and drop out, protesting the Vietnam War and the very parents who brought them into this world in the first place.

As this pessimism continued in the 1970s, it turned into a malaise during the Carter Presidency,. as Carter’s Domestic and Foreign Policies proved to be failures.

After the debacle of the Carter Presidency, we were waiting for something good to happen…and it did.

A plain-spoken gentleman from the Midwest named Ronald Wilson Reagan told us it was time for “Morning in America”.

This country experienced a resurgence in national optimism and international stature during President Reagan’s 8 years in office. Then, when he left, things started to unravel once again. We endured a sexual predator in the White House and the worst terrorist attack ever on American soil.

And now, after 6 years with an inexperienced community organizer occupying the Oval Office, America is facing challenges domestically and in the field of Foreign Relations, that we have never seen before.

However, our domestic challenges are not just of a political nature. They are moral and cultural challenges as well.

The faith of approximately 70% of our population is being attacked on a daily basis by a government whose founding documents reference Our Creator.

Additionally, those of us who believe God’s Holy Word, as found in the Bible, are being called bigots and are being marginalized as being out of touch with the viewpoint of the majority of America’s population.

Even, if we clearly are not.

Meanwhile, all around the world, America has lost stature, because we have a president who does not believe in American Exceptionalism and would rather bow to other world leaders then look them in the eye and represent America from a position of strength and as a World Power.

As we head toward the 2014 Midterm Elections, it is up to us as Americans to decide what kind of country we want.

Do we want to return to an America that is fiscally sound, with a culture and character that is admired all over the Free World?

Or, do we want to watch the “Shining City Upon a Hill” continue to tarnish and decay as those who are supposed to be serving us, serve themselves instead, while following, intentionally or unintentionally, the failed nanny-state philosophy of Marx and Lenin?

On January 25, 1974, Ronald Reagan spoke the following words in a speech which has come to be known as “The Shining City Upon a Hill” Speech…

Somehow America has bred a kindliness into our people unmatched anywhere, as has been pointed out in that best-selling record by a Canadian journalist. We are not a sick society. A sick society could not produce the men that set foot on the moon, or who are now circling the earth above us in the Skylab. A sick society bereft of morality and courage did not produce the men who went through those year of torture and captivity in Vietnam. Where did we find such men? They are typical of this land as the Founding Fathers were typical. We found them in our streets, in the offices, the shops and the working places of our country and on the farms.

We cannot escape our destiny, nor should we try to do so. The leadership of the free world was thrust upon us two centuries ago in that little hall of Philadelphia. In the days following World War II, when the economic strength and power of America was all that stood between the world and the return to the dark ages, Pope Pius XII said, “The American people have a great genius for splendid and unselfish actions. Into the hands of America God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind.”

We are indeed, and we are today, the last best hope of man on earth. 

This November, this country will, once again, make a choice.

I pray that it is the right one.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama Issuing EO to Change Fuel Standards of Trucking Industry to Combat “Climate Change”

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

trucking21814President Barack Hussein Obama is using his #2 pencil and Big Chief Tablet to write another Executive Order, and this time he may just erase an entire American Industry with it.

The New York Times reported that

President Obama on Tuesday ordered the development of tough new fuel standards for the nation’s fleet of heavy-duty trucks as part of what aides say will be an increasingly muscular and unilateral campaign to tackle climate change through the use of the president’s executive power.

The new regulations, to be drafted by the administration by March 2015 and completed a year later so they are in place before Mr. Obama leaves office, are the latest in a series of actions intended to cut back on greenhouse gases without the sort of comprehensive legislation the president failed to push through Congress in his first term.

The new regulation would primarily affect the country’s 600 coal-fired power plants, like this one in Texas, and could ultimately shutter hundreds of them.E.P.A. Staff Struggling to Create Pollution RuleFEB. 4, 2014

The limits on truck tailpipe pollution would combine with previous rules requiring passenger cars and light trucks to burn fuel more efficiently and pending rules to limit the carbon emissions of power plants. Cumulatively, experts said the à la carte approach should enable Mr. Obama to meet his target of cutting carbon pollution in the United States by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. But they said he would still be far short of his goal of an 80 percent reduction by 2050.

“Improving gas mileage for these trucks is going to drive down our oil imports even further,” Mr. Obama said at a Safeway grocery distribution center here, flanked by a Peterbilt truck and Safeway and Coca-Cola cabs. “That reduces carbon pollution even more, cuts down on businesses’ fuel costs, which should pay off in lower prices for consumers. So it’s not just a win-win, it’s a win-win-win. We got three wins.”

Not everyone sees it that way. United States car and truck manufacturers have lobbied heavily against aggressive increases in federal fuel economy standards, saying that they could increase vehicle prices and diminish safety. More broadly, Republicans have said that the president should not single-handedly impose what they consider onerous requirements on vast swaths of the energy economy when Congress has opted against its own intervention.

The announcement was part of the president’s vow in his State of the Union address last month to advance his agenda “with or without Congress.” But while most of the actions taken since then have been relatively modest, like ordering a study of job training programs, one area where Mr. Obama both has the power to take more sweeping action and seems intent on using it is the environment.

…A coalition of shippers that stand to benefit from lower fuel costs, including FedEx, Wabash National Corporation and Waste Management Inc., welcomed the president’s action and released its own suggestions to shape the administration’s new regulations.

“This collaborative approach will result in realistic, achievable goals and an effective regulatory framework to improve fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said Douglas W. Stotlar, president of Con-way Inc., the nation’s third-largest freight company and a member of the coalition.

The American Trucking Association took a more cautious view, saying that it had worked with the administration on previous rules. “As we begin this new round of standards, A.T.A. hopes the administration will set forth a path that is both based on the best science and research available and economically achievable,” said Bill Graves, the association’s chief executive.

Mr. Obama pointed to what he called an emerging consensus. “If rivals like PepsiCo and Coca-Cola or U.P.S. and FedEx or AT&T and Verizon, if they can join together on this, then maybe Democrats and Republicans can do the same,” he said.

The fact that the Trucking Industry plays a crucial part in our nation’s economy is no surprise to anyone who works in it.

But, did you know how big a role the Trucking Industry plays?

According to the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, trucks moved 73.7 percent of the country’s freight in 2012, carrying $10 trillion worth of the country’s $13.6 trillion in freight.

These fact come straight from the DOT’s recently released Commodity Flow Survey, a survey which is  done roughly every five years.

Trucks also carried 70 percent of the tonnage moved in 2012, hauling 8 billion of the 11.7 billion tons shipped last year.

Per the CFS, the for-hire trucking industry carried $6.6 trillion in freight, or 48.5 percent of the total, while private trucks hauled 25.2 percent, or $3.4 trillion.

In the Trucking Industry, like every other industry, the name of the game is revenue.

When this battle in Obama’s Quixotic tilt against his evil nemesis, the fictional Climate Change, comes to fruition, it will damage the Trucking Industry, by cutting into their profitability.

This decrease in revenue will be compensated for by raising their price per mile to their clients, who include the Food Industry, the Construction Industry, the Retail Industry, the Pharmaceutical Industry, and, to bring it around full-circle, the Oil Industry itself, among others.

Obama, in his zeal to “appear to be doing something” about a Liberal and Celebrity Cause Du Jour, will harm our nation’s economy, placing American workers even further behind the eight ball than we are now, regarding of what his sycophants in the industry and he himself will tell you.

Obama’s over-reaching economic ignorance will leave our nation in a hole we will never be able to climb out of, if he is not stood up to…immediately.

Until He Comes,

KJ 

America and the Son of God

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics3 Comments

American FreedomI have been writing a lot lately about the Culture War going on in our nation and the war between Christianity and those who would rather our nation ignore the “Faith of Our Fathers”, because if we do, we are a more subservient to the will of those who stride the Halls of Power.

Unfortunately for “The New Pharisees”, us darn American Christians are still alive and well, by the Grace of God.

According to The Hollywood Reporter,

Church groups are seeking to take over entire theaters for opening night screenings of Son of God, the upcoming movie about the life of Jesus Christ.

Various religious organizations throughout the country have been buying out screens and distributing tickets to groups of thousands of people for “Theater Take-Overs” on Thursday, Feb. 27, the night before the film’s officially released, according to production company Lightworkers Media.

Crossroads Church in Cincinnati is bringing thousands of people to a Cinemark theater, where Son of God will be showing on 13 screens at the same time.

“Our church bought out every screen in the theater,” Crossroads’ Brian Wells said in a statement. If anyone comes to the theater to see another movie that night, they’ll be out of luck, unless we have a few extra tickets to give them!”

There are a few other theater buyouts for Son of God scheduled at Cinemark locations throughout the country, according to the theater chain’s marketing and communications head James Meredith.

“It’s very interesting to see this level of excitement around the movie,” Meredith said in a statement. “The interest level for meetings, events, screenings and buyouts seems to be on par with that of major blockbuster, tentpole or franchise movies.”

Mega-church pastor Rick Warren is buying out screens in eight different theaters throughout Orange County.

“I’ve seen most of the films about Jesus produced in the past 50 years, and Son of God is the best,“ Warren said in a statement. “We’re excited Jesus is back on the big screen, and we’re going to fill the theaters. I want every other faith leader in America to do the same. Whether you can buy out a whole theater, or just one screen, now is the time to show up. This is a rare opportunity to bring the story of Christ into our mainstream culture. We want to see Jesus in movie theaters where sight and sound can open up our senses and let grace come in. The message of the Gospel deserves to be on the big screen – and this is our chance to see it there.”

Other churches and organizations, ranging in size from 10,000 to 4 million, are distributing tickets for a “Theater Take-Over.” Some pastors will also buy out screens showing the film in Spanish and Korean. There’s even a Catholic “Theater Take-Over” planned for Miami.

Various business leaders throughout the country are also donating tickets to churches and non-profits.

Son of God is a version of the hit Bible miniseries, featuring new and used footage, focused just on the story of Jesus Christ. The Bible averaged 11.4 million viewers during its five-week run on the History channel and became the top-selling miniseries on DVD of all time.

What a concept.  A movie about the life of Jesus Christ, aimed at attracting the 75%  majority of Americans who proclaim Christ as their Savior.

Why, next thing you’ll be telling me is that a well-known Hollywood actor will also produce a movie about the Life, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, with English sub-titles, which will stay in release for 156 days, and bring in a worldwide gross of $611, 899,420.

Oh, wait…

I am a Christian American Conservative. I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I will not apologize for the greatest country on Earth.

There has been a lot of conversation during the reign of Barack Hussein Obama The First, within the ranks of American Conservatives. In-fighting about what political philosophy and attitude to take. Should Conservatism be abandoned for the same kind of pseudo-intellectual arrogance and snarkiness that the Liberals practice with regularity and glee?

Or should Americans embrace Conservatism? Which kind of Conservatism? Fiscal? Social? Beltway/Moderate/Independent (a.k.a. Squishy)?

The Republican Party has been practicing “Squishy” Conservatism since the Clinton Administration. We are currently living with the consequences of that. Practicing this political philosophy of relative ethics and relative morality is akin to building a house on shifting sand.

Americans do not tolerate vacillating leaders for very long. Look at the problems besetting The Magnificent One, Barack “Scooter” Obama. Few Americans, except for his Far Left sycophantic base, are still buying the “Hope and Change” he is selling. And, they are upset with him because all of his promises of a “Socialist Paradise” have proven to be empty ones,

He even tried to reach out to the rank and file of his party and the Independents (one or two) who still might support him by attending church a few times over the years, such as on Easter Sunday when, once again, he held a photo op at Allen Chapel, a historic African Methodist Episcopal Church, founded shortly after the Civil War. These actions came from the man who once said, “Whatever we once were, we’re no longer just a Christian nation…” and who regularly worships at the Sanctuary of the Holy Basketball Court and kneels at the Sacred Putting Green. But I digress…

Conservatives have a great opportunity ahead of us this November. But we will blow it if we do not present a united front. Our country is under siege from enemies, internal and external, that want to turn the “shining city on a hill” into a third-world barrio. We don’t have time for Internet Flame Wars, questioning the legitimacy of each other’s Conservatism. Nor do we have the luxury of wasting time ridiculing another Conservative for being old-fashioned or Christian. It’s time to man up. The barbarians have knocked down the gate and they are ransacking our homes. They have burdened future generations with a tax burden that may be insurmountable.

For our children’s children’s sake, we must politically repel these invaders who wish to make us subservient to their failed ideology.

It is time for America to reclaim Our Heritage and, there is only one way in which we will be able to succeed: and that, is through the Power and Grace of the One Who Made Us and Bestowed Upon Us this Sacred Land.

I wish to leave you with the words of the greatest American President in my lifetime. There are those who say he wasn’t a believer. I beg to differ.

“Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.“

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

“We are never defeated unless we give up on God.”

“We have the duty to protect the life of an unborn child.”

“Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.”

“Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.” – President Ronald Reagan 2/6/11-6/5/04

Until He Comes,

KJ

America’s Culture War: This Encroaching Darkness

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics2 Comments

American FreedomFor we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. – Ephesians 6:12

Am I insane? (Don’t answer that.) Or, have you noticed that, beginning back in January of 2009, the doors of decency and Old Fashioned American Values began coming off at the hinges even faster than they were before?

The internet is abuzz everyday with the left’s banshee screams for Gun Control , the “enlightened ones” incessant cries for Marijuana Legalization and all of their drug-addled, naivete-laden arguments in favor of it, and the whining and strawman arguments associated with the push to change the definition of the word “marriage”, so that Adam and Steve may be viewed as “normal”, and live, as least for a couple or years, as “husband” and…err…umm…”husband”.

Globally, our allies are swiftly becoming our enemies, as this Administration embraces and panders to a Political Ideology masquerading as a religion, whose avid followers want to kill each and every one of us “infidels.” In fact, Obama and his Administration want our strongest ally, God’s Chosen People, Israel, to give up half of their country to a nomadic people, the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, in a related story, earthquakes and violent weather have become commonplace in our nation and “the smartest people in the room” can not figure out why.

All this mayhem continues to dominate the 24-hour News Cycle, as Americans, who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, either continue the struggle to find employment, or simply give up.

Yet, this nation re-elected, as I referred to him once, “an anti-American, Muslim-sympathizing, political-pandering, class warfare-preaching, card-carrying Communist”.

Has God taken His hand of providence and protection off this country?

A man, who would be considered a cornball by the standards of today’s Socially-Liberal Fiscally Conservative Liberals, Moderates, and “Libertarians”, wrote a prophetic analysis of today’s current events.

This speech was broadcast by legendary ABC Radio commentator Paul Harvey on April 3, 1965:

If I were the Devil . . . I mean, if I were the Prince of Darkness, I would of course, want to engulf the whole earth in darkness. I would have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree, so I should set about however necessary to take over the United States. 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”. In the ears of the young marrieds, I would whisper that work is debasing, that cocktail parties are good for you. I would caution them not to be extreme in religion, in patriotism, in moral conduct. And the old, I would teach to pray. I would teach them to say after me: “Our Father, which art in Washington” . . .

If I were the devil, I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull an uninteresting. I’d threaten T.V. with dirtier movies and vice versa. And then, if I were the devil, I’d get organized. I’d infiltrate unions and urge more loafing and less work, because idle hands usually work for me. I’d peddle narcotics to whom I could. I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. And I’d tranquilize the rest with pills. If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine young intellects but neglect to discipline emotions . . . let those run wild. I would designate an atheist to front for me before the highest courts in the land and I would get preachers to say “she’s right.” With flattery and promises of power, I could get the courts to rule what I construe as against God and in favor of pornography, and thus, I would evict God from the courthouse, and then from the school house, and then from the houses of Congress and then, in His own churches I would substitute psychology for religion, and I would deify science because that way men would become smart enough to create super weapons but not wise enough to control them.

If I were Satan, I’d make the symbol of Easter an egg, and the symbol of Christmas, a bottle. If I were the devil, I would take from those who have and I would give to those who wanted, until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. And then, my police state would force everybody back to work. Then, I could separate families, putting children in uniform, women in coal mines, and objectors in slave camps. In other words, if I were Satan, I’d just keep on doing what he’s doing.

Paul Harvey, Good Day.

John Adams, the second President of these United States, delivered the following message to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massacusetts on October 11, 1798:

Gentleman,

While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays I have received from Major-General Hull and Brigadier, General Walker your unanimous address from Lexington, animated with a martial spirit, and expressed with a military dignity becoming your character and the memorable plains on which it was adopted. In the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candor, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the World; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

The scripture I quoted at the beginning of today’s Blog is one of my favorites.  You see, both of these great Americans, Paul Harvey and John Adams, knew that there is spiritual warfare happening every moment of the day,  around each and every one of us.

Are the Powers of Darkness winning?

For example. if  you look at Horror Movies nowadays, all of them seem to seek to glorify the Powers of Darkness….and they seem to be very popular with young Americans.

Why is the Occult, including Satan and his Demons so fascinating to impressionable Americans?

Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church offers some background in answer to that question:

His knowledge, presence, and power are limited because he is an angelic being (a guardian cherub according to Ezekiel 28:14) created by God for the purpose of glorifying and serving God. However, he became proud in his heart and desired to be worshiped and exalted like God. So, he declared war on God and one-third of the angels joined his army to oppose God. Judged by God for his sin, the Serpent was then cast down to the earth (Isa. 14:11–23; Ezek. 28:1–19). Upon the earth he appeared as a serpent to tempt Adam and Eve by twisting God’s word and lying (Gen. 3:1–24). After successfully tempting Adam and Eve to sin, he was judged and cursed by God for his sin and told that Jesus would ultimately come to completely defeat him, though Jesus would suffer physical harm in their conflict (Gen. 3:14–15).

The motivation for all of the Serpent’s work is pride and self-glory instead of humility and God-glory (Ezek. 28:2; James 4:6–7). Subsequently, one of his most powerful allies in opposing God’s people is their own pride.

A lot of Americans have been raised to believe that they are their own God, and even some of them that were raised in the church have become victims of this popular culture. So, now, as God’s Word tells us, they want their “ears tickled”.

Were Paul Harvey and John Adams speaking about the situation we find our country in on January 19, 2014?

Do you see it? Or, is it just me?

Until He Comes,

KJ

In Defense of “Lone Survivor” and Our Brightest and Best: An Open Letter to Amy Nicholson From an Average American

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

Lone SurvivorPREFACE:  Yesterday, as I was surfing the web at lunch, I came across a headline from TheBlaze.com, which stated that Glenn Beck had challenged a LA Times Writer to say what she had written about the more popular movie in America, the heroic tale of the self-sacrificing Navy Seals, led by Marcus Luttrell, who, except for Luttrell, all gave their lives in the call of duty, to the face of the “Lone Survivor” himself, Marcus Luttrell.

The writer in question is Amy Nocholson, an unabashedly Liberal hack.

In order for you to complete understand the epic rant which I am about to unleash, I chose to reprint the article in question in its entirety. I hope you have a strong stomach.

SYNOPIS:  Based on The New York Times bestselling true story of heroism, courage and survival, Lone Survivor tells the heroic, patriotic tale of four Navy SEALs, led by Marcus Luttrell,  on a covert mission to neutralize a high-level al-Qaeda operative who are ambushed by the enemy in the mountains of Afghanistan and are left to fight for their lives in one of the most valiant efforts of modern warfare.. Faced with an impossible moral decision, the small band is isolated from help and surrounded by a much larger force of Taliban ready for war. As they confront unthinkable odds together, the four men find reserves of strength and resilience as they stay in the fight to the finish.

THE ARTICLE: 

Here’s a movie that’ll flop in Kabul. Lone Survivor, the latest by Battleship director Peter Berg, is a jingoistic snuff film about a Navy SEAL squadron outgunned by the Taliban in the mountainous Kunar province. After four soldiers — played with muscles and machismo by Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch and Ben Foster — get ID’d by Afghan goat herders, they’re in a race to climb to the top of the nearest summit and summon an airlift before these civilians can sprint to the nearest village and alert local leader Ahmad Shah. It doesn’t go well. 

Berg’s flick bleeds blood red, bone-fracture white, and bruise blue. It’s based on the memoir Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 by sole evacuee Marcus Luttrell (played by Wahlberg) — and that’s only a spoiler if you’ve ignored the title. Luttrell didn’t exactly write his book. Rather than sitting in front of a word processor, he was back in action in Iraq. Instead, the United States Navy hired British novelist Patrick Robinson, who, among other embellishments, upped the number of enemy Taliban fighters from 10 to 200. Hey, whatever, man. Those aliens in Battleship weren’t real, either. 

Lone Survivor’s problems are more complex than its Rambo-esque exuberance for machine-gun fire. The near-wordless second half is a deadly dubstep of bullets and snare drums punctuated with the occasional curse. Here’s 90 seconds of dialogue transcribed in its entirety: “Goddamn, this sucks!” “Fuck you!” “Fuck!” “Damn, fucking burns!” This doesn’t help advance the plot, which can pretty much be summed up as: Don’t die. And the film actually gets worse when the guys open their mouths.

These four men were heroes. But these heroes were also men. As the film portrays them, their attitudes to the incredibly complex War on Terror, fought hillside by bloody hillside in the Afghan frontier with both U.S. and Taliban forces contributing to an unconscionably high civilian body count, were simple: Brown people bad, American people good. When the guys debate whether to kill the three goat herders who’ve stumbled onto their hiding place — a dilemma that, morality aside, could have been solved if any of them had recalled that middle school logic problem about the fox, the chicken, the feed, and the too-small boat — Foster grabs an unarmed teenager by the face and insists, “That’s death. Look at death.” And when the firefight starts, he bellows, “You can die for your country — I’m going to live for mine.”

We’re meant to cheer, not that anyone in my theater did. But there will be audiences who do, and I’m not entirely sure I’m comfortable with what they’re cheering for. This is death. Look at death. 

Berg is no dummy. He’s done the right thing by refusing to whitewash these guys as saints, although three of the four are depicted as devoted husbands and fiancées, and the fourth gets to be Mark Wahlberg. And Berg is justified in hoisting these guys up as real-life action stars, building his case with an opening montage of actual Navy SEAL training footage in which screaming instructors winnow a pack of athletes into an all-for-one-one-for-all band of badass brothers who, when forced to float in freezing ocean waves, link arms and sing “Silent Night.”

They were ready for action. “We wanted that fight at the highest volume,” Wahlberg says, “the loudest, coldest, darkest, most unpleasant of the unpleasant fights.” OK, but did the local villagers whom we see get caught in the crossfire want that fight? Each, like Wahlberg’s Luttrell, had families and friends and a full life, and each gets dispatched without a second thought.

I’d like to think that, on some level, Berg is questioning the sense of a film — and a foreign policy — that makes target practice of our magnificent teams of hard-bodied, hairy-chested, rootin’-tootin’, shootin’, parachutin’, double-cap-crimpin’ frogmen, these soldiers who decorate their bunks with baby pictures of themselves next to an American flag and are so nobly eager to sacrifice their lives for each other and their country. But the ammo doesn’t stop blasting long enough for their deaths to have weight. Instead, Lone Survivor just reads like a quasi-political exaggeration of a slasher film: the cellphones that don’t work, the rescuers just out of reach, the killers chasing our victims through the woods.

What are we meant to learn from this waste of life? Who is even to blame? All Lone Survivor offers is the queasiest apology of the year. Grunts a battered Wahlberg to his even more-battered best buddy, “I’m sorry that we didn’t kill more of these motherfuckers.” Replies his fellow soldier, “Oh, don’t be f!@king sorry. We’re going to kill way more of them.”

KJ’S RANT…err…RESPONSE:

Exactly when did Liberals lose their cotton-pickin’ minds?

Well, I believe that this present-day Liberal ungrateful insanity can be traced back to the 1960s. During the days of the Vietnam “Conflict”, even though Adult Liberals were opposed to the war, they were respectful of our Brightest and Best. It was Collegians and under who acted like a bunch of idiots, disrespecting our Armed Forces, and traditional American Values.

As this generation moved through Adulthood, their children had children, and produced the mindless zombies we confront everyday, who classify themselves as Liberals or “Socially-Liberal Libertarians”.

Ms. Nicholson is one of those zombies.

Please note her use of the word “Jingoistic” This is a derisive word which has been in vogue with Liberals for a while now to describe the emotion which normal Americans feel, called “Patriotism”.

Liberals, such as Ms. Nicholson, are selfish, cravenly creatures. They do not seem to, nor care to understand that they live in the greatest country on Earth. They are too narrow-minded to fathom the sacrifices which brave American men and women have made and are making, on their behalf.

Just as an infant  knows that if they cry loud enough, some one will pay attention to them and give them what they want, so do Liberals understand that if they are anti-American enough in their statements and actions, then they will receive the attention that they so crave from the rest of the “smartest people in the room.”

Ms. Nicholson, believing in her own “superior intelligence ” and “moral superiority”, decided to do a hatchet job on this movie and the brave men who protected her freedom to denigrate them in print.

Ms. Nicholson is representative of those same effete snobs who believe that any movie, such as the Box Office Bomb “Redacted”, which attacked our Armed Forces, will be a sure-fire hit, and then, cannot understand why such a movie is welcomed by the sound of crickets in America’s movie theaters.

I have ranted before that there is a Culture War going on in our country…one between the effete Liberal slobs, located in the Northeast and on the Left Coast, and average Americans, like you and me, struggling to cope with the consequences of their stupidity, here in the Heartland.

You and I would never disrepect our Fallen Warriors, like this ignorant hack has. We were raised right.

The respect we have for patriotic men of courage, like the Lone Survivor, the Patriot, Marcus Luttrell, and all of our Fallen Warriors, is immeasurable.

Ms. Nicholson, you haven’t got a clue.

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

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 

The Rise of the Gay Mafia: Judicial Activism Vs. The Will of the American People

On By kingsjesterIn Politics1 Comment

judicial activismFollowing on the heels of an Activist Judge’s Ruling, forcing a Christian Baker in Phoenix to bake a “Wedding Cake” for a Lesbian Couple, who could have gone to another baker, but, who were Gay Activists making a political point, once again, Activist Judges have circumvented the will of the American people, declaring as “unconstitutional”, laws against “gay marriage”, passed by the citizens of New Mexico and Utah.

According to the judges in the New Mexico Ruling, the law violated the Equal Protection Law, in their State Constitution,as Fox News reports…

“We hold that the State of New Mexico is constitutionally required to allow same-gender couples to marry and must extend to them the rights, protections and responsibilities that derive from civil marriage under New Mexico law,” Justice Edward L. Chavez wrote.

With that ruling, New Mexico joined 16 other states and the District of Columbia in allowing gay marriage either through legislation, court rulings or voter referendums in a trend that has dramatically shifted in just a few years nationally.

“At first, I never thought I’d see this in my lifetime,” Rand said. “But over the last few years you began noticing a change in public opinion and I thought…maybe.”

Before the ruling, eight of New Mexico’s 33 counties had already started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

County officials asked the high court to clarify the law and establish a uniform state policy on gay marriage. Historically, county clerks have denied marriage licenses to same-sex couples because state statutes include a marriage license application with sections for male and female applicants.

The Democratic-controlled Legislature repeatedly has turned down proposals for domestic partnerships for same-sex couples and a constitutional amendment that would have allowed voters to decide whether to legalize gay marriage. Measures to ban same-sex marriage also have failed.

Advocacy groups and supporters hailed the decision.

“I can’t get past happy, happy, happy at the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision that rules in favor of freedom and equality for everyone to marry the person they love,” Santa Fe Mayor David Coss said in a statement.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Center for Lesbian Rights represented same-sex couples in the Supreme Court case. They contended gay marriage must be allowed because of constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the law and a state constitutional prohibition against discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Meanwhile groups like the Flora Vista-based Voices for Family Values vowed to fight on. The group said its members already are gathering signatures for petitions to present to lawmakers during the upcoming session in January.

“The Catholic Church respects and loves the gay and lesbian members of our community,” the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement. “We will continue to promote Catholic teaching of the Biblical definition of marriage to be that of one man and one woman.”

Under the ruling, clergy who disagree with same-sex marriage can decline to perform wedding ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples.

Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican and who has opposed same-sex marriage, said she would have preferred voters deciding the issue rather than the courts. But she urged New Mexicans to “respect one another in their discourse” and turn their focus onto other issues facing the state.

“As we move forward, I am hopeful that we will not be divided, as we must come together to tackle very pressing issues, like reforming education and growing our economy, in the weeks and months ahead,” Martinez said.

In the case of the Utah Ruling, it was a Federal Judge who struck down the law passed by the citizens of Utah. Per Fox News,

A federal judge struck down Utah’s same-sex marriage ban Friday in a decision that brings an increasing nationwide shift toward allowing gay marriage to a conservative state where the Mormon church has long been against it.

U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby issued a 53-page ruling saying Utah’s law passed by voters in 2004 violates gay and lesbian couples’ rights to due process and equal protection under the 14th Amendment.

Shelby said the state failed to show that allowing same-sex marriages would affect opposite-sex marriages in any way.

“In the absence of such evidence, the State’s unsupported fears and speculations are insufficient to justify the State’s refusal to dignify the family relationships of its gay and lesbian citizens,” Shelby wrote.

Late Friday, the state filed both a notice of appeal of the ruling and a request for an emergency stay that would stop marriage licenses from being issued to same-sex couples. It’s unknown when the judge will make a decision on whether to grant the stay.

“It will probably take a little bit of time to get everything in place,” said Ryan Bruckman, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office. He said the judge told the attorney general’s office it would be a couple of days before any request for an emergency stay would be reviewed.

Gov. Gary Herbert vowed to “defend traditional marriage” in light of the ruling.

“I am very disappointed an activist federal judge is attempting to override the will of the people of Utah,” Herbert said in a statement. “I am working with my legal counsel and the acting attorney general to determine the best course to defend traditional marriage within the borders of Utah.”

The Salt Lake County clerk’s office started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Deputy Clerk Dahnelle Burton-Lee said the district attorney authorized her office to begin issuing the licenses but she couldn’t immediately say how many have been issued so far.

Utah’s lawsuit was brought by three gay and lesbian couples. One of the couples was legally married in Iowa and just wants that license recognized in Utah.

Regardless of what weighted polls, and opinion-makers in the Northeast and the Left Coast try to put forward as fact, the majority of Americans, living in America’s Heartland, oppose “gay marriage”.

Just look  at a map denoting the states who allow “gay marriage” and those who have voted against it.

And, in a related issue, ask Walmart if they have any Duck Dynasty Merchandise left on their shelves. Just sayin’…

The truth is, Gay Activists could not get their way by going to the American people, so now, they, and the Liberals who walk the Halls of Power in Washington, DC, are usurping the will of the people by using Activist Judges, on both the State and Federal level, to attempt to force a change in the cultural mores or America.

The brilliant Economist and Conservative Pundit, Dr. Thomas Sowell, wrote the following about Judicial Activism:

The ultimate issue between judicial activism and judicial restraint is the institutional locus of discretion, and no amount of insistence on the desirability of change or morality answers the question as to who is to decide what specific changes or what specific morality is needed. The institutional security of federal judges, appointed for life, may provide temptations for assuming this prerogative, without providing either moral or pragmatic justification. If no authorization is needed for judges to introduce “change,” neither is it needed for generals and admirals to do the same– as in fact happens in a number of countries. Judges can conduct limited coups d’etat surreptitiously, while a military coup is usually overt and sweeping. Nevertheless, the dangers to constitutional government are no less real in the long run from judicial activism– both because of the cumulative effect of small usurpations and because small usurpations both generate pressures and provide the precedents for larger usurpations by others with different social visions.

The claim that judicial activism is necessary to rescue us from bondage to the past– from having the writers of the Constitution “rule us from the grave”– defies both logic and history. There is no contest between the living and the dead. The contest is between those living individuals who wish to see control of change in judicial hands and those who wish to see it in other hands. There has been no argument that either statutory or constitutional laws are not to change. The only meaningful question is: Who is to change them? The reiterated emphasis on change, like the reiterated emphasis on morality, argues what is not at issue and glides over what is crucially at issue: Why are judges the authorized instrument? The original cognitive meaning of laws– constitutional or statutory– is important, not out of deference to the dead, but because that is the agreed‑upon meaning among the living, until they choose to make an open and explicit change– not have one foisted on them by the verbal sleight-of‑hand of judges.

Existing social philosophies and political alignments cannot be presupposed in discussions of long-run questions, such as constitutional interpretation. Even within the judiciary, differences in “substantive values” have been drastic over time, and by no means negligible even at a given time. The belief that a constitutional structure can be maintained while jurists with radically different visions make “substantive choices” within it seems dangerously similar to a belief that one can slide half-way down a slippery slope. The argument for judicial activism must stand or fall in general and enduring terms, not simply on whether some current political or social creed is considered so superior to competing creeds as to justify judges’ decisions in its favor. It is ultimately not a question of the relative merits of particular political or social creeds but of the long-run consequences of opening the floodgates to the generic principle of constitutional decisions based on “substantive values.” Once you have opened the floodgates, you cannot tell the water where to go.

It’s those “long-run consequences” that’ll get you every time.

Just ask the citizens of the Roman Empire.

Until He Comes,

KJ