April 1, 2016, “National Atheists Day”: Of Atheists, Restricting Religious Liberty, and “Complaining Christians”

7b2b9eba5179818a8336fbf20269a8d1The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”- Psalm 14:1

Lifeway Research reports that

A growing number of Americans believe religious liberty is on the decline and that the nation’s Christians face growing intolerance. They also say American Christians complain too much.

Those are among the findings of a new study of views about religious liberty from LifeWay Research. Researchers surveyed 1,000 Americans in September 2013 and September 2015 and then compared the results.

Two-thirds (63 percent) say Christians face increasing intolerance, up from half (50 percent) in 2013.

A similar number (60 percent) say religious liberty is on the decline, up from just over half (54 percent) in 2013.

Forty-three percent say American Christians complain too much about how they are treated, up from 34 percent in 2013.

“More Americans worry the U.S. has a hostile environment for religious liberty,” said Ed Stetzer, executive director of LifeWay Research. “As this perception grows, some approve of it while others speak up against it.”

Religious liberty has become an increasingly contentious issue in American culture—with disputes over birth control, same-sex wedding cakes, headscarves at work, and prisoner’s beards.

The more recent LifeWay Research survey found faith plays a key role in how Americans view the state of religious liberty.

Two-thirds of Christians (64 percent) and those of other faiths (65 percent) say religious liberty is on the decline. Self-identified evangelicals (71 percent) and those who attend worship at least once a week (70 percent) are most likely to agree.

Catholics (56 percent) and non-evangelicals (55 percent) are more skeptical. So are Nones (46 percent).

“Christians are particularly sensitive to what they see as intolerance towards their faith,” said Stetzer. “But they share a common concern with people of other faiths—that religious liberty in general is declining. And this perception is growing rapidly.”

Age also played a role in how Americans view the state of religious liberty.

Less than half  (42 percent) of those 18 to 24 say religious liberty is on the decline. By contrast, 6 in 10 (62 percent) of those over 25 see a decline.

LifeWay Research also found non-Christians are less convinced that Christians face intolerance.

Less than half of those from other faiths (43 percent) and Nones (48 percent) agree when asked if intolerance towards Christians has increased.

By contrast, most Christians (70 percent), self-identified evangelicals (82 percent) and Protestants (74 percent) see more intolerance. So do two-thirds (76 percent) of those who attend services once a week or more.

Researchers found some signs that Americans are tired of arguments over religious liberty. A sizable number of Americans believe Christians’ complaints about how they are treated are excessive.

Among them:

38 percent of Christians
39 percent of Americans of other faiths
59 percent of Nones
53 percent of those who rarely or never attend worship
American Christians face a challenge, as the nation becomes more secular, said Stetzer. Calls for religious liberty may fall on increasingly deaf ears in the future.

“Most people now believe Christians are facing intolerance, however, a surprising large minority perceives Christians to be complainers,” said Stetzer. “Both of those facts will matter as Christians profess and contend for their beliefs without sounding false alarms around faux controversies. It won’t be easy to strike that balance.”

Really? Really?

C’mon now.

As John McEnroe says,

You can’t be serious.

(Look him up, boys and girls.)

At first glance, this article should be upsetting to the 74% of Americans, including myself, who, as described by the “cool” word of the Millennials,  self-identify as Christian Americans.

The fact of the matter is, no matter how some seek to restrict the Religious Liberty of Christian Americans, the death of Christianity in America has been greatly exaggerated.

“Organized Religion”, a term usually spoken in derision by those seeking to somehow impugn the generations-old practice of Christian Americans to be a member of and attend the weekly worship service of the denomination and church building of their choice, is being attacked constantly by Atheists, Liberals, and Progressives (but, I repeat myself) to further degrade the spiritual backbone of the “Shining City Upon a Hill”, as President Ronald Reagan referred to our country.

For what now seems like an eternity, those on the left side of Political Aisle, have focused their attention on “radically changing” America.

They soon realized that they simply could not do it through popular culture and educational indoctrination, inundating America’s children with both overt and subliminal imaging designed to countermand the Traditional American Values that they were being raised with, in normal American Households, out here in “Flyover Country”, otherwise known as America’s Heartland…or “the Red States”.

Modern Liberals soon figured out that the way to program Americans into believing that “all paths lead to God” and that cradle-to-grave Nanny-State Government were the new American Standards for living our daily lives, was to turn Christian American Houses of Worship away from being instructors of the Word of God and a sanctuary in which to worship Our Creator, to, instead, being purveyors of the joys of Popular Culture. Wednesday Night Bible Studies were soon replaced by Yoga Classes and Encounter Groups. Religious Leaders were soon quoting philosophy, instead of the Bible in their Sunday Morning Sermons.

And, instead of taking a stand against those things of the world which were directly opposed to what is found in God’s Word, these “new, enlightened” churches started standing up for the “right” of a woman to have her baby prematurely yanked out of her womb with a set of tongs, standing up for the right of Adam to “marry” Steve, when the Bible states that marriage is between a man and a woman, and standing up for the equality of all faiths, when the Son of God firmly states, in John 14:6, that

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

So, is Christianity in America going to “fade away”?

Not any time soon.

Being filled with human beings, churches have made a lot of mistakes, However, they have also done a lot of good in the name of the Lord.

For example, the church I attend, houses a Food Pantry, operated in co-operation with other churches in our area, which feeds 2,000 people per month, counseling them, and getting them the assistance that they need.

Churches today have to walk a fine line.

The spiritual battle the influence of American Popular Culture and those seeking the Will of God in their lives, takes all the strength…and prayer, that Christians can muster.

Articles, such as the one which I quoted earlier, are usually written by Liberals, especially those found in a Liberal Publication like USA Today.

Modern Liberals seem to have great difficulty comprehending the role which Our Creator, the God of Abraham, played and plays in this Grand Experiment, known as the United States of America.

Why have Liberals ratcheted up their anti-Christian Vitriol and Negativity since January 21, 2009?

Why are they so focused on removing America’s Christian Heritage?

Well, as is usually my wont, I have been doing some “reckoning” about this.

It seems to this ol’ Southern Boy, living here in the Heartland, that America’s Christian Heritage and the very real fact of His influence in building and shaping America’s growth into the greatest country on the face of God’s Green Earth, not only stifles and interferes with Modern Liberals’ “anything goes”, “share the wealth”, “hive-mind”, “man is his own god” Political Ideology, but the reality of God’s very existence, somewhere deep in their miserable, bitter psyches, scares the mess out of them.

According to a Pew Forum Survey, more than 13 million Americans are self-described atheists and agnostics, comprising less than 6% of the U.S. public.

I have never understood Atheists, especially the so-called activists among them.

Our Constitution provides for Freedom of Religion.

According to the Supreme Court, in their Ruling abolishing School Prayer, Atheism is a religion, which the Americans who embrace this nihilism are free to practice.

So, why the continuous full-blown attack on the Faith which our Founding Fathers wrote so eloquently about, and which has sustained this “shining city on a hill” through times of internal and external strife?

In other words, why are activist Atheists (and Progressives) so intent to either limit or completely eliminate Christianity’s influence on everyday American Life?

Why don’t they attack the political/religious ideology of Islam with the same fervor?

The answer to this question is simple:  Cowards will always tell you whom they are afraid of. They will avoid them, like one avoids a child with Chicken Pox.

Additionally, they expect Christians to allow them to take control by “turning the other cheek.”

Evidently, they never read the scriptures which describe Jesus running the “money lenders” out of the temple, overturning tables, and expressing his righteous indignation in a way in which no one could mistake it for anything else.

Or, perhaps, it’s the overwhelming overestimation of their own intelligence, which results from ignoring the influence of the God of Abraham in their life.

So, what drives them in this “Unholy Crusade”?

Bitterness, emptiness, and an unfulfilled longing in their soul which they cannot put a finger on, is the only explanation.

Otherwise, why would they fight so hard against the influence of and worship of Someone they don’t personally believe in?

Until He Comes,

KJ

Congress to Have to Vote in Order to Declare ISIS’ Mass Extermination of Middle East Christians “Genocide”

untitled (35)The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity. – John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States of America.

CNS News reports that

The House of Representatives on Monday evening is expected to vote on, and pass, a bipartisan resolution declaring that atrocities carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) against Christians and other religious minorities amount to genocide. The scheduled vote comes just three days before a deadline for Secretary of State John Kerry to deliver the administration’s view on the matter, in line with a requirement in the omnibus spending bill passed last December.

The resolution, which was approved unanimously by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on March 2, expresses the sense of Congress that “those who commit or support atrocities against Christians and other ethnic and religious minorities, including Yezidis, Turkmen, Sabea-Mandeans, Kaka’e, and Kurds, and who target them specifically for ethnic or religious reasons, are committing, and are hereby declared to be committing, ‘war Crimes,’ ‘crimes against humanity,’ and ‘genocide.’”

Going further, it calls on “all governments, including the United States” to “call ISIL atrocities by their rightful names: war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.”

The House Majority Leader’s list of business for Monday includes a vote in the evening of the resolution, which was sponsored by Reps Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) and Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.).

The measure lists among ISIS’ atrocities against Christians and other minorities “mass murder, crucifixions, beheadings, rape, torture, enslavement, the kidnaping of children.”

It says those acts, and other violence, is “deliberately calculated to eliminate their communities from the so-called Islamic State” – a reference to the caliphate ISIS has declared across parts of Syria and Iraq.

Why is this bill even necessary, in a nation founded by Christians, whose population, to this day, consists of 75% of individuals, who proclaim Jesus Christ as their Personal Savior?

Remember the “tyranny of the minority”, which I wrote about, yesterday?

Well, there ya go.

In July of 2009, in a stadium located at the University of the Egypt in Cairo, President Barack Hussein Obama, in a speech to the “Muslim World”, apologized to tens of thousands of adherents  to Islam and spoke to them in glowing terms of their “rich cultural heritage” and their “contributions to the growth of United States of America”.

Yeah, our first president, Mohammed Washington, that’s the ticket.

Now, before I go off on one my world famous KJ rants, I want you to understand that I am NOT saying that every Muslim in the world is taking part in a jihad against United States of America.

However, those were not Southern Baptists, who massacred the citizens of Paris, France or killed 3,000 of our fellow Americans on September 11, 2001.

Additionally, the mass murderers known as ISIS, are not Evangelical Christians, no matter how hard desperate Liberals might try to compare us to Radical Muslims.

“Now are you going to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior or am I going to have to behead you?” said no Evangelical Christian American, ever.

No, boys and girls, ISIS is a bunch of Muslim Barbarians…period.

For President Barack Hussein Obama to attempt to prosecute the War Against ISIS by remote control, with apparently no military strategy in place at all, is one the silliest things I’ve ever seen in my life.

As has been noted by several military analysts, eventually, Obama is going to have to put a “substantial number” of troops on the ground. That is, additional troops to the troops which he already has on the ground in the role of  “military advisors” and “special forces”.

Obama’s bombing runs have done minimal damage, at best.

The fact of the matter is, you cannot bomb buildings and expect to kill your enemy, when the enemy is a guerrilla force, which  does not stay in any building for any period of time. Just like their Nomadic Barbaric Ancestors, these guerrillas keep moving, regrouping, and attacking.

Obama had hoped that his “Coalition of the Unwilling”, the Middle Eastern Muslim Nations , who reluctantly agreed to support Obama against ISIS, would be willing to be his “boots on the ground” and would lay down their lives for him.

I am still trying to figure out how Obama could have possibly thought that those who think of us as the Great Satan, would lay down their lives for us.

Of course, Obama also thinks that if  Iran promises not to build a nuke, they won’t build it.

The present situation, that is laying waste to Europe, and that we soon may be facing, with a possible Invasion Force, disguised as “Syrian Refugees”, can be traced back to Obama’s premature evacuation of Iraq.

It is no secret that Barack Hussein Obama is a vain and petulant man. It is also no secret that he was a Far Left Radical in his collegiate days and his early political career, only moving to the middle of the political spectrum, while he was campaigning for the presidency.

That being said, my Daddy always told me that when you do something, don’t do it halfway. Give it your best effort or don’t do it at all, or else you will come up short. That is what is happening with this war against the Radical Islamic Barbarians of ISIS.

Obama has never liked the Military Industrial Complex. After all, he is disciple of Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky. Additionally, Obama spent his youth going to a Muslim school in Indonesia, where he was surrounded by children of wealthy Muslims, whose parents were part of the establishment in Jakarta.

Because of his political ideology and the time that he spent among Jakarta’s Upper Crust, Obama is very naive, or at least, he seems to be, about those Muslims who aren’t as cultured as he and his friends were and are.

In fact, he seems to be quite ignorant about the Muslim practice of taquiyya, in which it is permissible for Muslims to lie to infidels in order to achieve their mission.

Could Obama’s “Coalition of the Unwilling”, consisting of Middle Eastern Muslims, be practicing taquiyya? Could it be that arming the Syrian “Rebels” was a very stupid thing to do? Could these “Syrian Refugees” actually be a Radical Muslim Invasion Force? Could it be that it is past time for Obama to quit this halfway waging of War and to go ahead and send in ground troops and take care of business ourselves before every Worshiper of the God of Abraham is eradicated from the Middle East, and, more importantly, before our nation is invaded by the same “Invasion Force” presently laying waste to Europe?

The answer to all of the above questions is…YES.

Especially the last one…For the safety of our nation.

Because, with his present halfway effort, which was ironically named “Smart Power!” Obama, as the picture at the top of today’s post illustrates has “come up short”.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Donald J. Trump, The New Fascism, and the Tyranny of the Minority

th (61)THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but “to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER,” and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God. – Thomas Paine, “The Crisis”, December 23, 1776

CNN.com reports that

Donald Trump on Saturday called for protesters who disrupt his rallies to be arrested, one day after altercations and protests forced him to cancel a campaign rally in Chicago.The comments capped a tumultuous day on the campaign trail in which a demonstrator rushed a stage where Trump was speaking. 

Trump also accused Bernie Sanders’ supporters of sowing unrest at his events and the GOP front-runner refused to back down from his rhetoric that some have cited as the cause of heightened tension at his rallies.

Trump’s call to arrest protesters came at a campaign event in Kansas City, Missouri, where he was repeatedly interrupted at the beginning of his address.

“I’m going to ask that you arrest them,” Trump said to the police. “I’ll file whatever charges you want. If they want to do this … we’re going to go strongly for your arrests.”

Trump said arresting protesters would “ruin the rest of their lives” by giving them a “big arrest mark.”

“Once that starts happening, we’re not going to have any more protesters, folks,” Trump said.

…As Trump supporters left the venue, protesters shouted and cursed at them — and any passersby coming from the direction of the theater — calling them “f***ing racists.”

Alicia Valeanzela, who was shouting those words at people she believed to be Trump supporters, said she believed anyone supporting Trump supports a racist, xenophobic ideology.

“He’s a f***ing bigot. He’s an a**hole,” she said.

“It’s not right I’m not gonna let somebody ruin our country like that,” said the 21-year-old native of Venezuela. “People need to know that they cannot vote for Trump, and Trump cannot become our President.”

Among those targeted by the protesters’ cries were the Toates family: father Phillip, his wife and their three children, including a 10-year-old son.

“How do they know I even attended the rally? They say Trump’s all about hate, but we have not been about hate and that’s the way we got treated when we came out,” said Phillip Toates, who said he is leaning toward supporting Trump but is still undecided.

“It’s not the way I expected to be treated coming out of a rally,” he said.

When our Founding Fathers sat down to provide form and substance to the laws and procedures for governing this new country, which they had fought and won a bloody war over, by pledging their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, they were very aware of the price of tyranny.

They determined that this new nation would be a Constitutional Republic, having had their fill of monarchies.

In order to ensure that no leader of this new nation would go mad with power, and become a tyrannical despot, our Founders set up a System of Checks and Balances, overseen by Three Branches of Government: the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judicial, with each branch having a distinct and LIMITED  role.

The situation, which we as a nation, find ourselves in today, is one which our Founding Fathers sought valiantly to avoid.

Thanks to an Imperious Presidency, we are suffering under a “Tyranny of the Minority”.

This minority is not based on color, rather, it is one based on political ideology and self-interest.

As the past several years have showed, this minority, buoyed by money from this “sponsors”, including the Halls of Power in Washington, DC, will shut down anyone who threatens “what they’ve got” by ANY MEANS NECESSARY, including political devices and beliefs, which we, as a country, have gone to war against in the past.

My late father was one of thousands of brave young American men, who landed on the beaches of Normandy , France on June 6, 1944, in the military operation which broke the backs of the Nazis, leading to the end of World War II,  now known as D-Day.

World War II was a war against Fascism.

What is Fascism? Per merriam-webster.com, it is a

political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

Ladies and gentlemen, I firmly believe that America is now fighting a new war against fascism.

It’s not a war that is being fought fought with guns and bullets, But instead with state referendums, Congressional votes, Executive Orders, judicial activism, and FAR Left-sponsored and organized Political Activists.

And, it’s not our Brightest and Best who are dying on this field of battle, but rather, it is our Constitutional Freedoms which are dying an ignoble death, pierced by the arrows of socialism and political correctness.

By now, there’s some out there in the audience saying, “Oh Lord, the crazy old cracker’s overreacting again.”

No, Skippy, I’m not.

If you try to talk to a Liberal about this New Fascism, they will deny that there is any fascism going on at all. In fact, they will tell you that this is “the will of the people” and they will site Democratically-stacked push polls in order to back their opinion up.

When you ask Liberals if , for example, “homosexual marriage” is the “will of the people”, why did voters in the overwhelming majority of states, including California, vote against it? And, if there is “no fascism”, what do you call the fact that 2% of the population is having activist judges overturn the actual will of the people in order to get their way, in their attempt to redefine a word that has meant the same thing since time immemorial?

In response, you will usually see their eyes glaze over, like a deer in the headlights, or experience a dramatic pause in posting, if you are on the Internet.

Liberals can not legitimately defend the suppression of the First Amendment Rights of Christian Americans.

Fascism, in any form, remains indefensible, even, when a spineless Supreme Court kicks the can down the road.

The Godfather of Conservative Talk Radio, Rush Limbaugh, once said the following,

You know as well as I do that people are scared to death to tell you what they really think. The left has politicized everything — everything — to the point that people are afraid to go against what they know to be political correctness, which is nothing more than liberal fascism, nothing more than censorship.

When Barack Hussein Obama assumed the position of President of the United States, the Far Left became empowered. Obama’s handlers saw the opportunity to “radically change” America into a Democratic Socialist Republic. You know, the kind of government that is currently failing over in Europe.

Every piece of legislation that Barack Hussein Obama has tried to get passed, has been designed to either overtly or covertly limit our freedom.

From the stimulus bill on through the latest changes to Obamacare by Executive Order, every single piece of legislation has been designed to further the Far Left’s agenda.

Remember when Obama was campaigning so hard to get the Affordable Health Care Act passed?

He always used people as props for his speeches, whether it was just normal people or people dressed in white coats like doctors.

When he was trying to get gun control passed, he used the parents from the Newtown Massacre in Connecticut as human props to try to get his repressive agenda passed.

The use of human props is an old propaganda trick, which was used by Joseph Goebbels to make his boss, Adolf Hitler, seem like a man of the people who really cared about the German citizenry.

The use of propaganda to further the aims of fascist governments is an old and effective method of camouflaging fascism, which Obama’s handlers realize all too well.

In addition to the use of human props during a speech, another strategy used in a propaganda campaign is to select an enemy and target them with the aid of a sympathetic press behind you.

During Hitler’s rise to power, the German Press demonized European Jews, betraying them as evil and money grubbing…painting them as being different from normal German citizens. It was this classification of the European Jews as the enemy that almost led to the extinction of them in that horrible attempted genocide, known as the Holocaust.

And, now, those on the Far Left of the Political Spectrum, and their unwitting Dupes, spurred on by their own political ambition, are deliberately, and, with malice of forethought, making Donald J. Trump, the object of their attempts to limit our Constitutional Freedom, through a calculated and, at times, manic, demonization of him.

Unfortunately for all of them, Trump is fighting back, which is his Constitutional Right, as an American Citizen.

The leader of the 1918 Russian Revolution, which led to the overthrow of the Czar and the installation of a Communist Government, Vladimir Lenin, said,

It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed. 

Through the actions of these “New Facists”, as demonstrated so vividly, during the Trump Campaign Rallies on Saturday, our American Liberty, especially our Constitutional Right of Freedom of Speech, is now being rationed, in favor of “Democratic Socialism”.

And, if you listen to these New Fascists and their unwitting dupes, you will be reminded of the words of Princess Padme, from the movie, “Star Wars VI: The Return of the Jedi”…

So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause.

Until He Comes,

KJ
 

 

 

Sunday Morning Thoughts: A Nation Founded By Faith Will Not Be Marginalized

WashingtonPrayingAs I sit here on an American Sunday morning, my bride sound asleep, here in the quiet of my stately mansion, a small 3 Bedroom Home in NW Mississippi, I ponder the reaction of some to my posts concerning the ongoing attempt by a tyrannical minority to marginalize the cultural and political clout of Christian Americans, the overwhelming majority of American Citizens…and I try not to lose my Witness.

For those that do not know what that means, it means to behave in such a manner that people will doubt that you’re actually a Christian…not unlike a certain resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC.

But, I digress…

The reaction of  Modern American Liberals to my posts has hardly been unexpected.

Of course, those who responded, immediately denied that our Founding Fathers were Christians and that our country was founded on a Judeo-Christian belief system.

Evidently, they had never read anything, except what their like-minded non-believing soothsayers allowed them to.  Or else, they would have read historical documents like President George Washington’s Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, written on November 1, 1777, and found at wallbuilders.com:

The committee appointed to prepare a recommendation to the several states, to set apart a day of public thanksgiving, brought in a report; which was taken into consideration, and agreed to as follows:

Forasmuch as it is the indispensable duty of all men to adore the superintending providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with gratitude their obligation to him for benefits received, and to implore such farther blessings as they stand in need of; and it having pleased him in his abundant mercy not only to continue to us the innumerable bounties of his common providence, but also smile upon us in the prosecution of a just and necessary war, for the defense and establishment of our unalienable rights and liberties; particularly in that he hath been pleased in so great a measure to prosper the means used for the support of our troops and to crown our arms with most signal success:

It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive powers of these United States, to set apart Thursday, the 18th day of December next, for solemn thanksgiving and praise; that with one heart and one voice the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the service of their divine benefactor; and that together with their sincere acknowledgments and offerings, they may join the penitent confession of their manifold sins, whereby they had forfeited every favor, and their humble and earnest supplication that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of remembrance; that it may please him graciously to afford his blessings on the governments of these states respectively, and prosper the public council of the whole; to inspire our commanders both by land and sea, and all under them, with that wisdom and fortitude which may render them fit instruments, under the providence of Almighty God, to secure for these United States the greatest of all blessings, independence and peace; that it may please him to prosper the trade and manufactures of the people and the labor of the husbandman, that our land may yield its increase; to take schools and seminaries of education, so necessary for cultivating the principles of true liberty, virtue and piety, under his nurturing hand, and to prosper the means of religion for the promotion and enlargement of that kingdom which consisteth in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.

And it is further recommended, that servile labor, and such recreation as, though at other times innocent, may be unbecoming the purpose of this appointment, be omitted on so solemn an occasion.

And, then all the Liberals responders continued to deny Jefferson’s Christianity.

Liberals like to bring up the fact that he wrote a version of the Bible which left out Christ’s miracles.  What they are reluctant to do, though, is explain why he wrote his book that way.  David Barton explains on wallbuilders.com:

The reader [of a newspaper article which Barton is replying to], as do many others, claimed that Jefferson omitted all miraculous events of Jesus from his “Bible.” Rarely do those who make this claim let Jefferson speak for himself. Jefferson’s own words explain that his intent for that book was not for it to be a “Bible,” but rather for it to be a primer for the Indians on the teachings of Christ (which is why Jefferson titled that work, “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth”). What Jefferson did was to take the “red letter” portions of the New Testament and publish these teachings in order to introduce the Indians to Christian morality. And as President of the United States, Jefferson signed a treaty with the Kaskaskia tribe wherein he provided—at the government’s expense—Christian missionaries to the Indians. In fact, Jefferson himself declared, “I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.” While many might question this claim, the fact remains that Jefferson called himself a Christian, not a deist.

Finally, the Liberals who replied to my blogs insisted that Crosses and other Chrstian symbols have no place in the Public Square.  They wish for Christians to remain unseen and unheard from, worshiping in private.

Well,  y’all can wish for a unicorn to magically appear in your backyard…but that ain’t gonna happen, either.

As a free nation, all you who are non-believers have every right to exercise your faith.

However, as Orthodox Rabbi Daniel Lapin of the Jewish Policy Center clearly explains:

[I] understand that I live . . . in a Christian nation, albeit one where I can follow my faith as long as it doesn’t conflict with the nation’s principles. The same option is open to all Americans and will be available only as long as this nation’s Christian roots are acknowledged and honored.

…Without a vibrant and vital Christianity, America is doomed, and without America, the west is doomed. Which is why I, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, devoted to Jewish survival, the Torah, and Israel am so terrified of American Christianity caving in. God help Jews if America ever becomes a post-Christian society! Just think of Europe!

Is the Rabbi prophetic? I pray that he isn’t.

As we enter this Election Year, I believe that those who have attempted to silence the overwhelming majority of Americans, who still practice the Faith of Our Fathers, are going to find out that a nation founded by faith will not be marginalized.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The War Against Christianity: Christmas in America 2015: Purposefully Missing “The Reason For The Season”

WashingtonPrayingAs the days grow shorter, until the special night when Christians around the world celebrate the arrival in our fallen world of the Son of God, I have noticed, once again, a concerted effort by the “Smartest People in the Room” to attempt to turn Christmas in America into a Secular Holiday, as if convincing themselves that the Triune God had nothing at all to do with our Sovereign Nation’s Founding.

For example. the 44th President of these United States, Barack Hussein Obama, (mm mmm mmmm) and Michelle Obama recently spoke about the 50th Anniversary of the Cartoon Classic, “A Charlie Brown Christmas”, and, per ChristianPost.com, he purposefully missed the point of the cartoon, entirely.

Barack Obama failed to mention Jesus in his description of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and its message about the true meaning of Christmas during ABC’s “It’s Your 50th Christmas, Charlie Brown.” Good grief.

The president and first lady spoke briefly during the Monday night Christmas special in remembrance of the 50th anniversary of 1965’s “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” 
 
In describing the show and that famous scene, in which Linus Van Pelt explains the true meaning of Christmas by reciting Luke 2:8-14, Barack Obama said it teaches “us that tiny trees just need a little love and that on this holiday we celebrate peace on Earth and good will toward all.”

The Luke passage and Linus speech does mention “peace on Earth and good will toward men,” but that passage is not the answer to the question of the true meaning of Christmas.

Here is a transcript of that part of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (or watch the video below):

Charlie Brown: I guess you were right, Linus. I shouldn’t have picked this little tree. Everything I do turns into a disaster. I guess I really don’t know what Christmas is all about.

Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?

Linus Van Pelt: Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.

Lights, please.

“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not: for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.'”

That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

The true meaning of Christmas is not what the angels were singing at the end. That was just the epilogue to the story of the shepards encounter with the angels.

The true meaning of Christmas is that “unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”

Jesus Christ is not just a character in the Christmas story, He is the Christmas story. The meaning of His birth, a savior who came to cover our sins in His blood so that we can find our own true meaning in a right relationship with God, is, as Linus reminded us, what Christmas is all about.

Obama neglecting to mention Jesus was in keeping with the rest of the show.

ABC’s remembrance of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was hosted by Kristen Bell and had musical performances by Vince Guaraldi, Kristen Chenowith, Matthew Morrison, Sarah McLachlan, Pentatonix, David Benoit and The All-American Boys Chorus.

While the birth of Jesus was not a theme throughout most of the Christmas special, there was a clip of Charlie Brown creator Charles Schultz describing how the Linus speech came about in a 1997 Charlie Rose interview.

Schultz had decided, “we cannot do this show without including the famous passage from Saint Luke. And that had never been done before either. No one would put biblical passages in an animated show, and we did it. … That was the highlight of the show,” he said. 

John Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States of America. He said the following about our Country’s relationship to Christianity:

My hopes of a future life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ and I cannot cavil or quibble away [evade or object to]. . . . the whole tenor of His conduct by which He sometimes positively asserted and at others countenances [permits] His disciples in asserting that He was God.6

The hope of a Christian is inseparable from his faith. Whoever believes in the Divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures must hope that the religion of Jesus shall prevail throughout the earth. Never since the foundation of the world have the prospects of mankind been more encouraging to that hope than they appear to be at the present time. And may the associated distribution of the Bible proceed and prosper till the Lord shall have made “bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God” [Isaiah 52:10].7

In the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior. The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

From adherents.com

There were 95 Senators and Representatives in the First Federal Congress. If one combines the total number of signatures on the Declaration, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution with the non-signing Constitutional Convention delegates, and then adds to that sum the number of congressmen in the First Federal Congress, one obtains a total of 238 “slots” or “positions” in these groups which one can classify as “Founding Fathers” of the United States. Because 40 individuals had multiple roles (they signed multiple documents and/or also served in the First Federal Congress), there are 204 unique individuals in this group of “Founding Fathers.” These are the people who did one or more of the following:

– signed the Declaration of Independence
– signed the Articles of Confederation
– attended the Constitutional Convention of 1787
– signed the Constitution of the United States of America
– served as Senators in the First Federal Congress (1789-1791)
– served as U.S. Representatives in the First Federal Congress

The religious affiliations of these individuals are summarized below. Obviously this is a very restrictive set of names, and does not include everyone who could be considered an “American Founding Father.” But most of the major figures that people generally think of in this context are included using these criteria, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Hancock, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and more.

Religious Affiliation
of U.S. Founding Fathers
# of
Founding
Fathers
% of
Founding
Fathers
Episcopalian/Anglican 88 54.7%
Presbyterian 30 18.6%
Congregationalist 27 16.8%
Quaker 7 4.3%
Dutch Reformed/German Reformed 6 3.7%
Lutheran 5 3.1%
Catholic 3 1.9%
Huguenot 3 1.9%
Unitarian 3 1.9%
Methodist 2 1.2%
Calvinist 1 0.6%
unknown 43  %
TOTAL 204

 

Christmas and Christianity have been a part of of our national fabric since our Sovereign Nation was born. Here is what a couple of our more Modern Presidents said about Christmas in America:

Since returning home, I have been reading again in our family Bible some of the passages which foretold this night. . . . We miss the spirit of Christmas if we consider the Incarnation as an indistinct and doubtful, far-off event unrelated to our present problems. We miss the purport of Christ’s birth if we do not accept it as a living link which joins us together in spirit as children of the ever-living and true God. In love alone – the love of God and the love of man – will be found the solution of all the ills which afflict the world today. – President Harry S. Truman, Christmas Eve Address to the Nation, 1949

“Christmas is also a time to remember the treasures of our own history. We remember one Christmas in particular, 1776, our first year as a nation. The Revolutionary War had been going badly. But George Washington’s faith, courage, and leadership would turn the tide of history our way. On Christmas night he led a band of ragged soldiers across the Delaware River through driving snow to a victory that saved the cause of independence. It’s said that their route of march was stained by bloody footprints, but their spirit never faltered and their will could not be crushed. The image of George Washington kneeling in prayer in the snow is one of the most famous in American history. He personified a people who knew it was not enough to depend on their own courage and goodness; they must also seek help from God, their Father and Preserver.” (1983)

“For the past few years in this great house, I’ve thought of our first real Christmas as a nation. It was the dark and freezing Christmas of 1776, when General Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware. They and Providence gave our nation its first Christmas gift—a victory that brought us closer to liberty, the condition in which God meant man to flourish.” (1984) President Ronald Wilson Reagan

So, why do we celebrate this time of year? Is it the hustle and bustle? Is is the greed and avarice of the commercialization of a Secular Holiday?

It is to honor and celebrate

ONE SOLITARY LIFE

He was born in an obscure village, the son of a peasant woman.

He grew up in another village, where he worked in a carpenter’s shop until he was thirty. Then for three years he became a wandering preacher.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a house. He didn’t go to college. He never visited a big city. He never travelled two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He did none of those things one usually associates with greatness.

He had no credentials but himself.

He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. He was turned over to his enemies and went through a mockery of a trial. He was executed by the state. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead he was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race and the leader of mankind’s progress. All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that One Solitary Life.

***The preceding essay was part of a sermon by Dr James Allan Francis in “The Real Jesus and Other Sermons” © 1926 by the Judson Press of Philadelphia (pp 123-124 titled “Arise Sir Knight!”).

Until He Comes,

KJ

The San Bernadino Massacre, Sharia Law, and the U.S. Constitution (A KJ Sunday Morning Op Ed)

American Christianity 2

Tonight, the President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, is going to deliver a speech from the Oval office, to address this past week’s massacre of innocent Americans in San Bernadino, California, as the result of a merciless attack by Radical Islamists.

As has been his pattern, I look for Obama to 1. Deny that Radical Islam is actually a part of Islam and 2. Draw a false equivalency between the Christians who founded our Sovereign Nation and the Syrian Muslim “Refugees”, whom he is forcing our states to take in.

This past year, Pope Francis paid a visit to the United States of America.

During his visit, while addressing the Congress of the United States of America, he basically said that we have an “obligation” to take in the Syrian Refugees, among them Radical Muslims, who are presently rioting in Europe.

Pope Francis, like President Obama and other Liberals, has been pushing a false equivalency, in equating Islam to Christianity, for a while now.

Back in June, The Washington Times reported that

On Monday, the Bishop Of Rome addressed Catholic followers regarding the dire importance of exhibiting religious tolerance. During his hour-long speech, a smiling Pope Francis was quoted telling the Vatican’s guests that the Koran, and the spiritual teachings contained therein, are just as valid as the Holy Bible.

“Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Jehovah, Allah. These are all names employed to describe an entity that is distinctly the same across the world. For centuries, blood has been needlessly shed because of the desire to segregate our faiths. This, however, should be the very concept which unites us as people, as nations, and as a world bound by faith. Together, we can bring about an unprecedented age of peace, all we need to achieve such a state is respect each others beliefs, for we are all children of God regardless of the name we choose to address him by. We can accomplish miraculous things in the world by merging our faiths, and the time for such a movement is now. No longer shall we slaughter our neighbors over differences in reference to their God.”

The pontiff drew harsh criticisms in December (2014) after photos of the 78-year-old Catholic leader was released depicting Pope Francis kissing a Koran. The Muslim Holy Book was given to Francis during a meeting with Muslim leaders after a lengthy Muslim prayer held at the Vatican.

Last February 5th, after President Barack Hussein Obama’s incendiary and decidedly anti-Christian remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast, Reverend Franklin Graham spoke truth to power:

Today at the National Prayer Breakfast, the President implied that what ISIS is doing is equivalent to what happened over 1000 years ago during the Crusades and the Inquisition. Mr. President–Many people in history have used the name of Jesus Christ to accomplish evil things for their own desires. But Jesus taught peace, love and forgiveness. He came to give His life for the sins of mankind, not to take life. Mohammad on the contrary was a warrior and killed many innocent people. True followers of Christ emulate Christ—true followers of Mohammed emulate Mohammed.

As Rev. Graham said so eloquently, Islam and Christianity present two very different Deities, who may share some similarities, but who have different identities and ultimately different standards. To pretend they are the same is not only to be clueless of the faith of 76% of the citizens of this nation, but, to be ignorant of an integral part of our American Heritage, the legacy of Christian Faith, which our Founding Fathers bequeathed us.

Not too long ago, Republican Presidential Candidate Hopeful, Dr. Ben Carson, got a lot of attention from hang-wringing Liberals in the Main Stream Media, the Democratic Party and among the Vichy Republicans, also, when he said that a Muslim should never be President of the United States of America., because Sharia Law in incompatible with The United States Constitution.

He was absolutely right.

The Center For Security Policy issued the following PDF, ” “Sharia Law Vs. The Constitution”,

Article VI: The Constitution is the supreme law of the land

  • Constitution: Article VI: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby”
  • Shariah: “The source of legal rulings for all acts of those who are morally responsible is Allah.” (a1.1, Umdat al-salik or The Reliance of the Traveller, commonly accepted work of Shariah jurisprudence); “There is only one law which ought to be followed, and that is the Sharia.” (Seyed Qutb); “Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and program of Islam regardless of the country or the nation which rules it. The purpose of Islam is to set up a State on the basis of its own ideology and program.” (Seyed Abul A’ala Maududi)

First Amendment: Freedom of religion

  • Constitution: First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ”
  • Shariah: “Those who reject Islam must be killed. If they turn back (from Islam), take hold of them and kill them wherever you find them.” Quran 4:89 ; “Whoever changed his [Islamic] religion, then kill him” Sahih al-Bukhari, 9:84:57.  In historic and modern Shariah states, Shariah law enforces dhimmi status (second-class citizen, apartheid-type laws) on nonMuslims, prohibiting them from observing their religious practices publicly, building or repairing churches, raising their voices during prayer or ringing church bells; if dhimmi laws are violated in the Shariah State, penalties are those used for prisoners of war: death, slavery, release or ransom.(o9.14, o11.0-o11.11, Umdat al-salik).

First Amendment: Freedom of speech   

  • Constitution: First Amendment: Congress shall not abridge “the freedom of speech.”  
  • Shariah: Speech defaming Islam or Muhammad is considered “blasphemy” and is punishable by death or imprisonment.

First Amendment: Freedom to dissent

  • Constitution: First Amendment: “Congress cannot take away the right of the people “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” 
  •  Shariah: Non-Muslims are not to harbor any hostility toward the Islamic state or give comfort to those who disagree with Islamic government.

Second Amendment: Right to self-defense

  • Constitution: Second Amendment: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” 
  • Shariah: Under historic and modern dhimmi laws, non-Muslims cannot possess swords, firearms or weapons of any kind.

Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Amendments: Right to due process and fair trial

  • Constitution: Fifth Amendment: “no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime… without due process of law.”  Sixth Amendment: guarantees a “public trial by an impartial jury.”  Seventh Amendment: “the right of trial by jury shall be preserved.”
  • Shariah: Hadith Sahih al-Bukhari: Muhammad said, “No Muslim should be killed for killing a Kafir (infidel).”  Non-Muslims are prohibited from testifying against Muslims.  A woman’s testimony is equal to half of a man’s.

Eighth Amendment: No cruel and unusual punishment 

  • Constitution: Eighth Amendment: “nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
  • Shariah: Under Shariah punishments are barbaric: “Cut off the hands of thieves, whether they are male or female, as punishment for what they have done – a deterrent from Allah.” Quran 5:38; A raped woman is punished:”The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication – flog each of them with a hundred stripes” (Sura 24:2).

Fourteenth Amendment: Right to equal protection and due process 

  • Constitution:  Fourteenth Amendment: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. “
  • Shariah: Under dhimmi laws enforced in modern Shariah states, Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims are not equal to Muslims before the law.  Under Shariah law, women, girls, apostates, homosexuals and “blasphemers” are all denied equality under the law. 

Given this incompatibility between Sharia Law and the Constitution of the United States of America, which our Freedom and our System of Laws are based upon, if given the choice, which would Muslims currently living in the Land of the Free and the home of the Brave choose to be faithful to?

Back on June 23, 2015, the Center for Security Policy released the following findings for a poll they took of 600 Muslims, who current live in America.

The numbers of potential jihadists among the majority of Muslims who appear not to be sympathetic to such notions raise a number of public policy choices that warrant careful consideration and urgent debate, including: the necessity for enhanced surveillance of Muslim communities; refugee resettlement, asylum and other immigration programs that are swelling their numbers and density; and the viability of so-called “countering violent extremism” initiatives that are supposed to stymie radicalization within those communities.

Overall, the survey, which was conducted by The Polling Company for the Center for Security Policy (CSP), suggests that a substantial number of Muslims living in the United States see the country very differently than does the population overall.  The sentiments of the latter were sampled in late May in another CSP-commissioned Polling Company nationwide survey.

According to the just-released survey of Muslims, a majority (51%) agreed that “Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to shariah.”  When that question was put to the broader U.S. population, the overwhelming majority held that shariah should not displace the U.S. Constitution (86% to 2%).

More than half (51%) of U.S. Muslims polled also believe either that they should have the choice of American or shariah courts, or that they should have their own tribunals to apply shariah. Only 39% of those polled said that Muslims in the U.S. should be subject to American courts.

These notions were powerfully rejected by the broader population according to the Center’s earlier national survey.  It found by a margin of 92%-2% that Muslims should be subject to the same courts as other citizens, rather than have their own courts and tribunals here in the U.S.

Even more troubling, is the fact that nearly a quarter of the Muslims polled believed that, “It is legitimate to use violence to punish those who give offense to Islam by, for example, portraying the prophet Mohammed.”

By contrast, the broader survey found that a 63% majority of those sampled said that “the freedom to engage in expression that offends Muslims or anybody else is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and cannot be restricted.”

Nearly one-fifth of Muslim respondents said that the use of violence in the United States is justified in order to make shariah the law of the land in this country.

In conclusion, I am not saying that every Muslim is on a jihad against “the infidels”, and, wish to invade our Sovereign Nation and over-throw our Government.

However, there is a difference between being an average Christian American and a Muslim, living in America.

When Christians become “radicalized”, we want to share the testimony of what God has done for us through His love, with everyone we meet. We get involved in our local church and we become better fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, and American Citizens.

When Muslims become “radicalized”, they want to “kill the Infidels” in the name of “Allah the Merciful”.

In the case of the Chechen Muslim brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon, their immersion into Radical Islam led them to “kill the infidels” that horrendous day.

In the case of the barbarians of ISIS, it has turned them into doppelgangers of the Nazi Butchers of Dachau.

For Liberals, including Pope Francis, to deny that, is disingenuous at best, and just plain dangerous at worst.

It becomes even more dangerous when that Liberal is the President of the United States of America.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama Refuses to Tell Governors Where He is Placing Syrian “Refugees”. Does He Even Have That Authority?

ISIS-Contained-NRD-600Yesterday, more of America’s Governors informed President Barack Hussein Obama that they would not accept the thousands of Syrian Refugees, whom he is hell-bent on disseminating throught America, with no way of actually knowing whether they are members of ISIS, sent here to murder us “infidels”, or not.

You see, boys and girls, you cannot vet someone with an undocumented background.

CNN.com reports that

More than half the nation’s governors say they oppose letting Syrian refugees into their states, although the final say on this contentious immigration issue will fall to the federal government.States protesting the admission of refugees range from Alabama and Georgia, to Texas and Arizona, to Michigan and Illinois, to Maine and New Hampshire. Among these 31 states, all but one have Republican governors. 

The announcements came after authorities revealed that at least one of the suspects believed to be involved in the Paris terrorist attacks entered Europe among the current wave of Syrian refugees. He had falsely identified himself as a Syrian named Ahmad al Muhammad and was allowed to enter Greece in early October.

Some leaders say they either oppose taking in any Syrian refugees being relocated as part of a national program or asked that they be particularly scrutinized as potential security threats.

Only 1,500 Syrian refugees have been accepted into the United States since 2011, but the Obama administration announced in September that 10,000 Syrians will be allowed entry next year.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Monday, “Defeating ISIS involves projecting American ideals to the world. Governors who reject those fleeing war and persecution abandon our ideals and instead project our fears to the world.”

Authority over admitting refugees to the country, though, rests with the federal government — not with the states — though individual states can make the acceptance process much more difficult, experts said.

Are these “experts” right?

Read on…

Bloombergview.com reports that

In a call with senior Obama administration officials Tuesday evening, several governors demanded they be given access to information about Syrian refugees about to be resettled by the federal government in their states. Top White House officials refused.

Over a dozen governors from both parties joined the conference call, which was initiated by the White House after 27 governors vowed not to cooperate with further resettlement of Syrian refugees in their states. The outrage among governors came after European officials revealed that one of the Paris attackers may have entered Europe in October through the refugee process using a fake Syrian passport. (The details of the attacker’s travels are still murky.)

The administration officials on the call included White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, State Department official Simon Henshaw, FBI official John Giacalone, and the deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center John Mulligan.

On the call several Republican governors and two Democrats — New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan and California’s Jerry Brown — repeatedly pressed administration officials to share more information about Syrian refugees entering the United States. The governors wanted notifications whenever refugees were resettled in their states, as well as access to classified information collected when the refugees were vetted.

“There was a real sense of frustration from all the governors that there is just a complete lack of transparency and communication coming from the federal government,” said one GOP state official who was on the call.

The administration officials, led by McDonough, assured the governors that the vetting process was thorough and that the risks of admitting Syrian refugees could be properly managed. He added that the federal government saw no reason to alter the current method of processing refugees.

Florida governor Rick Scott asked McDonough point blank if states could opt out of accepting refugees from Syria. McDonough said no, the GOP state official said.

In a readout of the call Tuesday night, the White House said that several governors “expressed their appreciation for the opportunity to better understand the process and have their issues addressed.” The White House noted that “others encouraged further communication” from the administration about the resettlement of refugees. 

Hassan, one of two Democrats to challenge the administration on the call, had already come out in favor of halting the flow of Syrian refugees to the United States. She expressed anger that state officials aren’t notified when Syrian refugees are resettled in their territory.

Brown said he favored continuing to admit Syrian refugees but wanted the federal government to hand over information that would allow states to keep track of them, the GOP state official said.

McDonough responded to Brown that there was currently no process in place to give states such information and the administration saw no reason to change the status quo. The non-governmental organizations that help resettle the refugees would have such information.

Brown countered by noting that state law enforcement agencies have active investigations into suspected radicals and that information about incoming Syrian refugees could help maintain their awareness about potential radicalization. He suggested the U.S. had to adjust the way it operates in light of the Paris attacks.

McDonough reiterated his confidence in the current process. While promising to consider what Brown and other senators had said, he emphasized that the administration had no plans to increase information sharing on refugees with states as of now.

Top GOP senators echoed the concerns of governors Tuesday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr joined House Speaker Paul Ryan’s call for a “pause” in the flow of Syrian refugees, which is intended to include 10,000 people by 2016. McConnell said “the ability to vet people coming from that part of the world is really quite limited.”

Democratic senators are split on the issue. Senators Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein said Tuesday there may be a need for a pause in accepting Syrian refugees but they both wanted to hear more from the administration about the issue. Sen. Dick Durbin said that refugees aren’t the primary source of concern. He pointed to the millions of foreign visitors who enter America each year.

“Background checks need to be redoubled in terms of refugees but if we’re talking about threats to the United States, let’s put this in perspective,” he said. “Let us not just single out the refugees as the potential source of danger in the United States.”

The White House is trying hard to engage governors and lawmakers. Top administration officials held several briefings about the issue Tuesday on Capitol Hill. But if they don’t agree to share more with state and local politicians, the opposition to accepting Syrian refugees could quickly gain ground.

Evidently, King Obama the First has decided that it is important to treat our states like his own personal fiefdoms and their governors like his employees, whom he manages via the ol’ Mushroom Philosophy of communication…keep them in the dark and feed them well, you know.

Obama keeps purposefully forgetting that we are a Constitutional Republic. Not a monarchy.

So, who actually has authority over our nation’s Immigration Laws?

Rush Limbaugh noted the following on his program, yesterday…

American University law professor Stephen I. Vladeck put it this way: ‘Legally, states have no authority to do anything because the question of who should be allowed in this country is one that the Constitution commits to the federal government.'”

“But Vladeck noted that without the state’s participation, the federal government would have a much more arduous task.” Well, why?  Wait a minute, now, Mr. Vladeck, Professor Vladeck. If the states have no say-so and Obama can say, “(Raspberry) you!” and bring in these refugees no matter what the governors want, then why is it “more arduous” if the governors have no power, if the governors can’t say no?  You want to hear the truth, as interpreted by constitutional scholar Andrew McCarthy? “[N]owhere in the Constitution was the national government vested with an enumerated power,” meaning spelled out, “over immigration enforcement.” Let me read that to you again: “[N]owhere in the Constitution was the national government vested with an enumerated power,” a specific power, “over immigration enforcement. Congress was empowered only to set the terms for naturalization — to determine who qualifies for American citizenship.

“The police power, the power to enforce laws within their respective territories, was left to the states — left to the representative governments closest to the people whose lives, liberties, and property were most affected by the manner of enforcement.” This is exactly the way the country was founded.  The Founding Fathers went to great lengths to avoid vesting all of this power in the federal government.  They didn’t trust it.  The first 10 amendments to the Constitution limit the federal government.

Congress was empowered to set the terms for naturalization, to determine who qualifies for American citizenship.  The police power to enforce the laws within their respective territories was left to the states, to the governors.  If they don’t want these people here, there’s a clear argument they do not have to accept them.  And the federal government can’t make them. 

Imagine that.

So, while Obama hides away these Syrian Refugees, without properly vetting them, potentially allowing ISIS access to “soft targets”, he is taking powers upon himself that our Founding Fathers never meant for him to have.

Therefore, the logical conclusion to this post today is: Individual States indeed have the right to refuse entry to these Syrian Refugees”, who resemble extremely fit military men carrying cell phones.

Petulant President Pantywaist’s recent Presidential Temper Tantrum at the G20 Summit, notwithstanding.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama to Go to Roseburg Massacre Site to “Grandstand for Political Purposes”. Founding Fathers Weep.

Politicize-600-LI (2)Friday, the President of the United States of America is going to travel to where he is not welcome.

No, not Syria. Not Iran. Not Iraq. Not any Foreign Country.

Barack Hussein Obama is traveling to Roseburg, Oregon.

On Monday afternoon, it was announced that

President Barack Obama will travel to Oregon this week to visit privately with families of the victims of last week’s shooting at a community college.

Obama will visit Roseburg on Friday as he opens a four-day trip to the West Coast. No additional details about his visit were immediately available.

Obama has renewed his call for stricter gun laws following the shooting and has expressed exasperation at the frequency of mass shootings in the U.S.

Nine people were killed when a 26-year-old opened fire in a classroom at Umpqua (UHMP’-kwah) Community College before killing himself in a shootout with police. Another nine people were wounded.

Some faculty, staff and students have been bringing flowers to a makeshift memorial as they return to the campus for the first time since the shooting.

Unfortunately for President Obama and his plans to continue his push for Gun Confiscation…err…Gun Control…the town’s citizens do not want him there.

CNSNews.com reports that

In an interview on Fox News’s “O’Reilly Factor,” David Jaques, publisher of the Roseburg Beacon, said Monday that he has talked to “dozens upon dozens of citizens,” victims’ family members, and elected officials, who say President Barack Obama is not welcome in their town to “grandstand for political purposes.”

“He wants to come to our community and stand on the corpses of our loved ones to make some kind of political point, and it isn’t going to be well received – not by our people, not by the families, and not even by our elected officials,” Jaques told Bill O’Reilly.

Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin told CNN on Friday that his position in support of gun rights has not changed in the wake of the tragedy that claimed the lives of nine people at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore.

According to the Associated Press, Hanlin even wrote to Vice President Joe Biden in 2013 after the Newtown, Conn., shooting that claimed 20 kids and six adults at an elementary school, saying he and his deputies would refuse to enforce new gun control laws “offending the constitutional rights of my citizens.”

“There’s a rumor. President Obama might go to Roseburg, Douglas County. The funerals start Thursday, and I guess they will extend into next week. How will the president be treated if he does indeed travel to Roseburg?” O’Reilly asked Jaques on Monday night.

“I think the president first of all is not welcome in the community, and that isn’t just my opinion. We’ve talked to dozens upon dozens of citizens – some family members of the victims, our elected officials,” said Jaques, who summarized a statement from Douglas County Commissioners and the county sheriff, who “all came to a consensus language about him not being welcome here to grandstand for political purposes.”

As CNSNews.com previously reported, on Oct. 2, the same day as the shooting, Obama spoke about the tragedy, saying, “This is a political choice that we make to allow this to happen every few months in America. We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction.”

The authorities hadn’t finished counties the bodies of the victims, Jaques said, before Obama gave his speech.

“The bottom line, Bill, is that a number of people believe that when the president opened his press conference, we hadn’t finished counting the bodies on the campus right behind me. We hadn’t identified whose children were killed and whose were not, and even at that same moment, he is saying, some people will accuse me of politicizing this issue, and he goes on to say, but it should be,” Jaques said.

“So he not only acknowledged that it could be politicized, he was doing so deliberately. So now he wants to come to our community and stand on the corpses of our loved ones to make some kind of political point, and it isn’t going to be well received – not by our people, not by the families, and not even by our elected officials,” he added.

So, the ghoulish President of our country, Barack Hussein Obama, is going to Roseburg, Oregon, whether its citizens want him there or not, for the sake of Political Expediency.

The problem with Obama’s purpose for going there, besides the fact that he has not and will not acknowledge that it was Christians, who were singled out and killed, is this salient fact:

It was not the gun’s fault.  A gun is an inanimate object, incapable of  thought and in capable of pulling its own trigger. It’s the individual pulling the trigger.

Political Pundit, Dr. Charles Krauthammer, reminded us of this, in his op ed piece, published December 20, 2012:

Monsters shall always be with us, but in earlier days they did not roam free. As a psychiatrist in Massachusetts in the 1970s, I committed people — often right out of the emergency room — as a danger to themselves or to others. I never did so lightly, but I labored under none of the crushing bureaucratic and legal constraints that make involuntary commitment infinitely more difficult today.

Why do you think we have so many homeless? Destitution? Poverty has declined since the 1950s. The majority of those sleeping on grates are mentally ill. In the name of civil liberties, we let them die with their rights on.

A tiny percentage of the mentally ill become mass killers. Just about everyone around Tucson shooter Jared Loughner sensed he was mentally ill and dangerous. But in effect, he had to kill before he could be put away — and (forcibly) treated.

Random mass killings were three times more common in the 2000s than in the 1980s, when gun laws were actually weaker. Yet a 2011 University of California at Berkeley study found that states with strong civil commitment laws have about a one-third lower homicide rate.

…We live in an entertainment culture soaked in graphic, often sadistic, violence. Older folks find themselves stunned by what a desensitized youth finds routine, often amusing. It’s not just movies. Young men sit for hours pulling video-game triggers, mowing down human beings en masse without pain or consequence. And we profess shock when a small cadre of unstable, deeply deranged, dangerously isolated young men go out and enact the overlearned narrative.

…If we’re serious about curtailing future Columbines and Newtowns, everything — guns, commitment, culture — must be on the table. It’s not hard for President Obama to call out the NRA. But will he call out the ACLU? And will he call out his Hollywood friends?

What did our Founding Fathers have to say about our “Right to Bear Arms”, as found in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution?

“A free people ought to be armed.”

– George Washington

“A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.”

– George Washington

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

– Benjamin Franklin

“The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

– Thomas Jefferson (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria)

“A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.” – Thomas Jefferson

“The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“On every occasion [of Constitutional interpretation] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying [to force] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, [instead let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“I enclose you a list of the killed, wounded, and captives of the enemy from the commencement of hostilities at Lexington in April, 1775, until November, 1777, since which there has been no event of any consequence … I think that upon the whole it has been about one half the number lost by them, in some instances more, but in others less. This difference is ascribed to our superiority in taking aim when we fire; every soldier in our army having been intimate with his gun from his infancy.”

– Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Giovanni Fabbroni, June 8, 1778

“Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion in private self defense.”

– John Adams

“To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them.”

– George Mason

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe.”

– Noah Webster

Mr. President, I understand that you believe yourself smarter than all of the gentlemen I quoted, and, additionally, you believe that our Constitution is a “fluid” document, meant to be revised regularly. However, I would suggest you go do something about the 49 gun-related homocides, occurring  every weekend, in your hometown of Chicago, a city with strict gun control laws, before you try to take away the guns of law-abiding Americans.

Try to confiscate the criminals’ guns, first. Good luck.

If you do wind up attempting to confiscate law-abiding Americans’ guns….

“There will be resistance” is putting it mildly, Scooter.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Pope Francis, Sharia Law, and the U.S. Constitution: Comparing Plowshares to Scimitars [A KJ Sunday Morning Op Ed]

American Christianity 2The past week, Pope Francis paid a visit to the United States of America.

During his visit, while addressing the Congress of the United States of America, he basically said that we have an “obligation” to take in the Syrian Refugees, among them Radical Muslims, who are presently rioting in Europe.

Pope Francis, like other Liberals, has been pushing a false equivalency, in equating Islam to Christianity, for a while now.

Back in June, The Washington Times reported that

On Monday, the Bishop Of Rome addressed Catholic followers regarding the dire importance of exhibiting religious tolerance. During his hour-long speech, a smiling Pope Francis was quoted telling the Vatican’s guests that the Koran, and the spiritual teachings contained therein, are just as valid as the Holy Bible.

“Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Jehovah, Allah. These are all names employed to describe an entity that is distinctly the same across the world. For centuries, blood has been needlessly shed because of the desire to segregate our faiths. This, however, should be the very concept which unites us as people, as nations, and as a world bound by faith. Together, we can bring about an unprecedented age of peace, all we need to achieve such a state is respect each others beliefs, for we are all children of God regardless of the name we choose to address him by. We can accomplish miraculous things in the world by merging our faiths, and the time for such a movement is now. No longer shall we slaughter our neighbors over differences in reference to their God.”

The pontiff drew harsh criticisms in December (2014) after photos of the 78-year-old Catholic leader was released depicting Pope Francis kissing a Koran. The Muslim Holy Book was given to Francis during a meeting with Muslim leaders after a lengthy Muslim prayer held at the Vatican.

Last February 5th, after President Barack Hussein Obama’s incendiary and decidedly anti-Christian remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast, Reverend Franklin Graham spoke truth to power:

Today at the National Prayer Breakfast, the President implied that what ISIS is doing is equivalent to what happened over 1000 years ago during the Crusades and the Inquisition. Mr. President–Many people in history have used the name of Jesus Christ to accomplish evil things for their own desires. But Jesus taught peace, love and forgiveness. He came to give His life for the sins of mankind, not to take life. Mohammad on the contrary was a warrior and killed many innocent people. True followers of Christ emulate Christ—true followers of Mohammed emulate Mohammed.

As Rev. Graham said so eloquently, Islam and Christianity present two very different Deities, who may share some similarities, but who have different identities and ultimately different standards. To pretend they are the same is not only to be clueless of the faith of 76% of the citizens of this nation, but, to be ignorant of an integral part of our American Heritage, the legacy of Christian Faith, which our Founding Fathers bequeathed us.

Recently, Republican Presidential Candidate Hopeful, Dr. Ben Carson, got a lot of attention from hang-wringing Liberals in the Main Stream Media, the Democratic Party and among the Vichy Republicans, also, when he said that a Muslim should never be President of the United States of America., because Sharia Law in incompatible with The United States Constitution.

He was absolutely right.

The Center For Security Policy issued the following PDF, ” “Sharia Law Vs. The Constitution”,

Article VI: The Constitution is the supreme law of the land

  • Constitution: Article VI: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby”
  • Shariah: “The source of legal rulings for all acts of those who are morally responsible is Allah.” (a1.1, Umdat al-salik or The Reliance of the Traveller, commonly accepted work of Shariah jurisprudence); “There is only one law which ought to be followed, and that is the Sharia.” (Seyed Qutb); “Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and program of Islam regardless of the country or the nation which rules it. The purpose of Islam is to set up a State on the basis of its own ideology and program.” (Seyed Abul A’ala Maududi)

First Amendment: Freedom of religion

  • Constitution: First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ”
  • Shariah: “Those who reject Islam must be killed. If they turn back (from Islam), take hold of them and kill them wherever you find them.” Quran 4:89 ; “Whoever changed his [Islamic] religion, then kill him” Sahih al-Bukhari, 9:84:57.  In historic and modern Shariah states, Shariah law enforces dhimmi status (second-class citizen, apartheid-type laws) on nonMuslims, prohibiting them from observing their religious practices publicly, building or repairing churches, raising their voices during prayer or ringing church bells; if dhimmi laws are violated in the Shariah State, penalties are those used for prisoners of war: death, slavery, release or ransom.(o9.14, o11.0-o11.11, Umdat al-salik).

First Amendment: Freedom of speech   

  • Constitution: First Amendment: Congress shall not abridge “the freedom of speech.”  
  • Shariah: Speech defaming Islam or Muhammad is considered “blasphemy” and is punishable by death or imprisonment.

First Amendment: Freedom to dissent

  • Constitution: First Amendment: “Congress cannot take away the right of the people “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” 
  •  Shariah: Non-Muslims are not to harbor any hostility toward the Islamic state or give comfort to those who disagree with Islamic government.

Second Amendment: Right to self-defense

  • Constitution: Second Amendment: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” 
  • Shariah: Under historic and modern dhimmi laws, non-Muslims cannot possess swords, firearms or weapons of any kind.

Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Amendments: Right to due process and fair trial

  • Constitution: Fifth Amendment: “no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime… without due process of law.”  Sixth Amendment: guarantees a “public trial by an impartial jury.”  Seventh Amendment: “the right of trial by jury shall be preserved.”
  • Shariah: Hadith Sahih al-Bukhari: Muhammad said, “No Muslim should be killed for killing a Kafir (infidel).”  Non-Muslims are prohibited from testifying against Muslims.  A woman’s testimony is equal to half of a man’s.

Eighth Amendment: No cruel and unusual punishment 

  • Constitution: Eighth Amendment: “nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
  • Shariah: Under Shariah punishments are barbaric: “Cut off the hands of thieves, whether they are male or female, as punishment for what they have done – a deterrent from Allah.” Quran 5:38; A raped woman is punished:”The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication – flog each of them with a hundred stripes” (Sura 24:2).

Fourteenth Amendment: Right to equal protection and due process 

  • Constitution:  Fourteenth Amendment: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. “
  • Shariah: Under dhimmi laws enforced in modern Shariah states, Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims are not equal to Muslims before the law.  Under Shariah law, women, girls, apostates, homosexuals and “blasphemers” are all denied equality under the law. 

Given this incompatibility between Sharia Law and the Constitution of the United States of America, which our Freedom and our System of Laws are based upon, if given the choice, which would Muslims currently living in the Land of the Free and the home of the Brave choose to be faithful to?

Back on June 23, 2015, the Center for Security Policy released the following findings for a poll they took of 600 Muslims, who current live in America.

The numbers of potential jihadists among the majority of Muslims who appear not to be sympathetic to such notions raise a number of public policy choices that warrant careful consideration and urgent debate, including: the necessity for enhanced surveillance of Muslim communities; refugee resettlement, asylum and other immigration programs that are swelling their numbers and density; and the viability of so-called “countering violent extremism” initiatives that are supposed to stymie radicalization within those communities.

Overall, the survey, which was conducted by The Polling Company for the Center for Security Policy (CSP), suggests that a substantial number of Muslims living in the United States see the country very differently than does the population overall.  The sentiments of the latter were sampled in late May in another CSP-commissioned Polling Company nationwide survey.

According to the just-released survey of Muslims, a majority (51%) agreed that “Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to shariah.”  When that question was put to the broader U.S. population, the overwhelming majority held that shariah should not displace the U.S. Constitution (86% to 2%).

More than half (51%) of U.S. Muslims polled also believe either that they should have the choice of American or shariah courts, or that they should have their own tribunals to apply shariah. Only 39% of those polled said that Muslims in the U.S. should be subject to American courts.

These notions were powerfully rejected by the broader population according to the Center’s earlier national survey.  It found by a margin of 92%-2% that Muslims should be subject to the same courts as other citizens, rather than have their own courts and tribunals here in the U.S.

Even more troubling, is the fact that nearly a quarter of the Muslims polled believed that, “It is legitimate to use violence to punish those who give offense to Islam by, for example, portraying the prophet Mohammed.”

By contrast, the broader survey found that a 63% majority of those sampled said that “the freedom to engage in expression that offends Muslims or anybody else is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and cannot be restricted.”

Nearly one-fifth of Muslim respondents said that the use of violence in the United States is justified in order to make shariah the law of the land in this country.

In conclusion, I am not saying that every Muslim is on a jihad against “the infidels”, and, wish to invade our Sovereign Nation and over-throw our Government.

However, there is a difference between being an average Christian American and a Muslim, living in America.

When Christians become “radicalized”, we want to share the testimony of what God has done for us through His love, with everyone we meet. We get involved in our local church and we become better fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, and American Citizens.

When Muslims become “radicalized”, they want to “kill the Infidels” in the name of “Allah the Merciful”.

In the case of the Chechen Muslim brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon, their immersion into Radical Islam led them to “kill the infidels” that horrendous day.

In the case of the barbarians of ISIS, it has turned them into doppelgangers of the Nazi Butchers of Dachau.

For Liberals, including Pope Francis, to deny that, is disingenuous at best, and just plain dangerous at worst.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The Tyranny of the Minority: What Happens When Our System of Checks and Balances is Bypassed

th (15)Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing [a people] to slavery.- Thomas Jefferson

Politico.com reports that

Buoyed by the success of his nuclear deal with Iran, President Barack Obama is preparing to move aggressively on other long-delayed priorities, including a major climate change summit this winter and his elusive quest to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

The National Security Council’s directorate of strategic planning has been quietly building an agenda of action items for the closing year of Obama’s presidency, in a White House that sees its work as far from complete, administration officials say.

“We have no intention of resting on our laurels,” said one senior administration official. “We have an ambitious foreign policy agenda that we’ll continue to pursue aggressively throughout the remainder of [the] fourth quarter of the administration.”

Part of that agenda includes striking a calmer post-Iran deal relationship with Israel — including a November visit to the White House by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that officials announced on Friday.

Also high on the to-do list: completing a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal to which Congress gave “fast-track” approval in June; bolstering counter-terrorism partnerships in Asia and Africa; and putting U.S.-China relations on a firmer footing, a project that will include a state visit to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jingping this month.

As Obama’s presidency draws to a close, he will focus increasingly on the policies his successor will inherit after he’s gone, according to sources familiar with the administration’s thinking.

“The last 16 months actually can be very important not only for this president’s legacy, but for setting up the next president’s administration,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who is close to Obama foreign policy officials. “No matter what people say in campaigns, you’re most likely to see incremental change from administration to administration.”

Even as the Iran deal gets implemented in the months ahead, a potentially thorny process that will occupy significant bandwidth in the White House, Obama will shift his focus to climate.

An international climate summit kicks off at the end of November in Paris, where Obama hopes to find agreement on meaningful new limits on carbon gases. The summit is expected to be one focus of Xi’s visit.

Beneath the heady talk of agenda-setting, however, is the grim reality of a global stage where multiple fires burn despite Washington’s efforts to extinguish them. Obama could spend much of his final year performing triage on issues like the Islamic State, Syria’s civil war and the conflict in Ukraine.

Officials are also braced for possible new crises, including in Afghanistan, as U.S. troops withdraw from a country whose government and security forces remain fragile.

One of Obama’s post-Iran deal projects has already run into trouble as Secretary of State John Kerry has begun new diplomacy to find a political resolution to Syria’s civil war. Russia, a key backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad, has recently sent military personnel and equipment to the country—a dramatic escalation that has surprised and angered Obama and Kerry and may derail that project.

“We continue to believe that there needs to be a political solution to the conflict in Syria, and that support for the Assad regime, particularly in a military way, is unhelpful to achieving that goal,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said Friday.

And although the White House been working on a new plan to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, a key promise from Obama’s 2008 campaign, it has been bedeviled by old obstacles, including political resistance to the transfer of detainees from Cuba onto U.S. soil.

Some Pentagon and intelligence officials remain deeply wary of freeing other detainees cleared for release, and some top officials are skeptical that the camp can be shut down as long as a Republican Congress remains in power.

When our Founding Fathers sat down to provide form and substance to the laws and procedures for governing this new country, which they had fought and won a bloody war over, by pledging their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, they were very aware of the price of tyranny.

They determined that this new nation would be a Constitutional Republic, having had their fill of monarchies.

In order to ensure that no leader of this new nation would go mad with power, and become a tyrannical despot, our Founders set up a System of Checks and Balances, overseen by Three Branches of Government: the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judicial, with each branch having a distinct and LIMITED  role.

In an effort to keep this simple (in deference to any Modern American Liberals, who may be reading), here is a description of their powers:

The Legislative Branch is given the powers to make the laws. It has the following checks over the Executive Branch:

  • May override presidential vetoes with a two-thirds vote
  • Has the power over the purse strings to actually fund any executive actions
  • May remove the president through impeachment
  • Senate approves treaties
  • Senate approves presidential appointments

The Legislative Branch has the following checks over the Judicial Branch:

  • Creates lower courts

The Executive Branch is given the power to carry out the laws. It has the following checks over the Legislative Branch:

  • Veto power
  • Ability to call special sessions of Congress
  • Can recommend legislation
  • Can appeal to the people concerning legislation and more

The Executive Branch has the following checks over the Judicial Branch:

  • President appoints Supreme Court and other federal judges

The Judicial Branch is given the power to interpret the laws. It has the following checks over the Executive Branch:

  • Judges, once appointed for life, are free from controls from the executive branch
  • Courts can judge executive actions to be unconstitutional through the power of judicial review

 The Judicial Branch has the following checks over the Legislative Branch:

  • Courts can judge legislative acts to be unconstitutional.

The situation, which we as a nation, find ourselves in today, is one which our Founding Fathers sought valiantly to avoid.

We are suffering under an Imperious Presidency.

One in which the President of the United States does not care about the “Will of the People”, but, rather, is intent on implementing and enforcing his own Far Left Policial Ideology, resulting in a “Tyranny of the Minority”.

For example, the “victory” of The Iran Deal, which the Liberal website, i.com, was lauding in the article posted earlier in this blog, is one which, according to a poll from Pew Research, is supported by only 215 of Americans.

That’s a victory?

Climate Change is the Fool’s Gold of the “Politically Hip”. It is the biggest Con Job since P.T. Barham hung up a sign to fool the rubes, which read

This way to the Egress.

The Syria/ISIS/Middle East Situation is an erupting volcano of Radical Islam, which endangers the whole civilized world. And, make no mistake, boys and girls, it is Obama’s responsibility.

However, the situation which our nation finds itself in, could have been avoided…if there had been EFFECTIVE POLITICAL OPPOSTION to the plans and Machiavellian Machinations of Barack Hussein Obama.

Like the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion, who accompanied Dorothy down that fabled Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City of Oz, if the Congressional Republican Elite, led by John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, had only had heart, brains, and courage, they could have used our System of Checks and Balances to thwart, or, at least, to slow down, all of Obama’s Plans, which have succeeded in, literally, “radically changing” the Shining City Upon a Hill, into something almost unrecognizable.

It would have helped if they had found some spines, too.

Until He Comes,

KJ