Obama Speaks on Ferguson Riots Before Returning to Martha’s Vineyard. Irony is Indignant

ObamaTransparentBranco852014Yesterday afternoon, at 4:00 p.m. Obama Standard Time, (meaning 30 – 45 minutes after any time zone he is speaking in), President Barack Hussein Obama strode up to the microphone, during a respite from his taxpayer-funded vacation with his family in Martha’s Vineyard, to deliver remarks about two ongoing situations which represent the failure of both his foreign and domestic policies…the situation regarding the insurgence of the Radical Muslims of ISIS into Iraq, after Obama declared that the Iraqi War was over, and the ongoing rioting, taking place in Ferguson, MO, over the shooting death of 18 year old strong-arm robbery subject Michael Brown, at the hands of a Ferguson Police Officer.

The following are excerpts from that speach, addressing the on-going, racially-charged chaos in Ferguson, MO…

(courtesy whitehouse.gov:)

The Justice Department has opened an independent federal civil rights investigation into the death of Michael Brown. They are on the ground and, along with the FBI, they are devoting substantial resources to that investigation. The Attorney General himself will be traveling to Ferguson on Wednesday to meet with the FBI agents and DOJ personnel conducting the federal criminal investigation, and he will receive an update from them on their progress. He will also be meeting with other leaders in the community whose support is so critical to bringing about peace and calm in Ferguson.

Ronald Davis, the Director of the DOJ’s Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services — or COPS — is also traveling to Ferguson tomorrow to work with police officials on the ground. We’ve also had experts from the DOJ’s Community Relations Service working in Ferguson since the days after the shooting to foster conversations among local stakeholders and reduce tensions among the community.As Americans, we’ve got to use this moment to seek out our shared humanity that’s been laid bare by this moment — the potential of a young man and the sorrows of parents, the frustrations of a community, the ideals that we hold as one united American family.

…I’ve said this before — in too many communities around the country, a gulf of mistrust exists between local residents and law enforcement. In too many communities, too many young men of color are left behind and seen only as objects of fear. Through initiatives like My Brother’s Keeper, I’m personally committed to changing both perception and reality. And already we’re making some significant progress as people of goodwill of all races are ready to chip in. But that requires that we build and not tear down. And that requires we listen and not just shout. That’s how we’re going to move forward together, by trying to unite each other and understand each other, and not simply divide ourselves from one another. We’re going to have to hold tight to those values in the days ahead. That’s how we bring about justice, and that’s how we bring about peace.

One Fox News Contributor was not very impressed with Obama’s response to the Ferguson Riots.

Charles Krauthammer on Monday criticized President Obama’s response to the violence that has occurred at the protests in Ferguson, saying on “Special Report with Bret Baier” that “we’re a democratic society, you don’t do that.”

The St. Louis suburb has been in a state of turmoil after the fatal police shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, with protests at times turning violent and stores being looted. President Obama’s statement on Monday addressed both sides of the conflict in Ferguson- the looters and police force. 

Krauthammer, a syndicated columnist and a Fox News contributor, said Obama should have gone further in condemning the violence. 

“He said, you know, if you riot and use guns and attack the police it serves only to raise attention and stir chaos,” he said. “Well that’s an instrumental way of criticizing it, you’re not going to achieve your goals. What he should be saying is that it’s wrong. We’re a democratic society you don’t do that.”

Krauthammer said he would like to see Obama ringingly condemn the violence, saying it is clear those perpetuating violence in the city are in the wrong. 

“We really have the law on the one hand. We rioters on the other. It isn’t a hard choice between them,” he said. 

Evidently, Dr. Krauthammer, that easy choice, which the overwhelming majority of law-abiding Americans would state without hesitation, is too difficult a choice for our “first Post-Racial President” to make.

Burned twice in the past, by his distinctly un-Presidential defenses of Cambridge Professor, Henry Louis Gates, Jr.and the death of robbery suspect, Trayvon, Obama is trying desperately to not seem so racially-divisive…but, he just can’t help himself.

With his didactic tone, which he no doubt used as a Guest Lecturer at the University of Chicago, Obama attempted yesterday to make it seem to the American People, that he was unbiased regarding the situation, while all the while, seeking to assure his Black American Liberal Voting Base, that he was still “down with the struggle”.

How can Obama be “fightin’ The Man” when HE IS “THE MAN”?

As I am putting the finishing touches on today’s post, the news is reporting that the high school in Memphis from which I graduated is having gang problems. 19 year olds are dressing as students and raping young girls.

Meanwhile, meetings are being held downtown by the City Administration on the subject of the ongoing Gang Violence Problems.

If Obama truly cared about young(and old) Black Americans, he would tackle the forbidden (by Liberals) subject of Black-On-Black Crime, especially the out-of-control Violent Crime Problem.

If Obama was being honest about the Ferguson Situation, he would have addressed the video, which showed Michael Brown and some of his homies stealing cigars from a local convenience store, and bullying the owner, just so they could put marijuana in them, and smoke their “blunts”.

Perhaps, when AG Holder is in Ferguson today, he will speak to the Black guy on the eyewitness video, presently on Youtube, whose story corroborates that of the police officer Michael charged at, like a 6’$”, 250 lb., stoned bull.

He probably won’t. It would ruin the narrative.

Remember, this is the same Attorney General of the United States who refused to prosecute the two Black Panthers who were intimidating White people at the Cleveland Voting Precinct, during the 2008 Presidential Elections.

Meanwhile, as Obama was attempting to be “authentic”, I’m sure that Mooch was having her fourth lobster at her late lunch/early dinner at some posh restaurant in Martha’s Vineyard.

Were these attempts by a Former Community Organizer to appear unbiased, hypocritical? You betcha. In fact, as I tweeted yesterday, the President’s Speech was an example of…

Irony: A Black President talking about Black men being left behind,  as he gets ready to return to Martha’s Vineyard.  #tcot #KJ #Ferguson

Until He Comes,

KJ

Why I am Still a “Christian American Conservative” March 30, 2014

Christian America Fish LogoLately, I’ve had fellow internet posters ask me why I am so old-fashioned. Why I don’t just “live and let live”. Why do I rail against the recently re-elected Administration of Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm)?

As I write this post  the “President” of Russia is going about the task of rebuilding the old Soviet Union, while our own feckless “President” issued harshly-worded letters to him. Meanwhile, Iran continues to build a nuclulear bomb, even though our administration claims we have an “agreement” with them to stop.

The First Lady, her children, and her mother have recently finished a lengthy “fact-finding mission” to Communist China on our dime.

We’ve got young people who can’t read, but they’ve got avatars in every violent video game you have ever heard of.

What in the name of all that’s holy, is going on in this country?

We’ve got babies having babies…when they don’t yank them from their wombs and kill them.e’ve got Gays serving openly in our Armed Forces, and appearing in uniform, in order to make a political point in a parade.

We’ve got black-on-black homocide climbing at an alarming rate in Detroit and Memphis, but no one seems to want to talk about it. That would be RAAACIIIST.

We’ve got gangs recruiting in our schools…but, again,  no one seems to want to talk about it. It might upset little Jimmy.

We’ve got a President who says that we don’t have the intestinal fortitude or the intelligence to achieve success on our own.

We’ve got a First Lady who, while watching police and firefighters fold Old Glory at a ceremony honoring and remembering our fallen on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, said, “all this just for a flag”, while her husband nodded in agreement.

Now, more than ever, we need to return to the values that made this country the greatest on the face of the Earth.

I’ve been asked what the phrase “Christian American Conservative” means.  Please allow me to explain.

First word:  Christian – A follower of Jesus Christ.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Believe Something
Follow Something
Live Something

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

J. Matt Barber wrote in the Washington Times that

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

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

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

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

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

Even the Brits understand what American Conservatism is.

Per blogs.telegraph.co.uk:

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

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

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

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

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

My hope is that, during these troubled times, your heart is held by Him.

May God bless you and yours,

KJ

Crimea Situation Intensifies. Obamas, Bidens Take Vacations. Who’s Minding “The Store”?

ObamaJarrettWhen the going gets tough…the not-so-tough go on vay-cay.

Fox News reports that

The White House brushed off concerns Friday that, with the crisis in Crimea intensifying, now might not be the best time for President Obama — and his vice president — to go on vacation.

The travel schedules of both the president and Vice President Biden have come under scrutiny, given the rapidly changing situation in Ukraine. Obama, already in Florida to talk about education, was planning to spend some family time this weekend in Key Largo, Fla., where he arrived late in the day. Biden, meanwhile, will be in the Virgin Islands.

Despite some apparent discussion over cutting the president’s trip short, White House spokesman Josh Earnest indicated the president would be able to handle the crisis from out of the office.

“The president over the course of a very busy week has maintained his schedule and his ability to monitor ongoing events in Ukraine. I would anticipate that he’ll do the same thing this weekend,” Earnest said. “And the fact of the matter is what the president is doing this weekend in Florida is essentially what the president will be doing if he stayed back at the White House. It’s just that the weather will be a little warmer.”

He said Obama plans to spend time with his wife and daughters while in the Keys. “There are some recreational amenities on the property, including workout facilities, tennis courts, a couple of golf courses,” he noted.

So, who’s “minding the store”? Why, Valerie Jarrett, of course.

In an article, posted on August 12, 2012, on AmericanThinker.com, “Obama’s Strange Dependence on Valerie Jarrett” by Karin McQuillan, it was reported that…

…According to Edward Klein, a reporter once asked Obama if he ran every decision by Jarrett. Obama answered, “Yep. Absolutely.”

Edward Klein, former foreign editor of Newsweek and editor of the New York Times Magazine for many years, describes Jarrett as “ground zero in the Obama operation, the first couple’s friend and consigliere.” Klein — who claims he used a minimum of two sources for each assertion in his book on the Obama presidency, The Amateur — writes in detail about Jarrett opposing the raid on bin Laden. She told Obama not to take the political risk. Klein thought Obama ignored Jarrett’s advice. Miniter tells us he listened to her, three times telling Special Operations not to take the risk to go after bin Laden.

We need to understand the role Valerie Jarrett plays in Obama’s private and political life.

“If it wasn’t for Valerie Jarrett, there’d be no Barack Obama to complain about,” starts Klein’s chapter on Jarrett. He quotes Michelle Obama on Jarrett’s influence over her husband: “She knows the buttons, the soft spots, the history, the context.”

No one outside Michelle has the access or power over Obama’s decision-making like Jarrett does. Here’s an odd little fact that gives some insight into what kind of president Obama is: Michelle, Michelle’s mother, and Valerie, and only a few others in Washington, are allowed to call Barack by his first name. After work, Jarrett joins Obama at night in the Family Quarters, where she dines often with the First Family. She goes on vacation with them.

Jarrett’s title is the weird mouthful “Assistant to the President for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs.” She is the gatekeeper, but she is also much more than that. She occupies Karl Rove’s and Hillary’s old office and has an all-access pass to meetings. She shows up at the National Security Council, at meetings on the economy and budget. She stays behind to advise Obama on what to think and do. Obama uses her as his left-wing conscience. Klein’s sources describe how at each pressing issue, Obama turns to ask her, “What do you think the right thing to do is?” As president, he likes to have her next to him “as the voice of authentic blackness in a White House that is staffed largely by whites.”

A longtime friend told Klein that Jarrett is the “eyes, ears and nose” of the Obamas. She tells them whom to trust, who is saying what, whom to see at home and abroad. Michelle wants her there: “I told her … it would give me a sense of comfort to know that (Barack) had somebody like her there by his side.” As Obama told the New York Times, “Valerie is one of my oldest friends. … I trust her completely.”

…Valerie Jarrett reflects Obama in many ways. Like himself, Valerie looks more white than black. Her mother had three white grandparents, and her father was black. Like Obama, she lived in the Muslim world for part of her childhood, when her father practiced medicine in Iran. Like Obama, she is a committed leftist. But there are crucial differences. Her father was not a drunk Kenyan polygamist like Obama’s, but a famous pathologist and geneticist. Her mother was not a leftist expatriate like Obama’s, but a distinguished psychologist. Valerie married into Chicago’s black elite, the top rung of African-American society. She went to Stanford, got a law degree from Michigan, and became Mayor Richard Daley’s deputy chief of staff, “the public black face” of his administration.

When Valerie Jarrett hired Michelle to work for Daley and befriended her, the Obamas gained access to the exclusive world of upper-class black Chicago politics. Valerie knew everyone whom it was important to know in black and Jewish money circles. She gave Barack entrée and legitimacy. She financed and promoted his ambitions for national office.

Obama finally belonged. Not that Jarrett’s record in Chicago was anything to be proud of. Jarrett was known for her corruption and incompetence. Daley finally had to fire her after a scandal erupted over her role in misuse of public funds in the city’s substandard public housing. She went on to become CEO of Habitat Executive Services, pulling down $300,000 in salary and $550,000 in deferred compensation. Again, she managed a housing complex that was seized by government inspectors for slum conditions. The scandal didn’t matter to Obama. The sordid corruption was all part of Jarrett’s Chicago success story.

Every insider in Chicago told Klein the same thing: Jarrett has no qualifications to be the principal advisor to the president of the United States. She doesn’t understand how Washington works, how relations with Congress work, how the federal process works. She doesn’t understand how the economy works, how the military works, how national security works. But she understands how Obama works.

The president turns to Valerie Jarrett for definitive advice on all these issues. She has given him terrible advice over and over, and still he turns to her.

Her true job is to make Obama feel proud of himself. When Obama looks at Jarrett, he sees himself as whole and good and real. He is no longer the fake black, the fatherless kid flailing around in a white world, tortured by the unfairness of it all. She fills the emptiness at the core of his identity. She admires and adores him. Jarrett told New Yorker editor David Remnick that the president is “just too talented to do what ordinary people do.” And the icing on the cake — she shares his left-wing politics that project unfairness out onto white America.

Obama relies on Jarrett to create the White House bubble he likes to live in, where his narcissism is stroked and his desire to do the big, left-wing thing is encouraged. Jarrett is the doorman. She runs access to the president. As Klein puts it, she guards him from meeting with “critics and complainers who might deflate his ego.” No one gets past Jarrett who has an incompatible point of view.

The authoress goes on to report that Ms. Jarrett is the reason that Rob Emmanuel and Richard Daley are no longer members of the Obama Administration.

For both the President and Vice-President to not cancel their Vacation Plans, with an “involuntary excursion” into the Ukraine going on, is negligent at best and Dereliction of Duty, at worst.

And, for a non-elected individual, such as Ms. Jarrett to wield so much power in our nation, is equally as distressing.

Now is not the time to spend more of the taxpayer’s money on vacations. Especially, after it was just announced that Michelle Obama and her two girls will be taking an extensive “fact-finding trip” to China, courtesy of us American Taxpayers.

All Nero did was fiddle.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Income Inequality and the Imperious Presidency: An Opinion From a Bitter Clinger Out Here in the “Wilderness”

Obama (King Louis) and Michelle (Marie)You have heard the story of Maria Antoinette, right?

Sometime around 1789, after being told that her French subjects had no bread, Marie-Antoinette (bride of France’s King Louis XVI) supposedly, snottily sniffed, “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”—“Let them eat cake.” After that imperious and insensitive remark, the queen became a hated symbol of the decadent monarchy and threw gasoline on the fire of a revolution that would cause her to literally lose her head several years later.

After enduring 5 years of the Presidency of Barack Hussein Obama and the First Wookie, err…Lady, Michelle “Mooch” Obama, my opinion is that they make Louis and Marie look like pikers.

You can’t say we weren’t warned, though.

Back in April of 2008, Democrat Presidential Candidate Barack Hussein Obama, spoke the following words during a fundraiser in Pennsylvania:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them.

And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

The imperious, better-than-you attitude of the First Family is the stuff legends are made of.   And. not the good kind…

Black Conservative Pundit, Mychal Massie, reported the other day,  that

Obama unfathomably sang the blues that Michelle Obama didn’t get paid for her duties “even though that’s a tough job.” But he omitted the fact that she has twenty-six attendants (i.e., staff) at an annual cost to taxpayers of $1,750,000. That includes a hair dresser and the same make-up artist Oprah uses who charges $15,000 per day for his services. Actually I’m surprised she didn’t try to put her daughters on her payroll insofar as she lied and named them as staff when she took her taxpayer-funded African safari where she ate her way through the jungle.

Then there was the DailyMail.co.uk story that revealed just how hard it is for Michelle in her life as a public servant in the role of First Lady, “Michelle Obama Accused Of Spending $10m In Public Money On Vacations.” This included “expensive massages, top shelf vodka, and five-star hotels.” The article, which was written in August 2011, reported that she had “spent $10 million of U.S. taxpayers’ money on vacations alone in the past year. Branding her ‘disgusting’ and ‘a vacation junkie’, they say the [then] 47-year-old mother-of-two has been indulging in five-star hotels, where she splashes out on expensive massages and alcohol. The ‘top source’ told the National Enquirer: ‘It’s disgusting. Michelle is taking advantage of her privileged position while the most hardworking Americans can barely afford a week or two off work.”  

The DailyMail article quoting a source specifically noted, “Michelle also enjoys drinking expensive booze during her trips. She favours martinis with top-shelf vodka and has a taste for rich sparkling wines. … The vacations are totally Michelle’s idea. She’s like a junkie. She can’t schedule enough getaways, and she lives one to the next — all the while sticking it to hardworking Americans.” There were the separate presidential jets that had them arrive 4 hours apart on the same day for their lavish Martha’s Vineyard vacation at a substantial cost to taxpayers. A vacation where she ate, drank, and spent, as Obama was reported to have read books “about porn kings and gangsters”…

Also recently, First Lady Michelle Obama continued her snobbery and her condescension of us “bitter clingers” in “Flyover Country”, during a DNCC Woman’s Luncheon at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, California.

…So make no mistake about it, it matters who we elect to represent us in Washington. It matters. And right now, we are just 17 seats away from winning back the House of Representatives — 17 seats. (Applause.) But I’m also going to be straight with you: Most districts in this country are not like San Francisco. (Laughter.) And we have a lot of tight races in other parts of California and all across the country. And every single one of these seats matters. Every single vote in the House of Representatives matters, because so many critically important issues come before our Congress.

… So we need you to dig deep. We need you to max out. And once you’ve given what you can, then we need you to go out there and volunteer. Leave San Francisco. (Laughter.) Leave this bastion. Go out into the wilderness. (Laughter.) And roll up your sleeves, because we know that those person-to-person contacts, those calls and doors knocked on, all of that can also mean the difference between victory and defeat.

I find the Obamas’ upper-crust attitude and lifestyle extremely hypocritical , considering their push against  “Income Inequality” and Obama’s inclusion of Class Warfare in every single speech he gives.

But, then again, Marxist Leaders have always preached in favor of “Spreading the Wealth Around” and led extravagant lifestyles.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama, Mandela, and Thatcher: “When the Legend Becomes Fact, Report the Legend.”

MandelaMichelleIt has been announced that President Barack Hussein Obama, his wife, Michelle, and two former American Presidents will be attending the Funeral of Former South African President, Nelson Mandela.

This diplomatic show of respect comes 7 months after Obama’s Presidential snub of the funeral of one of the most pivotal figures in the war against Communism in the 1980s, British  Prime Minister and staunch ally of America, the “Iron Lady”,  Margaret Thatcher.

On April 13, 2013, National Security Analyst K.T. McFarland posted the following Opinion Piece on foxnews.com:

Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was laid to rest today in Great Britain. The “Iron Lady” died last week at age 87.

Some commentators have expressed surprise that President Obama did not send a high-level official delegation to her funeral. I’m way beyond surprised. I’m ashamed….and angry.

After all, it is standard operating procedure for the Vice President or First Lady or, at a minimum the Secretary of State, to attend funerals of foreign leaders, even those from lesser nations.

Shame on you, Mr. President. You and your administration look cheap, small and petty.

It goes without saying that when one of the longest serving leaders of America’s closet and most enduring ally dies, the United States should send a large and distinguished delegation of America’s leaders, past and present.

Not this time.

The White House offered a lame excuse — all the senior Obama administration officials are way too busy to take 24 hours out of their hectic schedules to pay respects to the woman who helped win the Cold War, turn around the British economy, and shatter the glass ceiling of the English-speaking world.

Vice President Biden, for example, was presiding over a series of votes on gun control in the Senate, late Wednesday afternoon. Okay, understood. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that no senior administration official could spare the time or make the effort to head ‘across the pond’ for a few hours.

One suspects something else is at play besides busy government executives struggling to get through their long work days, staggering under the weight of their official responsibilities.

Could it be that Margaret Thatcher was a Tory? That she battled British Trade Unionists and won? That she worked hand-in-hand with Ronald Reagan, the incarnation of evil for many left-wing Democrats?

It used to be American politics stopped at the water’s edge, and that American

President’s honored foreign leaders, regardless of their political persuasions or party.

No longer.

By failing to send even one senior level official to Mrs. Thatcher’s funeral, this President has shown that partisan politics now extend beyond the grave.

Shame on you, Mr. President. You and your administration look cheap, small and petty.

Former Secretaries of State Kissinger, Shultz and Baker did attend Mrs. Thatcher’s funeral. Kissinger opened relations with China and hammered out the first Middle East peace agreements in the 1970’s. Shultz negotiated the first arms reduction agreements with the Soviet Union in the 1980’s. Baker helped bring down the Berlin Wall, push the Soviet Empire to the point of collapse, and won the first Gulf War in the 1990’s. But while they were giants in their day, they are not part of your team. The snub to the British was palpable – only yesterday’s men could be spared.

And frankly, Mr. President, this makes you look foolish as well.

Perhaps if you had sent some senior members of your administration as part of the American delegation, they could have pulled aside those former leaders to ask for a little advice. Because, Mr. President, in case you’ve been too busy to notice, your reset with Russia is a failure, your Middle East peace efforts are going nowhere, and North Korea has just become a nuclear power.

Back to the Present. Are you aware that President Obama ordered all American Flags at Government Installations to be flown at half-mast to honor Nelson Mandela?

Who was Nelson Mandela?

He was a transformative figure, to be sure. But, he was not the saint that Obama, his administration and their media lackeys are portraying him as.

Back in 1990, Tim Graham of the Media Research Center wrote the following for their newsletter, MediaWatch, on the occasion of Mandela’s trip to the United States. He recently re-posted the information on newsbusters.org.

Communism. In their rush to proclaim him a symbol of freedom, none of the networks covered Mandela’s ideology or the relationship between Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party (SACP). In his own handwritten manuscript How To Be A Good Communist, Mandela wrote “Under a Communist government, South Africa will become a land of milk and honey.” With the exception of NBC’s Bob Kur and Mike Jensen, no reporter even mentioned Mandela’s support of economic nationalization. With Mandela’s ideas and “loyal and disciplined” membership in the ANC, would South Africa become a multi-racial democracy or a one-party Marxist state like its neighbors? No one asked.

Political Prisoner. “The former long-time political prisoner will address Congress,” Dan Rather announced when Mandela arrived. TV reporters called Mandela a political prisoner eight times, but never referred to Mandela as a saboteur or terrorist, even though Amnesty International declared in 1985 that “Mandela had participated in planning acts of sabotage and inciting violence, so that he could no longer fulfill the criteria for the classification of political prisoners.” Network reporters did report Mandela’s refusal to renounce violence in 14 stories, but most referred to it only in the context of fighting apartheid, not in the context of the ANC’s involvement in black-on-black violence or the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians.

Arafat, Castro, Qaddafi. Without Ted Koppel’s June 21 “town meeting” with Mandela, the tour might have escaped controversy completely. Questioners asked Mandela to explain his praise for Yasser Arafat, Fidel Castro and Moammar Qaddafi. The questions were prompted by Mandela hailing Castro’s Cuba in May: “There’s one thing where that country stands out head and shoulders above the rest. That is in its love for human rights and liberty.” A week later in Libya, he praised Qaddaf’s “commitment to the fight for peace and human rights in the world.” These statements, which appeared in The New Republic, were never quoted on the networks when he said them, or when he visited here.

The networks barely reported Mandela’s ABC remarks until Jewish and Cuban groups and print outlets made them an issue, mentioning the controversy in 26 stories. ABC, which taped the Koppel special in the afternoon on June 21, didn’t find the remarks worth including in a story on that night’s newscast summarizing the “town meeting.”

The next morning, Good Morning America did one story on the remarks, but left it out of its three other newscasts. NBC’s Today aired three stories without mentioning the remark. Harold Dow left it out of the one story on CBS This Morning. In fact, NBC and CBS dropped the Mandela story from its morning news for the next two days. On the Evening News, CBS gave the remarks brief mentions on June 22, 25, and 28. NBC Nightly News spent 45 seconds on the remarks on June 22, and included brief mentions on June 24 and 26. But the show ignored Mandela from June 27 to 29, when Mandela was greeted by thousands of protesting Cubans in Miami.

ABC’s World News Tonight was the only newscast to question Mandela’s contentions. Reporter James Walker noted: “Many find it a paradox that Mandela asks Americans to involve themselves in South Africa’s internal affairs while he refuses to pass judgment on the internal affairs of Libya or Cuba, or to involve himself in America’s racial problems.” But Peter Jennings dampened the impact with his remark on Castro: “The Cuban President has long been a leading supporter of liberation movements in southern Africa.”

Puerto Rican Assassins. The networks never reported some other terrorists Mandela praised. He welcomed to his Harlem speech platform three of the four Puerto Rican terrorists who shot and wounded five U.S. Congressmen in 1954. “We support the cause of anyone who is fighting for self-determination, and our attitude is the same, no matter who it is. I would be honored to sit on the platform with the four comrades you refer to.” The quote appeared in the early local edition of The New York Times June 25, but the Times dropped it from later local editions and the national edition.

ANC Antics. The networks have repeatedly failed to report recent events that give the Mandela legend a less lyrical ring. When a South African court implicated his wife Winnie in the beating and murder of a 14-year-old, only CNN PrimeNews briefly noted the incident. ABC, CBS and NBC have ignored it. On June 11, ANC members murdered Sipho Phungulwa in apparent retribution for Phulungwa’s public allegations that the ANC tortured and killed dissident members. The networks have never mentioned it.

ABC’s Don Kladstrup was the only reporter to put Mandela’s importance in South Africa in context: “Mandela is not the undisputed leader of all South African blacks.” Kladstrup reported that more than six black organizations are fighting apartheid, and interviewed black activists who said “Heaven help us if the ANC takes over here” and “If you do not go along with them, they will run roughshod over you.” Kladstrup reported: “Many complain: why does Nelson Mandela talk with President de Klerk, but refuse even to meet with Chief Buthelezi, leader of South Africa’s Zulus?” Kladstrup wondered whether a multi-racial democracy would emerge: “Many fear not until blacks remove the wall of intolerance that now divides them.”

I’m not saying that we should not have representatives at Mandela’s Funeral.  He was a noted World Leader. However, as Reporter Maxwell Scott said in the John Wayne/Jimmy Stewart Classic, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence”

This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

Mandela is an iconic figure to the American Left, and is thus being portrayed as such by the Obama Administration and the MSM.

I predict that t-shirts honoring him will soon be as popular as those honoring Che, and, for the same dubious reason.

A final observation: I thought that Barack Hussein Obama was supoosed to be the “First Post-Racial President”?

Until He Comes,

KJ

“Sequester” Must Mean “Party” in Kenyan

marie-antoinette-obamaSo, here we are , in the middle of a sequester, which is predicted to last a decade. Obama has cut services to our Armed Forces, and other necessary government functions, in a macabre effort to make his own suggestion, sequestration, as painful to average Americans as possible, in order to (in his egocentric mind) garner popularity for his Tax and Spend Economic Policies.

TheHill.com reports that

President Obama warned Saturday that automatic spending cuts known as the sequester threaten to stifle the surge in job growth the nation saw in February.

Switching from the adversarial tone he has used to pressure Republican leaders in recent weeks, the president appealed to what he called the vision both parties share for the country.

“As Democrats and Republicans, we may disagree on the best way to achieve our goals, but I’m confident we can agree on what those goals should be,” Obama said in his weekly address.

He cited a vibrant middle class, an education system that gives more workers the skills to compete in the job market, a reformed immigration system and “safer streets for our children,” a veiled reference to gun-violence reforms.

Obama acknowledged that progress on these issues “won’t be easy,” but sounded an optimistic tone.

“I still believe that compromise is possible. I still believe we can come together to do big things. And I know there are leaders on the other side who share that belief,” he said.

The president touted the February jobs report from the Labor Department showing the economy grew by 236,000 jobs and the unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent.

Wall Street analysts had predicted a job spurt between 150,000 and 160,000. In response, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 67 points on Friday to close at an all-time high.

Obama noted the unemployment rate is now lower than when he took office after businesses created 6.4 million jobs over the past three years.

But he warned partisan battles in Washington could disrupt the recovery:

“The last thing we should do is allow Washington politics to get in the way,” he said. “You deserve better than the same political gridlock and refusal to compromise that has too often passed for serious debate over the last few years.”

He touted his recent outreach to Republicans, including a dinner with a dozen senators at the Jefferson Hotel in downtown Washington on Wednesday.

He said the group discussed “smarter ways to grow our economy and reduce our deficits than the arbitrary cuts of the so-called ‘sequester’ that recently went into place.”

Average Americans’ jobs are not coming back any time soon, under this Administration’s Failed Economic Policy.

However, Obama’s staff is doing just fine, thankyaverymuch.

Per FoxNews.com:

The latest 2012 salary figures released by the White House show 20 staffers were making the maximum $172,200. Many of them are well-known President Obama aides, including Press Secretary Jay Carney and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. Most carry the title of “assistant to the president.”

But underneath them are dozens of “deputy” assistants and “special” assistants to the president, most making six-figure salaries — like the climate change advisers. A review of the 2012 salaries by FoxNews.com shows 139 White House staffers making $100,000 or more.

The White House often attracts top-tier lawyers, bankers, security experts and others who were making far more in the private sector. Any administration wants to offer good money in order to lure the right people into — or back into — public service.

But the payroll under the Obama White House has expanded since the Bush administration. The payroll went from $33 million in 2008 to $39 million in 2009. Since then, the Obama administration has scaled back its White House staff expenses, but the payroll was still at $37.8 million in 2012.

There are two more employees making the maximum salary now than in the final year of the Bush administration. Two ethics advisers each make close to $140,000.

The chief calligrapher makes $96,725. Another calligrapher makes over $94,000, while another makes close to $86,000.

On Friday, White House Deputy Press Secretary John Earnest said the White House will be affected by the sequester much like other agencies — and in some capacity will impose furloughs.

“We’re also faced with making some tough decisions when it comes to ongoing projects, when it comes to purchasing equipment and supplies. But we’re also a pretty personnel-heavy agency, if you will. So that means … there will be employees of components who work here at the White House that will be facing pay cuts, that will be facing furloughs,” he said.

Hey…no worries in the Former “People’s House”…the Obamas are not about to let poor stewardship of our nation’s economy and a minor problem like average Americans struggling to survive, stand in the way of a good par-tay!

According to Ben Shapiro, in an article, posted on Breitbart.com,

The same week that President Obama’s administration announced that due to sequestration, White House tours would be cancelled, sources at the White House announced that it would be hosting megastars Adele and Beyonce at Michelle’s 50th birthday party next year. “America’s First Lady will be holding a huge celebrity-packed party for her birthday at the White House next year and, as she adores Adele and Beyonce, she has asked them both to sing,” the source told the UK Daily Mail. The source did say that “The Obamas will pay Adele’s expenses as it’s a private party, not a State one.”

But will they pay all the expenses of the party? Security arrangements? Food? Cleanup? White House parties are expensive affairs.

It’s obvious that the White House’s priorities don’t lie with the people. They lie with the personal party predilections of the Obamas.

While the Secret Service protection during White House tours costs some $74,000 per week – the cost the White House brags it is saving on the cancelled tours — Air Force One costs $175,750 per flight hour, not including pilots, airmen, and Secret Service. (Some sources say the cost for the tours is $18,000 per week.) Obama has taken several pricey jaunts to locations including, most recently, Florida in the past few months. And those parties at the White House? They certainly cost a fair bit of money, but we’ll never hear how much; as the Washington Post put it back in 2012, “getting a straight answer about the cost of any White House party is almost impossible.”

There is little chance that the taxpayers will not foot some of the expense of Mrs. Obama’s magical 50th. And there is no chance that the “people’s house” will be open to the “people” nearly as much as it is to the Obamas’ celebrity superfriends in coming weeks.

As I’ve written before:

OUR Income = HIS Revenue

Let them eat arugula!

Until He Comes,

KJ

Why I am Still a “Christian American Conservative”

Christian America Fish LogoLately, I’ve had fellow internet posters ask me, why I am so old-fashioned. Why I don’t just “live and let live”. Why I rail against the recently re-elected Administration of Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm).

As I write this post there is a former cop, turned psychopath, lying in a drawer in a California morgue, extra crispy, a reflection of his status in the after-life, and yet, during his murder spree, he was worshiped as a cult hero.

The before-mentioned President and First Lady (an exaggeration in terms) are taking separate vacations, on opposite corners of our country on our dime.

We’ve got young people who can’t read, but they’ve got avatars in every violent video game you have ever heard of.

What in the name of all that’s holy, is going on in this country?

We’ve got babies having babies…when they don’t yank them from their wombs and kill them.e’ve got Gays serving openly in our Armed Forces, and appearing in uniform, in order to make a political point in a parade.

We’ve got black-on-black homocide climbing at an alarming rate in Detroit and Memphis, but no one seems to want to talk about it. That would be RAAACIIIST.

We’ve got gangs recruiting in our schools…but, again,  no one seems to want to talk about it. It might upset little Jimmy.

We’ve got a president who says that we don’t have the intestinal fortitude or the intelligence to achieve success on our own.

We’ve got a First Lady who, while watching police and firefighters fold Old Glory at a ceremony honoring and remembering our fallen on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, said, “all this just for a flag”, while her husband nodded in agreement.

Now, more than ever, we need to return to the values that made this country the greatest on the face of the Earth.

I’ve been asked what the phrase “Christian American Conservative” means.  Please allow me to explain.

First word:  Christian – A follower of Jesus Christ.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

J. Matt Barber wrote in the Washington Times that

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

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

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

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

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

Even the Brits understand what American Conservatism is.

Per blogs.telegraph.co.uk:

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

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

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

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

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

My hope is that, during these troubled times, your heart is held by Him.

May God bless you and yours,

KJ