Shrinking US, The Desert Classic In Syria

U.S. Sees Russian Drive Against CIA-Backed Rebels in Syria - WSJ:

How many times did we see headlines hammering on any "failed" W foreign policy during the W administration?  Harry Reid said that Iraq was lost in April of 2007 even STILL, with BO screwing up on Iraq beyond the maximum anyone could imagine, it isn't completely lost even YET! This video needs to be etched in EVERYONE's MIND ... it is the "essence of BO".

But one thing we never lacked was extremely direct, if not completely insane and over the top criticism of every single move that the W administration made.  The press was totally energized -- casualties, territory losses, criticisms or challenges from foreign governments, accidents, costs -- the list was literally endless, and the drumbeat of criticism never ended. If the press treated both sides the same way, this would be appropriate for an "adversarial press" (perhaps with a bit less false and over the top reporting as per W years).

How different it is for BO. Here is a paragraph from the linked column ...

U.S. officials say they now believe the Russians have been directly targeting CIA-backed rebel groups that pose the most direct threat to Mr. Assad since the campaign began on Wednesday, both to firm up regime positions and to send a message to Mr. Obama’s administration.

There you have it ... just the facts, and pretty muted with very few headlines. BO established a policy that he claimed was a success in Yemen, it wasn't, and not only fails miserably in Syria, the Russians kill the few rump forces that policy trained just so everyone gets to see how truly hapless the US is. This is the moral equivalent of the Jimmuh Carter Desert Classic! America is destroyed at home and an object of derision on the world stage!

Does anybody remember BO snarkily telling Romney that "the 1980's want their foreign policy back"?

Is it petty to bring it up? SURE ... but really, just how many times did you see or hear "Mission Accomplished" ... the ship's banner, meaning the mission of the SHIP had been accomplished, but never the less, a meme that was used by the media to maximum advantage against W.

When the shoe is on the other foot, the story is MIA, even when it is completely true and it was BO's words and he really and snarkily meant it! Even in the right wing press doesn't come even close to the day by day cynical attack that W suffered under for 8 long years on issue after issue -- sometimes real, but in many cases fake.

It is insanely biased, but it is just the way it is.



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BO Roseburg, Using the Dead

Obama visit to Roseburg stirs local anger about his support for gun control after shooting | OregonLive.com:

It is hard to find any reporting of the fact that many of the people of Roseburg OR are not happy to see BO swoop in and use their dead as political props for his ideas on gun control. It makes me think back to a piece I wrote in 2010 while the media was coming unglued about BO having any opposition at all -- the Tea Party.

W had plenty of opposition from day 1 -- we heard about him being appointed rather than elected, Cheney and Halliburton, his supposed stupidity, etc -- from day 1. There were ZERO concerns in the media about "he is the President, he ought to be supported". Opposition was patriotic in those days!

Even in the 2004 election, when W included pictures from 9-11 into campaign material, the media went wild -- "using the tragedy for politics" was unseemly, and "the wound was too fresh".

BO? Completely different -- he makes a habit of using mass shootings for politics and even when locals don't enjoy what he is doing it simply isn't a story.

Yet another case of the vast bulk of people being led by the media narrative to completely different mental pastures depending on the spin. It is impossible to not be led unless you REALLY pay attention here, because they operate just like a master magician with indirection, misdirection, alternative story lines and any mechanism at all they can use to make the masses buy into what they are selling.

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Republican Frustration ... Talk!

http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/story/opinion/columnists/2015/10/01/thomas-sowell-good-riddance/73151748/

A very astute one from Sowell. Republicans have to accept that the vast majority of the media and even more of the university intelligentsia are going to be totally against anything they do. If they want people to see their case they have to MAKE THE CASE THEMSELVES! Which is yet another reason that Boehner has been such a disaster.

Today’s Republicans who proclaim a need to “reach out” to a wider constituency almost invariably mean pandering to those groups’ current beliefs, not showing them how your agenda and your principles — if you have any — apply to their situation and to the good of the country. 

You won’t swing a whole constituency of Democrats your way, and neither did Ronald Reagan. But he swung enough of them to win elections and to force Congressional Democrats to respect the “Reagan Democrats” he had won over.

We all know that Bill Clinton was the last president to balance the budget. Small problem, it WAS NOT Clinton, but rather the Republican Congress led by Newt Gingrich that accomplished the task -- and took the hits for the "cuts" in the RATE OF GROWTH of some of the budget, especially Medicare. Gingrich as a good enough spokesman that at least those of us who pay a lot of attention know the truth. Even the BEST of Republican spokesman are going to fall short of having NBC, ABC, CBS, NY Times, CNN, etc, etc against them -- but you MUST TRY!

As Sowell points out, Boehner didn't even manage to mumble. It turns out that the much hated "sequester" and "government shutdowns" for which the Republicans were thoroughly castigated have resulted in some actual (though smaller than any conservative would desire) budget reductions.

The $150 billion budget decline of 4% is the first time federal expenditures have fallen for two consecutive years since the end of the Korean War.

Compared to spending in the $3.5T area per year, $150B is chicken feed, BUT! NOBODY ... not Reagan nor Newt ever REDUCED Federal spending for two years since the Korean War! Admittedly, it was "reduced" from such obscene ridiculous procine levels as to be completely beyond belief due to the election of BO and Democrats having a 60 vote Senate + the House, but STILL! 

But, as Sowell correctly points out, effectively nobody knows ... I'm an idiot that reads and Googles too much. 

What is the sound of the budget dropping if there isn't anyone in the woods to hear it?

Calling Ben Carson a 'Coon' Ok?

Ben Carson Called 'Coon' by Ivy League Professor for NASCAR Comments | National Review Online:



Looks likely ... he is a conservative, she is a black liberal.



The Oregon shooter was the same race was whatever BO is ... BO's mom was white, dad black. Shooter's mom black, dad white -- but at least the LA Times tried to make him a WHITE Supremacist, and his race and his mother's race seem to approach state secrets. Looks like another Zimmerman "white hispanic" situation.



Race, gender, "hate speech", wealth, truth  -- everything has become infinitely malleable in the service of the narrative of The Party and it's media. We're definitely beyond the looking glass into a world where everything means precisely what The Party says it does -- no more, no less.



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Oregon, Lost and Evil

Another Grim Benchmark in Chicago's Record Year of Gun Violence - The Atlantic:

Our nation was founded by very decent people -- the vast majority were Christian, many of the founders at the time were "Deists" -- believers that a sovereign God created an ordered universe and then just stood back, but event they asserted that our nation could not be government under the principles they put in place without faith in God and religion. John Adams stated it directly:

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

We are no longer that nation -- we are a lost nation that has abandoned its heritage and culture and now attempts to base most of our lives on pleasure, leisure, human developed ideals (like "environmentalism"), ill defined utopian dreams like "diversity", consumption, greed, adherence to political and popular causes (like gay "marriage", etc). Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.

Yeats may have said it best of all ... interestingly, a "gyre" is a historical cycle of about 2000 years.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

The linked article at the top points out that in the past two weekends in Chicago, the toll is 13 dead and 98 wounded. Chicago has record gun violence again this year. As I've covered before, those lives do not advance The Party (TP-D) narrative that the ONLY thing that can be done in EVERY case is to add more government.  Illinois and Chicago in particular have some of the most draconian gun laws in this country. So such violence tends to not get a lot of national attention -- we are to avert our eyes.

The toll included four men killed and at least 53 people wounded between Friday evening and early Monday morning, according to police. Last weekend, nine people were killed and at least 45 were wounded.

When a nation is evil and lost, having leadership even remotely connected to any reality is impossible. The blind demand to be led by the blind. This is what BO had to say yesterday -- complete remarks here:

We know that states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths. So the notion that gun laws don't work, or just will make it harder for law-abiding citizens and criminals will still get their guns is not borne out by the evidence.

He is totally and provably wrong. He is stating the OPPOSITE of the truth and in general nobody is calling him on it! Can he really be that disconnected? My God, he came from Chicago, he lives in DC, he HAS to know that the US cities with the harshest gun laws are the HIGHEST in gun deaths! He is directly and 100% lying to our faces and it isn't even newsworthy!

So the rest of his speech is completely based on a lie. It assumes that some set of laws is going to keep people safer -- but as I've pointed out before, the US is the 111th worst country in the world relative to the  murder rate, more like 200th in the world if you take out the big US cities controlled by TP. Would you REALLY be less dead if murdered with something other than a gun?

Our nation is being consumed by evil. We have always had plenty of guns, and in fact, our murder rate has actually gone down as the number of guns has gone up, but as the poem says, our ears can mostly no longer hear the truth at all.

BO didn't wait to find out that the shooter was half black (like BO himself), that he asked victims their religion and shot the ones that were Christian, and CERTAINLY not how it was that he got his guns. His only care was POLITICAL (as always) and himself ... he referred to himself 28 times in the short speech.

The big legislation that BO has proposed before is to close the ability of private gun owners to make a sale without a background check. To date, not a SINGLE one of the mass killings has resulted from such a sale (the guns used in Oregon were obtained with background check)! Certainly many of the 6,000 young black men killed each year by gun violence in our major cities are killed with illegally obtained guns -- but most of them are already engaged in drug, gang or other criminal activity, so would not be affected by laws. Criminals break laws ... that is why we call them criminals.

The deeper problem, with the deaths of the young black men, the Oregon shooter, and of BO's remarks is that of evil. The willingness to take life or allow lives to be taken for selfish purposes, the willingness to lie to gain power or advantage. We have destroyed our claim to being a "moral and religious people" in so many ways -- abortion, gay "marriage" and the overall destruction of the family, robbing the productive and rewarding the unproductive -- the list is long, but the bottom line is that we once had a strong American culture in which truth, individual responsibility, faith in God, family, hard work and an optimistic view of the future justified by those values was shared by the vast majority of the country. We destroyed that culture, and we increasingly see the fruits of that.

We have abandoned our center (God, religion, culture), and thus could no longer be governed by what is left of our tattered Constitution even if it could be recovered. Much like the various shooters, we have generally become evil and lost as a nation. Our "leader" certainly embodies that for all to see.

We got sick in the 60's and 70's and revived a bit under Reagan in the '80s. Could we revive again? I certainly hope and pray we do, but it becomes harder and harder to envision the deeper we sink. May God have mercy on our souls and the souls of all those lost in Oregon, Chicago, Afghanistan, the Middle East ... and the increasing chaos likely to come.
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50 Years of Democrats Selecting Voters

Ted Kennedy’s 1965 Immigration Act: The War On America Turns 50 | VDARE - premier news outlet for patriotic immigration reform:

Fifty years ago this week Teddy Kennedy and the Democrats passed legislation that moved America from being a predominantly European ancestry, to a nation that looked more like the rest of the planet  (other than Europe) -- predominantly non-white.

The fact of the legislation having the effect of changing American demographics and thereby culture is not in question -- "The Party" (TP-D) would say that "we were just unaware what would happen". Ignorance is always possible, but it was certainly willful ignorance if so, Customs and Immigration Services knew what was going to happen.

In 1965, the political elite on Capitol Hill may not have predicted a mass increase in immigration. But Marian Smith, the historian for Customs and Immigration Services, showed me a small agency booklet from 1966 that certainly did. It explains how each provision in the new law would lead to a rapid increase in applications and a big jump in workload — more and more so as word trickled out to those newly eligible to come.

In any case, it produced the country that used to be America that now sits between Canada and Mexico. A country with no identifiable people, culture, religion or shared values. A country whose only definition is geography and the fact that it is divided.

Republicans should be sweeping the country, but they aren’t, because of Kennedy’s immigration law. Without post-1965 immigrants bloc-voting for the Democrats, Obama never would have been elected president, and Romney would have won a bigger landslide against him in 2012 than Reagan did against Carter in 1980.

In 1965, TP was in total control of the country. I consider myself pretty well read, but I never understood exactly why my old home town is heavily Somalian, why the Twin Cities and even Rochester have large Somali populations, nor why every small town in IA has a decent Mexican restaurant. I thought it was somehow "unavoidable" given very long term US immigration policy -- as if the same laws that brought Germans, Swedes, Irish, etc just naturally allowed the Mexican, Somali, etc immigration we have seen in the last 50 years.

It wasn't, it was a specific decision made by specific people -- the Kennedy's being chief among them. Like a lot of TP actions, it was promised to be completely different than what happened, but in a rational world, we would evaluate politicians by what actually happens rather than what they promise will happen.

Here is what LBJ had to say when he signed the bill.

"This bill that we will sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions," Johnson said at the signing ceremony. "It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives or add importantly to either our wealth or our power."

I guess he was right about it not adding to our wealth or power!

TP firmly tells us through media and education that there is nothing that can be done about this now. It is over -- what was once America is dead and gone, and they and the people they have selected as voters are fast creating whatever they want to call the new nation. The culture will be what they say it is -- atheist, Muslim, totalitarian, 3rd world -- whatever. Those of us anachronisms that remember the old America need to just sit back and accept it. 

They may well be right -- but at least it is good to know exactly who it was, and when it was that they decided to stick the knife in the eagle.

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Pope Loses PC Sainthood

How Pope Francis Undermined the Goodwill of His Trip and Proved to Be a Coward | Michelangelo Signorile:



The Pope may be "the Vicar of Christ" to Catholics, but even to them he is far less than Christ. If you are Catholic, you may be "supposed" to support the Pope in all he says and does, but as he is human, as are his followers, so we know that doesn't happen either.



For Christians, Christ came to allow us to serve the Hebrew God of all without being Jewish and under Jewish Law. Salvation, redemption, communion, forgiveness, Christian love, and being blood brothers and sisters in Christ's blood. That is God's plan -- but as we all know, just as in Catholics supporting the Pope, the plan and the implementation that imperfect humans are able to carry out vary a good deal.



Secular Humanism is a religion with no forgiveness nor even hint of being non-judgemental on its tenets both great and small, as the reaction from the left to the visit to Davis shows. Thou shalt tow the line of Political Correctness and all other tenets of the secular faith, or thou wilt be purged to outer darkness!



As a Christian however, the Pope would be well within his calling to meet with Davis even if he thought her stand completely wrong. There is no question that she has been imprisoned, attacked and threatened by the culture in which she lives. Christians are called to "visit those in prison" -- not because they may not be in prison for totally justified reasons, but simply because they are in prison. Christ didn't come to minister to the righteous, but to the ungodly.



It seems clear however that Francis visited her because he finds conscientious objection to actions of the state based on religious belief to be a human right. The left finds nearly every sort of conscientious objection to the state to be a "human right" when it comes to gun control, anti-war protests, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, drug "smoke ins", animal rights protests, environmental protests, etc. -- it is just religion as a basis for objection that they find to be objectionable, and even then, really only CHRISTIAN religion -- Muslims can avoid baking all the cakes they want.



Intellectually, those on the right now trying to canonize this Pope of the basis of a visit to Kim Davis are guilty of the same sort of one dimensional cheerleading / demonizing as the left is from the other direction. Catholicism is IN GENERAL a conservative force since it stands for the basic wisdom of the fear of God -- thereby taking man out of the false position of being "the measure of all things". This Pope has been taken in by the false doctrine of "Liberation Theology", but not to the extent that God is removed and "faith" becomes merely a social construct.



It is OK to chortle a bit at the lunacy of the left as long as we keep our minds clear as to the reality of the situation. Conservative Christians ought to see him as what he is -- a man in a powerful position, a mixed bag that has aspects of both sinner and saint as do we all.



The Secular Humanists will continue to frequently anoint new messiahs and judge new devils -- constant evidence of the futility of their faith in the forever retreating utopian future.



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Only Left Turns Allowed

Anarchy in the House - The New York Times:

An aptly titled article that inherently recognizes the meaning of political left and right -- control vs chaos. Somewhere, in the middle of that spectrum -- I'd argue right of center, the column author would argue left of center, lies things like "freedom", "liberty" and what used to be the vibrant United States.

The author inherently understands that we are very far left -- which in their mind is not "control", but "good" -- they are a person of the left, as the most of the country now is.  They see the direction of movement as being inherently left, and the answer to all problems being on the left -- more government, more control, more centralization. Here is what I find to be the central point of the article.

It’s true that sometimes no legislation is better than bad legislation. But the United States faces real problems, including stagnant wages, family instability, infrastructure collapse and long-term indebtedness. If Republicans can’t advance their own solutions, they’ll have to deal with Democrats — or harsh realities — impose on them. Paralysis is not a plan.

For the author of the column it is impossible to conceive that what he calls out as the real problems of the country ... stagnant wages, family instability, infrastructure collapse and long term indebtedness, could be the RESULT of government activity having unintended consequences. Such thinking has become inconceivable to him -- it is like telling an addict that it is their addiction, not "the world out there" that is their problem. If they could see that, it would break the addiction!

So the only possible answer in his mind is MORE GOVERNMENT -- and Republicans are completely insane when they do not see that. His ONLY way "forward" is to follow the same path we have been following for a century -- ever leftward! Unfortunately, on the ideological path of increased government control, there is no physical Pacific Ocean to limit the movement as there once was with our "westward ho!" national expansion.

The one remaining small hope is that the "harsh realities" -- like a bad economy, destruction of the family, increasing crime, massive debt, etc,  wake enough people up that we change direction before "Democrat" becomes "Dictator" and the answer for EVERYONE is "deal with the dictator".

That is the hope -- but a reading of this article and the recognition of how many people around you are just as blinded by addiction to government as the column author, shows that hope is miniscule.

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The Tontine, Bet The Other Guy Dies

It’s sleazy, it’s totally illegal, and yet it could become the future of retirement - The Washington Post:

Tontine -- a retirement vehicle where a group of people invests a sum of money something like a mutual fund at a payout based on performance, BUT with the twist that as people die, the remaining folks get their payments. It is much like an annuity where if you die the day after you put your money in, your fellow investors get the money over time, rather than the annuity provider getting it.

Turns out the tontine -- named after its inventor was once a very popular retirement vehicle, then, due to some scandals and people considering them a "morbid gamble", it was outlawed.

I can't see any reason at all they ought not be offered. Sleazy? We have reverse mortgages, payday loans and the biggest ponzi scheme of all, FICA, these seem like just another reasonable hedge.

I always expect to die tomorrow, so not very good for me, but OTOH, I expect my wife to live forever, so PERFECT for her!

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Crash Landing SR-71

Blackbird Down | History | Air & Space Magazine:

An eyewitness account of the loss of "Rapid Rabbit" at Kadena during a high crosswind landing with tire failure. Of interest only to airplane geeks. The pilot and RSO made it without injury.

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Killing Babies Born Alive, Official Democrat Policy

Killing Babies: It’s Obama Administration Policy | Power Line:

If the Democrats want you dead, you better be able to defend yourself if you want to stay alive. Innocence is no defense!

You may have thought (as I did) that if a baby got out alive, they were already a human child and murder was still murder. We are wrong -- in fact BO has promised to veto a bill that would grant them protection.

Evil has won and life has lost in this country. Continuing federal funding for Planned Parenthood is favored 2 to 1 even after the grisly videos. We are a country with more blood on our hands than Nazi Germany, we have no excuse.

Democrats want to insure that there are no more survivors of abortion like this courageous lady.

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The Have Less Crisis

WSJ Middle Class Squeeze

An excellent but somewhat long article on the state of the malaise of the world economic system.

Since the financial crisis of 2007-08, which Western leader could boast of spreading ownership in any important way? In the U.S. and Britain, the percentage of citizens owning stocks or houses is well down from the late 1980s. In Britain, the average age for buying a first home is now 31 (and many more people than before depend on “the bank of Mom and Dad” to help them do so). In the mid-’80s, it was 27. My own children, who started work in London in the last two years, earn a little less, in real terms, than I did when I began in 1979, yet house prices are 15 times higher. We have become a society of “have lesses,” if not yet of “have nots.”

I think the summary of the state of affairs is stated well here.

The relationship between money and morality, on which the middle-class order depends, has been seriously compromised over the past decade. Which means that the mass bourgeoisie (a phrase that Marx and Engels would have thought a contradiction in terms) start to feel like the new proletariat.

I'm not sure how learned the author of the column really is, but he said a HUGE mouthful there!

First, everyone knows that "morality" is a very difficult term in our current world. What do we "value"? As traditional morals of chastity, truthfulness, thrift, prudence, hard work, honor, trustworthiness, meekness, temperance,  etc. have fallen from favor to become terms of derision hurled at some "hypocrites" who still "bitterly cling" to such. The very concept of "morality" has left the building -- and "money" has become a primary "value" in itself -- of both good and ill. "The Party" TP-D  getting lots of funding for a campaign? GOOD ... Koch brothers providing lots of money for an R? EVIL ... Lots of money poured into TP teachers unions? GOOD ... lots of money for a CEO? EVIL ... and on it goes. "Morals" relative to your POV -- the essence of the "all things are relative" view.

So to Marx, the "bourgeoisie" were the evil -- the owners of capital. The shop, farm and factory owners -- those that hired and fired and "leeched" off from labor -- the "proletariat" who were trapped and basically slaves.

The column goes on.

But pretty much the whole of the developed world is still in the convalescent ward, and no one is sure whether the wonder drug of quantitative easing can yet be abandoned, or even whether it does no more than suppress the symptoms of disease. Despite years of supposed austerity, debt is still strikingly high. It remains possible that banks, or even whole countries in the eurozone, could collapse. And who knows whether or not China’s big banks are bust? 

There is clearly an unmet need for a politics that goes beyond mere grievance-peddling to develop a new way of thinking about what makes a society free and secure at the same time. If this were easy, we would have heard more of it by now, and I won’t pretend to have the answers. But certain basic principles seem like the proper foundation.

He is brilliant up to here, but then goes on to pretty standard ideas, that while good in general, don't really make one feel "he's got it" -- get markets working better, get stock ownership to be more responsible, get a better balance between globalization and nationalism ... not wrong, but not really a clear marching order.

I'm going to throw out a couple of generalities here, but I think the BIG deal of this article is that it does a good job of stating the core of the problem -- We have lost our moral compass and are adrift. Until we fix that, all activity is pretty much just churn! We are also very vulnerable -- to attack from without or within.

I'm working on my review of "Closing of the American Mind" -- hopefully more detail there, but I think the big point is that as the Roman Empire, and to a lesser extent, the British Empire,  found "well fed ease and leisure" is not a meaningful goal for mankind. Everyone has to believe in something and really DO something in service to that belief in order to be happy! "I believe I'll have another beer" is a cynical JOKE ... but right now it is more in keeping with the "values" of Europe, America and Japan than anything else.

 Conquest, exploration, saving souls, moral perfection, defeating evil, "truth, beauty and the American Way", etc ... those have been and in some cases still are worthy goals. Certainly ISIS believes that they are undertaking a "conquest for saving souls" -- their own, and the infidels they convert to what they see as the truth. They are "defeating evil" from their perspective -- but we are "the evil", and we have decided to stop resisting as much as we can.  It seems the Putin also sees himself as restoring Russia to it's "rightful place". I suspect that China is also in this camp.

Real morals and values are DANGEROUS! They MEAN SOMETHING! Because they move people -- and nations, and potentially worlds. The Bible as always has pure truth on this -- "Man does not live by bread alone" -- without spiritual meaning, man dies. "Without vision the people perish" ... this article does a good job of pointing out how we are perishing --- not so much how to LIVE!

We need to figure out what is worth not perishing for, if we truly want abandon the terminally ill patient that is Western Civilization -- that is unless we just want to continue to kill ourselves.

Krauthammer's Islamic Presidency

Islam, Ben Carson & Krauthammer| National Review Online:

The article makes a persuasive case that Charles Krauthammer's comments on Ben Carson relative to Islam and the presidency were very ill advised. The article is quite long and detailed, the bottom line is this:

1. Carson didn't say the Constitution didn't allow a Muslim, he said that HE doesn't find Islam consistent with the Constitution. Those that are claiming otherwise are either being frivolous or disingenuous in attempting to smear Carson. 
2. The Presidency is a special office -- it is one of the 3 branches of government in a single person. The basic world view of that person is critical, and since the founders were clear that it required a "natural born American citizen", it does have special requirements. Attention to that person's religion, philosophy, leanings, etc is a critical responsibility for voters. 
3. One can claim that being a "born again Christian" is a "personal faith" -- no creed, congregation or leadership to agree with for better or worse. Not so Islam or even Catholicism. While Kennedy declared the Constitution higher than the Pope, that is a legitimate question for a Catholic seeking to be President. A supposed "Islamic President" would have a LONG list of such questions, which would involve making statements that would make him an "infidel" rather than  a "Muslim" in order to serve under our Constitution. Looking at the treatment of women, Christians, homosexuals, criminal jurisprudence, etc in Islamic countries will give you a start on how long that list would be. 
4. Given the above, the burden really ought to be on any Muslim (or person thinking that a Muslim would make a good president) to answer a myriad of "gotcha" questions relative to their religion as Christians often now are called to do ... eg. "Islam states that the earth was created in 6 days about 6K years ago, do you agree with that?", "Islam states that homosexuals should be killed, do you agree with that?", "Islam states that all governments should serve Allah and operate by Shariah law, what is your stand?" ... etc, etc. 

The difference in the way Christians and Muslims are treated by the ruling elite gives some solid insight into what the game being played really is. Unless one is a practicing Christian, in which case one is forced to declare love for even enemies, human nature is that "Like likes like" -- in which case one is forced to understand why "liberals" like Muslims -- a seeming mystery actually easy to parse. 

The outcry from left and right on Carson's statement gives us yet another marker on how really really bad the state of political discussion has become in this country. Krauthammer is brilliant, but he is not a Christian. Since he is human, he tries to make the Constitution into a religious, sacred "didactic" (teaching) document.

The Constitution is not just a legal document. It is a didactic one. It doesn’t just set limits to power; it expresses a national ethos. It doesn’t just tell you what you’re not allowed to do; it also suggests what you shouldn’t want to do.

As the linked column points out ... hogwash. The Constitution WAS our base LAW -- and since we don't even follow it for that ( "right" to abortion, "right" to gay "marriage", limits on executive power, etc), it's value is more like that of used toilet paper. What it was INTENDED to do is LIMIT GOVERNMENT ... it has completely failed at that. Claiming it tells political candidates how they ought feel about Islamists heading the executive branch is a fantasy that shows how difficult it is for even an intelligent unbeliever to understand the values that founded America.

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Why Do Liberals Love Islam?

http://jonathanlast.com/why-do-liberals-love-islam/

I've got my "simple theory" for at least the leftist overlords -- totalitarians like other totalitarians. Our left LOVED the USSR, they still like Cuba, China has gotten a little too commercial for them but still better loved than say England or certainly Israel.

The linked article tries out a couple other theories ... "relativism" is an all-purpose for both sides of the relationship. While the left holds to "absolute, lock them up if they disagree" relative to white christians supporting gay "marriage", relativism allows them to decide that such rules can be suspended for Muslims -- sure, they might have to avert their eyes a bit when gays are actually thrown from high places or stoned in Muslim countries, but hey -- it allows one to REALLY earn their multicultural diversity chops!

Remember, far left is ABSOLUTE rule of the State, and the State is human, not divine, so "cognitive dissonance" is required. The key skill is to be able to parrot what the party line says in the face of even massive shedding of blood. Six thousand young black men killed in the streets yearly by other young black men need to be completely ignored while marching for "Black Lives Matter" over a couple trumped up justified police shootings of blacks.

From the Muslim side, there are only two political parties -- the D's may support gays, women's rights, sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll, but they support it for INFIDELS! One doesn't have to be a very smart Muslim to realize that if enough Muslims can be brought in, enough kids can be had, enough dead or imaginary votes created, it would be EASY to be Muslim nation -- probably already close to having a "Muslim seat" on the SCOTUS, make common cause with the black seat and who knows?

Besides, they sure are not going to vote with heavily Christian, Jewish-loving, strong US loving and flag waving Republicans! Sure it takes a LITTLE cognitive dissonance for them to vote D, but get real!

The other theory offered is the old liberal "we are really nice to our pets" theory.

I think the issue is more that they see Muslims as a new potential mascot group that they can champion and therefore obtain that cheap sense of moral superiority that comes with riding in like a white knight. I think a lot of liberal attitudes towards minorities aren’t actually based on the good of the minorities, but how good it makes the liberals feel to champion them.

It seems completely insane to see folks that would lock someone up for not baking a cake for a gay "wedding" falling all over themselves to defend a group whose religions teachings generally make the Westboro Baptist Church look like really easy going liberals by comparison. After all, Westboro has yet to stone, throw from a cliff, behead, drown or even rape anyone! Let alone threaten to implement laws to make such the standard for behavior!

But then, these are completely insane times. 

The real situation here is exactly the same as the discussion of wealth and poverty. Poverty needs no explanation, it is the natural state! It is wealth that has to be created by systems and actions that are successful. The state of nature is poverty.

Evil is the the natural state of a fallen world, it needs no explanation. Is it REALLY hard at all for any remotely intelligent person that still has some contact with what was once the standards of Western Civilization to look at Saudi Arabia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, etc, and not see evil? The rape and child molestation of women and young boys, the abject poverty, the repression, the violent attacks on Christians, destruction of cultural/religious icons, stoning gays, etc?

The claim of "liberals" is that the fallen world is not fallen -- but rather that it is GOOD! Their alignment with Islam is actually consistent because ultimately, the destruction of Western Civilization will bring us to a state of nominalist control by POWER. Might is right is morally arbitrary! -- any claim to what many see as "natural" (Biblical) morality is removed. "Morality" becomes whatever POWER says it is -- Islamic "morality" is no better or worse than any arbitrary morality since POWER literally IS "morality" when evil reigns.

"Liberals" love Islam because it is rule by POWER. The natural state of man is always "like likes like".

'via Blog this'

Boehner, Reign of Tears

NY Times, Bye Bye Boehner

Farewell, John Boehner, farewell.

These departures are a little wearying. It was not long ago that we said adieu to Rick Perry. And then Scott Walker. And of course we are gearing up for the moment when the political world says goodbye forever to Donald Trump. 

Good times, all.

The level of snark from the NYTs as The Party (TP-D) approaches absolute power gives one an insight into what other times were like as one party claimed victory.

However, the minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, had expressed confidence that Planned Parenthood would be safe even if the Republicans “vote their alleged hearts out.” We should spend more time quoting Nancy Pelosi.

No mention of the millions of babies murdered, including as the videos showed, some who have their hearts cut out and sold. They see any who have a shred of emotion for those dead babies as beneath contempt. One can hear the echos of Himmler given details of the "Final Solution" ... we should spend more time quoting Himmler! No doubt they felt their oppositions hearts were "alleged" as well.

Boehner was not an appealing guy for the traditional rock ribbed Republican. Preening, seemingly painted on tan and blubbering at inappropriate moments. Both US Grant and Winston Churchill were men that cried -- but it wasn't what defined them.  It defined Boehner -- it was a reign with a rain of tears.

Boehner was what is still "an establishment Republican", looking at all scenarios with shrewd tactical analysis. You know they want to label you a "bomb thrower" and a "crazy", so do all you can to execute maneuvers that hold what little territory you can as quietly as you can.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that this is a losing strategy. First of all, you WILL be called a bomb thrower, crazy and worse -- you have an R next to your name. This is not a time of "reasoned political debate" from TP -- this is a time of VICTORY and abject defeat for Republicans, by any means -- legal and illegal. Folks like BO and often five justices on the SCOTUS don't have any respect for any stinkin Constitution!

When your opposition is confident and entrenched enough that grisly videos of babies being dismembered and sold out in parts are so little a concern that using a line like "vote their alleged hearts out" gives not a moments pause, you know you are living well past the point of tired old words like "morality" or "decency" or "civilized". This is a time of the raw exercise of TP power with all the smugness, leering and cackling laughter that accompanies the victory of evil.

It is hard to shed any tears for the political end of Boehner. Significantly no doubt because of his personality, but also because of the times. When babies are being sold for parts, hundreds of thousands of refugees are storming the gates of Europe, 11 million illegals walk our streets and calls for killing police are ringing out in marches across our nation, it is hard to much lament a powerless House Speaker stepping down because he doesn't want to deal with calls stop spending government money on a non-government organization that sells baby parts.

Listening to the devils at the NYTs cackle though does give one  pause as to how bad it would be to spend eternity in Hell!