Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Today’s top political stories:
Georgia’s Special Senate election Today
A struggle to save democracy from liberal domination.
GOP Senator Saxby Chambliss faces an Obama Democrat in a race that could give Democrats a filibuster proof Senate.
The focus could provide a look at Post-Obama-Victory politics and the road ahead for our government.
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/12/02/georgia_senate_race_tests_obama/
Big Business shifts its support to Democrat liberals
“Public opinion can’t change nearly as fast as we can”
Deft political maneuvering has never been a major ability of big business
Clearly Big Busienss is showing the same sort of stupidity as that displayed by the auto execs who cam begging to Congress in private jets. “Will they ever learn”.
“High Tax Charlie” Rangel takes on the NY Times
Being badly stained by scandal doesn’t deter the veteran Democrat congressman
The New York Democrat is launching a concerted counterattack against The New York Times, which reported last week that Rangel helped retain a multimillion-dollar tax loophole for an oil drilling company at the same time that the company’s CEO was pledging $1 million to the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York.
Imagine the NY Times outrage had Rangel been a Republican and White?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16114.html
Opinion:
Slaughter in India – its time to point the finger squarely at Islam and its radicals
Voices everywhere warn of our blaming Islam for the continuing acts of mindless terror around the world. They say placing such blame insults and slanders moderate Muslims who oppose the violence.
I respond by asking where are those moderate Muslims – I find it hard to hear their protests and condemnation of the terror. Maybe its because the screams of the victims of Islamic terror are too loud.
I presume I need not point out radical Islam has declared war on civilization – not just the United States -- ALL civilization. Even Muslim nations have suffered – beginning with the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat decades ago.
These radicals are not interested in negotiated settlement of grievances (real or imagined) – they have made clear their ultimate intentions are to dominate the world by imposing Shariah law and by slaughtering those who don’t embrace their extreme version of religion.
There is no wiggle room in such a war. We win only when we have destroyed their will and ability to wage war. If that requires street by street fighting, so be it. It’s not our choice – but saving civilization IS our obligation.
Of course the usual suspects are at it big time. Newspapers and TV refusing to call the terrorists what they are – and the NY Times adds to its seedy history of lying by omission and even rejects mentioning the fact that those who slaughtered so many in India were Muslim.
Journalism has never been so corrupted – and in a manner that aids our enemies and which interdicts our efforts to repel them.
We cannot reform journalism, we can only hope to do more via the Internet to offer information and fact unfiltered by the forces of the left wing to over ride and overcome their propaganda.
“Truth shall set you free” has never been more apt a motto.
Buddy
Top blogs of the morning:
1.
Barack Obama and the Hiss Denier
AIM Column | By Cliff Kincaid
At the time he founded the U.N -- and Hiss was the first acting secretary-general of the organization -- he was a State Department official.
“The United Nations was, in major part, America’s creation,” declared Susan Rice, President-elect Obama’s nominee as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations at a news conference on Monday. This is true if you consider a communist and Soviet agent, U.N. founder Alger Hiss, to be truly “American.” But that is quite a stretch. This kind of gaffe is never highlighted by our media because it is something that is repeated often by those attempting to justify continued U.S. participation in the corrupt United Nations.
Needless to say, Rice never mentioned that the U.N. is the “House that Hiss built.” But that is what it was, and what it remains.
What’s more, it is still infested with anti-American intelligence agents and foreign spies. Rice should read Comrade J, based on interviews with Sergei Tretyakov, the former Russian spymaster based at the U.N. The book describes the United Nations as a major base of espionage operations for Russia in the U.S.
Rice may be reluctant to read the book because of the fact that her Brookings Institution colleague, Strobe Talbott, is named in it as having been “a special unofficial contact” of the Russian intelligence agency, the SVR, when he was Deputy Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration. Talbott had been in charge of Russian affairs, and Rice had been Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. They worked closely together, as Talbott concedes.
“Mr. President-elect,” Susan Rice said, directing her comments on Monday to the one who nominated her, “I share your commitment to rededicate ourselves to the organization and its mission. If confirmed as U.N. ambassador, I will work constructively within the organization to help strengthen its capacities and achieve needed reforms.”
The term “reforms” is brought up every time the U.N. is trying to shake down more money from Uncle Sam. Don’t expect any follow-up from the media. They are almost as much in love with the U.N. as they are with Obama
More on this at:
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/print/barack-obama-and-the-hiss-denier/
2.
Deepak Blames America (Who is this fool, anyway?)
From Wall Street Journal
The media look within to explain the sick delusions of the Mumbai killers.
By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ
If the Mumbai terror assault seemed exceptional, and shocking in its targets, it was clear from the Thanksgiving Day reports that we weren't going to be deprived of the familiar, either. Namely, ruminations, hints, charges of American culpability that regularly accompany catastrophes of this kind.
Soon enough, there was Deepak Chopra, healer, New Age philosopher and digestion guru, advocate of aromatherapy and regular enemas, holding forth on CNN on the meaning of the attacks.
How the ebullient Dr. Chopra had come to be chosen as an authority on terror remains something of a mystery, though the answer may have something to do with his emergence in the recent presidential campaign as a thinker of advanced political views. Also commending him, perhaps, is his well known capacity to cut through all sorts of complexities to make matters simple. No one can fail to grasp the wisdom of a man who has informed us that "If you have happy thoughts, then you make happy molecules."
In his CNN interview, he was no less clear. What happened in Mumbai, he told the interviewer, was a product of the U.S. war on terrorism, that "our policies, our foreign policies" had alienated the Muslim population, that we had "gone after the wrong people" and inflamed moderates. And "that inflammation then gets organized and appears as this disaster in Bombay."
All this was a bit too much, evidently, for CNN interviewer Jonathan Mann, who interrupted to note that there were other things going on -- matters like the ongoing bitter Pakistan-India struggle over Kashmir -- which had caused so much terror and so much violence. "That's not Washington's fault," he pointed out.
Given an argument, the guest, ever a conciliator, agreed: The Mumbai catastrophe was not Washington's fault, it was everybody's fault. Which didn't prevent Dr. Chopra from returning soon to his central theme -- the grave offense posed to Muslims by the United States' war on terror, a point accompanied by consistent emphatic reminders that Muslims are the world's fastest growing population -- 25% of the globe's inhabitants -- and that the U.S. had better heed that fact. In Dr. Chopra's moral universe, numbers are apparently central. It's tempting to imagine his view of offenses against a much smaller sliver of the world's inhabitants -- not so offensive, perhaps?
Two subsequent interviews with Larry King brought much of the same -- a litany of suggestions about the role the U.S. had played in fueling assaults by Muslim terrorists, reminders of the numbers of Muslims in the world and their grievances. A faithful adherent of the root-causes theory of crime -- mass murder, in the case at hand -- Dr. Chopra pointed out, quite unnecessarily, that most of the terrorism in the world came from Muslims. It was mandatory, then, to address their grievances -- "humiliation," "poverty," "lack of education." The U.S., he recommended, should undertake a Marshall Plan for Muslims.
Nowhere in this citation of the root causes of Muslim terrorism was there any mention of Islamic fundamentalism -- the religious fanaticism that has sent fevered mobs rioting, burning and killing over alleged slights to the Quran or the prophet. Not to mention the countless others enlisted to blow themselves and others up in the name of God.
Nor did we hear, in these media meditations, any particular expression of sorrow from the New Delhi-born Dr. Chopra for the anguish of Mumbai's victims: a striking lack, no doubt unintentional, but not surprising, either. For advocates of the root-causes theory of crime, the central story is, ever, the sorrows and grievances of the perpetrators. For those prone to the belief that most eruptions of evil in the world can be traced to American influence and power there is only one subject of consequence.
Accustomed as we are by now to this view of the U.S., it's impossible not to marvel at its varied guises -- its capacity to emerge even in journalism ostensibly concerning the absurd beliefs about the 9/11 attacks held by so many Muslims. It's conventional wisdom in the region -- according to a New York Times dispatch from Cairo, Egypt, last fall by Michael Slackman -- that the U.S. and Israel had to have been involved in the planning, if not the actual execution of the assaults. No news there. Neither was the information that there was virtually universal belief in the area that Jews, tipped off, didn't go to work at the World Trade Center that day. Or that the U.S. had organized the plot in order to attack Arab Muslims and gain access to their oil.
The noteworthy point here was the writer's conclusion that the U.S. itself was to blame for the power of these beliefs. "It is easy for Americans to dismiss such thinking as bizarre," Mr. Slackman allowed. But that would miss the point that the persistence of these ideas represents the "first failure in the fight against terrorism." A U.S. failure? Nowhere in the extended list of root causes here was there any mention of the fanaticism and sheer mindless gullibility that is the prerequisite for the holding of such beliefs.
Its very ordinariness speaks volumes about this report. A piece written with evident serenity, the perversity of its conclusions notwithstanding, it's one emblem among many of the adversarial view of the nation that is today entrenched in the culture. So unworthy is the U.S. -- an attitude solidly established in our media culture long before the war on terror -- that only it can be held responsible for the deranged fantasies cherished in large quarters of the Arab world. So natural does it feel, now, to hold such views that their expression has become second nature.
Which is how it happens also that the U.S. is linked to the bloodletting in Mumbai, with scarcely anyone batting an eye, and Larry King -- awash perhaps, in happy molecules -- thanking guest Dr. Chopra for his extraordinary enlightenment.
Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.
3.
Looking at Terrorists and Seeing Only Suspected Gunmen
Charles Lipson
Mark Steyn's comment that major British newspapers printed pictures of armed terrorists and labeled them "suspected gunmen" is telling. Those labels are in the grand tradition of Reuters using quotation marks to refer to the 9/11 attackers as terrorists. No delicate sensibilities are offended, as they might be if they were called terrorists en route to taking hostages and killing civilians.
This is worse than the usual banality of mainstream journalism. It is craven, confronting the visible image of evil, and responding with the insipid posture of professional neutrality.
Nor can these photo captions be excused as one person's mistake. They passed through too many hands for that. They ran in prominent locations in several British papers and must have survived multiple editors. In fact, they were still posted online Sunday, long after the mass slaughter by these suspected gunmen became known.
What the captions really tell us about British news organizations, aside from their misguided sense of professionalism, is that they see terrorism as, at bottom, a legal issue. With the zany pretentiousness of a Monty Python character, they take the honored Western legal presumption of innocent until proven guilty in a court of law and apply it willy-nilly to acts of war and terror. In doing so, they recapitulate the fundamental flaw of the Clinton Administration's approach to terror, which is still thriving in too many quarters. Under Clinton, the Justice Department and FBI treated potential terrorism the same way they did any other criminal activity.
The central goal of law enforcement agencies is not to prevent terror or to catch potential terrorists before they strike but to apprehend them after the fact and produce evidence of their crimes that is admissible in court. The British newspapers' captions show that they are trapped in that same mindset, determined to presume everyone innocent until they have been duly convicted in a fair trial. The effect is to label those responsible for mass killing with the same delicate language that is (rightly) applied to someone accused of stealing orange marmalade from Harrods.
To label gun-toting terrorists seen with weapons in hand, fingers on the triggers "suspected gunmen" is an exquisite sensibility run amok. It is an appalling example of moral cowardice, one that reveals a chattering class that no longer knows how to stand upright and defend its own core values.
Following this logic, let me offer my own caption for this photo:
"Alleged kamikaze pilot attacks USS Columbia in January 1945. A Honolulu grand jury is considering whether to indict the pilot."
4.
Rev. Peterson: Black Preachers are Worshiping the Wrong Messiah
...There shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies…2 Peter 2:1
Contact: Ermias Alemayehu, 213-804-1872, info@bondaction.org
LOS ANGELES,Christian Newswire/ -- With the November 4 election of Barack Obama, black preachers have been celebrating across the country. Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, Founder and President of BOND Action, Inc. is rebuking these black preachers for their part in electing the most left-wing presidential candidate in American history:
"Ninety-six percent of black voters supported Barack Obama and the majority of these voters were influenced by black preachers to put race ahead of their country and their faith," said Rev. Peterson. "How can ministers who are supposed to lead their flock to Jesus Christ instead lead them to a socialist like Obama? The truth is that most black ministers don't have a real relationship with God and they are leading their congregations to hell. These blind leaders helped elect their black 'Messiah'. This 'Messiah' happens to be the most left-wing member of the U.S. Senate," said Rev. Peterson.
Here's where president-elect Obama stands on key issues:
• Believes in abortion on demand (virtually under any circumstance), and has told Planned Parenthood that sex-ed for kindergartners is 'the right thing to do' (as long as it's 'age appropriate');
• Has promised to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act and would allow homosexual 'marriages' to be made legal in all 50 states;
• Would appoint far left activist judges who'd pervert and misinterpret the U.S. Constitution;
• Has pledged to dismantle 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' in the military. Supports open homosexuality, bisexuality, and transexuality in all military branches, barracks and shower facilities.
This is what influential black ministers said after the Obama election victory:
• Bishop T.D. Jakes of The Potter's House church said that Sen. Barack Obama's campaign "encouraged, validated and gave inspiration to not only the people of the United States of America, but to the people of our world."
• At Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church, Rev. Calvin Butts invited his congregation to stand up "and give God praise for the election." Several hundred churchgoers rose as one and cheered, "Yes we can! Yes we can!"
• Grammy-winning gospel singer, Rev. Shirley Caesar-Williams said, "Too long we've been at the bottom of the totem pole, but he [Obama] has vindicated us, hallelujah."
• Rev. John L. Lambert, Bethel AME Churc h in Indianapolis, "If ever there was an answer to 'who cometh to our help?' that was the answer...Look at what God has done."
• At Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Rev. Otis Moss, III, said history would note that Trinity was the holy place where "God stirred a young man's soul and put him on the path to the presidency."
Rev. Peterson added: "For the past eighteen years I've said that most black preachers are not called by God, but instead are called by their mammas. If there was ever a time that this was the case, that time is now. In order for black Americans to turn around, they must drop their anger, and find the truth within themselves, not from corrupt, racist preachers or from a false black Messiah."
http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/604698668.html
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