Fund Your Utopia Without Me.™

15 September 2012

Is This A First?


M2RB:  Aimee Mann & 'Til Tuesday











Hush, hush - voices carry
He said shut up - he said shut up
Oh God can't you keep it down
Voices carry
Hush hush, voices carry









By Roger Kimball



When the motor of history gets revved up (as it surely is now), it becomes more than commonly difficult to discriminate between the mere static of events rubbing against one another and that appoggiatura that announces the main theme of the moment.  You’d have to be pretty thick not to sense that something big is happening in the world. Just yesterday, the Evening Standard published a column of mine in which I reprised James Carville’s famous taunt, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Carville was right, except when he wasn’t, e.g., at about 10:00 a.m. on September 11, 2001, or, as we see all about us, in the aftermath of September 11, 2012, when some representatives of the “Arab Spring” stormed the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and murdered U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other diplomats.

What was the most extraordinary statement to come out of that outrage, or the successive and still unfolding attacks on U.S. and other Western interests by Islamists across the world?

First prize for naïveté must surely go to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had this to say about the murder of those four Americans:

Today, many Americans are asking – indeed, I asked myself – how could this happen? How could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction? This question reflects just how complicated and, at times, how confounding the world can be.

I have to say, those were not among the questions I asked myself. Leave aside the laughable trope that what we did in Libya was liberate the country.  What we really did was exchange one malign dictator for the dictatorship of a malign, freedom-denying ideology, radical Islam. What I chiefly wanted to know was, Why was security so lax at our consulate, especially on the anniversary of the terrorists attacks of 9/11?

First prize for cringe-making appeasement also goes to the State Department, even if it wasn’t issued by HRC herself. Six hours before an Islamist mob stormed our embassy in Cairo, the embassy condemned “the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.”

It’s perfectly OK to “hurt the religious feelings” of anyone else — just ask Terrence McNally, whose play Corpus Christie depicts Jesus having sex with Judas Iscariot. Perhaps you do not like Corpus Christie. I think it a loathsome work, but I do not propose to burn down and embassy or murder anyone because of it. But Muslims apparently deserve a special dispensation. The First Amendment protects Mr. McNally. But does it protect the author of The Innocence of Muslims, the silly 13-minute anti-Muslim film by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula (not, as was first reported, “Sam Bacile”)? We’ll see. Mr. Nakoula has been detained for questioning by federal probation agents. What do you bet he is found to have violated probation?

Choice though HRC’s and the Cairo Embassy’s statements were, however, the most astonishing emanation from officialdom these last few days was the news that Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, put in a call to the fruity pastor Terry Jones — the chap who some months ago made headlines by publicly burning a Koran — asking him to withdraw his support for The Innocence of Muslims.

Query: Why was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff calling a private citizen and leaning on him to make a public recantation? Has such a thing ever happened in the United States?  I cannot think of a precedent.  As Michael Walsh notes elsewhere on PJM, “A clearer breaching of the civilian-military relationship can hardly be imagined, and Gen. Dempsey ought to resign in disgrace for his appalling lapse in judgment.” But, as Walsh also notes, Dempsey certainly will not resign nor will the president fire him.

Which means what?

There is a lot happening now. Remember Rahm Emanuel’s observation, made in the midst of the economic meltdown of 2008-2009, that “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste”? What he meant was that a crisis makes people anxious and vulnerable and that it is easier in periods of crisis to exploit that vulnerability and push through initiatives to enlarge government, which is why in periods of crisis one should, if one is prudent, exercise double diligence about acting hastily. As the British politician and journalist Daniel Hannan recently observed in his book The New Road to Serfdom, “most disastrous policies have been introduced at times of emergency.” There seem to be many leaders — beginning, alas, with the president of the United States — who would have us scrap the First Amendment in order to cater to wounded Muslim sensibilities. Andy McCarthy gets it exactly right in “Obama vs. the First Amendment,” his column for NRO today.  Reflecting on our Cairo embassy’s statement about “misguided individuals,” he argues that Mitt Romney was right: the statement was “a disgrace.”

It elevated over the U.S. Constitution (you know, the thing Obama took an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend”) the claimed right of sharia supremacists (you know, “Religion of Peace” adherents) to riot over nonsense. Further, it dignified the ludicrous pretext that an obscure, moronic 14-minute video was the actual reason for the oncoming jihad.

And here’s the kicker:

[N]o matter how determined the president’s media shysters are to cover it up: The disgraceful embassy statement was a completely accurate articulation of longstanding Obama policy.

Andy then gives us a little history lesson:

In 2009, the Obama State Department ceremoniously joined with Muslim governments to propose a United Nations resolution that, as legal commentator Stuart Taylor observed, was “all-too-friendly to censoring speech that some religions and races find offensive.” Titled “Freedom of Opinion and Expression” — a name only an Alinskyite or a Muslim Brotherhood tactician could love — the resolution was the latest salvo in a years-long campaign by the 57-government Organization of the Islamic Conference (now renamed the “Organization of Islamic Cooperation”). The OIC’s explicit goal is to coerce the West into adopting sharia, particularly its “defamation” standards.

When I was in Tampa covering the Republican National Convention a couple weeks ago, I ran into an Arab-American lady in line for the free coffee Google was dispensing. She was a lawyer, a conservative of some description, and her business in life was to champion the Arab Spring and assure that those of us who worry about the imposition of Sharia are crazy ideologues. Arab leaders “can’t understand” why some American conservatives are up in arms about Sharia, she told me. “It’s just their religious law,” as if that settled everything.

If only.  As Andy observes,

Sharia severely penalizes any insult to Islam or its prophet, no matter how slight. Death is a common punishment. And although navel-gazing apologists blubber about how “moderate Islamist” governments will surely ameliorate enforcement of this monstrous law, the world well knows that the “Muslim street” usually takes matters into its own hands — with encouragement from their influential sheikhs and imams.

We can see what that means today in Cairo, in Tunisia, in Yemen, in the Sudan — heck, we can see in in London, where angry Muslims burn the American flag outside our embassy or in Texas, where an university had to be evacuated yesterday because of a terrorist threat.

I say “we” can see that is happening, but it’s not clear that the bureaucrats running the government can.  As Andy notes,

In its obsession with propitiating Islamic supremacists, the Obama administration has endorsed this license to mutilate. In the United States, the First Amendment prohibits sharia restrictions on speech about religion. As any Catholic or Jew can tell you, everyone’s belief system is subject to critical discussion. One would think that would apply doubly to Islam. After all, many Muslims accurately cite scripture as a justification for violence; and classical Islam recognizes no separation between spiritual and secular life — its ambition, through sharia, is to control matters (economic, political, military, social, hygienic, etc.) that go far beyond what is understood and insulated as “religious belief” in the West. If it is now “blasphemy” to assert that it is obscene to impose capital punishment on homosexuals and apostates, to take just two of the many examples of sharia oppression, then we might as well hang an “Out of Business” sign on our Constitution.

Indeed. The bottom line, which my friend in the coffee line did not see but Andy McCarthy does, is that “Islamic supremacists see themselves in a civilizational war with us. When we submit on a major point, we grow weaker and they grow stronger.”

It’s not only Islamophilic Arab-American lawyers who refuse to see this. Left-wing African-American presidents fail to see it as well. What is happening all around us now requires a president who can effectively discharge his fundamental responsibility: to protect the United States of America from foreign attack.  Barack Obama has demonstrated his feckless incapacity to do this. Mitt Romney, on the contrary, has stepped up to the plate. No sooner had the murderous Libyan attacks happened than he issued a strong and stern statement rousingly supporting the American cause.

America will not tolerate attacks against our citizens and against our embassies. We will defend also our constitutional rights of speech and assembly and religion. We have confidence in our cause in America. We respect our Constitution. We stand for the principles our Constitution protects. We encourage other nations to understand and respect the principles of our Constitution because we recognize that these principles are the ultimate source of freedom for individuals around the world.

I also believe the Administration was wrong to stand by a statement sympathizing with those who had breached our embassy in Egypt instead of condemning their actions. It’s never too early for the United States Government to condemn attacks on Americans, and to defend our values. The White House distanced itself last night from the statement, saying it wasn’t ‘cleared by Washington.’ That reflects the mixed signals they’re sending to the world.

Spoken like a true patriot and leader.  I’ve been saying for sometime now that I expect Romney to win by a large margin in November.  Bold statements like this (which were naturally condemned by the left-wing media) increase my confidence. As Andy put it in his comments on Romney’s statement, “It will be remembered as the moment the race for president finally became about the real job of a president. It will be remembered as the moment Romney won.”




 Voices Carry - 'til tuesday

I'm in the dark, I'd like to read his mind
But I'm frightened of the things I might find
Oh, there must be something he's thinking of
to tear him away-a-ay
When I tell him that I'm falling in love
why does he say-a-ay

Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Uh-ah

I try so hard not to get upset
Because I know all the trouble I'll get
Oh, he tells me tears are something to hide
and something to fear-eh-eh
And I try so hard to keep it inside
so no one can hear

Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Uh-ah

Oh!
He wants me, but only part of the time
He wants me, if he can keep me in line

Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Hush hush, shut up now, voices carry
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Hush hush, darling, she might overhear
Hush, hush - voices carry
He said shut up - he said shut up
Oh God can't you keep it down
Voices carry
Hush hush, voices carry



It's 3 AM, The Phone Is Ringing, And No One In The Obama Administration Is Answering


M2RB:  The Clash







By order of the prophet
We ban that boogie sound
Degenerate the faithful
With that crazy Casbah sound
But the Bedouin they brought out
The electric camel drum
The local guitar picker
Got his guitar picking thumb
As soon as the sharif
Had cleared the square
They began to wail

 The sharif don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah
Rock the Casbah
The sharif don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah
Rock the Casbah



Political Cartoons by Michael Ramirez


"when bush was presented with the memo “bin laden determined to strike in u.s.,” y’all know how he responded?"

- Townhall.com troll, 15 September 2012




Yes, he was at the Crawford White House. He went fishing after being told the “Bin Laden was determined to strike the US.”

Gee, who didn’t know that?  Osama only declared war on the US in 1996.


"So we tried to be quite aggressive with them [al Qaeda]. We got – well, Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991, then he went to Sudan. And we’d been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start dealing with them again. They released him. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America, so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America. So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, ’cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn’t and that’s how he wound up in Afghanistan.”


- Bill Clinton, February 2002



But….

Osama bin Laden’s name surfaces during the 1993 WTC investigation as a financier of the Office of Services. His name is also found on a list of individuals who was called from a safe house used by the conspirators. During the WTC bombing trial, bin Laden’s name appears on a list of unindicted co-conspirators.


So, did the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) tell us exactly where, how and when OBL was going to strike?  No.  Unlike the attack on the American Embassy in Cairo, were there any prior threats naming the specific target and method in newspapers or on websites?  No.  Unlike the attack in Benghazi, which was just the most recent of dozens, had there been any other prior threats made with specific targets named?

Should we have grounded all planes? All trains? Stopped work at all ports? Closed all malls, sporting events, and skyscrapers lest biological or chemical agents be introduced into the ventilation systems? Shut down all universities, governmental buildings, hospitals, factories and other structures with mass capacity?

Should we have closed down nuclear power plants, water processing plants, electrical facilities, and all other utilities? We probably should have shut down interstate commerce, the interstate highway system and banned all heavy trucks and SUVs, which could be used as car bombs.

It probably would have been prudent, since no specifics were given in the PDB, to order all Americans to bubblewrap their homes, drink only boiled water, eat only foods that they grow, remain indoors listening to Alex Jones after receiving a bevy of immunisations or just plain kill themselves.

After George Bush had issued all of those Executive Orders protecting Americans from every conceivable danger, he then could have sent Congress home, revoked habeas corpus as Abraham Lincoln did, declared martial law, and instituted laws like Woodrow Wilson did that criminalised criticism and protest of the government and its national security and defence actions, including making war. In fact, people making antiwar statements at their own dinner tables could be charged under the Espionage Act...just like during the Progressive administration of President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat. 
Maybe, he could have just rounded up all Muslims and sent them to internment camps like FDR did to Japanese-, German-, and Italian-Americans.

So, while we waited for Osama's "determined strike," we could have just destroyed our Constitution, civil liberties, civil society, and economy....thereby rendering any attack by al Qaeda unnecessary.

Yes, I'm sure that you would have applauded Shrub, if he had taken all of those actions on unactionable intelligence in a PDB.  Snarkfreakalicious! 


On the other hand:

1.  The State Department had to issue a waiver for the consulate in Benghazi because security failed to meet its own basic security standards and those set forth in Federal law.

2.  The Benghazi consulate had been bombed twice in the 5 months leading up to 09.11.12.

3.  Specific threats had been made against the ambassador, the consulate, and other assets in Benghazi.

4.   Increasing threats to and attacks on the Libyan nationals hired to provide security at the U.S. missions in Tripoli and Benghazi had been made during the 6 months prior to the attack.

5. 
On 10 June 2012, an assassination attempt had been made on the British ambassador, which led to the entire mission being abandoned.

6.  Diplomatic cables warned of security concerns in Benghazi and flatly said the consulate could not withstand a coordinated attack.

7.  The Red Cross had been attacked in May and al Qaeda had left threats there on the day of the attack mentioning the American consulate.

8.  On 22 June 2012, Ambassador Stevens warned State that extremist groups were carrying out terrorists attacks, making threats against Western targets, and he believed that he was a target.

9.  On 9 July 2012, Stevens requested at least 13 more security personnel.

10.
On 21 July 2012, the private security contractor, Nordstrom, warned State to be on high alert for terrorist activity.  State refused to renew Nordstrom's contract on 5 Aug and replaced it with a Welsh group, Blue Mountain, which had little knowledge of the conditions in Libya and hired inexperienced locals for $4 an hour.

11.  On 2 August 2012, Stevens sent an urgent cable to Clinton requesting a “protective detail bodyguard.”

12. On 16 August 2012, the consulate security team leaves while sending a message directly to Clinton of the dire security situation.

13.  On 8 September 2012, Libyan officials in Benghazi warned both Ambassador Stevens and Secretary Clinton of a pending attack on the consulate.

14.  4 hours before he was killed, Stevens cabled Washington.  He told Hillary's office that there were at least 10 al Qaeda groups openly training in Benghazi and he/and the consulate were operating under extremis conditions.

15.  Sean Smith told his fellow gamers online hours before he died 'Hope I don't die.'  He told his mother less than an hour before he died that he had seen someone taking pictures, reported it, and asked for reinforcements. On numerous occasions, he told his mum that Ambassador Stevens, he and others had repeatedly for better security.

16.  It was the 11th anniversary of the original 9/11.

So, don't even try to make the two equivalent because they are not.


Some of us have said that the whole "Arab Spring" thing was no move toward democracy since Day One and was a fundamentalist Islamic movement in sheep's clothing being aided by Useful Infidels like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, Samantha Powers (Cass Sunstein's other half - better or worse?  You make the call), Medea Benjamin, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dorhn, Cyntinfoilhat McKinney, William Kristol, and John McShame.  As Edmund Burke observed, you cannot have a democracy without first having a civil society.  Furthermore, democracy for democracy's sake is not always a good thing.  Adolf Hitler was democratically elected, so were Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, for that matter.  None of us need ask how much Progressives, especially members of the LGBTQQIAAP community, liked "democracy in action" when a majority of Californians voted to amend their constitution to define the only type of marriage that would be allowed to be legally-recognised would be one existing between one man and one female.


Moreover, despite the protestations of the Muslim Brotherhood to the contrary, we said that they would run for office, they would win, secular, enlightened, small "l" liberals would be crushed, and women and those of other faiths would face a society more in tune with Saudi Arabia than a centre-right-conservative-but-open-and-tolerant, United States.  In all of this, we were proven absolutely correct to the ever-loving shame of the Progressives, academics, intellectuals, ruling class, and, most of all, the President of the United States, who once said:



Well, I truly believe that the day I’m inaugurated, not only does the country look at itself differently but the world looks at America differently. If I’m reaching out to the Muslim world they understand that I’ve lived in a Muslim country and I may be a Christian but I also understand their point of view… My sister is half Indonesian, I traveled there all the way through my college years and so I’m intimately concerned with what happens in these countries and the cultures and the perspectives these folks have. And those are powerful tools for us to be able to reach out to the world and when you combine that with my work on the Senate Forum Relations Committee on everything from nuclear proliferation to issues of genocide then I think that the world will have confidence that I am listening to them and that our future and our security is tied up with our ability to work with other countries in the world. That will ultimately make us safer, and that’s something that [the Bush] administration has failed to understand.


- Senator Barack Obama, 21 November 2007



How painful it must be for Teh Won and his sycophants to have their illusions and delusions shattered into a million, billion, trillion, little pieces!!!  They claimed that the Muslim World hated the United States because of Bush.  Their professed philosophy was "Remove Bush and, voilà!, they will love us, really love us.  The Nobel Foundation will even award a Nobel Peace Prize to a man, who has served a mere 143 days in the United States Senate and a miniscule 8 months and 19 days in the White House, just for not being George W Bush and for having such potential!"

So, for those of us not residing in My Progressive Little Ponyland, we were unsurprised when then-candidate, now President of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi, said on 13 May 2012:



“The Qur'an is our constitution. Jihad is our path. And death for the sake of Allah is our most lofty aspiration...This nation will enjoy blessing and revival only through Islamic Shari'ah...I take an oath before Allah and before you all that regardless of the actual text of  [the constitution], Allah willing, the text will truly reflect Shari'ah.”






 

 
As one of his first international projects, newly-elected President Mohamed Morsi declared on 29 June 2012, that he will work to secure the release of the “Blind Sheikh” - Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center attack that killed 6 and injured 1,042, accused of being the leader of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (also known as "The Islamic Group" and a group, whose name has been used in connection with the attack on the American Embassy in Cairo in some circles), and is a militant Islamist movement in Egypt that is considered a terrorist organisation by the United States, and declared:


"The obligation of Allah is upon us to wage jihad for the sake of Allah. . . . We have to thoroughly demoralise the enemies of Allah by blowing up their towers that constitute the pillars of their civilisation . . . the high buildings of which they are so proud.”


I would say "Believe it or not...," but of course it is believable...  In addition to encouraging Morsi's rise, most incredibly, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are actually considering freeing Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is serving a life sentence in a Federal penitentiary in North Carolina.  They've gone so far as to allow one of the Blind Sheikh's top associates in the terrorist Gema'a al-Islamiyaa organisation, Noor Eldin, to enter into our country and discuss a pardon or commutation with subordinates of Obama and Clinton.
 
I would also ask, "Are they nucking futs?" if I didn't already know the answer.  Such a move would be an utter betrayal to this country, its Constitution, and to all peace-loving, law-abiding Americans.  It would also be the best evidence yet that this administration is nothing but a treasonous, criminal enterprise that has submitted itself and, acting on our behalf, US to the Muslim Brotherhood and its vanguard, i.e. to create a worldwide caliphate.  Go ahead.  Laugh.  Better yet, read the Bruthas' charter.

I just have one question for Obama, Clinton, and the rest of the appeasing Useful Infidels: 


How'd that whole 'OK, Herr Hitler, you can keep Austria and the Sudetenland as long as you promise not to invade anymore countries" work out for Poland, Luxembourg, Holland, Belgium, France, Greece, Britain, etc?


The idea that the Islamists will cease with their demands if we 1) ban all material and speech "offencive" to Islam; 2) ban all material and speech that hurts the feelings of Muslims; 3) behead all those associated with the "offencive" movie; 4) leave Iraq and Afghanistan; 5) abandon Israel; and 6) "Let there be light:  Blind Sheikh, go forth and enjoy your freedom in the sun!", then I am determined to out Sanger, Margaret Sanger.   All Useful Infidels should be forcibly sterilised.  They are simply too stupid to seed and multiply.

(Anyone, who has ever read my posts or articles on Carrie Buck and the ATROCIOUS policies of the Progressives concerning forced sterilisations knows that I'm being facetious here; however, Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson once said, "The Constitution is not a suicide pact."
    

If the Constitution is not a suicide pact, then "We, the 'Stupid, Racist, Sexist, Homophobic, Islamophobic, Xenophobic, Home-Schooled, Dirt-Eating, Snake-Handling, Sister-Marrying, Deer-Shooting, Squirrel-Eating, Hick-n-Hustering, Moonshine-Running, Meth-Cooking, One-Tooth-Brushing, Single-Hair Comb-Overing, Blue-Plate-'n-Light-Special-Luvin', Stand-At-Attention-WalMart-Shoppers-Shopping, Ignorant, Untravelled, Flag-Waving, Cry-In-Our-Beers-And-With-Lee-Greenwood, Teabag-Waving, Guns-n-Bibles-Bitter-Clinging' People" shouldn't commit to committing suicide with "They, the 'Nattering Nabobs of Newspeak and the oh so Smarty-Smart, Elite' People" either.


Seriously, here is an example of the thinking of a Useful Infidel:


"It's been well-documented that "muzzies" respect the West and the freedoms they enjoy."

- A Proud Progressive Woman


OK, Ms Virginia "You've Come A Long Way, Baby!" Slims, I'm sure that you'll love living amongst people that think like Sheikh Taj Din al-Hilali, Australia's Grand Mufti.  Here is the Mufti on women's liberation and the "freedoms they enjoy in the West":


"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats (sexual predators) come and eat (rape her) it..whose fault is it - the cats or the uncovered meat? 

The uncovered meat (liberated, unaccompanied, Western-dressed woman) is the problem. 

If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab (veil), no problem would have occurred."

Sheikh Taj Din al-Hilali, 26 October 2006


So, you go ahead and run your Mediscare ads claiming that I would make Grandmum eat catfood because she had to spend her money on her prescriptions.  In response, I'll tell her that you pall around with people that think that she, her daughters, and granddaughters ARE Purina Fancy Feast.

As Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said -- most incorrectly on the facts in Buck v Bell -- "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."  Aren't three generations of Blame America Firsters and America Haters enough?  Do we really need any more...especially teaching your children?

(A semi ~~wink, wink~~ is in order here.  Part of me wants to invest millions in sterilisations or Planned Parenthood lifetime gift certificates; provided, they are used solely by white Progressives).
 
 As Byron York wrote, "looking at his time in office, Obama judges himself on what he believes is his ability to connect with the world.  'One of the proudest things of my three years in office is helping to restore a sense of respect for America around the world,' he told a star-studded fundraiser in Los Angeles last February.  'A belief that we are not just defined by the size of our military…but we’re also defined by our values, and our respect for rule of law, and our willingness to help countries in need.  We’ve got to preserve that, and we’ve got to build on that.'  Events in Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere are not cooperating with Obama’s vision.  Must be the movie."

This gets to the crux of the matter because it exposes the Obama's fatal conceit, his staggering ignorance, and his arrogance that surpasses the level of "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead."  First, it demonstrates his Messianic complex and shows that he actually believes that he is a figure of such historical importance that one word from him can still hearts, oceans, and ancient angers.  

Secondly, it illustrates nicely the fact that Obama has a very skewed view of what constitutes "American values."  The fact of the matter is that free speech is a fundamental American value.  Further, Americans value the Constitutional prohibition against the establishment of a religion and equal protection under the law for all.  How can he argue that he is in line with American values when he and his Secretary of State have promoted blasphemy laws.  As the Heritage Foundation noted:



"As recently as December 19, 2011, the U.S. voted for and was instrumental in passing ‘U.N. Resolution 16/18’ against ‘religious intolerance,’ ‘condemning the stereotyping, negative profiling and stigmatization of people based on their religion.’ While this may sound innocuous, it was the latest incarnation of a highly controversial ‘anti-blasphemy’ resolution that has been pushed by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) at the United Nations since 1999. This concept of global “blasphemy laws,” to which the Obama Administration is very obviously not hostile, is a long-cherished goal of Islamic supremacists.  It is also Constitutional sacrilege."


He has asked Google to determine if the film that his administration claims is responsible for the Islamists Acting Like Islamists riots complies with the company's Terms of Use.  He has unleashed the Hounds from Hell on the ridiculous con-artist, who made the film.  He has, repeatedly, said that Americans harbour resentments against "people unlike them" while calling such people (typically Christians) bitter-clingers.  And, don't even get me started on the Jewish Janitor tax.  Has he ever condemned the attacks on the Mormon church by his fellow Progs following the Prop 8 vote?  If he believed in religious tolerance and free speech, then why has he treated the Catholic Church the way that he has, including lying to Cardinal Dolan?

If you think that I doth protest too much and need to adjust the frequency on my tinfoil hat, then BEHOLD:




When asked the simple question, “Will you tell us here today that this Administration’s Department of Justice will never entertain or advance a proposal that criminalises speech against any religion?” five times, President Obama's Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division, Thomas Perez, would NOT affirm the First Amendment right to criticise any and every religion.


Thirdly, I don't know how he can even talk about the "rule of law" with a straight face.  Fast & Furious?  Recess appointments when the Senate could not possibly be in recess pursuant to Article I, Section 9?  Backdoor amnesty after Congress defeated the DREAM Act?  Quashing criticism of one religion while allowing the trashing of others? 

Fourth, "helping other countries in need"?  What country in the history of the world has done more for mankind than the United States?  Don't you just love being lectured about being "your brother's keeper" by a man, whose on brother lives in a hut in a Kenyan slum and survives on less than a dollar a day?

Finally, "events in Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere are not cooperating with Obama’s vision....must be the movie" a/k/a as the Real Obama Doctrine - Blame Anyone or Anything But Me is the most frightening.  Back in September 2008, The New Yorker ran a profile of Obama that contained this stunning statement to his political director, Patrick Gaspard, at the beginning of the campaign: 


“I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters.  I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.”


Considering the staggering hubris displayed then, it was no surprise to read that Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council,  in an attempt to explain why his boss has skipped more than half his daily intelligence meetings since taking office – including every day in the week leading up to the attacks on our diplomatic facilities in Egypt and Libya, said: 


"Obama doesn’t need briefers because he is just so much smarter than everyone else...Unlike your former boss [President Bush], he has it delivered to his residence in the morning and not briefed to him...[We take pride in the fact that Obama’s PDB is 'not briefed to him' because he is] 'among the most sophisticated consumers of intelligence on the planet.”


I'm sorry, but NO ONE PERSON so smart that he or she doesn't need to dialogue with the national security and defence teams.  Can anyone imagine Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F Kennedy, Winston Churchill or Ronald Reagan limiting himself to his own counsel during a war -- be it hot or cold?  Even if I were an Obama supporter, this Messianic complex and the echo chamber worshipers would trouble me greatly.  Besides, it would take a Herculean suspension of belief to think that Obama is the "among the most sophisticated consumers of intelligence on the planet."  As an example, I give you Michael Lewis' Vanity Fair profile, Obama's Way, of President Barack Obama:


"If you flipped over to the networks on March 7 you might have caught ABC White House correspondent Jake Tapper saying to your press secretary, Jay Carney, 'More than a thousand people have died, according to the United Nations. How many more people have to die before the United States decides, O.K., we’re going to take this one step of a no-fly zone?' ... By March 13, Qaddafi appeared to be roughly two weeks from getting to Ben­gha­zi.  At 4:10 p.m. on March 15 the White House held a meeting to discuss the issue. ...

'We knew that Qaddafi was moving on Benghazi, and that his history was such that he could carry out a threat to kill tens of thousands of people. We knew we didn’t have a lot of time—somewhere between two days and two weeks. We knew they were moving faster than we originally anticipated. We knew that Europe was proposing a no-fly zone.  We knew that a no-fly zone would not save the people of Ben­gha­zi. The no-fly zone was an expression of concern that didn’t real­ly do anything.

On March 15 the president had a typically full schedule....Twenty-five minutes after he’d given the world his March Madness tournament picks Obama walked down to the Situation Room.  In White House jargon this was a meeting of “the principals,” which is to say the big shots...Before big meetings the president is given a kind of road map, a list of who will be at the meeting and what they might be called on to contribute. The point of this particular meeting was for the people who knew something about Libya to describe what they thought Qad­da­fi might do, and then for the Pentagon to give the president his military options.

'The intelligence was very abstract,” says one witness. “Obama started asking questions about it. ‘What happens to the people in these cities when the cities fall? When you say Qaddafi takes a town, what happens?’” It didn’t take long to get the picture: if they did nothing they’d be looking at a horrific scenario, with tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of people slaughtered. (Qaddafi himself had given a speech on February 22, saying he planned to “cleanse Libya, house by house.”) The Pentagon then presented the president with two options: establish a no-fly zone or do nothing at all. The idea was that the people in the meeting would debate the merits of each, but Obama surprised the room by rejecting the premise of the meeting. “He instantly went off the road map,” recalls one eyewitness. “He asked, ‘Would a no-fly zone do anything to stop the scenario we just heard?’” After it became clear that it would not, Obama said, “I want to hear from some of the other folks in the room.”

The argument he had wanted to hear was the case for a more nuanced intervention—and a detailing of the more subtle costs to American interests of allowing the mass slaughter of Libyan civilians. His desire to hear the case raises the obvious question: Why didn’t he just make it himself? “It’s the Heisenberg principle,” he says. “Me asking the question changes the answer. And it also protects my decision-­making.

Public opinion at the fringes of the room, as it turned out, was different....They aren’t political people so much as Obama people. One was Ben Rhodes, who had been a struggling novelist when he went to work as a speechwriter back in 2007 on the first Obama campaign. Whatever Obama decided, Rhodes would have to write the speech explaining the decision, and he said in the meeting that he preferred to explain why the United States had prevented a massacre over why it hadn’t."


Correctly, Secretary of Defence Gates and Admiral Mullen didn’t see how core American security interests were at stake.  Obama's Chief of Staff, Bill Daley, thought that there was nothing but political downside to an intervention in Libya.  Joe Biden said the entire idea was "politically stupid."  Of course, as you know, Obama did go into Libya...without the consent of Congress or even approval of his senior advisers.  He did, however, have the full-throated support of a one-time struggling novelist and his current speechwriter.

I remember reading about the furore during Vietnam over the idea that the egghead academics were running the war from Washington.  I wonder what both sides would think of a President involving the world's only superpower in a military intervention on the basis of the emotional pleas of his speechwriter?



 

 

  
According to the Government Accountability Institute, which examined the President’s schedule from the day he took office until mid-June 2012 to see how often he attended his PDB — the meeting at which he is briefed on the most critical intelligence threats to the country — Obama attended his just 536 times in his first 1,225 days — or 43.8% of the time.  During 2011 and the first half of 2012, his attendance became even less frequent — falling to just over 38 percent. By contrast, Obama’s predecessor, George W Bush almost never missed his daily intelligence meeting. 

 The facts:

*  The PDB is a daily briefing with senior intelligence officials identifying for the president what the most critical threats are to our security.

*  Obama currently attends the meeting about 38% of the time.

*  Obama did not attend any of the PDBs in the week leading up to the attacks on the American Embassy in Cairo and the American Consulate in Benghazi.

*  Obama did not attend the PDB the day after the attacks on the American Embassy in Cairo and the American Consulate in Benghazi.

*  He plays a round of golf 30 days a year on average.

*  That means that for every 5 briefings he attends, he catches a round of golf

So glad his priorities are straight. 


What might Obama have learned had he and his staff met on a daily basis and he pushed them harder? 

*  On 4 September, all Egyptian security sectors received letters warning that Sinai- and Gaza-based Global Jihad cells were planning attacks on the American and Israel embassies in Cairo.

*   Egypt's General Intelligence Service warned that a jihadi group is planning to launch terrorist attacks against the US and Israeli embassies in Cairo, according to a report Tuesday by Egypt Independent, citing a secret letter obtained by Al-Masry Al-Youm.

*  On 8 September 2012,  the Egyptian website, El Fagr, posted a statement by Jihadi groups in Egypt, including Islamic Jihad, the Sunni Group, and Al Gamaa Al Islamiyya wherein they threatened to burn the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to the ground.

*  On 10 September 2012, Raymond Ibrahim at PJMedia.com reported the threat and linked to the site.  He also translated the post from El Fagr:




“The group, which consists of many members from al-Qaeda, called [especially] for the quick release of the jihadi [mujahid] sheikh, Omar Abdul Rahman [the "Blind Sheikh"], whom they described as a scholar and jihadi who sacrificed his life for the Egyptian Umma, who was ignored by the Mubarak regime, and [President] Morsi is refusing to intervene on his behalf and release him, despite promising that he would. The Islamic Group has threatened to burn the U.S. Embassy in Cairo with those in it, and taking hostage those who remain [alive], unless the Blind Sheikh is immediately released.





Quoting senior diplomatic sources, TheIndependent, a liberal British broadsheet reported that, “the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted.  [Nonetheless] no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and ‘lockdown,’ under which movement is severely restricted.”  Maybe, if Obama had dialogued with his team, the one hand could have found out what the other hand knew...
 
The chaos in the Middle East was not caused by any film.  It is what it is and Obama and the Nattering Nabobs of Newspeak must stop screaming about mean-old-meanie Christian filmmakers, religious toleration, religion of peace, the Arab Spring, democracy in the Middle East, Obama's Magical Touch, the need to prosecute those that offend other people's feelings, the idea that the First Amendment might need to be "trimmed" because it is just too damn dangerous to have the "hate speech" of a 21st century people protected by an 18th law when it hurts the feelings of some misogynistic, homophobic, child-abusing, maniacal, homicidal, suicidal, totalitarian members of a 7th century death cult.   It's time to put away childish things, as Obama promised to do on 20 January 2009.  Grow up.  Take responsibility for your failures.  Quit lying.

As an old acquaintance, Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and occasional talking head, remarked:


“The film was simply an act of free speech. The position of the United States should be clear. Violence was not caused by any film.  Free speech is not a characteristic of America. It defines being an American."


Turley and his friend, Inflatable Gumby, are both Progressives, but with a libertarian bent.  Turley would be one Prog that I'd alert of a pending disaster.  He's a smart, sensible biscuit although he'd have to learn to live without Inflatable Gumby given my limit of Prog Saves is 5.  Too bad that more Progs won't listen to him.  He is a fount of reason in a Prog world of agitprop.

History has proven time and time again that the freedom of man is most at risk in times of turmoil and as a result of their leaders' ineptitude.   As the British politician and journalist Daniel Hannan recently observed in his book The New Road to Serfdom, “most disastrous policies have been introduced at times of emergency.”  If we aren't careful, our First Amendment rights will be lost due to Obama's ignorance, incompetence, arrogance, appeasement, and fatal conceit.



Rock the Casbah - The Clash

Now the king told the boogie men
You have to let that raga drop
The oil down the desert way
Has been shakin' to the top
The sheik he drove his Cadillac
He went a' cruisin' down the ville
The muezzin was a' standing
On the radiator grille

[Chorus]

The sharif don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah
Rock the Casbah
The sharif don't like it
Rockin' the Casbah
Rock the Casbah

By order of the prophet

We ban that boogie sound
Degenerate the faithful
With that crazy Casbah sound
But the Bedouin they brought out
The electric camel drum
The local guitar picker
Got his guitar picking thumb
As soon as the sharif
Had cleared the square
They began to wail

[Chorus]


Now over at the temple

Oh! They really pack 'em in
The in crowd say it's cool
To dig this chanting thing
But as the wind changed direction
The temple band took five
The crowd caught a whiff
Of that crazy Casbah jive

[Chorus]


The king called up his jet fighters

He said you better earn your pay
Drop your bombs between the minarets
Down the Casbah way

As soon as the sharif was

Chauffeured outta there
The jet pilots tuned to
The cockpit radio blare

As soon as the sharif was

Outta their hair
The jet pilots wailed

[Chorus]


He thinks it's not kosher

Fundamentally he can't take it.
You know he really hates it.