Thursday, October 21, 2010
FROM "STAND FOR ISRAEL"
Rabbi's Commentary
The Biblical Call to Respect the Elderly
October 21, 2010
Dear Friend of Israel,
Though Christians and Jews have many beliefs that differ, it is always helpful to remember that there are many beliefs we share. One of these beliefs, reinforced time and again in Scripture — though, sadly, absent from many aspects of our modern life — is the importance of respecting the elderly.
What does it really mean to respect the elderly? Today I'm going to suggest that it means much more than simply giving up our seat on a bus so an older person can sit down. No, when it says, in Leviticus 19:32, "Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God," the Bible may indeed be talking about common courtesy, but is talking about something deeper as well.
The Bible tells us that our elders have something to teach us — they have life experiences we can learn from. Deuteronomy 32:7 says, "Remember the days of old; consider the generations long past. Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders, and they will explain to you." In other words, if we are willing to listen, the older generation can instruct us in the path we are to follow and remind us of the values we hold dear that can often be obscured by modern society.
We see a great example of an elder imparting wisdom to a younger generation when Jacob is on his deathbed. In Genesis 48:3-4, he tells Joseph, "God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and there he blessed me and said to me, 'I am going to make you fruitful and will increase your numbers. I will make you a community of peoples, and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you.'" Jacob is sharing his experience with God with his son, telling what it meant to him and what it means for Joseph. He's setting the spiritual and geographical course for future generations.
And because of this experience and belief, Jacob also instructs Joseph and his brothers multiple times not to bury him there in Egypt, but to take his body back to that land promised by God to bury him with his fathers (Genesis 49:29-32). In essence, he's telling his sons, "You are sojourners and visitors here. Don't forget from where you come, both in terms of values and of place. My place and your place are ultimately in the homeland in Israel."
I heard a similar message when my great-grandfather died. He lived here in Jerusalem, and before he passed, he created a special document — a sort of ethical will. There was one paragraph on what to do with his possessions; the rest of the five pages were about what was important to him. For example, he admonished us to remember that our roots are here in Jerusalem and to always remember to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy. This ethical will is a source of continued inspiration to me. In fact, it's one of the many reasons I made aliyah (immigrated to Israel) — to respect my great-grandfather's wisdom and my family's Jewish heritage.
Just as reading our spiritual elders' wise words through the pages of the Bible enriches our lives, so has honoring my elder's instructions richly blessed my life. Because, in the end, respecting the elderly isn't just a biblical command; it's a time-honored privilege.
With prayers for shalom, peace,
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein President
The Biblical Call to Respect the Elderly
October 21, 2010
Dear Friend of Israel,
Though Christians and Jews have many beliefs that differ, it is always helpful to remember that there are many beliefs we share. One of these beliefs, reinforced time and again in Scripture — though, sadly, absent from many aspects of our modern life — is the importance of respecting the elderly.
What does it really mean to respect the elderly? Today I'm going to suggest that it means much more than simply giving up our seat on a bus so an older person can sit down. No, when it says, in Leviticus 19:32, "Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God," the Bible may indeed be talking about common courtesy, but is talking about something deeper as well.
The Bible tells us that our elders have something to teach us — they have life experiences we can learn from. Deuteronomy 32:7 says, "Remember the days of old; consider the generations long past. Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders, and they will explain to you." In other words, if we are willing to listen, the older generation can instruct us in the path we are to follow and remind us of the values we hold dear that can often be obscured by modern society.
We see a great example of an elder imparting wisdom to a younger generation when Jacob is on his deathbed. In Genesis 48:3-4, he tells Joseph, "God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and there he blessed me and said to me, 'I am going to make you fruitful and will increase your numbers. I will make you a community of peoples, and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you.'" Jacob is sharing his experience with God with his son, telling what it meant to him and what it means for Joseph. He's setting the spiritual and geographical course for future generations.
And because of this experience and belief, Jacob also instructs Joseph and his brothers multiple times not to bury him there in Egypt, but to take his body back to that land promised by God to bury him with his fathers (Genesis 49:29-32). In essence, he's telling his sons, "You are sojourners and visitors here. Don't forget from where you come, both in terms of values and of place. My place and your place are ultimately in the homeland in Israel."
I heard a similar message when my great-grandfather died. He lived here in Jerusalem, and before he passed, he created a special document — a sort of ethical will. There was one paragraph on what to do with his possessions; the rest of the five pages were about what was important to him. For example, he admonished us to remember that our roots are here in Jerusalem and to always remember to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy. This ethical will is a source of continued inspiration to me. In fact, it's one of the many reasons I made aliyah (immigrated to Israel) — to respect my great-grandfather's wisdom and my family's Jewish heritage.
Just as reading our spiritual elders' wise words through the pages of the Bible enriches our lives, so has honoring my elder's instructions richly blessed my life. Because, in the end, respecting the elderly isn't just a biblical command; it's a time-honored privilege.
With prayers for shalom, peace,
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein President
FROM TOWNHALL
Three Wars, Little News
Email Victor Davis Hanson
Columnist's Archive Share Buzz 0diggsdigg
Sign-Up It is a busy time in America. The Major League Baseball playoffs are competing with the upcoming midterm elections for the public's attention. The rescue of courageous miners in Chile has for a time overshadowed even the latest psychodramas of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.
There is endemic fear among Americans that continual $1 trillion-plus annual deficits and near-10 percent unemployment are about to destroy the vaunted American standard of living. Who has time to worry about much else?
Yet, that said, we have been sleeping through three major wars that will soon wake us up.
This summer, Americans were dying in combat in Afghanistan at rates not seen since the summer of 2007 in Iraq. In congressional hearings that year, furious legislators grilled Gen. David Petraeus and cited the high number of monthly combat deaths to prematurely declare his surge a failure. Moveon.org ran ads calling Petraeus a traitor ("General Betray Us") for continuing the war amid such losses.
No such furor surrounds Afghanistan. Yet more Americans have been killed so far this year in Afghanistan than during the entire six years of fighting there from 2001 through 2006. U.S. combat fatalities in Afghanistan in just the first 19 months of the Obama administration exceeded U.S. combat fatalities in Afghanistan in eight years under George W. Bush.
This depressing news warrants little commentary in the mainstream media but surely raises vital questions of national security. Why has the so-called "good war" suddenly heated up at precisely the same time American combat operations in the "bad war" in Iraq are largely over?
Are casualties spiking because of the surge of American troops, as once happened in 2007 in Iraq? Or has the enemy stepped up the offensive in hopes that announced American troop withdrawals mean victory is on the horizon?
Does President Obama plan to win, or is he willing to concede the war with the Taliban? Does the media fear that depressing coverage of Afghanistan will damage this administration in the way daily headlines of violence from Iraq nearly destroyed the prior one?
Meanwhile, almost imperceptibly, the United States has been waging a full-scale Predator drone war again suspected al-Qaeda terrorists inside Pakistan. This year alone, we have conducted more than twice as many air strikes inside Pakistan as in the eight years from 2001 through 2008. Indeed, in just the first two years of the Obama administration, we have killed more than 1,000 suspected terrorists, along with some civilians, inside Pakistan -- or more than double the number taken out by airstrikes during the entire Bush administration.
But again, why the quiet in the news? Are we not relieved that the Obama administration is taking the war to the enemy? Or should we be worried that our drones are now operating on a massive scale inside the borders of a sometimes-hostile and nuclear Pakistan? Are Predators an effective way to counter al-Qaeda terrorism? Or as judge, jury and executioner of non-uniformed terrorist suspects, do they raise the same civil-liberties issues that once raged (but strangely have subsided) around Guantanamo Bay and renditions?
There is a third stealthy conflict to our immediate south. Mexico is convulsed in a drug war far more violent than anything going on in Iraq. Nearly 30,000 people have been murdered in Mexico in the last three years since the Calderón government attempted to wrestle back control of large swaths of the country from vicious organized drug cartels.
Some 200 Americans have been killed in Mexico since 2004. In some Mexican towns, mayors and entire city councils have either been murdered or fled, and the violence often spills over into U.S. border towns.
Why the relative silence in our media? The carnage affects dozens of issues -- from the now-suspended U.S. border fence and the Arizona anti-illegal immigration law to current U.S. drug statutes and the upcoming California referendum on the legalization of marijuana.
Mexico is quickly devolving into a failed state. Yet few in the media seem willing to apprise Americans of what that means for the United States. Will Mexico become a Somalia, a Venezuela or an Afghanistan right on our 1,969-mile-long border?
Americans know more about Lady Gaga than they do about the Afghan war, the Predator war inside Pakistan or the vicious drug war in Mexico. Apparently our news media has decided that we do not, or should not, care about any of the three.
Like it or not, that is about to change -- and very soon.
Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal.
Email Victor Davis Hanson
Columnist's Archive Share Buzz 0diggsdigg
Sign-Up It is a busy time in America. The Major League Baseball playoffs are competing with the upcoming midterm elections for the public's attention. The rescue of courageous miners in Chile has for a time overshadowed even the latest psychodramas of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.
There is endemic fear among Americans that continual $1 trillion-plus annual deficits and near-10 percent unemployment are about to destroy the vaunted American standard of living. Who has time to worry about much else?
Yet, that said, we have been sleeping through three major wars that will soon wake us up.
This summer, Americans were dying in combat in Afghanistan at rates not seen since the summer of 2007 in Iraq. In congressional hearings that year, furious legislators grilled Gen. David Petraeus and cited the high number of monthly combat deaths to prematurely declare his surge a failure. Moveon.org ran ads calling Petraeus a traitor ("General Betray Us") for continuing the war amid such losses.
No such furor surrounds Afghanistan. Yet more Americans have been killed so far this year in Afghanistan than during the entire six years of fighting there from 2001 through 2006. U.S. combat fatalities in Afghanistan in just the first 19 months of the Obama administration exceeded U.S. combat fatalities in Afghanistan in eight years under George W. Bush.
This depressing news warrants little commentary in the mainstream media but surely raises vital questions of national security. Why has the so-called "good war" suddenly heated up at precisely the same time American combat operations in the "bad war" in Iraq are largely over?
Are casualties spiking because of the surge of American troops, as once happened in 2007 in Iraq? Or has the enemy stepped up the offensive in hopes that announced American troop withdrawals mean victory is on the horizon?
Does President Obama plan to win, or is he willing to concede the war with the Taliban? Does the media fear that depressing coverage of Afghanistan will damage this administration in the way daily headlines of violence from Iraq nearly destroyed the prior one?
Meanwhile, almost imperceptibly, the United States has been waging a full-scale Predator drone war again suspected al-Qaeda terrorists inside Pakistan. This year alone, we have conducted more than twice as many air strikes inside Pakistan as in the eight years from 2001 through 2008. Indeed, in just the first two years of the Obama administration, we have killed more than 1,000 suspected terrorists, along with some civilians, inside Pakistan -- or more than double the number taken out by airstrikes during the entire Bush administration.
But again, why the quiet in the news? Are we not relieved that the Obama administration is taking the war to the enemy? Or should we be worried that our drones are now operating on a massive scale inside the borders of a sometimes-hostile and nuclear Pakistan? Are Predators an effective way to counter al-Qaeda terrorism? Or as judge, jury and executioner of non-uniformed terrorist suspects, do they raise the same civil-liberties issues that once raged (but strangely have subsided) around Guantanamo Bay and renditions?
There is a third stealthy conflict to our immediate south. Mexico is convulsed in a drug war far more violent than anything going on in Iraq. Nearly 30,000 people have been murdered in Mexico in the last three years since the Calderón government attempted to wrestle back control of large swaths of the country from vicious organized drug cartels.
Some 200 Americans have been killed in Mexico since 2004. In some Mexican towns, mayors and entire city councils have either been murdered or fled, and the violence often spills over into U.S. border towns.
Why the relative silence in our media? The carnage affects dozens of issues -- from the now-suspended U.S. border fence and the Arizona anti-illegal immigration law to current U.S. drug statutes and the upcoming California referendum on the legalization of marijuana.
Mexico is quickly devolving into a failed state. Yet few in the media seem willing to apprise Americans of what that means for the United States. Will Mexico become a Somalia, a Venezuela or an Afghanistan right on our 1,969-mile-long border?
Americans know more about Lady Gaga than they do about the Afghan war, the Predator war inside Pakistan or the vicious drug war in Mexico. Apparently our news media has decided that we do not, or should not, care about any of the three.
Like it or not, that is about to change -- and very soon.
Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal.
THE EMMA MAERSK & WALMART
E m m a M a e r s k
You really should read the ending...... See the editorial under the last picture. That says it all!
The Emma Maersk, part of a Danish shipping line, is shown in the photos below.
What a ship....no wonder 'Made in China ' is displacing North American made goods big time.
This monster transports goods across the Pacific in just 5 days!! This is one of three ships
presently in service, with another two ships commissioned to be completed in 2012.
These ships were commissioned by Wal-Mart to get all their goods and stuff from China . They hold
an incredible 15,000 cartons and have a 207 foot deck beam!! The full crew is just 13 people on a ship
longer than a US Aircraft Carrier (which has a crew o f 5,000)
With its 207' beam it is too big to fit through the Panama or Suez Canals
It is strictly transpacific. Cruise speed: 31 knots.
The goods arrive 4 days before the typical container ship (18-20 knots) on a China -to- California run. 91% o f Walmart products are made in China .
So this behemoth is hugely competitive even when carrying perishable goods.
The ship was built in five sections. The sections floated
together and then welded.
The command bridge is higher than a 10-story building and has 11 cargo crane rigs that can operate simultaneously unloading the entire ship in less than two hours.
Additional info:
Country of origin - Denmark
Length - 1,302 f t
Width - 207 f t
Net cargo - 123,200 tons
Engine - 14 cylinders in-line diesel engine (110,000 BHP)
Cruise Speed - 31 knots
Cargo capacity - 15,000 TEU (1 TEU = 20 cubic f eet)
Crew - 13 people!
First Trip - Sept. 08, 2006
Construction cost - US $145,000,000+
Silicone painting applied to the ship bottom reduces water resistance and saves 317,000 gallons o f diesel per year.
Editorial Comment!
A recent documentary in late March, 2010 on the History Channel noted that all of these containers are shipped back to China , EMPTY. Yep, that's right.
We send nothing back on these ships. What does that tell you about the current financial state of this country? Just keep buying those imported goods (mostly gadgets) until you run out of money.
Then you may wonder what the cause of unemployment (maybe even your job) in the U.S. and Canada might be ?
'Nuff said ?
This message, if any, surely deserves forwarding, doesn't it ?
You really should read the ending...... See the editorial under the last picture. That says it all!
The Emma Maersk, part of a Danish shipping line, is shown in the photos below.
What a ship....no wonder 'Made in China ' is displacing North American made goods big time.
This monster transports goods across the Pacific in just 5 days!! This is one of three ships
presently in service, with another two ships commissioned to be completed in 2012.
These ships were commissioned by Wal-Mart to get all their goods and stuff from China . They hold
an incredible 15,000 cartons and have a 207 foot deck beam!! The full crew is just 13 people on a ship
longer than a US Aircraft Carrier (which has a crew o f 5,000)
With its 207' beam it is too big to fit through the Panama or Suez Canals
It is strictly transpacific. Cruise speed: 31 knots.
The goods arrive 4 days before the typical container ship (18-20 knots) on a China -to- California run. 91% o f Walmart products are made in China .
So this behemoth is hugely competitive even when carrying perishable goods.
The ship was built in five sections. The sections floated
together and then welded.
The command bridge is higher than a 10-story building and has 11 cargo crane rigs that can operate simultaneously unloading the entire ship in less than two hours.
Additional info:
Country of origin - Denmark
Length - 1,302 f t
Width - 207 f t
Net cargo - 123,200 tons
Engine - 14 cylinders in-line diesel engine (110,000 BHP)
Cruise Speed - 31 knots
Cargo capacity - 15,000 TEU (1 TEU = 20 cubic f eet)
Crew - 13 people!
First Trip - Sept. 08, 2006
Construction cost - US $145,000,000+
Editorial Comment!
A recent documentary in late March, 2010 on the History Channel noted that all of these containers are shipped back to China , EMPTY. Yep, that's right.
We send nothing back on these ships. What does that tell you about the current financial state of this country? Just keep buying those imported goods (mostly gadgets) until you run out of money.
Then you may wonder what the cause of unemployment (maybe even your job) in the U.S. and Canada might be ?
'Nuff said ?
This message, if any, surely deserves forwarding, doesn't it ?
HERE IS A BLESSING
Alan Jackson sing & pictures with it. http://www.openmyeyeslord.net/UltimateFreedom.htm
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
FROM HERITAGE CHRONICLE
Chronicle · October 18, 2010
The Foundation
"[I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them." --Candidus
Editorial Exegesis"Legal arguments for Obamacare's individual mandate fail the 'Alice in Wonderland' test and the duck test. In two court challenges to the law in the past 11 days and a court hearing today on a third, the Obama administration's legal position is fading faster than the Cheshire Cat. Democrats took some solace from the first case, a challenge in Michigan, because Judge George C. Steeh ultimately ruled in favor of Obamacare. Yet even though that Clinton-appointed judge refused to declare the mandate unconstitutional, he undercut the administration's key argument that the penalty for failing to buy insurance is a 'tax,' and that the mandate it enforces is allowable within the broad taxing power provided by the Constitution. 'The provisions of the Health Care Reform Act at issue here, for the most part, have nothing to do with the assessment or collection of taxes,' Judge Steeh ruled. This is so important that the federal district judge in Florida, in Thursday's preliminary ruling in the second case, spent 22 pages analyzing it. If the fine is a penalty rather than a tax, Congress' power is far less extensive. Judge Roger Vinson noted Congress repeatedly called the fine a 'penalty,' explicitly changing its description from a 'tax' that earlier versions of the bill assessed by name. Citing Alice's admonition to Humpty Dumpty that words can't 'mean so many different things' as Humpty intended, Judge Vinson concluded, 'Congress should not be permitted to secure and cast politically difficult votes on controversial legislation by deliberately calling something one thing ... [only to] argue in court that Congress really meant something else entirely.' Judge Vinson explained that no matter what Congress called it, the assessment was designed to act as a punishment, not a revenue measure. Hence, it's not a tax. His 22-page analysis is an exposition of the logic that if something is called a duck, acts like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck -- and the same goes for a penalty. The tax issue is vital because it's the Obama administration's fallback position if it loses on the first and biggest dispute, which is whether Congress has the power under the Commerce Clause not only to regulate commerce, but to force individuals to engage in specific commerce." --The Washington Times
Upright
"ObamaCare is an unmitigated disaster-in-the-making. If people can be forced to buy health insurance and states can be forced to blow gigantic, federally-mandated holes in their budgets, this country will never recover. Our wannabe socialists in Congress and the White House are already, as Margaret Thatcher put it, 'out of other people's money.' The election in November may do much to blunt their odious ambitions, but they will never give up trying to turn America into a socialist nation." --columnist Arnold Ahlert
"The question here is in one crucial sense about health care, but it is in fact about much more than that. It concerns the federal government's claimed entitlement to instruct us concerning the decisions we make about caring for our health. It is possible, no doubt, to claim that ObamaCare, as enacted last spring by Congress, is so wonderful a thing no one should miss out on it. It is another matter entirely to suggest that the end here justifies the means. That's to say because ObamaCare is wonderful/marvelous/you name it, you and you and you should be made to buy into it. That kind of assertion gives off the odor of tyranny -- a prospect worse, I hope we can agree, than gaps in health insurance coverage." --columnist William Murchison
"A nirvana 'Star Trek' world without money, without sickness, and without envy ignores reality. Yet not only do the Left pretend this is possible, but they sell the idea by using envy and government checks like candy from their pocket. They sell this idea to those in need, taking power in exchange for promises they cannot possibly keep. They have merely shifted the burden, first to 'the rich,' and then always expanding according to ever-increasing needs to the entire producing half of the country. This is not fairness. This is lust for power. This is the face of tyranny in disguise. This, then, is the liberal Democrat message of Hope and Change." --columnist Richard Pecore
"The problem is, and always has been, that once government programs and agencies are created, they quickly become sacrosanct and virtually impossible to destroy. As Ronald Reagan said, 'Government programs, once launched, never disappear ... a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!' So it doesn't matter that the Department of Education doesn't educate, or that the Department of Energy doesn't produce energy. It's government and, thus, by definition good in the minds of the Washington establishment." --columnist Cal Thomas
"All indications coming out of the White House suggest that if Democrats suffer major losses, the president and his top aides will resolutely refuse to reconsider the policies -- national health care, stimulus, runaway spending -- that led to their defeat. Instead, they will point fingers in virtually every direction other than their own. Come November, it's likely the D-for-Democrat that the president refers to so often will actually stand for denial.'" --Washington Examiner political correspondent Byron York
At Stake This Election
This powerful ad, perhaps better than any other ad we've seen, reminds conservatives of what's at stake, and why we need to get out and vote. See it and comment here.
Tea Party Primer
Our quintessential field guide for the Tea Party movement, Tea Party Primer, is immediately available individually, in small quantity or as a bulk purchase. Inexpensively priced for wide distribution, the Tea Party Primer's purpose is to be a catalyst for the restoration of our Constitution's integrity and mandate for Rule of Law! All purchases at The Patriot Shop support our Mission of Service to America's Armed Forces.
Dezinformatsia
Belly Laugh of the Week: "One of [Barack] Obama's greatest political weaknesses has been his stubborn -- and unrequited -- love for bipartisanship. ... The expected Republican gains in the coming mid-term elections may solve one of Obama's problems: his misplaced faith in logic, persuasion and cooperation in the national interest." --Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial page editor Cynthia Tucker
Belly Laugh II: "Unlike Ronald Reagan, whose poll ratings were slightly lower than Obama's just before the 1982 mid-term elections, Obama didn't take every possible opportunity to pin the economic mess on his predecessor." --Cynthia Tucker, missing the fact that Obama takes every opportunity -- and then some -- to blame Bush
Sympathy for the devil: "Nancy Pelosi is considered one of the most effective speakers in congressional history. But now she's faced with the fact that Democrats could lose the House in November. You get indignant when you hear that." --CBS's Rita Braver to Pelosi, who responded, "I don't get indignant. I just don't believe it."
"Where is the celebration over what has been done and accomplished [by Barack Obama] in the face of all this anger and vitriol in Washington?" --MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski
Whose money is it? "Why are we letting the top 2 percent of the population win over the other 98?" --MSNBC's Ed Schultz on taxes
Non Compos Mentis: "[The Tea Party's philosophy is] every man for himself. ... No more taxes, no more government, no more everything. No more safety net. You know these people, if they were every man for himself down in that mine [in Chile], they wouldn't have gotten out. ... They would have been killing each other after about two days." --MSNBC host Chris Matthews
Newspulper Headlines:
He's Deep in a Hole, and Only the Ingenuity of Risk-Taking Capitalists Can Save Him: "Harry Reid: Obama 'Like the Chilean Miners'" --video title, RealClearPolitics.com
The Cost Was Revised Upward to $862B: "'Jackass' Gang Pulls Biggest Stunt With $50M Debut" --Associated Press
Waste Trillions and Wreck Health Care, for Starters: "What Would the Nobel Winners Do About the Jobs Crisis?" --USA Today
Yes, but Only for Democrats: "The Fast Fix: Is Nancy Pelosi a Political Liability in the Midterm Elections?" --Yahoo! News
Out on a Limb: "My Take: Islam Is a Religion of Peace, or It Isn't" --CNN.com
(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)
No ObamaNation
The Demo-gogues
It's all about me ... except when that's inconvenient: "It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, [Republicans] feel more responsible, either because they didn't do as well as they anticipated, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn't work for them, or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with me in a serious way." --Barack Obama
Psychotherapy for voters: "Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument do not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared. And the country is scared." --Barack Obama
Doesn't say much: "The single best decision I have made was selecting Joe Biden as my running mate." --Barack Obama
If only he understood his own claims: "I think families, as well as the federal government, have understood that you can't just operate on the basis of debt." --BO
Blame Bush, check; bash the Chamber, check: "We have lost millions of jobs to outsourcing under President Bush. We don't intend to repeat that policy -- no matter how much money the Chamber of Commerce dumps into our elections." --House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) getting in all her talking points
When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging: "When Barack Obama was elected president, he found himself in a hole so deep that he couldn't see the outside world. It was like the Chilean miners, but he, being the man that he is, rolled up his sleeves and said, 'I'm gonna get us out of this hole.'" --Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)
The BIG Lie: "In the course of this year we will have created more jobs this year, 2010, than in the entire Bush administration of eight years." --Nancy Pelosi, who also once infamously claimed, "Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package, 500 million Americans lose their jobs." (To say the least, she's not very good at math.)
Yeah, fewer of them: "The health care bill is about jobs, the energy bill is about jobs, the education bill is about jobs, and the recovery act is about jobs." --Nancy Pelosi
Village Idiots
Spiritualist: "We got this man in office. I think we're all proud of Barack and his accomplishments. Everybody I know in our communities are praying for us, every day. It means all the world to us to know that there are prayer circles out there and people who are keeping the spirits clean around us." --Michelle Obama (And Democrats make fun of Christine O'Donnell for being a witch.)
Predictions: "There's no question it is a tough and challenging political environment. Come election night, I think we will retain control of the House and Senate." --White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, reversing his earlier position that the House was likely lost
Arrogance: "I don't think we should be making the case right now. Elections are not the time to educate people. You win the election, then you educate people afterwards. But the president's doing what he should be doing. This is a bare-knuckle fight. It's between the far right, which has taken over the Republican Party, and the rest of us." --former DNC chief Howard Dean
World's Smallest Violin: "I think we miscalculated. We had the idea that, particularly in a time of national crisis, there would be more of an inclination to work together." --White House adviser David Axelrod, who did his part to push policy as far left as possible and then cry when conservatives objected
Cheer up: "We are destroying life on earth." --UN Environment Program head Achim Steiner
Short Cuts
"In interviews, job summits and press conferences, it was shovel-ready this, shovel-ready that. Search the White House website for the term 'shovel-ready' and you'll drown in press releases about all the shovels ready to shove shovel-ready projects into the 21st century, where no shovel is left behind. Only now it turns out that the president was shoveling something all right when he was talking about shovel-ready jobs -- a whole pile of steaming something." --columnist Jonah Goldberg
"I may not know everything about politics but I know this: With two weeks to go it's better for the other guys to be desperate, dispirited, and crumbling." --political analyst Rich Galen
"Hillary Clinton announced Wednesday she will travel to Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam and New Guinea in late October. She won't be in America on Election Day. She'll be holed up ten thousand miles away in New Guinea's capital city of Itole Jouso." --comedian Argus Hamilton
"Vice President Joe Biden told The New York Times that President Obama has asked him to run again in 2012. The bad news? Nobody is asking Obama yet." --comedian Jay Leno
"The beauty of our system isn't that we have the right to vote. After all, Russians got to vote for Joseph Stalin and Iraqis got to vote for Saddam Hussein. No, the nice thing is that people who are too dumb or lazy or uninformed to bother casting a ballot aren't compelled to vote. And no apologies are required. In fact, in my opinion, thanks are in order. Far too many people are voting, as it is." --columnist Burt Prelutsky
The Foundation
"[I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them." --Candidus
Editorial Exegesis"Legal arguments for Obamacare's individual mandate fail the 'Alice in Wonderland' test and the duck test. In two court challenges to the law in the past 11 days and a court hearing today on a third, the Obama administration's legal position is fading faster than the Cheshire Cat. Democrats took some solace from the first case, a challenge in Michigan, because Judge George C. Steeh ultimately ruled in favor of Obamacare. Yet even though that Clinton-appointed judge refused to declare the mandate unconstitutional, he undercut the administration's key argument that the penalty for failing to buy insurance is a 'tax,' and that the mandate it enforces is allowable within the broad taxing power provided by the Constitution. 'The provisions of the Health Care Reform Act at issue here, for the most part, have nothing to do with the assessment or collection of taxes,' Judge Steeh ruled. This is so important that the federal district judge in Florida, in Thursday's preliminary ruling in the second case, spent 22 pages analyzing it. If the fine is a penalty rather than a tax, Congress' power is far less extensive. Judge Roger Vinson noted Congress repeatedly called the fine a 'penalty,' explicitly changing its description from a 'tax' that earlier versions of the bill assessed by name. Citing Alice's admonition to Humpty Dumpty that words can't 'mean so many different things' as Humpty intended, Judge Vinson concluded, 'Congress should not be permitted to secure and cast politically difficult votes on controversial legislation by deliberately calling something one thing ... [only to] argue in court that Congress really meant something else entirely.' Judge Vinson explained that no matter what Congress called it, the assessment was designed to act as a punishment, not a revenue measure. Hence, it's not a tax. His 22-page analysis is an exposition of the logic that if something is called a duck, acts like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck -- and the same goes for a penalty. The tax issue is vital because it's the Obama administration's fallback position if it loses on the first and biggest dispute, which is whether Congress has the power under the Commerce Clause not only to regulate commerce, but to force individuals to engage in specific commerce." --The Washington Times
Upright
"ObamaCare is an unmitigated disaster-in-the-making. If people can be forced to buy health insurance and states can be forced to blow gigantic, federally-mandated holes in their budgets, this country will never recover. Our wannabe socialists in Congress and the White House are already, as Margaret Thatcher put it, 'out of other people's money.' The election in November may do much to blunt their odious ambitions, but they will never give up trying to turn America into a socialist nation." --columnist Arnold Ahlert
"The question here is in one crucial sense about health care, but it is in fact about much more than that. It concerns the federal government's claimed entitlement to instruct us concerning the decisions we make about caring for our health. It is possible, no doubt, to claim that ObamaCare, as enacted last spring by Congress, is so wonderful a thing no one should miss out on it. It is another matter entirely to suggest that the end here justifies the means. That's to say because ObamaCare is wonderful/marvelous/you name it, you and you and you should be made to buy into it. That kind of assertion gives off the odor of tyranny -- a prospect worse, I hope we can agree, than gaps in health insurance coverage." --columnist William Murchison
"A nirvana 'Star Trek' world without money, without sickness, and without envy ignores reality. Yet not only do the Left pretend this is possible, but they sell the idea by using envy and government checks like candy from their pocket. They sell this idea to those in need, taking power in exchange for promises they cannot possibly keep. They have merely shifted the burden, first to 'the rich,' and then always expanding according to ever-increasing needs to the entire producing half of the country. This is not fairness. This is lust for power. This is the face of tyranny in disguise. This, then, is the liberal Democrat message of Hope and Change." --columnist Richard Pecore
"The problem is, and always has been, that once government programs and agencies are created, they quickly become sacrosanct and virtually impossible to destroy. As Ronald Reagan said, 'Government programs, once launched, never disappear ... a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!' So it doesn't matter that the Department of Education doesn't educate, or that the Department of Energy doesn't produce energy. It's government and, thus, by definition good in the minds of the Washington establishment." --columnist Cal Thomas
"All indications coming out of the White House suggest that if Democrats suffer major losses, the president and his top aides will resolutely refuse to reconsider the policies -- national health care, stimulus, runaway spending -- that led to their defeat. Instead, they will point fingers in virtually every direction other than their own. Come November, it's likely the D-for-Democrat that the president refers to so often will actually stand for denial.'" --Washington Examiner political correspondent Byron York
At Stake This Election
This powerful ad, perhaps better than any other ad we've seen, reminds conservatives of what's at stake, and why we need to get out and vote. See it and comment here.
Tea Party Primer
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Dezinformatsia
Belly Laugh of the Week: "One of [Barack] Obama's greatest political weaknesses has been his stubborn -- and unrequited -- love for bipartisanship. ... The expected Republican gains in the coming mid-term elections may solve one of Obama's problems: his misplaced faith in logic, persuasion and cooperation in the national interest." --Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial page editor Cynthia Tucker
Belly Laugh II: "Unlike Ronald Reagan, whose poll ratings were slightly lower than Obama's just before the 1982 mid-term elections, Obama didn't take every possible opportunity to pin the economic mess on his predecessor." --Cynthia Tucker, missing the fact that Obama takes every opportunity -- and then some -- to blame Bush
Sympathy for the devil: "Nancy Pelosi is considered one of the most effective speakers in congressional history. But now she's faced with the fact that Democrats could lose the House in November. You get indignant when you hear that." --CBS's Rita Braver to Pelosi, who responded, "I don't get indignant. I just don't believe it."
"Where is the celebration over what has been done and accomplished [by Barack Obama] in the face of all this anger and vitriol in Washington?" --MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski
Whose money is it? "Why are we letting the top 2 percent of the population win over the other 98?" --MSNBC's Ed Schultz on taxes
Non Compos Mentis: "[The Tea Party's philosophy is] every man for himself. ... No more taxes, no more government, no more everything. No more safety net. You know these people, if they were every man for himself down in that mine [in Chile], they wouldn't have gotten out. ... They would have been killing each other after about two days." --MSNBC host Chris Matthews
Newspulper Headlines:
He's Deep in a Hole, and Only the Ingenuity of Risk-Taking Capitalists Can Save Him: "Harry Reid: Obama 'Like the Chilean Miners'" --video title, RealClearPolitics.com
The Cost Was Revised Upward to $862B: "'Jackass' Gang Pulls Biggest Stunt With $50M Debut" --Associated Press
Waste Trillions and Wreck Health Care, for Starters: "What Would the Nobel Winners Do About the Jobs Crisis?" --USA Today
Yes, but Only for Democrats: "The Fast Fix: Is Nancy Pelosi a Political Liability in the Midterm Elections?" --Yahoo! News
Out on a Limb: "My Take: Islam Is a Religion of Peace, or It Isn't" --CNN.com
(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)
No ObamaNation
The Demo-gogues
It's all about me ... except when that's inconvenient: "It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, [Republicans] feel more responsible, either because they didn't do as well as they anticipated, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn't work for them, or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with me in a serious way." --Barack Obama
Psychotherapy for voters: "Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument do not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared. And the country is scared." --Barack Obama
Doesn't say much: "The single best decision I have made was selecting Joe Biden as my running mate." --Barack Obama
If only he understood his own claims: "I think families, as well as the federal government, have understood that you can't just operate on the basis of debt." --BO
Blame Bush, check; bash the Chamber, check: "We have lost millions of jobs to outsourcing under President Bush. We don't intend to repeat that policy -- no matter how much money the Chamber of Commerce dumps into our elections." --House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) getting in all her talking points
When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging: "When Barack Obama was elected president, he found himself in a hole so deep that he couldn't see the outside world. It was like the Chilean miners, but he, being the man that he is, rolled up his sleeves and said, 'I'm gonna get us out of this hole.'" --Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)
The BIG Lie: "In the course of this year we will have created more jobs this year, 2010, than in the entire Bush administration of eight years." --Nancy Pelosi, who also once infamously claimed, "Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package, 500 million Americans lose their jobs." (To say the least, she's not very good at math.)
Yeah, fewer of them: "The health care bill is about jobs, the energy bill is about jobs, the education bill is about jobs, and the recovery act is about jobs." --Nancy Pelosi
Village Idiots
Spiritualist: "We got this man in office. I think we're all proud of Barack and his accomplishments. Everybody I know in our communities are praying for us, every day. It means all the world to us to know that there are prayer circles out there and people who are keeping the spirits clean around us." --Michelle Obama (And Democrats make fun of Christine O'Donnell for being a witch.)
Predictions: "There's no question it is a tough and challenging political environment. Come election night, I think we will retain control of the House and Senate." --White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, reversing his earlier position that the House was likely lost
Arrogance: "I don't think we should be making the case right now. Elections are not the time to educate people. You win the election, then you educate people afterwards. But the president's doing what he should be doing. This is a bare-knuckle fight. It's between the far right, which has taken over the Republican Party, and the rest of us." --former DNC chief Howard Dean
World's Smallest Violin: "I think we miscalculated. We had the idea that, particularly in a time of national crisis, there would be more of an inclination to work together." --White House adviser David Axelrod, who did his part to push policy as far left as possible and then cry when conservatives objected
Cheer up: "We are destroying life on earth." --UN Environment Program head Achim Steiner
Short Cuts
"In interviews, job summits and press conferences, it was shovel-ready this, shovel-ready that. Search the White House website for the term 'shovel-ready' and you'll drown in press releases about all the shovels ready to shove shovel-ready projects into the 21st century, where no shovel is left behind. Only now it turns out that the president was shoveling something all right when he was talking about shovel-ready jobs -- a whole pile of steaming something." --columnist Jonah Goldberg
"I may not know everything about politics but I know this: With two weeks to go it's better for the other guys to be desperate, dispirited, and crumbling." --political analyst Rich Galen
"Hillary Clinton announced Wednesday she will travel to Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam and New Guinea in late October. She won't be in America on Election Day. She'll be holed up ten thousand miles away in New Guinea's capital city of Itole Jouso." --comedian Argus Hamilton
"Vice President Joe Biden told The New York Times that President Obama has asked him to run again in 2012. The bad news? Nobody is asking Obama yet." --comedian Jay Leno
"The beauty of our system isn't that we have the right to vote. After all, Russians got to vote for Joseph Stalin and Iraqis got to vote for Saddam Hussein. No, the nice thing is that people who are too dumb or lazy or uninformed to bother casting a ballot aren't compelled to vote. And no apologies are required. In fact, in my opinion, thanks are in order. Far too many people are voting, as it is." --columnist Burt Prelutsky
FROM ONE NEWS NOW/AFA
Activist: HRC engaging in corporate 'blackmail'
Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 10/20/2010 3:55:00 AM
A prominent pro-homosexual group isn't satisfied with benefits already being offered by 337 major American businesses to their homosexual employees.
General Motors, Bank of America, IBM, Ford Motor, AT&T, Walgreen Co., Target, Citigroup -- those companies (and scores more) got a 100-percent favorable rating on the 2010 Corporate Equality Index [PDF], an annual business ranking published by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest homosexual activist organization in the country. [Caution: The previous link goes to a pro-homosexual website]
But HRC is now demanding those corporations offer unlimited healthcare coverage for transgender employees -- or lose the highest ranking offered under the Corporate Equality Index. Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality tells OneNewsNow the group is simply escalating "its blackmail campaign against businesses."
"In order to get a 100-percent rating, you now have to provide funding for sex-change operations for transsexuals," he explains. "So...they keep ramping up the demands to get the 100-percent rating, knowing that companies are bragging about having the rating."
Which, according to LaBarbera, means that people who spend money with those firms are helping underwrite that health coverage.
The Americans for Truth spokesman says even more to be concerned about. "An official in the Obama administration is also telling gay activists to lobby for transsexual sex-change operations to be covered under ObamaCare," he claims.
LaBarbera points out that homosexuals represent one to three percent of the total population -- and transsexuals are only a fraction of that group.
In an interview with CitizenLink, the president of the National Association for Research and Therapy for Homosexuality urged caution regarding HRC's costly new requirement. "Medical treatments for transgender issues are very risky procedures -- and it's an irreversible path to take," said Dr. Julie Hamilton. "There should be a lot more research done before these types of procedures become the main path to take."
Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 10/20/2010 3:55:00 AM
A prominent pro-homosexual group isn't satisfied with benefits already being offered by 337 major American businesses to their homosexual employees.
General Motors, Bank of America, IBM, Ford Motor, AT&T, Walgreen Co., Target, Citigroup -- those companies (and scores more) got a 100-percent favorable rating on the 2010 Corporate Equality Index [PDF], an annual business ranking published by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest homosexual activist organization in the country. [Caution: The previous link goes to a pro-homosexual website]
But HRC is now demanding those corporations offer unlimited healthcare coverage for transgender employees -- or lose the highest ranking offered under the Corporate Equality Index. Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality tells OneNewsNow the group is simply escalating "its blackmail campaign against businesses."
"In order to get a 100-percent rating, you now have to provide funding for sex-change operations for transsexuals," he explains. "So...they keep ramping up the demands to get the 100-percent rating, knowing that companies are bragging about having the rating."
Which, according to LaBarbera, means that people who spend money with those firms are helping underwrite that health coverage.
The Americans for Truth spokesman says even more to be concerned about. "An official in the Obama administration is also telling gay activists to lobby for transsexual sex-change operations to be covered under ObamaCare," he claims.
LaBarbera points out that homosexuals represent one to three percent of the total population -- and transsexuals are only a fraction of that group.
In an interview with CitizenLink, the president of the National Association for Research and Therapy for Homosexuality urged caution regarding HRC's costly new requirement. "Medical treatments for transgender issues are very risky procedures -- and it's an irreversible path to take," said Dr. Julie Hamilton. "There should be a lot more research done before these types of procedures become the main path to take."
FROM ONE NEWS NOW/AFA
David Jeremiah: Obama a 'dangerous' man
Chad Groening - OneNewsNow - 10/20/2010 3:45:00 AMA pastor and bestselling author is praying that voters in the upcoming mid-term elections will elect representatives who will slow down the train President Obama is using to take the country toward socialism and away from its historical mooring.
Dr. David Jeremiah, senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church of El Cajon, California, recently released his latest book, The Coming Economic Armageddon: What Bible Prophecy Warns about the New Global Economy. While he says he has no desire to vilify President Barack Obama, he disagrees with most of what the president has done.
"I have a very strong belief that President Obama is as much of a globalist as we've had in the office of the presidency," Dr. Jeremiah shares. "There was a period of time when he was running for office, and after he was elected, where people actually began to talk about him as if he were the president of the world. It seems as if he were running for president of the world."
While the pastor admits he does not know the president's heart, he does believe Obama's policies are not representative of what the Bible teaches about what should be done in a time such as this.
"I do not believe he has been an asset to our country; I don't believe he's moved us forward in a good direction, and frankly, I am praying, along with many other believers, that in this mid-term election we will find a way to slow down this train that seems to be moving us toward socialism and away from our historical moorings," Dr. Jeremiah explains. "I'm really frightened about that, and I think in that respect, I believe he's a dangerous person."
Chad Groening - OneNewsNow - 10/20/2010 3:45:00 AMA pastor and bestselling author is praying that voters in the upcoming mid-term elections will elect representatives who will slow down the train President Obama is using to take the country toward socialism and away from its historical mooring.
Dr. David Jeremiah, senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church of El Cajon, California, recently released his latest book, The Coming Economic Armageddon: What Bible Prophecy Warns about the New Global Economy. While he says he has no desire to vilify President Barack Obama, he disagrees with most of what the president has done.
"I have a very strong belief that President Obama is as much of a globalist as we've had in the office of the presidency," Dr. Jeremiah shares. "There was a period of time when he was running for office, and after he was elected, where people actually began to talk about him as if he were the president of the world. It seems as if he were running for president of the world."
While the pastor admits he does not know the president's heart, he does believe Obama's policies are not representative of what the Bible teaches about what should be done in a time such as this.
"I do not believe he has been an asset to our country; I don't believe he's moved us forward in a good direction, and frankly, I am praying, along with many other believers, that in this mid-term election we will find a way to slow down this train that seems to be moving us toward socialism and away from our historical moorings," Dr. Jeremiah explains. "I'm really frightened about that, and I think in that respect, I believe he's a dangerous person."
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