April 5th – What our media first told us about George Zimmerman: 1) Said to the dispatcher: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.” (NBC) 2) Video shows him uninjured (ABC) 3) Used a racial slur (many sources) 4) Paranoid, called 911 46 times in 14 months (NY Times, NPR & others) and 5) Weighs 240 lbs (NY Times) [6) that he {Zimmerman} was white]
Now the latest: 1) NBC admits audio editing 2) ABC says video does show possible injury 3) CNN reports enhanced audio places doubt on racial slur 4) Called 911 46 times but over 8 years not 14 months and 5) Weighs 170 lbs not 240 The good news? The media managed to spell Zimmerman’s name correctly over 50% of the time! [6) he is just as Hispanic as Obama is white, and has black family members/friends]
While he isn’t converting to a born-again Baptist preacher overnight, he has made a choice to believe Jesus is Lord… that is a start… the most important one. Via The Blaze:
Despite his actions against the religious symbol, Christians came together to raise funds for him and his wife to purchase groceries after he fell ill. Now, as a result of the kind gesture, Greene has reportedly announced that he has become a Christian — and that he wants to enter ministry.
It’s only been two months since the atheist was threatening to wage a legal war against the nativity scene in Henderson County. But something changed over the past 60 days. After residents found out that Greene was suffering from a serious eye condition that could lead to blindness and he was forced to retire, Christians‘ kindness transformed Greene’s worldview…
“There’s been one lingering thought in the back of my head my entire life, and it‘s one thought that I’ve never been able to reconcile, and that is the vast difference between all the animals and us,” Greene told The Christian Post on Tuesday, as he began to explain his recent transformation from atheist to Christian. The theory of evolution didn’t answer his questions, he says, so he just set those questions aside and didn’t think about them anymore.
But when the Christians in a town that had reason to be angry with him showed him a gesture of love, he began reconsidering his beliefs altogether. He eventually began to realize that evolution would never have the answer to his questions, he says, and it was at that time he began to believe in God.
“I kind of realized that the questions I [was] asking you just had to accept on faith without doubting every period and every comma,” he said. He later began studying the Bible, both the Old Testament and the Gospels, and also discovered his belief that Jesus is the Son of God.
I often wondered why the liberal does this, that is, find stories to showboat as against the status-quo showing America or our culture as racist by finding rare stories of victims to make some point of racism, sexism, homophobia, islamophobia, imperialism, bigotry, or intolerance. David Mamet answered this for me. After he laid the premise of the protagonist in a play who is typically afflicted by a condition not of their making, thus, drawing a similarity to the political realm of someone “afflicted” with homosexuality, illness, being a woman, etc, saying they had merely acted and thusly could not have sinned, he furthers his point by saying:
These plays were an (unfortunate) by-product of the contemporary love-of-the-victim. For a victim, as above, is pure, and cannot have sinned; and one, by endorsing him, may perhaps gain, by magic, part of his incontrovertible status.
So the liberal, by emphasizing these “victim-hood” stories, absorbs to their psyche innocence, proving that they are peaceful, fair, tolerant, stand for the poor, disenfranchised, and care about the environment. Thus, better than those whom they just labeled. While many of these people will label religious folk as “holier than thou,” it is these priests of the victicrats [whether directed towards human plight or a perceived environment plight] that are replacing spirituality with “concern.” They are not just asreligious, but are in fact fanatical in their positions. (Larry Elder defines a “victicrat” as someone who “blames all ills, problems, concerns and unhappiness on others.”) At least the religious person is being honest and keeping the categories straight. But I digress.
Imagine if you picked up your morning paper to read that one of your astronomy professors had publicly questioned whether the earth, in fact, revolves around the sun. Or suppose that one of your economics professors was quoted as saying that consumers would purchase more gasoline if the price would simply rise. Or maybe your high school math teacher was publicly insisting that 2 + 2 = 5. You’d be a little embarrassed, right? You’d worry that your colleagues and friends might begin to question your astronomical, economic, or mathematical literacy.
Now you know how I felt this morning when I read in the Wall Street Journal that my own constitutional law professor had stated that it would be “an unprecedented, extraordinary step” for the Supreme Court to “overturn[] a law [i.e., the Affordable Care Act] that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.” Putting aside the “strong majority” nonsense (the deeply unpopular Affordable Care Act got through the Senate with the minimum number of votes needed to survive a filibuster and passed 219-212 in the House), saying that it would be “unprecedented” and “extraordinary” for the Supreme Court to strike down a law that violates the Constitution is like saying that Kansas City is the capital of Kansas. Thus, a Wall Street Journal editorial queried this about the President who “famously taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago”: “[D]id he somehow not teach the historic case of Marbury v. Madison?”
I actually know the answer to that question. It’s no (well, technically yes…he didn’t). President Obama taught “Con Law III” at Chicago. Judicial review, federalism, the separation of powers — the old “structural Constitution” stuff — is covered in “Con Law I” (or at least it was when I was a student). Con Law III covers the Fourteenth Amendment. (Oddly enough, Prof. Obama didn’t seem too concerned about “an unelected group of people” overturning a “duly constituted and passed law” when we were discussing all those famous Fourteenth Amendment cases – Roe v. Wade, Griswold v. Connecticut, Romer v. Evans, etc.) Of course, even a Con Law professor focusing on the Bill of Rights should know that the principle of judicial review has been alive and well since 1803, so I still feel like my educational credentials have been tarnished a bit by the President’s “unprecedented, extraordinary” remarks….
…Speaking at a ceremony marking 40 years since the operation to free hostages on hijacked Sabena Flight 571, during which as a young commando he was shot and wounded, Netanyahu said Israel must constantly fight against those who perpetrate and plan terrorism.” Israel must always fight terrorism, he continued, “It will not stop if we do not fight it.”
Sinai, he continued, has become a terrorism zone, something he said Israel is “dealing with.” The security fence being built along the southern border will not stop missiles, but a solution for that too will be found, he said.
A Grad-type rocket fired from Sinai exploded in a residential neighborhood of Israel’s southernmost city early Thursday morning. Residents reported hearing three explosions, but police sappers only located the remnants of one Grad rocket…
Today the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Khairat al-Shater told reporters that Sharia law would be his “first and final” objective as president. Reuters reported:
The Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate for the Egyptian presidency, Khairat al-Shater, declared that introducing sharia law would be his “first and final” objective if he wins elections in May and June.
Making his first reported statements since the Brotherhood’s surprise decision to field him in the elections, Shater also promised to reform the Interior Ministry which long played a leading role in suppressing dissent.
However, he denied he had struck a deal with the military on his candidacy, announced last Saturday, even though it may help candidates close to the old order of ousted President Hosni Mubarak by splintering the Islamist vote.
“Sharia was and will always be my first and final project and objective,” Shater was quoted on Wednesday as telling a meeting of the Religious Association for Rights and Reform – a group of which he is a member, along with figures who belong to the hard-line Salafi school of Islam.
In comments reported in a statement issued by the Association, Shater told the meeting held on Tuesday night that he would establish a special entity to help parliament achieve this objective.
The Brotherhood’s reversal of its promise not to contest the elections has drawn criticism from inside and outside the group, whose party controls the biggest bloc in parliament and which dominates an assembly that is drawing up the constitution.
Shater called for reform of Interior Ministry to curb its “involvement in all aspects of the state”.
The 61-year-old millionaire businessman is set to present his candidacy documents on Thursday. He is viewed as a front-runners because of the Brotherhood’s organisational clout and grassroots network.
This next video is a great summation of the promises made and broke by the Muslim Brotherhood. However, the person being interviewed continues to mention secularists and liberals feared this outcome. FALSE! Conservatives have said from the beginning this will end like a nightmare, and in fact liberals/progressives, and radical secularists helped them attain power. So after the video I will re-post an older blog on the topic. Enjoy:
If the Arab Spring was seeded by a liberal insurrection, the Arab Fall has brought a rich harvest for Political Islam. In election after election, parties that embrace various shades of Islamist ideology have spanked liberal rivals. In Tunisia, the first country to hold elections after toppling a long-standing dictator, the Ennahda party won a plurality in the Oct. 23 vote for an assembly that will write a new constitution. A month later, the Justice and Development Party and its allies won a majority in Morocco’s general elections. Now, in perhaps the most important election the Middle East has ever witnessed, Egypt’s Islamist parties are poised to dominate the country’s first freely elected parliament.
In the first of three rounds of voting, two Islamist groups won a clear majority between them: a coalition led by the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) got 37% of the vote, while the al-Nour Party won 24.4%. The Egyptian Block, a coalition of mostly liberal parties, was a distant third, with 13.4%. The FJP is the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, a mostly moderate Islamist group; al-Nour represents more-hard-line Salafis. With momentum on their side, the Islamists are expected to do even better in the second and third rounds, scheduled for Dec. 14 and Jan. 3. (See pictures of Egyptians flocking to the polls.)
Why have the liberals, leaders of the Arab Spring revolution, fared so poorly in elections? In Cairo, as the votes were being counted, I heard a raft of explanations from disheartened liberals. They were almost identical to the ones I’d heard the previous week, in Tunis. The litany goes like this: The liberals only had eight months to prepare for elections, whereas the Brotherhood has 80 years’ experience in political organization. The Islamists, thanks to their powerful financial backing from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, outspent the liberals. The generals currently ruling Egypt, resentful of the liberals for ousting their old boss Hosni Mubarak, fixed the vote in favor of the Islamists. The Brotherhood and the Salafists used religious propaganda — Vote for us or you’re a bad Muslim — to mislead a largely poor, illiterate electorate.
These excuses are all plausible, as far as they go. But they don’t go very far. After all, the Salafis had no political organization until 10 months ago, and they still managed to do well. The liberals were hardly penurious: free-spending telecom billionaire Naguib Sawiris is a leading member of the Egyptian Block. Even if you buy the notion that the generals — themselves brought up in strict secular tradition — prefer the Islamists to the liberals, international observers found no evidence of systematic ballot fixing. (See photos of the recent clashes between police and protesters in Cairo.)
And to argue that voters were hoodwinked by the Islamists is to suggest that the majority of the electorate are gullible fools. This tells you something about the attitude of liberal politicians toward their constituency. And that in turn may hold the key to why they fared so badly.
The Islamists, it turns out, understand democracy much better than the liberals do. The Ennahda and the FJP were not just better organized, they also campaigned harder and smarter. Anticipating allegations that they would seek to impose an Iranian-style theocracy in North Africa, the Islamists formed alliances with some secular and leftist parties and very early on announced they would not be seeking the presidency in either country. Like smart retail politicians everywhere, they played to their strengths, capitalizing on goodwill generated by years of providing social services — free hospitals and clinics, soup kitchens — in poor neighborhoods. And they used their piety to assure voters that they would provide clean government, no small consideration for a population fed up with decades of corrupt rule. Even the Salafis, who openly pursue an irredentist agenda and seek a return to Islam’s earliest days, benefited from the perception that they are scrupulously honest….
To cleanse the palate, a simple question: Since only 51 votes are needed to pass a budget in the Senate and there are 53 Democratic and left-leaning independent senators, why doesn’t smilin’ Harry Reid ram through O’s latest spending blowout? The White House gets awfully fidgety when the media presses them on this, to the point where even former OMB director Jack Lew was forced to play dumb about how many votes are needed for Democrats to pass this thing. Any theories? Any hypotheses for why The One might be nervous about vulnerable red-state Democrats like Claire McCaskill and Jon Tester taking a vote on a budget that calls for another $1.3 trillion deficit this year and a cool $901 billion deficit next year? Leave your informed speculation in the comments.
This is what happens when our Constitutional lecturer president stands on the White House lawn and astoundingly challenges the authority and credibility of the Supreme Court; he gets issued a homework assignment on the fundamentals of our Constitution.
Obama’s radical statements yesterday were so inconceivably stupid and dangerous he managed to completely offend and alarm the entire U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Panel. So, today, during a hearing over a separate ObamaCare lawsuit, Appellate Judge Jerry Smith issued an Order for Obama’s Department of Justice to explain by Thursday whether the administration ”recognizes that federal courts have the authority to strike federal statutes” that are unconstitutional… single-spaced and on no fewer than three pages.
A federal appeals court is striking back after President Obama cautioned the Supreme Court against overturning the health care overhaul and warned that such an act would be “unprecedented.”
A three-judge panel for the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ordered the Justice Department to explain by Thursday whether the administration believes judges have the power to strike down a federal law.
One justice in particular chided the administration for what he said was being perceived as a “challenge” to judicial authority — referring directly to Obama’s latest comments about the Supreme Court’s review of the health care case.
The testy exchange played out during a hearing over a separate ObamaCare challenge. It marked a new phase in the budding turf war between the executive and judicial branches.
“Does the Department of Justice recognize that federal courts have the authority in appropriate circumstances to strike federal statutes because of one or more constitutional infirmities?” Judge Jerry Smith asked at the hearing.
…
Smith also made clear during that exchange that he was “referring to statements by the president in the past few days to the effect … that it is somehow inappropriate for what he termed unelected judges to strike acts of Congress.”
“That has troubled a number of people who have read it as somehow a challenge to the federal courts or to their authority,” Smith said. “And that’s not a small matter.”
Smith ordered a response from the department within 48 hours. The related letter from the court, obtained by Fox News, instructed the Justice Department to provide an explanation of “no less than three pages, single spaced” by noon on Thursday.
