"Death by GOVERNMENT?" Amazing video:

 MAKE SURE YOU WATCH TILL THE END...IT'S SHORT.
(thanks, Pris)

Obama and the "red line".............

What does Obama do now that it's fairly clear that Syria has chemical weapons (By the way, CBS news reports that Hagel says "on a small scale ":-)?  Obama warned that finding that out would be "the red line"...what "red line"?  "red line" for ....?

Obama: "We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.  That would change my calculus.  That would change my equation." (Z: I remember cringing when I heard "a whole bunch"..man)

We all know how weak this makes us look around the world and that Iran is surely watching for proof that this president doesn't quite mean what he says if it involves force.  Did he say it to placate Israel when he needed to appear strong and on their side?

Or is this another perfect storm, perhaps a biproduct that works against the GOP when Senator McCain calls Obama on his weakness and noncompliance with his own words?  Does this enable Obama to accuse Republicans of being war mongers again, even though McCain's been extremely clear about not using precious American blood there but using unmanned drones, etc?

Should Obama have ever made the threat?   Do we look weaker to the world?  If they really do only have these chemical weapons "on a small scale" is there a 'small scale' reaction that doesn't make Hagel's boss look too butch for the Left?  Or will it be "a whole bunch?" of reaction?

How will Obama negotiate his latest "inartful" comment?  I so wish he hadn't said it.  But then I usually do.

Z

Sunday Faith Blog

A wise pastor recently said "the choice is to submit myself to the living God or submit myself to myself."

Which is it for you?  And how does it work to submit yourself only to yourself?
And, by the way, maybe you'll tell us how it feels to submit yourself to God....maybe you could explain what Christian submission is, in your view.

"In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men."  Mark 7:7

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths."   Proverbs 3: 5-6

Have a beautiful Sunday.

(Addition: as usual, I wrote this four days ago and yesterday, I found THIS ARTICLE on how believing in something outside yourself helps patients with mental illness, according to a Harvard Study.)

Z

Chik Fil A..........classy

This is written by a wonderful young Rabbi friend of mine.  West Hollywood, by the way, is the gay section of Los Angeles, for those who might not know that.  I've never seen a Chik Fil A in Los Angeles, so I was surprised there was one let alone in the middle of (very heavily) gay country:

I was driving through W. Hollywood today, saw Chik fil A and decided to get some fries and a coke. 

The place was packed.  There were 14 cars in the two seperate drive-through lines they have, and both lines moved and were replenished fully quickly.  At this Chik Fil A, you order and eat outside.  All of the outdoor seating at the pleasant and clean patio dining area was filled.  The two young men who took my order and gave me my food -- big smile, mature and friendly greeting, professional as hell, white shirt and tie, amazing.  The staff inside was as ethnically diverse as the neighborhood outside it.  (Matters?  No.  But I just find it ironic.  And apparently there are plenty of gay employees in the company.)  My food came out in about 60 seconds.  The training these men and women must get has to be fantastic, they are light years away from any fast food staff I've ever encountered.

The manager of the place was out in this little patio area, chatting with the customers, cooing over some babies in a stroller. 

Even the parking lot attendant was a fan.  "It's always like this, people just love this place" he said.

The whole experience, especially knowing where this place is located and the hatred directed against the ownership nationally, just blew me away.  Way to meet blind hatred with tons of class. 

My Rabbi friend is a political conservative man of great faith and great discernment...I read this with interest, particularly after the press given to this company a few months ago, and I'm sure this account is of interest to you, too.

VERY classy to be so friendly in such terribly UNfriendly territory.   They've always hired gays, by the way.  Nice to see that the neighborhood responds so well to the class of this company.  

Z

Ted Kennedy; beginning of the immigration nightmare in America?

How Ted Kennedy Helped Bring Terrorism to America - Political Outcast.com

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-lost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

These are the famous last five lines of the sonnet The New Colossus written by Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) in 1883 that appear on the Statue of Liberty.

Ms. Lazarus, the daughter of a privileged, Jewish family in New York City, was actually referring to the plight of poor, European Jewry, brutalized throughout Europe, in that sonnet. The Statue of Liberty, at the foot of which the sonnet found a home in 1903, was a gift from France whose sole aim was to commemorate the 100th anniversary of America’s independence from England.

Contrary to the Left’s hijacking of intentions, these were the true meanings behind the statue and sonnet. The significance of Lady Liberty and the sonnet have been deliberately distorted ever since by the Left.

The existence America promised was the shared aspiration of the “wretched” of every nationality that flocked here. They knew that by coming to our teeming shore, with work, they could obtain the liberty, security and standing that could never be realized in the lands of their birth.

Their children were not cemented to the same existence they’d shared with their fathers and their fathers’ fathers. They could rise from the lowest to heights unimagined in a single generation. American immigration laws were enforced. Immigration was controlled, as is the responsibility of any sovereign nation to its inhabitants. The shared aim of immigrants, regardless of their country of origin, was that they wanted to be Americans. 

Citizenship was earned. The oath of loyalty to the émigré’s new, chosen homeland was administered in English

It would never have occurred to anyone to have it otherwise; no ethnic group was ever dissuaded from maintaining their heritage. But there was never any question that they were, first and foremost, American.

Ted Kennedy changed all of that. In 1965 Kennedy revamped the entire immigration system. He eliminated firm immigration caps and introduced chain migration into America from every overpopulated country in the world, smashing annual immigration numbers.

In the 1970s Kennedy massively expanded refugee programs, introducing enormous loopholes and encouraging a national resettlement trade that became a major lobby for more and more immigration.

Kennedy was far from finished. In 1986 he got Republicans to agree to blanket amnesty; the amnesty to end all amnesties. This is the amnesty the Left always lays at Ronald Reagan’s feet (Z: and he still gets blamed for it by libs even here at geeeZ). The law was deliberately written in a way that was guaranteed not to work. Just a few years later, Kennedy would use the inability to enforce the 1986 rules as an excuse for issuing more green cards and more amnesties. So much for Democrat promises.

Kennedy’s 1990 Immigration Act boosted immigration by another 35%. George H.W. Bush was his accomplice. Today’s Republicans seem eager to compound that disgrace. The 1990 Immigration Act also randomly gifted 50,000 green cards a year to people from countries selected because they had few ties and cultural connection with America. Worse still, highly skilled, European, English-speaking immigration applicants were denied, almost to a man.

The make-up of America’s immigrant population had been changed. Kennedy’s assaults on America’s structure were eulogized by Doris Meissner, Former Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner: “Senator Kennedy helped change the character of the immigration system, and indeed the country, bringing the United States a step closer to its founding ideals of fairness and opportunity for all.”

For all? Ms. Meissner conveniently avoided the fact that Emma Lazarus’ sonnet doesn’t state: “Give me your tired, your poor, the wretched refuse…” exclusively.   (End of PoliticalOutcast article)

Z:  Do you remember when an immigrant needed an American here to show that he could be provided for if he didn't make it?  So's to prevent the new immigrant from going on our dole?  I sure do.  My family did plenty of guaranteeing.   I'm first generation on one side and second on the other, so there IS nobody more fond of immigration than I am.   My mother's a naturalized citizen who had to go out of the country and come back in before her papers were finalized.  Remember when that happened?  She was pregnant with my sister, I believe, and was scared to death they wouldn't allow her back in from Canada!  But they did.   She's the most America-loving person I know, I think.   

What do you think of the article?   Is Kennedy largely to blame for the nightmare we have now?  What was wrong with caps? 
And what about THIS, also from PoliticalOutcast (which I'd never heard of until someone sent me the post above)...is Clinton to be blamed, too?   From reading that post, I think so.

Yup, the Statue had a good poem attached...........unlike the statue with the caption I saw years ago "...I said 'huddled masses'...not  'befuddled ASSES'"  :-)  But, we've sure got them, haven't we.

Z

The Post Office....WHAT?

I just heard that the US Post Office paid approximately forty MILLION dollars in six years to support the US cycling team.  Lance Armstrong personally got seventeen MILLION dollars.  

Here's my question:  Why does the US Post Office need FORTY MILLION dollars of advertising? Who else processes and delivers the mail?

The US Government is SUING LANCE ARMSTRONG NOW.  We should be suing the US Government.   That's $40 million of OUR MONEY.

WHY?

z

It's America's fault again..............

The surviving brother is saying THIS............they're mad because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Couldn't be a better tool for the left, right?

Who didn't see this coming?

What a nightmare;  how the left's going to be blaming us again.  And again.  And again.   again.

@#$(*&@#($&*@#($&*

z

REAL TRUE, FAIR JOURNALISM...it can happen!

The content of this article is interesting enough, but what really grabbed me here was Melinda Henneberg's fairness and honesty even at the risk of betraying her own politics.  One would have trouble deciding if she's pro choice or not after reading this article.  We need more Melinda Henneberger's in journalism.   Please see why:

Why Kermit Gosnell hasn’t been on Page One

By Melinda Henneberger, Updated: April 15, 2013

News outlets have been struggling to explain why until now there’s been so little coverage of the murder trial of Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortion doctor accused of delivering live, screaming children and then beheading them.

The Post and other mainstream news outfits are on the story now, belatedly, so maybe critics like me shouldn’t act like the mother who, when you do call her, spends half the conversation asking why you haven’t called.

But, why wasn’t more written sooner? One colleague viewed Gosnell’s alleged atrocities as a local crime story, though I can’t think of another mass murder, with hundreds of victims, that we ever saw that way. Another said it was just too lurid, though that didn’t keep us from covering Jeffrey Dahmer, or that aspiring cannibal at the NYPD.

Yet another said it’s because the rest of the country doesn’t care about Philadelphia — that one was especially creative, I thought. And a friend argued that any “blackout” boiled down to the usual lack of media interest in the low-income community Gosnell “served.” (While he routinely turned poor, black patients over to assistants who lacked even a high school education, according to court testimony, the white patients he seated separately, and treated himself.)

I say we didn’t write more because the only abortion story most outlets ever cover in the news pages is every single threat or perceived threat toabortion rights. In fact, that is so fixed a view of what constitutes coverage of that issue that it’s genuinely hard, I think, for many journalists to see a story outside that paradigm as news. That’s not so much a conscious decision as a reflex, but the effect is one-sided coverage.

Now, I assign plenty of “rights under threat” stories myself, for She the People, and see them as perfectly valid. But we in the news business do cover the extremism of some who oppose abortion rights — attempts to run after pregnant women with transvaginal probes, for example — far more than we do the extremism of some who favor abortion rights, as per the Planned Parenthood’s Alisa LaPolt Snow, who said recently that when a baby somehow survives an abortion, it’s up to the woman, her family and her doctor to decide that child’s fate.

Two years ago, I wrote about the good doctor Gosnell’s “pro-choice enablers,” for Politics Daily:

“The ultimate non-partisan body – a criminal grand jury – has supplied us with the graphic, 261-page horror story of Kermit Gosnell, M.D., who stands accused of butchering seven babies – yes, after they were born alive — and fatally doping a refugee from Nepal with Demerol in a clinic that smelled of cat urine, where the furniture was stained with blood and the doctor kept a collection of severed baby feet. As often as possible, the report says, Gosnell induced labor for women so pregnant that, as he joked on one occasion, the baby was so big he could “walk me to the bus stop.” Then, hundreds of times over the years, he slit their little necks, according to the grand jury report:

[He] regularly and illegally delivered live, viable, babies in the third trimester of pregnancy – and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors. The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels – and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths. Over the years, many people came to know that something was going on here. But no one put a stop to it.

And the kicker? This nightmare facility had not been inspected in 17 years – other than by someone from the National Abortion Federation, whom he actually invited there. For whatever reason, Gosnell applied for NAF membership two days after the death of the 41-year-old Nepalese woman, Karnamaya Mongar. Even on a day when the place had been scrubbed and spiffed up for the visit, the NAF investigator found it disgusting and rejected Gosnell’s application for membership. But despite noting many outright illegalities, including a padlocked emergency exit in a part of the clinic where women were left alone overnight, the grand jury report notes that the NAF inspector did not report any of these violations to authorities.”

My point, then and now, is that I am a big fan of regulation; wasn’t it the loosening of regs in the financial world that led to the meltdown of ’08 and in the oil industry to the BP spill of ’10? Those who normally agree with me about the need for oversight, though, make an exception when it comes to the abortion industry, which they feel should be self-regulating even when what that gets us is the likes of Kermit Gosnell.

The counter-argument, then and now, is that it’s the restriction of abortion rights that creates such shady operators, though there are other clinicsin Philadelphia — and if his practice was restricted in any way over the years, I can’t see how.

Which “side” was Dr. Frankenstein to Dr. Gosnell? Well, there’s no mystery about where Gosnell could have gotten the idea that his youngest victims weren’t human, or entitled to any protection under the law. There aren’t just two sides, though, but a whole continuum of points of view, from those who see several cells as a legal person to those who insist that even a baby who could walk Kermit Gosnell to the bus stop is only a person if his mom says so.

Gosnell himself seemed confused, when he was charged with so many counts of murder, as to how that could be. Because even at that point, he didn’t appear to see the children he’s accused of beheading as people.

Planned Parenthood’s Snow was similarly obtuse, either willfully or out of habit, in testifying against a Florida bill that would have required medical care for babies who survive abortions. “If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion,” she was asked, “what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that is struggling for life?”

Her answer was a familiar one: “We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family and the physician.”

Though it pains me to say so, that’s the same stand Barack Obama effectively took when he voted against a similar Illinois bill — even after the addition of a “neutrality clause” spelling out that the bill would have no bearing on the legal status of the (you say fetus, I say unborn child) at any point prior to delivery, and thus could not be used to outlaw abortion.

Recently, MSNBC host Melissa Harris mocked those who see a fertilized egg as a fully human person: “I get,” she said, “that that’s a particular kind of faith claim that’s not associated with science.”

But I wish she and those who agree with her also got this: To insist that a baby born at 30 weeks, as one of Gosnell’s victims was, only qualifies as a person if his mom decides to keep him is also “a particular kind of faith claim that’s not associated with science.”

Melinda Henneberger is a Post politics writer and anchors She the People. Follow her on Twitter at @MelindaDC.

Z:  Bravo, Ms Henneberger.....I was so impressed by this article, the content and the true intelligence and fairness within.

z

Paying for the terrorist..........

In the amazing conversations here yesterday, something came up which I thought was a fascinating point for discussion:

We all know friend and blogger Always On Watch and she's filled us in on her husband's stroke and his immediate difficulties and the trying challenges since it happened nearly four years ago. She's been a rock and he's never lost his sense of humor.  They're amazing.

BUT, she's also occasionally filled us in on the large financial burden of his having been so sick and even now with the equipment he needs by which to get around, medicines, etc., etc.

Yesterday, she wrote this in Comments on my Sunday Faith post: 
"It really does gall me that Tsarnaev's needs (medical care, help with activities of daily living, etc.) will be met indefinitely if he should be permanently disabled. Permanent disability is a real possibility if what I read this morning is true: leg and neck wounds. The maimed at the bomb sites will likely get less attention and, more importantly, less help."

Is that fair?  Always on Watch didn't bring up her situation, she brought up the innocent who have been maimed...but she's facing this, too!  And she's had financial help through Medicare, probably, but not everything's been covered!  She and her husband have paid their taxes since they had their first jobs and here's a 19 year old who'd just as soon see them both dead and they might have been today had they gone to the marathon and been around those two bombs.    So, we can't let the kid die and not give him medical care (though some of you will think it's fine to allow a baby who survived an abortion attempt to die, not to change the subject here)..........but IS IT FAIR?

What do you think?

Z

Sunday Faith Blog

This isn't really much about faith but it's been on my mind and I thought I'd discuss it here today.

I think the Interfaith service commemorating the Boston tragedy was held too early.
I hear the media talking about "starting the healing process now" and I think that's a mile too early.

I think Americans are afraid to grieve and I think that's very, very unhealthy.  I think it's like putting a lid on a boiling pot and being surprised when it finally overflows.  Let the water boil, let the tears come, don't be afraid of feeling bad;  feeling bad is normal.   It's almost as if we've been led to believe normal isn't good if it hurts. The dead deserve our grief.  The maimed deserve our sadness for them.

There will be a time in the near future for all to join in a service in Boston where people can remember and memorialize, once the dust has settled and the private grieving is settling in.

Meanwhile, pray for Sean Collier's family, the 26 year old cop who was murdered.  Pray for Donohue, the cop who's trying to recover and for his family.  Pray for the Chinese family who lost their precious daughter.  Pray for the dad who brought his family to cheer him on and lost his 8 year old beloved son.  Pray for the young man with legs now missing beneath his knees and so many others who died or were maimed for life.

And pray for yourself.  This hit not only those mentioned above and not only the city of Boston, but it hit all Americans who love this country and those of us old enough to remember when it didn't occur to us to think such terrible things could happen to innocent people on a beautiful day watching a Marathon.

Be good to yourself....get your mind on happy, beautiful things.












".........he maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he restoreth my soul."  23rd Psalm

Find your metaphorical pasture.......Amen.
z

Where was the family?

Last night, a newsman asked Boston Police Chief Ed Davis if, after the two pictures of the terrorists were shown everywhere for two days or so, did any of their family members come forth and say "We know who they are"?    They did not.

Thank GOD either their cowardice or ideology**** didn't kill more innocent people.  And, some relatives say they were FRAMED.    It will be interesting to see what the fellow who lost both legs below the knee says when he recognizes the one brother who looked him right in the eyes as he put one of the bombs next to his legs and walked away.   Framed?

****UPDATE:  After writing this, I heard K T MacFarland, whose daughter knows a young woman who had facials in the very home of these two boys.  The young woman has written a piece on this for the internet but I haven't even looked for it.  Suffice it to say she felt very welcome and enjoyed the facials until, months into her visits, the mother of the boys, the woman who did the facials, started acting odd and talking more about her 'spiritual adviser.'  Suddenly, the girl says, the woman wouldn't go outside without a head scarf.  She told this young woman that 9/11 was a plot just to make Americans hate muslims.   She and her sons were becoming more and more radicalized to the point that the young woman felt so uncomfortable in the home she stopped going.    So, I guess it was less cowardice and more ideology which caused these people to never come forward.  Perhaps they'd put their sons up to this attack.  We had taken them in as asylum seekers, the youngest son was granted citizenship and a scholarship.

And this is what they did, after months spent with their new spiritual adviser.  

A young boy died just because he went to see his dad run in the marathon!  Pray for him and his family.  I believe his sister is an amputee now.  And remember to pray for the Chinese parents of an only child, a daughter, who they were so proud of and who lost her life at the marathon.

What kind of parents would not turn their sons in when they saw the pictures of them as suspects?   The kind who are radicalized, hate-filled, who hate freedom and don't recognize generosity when they see it.

Now let's get someone here standing up for the parents and those boys.   You think it was a frame-up?   Would you have turned your children in?   Maybe if you didn't share their objectives you would.


z

Seen this before? It's worth another read..............

In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the
University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the
Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior: "A democracy is always
temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent
form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until
the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous
gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority
always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from
the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally
collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a
dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the
beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200
years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
The Obituary follows:

Born 1776, Died 2012
It doesn't hurt to read this several times.
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in
St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning
the last Presidential election:

Number of States won by: Obama: 19 Romney: 29
Square miles of land won by: Obama: 580,000 Romney: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million Romney: 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Obama: 13.2 Romney: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory
Romney won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens
of the country.

Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low
income tenements and living off various forms of government
welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the
"complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of
democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population
already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.



Z:  Here's a part I hadn't seen attached to the above before:

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million
criminal invaders called illegals - and they vote - then we can say
goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message.

If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how
much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our
freedom..

(Thanks, Imp, for sending that to me.....this has gone around for a few years but how anyone can argue with it is beyond me;  I wish we could because it's too true to feel optimistic about ANYTHING anymore.)
z