Thoughts From A Conservative Mom

Posts Tagged ‘Free Speech’

It’s all in the family.

James Simpson reports at the Examiner:

1973: reporters investigate All the President’s Men. 2013: reporters are All the President’s Men.

You knew the mainstream media was biased, but this is incredible. It was revealed todaythat CBS News President David Rhodes’ brother is Obama Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, who was instrumental in rewriting the Benghazi talking points. But it gets worse. It is now learned that ABC President Ben Sherwood’s sister, Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, is a Special Assistant to Barack Obama on national security affairs. But even this isn’t it! CNN’s deputy bureau chief, Virginia Moseley, is the wife of Tom Nides, who until February was Hillary Clinton’s deputy.

Read more at the Examiner

It doesn’t stop there, either.  White House Press Secretary Jay Carney is married to Claire Shipman, who works for ABC News.

Could it be that Obama appointed relatives of the press to his administration in order to make the media more reluctant to damage it with accurate reporting?

Could it be that the lack of reporting on Benghazi and other scandals – especially prior to the election – had something to do with this?

Presidents of ABC and CBS News Have Siblings Working at White House With Ties to Benghazi

Top Obama official’s brother is president of CBS News, may drop reporter over Benghazi coverage

Exposed: Media Matters Collaborated With Obama White House and News Organizations, Made Enemies List Of ‘Preliminary Targets’

Exposed: White House Threatens Reporters Who Dare To Challenge Him

Media: Actually, This White House Threatens Us All The Time

White House notches up war on ‘unfavorable press’

Krauthammer Warns: Gay Marriage Case Could Lead to All-Out ‘Assault on Religion’

View on YouTube

Last summer, lesbian journalist  and activist Masha Gessen admitted in a radio interview that the purpose of pursuing gay marriage is to destroy the institution of marriage entirely:

“It’s a no-brainer that (homosexual activists) should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. …(F)ighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there — because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie.

The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don’t think it should exist. And I don’t like taking part in creating fictions about my life. That’s sort of not what I had in mind when I came out thirty years ago.

I have three kids who have five parents, more or less, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t have five parents legally… I met my new partner, and she had just had a baby, and that baby’s biological father is my brother, and my daughter’s biological father is a man who lives in Russia, and my adopted son also considers him his father. So the five parents break down into two groups of three… And really, I would like to live in a legal system that is capable of reflecting that reality, and I don’t think that’s compatible with the institution of marriage.”

Read more at the Illinois Family Institute

George Neumayr warns at American Spectator:

The end point of liberalism is a coercive secular state in which the religious have no meaningful rights. American church leaders are kidding themselves if they think the gay-marriage juggernaut is going to stop at civil marriage. It won’t. It will quickly travel past court houses to churches, demanding that all religions bless gay marriages.

Denmark casts a shadow of this future, where the gay-marriage juggernaut has smashed through church doors. Last year the country’s parliament passed a law requiring all Lutheran churches to conduct gay marriage ceremonies. “I think it’s very important to give all members of the church the possibility to get married,” said Manu Sareen, Denmark’s minister for gender equality. Reluctant bishops have to supply ministers to satisfy the right whether they like it or not.

Iceland and Sweden have similar arrangements. Since many of the bishops are in the tank for gay marriage anyways and since these churches are “state” churches, this pressure generates little news. But it is instructive nonetheless. Where gay marriage exists, religious freedom gradually disappears, to the point where ministers have to choose between serving as secularism’s stooges or facing societal oblivion.

In America, this pressure will take the form of “discriminatory” churches losing government grants, permits, and participation in programs. It will be the death of religious freedom by a thousand little cuts here and there: canceled speeches of religious figures at state universities, lost HHS grants, the refusal of city governments to recognize churches that don’t permit gay marriages, “hate crime” legislation that extends to opposition to gay marriage, and so on. All of this will have the effect of pressuring churches into blessing gay marriages. A law forcing priests and ministers to preside at gay marriages won’t need to be passed; the invisible law of indirect governmental pressure will do the trick.

[...]  The goal of the gay-marriage juggernaut is to make Christians pariahs, as irrelevant to public life as racists. It doesn’t have to pass a Denmark-style law to force churches to conduct gay marriages; it can achieve the same end through punitive political correctness.

Read more at American Spectator

Gay Marriage Is Merely The Vehicle For Left’s Ultimate Goal: Destroying the Church

‘Don’t Care’ About Gay Marriage?  The Left Will Allow No Fence-Sitting.

“Marriage” Mayhem: Religious Freedom Being Trampled in the Scuffle

Adam Carolla: Gay Marriage Inevitable, So is Left’s March to Force Churches to Comply

Forces of Cultural Change: Explaining the Shift in Public Attitude on Same-Sex Marriage

What You Can Do About Same-Sex Marriage

Canada Offers Sobering Warning Of What Happens To Religious Liberty When Gay Marriage Is Legalized

Christians Targeted For Beliefs on Gay ‘Marriage’ – Is The Church Responsible?

The Dark, Intolerant, And Abusive Nature Of The Gay Agenda

The Agenda to Silence Christians

Kevin Curtis, Photo: Facebook

Yesterday, a letter laced with the deadly toxin ricin was sent to Republican Senator Wicker:

A suspicious letter potentially laced with a poison, ricin, and postmarked from Memphis, was sent to the office of Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, ABC News has learned.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told ABC News that Capitol offices were on high alert.

The FBI was investigating the incident, officials said.

Sources confirmed the letter was sent to Wicker, R-Miss., but did not arrive at his office on Capitol Hill. It was stopped at a mail processing facility, where, officials said, a preliminary test for ricin came back positive.

Read more at ABC News

Today, more suspicious letters were found, including one addressed to the president:

The FBI has confirmed that a letter addressed to President Obama has “preliminarily tested positive” for ricin, a day after lawmakers said another letter sent to the Capitol Hill office of Sen. Roger Wicker tested positive for the same substance.

The warnings come amid a flurry of reports on suspicious packages. Fox News has learned of several suspicious packages or envelopes in various Capitol Hill office buildings. Capitol Police say three packages that were flagged have been removed and the areas have been cleared.

Separately, the office of Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., reported a “suspicious-looking letter” at one of the senator’s Michigan offices; and a spokesman for Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., reported a “suspicious letter” was intercepted at Flake’s Phoenix office. Authorities were also called to the Dallas office of Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, over what was described only as “a piece of mail” — but field tests later came back negative.

[...]  The bulletin said both letters included the phrase: “To see a wrong and not expose it, is to become a silent partner to its continuance.”

Both were signed, “I am KC and I approve this message.”

Read more at Fox News

This afternoon, a suspect was finally arrested, and he sounds like a very disturbed individual who should have been locked up a long time ago:

Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, of Tupelo, Miss., has been arrested in connection with ricin letters that were sent to both Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and President Barack Obama,” The New York Times reports. Initial reports listed the suspect as “Kenneth Curtis,” however, the Times updated its report with the corrected name.

[...]   A few hours before federal officials announced the arrest, TheBlaze was contacted by bloggers at Lady Liberty 1885 who had noticed some key similarities between a “Kevin Curtis” from Tupelo, Miss. and the person suspected of sending the ricin letters.

Among several other similarities, Kevin Curtis used the phrase “This is KC and I approve this message” in a previous Facebook post — the same exact phrase included in the ricin-laced letters.

Additionally, the person who sent the ricin letters used this particular quote from Dr. John Raymond Baker to make his point: “To see a wrong and not expose it, is to become a silent partner to its continuance.” Kevin Curtis uses the same quote in the “About” section of his Facebook page.

The same individual lists an address in Tupelo, Miss. — the city authorities say the suspect currently resides. The last message posted on Curtis’ Facebook page was roughly two hours before his arrest was reported.

Kevin Curtis describes himself as a Christian, but not a “bench warming church going judgmental hypocrite.” Under political views he lists himself as an “Independent.” A call made to the phone number provided on his Facebook page went unanswered.  [...]

The Clarion-Ledger reports that Curtis has a criminal history and mental issues.

“If it’s Kevin Curtis, we’ve had him in our jail about 4 times, mostly misdemeanors like simple assault. But in 2008 for telephone harassment and stalking,” Prentiss County Sheriff Randy Tolar said. “I think he has some very serious psychological issues from my dealings with him. In the past I had read some of his Facebook postings and it was very far out there. He’ll get down on you and bash you with everything he’s got, even making up stuff, and I’ve seen that side of him.”

Read more at The Blaze

Once again, it would seem that mental illness is the core issue that needs to be addressed in the prevention of terror-like attacks.

Mississippi man arrested in connection to ricin letters sent to Obama, lawmakers

Confirmed: Ricin Terrorist Paul Kenneth Curtis Is a Democrat Activist

Expert: Ricin Letters Intended to Scare, Not Kill

The Real Issue Behind Mass Shootings: Mental Illness

Why can’t America care for the mentally ill?

The Tucson Shooter and the Case for Involuntary Commitment

Wrong Prescription: How the emptying of state-run mental hospitals produced a social disaster

It’s not just Catholics. They’re doing it to Protestants, as well.

Be prepared.

John Nolte warns at Breitbart:

If anyone wants to argue that the same government currently forcing religious institutions to purchase the abortion pill through ObamaCare will not eventually use civil rights violations in order to attempt to force the Church to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies — good luck with that.

But this would have been unthinkable five years ago.

It was just three months ago that the White House and media piled on a reverend for preaching the Bible’s teachings on homosexuality. The result was his invitation to speak at Obama’s inauguration being rescinded.

This would have been unthinkable five years ago.

With the election of Pope Francis, we have news anchors openly clamoring that the Church is out of step on same-sex marriage.

This would have been unthinkable five years ago.

Fifteen years ago, the same leftists and media assuring us today that same-sex marriage won’t be imposed on the Church were telling us that civil unions (which I’ve always supported) would never lead to gay marriage.

With all that in mind, am I really supposed to buy that, within five years (maybe five days), the left and the media won’t be incessantly asking this question: “If the Church cannot legally refuse to marry an interracial couple, how can it legally refuse same-sex couples?”

Read more at Breibart

Erick Erickson correctly concludes at Red State:

As long as there are still Christians who actually follow Christ and uphold his word, a vast amount of people around the world — never mind Islam — will never ever see gay marriage as anything other than a legal encroachment of God’s intent.

So those Christians must be silenced. The left exerted a great deal of energy to convince everyone that the gay lifestyle is an alternative form of normal. It then has exerted a great deal of energy convincing people that because the gay lifestyle is just another variation of normal, gay marriage must be normalized.

Meanwhile, those Christians are out there saying it is not normal and are refusing to accept it as normal because of silly God dared to say marriage is a union between a man and woman.

Any Christian who refuses to recognize that man wants to upend God’s order will have to be driven from the national conversation. They will be labeled bigots and ultimately criminals.

Already we have seen florists, bakers, and photographers suffer because they have refused to go along with the cultural shift toward gay marriage. There will be more.

Once the world decides that real marriage is something other than natural or Godly, those who would point it out must be silenced and, if not, punished. The state must be used to do this. Consequently, the libertarian pipe dream of getting government out of marriage can never ever be possible.

Within a year or two we will see Christian schools attacked for refusing to admit students whose parents are gay. We will see churches suffer the loss of their tax exempt status for refusing to hold gay weddings. We will see private businesses shut down because they refuse to treat as legitimate that which perverts God’s own established plan. In some places this is already happening.

Christians should, starting yesterday, work on a new front. While we should not stop the fight to preserve marriage, and we may be willing to compromise on civil unions, we must start fighting now for protections for religious objectors to gay marriage.

Churches, businesses, and individuals who refuse to accept gay marriage as a legitimate institution must be protected as best we can. Those protections will eventually crumble as the secular world increasingly fights the world of God, but we should institute those protections now and pray they last as long as possible.

Read more at Red State

Religious Liberty in Peril If Prop 8 Isn’t Upheld by Supreme Court?

Christians Targeted For Beliefs on Gay ‘Marriage’ – Is The Church Responsible?

The Dark, Intolerant, And Abusive Nature Of The Gay Agenda

The Agenda to Silence Christians

‘Gay’ Jihad

Canada Offers Sobering Warning Of What Happens To Religious Liberty When Gay Marriage Is Legalized

If the Supreme Court Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage, What Next?

From our nation’s founding until the Supreme Court ruling on Engel vs. Vitale in 1962, school children across the country began their day with a prayer like this:

“Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country.”

How shockingly “offensive” to ask God to bless us, huh?

Until 1963, students could voluntarily choose an elective such as “New Testament Survey,” which studied the most influential book in history (especially Western Civilization).   Teachers could read from the Bible in a historical context, and teach children to recite “The Lord’s Prayer” (seeing as it’s the most well-known poem in the world).

But now, no more.  American school children have no idea of where common cultural references such as “David vs. Goliath,” “The Golden Rule” or “going the extra mile” come from.   The have no frame of reference for understanding why the Reformation was such a pivotal point in European history, how Henry VIII’s break away from Rome was so significant, and the reason why the Puritans and Separatists were so intent on escaping to the New World.   Children today aren’t taught where Thomas Jefferson got the phrase “Nature’s God” for the Declaration of Independence, or why our founders built our nation on the idea that unalienable rights come from our Creator.

They have no idea of an absolute moral standard – a Natural Law – which no man, woman, king or president is above.

And that’s exactly how tyrants want it.  If there is no recognized authority above the state, the state reigns supreme in people’s lives, and can do as it pleases with no accountability.

Pope Francis witnessed this first-hand in Argentina, and he offered this warning:

In a 2011 book,  Cardinal Jorge Maria Bergoglio, the new Pope Francis, stated that parents have a right to raise their children in accordance with their religious beliefs and that sometimes when the government intervenes to deprive young people of that religious element, it can produce terrible consequences, including “cases like Nazism” whereby many students were indoctrinated with views alien to those espoused their parents.

The book, in Spanish, is entitled Sobre El Cielo Y La Tierra (On Heaven and Earth), by Jorge Bergoglio and Abraham Skorka, the latter an Argentinan rabbi. The book is in interview-style and Skorka asks the cardinal a variety of questions throughout 29 chapters.

In Chapter 18, “Sobre la educacion” (On Education), the future Pope Francis says, “In the Bible, God presents himself as a teacher. ‘Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took them in my arms,’ it says.  A believer is obliged to raise his children. Every man and every woman has a right to educate their children in their religious values.”

“When a government deprives children of this formation, it can lead to cases like Nazism, whereby children were indoctrinated with values opposite to those of their parents. Totalitarianism tends to take over education so it can use the water for its own mill,” said then-Cardinal Bergogolio.

Read more at CNS News

Why Christians Should Care About School Choice

IndoctriNation: A Powerful Film for Christian Parents

Why is the Church Silent on Education?

School Forces Child to Remove ‘God’ From Veteran’s Day Poem: ‘Separation of Church & State’

Calif. Teacher Punishes Students for Saying ‘God Bless You’

Second-grader suspended over drawing of Jesus

Judge rules against student’s religious expression

ACLU suit forces NJ students to cover, avoid religious symbols by using side door to auditorium

God & Country Banned in Public Schools?

Canada Violates Religious Liberty, Forces Private Catholic Schools To Teach Moral Relativism

Don’t worry, little citizen.  It’s not like they’re planning on actually using them or anything…right?

CNET reports (via Weasel Zippers):

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has customized its Predator drones, originally built for overseas military operations, to carry out at-home surveillance tasks that have civil libertarians worried: identifying civilians carrying guns and tracking their cell phones, government documents show.

The documents provide more details about the surveillance capabilities of the department’s unmanned Predator B drones, which are primarily used to patrol the United States’ northern and southern borders but have been pressed into service on behalf of a growing number of law enforcement agencies including the FBI, the Secret Service, the Texas Rangers, and local police.

Homeland Security’s specifications for its drones, built by San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, say they “shall be capable of identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not,” meaning carrying a shotgun or rifle. They also specify “signals interception” technology that can capture communications in the frequency ranges used by mobile phones, and “direction finding” technology that can identify the locations of mobile devices or two-way radios.

Read more at CNET

In addition to their fancy modified drones and billions of rounds of ammunition, DHS is investing in armored tanks – for domestic use:

The sequestration question du jour is why the Department of Homeland Security, busy releasing hundreds, if not thousands, of deportable and detained illegal aliens due to budget constraints, is buying several thousand Mine Resistant Armored Protection (MRAP) vehicles?

And just who are they intended to be used against?

[...]   The Department of Homeland Security (through the U.S. Army Forces Command) recently retrofitted 2,717 of these MRAP vehicles for service on the streets of the U.S. They were formerly used for counterinsurgency in Iraq.

These vehicles are specifically designed to resist mines and ambush attacks. They use bulletproof windows and are designed to withstand small-arms fire, including smaller-caliber rifles such as a .223 Remington. Does DHS expect a counterinsurgency here?

Read more at Investors Business Daily

An “expert” at West Point recently published a study for the Combating Terrorist Center which warns cadets about the dangers of the “violent far right,” such as Christians, pro-lifers, and advocates for limited government.

It is the extreme left (Occupy, Bill Ayers, ELF) that has been involved in bombings, riots, and other violent actions. Never ONCE has there been an arrest, destruction of property, or other violent action at a Tea Party. And yet WE are supposedly who they’re worried about?

Obama DHS Purchases 2,700 Light-Armored Tanks to Go With Their 1.6 Billion Bullet Stockpile 

DHS Stockpiling Billions of Rounds of Ammunition – Enough To Shoot Every American 5 Times

Poll: 41% Of Democrats Say Obama Should Be Allowed To Unilaterally Kill American Citizens With Drone Strikes On American Soil

Homeland Security Drones Designed to Identify Civilians Carrying Guns

Homeland Security Labels Pro-Lifers, Conservatives As ‘Terrorists’ Again

Citizens Opposed To Taxes And Regulations, Concerned About Online Privacy Now Classified As Potential Violent ‘Extremists’

Debunking the Left-Wing Myths About ‘Right-Wing, Extremist Christians’

U.S. government now views protesting Americans as terrorists – You’re either with us or against us

The Year of Right-Wing Terrorists?

How the Obama Administration Defines “Terrorist”

Liberal reporters are finally coming forward to reveal the White House’s threatening behavior towards journalists who dare to question him.

It started with veteran journalist Bob Woodard (of Watergate fame) making these statements:

The Washington Post‘s Bob Woodward ripped into President Barack Obama on “Morning Joe” today, saying he’s exhibiting a “kind of madness I haven’t seen in a long time” for a decision not to deploy an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf because of budget concerns.

“Can you imagine Ronald Reagan sitting there and saying, ‘Oh, by the way, I can’t do this because of some budget document?’” Woodward said.

“Or George W. Bush saying, ‘You know, I’m not going to invade Iraq because I can’t get the aircraft carriers I need?’” Or even Bill Clinton saying, ‘You know, I’m not going to attack Saddam Hussein’s intelligence headquarters,’ … because of some budget document?”

The Defense Department said in early February that it would not deploy the U.S.S. Harry Truman to the Persian Gulf, citing budget concerns relating to the looming cuts known as the sequester.

“Under the Constitution, the President is commander-in-chief and employs the force. And so we now have the President going out because of this piece of paper and this agreement. ‘I can’t do what I need to do to protect the country,’” Woodward said.

Read more at Business Insider

It wasn’t long before the White House responded with threats:

Bob Woodward said this evening on CNN that a “very senior person” at the White House warned him in an email that he would “regret doing this,” the same day he has continued to slam President Barack Obama over the looming forced cuts known as the sequester.

Read more at Business Insider

Sadly, the leftist media are more inclined to eat their own than allow their Obamessiah to be criticized, and the quickly tried to smear Woodward – the man who helped bring down Nixon – as an overly sensitive, attention-seeking has-been who didn’t know a real threat from an innocent misunderstanding:

This is an incredible case of the White House attempting to bully the most iconic reporter of the 20^th century – the reporter who, along with Carl Bernstein, took down a president of the United States. So you might expect the rest of the media to stand with Woodward. You’d be wrong. They’re too busy spending time playing defense for the White House.

It began with Politico itself, which downplayed the entire incident, even as it acknowledged that Woodward’s “play-by-play is basically spot on” with regard to reporting the sequestration. “White House officials are certainly within their rights to yell at any journalist, including Bob Woodward,” said official Obama buddies Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei. Allen and VandeHei merely suggested that the battle with Woodward was “a major distraction at a pivotal moment for the president.” They added, “Watching and now having interviewed Woodward, it is easy to see why White House officials get worked about him.” Poor Obama, having to deal with such issues.

Next, the White House went to its favorite outlet, Buzzfeed, and their favorite BenSmithing reporter, Ben Smith, to leak the source of the Woodward “regret” email. It’s clear why they did it – Smith spun the entire incident for the White House.  [...]

The gall of this is astounding. All of these reporters combined might equal one tenth a Bob Woodward in the journalistic pantheon; the notion that their treatment at the hands of press flacks in any way reflects the general or appropriate treatment of someone like Woodward is absurd on its face. But the junior varsity is all too happy to gang tackle a reportorial Hall of Famer on behalf of their beloved President.

Imagine if one of George W. Bush’s deputees had dealt with Woodward this way. The left would have gone insane. Now they just call up the White House for a pat on the head and a nice scoop in return.

[...]  That madness has now infected the mainstream media. They’re too busy defending President Obama to defend the American people – or even their fellow members of the press – from Obama’s thug White House.

Read more at Breitbart

Despite the Leftist media attempt to minimize the damage for Obama and destroy one of their own, the released e-mails confirm Woodward’s claim.  Now other renowned liberal journalists are stepping forward to confirm that they, too, have received similar treatment from this White House:

Lanny Davis, who served under President Bill Clinton as special counsel to the White House, told Washington, D.C.’s WMAL this morning that the Obama White House had threatened the Washington Times over his column, warning that the Times would suffer limited access to White House officials and might have its White House credentials revoked. Davis, a centrist Democrat, is sometimes critical of the Obama administration’s policies.

Davis was speaking with Breitbart News editor Larry O’Connor, who co-hosts a morning show on WMAL. Davis said he had never spoken publicly about the threats before, but they seemed relevant after the White House told legendary reporter Bob Woodward that he would “regret” insisting that the White House had come up with the idea of the budget sequester, which President Barack Obama is now urging Congress urgently to revoke.

Read more at Breibart

Ace of Spades reports:

Now National Journal reporter Ron Fournier — whom I believe to be a liberal in good standing with his paperwork in order — drops this tidbit:

As editor-in-chief of National Journal, I received several e-mails and telephone calls from this White House official filled with vulgarity, abusive language, and virtually the same phrase that Woodward called a veiled threat. “You will regret staking out that claim,” The Washington Post reporter was told.Once I moved back to daily reporting this year, the badgering intensified. I wrote Saturday night, asking the official to stop e-mailing me. The official wrote, challenging Woodward and my tweet. “Get off your high horse and assess the facts, Ron,” the official wrote.

I wrote back:

“I asked you to stop e-mailing me. All future e-mails from you will be on the record — publishable at my discretion and directly attributed to you. My cell-phone number is … . If you should decide you have anything constructive to share, you can try to reach me by phone. All of our conversations will also be on the record, publishable at my discretion and directly attributed to you.” I haven’t heard back from the official. It was a step not taken lightly because the note essentially ended our working relationship.

Given that Woodward is now being called old and brokedown by David Pflouffe, and the Juicebox Mafia has picked up the “senile” message they’re putting out there… I would in fact say efforts are being made to insure Woodward “regrets” having correctly reported Obama’s ownership of the sequester.

Let’s hope more liberal reporters recognize the threat to their profession, rally around him and speak up.

Former Clinton aide, columnist joins Woodward in claiming White House threat

Gene Sperling Revealed as White House Official in Woodward ‘Threat’

Sen. Reid to the Press: ‘You Guys Have an Obligation to Report’ that Democrats Are Right

CBS reporter: White House, DOJ Reps ‘Screamed’ and ‘Cussed’ at Her Over ‘Fast and Furious’ Scandal

Media: Actually, This White House Threatens Us All The Time

White House notches up war on ‘unfavorable press’

Obama White House Bans Newspaper For Printing a Mitt Romney Op Ed

White House bans reporter from press pool for daring to record video on cell phone

Transparency: Reporter at Biden Fundraiser Forced to Stay in Closet

White House bans press from filming BP oil spill areas in the Gulf

White House Tries To Ban Fox News From Press Pool

Obama Attacks Fox News, Limbaugh For Holding Republicans Accountable When They Cave To Leftist Agenda

Obama To Press: You’re Not Biased Enough – Here’s How To Report My Propaganda

Exposed: Media Matters Collaborated With Obama White House and News Organizations, Made Enemies List Of ‘Preliminary Targets’

Memo to love-struck media: Obama’s not that into you

Helen Thomas: Not Even Nixon Tried to Control the Media Like Obama

This shrine to the Obamessiah was part of one elementary school’s “Black History Month”….or at least, that’s the excuse for exalting Dear Leader as the one who makes our children “fly.”

Kyle Olson writes at Townhall:

TUCKER, Ga. – It’s no secret government schools have put President Obama on a pedestal unlike any other national leader.

Schools have been named after him long before his retirement or death, which is rather unprecedented. Students have been led in organized chants of his honored name. There are lesson plans comparing him to Abraham Lincoln.

But sometimes school employees take the rhetoric a bit too far and wind up in propaganda territory. The latest example comes from DeKalb County, Georgia.

For Black History Month, Livsey Elementary School created a cute display with the lines:

Rosa sat…so Martin could walk.
Martin walked…so Obama could run.
Obama ran…so our children could fly.

[...]   This deifying of Obama is unhealthy for our students because we’re teaching them to look to an individual – or government in general – for life solutions. If anything, today’s kids need to be reprogrammed to remember that they are the masters of their own destinies, and they themselves make the decisions that will ultimately determine the course of their lives.

As President John Adams said, we have “a government of laws, and not of men.” The unhealthy tendency to worship the people that temporarily fill government positions is a distraction for young people who should be focused on their own efforts to find their way in life.

Read more at Townhall

This is the kind of crap you find in banana republics and third-world dictatorships.   In America, we we do NOT revere our elected officials.   We view them with scrutiny as the temporary public servants that they are.

Now more than ever, children need to be taught to hold their elected officials accountable, not worship them!

Teachers Take Entire School to Obama Rally, Skip Romney Rallies

Racist Teacher Tries To Throw Student Out Of Class For Wearing A Romney T-shirt

High School Teacher Screams At Student For Criticizing Obama, Claims It’s Illegal To ‘Slander’ President

8th Graders Forced To Do Opposition Research Against GOP Candidates For Obama Campaign

Public Schools: Centers for Obama Appreciation

Teacher Deems Student’s American Flag Drawing ‘Offensive’, praises drawing of Obama

Elementary Epidemic: 11 Uncovered Videos Show School Children Performing Praises to Obama

Public Education: Progressive Indoctrination Camps

America Has Become Socialist Because Of Socialist Education

Obama Takes Over Public Schools With ‘ObamaCore’ Curriculum

Only in the deranged minds of Leftists does patriotism = racism.

Todd Starnes reports at Fox News:

A group of students at a California high school basketball game were told to remove patriotic bandanas and stop chanting “USA, USA” because school administrators wanted to be sensitive to other spectators.

The incident occurred during a basketball last week between Camarillo High School and Rio Mesa High School in Ventura County.

A school administrator pulled aside four boys and told them to either remove their American flag bandanas or leave the game. The boys complied but returned to lead the crowd in a chant of “USA, USA.”

Camarillo High School principal Glenn Lipman told the Ventura County Star that the students were told to remove the bandanas as a “precaution” – because the two schools have “diverse student bodies.”

Both schools have a large Hispanic student population.

Student Austin Medeiros and the other boys were suspended for their actions – but the punishment was later lifted by school officials.

Still, students are upset over what happened and staged a protest at the school’s flagpole by wearing red, white and blue.

“We’ve done it always,” Medeiros told the Ventura County Star. “It’s something we do. It’s the same group of friends. We’re all very patriotic.”

Read more at Fox News

In Obama’s America, chanting ‘USA! USA!’ is racist 

Principal Bans ‘God Bless the USA,’ Claims It ‘Offends Other Cultures’

Elementary Children Harrassed By Angry Leftist Hecklers For Singing ‘God Bless The USA’

Teacher refuses to allow child to hang up American flag drawing, calls it “offensive”

Federal Judge: School Can Censor Student Display of American Flag

The War Against ‘Old Glory’

Students Kicked Off Campus for Wearing American Flag Tees

School Officials Won’t Let Students Recite Pledge of Allegiance

Racist Teacher Tries To Throw Student Out Of Class For Wearing A Romney T-shirt

Texas Curriculum Teaches Boston Tea Party Was Terrorism, Has Students Design New Socialist Flag

Daniel Smyth writes at the Washington Times about a new scheme in New York to use anti-discrimination laws to force pro-lifers to either compromise their convictions or go out of business:

New York could soon shut down Catholic and other health care providers for not offering or referring for abortions. Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, with enough support in the New York state legislature, could sign a reproductive health act (RHA) this year. Among other actions, the act would declare that New York “shall not discriminate against the exercise of…[abortion] rights…in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.”

The New York State Catholic Conference argues this “no discrimination of abortion rights” provision could “permit state regulators…to require support for abortion from any agency or institution licensed or funded by the state.” As the state grants medical licenses, New York could deny licenses to — and thus shut down — such institutions as Catholic and other hospitals or clinics that refuse to support abortion. New York could also deny these institutions Medicaid payments and other funding, which some of these institutions need for financial stability.

Other provisions in New York’s RHA would establish abortion on demand in New York. For instance, the RHA would permit abortions until birth, allow public funding of abortion and repeal the requirement of parental notifications for minors’ abortions.

Read more at the Washington Times

Sadly, this is only the latest example in a larger agenda to attack and marginalize people of faith:

Catholic adoption agencies have been forced to close their doors in Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., because their religious beliefs about marriage were deemed unacceptable by their jurisdictions.

A graduate student in Michigan was expelled from a counseling program because her religious beliefs about marriage were deemed unacceptable by school officials.

Christian pharmacists in Illinois were told to find other professions because their religious beliefs regarding when life begins were deemed unacceptable by the state.

Private business owners are facing enormous fines because their beliefs about when life begins have been deemed unacceptable by the federal government.

Pastor Louie Giglio did not deliver the closing prayer at President Obama’s inauguration ceremony because his religious beliefs about marriage were deemed unacceptable by the administration.

[...]  Compared with others around the world, people of faith in America enjoy extraordinary freedoms. Our lives are not in danger. We do not face imprisonment or torture for holding unpopular convictions.

Yet when people of faith are restricted from fully participating in society — owning businesses, entering the medical profession or providing much-needed charitable services — an intolerable trade-off has occurred. The government has exceeded its boundary, and the figurative wall between church and state must be strengthened.

[...]  The tide has turned, and we have begun to see the emergence of a state-created orthodoxy. It deems support for traditional marriage unacceptable. It discredits those who believe that life begins at conception. It disfavors their faith — held for centuries by their predecessors — and creates a regulatory framework to prevent them from fully participating in the public square.

When the government says, “You can believe whatever you want, but you will be penalized if you exercise those beliefs,” we have entered dangerous territory. We cannot allow a religious litmus test to determine who may participate in American life. We must defend the Constitution not only in form, but also in effect.

Read more at the Washington Times

Obama’s Coercive Secular State Leaves No Room For Freedom of Religion

Obama Campaign Ad Claims His Policies Based On Faith, ‘Following God’s Command’

Barack’s Bigoted, Secularist Social Engineering

Big Government is the rival and enemy of religion

Christians Called to Civil Disobedience Against Unjust Rulers

God our Provider vs. The State

This is EXACTLY what this Alinsky intimidation campaign was designed to do: frighten away donors and dry up the funds for any group that dares to defy the radical leftist gay agenda.

Dan Cathy has to do what he believes is right for his business, and he may think that his decision has proved that he’s not a “hater” or “bigot,”  but in fact, this victory will embolden the bullies to use these tactics against other conservative business owners and organizations in the future.

Todd Beamon writes at Newsmax:

Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy and the head of a national gay-rights group have made peace.

“I’ve gotten to know Dan; he’s gotten to know me,” Shane Windmeyer, executive director of Campus Pride, told ABC News on Monday. “He’s shared concerns about young people, about Chick-fil-A being used for certain purposes.”

[...]  Chick-fil-A, he told ABC, had stopped donating to anti-gay groups, according to his review of the company’s 990 tax forms.

Chick-fil-A long has donated to socially conservative groups. In July, the anti-gay group Equality Matters examined tax forms and found that in 2010 the company had donated more than $1.9 million to “anti-gay causes.”

In September, the restaurant chain agreed to stop donating to anti-gay groups.

But Chick-fil-A said in a statement on Monday: “Over the past three years alone, Chick-fil-A has given more than $68 million in contributions to over 700 different educational and charitable organizations around the country, in addition to providing millions of dollars in food donations.

“While we evaluate individual donations on an annual basis, our giving is focused on three key areas: youth and education, leadership and family enrichment and serving the local communities in which we operate. Our intent is to not support political or social agendas. This has been the case for more than 60 years.”

Read more at Newsmax

Chick-fil-A Sets the Record Straight

Were Christians Being ‘Unloving’ Towards Gays By Supporting Chick-Fil-A?

More Lefitist ‘Civility’: Chick-fil-A Vandalized, Slapped With Bogus ‘Human Rights Violation’ Complaints For CEO’s Religious Beliefs

Chick-fil-A Restaurants Flooded Nationwide With Supporters Lined Up Around The Block On ‘Appreciation Day’

Chick-fil-A boycott fails spectacularly as hungry, supportive customers swarm to restaurants

Intolerant Gay Activists Target Chick-Fil-A With Massive Intimidation Campaign

Democrat Mayors Try To Ban Businesses Based On Owners’ Religious Convictions

Why is our military imposing the intolerant demands of Secular Humanism on our troops?   How is it any different than Sharia law, which seeks to suppress all religious expression at odds with its own ideology?

Todd Starnes reports at Fox News:

Religious liberty advocates are denouncing the U.S. military’s order to remove a steeple and dismantle Christian crosses from an Army chapel in Afghanistan.

“We can confirm that those items were removed from the chapel,” said a spokesman for the ISAF Joint Command. “These items were removed out of respect for the beliefs of other faiths.”

The Pentagon confirmed to Fox News that cross-shaped windows on the chapel were boarded up – until they can be replaced with non-offensive doors. Click here to read our original story.

The chapel, located at Forward Operation Base Orgun-E, became the subject of controversy after an atheist soldier complained and the president of American Atheists sent a letter to the Pentagon.

“Soldiers with minority religious beliefs and atheists often feel like second-class citizens when Christianity is seemingly officially endorsed by their own base,” American Atheists president David Silverman told Fox News. “We are very happy the Pentagon and the Army decided to do the right thing.”

A military spokesman told Fox News the cross was literally dismantled and will be removed from the base to be in “compliance with Army regulations and to avoid any misconception of religious favoritism or disrespect.”

[...]  Retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, of the Family Research Council, told Fox News a Christian cleansing of the military is under way.

“I don’t think you can categorize it any other way,” he said. “There is a strong effort, led partially by the Administration as well as by atheist groups to destroy the identity of who we are as a nation and that means robbing us of our history.”

Boykin said he fears that the attacks on the Christian faith of soldiers could destroy the morale and the readiness of the military.

“In the long term, the greatest casualty of the conflict in Afghanistan is probably going to be the First Amendment rights of the American soldiers and the faith upon which America was founded,” he said. “I’m very concerned what the administration is doing to the military on a number of fronts. This is another indicator of how we are trying to impose a liberal agenda upon the people that are protecting the very rights of all Americans to be able to worship freely.”

Hiram Sasser, director of litigation for Liberty Counsel, wondered why Christian soldiers must hide who they are.

“Why are we ashamed of one of the major reasons our Nation is the most generous and self-sacrificing for the benefit of others that the world has ever known – our inherently Christian benevolence,” he told Fox News. “We have freed the oppressed, fed the hungry, and restored nations throughout the world without anything in particular to show for it other than the satisfaction of making the world better than we found it for the sake of goodness and doing the right thing.  Why should we hide a major motivation that compels Americans to do this?”

Ron Crews, the executive director of the Chaplain Alliance, told Fox News he was extremely disappointed to hear the news.

“I’m so concerned that the military is caving in to an organization that does not understand the First Amendment,” Crews said. “Christians have every right to exercise their faith in the military.”

Read more at Fox News

If these Atheists were as tolerant and “respectful of other faiths” as they claim, they wouldn’t have a problem with a Christian chapel being designated with a cross symbol.

Military Chaplains, Veterans Report Increasing Censorship Of Religious Speech, Expression

Obama Apologizes To Rioting Afghans Who Killed U.S. Solidiers

Flashback: U.S. Military Defends Burning Bibles In Afghanistan

Postal Service Requires Packages to Troops be Sharia-Compliant

Three Things The West Doesn’t Understand About Islam

No surprise.

Joel Pollack reports at Breitbart:

In the address itself, President Obama made the case that liberty is not timeless; that it must adjust to the times, and that “preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action”–not to defend those freedoms from infringement, but to give them “meaning” through government regulation and redistribution.

White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer put the point more bluntly in remarks published earlier today:

“There’s a moment of opportunity now that’s important,” Pfeiffer said. “What’s frustrating is that we don’t have a political system or an opposition party worthy of the opportunity.”

Note the contempt in Pfeiffer’s words–not just for the political opposition, but for the political system itself–a system designed by the Framers to include checks and balances to hold government power firmly in check.

[...]  A year ago, President Obama observed: “[I]t turns out our Founders designed a system that makes it more difficult to bring about change that I would like sometimes.” Back then, facing re-election, he promised to be patient. Today, he is impatient–with the opposition, and the system itself. He will destroy both, if necessary, to achieve his vision of America–one where “government alone” does not do everything, but rather dictates to individuals what they should do, and choose, and want, to serve its sweeping designs.

Read more at Breitbart

OH, HOW THEY DESPISE THE CONSTITUTION: And they’re not even trying to hide it any more

Obama’s Second Inaugural Address Declares War on Liberty

Pulling the Plug on the “Living” Constitution: Obama shows his Marxist roots

Leftists Call For Abolishing The Constitution

Obama: ‘The government we have is not the government that we need’

Obama’s Coup to Overthrow the Constitution

Glenn Beck: ‘Obama Doesn’t Believe In Our Constitution’

Democratic Congressman: “I think the Constitution is wrong”

Why Liberals Hate the Constitution

WHO has changed how the constitution is interpreted?

Woodrow Wilson and the roots of Progressivism

Ben Shapiro on Obama’s ‘Orwellian’ Inaugural Speech

View on YouTube

Throughout most of human history, transfers of power involved the coronation of a king or emperor, who’s only claim to power was either his birth or the conquest of his rival, whose reign was for life, and whose subjects were at his complete mercy.

Two centuries ago, our founders gave us a radically different system, where leaders were chosen from among the people to be public servants who were held accountable by the people, where no man (regardless of position) was above the law, where power was limited to prevent its abuse, where God alone was our King, and where government was prevented from taking that dictatorial role in people’s lives.

It is an awesome privilege to be the beneficiary of such a gift, and yet it carries a heavy responsibility of civic duty to hold our government and public servants accountable when they overstep their legitimate, constitutional authority.

Today was a day of inauguration, not coronation. We respect the results of the election, but we also remember that the constitutional limits of government power and the rule of law that protects our liberties are NEVER up for a vote.

Today, it was not just a president who is being inaugurated, but also We The People, who must shoulder our responsibility to uphold and defend the constitution against all threats, foreign and domestic. May we take that solemn charge faithfully and honorably, as our founders did.

And we start, by recognizing the threats promised by the newly inauguration president against our liberties:

Sounding the same themes of class warfare that propelled his re-election campaign, President Barack Obama devoted his second inaugural address to laying out his second term agenda: a struggle to undo the seeming injustices of America’s past, and to overcome the army of straw men that stand in opposition to progress.

In the process, President Obama attempted nothing less than an assault on the timeless notion of liberty itself:

Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone.

But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.

After praising the “collective” and mocking the notion that America is a “nation of takers,” President Obama targeted the political opposition. He targeted those who “deny” climate change, attacked those who allegedly refused to reward the elderly for their contributions, and defied critics whom he said wanted “perpetual war.” He attacked the rich–as he has done so often over the past four years–and painted a caricature of an unjust nation: “…our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it….We do not believe that in this country, freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few.”

President Obama’s address failed to deliver on promises earlier in the day by senior political adviser David Axelrod that the speech would sound themes of national unity on a day of national “consecration.” Instead, the president sounded combative themes familiar from his divisive first term, albeit wrapped occasionally in the lofty rhetoric of “hope” and “tolerance,” and punctuated by the repeated refrain: “We, the People.”

[...]  Throughout his address, the President maintained his voice in a near-shout. This was not an historic address, a reflection on a moment in history; it was an exhortation to political action, in contrast to the political reality of a divided Washington, in defiance of the profound economic challenges still facing the American people.

It was a declaration of political war on individual liberty. It was a wasted opportunity–and a warning.

Read more at Breitbart

Ben Shapiro digs deeper:

Obama spelled out his true agenda: destroying founding principles about limited government to meet changing times. While paying lip service to “our skepticism of central authority,” Obama said that times have changed, and “so must we”: “fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges … preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.” This was the sheerest form of rhetoric sophistry; equating freedom with government control is an perverse reversal of language. Of course, the Constitution was written based on the notion that human nature does not change – people are not angels, nor devils, but self-interested creatures capable of greatness or evil, who must be checked against each other. But Obama doesn’t believe that. He believes that man can be made anew.

But only by government. And so Obama demonized limited government as anarchism, suggesting that meeting “the demands of today’s world by acting alone” is like forcing American soldiers to meet “the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias” – a straw man argument so blatant it appeared Obama would wheel out Ray Bolger to present it. In pursuing his agenda, Obama made clear that he will ignore basic realities – “we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.” He made clear that he will create false histories – “we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty, and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn.” He made clear that he will redefine taking and giving – those who wish to save their money for their families and children are “takers,” and those who wish to confiscate the wealth of others “strengthen us.”

In the end, Obama’s argument was a collectivist one. And it was an argument designed to irreparably tear this nation apart. Obama himself said it: “Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life; it does not mean we will all define liberty in exactly the same way …”

But this renders the Declaration of Independence Obama cited completely meaningless. The founders may have disagreed on many things, but they agreed on the meaning of liberty: the right to live as an individual, without centralized planning infringing basic property rights, economic opportunities, and religious freedoms. Obama’s fundamental redefinition of liberty to include communitarianism is not merely wrong, it spells the end of the political commonality that has held the fabric of the nation together. If we define liberty differently, then there is nothing to talk about: my liberty is your tyranny, and vice versa. Our goals can never be shared. That gap can never be bridged.

Read more at Breitbart

Moments After Inaugural Address, Obama Launches Battle Machine

Obama speech sets stage for looming policy fights

Obama opens a new term with a loud ‘bang’: Shooting holes in the Constitution

Obama’s Inaugural Prayer Drops “Under God”

Obama: Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security Make Us ‘Free’

Obama: ‘We Will Preserve Our Planet, Commanded to Our Care by God’ Through ‘Sustainable Energy Sources’

Obama Brings Pro-Abortion Record, Low Ratings to Inauguration

Obama: ‘Our journey is not complete’ until we redefine marriage

We are now seeing President Obama’s real agenda and it is very disturbing

Open Letter to Obama on Inauguration Day: Why I Can’t Clap For You

Obama Officially Proclaims His Inauguration Day “National Day Of Hope And Resolve”

Marxist-in-Chief Tightens His Grip: What To Expect

If someone truly has a mental illness with violent tendencies, my question isn’t “how do we keep them from getting a gun?”  My question is, “why are they still on the street?   There are plenty of other weapons an unstable person can wield other than a gun.  The problem is their tendency towards violence, not the tools they use to carry them out.

50 years ago people that unstable would have been involuntarily committed for their own safety, and that of the public (coincidentally, we also had a lot fewer homeless back then).

Instead of dealing with the failures of liberal policies regarding the treatment the severely mentally ill, Obama wants doctors to report patients who dare to admit that they have ever once struggled with anxiety, depression, or suicidal thoughts (which probably covers about 90% of the population), so that they can be possibly denied gun ownership.

Liz Klimas reports at the Blaze:

As the debate over gun control continues, so too does discussion about the role mental illness plays in it. NBC News reports experts saying the weight of adding mental illness into the mix might carry some unintended consequences. As NBC put it in its article headlined “Are You Too Sick to Own a Gun,” this includes everything “from gun owners avoiding mental health treatment to therapists feeling compelled to report every patient who expresses a violent thought.”

The new law regarding gun ownership passed in New York could result in both of these scenarios.

“There’s one group of people who are gun owners who may reasonably or unreasonably think, ‘I’m not going anywhere near a mental health person, because if they misinterpret something I say as an indication I’m going to hurt myself or someone else, they’re going to report me and take away my guns,’” Paul Applebaum, director of the Division of Law, Ethics, and Psychiatry at Columbia University, told NBC News.

Therapists who don’t report patients that express violent thoughts could face criminal charges themselves if something were to happen later, which as a result might lead to over reporting. News 8 out of Idaho Falls reported a therapist also citing the potential problem of over reporting mental illness with new laws…

Read more at The Blaze

Obama Encourages Doctors To Question Patients About Guns In Their Homes

Why can’t America care for the mentally ill?

Mental Illness And Gun Ownership

The Real Issue Behind Mass Shootings: Mental Illness

Progressive Mental Health Policies Are to Blame for the Mass Shooting in Sandy Hook

School Shooters Under the Influence of Psychiatric Drugs

Connecticut School Shooting Points to a Disturbing Link Between Age, Psychiatric Med’s and Mass shootings

The Tucson Shooter and the Case for Involuntary Commitment

Wrong Prescription: How the emptying of state-run mental hospitals produced a social disaster