Thoughts From A Conservative Mom

Posts Tagged ‘Religion’

Recently, the Pentagon hired a rabid, anti-Christian fanatic to advice them on how to make the military more “tolerant.”    His first recommendation has been to court-martial Christians who dare to share their faith with another service member.

Ken Klukowski reports at Breitbart:

“Today, we face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces.”

Those words were recently written by Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), in a column he wrote for the Huffington Post. Weinstein will be a consultant to the Pentagon to develop new policies on religious tolerance, including a policy for court-martialing military chaplains who share the Christian Gospel during spiritual counseling of American troops.

[...]   Many media outlets are silent on this disturbing new alliance between fanatical secularists and leaders in the Pentagon appointed by President Barack Obama and Secretary Chuck Hagel, under which the U.S. military would officially consult with someone with such foaming-at-the-mouth passionate hostility toward traditional Christians, including Evangelicals and devout Catholics. The military—America’s most heroic and noble institution—includes countless people of faith, and this represents a radical departure from the U.S. military’s warm embrace of people of faith in its ranks.

Yet the little coverage this story is getting is positive, such as thisWashington Post column that somehow manages not to carry any of these frightening quotes from Weinstein and instead actually endorses the Pentagon’s meeting with him. Sally Quinn’s Postcolumn also approvingly quotes MRFF Advisory Board member Larry Wilkerson as saying, “Sexual assault and proselytizing, according to Wilkerson, ‘are absolutely destructive of the bonds that keep soldiers together.’”

Did you get that? They say having someone share the Christian gospel with you is akin to being raped. Weinstein makes sure there are no doubts, being quoted by the Post as adding, “This is a national security threat. What is happening [aside from sexual assault] is spiritual rape. And what the Pentagon needs is to understand is that it is sedition and treason. It should be punished.”

Read more at Breitbart

Now, it appears that the military is preparing to court-martial anyone who tries to share the Good News:

The Pentagon has released a statement confirming that soldiers could be prosecuted for promoting their faith: “Religious proselytization is not permitted within the Department of Defense…Court martials and non-judicial punishments are decided on a case-by-case basis…”.

The statement, released to Fox News, follows a Breitbart News report on Obama administration Pentagon appointees meeting with anti-Christian extremist Mikey Weinstein to develop court-martial procedures to punish Christians in the military who express or share their faith.

This regulation would severely limit expressions of faith in the military, even on a one-to-one basis between close friends. It could also effectively abolish the position of chaplain in the military, as it would not allow chaplains (or any service members, for that matter), to say anything about their faith that others say led them to think they were being encouraged to make faith part of their life. It’s difficult to imagine how a member of the clergy could give spiritual counseling without saying anything that might be perceived in that fashion.

Read more at Breitbart

Ironic that the very men and women who volunteered to defend liberty are now watching their most basic, unalienable rights being stripped away, all in the name of “tolerance.”   Is this what they fought for?

Sign the Petition to Protect Religious Freedom in the Military

Pentagon Recruits Anti-Christian Extremist To Help Craft Tolerance Policy

Religious Groups Fear Christian Purge From Military

Secular Crusader Advises Pentagon: Christians are ‘Monsters.’

Religious Freedom in Our Military: This Is What Intolerance Smells Like

Pentagon: Religious Proselytizing is Not Permitted

Rear admiral vows to continue sharing fait

Army Labels Christians as Religious Extremists, Potential Terrorists

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood government that Obama arms, funds and supports is violently persecuting religious minorities, using our tax money to do it:

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood’s governing majority, is not actually crucifying the nation’s Christians. But they are nonetheless actively persecuting Coptic Christians who are said to be one-tenth of the population of the largest Arab country. A photograph of two young men set afire during recent demonstrations is pretty striking.

Demonstrations have turned into riots as Egypt’s police cracked down on the Copts. The Copts were protesting against increasing sectarian violence directed at the country’s Christian minority.

Typically, what has been happening is the Copts protest against Islamist violence directed at them and their churches. St. Mark’s Cathedral has been the target of Muslim extremists in recent week. When the Copts face police, they get tear gassed. And then they are the ones arrested. The Muslim Brotherhood authorities will pick up Coptic youth—hopefully the ones not yet set on fire—and jail them.

Then, the police grab some of the Islamists perpetrators and jail them. Later, following a much-ballyhooed “reconciliation,” the authorities release all—perpetrators and victims alike.

Read more at Townhall

In Syria, the rebels that the U.S. is supporting – who are trying to overthrow Assad – are Islamic extremists who are threatening to exterminate any Christians left behind who don’t convert to Islam:

Syria’s Christians fear an Islamist takeover should the current government be overthrown. During the ongoing civil war there has been a well-documented rise in the number of salafi-jihadist groups operating in Syria that pose a direct threat to Syria’s Christian community. These militant opposition forces espouse an Islamist ideology, which incorporates elements of Wahhabism and Salafism and whose stated goals and objectives are by definition hostile towards Christians. Firsthand accounts from Syrian Christian refugees in Lebanon reported by award winning investigative journalist Nuri Kino detail the horror in which they described kidnappings, rapes, harassment, theft and other violent reprisals at the hands of Islamist groups.

Those who survived reported “just being Christian is enough to be a target,” disproving theories that violence and kidnapping directed towards Syrian Christians is purely incidental or for economic reasons.

Read more at Weasel Zippers

Once again, our taxpayer money is going towards funding Islamic extremism and the suppression of religious liberty.

Islam’s Collective Punishment of Christians

Brutal Sharia Law Now Official Law Of Egypt

Syrian Rebels Attack Christians, Impose Sharia law

Christian Massacres Are Result Of Disastrous U.S. Foreign Policy

Obama Complicit In The Persecution of Christians?

Last month, M. Stanton Evans pointed out that America’s demographics currently favor the Republicans in future elections:

As shown by demographer Eric Kaufman of the University of London, religious couples across all cultures are for obvious reasons (including but not limited to abortion) having more children per family than are the secular-irreligious, whose birthrates are below replacement — which means a declining population.

“After 2020,” says Kaufman, the devoutly religious of all faiths “will begin to tip the culture wars to the conservative side.”

The liberal-counterculture Democrats will of course continue fighting this war in the schools and through the media, but have only one major demographic weapon to counter the fertility gap that is working relentlessly against them.

That weapon is illegal immigration. As the population trends move steadily conservative, the liberals must bring into the country and enfranchise new voters who will reliably cast Democratic ballots.

That, and that alone, is the real issue in the battle over immigration and why the Democrats are so bent on gaining amnesty for illegals. All the rest is window dressing.

Read more at IBD

No wonder they’re pushing so hard for amnesty.   The question is, why are Republicans so stupidly eager to help them?

Immigration reform could be election bonanza for Democrats

Republicans Promote Amnesty While Dems Refuse To Secure Border, Recruit Illegal Immigrants Onto Welfare

Homeland Security ‘Welcome’ Materials Recruit New Immigrants Onto Overburdened Welfare Programs

Case Worker: Illegal Aliens Got Food Stamps by the “Vanload”

Report: Illegals Get $4B a Year in Cash Refunds From IRS

A Problem-solving Approach to Immigration

THIS is why we need the Parental Rights Amendment!

Parents don’t even realize that the state now considers their parental rights something that are delegated to them by the state, rather than being unalienable rights endowed by Nature and Nature’s God! If a doctor decides to play god or someone decides to make a false accusation, your rights as a parent can be suddenly revoked, and you’re considered guilty until proven innocent!

News 10 reports:

A Sacramento family was torn apart after a 5-month-old baby boy was taken from his parents following a visit to the doctor.

The young couple thought their problems were behind them after their son had a scare at the hospital, but once they got home their problems got even worse.

It all began nearly two weeks ago, when Anna Nikolayev and her husband Alex took their 5-month-old boy Sammy to Sutter Memorial Hospital to be treated for flu symptoms, but they didn’t like the care Sammy was getting.

For example, one day Anna asked why a nurse was giving her son antibiotics.

“I asked her, for what is that? And she’s like, ‘I don’t know.’ I’m like, ‘you’re working as a nurse, and you don’t even know what to give to my baby for what,’” Anna explained.

According to Anna, a doctor later said Sammy shouldn’t have been on the antibiotics.

Anna said Sammy suffers from a heart murmur and had been seeing a doctor at Sutter for regular treatment since he was born. After Sammy was treated for flu symptoms last week, doctors at Sutter admitted him to the pediatric ICU to monitor his condition. After a few days, Anna said doctors began talking about heart surgery.

“If we got the one mistake after another, I don’t want to have my baby have surgery in the hospital where I don’t feel safe,” Anna said.

Anna argued with doctors about getting a second opinion. Without a proper discharge, she finally took Sammy out of the hospital to get a second opinion at Kaiser Permanente.

“The police showed up there. They saw that the baby was fine,” Anna said. “They told us that Sutter was telling them so much bad stuff that they thought that this baby is dying on our arms.”

Medical records from the doctor treating Sammy at Kaiser Permanente said the baby as clinically safe to go home with his parents. The doctor added, “I do not have concern for the safety of the child at home with his parents.”

“So police saw the report from the doctors, said, ‘okay guys, you have a good day,’ and they walked away,” Anna said.

Read more at News 10

That SHOULD have been the end of the story, but it wasn’t.   Many doctors are no longer recognizing the right of parents to disagree with their recommendations and/or seek a second opinion.  With god-like arrogance, they seek to intimidate, threaten and punish any patient that dares to question them, and the law allows them to do it.

Political Outcast continues:

Evidently the doctors and staff at Sutter were offended that Anna wanted to seek a second opinion because the day after the two hospital visits, police and Child Protective Services showed up at their house.  Alex met them outside the door and says that the police pushed him against the house and then smacked him down to the ground.  The police then opened the door without asking permission and entered the house.  Anna, who was frightened to death, turned her camera on to record what was happening.  She recorded one of the police officers telling her:

“I’m going to grab your baby, and don’t resist, and don’t fight me ok?”

The policeman took Sammy from them and turned him over to the CPS agent.  They told the shocked and frightened parents that they had a report that Sammy had been severely neglected and that an investigation was being launched.

Alex and Anna have retained an attorney to help them sort the whole thing out.  Their attorney says that there are absolutely no signs of neglect and that the exact opposite is true.  The parents have never missed an appointment and they have the doctor’s records from Kaiser indicating that Sammy was okay to go home and that he was not in any danger.

Read more at Political Outcast

Even though the baby shows no signs of neglect and the parents have not been charged with any crime, CPS forced them to agree to restrictions on their parental rights in order to regain custody.   They have lost their right to disagree with the doctors over their son’s treatment, and must allow  intrusive “follow up” visits into their home.  ”Follow up” for what?  Further proof that the parents have done nothing wrong?  These parents are being treated as if they are guilty until proven innocent!

News 10 reports:

Five-month-old Sammy, who was removed from his parents’ custody by Sacramento County Child Protective Services last week, will be transported to Stanford Medical Center in Palo Alto, a Sacramento County judge ruled Monday. The baby has been in protective custody at Sutter Memorial Hospital.

The Nikolayevs have since been fighting to get their baby back and talking with local and international media to explain their case.

The court also ruled Monday the parents must following all medical advice from now on, including not taking their child from Stanford without proper discharge.

A county social worker will make regular house visits to check on Sammy once he is returned home.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Paul Seave said he believed all of the attorneys involved worked in the best interest of Sammy.

Read more at News 10

The “best interest of Sammy” was to be left with his parents the minute the cops saw he was in no danger, investigate the first hospital’s false reports to CPS, and investigate CPS’s unlawful abuses of power to harass and tear apart an innocent family!

ParentalRights.org explains why the Parental Rights Amendment is desperately needed:

Traditionally, the Supreme Court has recognized the “fundamental liberty interest of natural parents in the care, custody, and management of their child,” found in the Fourteenth Amendment’s “Due Process” clause. Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745 (1982) This protection, however, has been lost on Sacramento CPS. It is also being weakened through judicial erosion in the courts.

Passage of the Parental Rights Amendment will provide parents an explicit constitutional protection; otherwise, they’ll have to rely on the courts, hoping they will continue to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment as they traditionally have (but increasingly no longer do). And the PRA will allow organizations like CPS to know exactly what the rules are that they must follow.

“The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their child is a fundamental right. Neither the United States nor any State shall infringe this right without demonstrating that its governmental interest as applied to the person is of the highest order and not otherwise served.”

These two sentences would make clear that CPS cannot take a child away unless it is prepared to prove that the child was in danger caused by abuse or neglect. In this case, it would increase the chances that common sense would prevail and baby Sammy would have gotten to stay home safe and sound with his mom and dad.

Read more at ParentalRights.org

Imagine how many more incidents like this we are likely to see with a government takeover of health care!

Confiscating the baby: Obamacare and Parental Rights

Calif. Parents Whose Baby Boy Was ‘Snatched’ by Police Tell Their Unbelievable Story; Lawsuit ‘Absolutely’ Forthcoming

Couple calls for CPS reforms after reuniting with baby

The Child: America’s Battle for the Next Generation

MSNBC Host: Kids Don’t Belong To Their Parents, They ‘Belong To Their Communities’

Attorney General Holder: Parents Have No Right to Educate their Children

Attorney General Holder: Parents Have No Right to Educate their Children

DOJ: Children Do Not Need – and Have No Right to – Mothers or Fathers

Threat to Parents’ Rights a Bigger Issue than Rights of a Child

Who will raise kids: Mom, Dad or state?

Gay activists have been putting pressure on the Boy Scouts for years, but they finally started to get results when they targeted BSA’s large corporate donors and infiltrated the National Executive Committee with members willing to undermine the BSA from within.   Fearing losing their funding, the Boy Scouts have now partially caved to allow gay scouts, but not Troop Leaders.  It’s obvious that won’t be far behind.  The  wall has been officially breached, and the bullies of the gay lobby won’t be satisfied until they’ve been brought down completely.

Becket Adams reports at The Blaze:

If ever there was a week to quietly announce a major organizational change, this is it.

A spokesman with the Boy Scouts of America on Friday announced that the 103-year-old organization is set to lift its long-standing ban on openly gay youth members but will continue to exclude gays as adult leaders.

However, as Reuters notes, the group’s board “still has to vote in May on whether to ratify the resolution.”

If the vote goes through, “no youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone,” Deron Smith, the organization’s spokesman, told Reuters.

Read more at The Blaze

Former Eagle Scout John Stemberger writes at the Washington Times:

Virtually every news story on this topic erroneously frames this issue as the Boy Scouts “bans gays” or “discriminates against gays.” This is simply not true. Contrary to what the media might report, the Boy Scouts do not discriminate against homosexuals. The BSA membership application does not even ask about sexual orientation.

[...]  The fact is that veterans of Scouting will tell you there are currently Scouts and adult leaders in uniform who have same-sex attractions and who are in good standing with the program. They are discreet, though; they are private, they are discerning, and most of all, they conduct themselves appropriately in front of other young boys. Further, there has never been a witch hunt in the BSA to find or remove its members with a same-sex attraction.

So if homosexuals are already allowed in Scouting, then what is the national controversy about?

The real issue is this: Homosexual-rights activists are not satisfied with membership in good standing and being allowed to fully participate like everyone else. They want to be able to openly promote homosexuality. They want to promote a gay-rights political agenda. They want to act out publicly and be “loud and proud.” They want to inappropriately inject sex and politics into the BSA program, where children as young as six years old are involved. Not on this dad’s watch. This behavior and open homosexual conduct is exactly what the current BSA policy prohibits, a prohibition that we as parents demand that the program reaffirm if it wants our continued support.

[...]  Former U.S. Rep. Richard T. Schulze, Pennsylvania Republican, a recipient of the rare Distinguished Eagle Scout Award, recently commented, “What kind of a message are we sending to our young people if the very leaders who are teaching Boy Scouts to be brave cannot even find the courage to stand firm and avoid caving in to peer pressure from Hollywood and political activists?”

I could not agree more.

Read more at the Washington Times

It’s sad that an institution which has taught boys to stand up for moral principles and against the tide of moral relativism has allowed themselves to be compromised for the sake of money.   That’s exactly what this boils down to – and it will destroy them.   They may keep their big donors, but thousands of churches and other charter organizations will simply dissolve their charters rather than risk the wrath of gay bullies and potential lawsuits.

The Enemy Within: The Homosexual Assault from within the Boy Scouts of America

The Scouts – a ‘jewel of American culture’ in jeopardy

Opposition to Boy Scouts’ compromise on gays grows on both sides of issue

Boy Scouts Consider Ending Ban on Gay Troop Leaders, Scouts

Say No to Girl Scout Cookies

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

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev seen walking away from the explosive-laden backpack he left only feet away from the 8-year-old boy who was killed in the explosion.

And so it begins….a local station just aired an entire report making excuses for the bomber because he’s “young” and “misguided.” Claimed that it’s his age that’s the problem. Claimed that his motive is “unknown.” Totally ignored the fact that the pedophile butcher that he worships as a prophet encouraged his followers to follow his violent example. I’m SO sick of the media in this country bending over backwards to give violent radical Islamists a pass!

Mark Steyn sure called this one:

On Rush Limbaugh’s Friday program, fill-in host Mark Steyn reminded listeners of Limbaugh’s Tuesday comments predicting the media would “circle the wagons” for Islam if it turned out that the suspects in Monday’s Boston Marathon bombing Muslims, saying that the prediction will come true.

As it turned out, the suspects Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were indeed Muslims, and Steyn, author of  “After America: Get Ready for Armageddon,” said the media wagon-circling would begin “any moment now.”

“As we now know, these guys are Muslim,” Steyn said. “One of them was Muslim. He’s dead — he died in the early hours this morning. The other guy, still on the lam, is Muslim — Muslims from Chechnya. And so, as usual, any moment now we’ll start to hear, ‘Oh well, these are just lone wolves,’ as Rush said. ‘They’re not typical of anything.’ None of these guys are ever typical of anything.”

Read more at the Daily Caller

Daniel Greenfield writes at Front Page Mag:

“Why would Chechen refugees, who’ve been locked for nearly two decades in a bitter, violent conflict against the Russian government, harbor such anger against the United States that they’d want to carry out a terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon?” Politico asks.

“The answer is far from obvious,” it concludes.

Those few lines sum up the whole problem with our war on terror. A Muslim terrorist attack by Muslim terrorists? Why? The political establishment has spent decades choosing to ignore the basic facts. Then each time it’s baffled when the obvious happens.

The motives are obvious enough.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s YouTube channel had a playlist titled “Islam” and another playlist titled “Terrorists”. That should be obvious enough even for Politico.

Read more at Front Page Mag

Bruce Thornton observes:

This disconnect between our alleged bad behavior and the motives of the jihadists is starkly obvious in the case of the Boston terrorists. If Chechen Muslims have a beef with anyone, it’s the Russians. When jihadist terrorism became a problem in Chechnya, there were no “hearts and minds” campaigns, no solicitous outreach, no infusions of foreign aid, no apologies for past sins, no careful adherence to the laws of war, the Geneva conventions, or human rights, no courting of imams to provide insights into the wonderfulness of Islam. The Russians employed torture, assassination, group reprisals, and in the end ringed Grozny with artillery and left it in ruins. In the two Chechen wars the Russians killed around 150,000 people. In fact, Russia has been killing Muslims since the 18^th century, and occupied Muslims lands in Central Asia for 80 years under the Soviet Union. So tell me, Senator Rand Paul or Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, if our foreign policy misbehavior explains jihadist hatred, how is that two centuries of Russian violence against Muslims is ignored, and all our blood and treasure spent to liberate and help Muslims count for nothing?

No more convincing are the other rationalizations for Muslim violence. Lack of education and economic opportunity exist all over the world, but African Christians and animists, or Indian Hindus and Buddhists don’t commit acts of terrorism with anywhere near the same frequency as Muslims. Plenty of people across the globe live under oppressive dictators who routinely violate human rights, and they don’t turn to terrorism against distant strangers in response. Tibetans aren’t donning suicide vests or bombing marathons. Millions and millions of impoverished everywhere don’t kill innocent people in random attacks in countries far from their homes. Every excuse for Muslim violence collapses beneath the weight of such facts. Meanwhile, the one factor all these killers––rich or poor, educated or not, politically oppressed or otherwise––have in common, Islam, is preemptively rejected as the explanation for the violence.

This “willful blindness,” as Andy McCarthy calls, has become dangerous. It reflects the arrogance of secular materialism, which has discounted religion as a mere life-style choice, usually benign––unless you’re talking about gun-toting, racist, misogynist, homophobic evangelical Christians, or racist, land-grabbing Zionist Jews. No, it’s about psychological trauma caused by globalization, or Islamophobia, or insensitive insults to Mohammed, or Israel’s oppression of Palestinians, or anything and everything other than the numerous passages in the Koran, hadiths, and 14 centuries of Islamic jurisprudence and theology, which clearly and consistently set out the doctrine of violent jihad against infidels.

So expect in the coming weeks the same old commentary about foreign-policy blowback, or two-bit psychological analyses of personal trauma, or Israel’s sins and Bush’s wars, or American intolerance and xenophobia, or our need to “reach out” and “engage” and “respect” and “understand” the fanatics who don’t want our outreach, tolerance, or respect, but our deaths. In short, expect more public reasons for the jihadists to believe we are weak and corrupt and thus deserving to die.

Read more at Front Page Mag

Jihad in Boston

Boston bombs: Obama lulled America into false confidence over terror threat

Political Correctness Hamstringing Anti-Terror Efforts In US?

Boston Bombers Revealed As Chechnyan Islamic Radicals, Media Disappointed It’s Not Right-Wingers

Irresponsible Media Outdoes Themselves With False Reports, Baseless Suppositions

Muslims Celebrate Boston Terror Attack, Leftists Blame Conservatives And Republicans

Chechen President Says American Upbringing to Blame

Three years after declaring that the war on terror is over, Obama is discovering that the terrorists apparently never got his memo.

The day after the bombing attack at the Boston Marathon, investigators discovered that the bombs were made from pressure cookers:

Pressure cookers – possibly activated remotely by a cellphone – are believed to have been used to make the crude bombs that sent deadly shrapnel hurling into a crowd of onlookers and competitors at Monday’s Boston Marathon, experts told Fox News.

Doctors treating some of the 176 injured victims believe the explosives were packed with deadly shrapnel, including pellets, nails and sharp metallic objects – with some patients having “40 or more” such fragments embedded in their bodies.

Read more at Fox News

Pressure cookers, it turns out, are a favorite IED component used by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Iraq, and throughout the Middle East, and Al Qaeda provided the instructions for making a pressure cooker bomb in their latest magazine.   CNN claimed that it’s a “right wing signature,” but the facts show otherwise.

Barnini Chakraborty warns at Fox News:

The deadly bomb attack on the Boston Marathon highlights what may be a growing threat to American cities — the use of IEDs to target large gatherings, inflicting mass damage with a device that is difficult to detect.

Security experts say the use of IEDs is becoming a preferred tool of terror in both domestic and global attacks — or attempted attacks — against the United States.

“The reason to use an IED or multiple IEDs is that you’re trying to create an oversized impact, and as much panic and disruption as possible,” Bill Braniff, the executive director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, told FoxNews.com Tuesday.

Read more at Fox News

Despite these threats, Andrew McCarthy observes that our anti-terror efforts in the US are being hampered by political correctness:

The prosecutor who put the terrorists in the 1993 World Trade Center attack behind bars says the kind of counter-terrorism needed to stop horrors like the Boston bombings is now “a dirty word’’ because of fears of profiling and racism.

“We have made the study of the ideology of our enemies basically verboten,’’ Andrew McCarthy told Newsmax TV’s “The Steve Malzberg Show.’’

“If you don’t understand what motivates the enemy there’s no way that you can anticipate what the enemy is likely to do next and protect yourself from it.

“Islamist organizations in the U.S. have made it much more difficult to do the kind of counter-terrorism that we’ve done since 9/11 that is based on intelligence.’’

Read more at Newsmax

Meanwhile, Democrats are busy blaming the Boston attack on….the sequester.  No joke.  See Rep. Hoyer and Rep. Becerra.  Barney Frank is using it to argue for Big Government spending.  They’re so classy, these people…exploiting a tragedy for political gain.

Allen West: Can we investigate radical Islamic terror now?

Ignoring Terrorism Is Not the Answer

Muslims Celebrate Boston Terror Attack, Leftists Blame Conservatives And Republicans

A Decade Out, We’re Losing The War on Terror

War On Terror Is Far From Over

Call the enemy by its true name: Obama and Holder won’t say that radical Islam inspires terrorists

Three Things The West Doesn’t Understand About Islam

The Third Jihad: Radical Islam’s Vision For America

It’s Time To Stop Making Excuses For Muslims

Obama Admin. Refuses To Call Ft. Hood Attack An Act Of Terror, Denies Survivors Benefits

Muslim radicals advising Obama on his Middle East policies

Muslim Cleric: “The Flag of Islam will one day fly over the White House”

The Moral Relativist Left in Canada isn’t outraged by the practices of murdering women and sexually mutilating children.  But they are outraged if someone dares to call these abuses “barbaric”:

Michael Kravshik reports at Front Page Mag:

Cultural relativism has reached a new point of absurdity in Canada when the “barbarity” of female genital mutilation and honor killings is questioned and becomes a controversy.

A recently introduced manual by the Government of Canada intended to teach newcomers about Canadian values and Canadian society has been met with ongoing hostility from left-wing Canadians and politicians over the choice of words in describing female genital mutilation and honor killings. Jinny Sims, the immigration critic of the opposition New Democratic Party of Canada, suggested the word “barbaric” might “stigmatize some cultures.”

[...]   Taking up the relativist banner was also none other than Justin Trudeau, front-runner for leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, and son of the infamous Canadian Prime Minister who brought multiculturalist policy to Canada. He attacked the Conservatives for using the term “barbaric,” and suggested that the term was a “pejorative” and that “there needs to be a little bit of an attempt at responsible neutrality.”

Read more at Front Page Mag

“Neutrality” on murder and sexual mutilation?  Are you kidding me???

Now, Amnesty International, which supposedly exists to fight for human rights, is objecting to calling a spade a spade:

Recently, I penned an article about  an Amnesty International initiative: an art project for which the organization had commissioned artists and designers to address the devastating problem of female genital mutilation, or FGM – using 8,000 paper rose petals.  The petals had been gathered as part of a petition action to bring attention to – and to end – the practice of FGM, and were each signed by a member of the public who participated in the petition.  It was a laudable project, and I said so.

Amnesty responded with great appreciation for my story – but took exception to one detail.  I had  called FGM “barbaric,” and, said an Amnesty official, “we try not to use this word.”  In an e-mail, she explained, “The use of the word ‘barbaric’ suggests that the people who do this are less than human, which isn’t so because they are being led by social pressure which is what needs to be fought. So we avoid using this word to not judge the people.”

Overlooking the fact that “barbaric,” which means simply “uncultured,” “uncivilized,” or “uneducated,” does not quite suggest “less than human,” I could not help but wonder about the “not to judge them” part.  After all, if you set out to change a thing – a behavior, a place, a custom  (and especially if you set out to end it) – haven’t you already implicitly expressed a judgment?  And how is calling a custom, a practice, “barbaric,” conferring a judgment on the people who perform it?

[...]   If, say, a Park Avenue Protestant family carried out FGM on their daughter, that, too, after all, would be barbaric. And anyone would be right to say so.  But barring the use of that word, should we use another one, like “different?”  But wait – isn’t “different” somewhat alienating, as well? Does it not imply a judgment?

And so on. At this rate, the only workably acceptable term would seem to be “normal” or “okay.”

And it is not.

These are the times I worry that we stand upon a precipice, and fear for the ideas and the ideals that form the fundament of civilization and democracy.  We censor words and language, as Howard says, bending our knee to the tyranny of political correctness, concerning ourselves more with the sensitivities of the perpetrators than the lives and safety of the victims.

Read more at the Clarion Project

Some things are just EVIL, and SHOULD be called “barbaric!” There’s no other way to describe them!  But according to the Left, the only thing that’s “barbaric” is criticizing the EVIL practices of an EVIL “religion” that glorifies misogyny and child abuse!

Islam and Sexuality, a Presentation by Ann Barnhardt

Women Under Islam: Female Genital Mutilation

The Violent Oppression of Women in Islam

Violent Sexual Obsession and Rape as Expression of Islamic Spirituality

A Complete Guide to Pedophilia in Islam

When was the last time a Christian strapped on a suicide bomb or flew an airplane into a building?  Hmmm…..let me think…..

Oh, that’s right.  NEVER!

AWR Hawkins reports at Breitbart:

A U.S. Army training instructor giving a training brief on “extremism” to an Army Reserve unit in Pennsylvania has labeled Evangelical Christianity and Roman Catholicism as examples of religious extremism right alongside Al Qaeda.

In addition to Al Qaeda, the instructor also equated Evangelical and Catholic “extremism” with that of Hamas, Sunni Muslims, the Nation of Islam, and the Ku Klux Klan.

Read more at Breitbart

This wasn’t an accident.  The Left loves to throw out extreme positions and see what they can make stick.   They’ll back down temporarily from the inevitable uproar, but they also know that Americans are forgetful and easily desensitized, so they’ll continually push a point until it is no longer considered extreme.

Todd Starnes writes at Townhall:

“We find this offensive to have Evangelical Christians and the Catholic Church to be listed among known terrorist groups,” said Ron Crews, executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty. “It is dishonorable for any U.S. military entity to allow this type of wrongheaded characterization.”

[...]   The incident was made public by a soldier who attended the briefing. He asked for copies of the presentation and sent them to the Chaplain Alliance.

“He considers himself an evangelical Christian and did not appreciate being classified with terrorists,” Crews told Fox News. “There was a pervasive attitude in the presentation that anything associated with religion is an extremist.”

The Archdiocese for the Military Services was shocked to learn that the Army considered Catholicism to be an example of extremism.

“The Archdiocese is astounded that Catholics were listed alongside groups that are, by their very mission and nature, violent and extremist,” the Archdiocese said in a statement.

They want the Dept. of Defense to “ensure that taxpayer funds are never again used to present blatantly anti-religious material to the men and women in uniform.”

“In the notes it was clearly stated that the presenter was not a subject matter expert, and produced the material after conducting Internet research,” Wright said.

So if the presenter was not an expert, what were they doing presenting the material, Crews asked.

He said he had a chance to speak with the officer who conducted the briefing and she told him that she got her information from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“Why is there such dependence upon the work of the SPLC to determine hate groups and extremist groups,” Crews said. “It appears that some military entities are using definitions of ‘hate’ and ‘extreme’ from the lists of anti-Christian political organizations. That violates the apolitical stance appropriate for the military.”

Read more at Townhall

If you want to talk about extremist groups, the Southern Poverty Law Center certainly qualifies.   Originally founded to combat racism, now they smear any organization that doesn’t agree with their radical leftist ideology – such as Focus On The Family – as a “hate group.”

It is not a legitimate source for the military to be using to study domestic terror threats.

Army Email Labels Christian Ministries as “Domestic Hate Groups”

Army smears of Christians NOT an “isolated incident”

West Point Terrorism Center Warns of Danger of Limited-Government Activists and ‘Far Right’

National Guard Conducts Terror Drill That Portrays ‘Disgruntled’ 2nd Amendment Supporters As The Attackers

Army Preps for Tea Party ‘Terrorists’

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

Children Subjected To Realistic ‘Terror’ and ‘School Shooter’ Drills Where Homeschoolers, Christians Are Portrayed As Terrorists

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”

Melissa Harris-Perry: All Your Kids Belong to Us (Not the Parents)

View on YouTube

I’ve seen the village, and I don’t want it raising my kids!

In a scripted MSNBC promo, Melissa Harris-Perry made the following statement:

“We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we’ve always had a private notion of children, your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of these are our children.  So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.”

Got that?  You kid doesn’t belong to you.  He/she belongs to the “collective” – meaning, the state.

Ironically, this is the same woman who calls unborn babies “things that turn into humans.”

How do I put this politely?  Stay the **** way from my kids!

Erick Erickson observes at Red State:

So kids belong to whole communities? Didn’t we fight a war back in the 1800s to prove that people weren’t owned by the state or anyone else, but were, in fact, people? Seriously?

But take that out of it. This is amazingly stupid commentary. All of us who own property (real property, not children) pay property taxes to fund a public education system to educate our children. We have democratically elected school boards to make the decisions on how tocollectively educate our kids to common, state approved standards.

It is failing spectacularly. And I suspect that the tangible efforts to improve it, from neutering teachers unions to giving parents choices in where to send their children, are opposed by Melissa Harris-Perry.

I never thought I’d see the day when self-styled progressives advocated the state owning the people.

Read more at Red State

Ken Shepherd at Newsbusters correctly points out that this is actually Maoist philosophy she’s spewing:

[T]he notion of collective responsibility for children was a philosophy that undergirded the Cultural Revolution in Communist China under Chairman Mao. I bring that up because, as you may recall, another Harris-Perry “Lean Forward” spot contains a reference to a “great leap forward,” which calls to mind the disastrous agricultural reform plan which starved millions of Chinese to death in the 1950s.

Read more at Newsbusters

The Five on Fox made some great points about this collectivist mentality while discussing this around the table:

View on YouTube

Sarah Palin tweeted a few ingenious responses to this:

Love it! After having spent 22 hours of my life in labor, I heartily agree!

After the justifiable outrage and backlash, Harris-Perry is trying to walk back her statements and blame the views for misunderstanding her.   Nice try.   This is typical for the Left.  They float a trial balloon and then pretend it was all an innocent misunderstanding when they get called for dropping their mask. The mask goes back up, but the ugliness behind it doesn’t go away. They work by desensitizing people over time, so that what sounds outrageous now will actually start to sound reasonable a few years from now. I don’t buy her “backpedaling” for a second.

Sign the petition to adopt the only Constitutional Amendment that will protect children from this kind of power grab – the Parental Rights Amendment!

The Child: America’s Battle for the Next Generation

Sarah Palin: It’s unflippingbelievable that MSNBC thinks your kids don’t belong to you

‘Is an unborn child owned by the collective?’: Greg Gutfeld, ‘The Five’ blast MSNBC’s collectivist Borg

Attorney General Holder: Parents Have No Right to Educate their Children

DOJ: Children Do Not Need – and Have No Right to – Mothers or Fathers

Threat to Parents’ Rights a Bigger Issue than Rights of a Child

Who will raise kids: Mom, Dad or state?

Obama deliberately chooses these kinds of radical, extremist religious leaders to guide his family and his faith.   That tells you a lot about how radical his core beliefs really are.   Obama doesn’t hide the fact that he’s a follower of the “Social Gospel,” which teaches collective salvation through good (government) works, not individual salvation by grace.

Madeleine Morgenstern reports at The Blaze:

The pastor at the Washington, D.C. church where the Obama family celebrated Easter on Sunday said members of the religious right want blacks “in the back of the bus,” women “back in the kitchen” and immigrants “back on their side of the border.”

“It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling us back…for blacks to be back in the back of the bus…for women to be back in the kitchen…for immigrants to be back on their side of the border,” Rev. Dr. Luis Leon said in his sermon, according to the White House press pool report.

Reuters reporter Jeff Mason tweeted that Leon also said the religious right wants gays in the closet.

Read more at The Blaze

What a classy, uplifting sermon for Resurrection Sunday.

This isn’t the first time his nut-job pastor has said something like this, either. Where does he find these crazies? I’ve grown up in different church across the denominational spectrum all my life, and NOT ONCE have I ever a pastor give sermon that specifically bashed political opponents.

White House refuses to denounce Easter Sunday attack on conservatives

Obama’s Pastor Calls Republicans ‘Enemies,’ Prays For ‘Battle,’ Chants ‘Forward!’ During Church Service

Obama Claims Jesus Would Support His Socialist Policies

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

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?

He releases a video which shows this map just before flying over to Israel.  So “diplomatic” of him.

Washington Free Beacon Staff report:

The map of the Middle East displayed in an Obama administration video released days before President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel shows the Jewish state dispossessed of substantial parts of its current territory, including its capital.

The map of Israel, displayed repeatedly during the video, shows the Golan Heights, Jerusalem, northern Israel, and areas surrounding what is currently the West Bank as non-Israeli territory. The Golan Heights is shown as part of Syria; Jerusalem is shown as part of the West Bank; and northern Israel is shown as part of Lebanon.

The itinerary on the White House website also implies that Jerusalem is neither Israel’s capital nor even part of Israel.

Read more at Washington Free Beacon

Rest assured, the eyes of radical Muslims around the world are watching.   They know this shift means they have Obama’s blessing to steal this land from Israel.

Palestinians’ UN Logo, Map Show Israel Completely Wiped Out

White House Refuses To Acknowledge Jerusalem as Capitol of Israel

Obama to Israel: Surrender Your Land and Holy Sites to Hamas Terrorists

John Bolton on the Difference Between Israeli-Palestinian Border and the ’67 Border Lines

Obama – The Anti-Israel President

Obama: ‘Israel Doesn’t Know What Its Best Interests Are’

Obama Condemns Israel For Construction On Their Own Land

Obama Chooses Anti-Israel Fanatic Chuck Hagel For Defense Secretary

Obama admin. ‘doesn’t accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity,’ claims construction ‘undermines peace efforts’

Second Term of Anti-Zionist President Means Trouble For Israel

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