As I watched the first news reports of the Fort Hood Military Base shootings, I wondered what the right response from the Commander In Chief should be to this disaster. At around 2:00PM, we all witnessed the actual response from the sitting President, but what would you have done?
Twelve members of America’s troops are dead, and at least another 31 have been wounded. These 42 soldiers and their comrades were preparing for deployment to the front. This is major calamity, not just because it occurred on American soil, but this crime was committed, it appears, by one some of their own, on an American base. The shock to hundreds of individuals comprising the related families will last a lifetime.
The priority for the Commander In Chief, IMHO, would be to bypass any planned speech and immediately fly to Austin, Texas, act like a Commander In Chief, go to the site of the shootings, meet with senior staff, assess the situation and events that led to the shootings, speak to the troops, particularly the injured, demonstrate concern and take action based on the findings of your assessment. Such actions should include addressing the families of the fallen and the injured. Assure the American people that their military bases and the security of the bases are not compromised and all possible measures will be taken to tighten what already has been established to safeguard the safety of soldiers. Read the rest of this entry »
Question:
If a cross rises in the desert and no one knows about it, does it make a sound?
-Dana Milbank, WaPo
L-R: Rev. Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy, President Rev. Patrick Mahoney, of the Christian Defense Coalition and Father James Heyd hold a prayer service in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington. Today the high court will hear oral arguments in a case on involving the building of a memorial with a cross by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) in a remote area within what is now a federal preserve.
Mark Wilson-Getty Images
Is anyone really damaged by seeing the 10 Commandments displayed on a government building? Are any of you offended when you see a Christmas tree in a public square? When the White House hosts an Easter egg hunt each year, as well as iftar dinner and menorah lighting? Are your feelings hurt because we have national holidays that are Christian?
Why?
Religious expression is part of this nation’s history. The jihadist crusade of the ACLU and militant secular extremists is beyond reason in its successful attacks over the last several decades against public expression of Christian traditions and national heritage that has been a part of this country’s 200-plus year history.
Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the “Star Wars” film saga, fans gather for Star Wars Celebration IV at the L.A. Convention Center downtown. Jasper Manning, 2, assumes the character of Yoda in the company of his father, Chad Manning.
(Mel Melcon / LAT)
Tesco has been accused of religious discrimination after the company ordered the founder of a Jedi religion to remove his hood or leave a branch of the supermarket in north Wales.
Daniel Jones, founder of the religion inspired by the Star Wars films, says he was humiliated and victimised for his beliefs following the incident at a Tesco store in Bangor. Read the rest of this entry »
What do John Lennon, Glenn Beck, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn all have in common? The answer (and question) appears to be something no major political party in America appears able to grasp. While the GOP is looking for the leak in the roof, selling out conservative values to include more in the “big tent”, the big tent (the new and improved fiscal responsible one of course, sans “social values”), is swiftly being washed downstream, heading for the perilous cliff.
9-9-09 SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – A Republican state lawmaker from Southern California was ousted Wednesday from two legislative committees after he was caught on tape bragging about having sex with female lobbyists
The short answer of course, is an attempt to save man from himself. The only ‘revolution’ that will ultimately matter is the one fewer and fewer Americans understand. It has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with morality.
All of America’s problems are rooted in immorality; a consequence of course of throwing out God from the public square; a loss of conscience.
Being that morality is rooted in conscience, it would behoove us to remember Chuck Colsen’s “Cop and Conscience law.”
Colson’s Law states that the only alternatives to conscience are cops or chaos. If the inner shield of a community is lowered, the outer shield must be raised to stave off chaos. Therefore, a community, especially a free democracy, that loses its conscience, will necessarily become a police state.
It’s worth noting that no secular society has ever survived more than 72 years, the former U.S.S.R. being the best example. America will be no exception. Read the rest of this entry »
A few months ago, Senator Judd Gregg refused to go ahead with his nomination to Commerce Secretary after he learned that the White House had taken over the work of the Census. “[He] didn’t want to be a powerless GOP token, and that’s where this was headed.” said one friend of his. Judd intimated the Census had “tipped the balance” for his decision. I remember how horrified I was at the time by the very idea and I could understand Judd feeling the necessity for his embarrassing and wrenching action.
The idea of the White House subsuming the Census just seems so wrong on so many levels. Even assuming the probity of any Administration taking such a step, the very act is per se, in itself,a horrible precedent and ripe with potential for, at least, non-intended problems and injustices. ACCOUNTABILITY is a hallmark of our American system. If this Census is taken away from the purview of the Cabinet, we are, in effect, putting our representative power further out of our hands (in that oversight of the process is further removed). To paraphrase one of our cherished ideals, “Enumeration without Representation is Tyranny”! The fact that the Obama group, in particular, was doing it seemed even more worrisome to me and, I’m sure, even to a lot of his more honest supporters. His team, throughout the campaign, kept betraying the “Chicago Way” mentality over and over again (just ask all those Hillary people!). Not only is the action itself almost unthinkable, having THESE people do it made it far worse. Read the rest of this entry »
In the current brouhaha about the Obama health care proposal and the town hall meeting anger expressed in opposition, it seems like proponents of HR3200 want to use the language of “choice”, “freedom” and the like to support it, while, at the same time, they are labeling opponents as “un-American”. In my previous post, I described the phenomenon of accusing your victims of what you’re doing. Now, I want to talk about how those ideologically and radically opposed to traditional American beliefs and practices are actually using the language of that same authentic Americanism in order to destroy it. They, secretly, or not so secretly, hate it! Do you think this is the first time such a thing has happened? Of course not!
In the First Book of Kings in the Bible, there is some of the best historical narrative and story-telling anywhere. In Chapter 16, we first meet Ahab, King of the newly split northern Kingdom of Israel, someone who is a central figure in the story we will tell. We are told “he did evil in the sight of the Lord more than any of his predecessors.” He introduces the worship of fertility gods and goddesses with their obscene rites; he builds temples to Ba’al. As a result, a drought of three and a half years befalls the land as predicted by Elijah. [This is very symbolic: three and a half is exactly half of SEVEN, the number of Covenant with God. The measuring stick of the people’s promise to God has been, as it were, snapped in two.] Ahab even marries the daughter of the King of Sidon, JEZEBEL!
{We should stop to understand the significance of marrying someone from Tyre or Sidon. The Sidonians were Phoenician pagans. Even other pagans, like the Greeks and Romans, tended to look down upon them [such as those famous Phoenicians at Carthage with whom the Romans fought in the Punic Wars]. They looked down on them because they not only engaged in human sacrifice (how awful compared to gladiatorial games!) but they also specialized in killing children; and their fertility rites involved cult prostitution publicly carried out in their temples. The degradation of their culture was unsettling to others, above all what they did in their homeland around Tyre and Sidon.}Read the rest of this entry »
TEHRAN, Iran – A backstage struggle among Iran’s ruling clerics burst into the open Sunday when the government said it had arrested the daughter and other relatives of an ayatollah who is one of the country’s most powerful men.
Folks, this is huge. Huge. A report from Saudi Arabia’s al-Arabiya, Iranian clerics seek supreme leader alternative, indicates that Rafsanjani is seeking to eliminate the Supreme Leader. Not just the man, but the position and role presiding over Iranian politics and the Iranian society.
Religious leaders are considering an alternative to the supreme leader structure after at least 13 people were killed in the latest unrest to shake Tehran and family members of Ayatollah Rafsanjani were arrested amid calls by former President Mohammad Khatami for the release of all protesters. Read the rest of this entry »
Mata has written a few posts on the murder on Army Private Long and it’s telling how silent Obama has been over his murder…..the exact opposite reaction over the murder of abortion doctor Tiller even though its obvious the killer of Long had religious reasons: (h/t Stop The ACLU)
A U.S. soldier covers his face with a scarf during a patrol in Baquba, in Diyala province some 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad October 17, 2008. The scarf has verses from Psalms 91 of the Bible printed on it.
REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic (IRAQ)
I love the photo.
Love expressions of faith and piety; and respect soldiers’ needs and desire to draw comfort and inspiration from religion.
I myself am non-religious but appreciate the virtues of American Judeo-Christian traditions and heritage.
Great interview of Dick Cheney today, some of the highlights….including this one where he states he has no regrets over the past interrogation policies:
Here he is being asked which person he would chose to be a Republican. Rush or Powell:
Today, April 21st, is Yom Hashoah Day, the day of remembrance.
This day is designated by the Jewish people to remember those who were lost in the Holocaust.
Jews who were classified as “not fit to work” waiting in a grove outside of Crematorium IV before they were to be gassed.
‘Men to the left! women to the right!’ Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight short, simple words. Yet that was the moment when I parted from my mother. I had not had time to think, but already I felt pressure of my father’s hand. We were alone. – Elie Weisel, Night Read the rest of this entry »
A rock dove with a pin through his brain, a ‘pinhead pigeon’
This little essay is about a turn of phrase used by the prophet Hosea in regards to some mistakes being made by the leaders of his day; and it is about the similarity of the mistakes being made by our leadership right now.
In the mid-700’s BC, the chickens – or should I say, the pigeons – were coming home to roost for the Northern Kingdom of Israel. They had been warned about the coming destruction by Amos earlier but they hadn’t changed. Hosea arrived on the scene to plead with even greater urgency, because now the horrible threat of the Assyrian Empire was becoming clear to everyone, not just prophets.
The Assyrians were the first great world empire, centered in Nineveh in Northern Mesopotamia. Their standard modus operandi was the use of intimidation and terror to cow their subjects; they were universally feared and hated and their cruelty was calculated and legendary. [They would eventually get their comeuppance at the hands of the Babylonians.] They were beginning to bully and hector the Kingdom of Israel. What were the leaders of Israel going to do?
Now, the advice of Amos and Hosea was to ‘turn to the Lord’. The cause of the nation’s problems was their lack of identity and social cohesion. Israel’s unity, uniquely, was not purely racial or ethnic; it was centered on a belief in one God and a moral code not mere genetics. In turning to the worship of the fertility gods and goddesses, they were also engaging in the immoral practices associated with them. Since those primitive religions were divorced from moral requirements and did not involve a sense of a personal relationship with their gods (using a magical or instrumental approach) the Israelites began turning away not just from their unifying belief in one God and their common set of moral values, but also from their personal obligations to the needy among them as emphasized so often in the Law of Moses. If what unifies you is weakened, the result is weakness, disunity and chaos. Read the rest of this entry »
While speaking in Ankara, Turkey this week, President Obama made an astonishing proclamation. He claimed, “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.” Instead, he said, “We are a nation of citizens”, essentially assigning fealty to ‘the state’ over fealty to God. The world listened, and nodded.
Back home in the U.S., Newsweek editor Jon Meacham welcomed The End of Christian America: “The decline and fall of the modern religious right’s notion of a Christian America creates a calmer political environment and, for many believers, may help open the way for a more theologically serious religious life.”
I guess its settled. God is now outdated, at least among our political and media elite. In their world view, what they sneeringly call the religious right is now merely a fringe group. America itself has evolved to a higher plane. A more progressive plane, if you will.
The overwhelming majority of Americans who profess faith in God are being told that the times have changed. Christianity, our ruling elite inform us, is only one of many religions, all of which are equal.
In case we don’t get it, President Obama, while abroad, expressed a deep appreciation for the Islamic faith while, here at home, he appointed a gay-rights activist to the federal government’s faith-based initiative. Said activist described Pope Benedict XVI and certain Catholic bishops as “discredited leaders.” Get it? Read the rest of this entry »
Having endured the shocking spectacle of the first two months of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid debacle, another historical parallel occurred to me. This one might not seem so obvious at first, but there is a real lesson to be learned from the latter parts of the reign of the biblical King Solomon.
We have probably all heard of WISE Solomon and the many references to the wisdom of the third king of Israel, the son of David. True enough, Solomon began with humility and asked for wisdom to serve his people and we are told that he was given it. There is much evidence given in the First Book of Kings for this wisdom of his. He wrote many proverbs and he promoted knowledge and arts. His shrewd insight into human motivations and character was revealed when he judged the case of the two women and the baby. He did oversee the creation of the First Temple, one of the most beautiful edifices ever created. He did build a seeming political peace with those around him. The Queen of Sheba traveled from far away to see this astounding wisdom for herself and was suitably impressed.
But there is more to the story than that. God warned Solomon ahead of time of TWO main dangers to him and thus to his people. He must avoid IDOLATRY and the immoral practices associated with it; and he must not OPPRESS his people or put unreasonable burdens on them. If he did not heed this warning, his kingdom would be split at his death.
You would think he would have studiously avoided any hint of these two dangers. But human nature being what it is, very gradual change can fool us. If you put a frog into boiling water, it jumps out, but if you simply put up the heat slowly by degrees, the frog will boil to death without realizing it. What was it that fooled Solomon into his fatal errors? Faith in the power of Government!Read the rest of this entry »
A few months ago, Senator Judd Gregg refused to go ahead with his nomination to Commerce Secretary after he learned that the White House had taken over the work of the Census. “[He] didn’t want to be a powerless GOP token, and that’s where this was headed.” said one friend of his. Judd intimated the Census had 
A rock dove with a pin through his brain, a ‘pinhead pigeon’
Having endured the shocking spectacle of the first two months of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid debacle, another historical parallel occurred to me. This one might not seem so obvious at first, but there is a real lesson to be learned from the latter parts of the reign of the biblical King Solomon.
