"At evening time, behold, there is terror! Before morning, they are no more" Isaiah 17:14
Language Translation
From on high, the Screaming Eagles soar,
The shroud of oppression,
By talons sharp, soon be tore,
The torch of Lady Liberty, lights the way,
Her Sky Soldiers will save the day..!
“Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” —Patrick Henry
Recently The Jerusalem Post ran a brilliant and troubling piece by Amir Mizroch titled “Why everyone is saying no to Obama.”
Last Friday the president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing. Don’t blame the president. He did not ask for it, and had the grace to say he did not deserve it.
The Nobel Prize gets to the heart of the matter of the Obama presidency. The prize was not awarded to President Obama, but to the idea of Obama.
Voters may vote for an idea. Prizes may be awarded for an idea. But war and peace, prosperity and joblessness, legislation and treaties, illness and health, are not decided by the idea of the candidate but the actions of the president who is elected.
What made Roosevelt Roosevelt, Kennedy Kennedy and Reagan Reagan was that the idea of their persona during the campaign was followed by their actions during their presidencies.
This has not happened yet with Barack Obama. The difference between the idea and the actions, the persona and the program, the words and the deeds will ultimately define the success or failure of the Obama presidency.
The Jerusalem Post piece was troubling because it is true. There is a pattern that others repeatedly say no to the president. Passing weak legislation and calling it a “W” does not change the pattern of his presidency or satisfy the powerful yearning for change that is not realized by promises, public relations or the cult of personality.
Virtually every player in the Middle East has said no to the president. Banks and Wall Street say no to the president. The Europe that said yes to the Nobel Prize says no to giving more support for Afghanistan. The president even snubbed the Dalai Lama in anticipation the Chinese would say no. The list is long of those who say no and short of those who say yes.
It is time to worry when “Saturday Night Live” makes fun of the president for achieving so little. It is time for alarm when so many power players believe this president can be rolled. Even a Senate where Democrats have 60 votes shows an almost daily disrespect for the president.
The reason so many power centers, at home and internationally, say no to the president is that they do not know his bottom line. They believe he may shift with the winds. They know he accepts a tiny loaf while claiming a big victory. They believe he can be rolled.
Compare the way Johnson fought for Medicare with the way Obama equivocates on the public option. Compare Roosevelt’s 100 days with the lack of financial reform under Obama. Compare Reagan pushing through huge economic policies early in his term with Obama delivering little more than a stimulus written by others.
The president has described himself as a Rorschach in which others with divergent views project their views onto him. This is brilliant politics in a campaign but a disastrous approach to governing. Opponents become energized, supporters become depressed, power centers become disrespectful, and the president who tries to be many things to many people influences very few to do anything of substance for change.
This president who is widely liked is feared by none. The centrifugal forces from inside Washington to combat theaters abroad revert to form in a divided nation and troubled world. Nothing of historical importance gets done.
The history of successful presidents is clear: They fight for major change. They battle complacency and resistance. They risk losing tactical battles for greater victories. They challenge and inspire supporters to fight great battles for great deeds and inspire fear in opponents who resist.
Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan waged hard battles for great change. They imposed their will on the centers of power and at times told their parties in Congress, as Obama has not: Your president needs you.
Rorschach presidents do not change anything. I pray the president will learn the lessons of history and his own experience, but when he does not, I must dissent.
“Brain-dead conservatives:” Are conservative elitists brain-dead ?
Monday, October 05, 2009
In today’s Washington Post, Steven F. Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute ponders whether conservatism is brain-dead. He maintains that the conservative movement “has been thrown off balance, with the populists dominating and the intellectuals retreating and struggling to come up with new ideas.”
He fears that talk radio hosts have supplanted the scholarly types on the right, although he nods approvingly at Michael Medved, a Yale man, and William Bennett, a Harvard man with a PhD.
While I give due deference to Hayward and his PhD, I suggest that he is asking the wrong question. The question is not whether conservatism is brain-dead; it is whether conservative elitists are brain dead.
I’ve been in meetings where conservative elitists bemoan the fact that they must tolerate the “regular folks” like Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.
They look down their noses at principled, articulate job applicants because they don’t have the correct pedigree—an Ivy League education or the family or money connections to make up for the lack of one.
By behaving in this manner and, frankly, by writing editorials insulting average Americans not fond of reading Hayek on weekends, the elitists in the conservative ranks may entertain themselves splendidly at cocktail parties, but they are doing little to bring liberty to people thirsty for it.
There is a difference between being an elitist and being an intellectual. Of course, the movement can always use more intellectuals. We need fewer elitists. Milton Friedman is a perfect example of an intellectual who was not an elitist.
The most effective intellectual is one able to absorb the complexities of economics, ethics and political science and create understandable and appealing fare for all citizens.
Conservative elitists will be clutching their chests when I dare list these names together, but Milton Friedman (Free to Choose), Henry Hazlitt (Economics in One Lesson), Friedrich Hayek (Road to Serfdom), and Thomas Paine (Common Sense) have a lot in common with Limbaugh and Beck.
They made complex issues easy to understand in order to promote the concepts of liberty to the greatest number of people. I introduced Dr. Friedman in what I believe was his last televised speech. His brilliance was brighter because of his plain-spoken manner.
I also marched on Washington a few weeks ago with more than one million people who don’t read white papers from think tanks, but they know when elitists are demeaning their values, diminishing their freedoms and stealing their money.
Hayward says that the tea party movement is “unfocused, lacking the connection to a concrete ideology that characterized the tax revolt of the 1970s, which was joined at the hip with insurgent supply-side economics.”
Splendid! This movement is not relying on intellectuals with new ideas. It is relying on regular freedom-loving Americans with some old ideas--hard work, individualism, faith, private charity, liberty, limited government and that stodgy old thing that elitists sometimes forget to mention—the Constitution.
Conservative “intellectuals” should be careful not to sound like then-presidential candidate Barack Obama when he criticized folks in small towns. Perhaps they should spend more time trying to sound like Ronald Reagan, who gave us these words in 1976:
“I’m convinced that today the majority of Americans want what those first Americans wanted: A better life for themselves and their children; a minimum of government authority. Very simply, they want to be left alone in peace and safety to take care of the family by earning an honest dollar and putting away some savings. This may not sound too exciting, but there is something magnificent about it.”
Hussein Sells Out Poland, Czechs, Honduras to Appease Our Enemies !
Friday, September 18, 2009
Vladimir Putin could be forgiven for having a celebratory shot of vodka with breakfast this morning at news that President Obama plans to abandon America’s missile defence shield in Eastern Europe.
His implacable opposition to the project has paid off, leaving the Kremlin emboldened in its drive to re-establish a strategic “sphere of privileged interests” over Russia’s former Soviet satellites.
By trading the loyalty of Poland and the Czech Republic to satisfy Russia’s security concerns, the United States is signalling that it no longer contests Moscow’s right to assert its interests in Eastern Europe.
Ukraine and Georgia’s chances of entering Nato over Russian objections have diminished further. The timing is disastrous for Ukraine in particular, given the Kremlin’s determination to reverse the pro-Western Orange Revolution and ensure victory for a pro-Russian candidate at presidential elections in January.
The Baltic States, already in Nato, will be feeling a chill as they ponder an even more assertive Russia. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have been among the Kremlin’s most vocal critics but Nato’s new Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has declared a “true strategic partnership” with Russia his top priority.
The Bush Administration delighted in emphasising relations with the “new Europe” of former Soviet bloc countries, often at the expense of recalcitrant “old Europe” of Germany and France on foreign policy.
Mr Obama has shown that the US is no longer playing that game. He wants Russian help on Afghanistan and Iran and is leaving Europe to resolve its own relationship with Moscow on everything from energy security to historical grievances.
The Kremlin can barely believe its good fortune. Mr Obama has pressed the “reset” button to improve relations without obtaining anything more than permission for US aircraft to cross Russian airspace on resupply operations for troops in Afghanistan.
That was the most substantive outcome of the Moscow summit with President Medvedev in July. A treaty to replace the START II agreement in December may now be a little more generous in cutting the stockpiles of nuclear missiles held by the US and Russia.
But the big question remains over what to do about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Russia has shown no inclination to budge on its refusal to support further sanctions against Tehran, nor has it cancelled a contract to sell S-300 air-defence missiles to the Islamic republic.
A senior Israeli MP, Zeev Elkin, warned in an interview with Russia’s Kommersant today that Tel Aviv could be forced into a pre-emptive military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities if there was any sign that the Kremlin was about to sanction delivery of S-300s.
The mystery cloaking the alleged hijacking of the cargo ship Arctic Sea highlights the risk of conflict being triggered by freelance operations to deliver weapons.
Russia has argued consistently that Iran presents no current threat and that the missile shield, consisting of a radar in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland, compromised its own national security. By cancelling the project, Mr Obama appears to have accepted both arguments.
He may be calculating that this will encourage President Medvedev to support tougher action against Iran’s nuclear programme when he visits the US next week for the G20 summit and the United Nations General Assembly. But Mr Obama learnt to his cost in July that it is Mr Putin, and not Mr Medvedev, who remains in charge in Moscow.
In fact, Moscow may become more intransigent, arguing that Washington itself no longer takes the threat as seriously as it did by cancelling the missile-defence shield. Any such argument would only harden Israel’s determination to act.
Some analysts in Russia have begun cynically to ask whether the Kremlin wants to see a war in Iran, arguing that this would send oil prices soaring and replenish state coffers emptied out by the economic crisis.
The Kremlin has grown increasingly anti-Western in tone in recent years and continues to blame America for the financial crisis that has forced Russia to spend its vast reserves to stave off economic collapse. Do hard-liners regard a conflict in Iran as payback for the costs of American economic excess?
For Mr Putin, the lesson of today’s decision is clear. Intransigence pays dividends because the US and the European Union lack the patience or determination to face Moscow down. That is a lesson that send alarm bells ringing in the corridors of power of Russia’s former Soviet dominions.
A pair of sandal-clad nuns in Missouri chased down an armed robbery suspect and helped police put handcuffs on him, FOX4KC reported.
Sisters at Saint Francis of Holy Eucharist Convent in Independence, Mo., spotted a gun-toting man in their fields who turned out to be a suspect police believe is responsible for several burglaries in the area.
"We looked out the window and saw someone in the bean field. I thought it was someone hunting. He was dragging something with him," Sister Connie told FOX4KC. "He kept coming across the field...I saw he had a gun in hands, what I thought was a rifle, and he dropped it in the field."
When he realized he had been spotted the suspect set off on foot and was chased by a nun in flip-flops who goes by Sister Catrina.
She chased him behind their green house and alerted authorities and the suspect ended up in police custody. Charges have yet to be filed. More here
After many a disappointment with someone, and especially after a disaster, we may be able to look back at numerous clues that should have warned us that the person we trusted did not deserve our trust.
When that person is the president of the United States, the potential for disaster is virtually unlimited.
Many people are rightly worried about what this administration’s reckless spending will do to the economy in our time and to our children and grandchildren, to whom a staggering national debt will be passed on. But if the worst that Barack Obama does is ruin the economy, I will breathe a sigh of relief.
He is heading this country toward disaster on many fronts, including a nuclear Iran, which has every prospect of being an irretrievable disaster of almost unimaginable magnitude. We cannot put that genie back in the bottle — and neither can generations yet unborn. They may yet curse us all for leaving them hostages to nuclear terror.
ERIE, Pa. Former President George W. Bush fired a salvo at President Obama on Wednesday, asserting his administration's interrogation policies were within the law, declaring the private sector not government will fix the economy and rejecting the nationalization of health care.
I know it's going to be the private sector that leads this country out of the current economic times we're in, the former president said to applause from members of a local business group. You can spend your money better than the government can spend your money. Repeatedly in his hourlong speech and question-and-answer session, Mr. Bush said he would not directly criticize the new president, who has moved to take over financial institutions and several large corporations. Several times, however, he took direct aim at Obama policies as he defended his own during eight years in office.
Government does not create wealth. The major role for the government is to create an environment where people take risks to expand the job rate in the United States, he said to huge cheers. Mr. Bush weighed in on some of the most pressing issues of the day: the election in Iran, the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, and his administration's interrogation policies of terrorists held there and elsewhere. The former president has not commented on Mr. Obama's decision to ban enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, which the current president has called off course and based on fear.
The way I decided to address the problem was twofold: One, use every technique and tool within the law to bring terrorists to justice before they strike again, he said, adding that the country needs to stay on offense, not defense. On Guantanamo, which while in office Mr. Bush said he wanted to close, the former president was diplomatic.
I told you I'm not going to criticize my successor, he said. I'll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don't believe that persuasion isn't going to work. Therapy isn't going to cause terrorists to change their mind.
The Obama administration has started to clear out some of the more than 200 detainees at the facility.
Repeating a mantra from his presidency, he called the current war against terrorism an ideological conflict, asserting that in the long term, the United States needs to press freedom and democracy in corners across the world. Mr. Bush did not directly address Mr. Obama's response to the election in Iran, which some critics have called tepid, but he did make clear that the outcome is very much in dispute. For a fifth straight day, as the Obama administration walks a tightrope by issuing little criticism, protesters gathered in Tehran to demand a new election.
Clearly, there's a level of frustration on the Iranian streets, Mr. Bush said. It looks like it's not a very fair election. Mr. Bush returned again and again to the economy, and sought to defend his own actions after the financial meltdown in the waning days of his second term. Mr. Obama repeatedly has said he inherited that mess.
I am told, 'If you do not move strongly, Mr. President, you will be a president overseeing a depression that will ultimately be greater than the Great Depression,' Mr. Bush said. I firmly believe it was necessary to put money in our banks to make sure our financial system did not collapse. I did not want there to be bread lines, to be a great depression.
He said his administration sought to address the housing bubble before the system broke down. We tried to reform mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but couldn't get it through the vested interests on Capitol Hill. Still, Mr. Bush was optimistic, pressing, as he did as president, free trade, open markets and the free enterprise system. We'll come out of this better than before, he said to more applause.
But he was less than convinced about Mr. Obama's move to overhaul the health care system.
There are a lot of ways to remedy the situation without nationalizing health care, Mr. Bush said. I worry about encouraging the government to replace the private sector when it comes to providing insurance for health care. Asked by the evening emcee at the 104th annual Manufacturer and Business Association meeting if he finds the new president's policies socialist, Mr. Bush started then stopped.
I hear a lot of those words, but it depends on.. he said, breaking off. He later offered a more diplomatic assessment: We'll see.
Wednesday's speech to hundreds of high-paying association members premium tables at the city's convention center went for $1,500 was just the second post-presidency speech by Mr. Bush on U.S. soil (his two major speeches were both in Canada). He was loose and relaxed, his nose a bright red from nearly a week in Kennebunkport, Maine, where he joined his family in celebration of his father's 85th birthday. Mr. Bush told some of his new set stories: How just a month after leaving office he was picking up his dog Barney's poop off a manicured lawn in his Dallas neighborhood; how he's experienced his first red light in 14 years (he served six years as Texas governor before being elected president).
His Secret Service detail, however, was not relaxed: This was the first event in which audience members did not have to pass through metal detectors. Outside, a tiny group of protesters and supporters about 10 people on each side faced off on opposite curbs. One man held a sign that said, President Bush, thank you for saving all the babies. On the other side: Arrest Bush.
But the former president got a big cheer when he walked out on stage even bigger than Joe Paterno, the legendary Penn State coach who was also on hand for the event. The former president noted that America has a funny political system: You're it, then you're not it instantly.
He lamented the politics of personal destruction that he said is rampant in Washington, noting, though, that it has always been thus. Recalling how a treasury secretary and a vice president once fought a duel, he joked: At least when my vice president shot somebody, it was an accident.
During a question-and-answer session, Mr. Bush recounted tough decisions he made in office. Still steely, the former president said he left Washington with the same moral resolve. When I look in the mirror, I say, 'He did not sell his soul for short-term politics.' Asked about the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when he first learned of the terrorist attacks while in a classroom full of children in Florida, Mr. Bush said he simply found an inner resolve.
I realized that we were in crisis, and the first thing I do in any crisis is calm. If you're president, and all of a sudden the whole world is watching you, and you get up and do something precipitously, frighten children, storm out, that kind of movement will cascade through a society, he said.
In answer to a question about what he learned as president, Mr. Bush smiled broadly. There's so much stuff coming at you, he said to laughter. But turning serious, he said, perhaps to his successor: You don't know what's going to come when you're president. You just have to be ready for it.
I Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for
which it stands,
one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
American Crusader
Baghdad Time
"Never try to teach a liberal to think, It wastes your time and annoys the liberal"
Our Father in Heaven, Rock and
Redeemer of Israel, bless the State of Israel, the first
manifestation of the approach of our redemption. Shield
it with Your loving kindness, envelop it in Your peace,
and bestow Your light and truth upon its leaders,
ministers, and advisors, and grace them with Your good
counsel. Strengthen the hands of those who defend our
holy land, grant them deliverance, and adorn them in a
mantle of victory.
Ordain peace in the land and grant
its inhabitants eternal happiness. Lead them, swiftly and
upright, to Your city Zion and to Jerusalem, the abode of
Your Name, as is written in the Word of Your servant
Moses: “Even if your outcasts are at the ends of the
world, from there the Lord your God will gather you, from
there He will fetch you. And the Lord your God will bring
you to the land that your fathers possessed, and you
shall possess it; and He will make you more prosperous
and more numerous than your fathers.”
Draw our hearts together to revere
and venerate Your name and to observe all the precepts of
Your Word, and send us quickly the Messiah son of David,
agent of Your vindication, to redeem those who await Your
deliverance.
Manifest yourself in the splendor
of Your boldness before the eyes of all inhabitants of
Your world, and may everyone endowed with a soul affirm
that the Lord, God of Israel, is king and his dominion is
absolute. Amen forevermore.
