Monday, September 30, 2013
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Obama on Obamacare: “We did raise taxes on some things.”
During his Tuesday remarks at the Clinton Global Initiative, President Obama admitted that his health care law raises taxes: “So what we did — it’s paid for by a combination of things. We did raise taxes on some things.”“Some things” is an understatement. Below is just a partial list of Obamacare’s new or higher taxes on Americans:
Starting in tax year 2013:
Obamacare Medical Device Tax: Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. Obamacare imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales – even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. In addition to killing small business jobs and impacting research and development budgets, this will make everything from pacemakers to artificial hips more expensive.
Obamacare High Medical Bills Tax: Before Obamacare, Americans facing high medical expenses were allowed a deduction to the extent that those expenses exceeded 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). Obamacare now imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI. Therefore, Obamacare not only makes it more difficult to claim this deduction, it widens the net of taxable income.
According to the IRS, 10 million families took advantage of this tax deduction in 2009, the latest year of available data. Almost all are middle class. The average taxpayer claiming this deduction earned just over $53,000 annually. ATR estimates that the average income tax increase for the average family claiming this tax benefit will be $200 - $400 per year. To learn more about this tax, click here.
Obamacare Flexible Spending Account Tax: The 30 - 35 million Americans who use a pre-tax Flexible Spending Account (FSA) at work to pay for their family’s basic medical needs face a new Obamacare cap of $2,500. This will squeeze $13 billion of tax money from Americans over the next ten years. (Before Obamacare, the accounts were unlimited under federal law, though employers were allowed to set a cap.) Now, a parent looking to sock away extra money to pay for braces will find themselves quickly hitting this new cap, meaning they would have to pony up some or all of the cost with after-tax dollars.
Needless to say, this tax will especially impact middle class families.
There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. Nationwide there are several million families with special needs children and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. This Obamacare tax provision will limit the options available to these families.
Obamacare Super Saver Surtax: A new, 3.8 percent surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). This tax hike results in the following top tax rates on investment income:
"Some things" means uninsured families, med devices,flex accounts, small businesses, people with high medical bills and even charitable hospitals.
| Capital Gains | Dividends | Other* | |
| 2013+ | 23.8% | 23.8% | 43.4% |
*Other unearned income includes (for surtax purposes) gross income from interest, annuities, royalties, net rents, and passive income in partnerships and Subchapter-S corporations. It does not include municipal bond interest or life insurance proceeds, since those do not add to gross income. It does not include active trade or business income, fair market value sales of ownership in pass-through entities, or distributions from retirement plans.
Obamacare Medicare Payroll Tax Increase:
| First $200,000 ($250,000 Married) Employer/Employee | All Remaining Wages Employer/Employee | |
| Pre-Obamacare | 1.45%/1.45% 2.9% self-employed | 1.45%/1.45% 2.9% self-employed |
| Obamacare | 1.45%/1.45% 2.9% self-employed | 1.45%/2.35% 3.8% self-employed |
Starting in tax year 2014:
Obamacare Individual Mandate Non-Compliance Tax: Starting in 2014, anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance – as defined by President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services -- must pay an income surtax to the IRS. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that six million American families will be liable for the tax, and as pointed out by the Associated Press: “Most would be in the middle class.”
In addition, 100 percent of Americans filing a tax return (140 million filers) will be forced to submit paperwork to the IRS showing they either had “qualifying” health insurance for every month of the tax year or they obtained an exemption to the mandate.
Americans liable for the surtax will pay according to the following schedule:
| 1 Adult | 2 Adults | 3+ Adults | |
| 2014 | 1% AGI/$95 | 1% AGI/$190 | 1% AGI/$285 |
| 2015 | 2% AGI/$325 | 2% AGI/$650 | 2% AGI/$975 |
| 2016 + | 2.5% AGI/$695 | 2.5% AGI/$1390 | 2.5% AGI/$2085 |
(Delayed by Obama to 2015) Obamacare Employer Mandate Tax: If an employer does not offer health coverage, and at least one employee qualifies for a health tax credit, the employer must pay an additional non-deductible tax of $2,000 for all full-time employees. This provision applies to all employers with 50 or more employees. If any employee actually receives coverage through the exchange, the penalty on the employer for that employee rises to $3,000. If the employer requires a waiting period to enroll in coverage of 30-60 days, there is a $400 tax per employee ($600 if the period is 60 days or longer).
Obamacare Tax on Health Insurers: Annual tax on the industry imposed relative to health insurance premiums collected that year. The tax phases in gradually until 2018. Fully imposed on firms with $50 million in profits.
Starting in tax year 2018:
Obamacare Tax on Union Member and Early Retiree Health Insurance Plans: Obamacare imposes
a new 40 percent excise tax on high cost or “Cadillac” health insurance plans, effective in 2018. This tax increase will most directly affect union families and early retirees, who are likely to be covered by such plans. This Obamacare tax will be levied on insurance policies whose premiums exceed $10,200 for an individual and $27,500 for a family. Middle class union members tend to be covered by such plans in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Higher threshold ($11,500 single/$29,450 family) for early retirees and high-risk professions. CPI +1 percentage point indexed.
Read more: http://atr.org/obama-obamacare-raise-taxes-things-a7883#ixzz2fy7IRbfW
Follow us: @taxreformer on Twitter
Monday, September 23, 2013
Blaming the Crusades for Jihad
http://juicyecumenism.com/2013/09/23/blaming-the-crusades-for-jihad/
The cultural relativists on the Left and apologists for radical Islam like to blame the Crusades for almost everything. The Muslim extremists are only responding to the deeds of Christian extremists, the argument goes. In his new book, Sir Walter Scott’s Crusades and Other Fantasies, former Muslim Ibn Warraq takes on this misleading theme intended to blame the West for the Muslim world’s troubles.
The claim that the Crusades are the starting point of Islamic jihad is basically the political application of, “For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction.” It equates the Christian beliefs driving the Crusades with the Islamic beliefs driving jihad.
Ibn Warraq’s new book tackles this misconception. Islamic atrocities were not provoked by the Crusaders’ own reprehensible acts, but preceded them. Islamic jihad was not triggered by the Crusades; it preceded them.
In fact, as explained by Warraq and in books like The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)and What’s So Great About Christianity, the Christian world was reduced to about one-third of what it was by the sword of jihad. The Crusades were launched with the objective of, without any exaggeration, saving Europe and Western civilization from Sharia.
My personal experience in school is that the opposite was taught. The Crusades were framed as offensive and the jihads as defensive. The Crusaders were depicted as barbarians, particularly to Jews. I cannot recall hearing about a single Islamic atrocity before or during these wars.
This is a common phenomenon, Warraq explains, and it’s part of an overall trend when it comes to education about the history of Islam.
“What are seen as positive aspects of Islamic Civilization are ecstatically praised, even exaggerated, and all the negative aspects are imputed to the arrival of the pestilential Westerners, and where the Arabs, Persians and Muslims in general are seen as passive victims,” Warraq said in an interview.
As proof, Warraq and the other authors mention the countless mass killings and persecutions of Christians and Jews before the Crusades. The destruction of over 30,000 churches during a 10-year period starting in 1004 AD is little-known. So is the burning of crosses, the beheading of converts to Christianity from Islam, the destruction of Christian holy sites like the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the forced tax for non-Muslims (the jizya) and the list goes on and on.
Modern-day Islamists and their apologists point to these times as proof of the historical tolerance of Islamic civilization. Islam-ruled Spain (Andalucia) and the city of Cordoba are held up as the golden examples of interfaith coexistence. For example, the Islamic Society of North America’s official publication included an article in its March-April issue titled, “Andalucia: Paradise Still Lost?”
One of the most interesting claims made in Waraq’s book is that the Crusades did not have a permanent impact on the Muslim psychology. Part of the reason is because the Muslim world viewed the wars as an overall victory.
“Many believe that modern Muslims have inherited from their medieval ancestors memories of crusader violence and destruction. But nothing could be further from the truth. By the fourteenth century, in the Islamic world the Crusades had almost passed out of mind,” Warraq said.
This begs the question of what revived the relevancy of the Crusades in how the Muslim world views the West.
Warraq says that the Crusades were reentered into the discourse by Europe. Imperialism was purposely framed as a continuation of the Crusades; something particularly agitating for the growing Arab nationalist movement.
“Nineteenth, and even early twentieth century Europeans unashamedly used crusader rhetoric and a tendentious reading of crusader history to justify their imperial dreams of conquest,” according to Warraq.
The Arab world’s insecurities over its falling behind were blamed on the European colonists that were viewed as Crusaders. This theme “eases the guilty consciences of the Arabs themselves: it is not their fault that they are such abject failures—it is all the fault of the Crusaders.”
In addition, attributing the backwardness of the Muslim world to the “Crusaders” allowed Sharia Law to escape responsibility. At the same time, complaining about the Crusades actually provided Muslims with hope in the face of Western superiority.
As Dinesh D’Souza explains, “So the Crusades can be seen as a belated, clumsy and unsuccessful effort to defeat Islamic imperialism.”
However, Warraq emphasizes that his point isn’t to blame the West for its use of Crusader rhetoric. The jihad existed before the Crusades and during the period when they “had almost passed out of mind” of the Muslim world.
“My point is that Islamic jihad did not end with the defeat of the Crusaders. On the contrary, in Islamic doctrine all the later Islamic conquests were seen as a part of the religious duty of carrying out jihad until the entire world submits to Islam,” he said.
Blaming the Crusades is a way of denying the Islamic supremacist ideology that has driven the conflict from the beginning.
This article was sponsored by the Institute on Religion and Democracy and was originally published at Front Page Magazine.
The Central Planning Solution to Evil
Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog
See more at: http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-central-planning-solution-to-evil.html#sthash.gFBcXaXF.dpuf
We are not a violent society. We are a society sheltered from violence. No one in Rwanda spends time wondering what kind of man would murder people. They probably live next door to him. If your neighborhood is diverse enough, you might be unfortunate enough to live next door to war criminals all the way from Eastern Europe to Africa.
Guns are how we misspell evil. Guns are how we avoid talking about the ugly realities of human nature while building sandcastles on the shores of utopia.
It's not about the fear of what one motivated maniac can do in a crowded place, but about the precariousness of liberal social control that the killing sprees imply.
The gun issue is about solving individual evil through central planning in a shelter big enough for everyone. A Gun Free Zone where everyone is a target and tries to live under the illusion that they aren't. A society where everyone is drawing peace signs on colored notepaper while waiting under their desks for the bomb to fall.
That brand of control isn't authority, it's authority in panic mode believing that if it imposes total zero tolerance control then there will be no more shootings. And every time the dumb paradigm is blown to bits with another shotgun, then the rush is on to reinforce it with more total zero control tolerance.
Zero tolerance for the Second Amendment makes sense. If you ban all guns, except for those in the hands of the 708,000 police officers, some of the 1.5 million members of the armed forces, the security guards at armored cars and banks, the bodyguards of celebrities who call for gun control, and any of the other people who need a gun to do their job, then you're sure to stop all shootings.
So long as none of those millions of people, or their tens of millions of kids, spouses, parents, grandchildren, girlfriends, boyfriends, roommates and anyone else who has access to them and their living spaces, carries out one of those shootings.
But this isn't really about stopping shootings; it's about the belief that the problem isn't evil, but agency, that if we make sure that everyone who has guns is following government orders, then control will be asserted and the problem will stop.
It's the central planning solution to evil.
We'll never know the full number of people who were killed by Fast and Furious. We'll never know how many were killed by Obama's regime change operation in Libya, with repercussions in Mali and Syria. But everyone involved in that was following orders.
There was no individual agency, just agencies. There were orders to run guns to Mexico and the cartel gunmen who killed people had orders to shoot. There was nothing random or unpredictable about it.
Gun control is the assertion that the problem is not the guns; it's the lack of central planning for shooting people. It's the individual.
A few million people with little sleep, taut nerves and PTSD are not a problem so long as there is someone to give them orders. A hundred million people with guns and no orders is a major problem. Historically though it's millions of people with guns who follow orders who have been more of a problem than millions of people with guns who do not.
Moral agency is individual. You can't outsource it to a government and you wouldn't want to.
The bundle of impulses, the codes of character, the concepts of right and wrong, take place at the level of the individual.
Organizations do not sanctify this process. They do not lift it above its fallacies or do a very good job of keeping sociopaths and murderers from rising high enough to give orders.
Gun control does not control guns, it gives the illusion of controlling people, and when it fails those in authority are able to say that they did everything that they could short of giving people the ability to defend themselves.
We live under the rule of organizers, community and otherwise, committed to bringing their perfect state into being through the absolute control over people, and the violent acts of lone madmen are a reminder that such control is fleeting and that attempting to control a problem often makes it worse by removing the natural human crowdsourced responses that would otherwise come into play.
People do kill people and the only way to stop that is by killing them first. To a utopian this is a moral paradox that invalidates everything that came before it, but to everyone else, it's just life in a world where evil is a reality, not just a word.
Anyone who really hankers after a world without guns would do well to try the 12th Century which was not a nicer place for lack of guns. The same firepower that makes it possible for one homicidal maniac to kill a dozen unarmed people also makes it that much harder to recreate a world where a single family can rule over millions and one man in armor can terrify hundreds of peasants.
Putting miniature cannons in the hands of every peasant made the American Revolution possible. The ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution would have meant very little without an army of ordinary men armed with weapons that made them a match for the superior organization and numbers of a world power.
Would Thomas Jefferson, the abiding figurehead of the Democratic Party, who famously wrote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants", really have shuddered at the idea of peasants with assault rifles, or would he have grinned at the playing field being leveled?
But the Democratic Party is no longer the party of Thomas Jefferson. It's the party of King George III. And it doesn't like the idea of armed peasants, not because an occasional peasants goes on a shooting spree, but because like a certain dead mad king who liked to talk to trees, it believes that government power comes before individual liberty. Like that dead king, it believes that it means this for the benefit of the peasants who will be better off being told what to do.
The question is the old elemental one about government control and individual agency. And tragedies like the one that just happened take us back to the equally old question of whether individual liberty is a better defense against human evil than the entrenched organizations of government.
Do we want a society run by kings and princes who commit atrocities according to a plan for a better society, or by peasants with machine guns? The kings can promise us a world without evil, but the peasant with a machine gun promises us that we can protect ourselves from evil when it comes calling.
It isn't really guns that the gun controllers are afraid of; it's a country where individual agency is still superior to organized control, where the trains don't run on time and orders don't mean anything. It's afraid of individual power.
Evil finds heavy firepower appealing, but the firepower works both ways.
A world where the peasants have assault rifles is a world where peasant no longer means a man without any rights. And while it may also mean the occasional brutal shooting spree, those sprees tend to happen in the outposts of utopia, the gun-free zones with zero tolerance for firearms. An occasional peasant may go on a killing spree, but a society where the peasants are all armed is also far more able to stop such a thing without waiting for the men-at-arms to be dispatched from the castle.
An armed society spends more time stopping evil than contemplating it. It is the disarmed society that is always contemplating it as a thing beyond its control.
Helpless people must find something to think about while waiting for their kings and princes to do something about the killing. Instead of doing something about it themselves, they blame the freedom that left the killer free to kill, instead of the lack of freedom that prevented them from being able to stop him.
See more at: http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-central-planning-solution-to-evil.html#sthash.gFBcXaXF.dpuf
We are not a violent society. We are a society sheltered from violence. No one in Rwanda spends time wondering what kind of man would murder people. They probably live next door to him. If your neighborhood is diverse enough, you might be unfortunate enough to live next door to war criminals all the way from Eastern Europe to Africa.
Guns are how we misspell evil. Guns are how we avoid talking about the ugly realities of human nature while building sandcastles on the shores of utopia.It's not about the fear of what one motivated maniac can do in a crowded place, but about the precariousness of liberal social control that the killing sprees imply.
The gun issue is about solving individual evil through central planning in a shelter big enough for everyone. A Gun Free Zone where everyone is a target and tries to live under the illusion that they aren't. A society where everyone is drawing peace signs on colored notepaper while waiting under their desks for the bomb to fall.
That brand of control isn't authority, it's authority in panic mode believing that if it imposes total zero tolerance control then there will be no more shootings. And every time the dumb paradigm is blown to bits with another shotgun, then the rush is on to reinforce it with more total zero control tolerance.
Zero tolerance for the Second Amendment makes sense. If you ban all guns, except for those in the hands of the 708,000 police officers, some of the 1.5 million members of the armed forces, the security guards at armored cars and banks, the bodyguards of celebrities who call for gun control, and any of the other people who need a gun to do their job, then you're sure to stop all shootings.
So long as none of those millions of people, or their tens of millions of kids, spouses, parents, grandchildren, girlfriends, boyfriends, roommates and anyone else who has access to them and their living spaces, carries out one of those shootings.
But this isn't really about stopping shootings; it's about the belief that the problem isn't evil, but agency, that if we make sure that everyone who has guns is following government orders, then control will be asserted and the problem will stop.
It's the central planning solution to evil.
We'll never know the full number of people who were killed by Fast and Furious. We'll never know how many were killed by Obama's regime change operation in Libya, with repercussions in Mali and Syria. But everyone involved in that was following orders.
There was no individual agency, just agencies. There were orders to run guns to Mexico and the cartel gunmen who killed people had orders to shoot. There was nothing random or unpredictable about it.
Gun control is the assertion that the problem is not the guns; it's the lack of central planning for shooting people. It's the individual.
A few million people with little sleep, taut nerves and PTSD are not a problem so long as there is someone to give them orders. A hundred million people with guns and no orders is a major problem. Historically though it's millions of people with guns who follow orders who have been more of a problem than millions of people with guns who do not.
The bundle of impulses, the codes of character, the concepts of right and wrong, take place at the level of the individual.
Organizations do not sanctify this process. They do not lift it above its fallacies or do a very good job of keeping sociopaths and murderers from rising high enough to give orders.
Gun control does not control guns, it gives the illusion of controlling people, and when it fails those in authority are able to say that they did everything that they could short of giving people the ability to defend themselves.
We live under the rule of organizers, community and otherwise, committed to bringing their perfect state into being through the absolute control over people, and the violent acts of lone madmen are a reminder that such control is fleeting and that attempting to control a problem often makes it worse by removing the natural human crowdsourced responses that would otherwise come into play.
People do kill people and the only way to stop that is by killing them first. To a utopian this is a moral paradox that invalidates everything that came before it, but to everyone else, it's just life in a world where evil is a reality, not just a word.
Anyone who really hankers after a world without guns would do well to try the 12th Century which was not a nicer place for lack of guns. The same firepower that makes it possible for one homicidal maniac to kill a dozen unarmed people also makes it that much harder to recreate a world where a single family can rule over millions and one man in armor can terrify hundreds of peasants.
Putting miniature cannons in the hands of every peasant made the American Revolution possible. The ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution would have meant very little without an army of ordinary men armed with weapons that made them a match for the superior organization and numbers of a world power.
Would Thomas Jefferson, the abiding figurehead of the Democratic Party, who famously wrote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants", really have shuddered at the idea of peasants with assault rifles, or would he have grinned at the playing field being leveled?
But the Democratic Party is no longer the party of Thomas Jefferson. It's the party of King George III. And it doesn't like the idea of armed peasants, not because an occasional peasants goes on a shooting spree, but because like a certain dead mad king who liked to talk to trees, it believes that government power comes before individual liberty. Like that dead king, it believes that it means this for the benefit of the peasants who will be better off being told what to do.
The question is the old elemental one about government control and individual agency. And tragedies like the one that just happened take us back to the equally old question of whether individual liberty is a better defense against human evil than the entrenched organizations of government.
Do we want a society run by kings and princes who commit atrocities according to a plan for a better society, or by peasants with machine guns? The kings can promise us a world without evil, but the peasant with a machine gun promises us that we can protect ourselves from evil when it comes calling.
Evil finds heavy firepower appealing, but the firepower works both ways.
A world where the peasants have assault rifles is a world where peasant no longer means a man without any rights. And while it may also mean the occasional brutal shooting spree, those sprees tend to happen in the outposts of utopia, the gun-free zones with zero tolerance for firearms. An occasional peasant may go on a killing spree, but a society where the peasants are all armed is also far more able to stop such a thing without waiting for the men-at-arms to be dispatched from the castle.
An armed society spends more time stopping evil than contemplating it. It is the disarmed society that is always contemplating it as a thing beyond its control.
Helpless people must find something to think about while waiting for their kings and princes to do something about the killing. Instead of doing something about it themselves, they blame the freedom that left the killer free to kill, instead of the lack of freedom that prevented them from being able to stop him.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Cordoba GK Studio Guitar
The Cordoba GK Studio, a Gipsy Kings signature model, is slightly deeper than the 55FCE yet thinner than a standard Spanish guitar. It is an extremely comfortable guitar for any player. The tone is bright and snappy, the action is low across the fretboard, and the neck is slightly narrowed. A Fishman Presys Blend with 4 Band EQ and digital tuner pickup system gives the GK Studio a clear and natural tone when amplified. Comes with a Cordoba deluxe gig bag. Click here to download the Fishman Presys User Manual. Click here for a few tips on how to use the Fishman Presys Blend.
| Top | Solid European spruce |
| Back & Sides | Cypress |
| Binding/Bridge | Indian rosewood binding/Indian rosewood bridge |
| Purfling/Inlay | 3 ply maple and ebony top purfling |
| Rosette | All natural inlaid wood mosaic |
| Finish | High gloss PU finish, honey amber tinted back and sides |
| Neck/Fingerboard | Mahogany neck / Rosewood fingerboard/ Cutaway-Electric Style Neck |
| Truss Rod | Yes, 4mm |
| Scale Length | 650mm (25.6") |
| Nut Width | 50mm (1.96") |
| String Spacing at Saddle | 59mm |
| Fret Marker Inlays | Mother of Pearl at 3, 5, 7, 9, 12 |
| Nut/Saddle | Bone |
| Number of Frets | 12 to Body, 19 total |
| Bracing/Build | Spanish fan bracing, Flamenco style build, cutaway electric |
| Body Width & Length | 285mm (11.2") at upper bout, 370mm (14.6") at lower bout |
| Overall Length | 39" |
| Body Depth | 88mm (3.5") at upper bout, 89mm (3.5") at lower bout |
| Tuning Machines | Cordoba Black & Gold Floral Tuning Machines |
| Strings | Savarez Cristal Corum High Tension 500CJ |
| Electronics | Fishman Presys Blend with 4 Band EQ + phase, undersaddle piezo and internal microphone with blender, built in digital tuner |
| Tap Plate/Pick Guard | Clear Spanish golpeador |
Friday, September 20, 2013
Gypsy Rumba y Malaguena - Yannick Lebossé
Por Su Puesto - Of course, El Cid would listen to Andalusian Music
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Denmark Convicts Woman of Racism for Criticizing Muslim Men who Abuse Women
Denmark: Iranian woman convicted of "racism" for noting that Muslim men justify abusing women by referring to Islamic texts
The racist
It's official: the truth is now "racism." Firoozeh Bazrafkan is an Iranian who speaks from her own experience. She "argues that she was not accusing all Muslim men of using Islamic codes to justify horrific acts against women, only that violence against women and children was often excused by citing Islam."
That is manifestly true. Qur'an 4:34 says: "Men are the managers of the affairs of women for that Allah has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for Allah’s guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them. If they then obey you, look not for any way against them; Allah is All-high, All-great."
Do Muslim men refer to Islam to justify beating women? Well, recently Islamic states rejected as un-Islamic a UN Human Rights Council resolution condemning violence against women: see here. And a TV show about how to beat your wife recently was replayed on a Muslim TV channel in London.
Meanwhile, some of the members of Muslim rape gangs in Britain have stated that they thought their actions were justified because their victims were dressed inappropriately, and not adhering to Sharia dress codes.
But no, now saying that is "racism" in Denmark. What race are Muslims who beat their wives and justify doing so by referring to the Qur'an? I keep forgetting.
"Danish-Iranian artist convicted of racism," by Peter Stanners for the Copenhagen Post, September 18 (thanks to 1Pat):
A Danish-Iranian artist was found guilty of racism by the Western High Court on Monday for statements she made about Muslim men.
Firoozeh Bazrafkan was charged with racism after writing in a blog entry, published in Jyllands-Posten newspaper in December 2011, that she was "very convinced that Muslim men around the world rape, abuse and kill their daughters".
She added: "This is, according to my understanding as a Danish-Iranian, the result of a defective and inhumane culture – if you can even call it a culture at all. But you can say, I think, that it is a defective and inhumane religion whose textbook, the Koran, is more immoral, deplorable and crazy than manuals of the two other global religions combined."
Aarhus City Court decided not to convict Bazrafkan under anti-racism legislation, section 266b of the penal code, last December.
The prosecution appealed the decision to the Western High Court, which on Monday found her guilty, handing her a 5,000 kroner fine, or five days in prison.
"The court argued that what I wrote about Muslim men was condescending and a generalisation," Bazrafkan told The Copenhagen Post. "But that’s unfair, because there are many Islamic codes that are being used by Islamic men to justify their actions against women and children."
A chain of racist statements
Bazrafkan’s racism sentence is the fourth in a chain of statements that have resulted in charges under the anti-racism law.
The first was Lars Hedegaard, the leader of the free press society Trykkefrihedsselskabet, who was convicted of racism in 2011 for statements he made in private about Muslim men.
He was cleared in 2012 when the Supreme Court decided that the statements were not made with the intention that they would be publicised.
Jesper Langballe, a former MP for Dansk Folkeparti, was subsequently charged and convicted of racism because of statements he made when defending Hedegaard in an opinion piece in Berlingske newspaper.
Lars Kragh Andersen, a notorious free speech activist, was the third to be charged with racism after writing in an article on 180grader.dk that he was, “convinced that Muslim men around the world both abuse and killed their daughters”.
It was this passage that Bazrafkan repeated and which resulted in her being charged with racism.
A controversial artist
Bazrafkan – a controversial artist known for integrating her Muslim background into her work – says that her adaptation and use of Andersen's text was a “political happening” that was designed to expose the problem with the racism law.
She argues that she was not accusing all Muslim men of using Islamic codes to justify horrific acts against women, only that violence against women and children was often excused by citing Islam.
"It’s not the same thing. For example, Muslims around the world protested at the Mohammed cartoons, and doctors around the world misdiagnose patients, but not all Muslims protested, and not all doctors misdiagnose."
She added: "It’s idiotic to suggest that I think that all Muslim men are rapists."
High Court unconvinced
The verdict was decided by a panel of three judges and three jurors. Five of the six decided that section 266b of the penal code applied, as her message in the blog was that Muslim men in general commit severe crime.
“By publishing the statement in the blog, the defendant presented statements in which a group of people are mocked and degraded because of their belief," the Western High Court stated in its verdict. "We therefore find the defendant guilty."
Bazrafkan said she would rather spend the time in prison than pay the fine, and that she was prepared to take the case to the Supreme Court.
from http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/09/denmark-ex-muslim-convicted-of-racism-for-noting-that-muslim-men-justify-abusing-women-by-referring-.html
The racist
It's official: the truth is now "racism." Firoozeh Bazrafkan is an Iranian who speaks from her own experience. She "argues that she was not accusing all Muslim men of using Islamic codes to justify horrific acts against women, only that violence against women and children was often excused by citing Islam."
That is manifestly true. Qur'an 4:34 says: "Men are the managers of the affairs of women for that Allah has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for Allah’s guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them. If they then obey you, look not for any way against them; Allah is All-high, All-great."
Do Muslim men refer to Islam to justify beating women? Well, recently Islamic states rejected as un-Islamic a UN Human Rights Council resolution condemning violence against women: see here. And a TV show about how to beat your wife recently was replayed on a Muslim TV channel in London.
Meanwhile, some of the members of Muslim rape gangs in Britain have stated that they thought their actions were justified because their victims were dressed inappropriately, and not adhering to Sharia dress codes.
But no, now saying that is "racism" in Denmark. What race are Muslims who beat their wives and justify doing so by referring to the Qur'an? I keep forgetting.
"Danish-Iranian artist convicted of racism," by Peter Stanners for the Copenhagen Post, September 18 (thanks to 1Pat):
A Danish-Iranian artist was found guilty of racism by the Western High Court on Monday for statements she made about Muslim men.
Firoozeh Bazrafkan was charged with racism after writing in a blog entry, published in Jyllands-Posten newspaper in December 2011, that she was "very convinced that Muslim men around the world rape, abuse and kill their daughters".
She added: "This is, according to my understanding as a Danish-Iranian, the result of a defective and inhumane culture – if you can even call it a culture at all. But you can say, I think, that it is a defective and inhumane religion whose textbook, the Koran, is more immoral, deplorable and crazy than manuals of the two other global religions combined."
Aarhus City Court decided not to convict Bazrafkan under anti-racism legislation, section 266b of the penal code, last December.
The prosecution appealed the decision to the Western High Court, which on Monday found her guilty, handing her a 5,000 kroner fine, or five days in prison.
"The court argued that what I wrote about Muslim men was condescending and a generalisation," Bazrafkan told The Copenhagen Post. "But that’s unfair, because there are many Islamic codes that are being used by Islamic men to justify their actions against women and children."
A chain of racist statements
Bazrafkan’s racism sentence is the fourth in a chain of statements that have resulted in charges under the anti-racism law.
The first was Lars Hedegaard, the leader of the free press society Trykkefrihedsselskabet, who was convicted of racism in 2011 for statements he made in private about Muslim men.
He was cleared in 2012 when the Supreme Court decided that the statements were not made with the intention that they would be publicised.
Jesper Langballe, a former MP for Dansk Folkeparti, was subsequently charged and convicted of racism because of statements he made when defending Hedegaard in an opinion piece in Berlingske newspaper.
Lars Kragh Andersen, a notorious free speech activist, was the third to be charged with racism after writing in an article on 180grader.dk that he was, “convinced that Muslim men around the world both abuse and killed their daughters”.
It was this passage that Bazrafkan repeated and which resulted in her being charged with racism.
A controversial artist
Bazrafkan – a controversial artist known for integrating her Muslim background into her work – says that her adaptation and use of Andersen's text was a “political happening” that was designed to expose the problem with the racism law.
She argues that she was not accusing all Muslim men of using Islamic codes to justify horrific acts against women, only that violence against women and children was often excused by citing Islam.
"It’s not the same thing. For example, Muslims around the world protested at the Mohammed cartoons, and doctors around the world misdiagnose patients, but not all Muslims protested, and not all doctors misdiagnose."
She added: "It’s idiotic to suggest that I think that all Muslim men are rapists."
High Court unconvinced
The verdict was decided by a panel of three judges and three jurors. Five of the six decided that section 266b of the penal code applied, as her message in the blog was that Muslim men in general commit severe crime.
“By publishing the statement in the blog, the defendant presented statements in which a group of people are mocked and degraded because of their belief," the Western High Court stated in its verdict. "We therefore find the defendant guilty."
Bazrafkan said she would rather spend the time in prison than pay the fine, and that she was prepared to take the case to the Supreme Court.
from http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/09/denmark-ex-muslim-convicted-of-racism-for-noting-that-muslim-men-justify-abusing-women-by-referring-.html
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Monday, September 16, 2013
Maaloula, Syria: Cathedral and Churches Empty of Christians
Maaloula's cathedral and churches empty of Christians as Syria's latest front-line fight takes its toll
Its churches are empty, its monasteries deserted, many pitted and holed by the battles raging around them.
A general view of Maaloula village, northeast of the capital Damascus, Syria Photo: AP
By Bill Neely, International Editor, ITV News, in Damascus and Maaloula
On Sunday thousands of Christians should have filled its streets for the festival of the Holy Cross. But instead the streets of Maaloula are filled with soldiers and tanks, spent bullet casings and the noise of Syria's latest front-line fight.
Maaloula is a special place. It has been a safe haven for Christians for 2,000 years - until now. It was a place of refuge so secure in its rugged mountain isolation that a dialect of the language of Christ, Aramaic, is still spoken here. But not today.
Its Christian community of 2,000 has fled. In the tight alleyways and streets that wind up the Maaloula's mountainside their language has been replaced by the Arabic of two bitter enemies: rebels from three Islamist groups and the soldiers of President Bashar al-Assad.
Some 70,000 tourists a year used to come here from all over the Middle East, Europe and America to marvel at the Christianity carved into its rock. But the "Welcome to Maaloula" sign as I drove in seemed almost laughable.
There was hardly time to notice the white statue of Christ the Redeemer on the hillside before we were fired on, bullets aimed at our van, blowing our tyre and holing the chassis. We screeched to a halt and scrambled clear.
We were caught in the middle of a town the Syrian army had declared liberated from rebel control the day before. But it was not, and for the next four hours, I witnessed a fierce battle as the army tried to dislodge the snipers of, among other groups, Jabhat al-Nusra, the fighters allied to al-Qaeda.
Their occupation of Maaloula had begun with a suicide bombing by a Jordanian that killed eight soldiers, and now saw dozens of well-trained gunmen pinning down an army of hundreds of troops and tanks.
The statues of the Virgin Mary and Christ were shrouded in smoke and dust, as every few minutes a tank shell crashed into the mountainside. Christ's message of forgiveness had been forgotten here, the Bible's teaching that the peacemakers are blessed seemed to echo from another world.
Syria's soldiers were angry and frustrated. Many didn't want us to show their faces or film their failure to recapture one of the jewels of Syria's multi-faith mosaic. Others kissed crucifixes they wore and cursed the Nusra Islamists who, as more than one assured me "were helped and trained by Britain and America".
The rebels claim they took Maaloula to punish the Christians there for supporting the Assad government, a support that is real but tepid. For most Christians in Syria the fear of what Islamists might do if they win this war outweighs any dislike they have for Assad's system.
On Saturday, in a Damascus church heavy with gold and grief, they mourned the Christians killed in the battle. The framed photographs of the dead sat next to the holy icons of the Greek Orthodox faith, some men in the pews bandaged from injuries they'd received. "We blame Obama", one woman in black yelled at me, "he should have the Nobel peace prize taken away from him - he is helping the rebels who killed our Christian brothers".
The battle for Maaloula seems a long way from the diplomatic debate abroad about Syria's chemical weapons. And so it seems across the country.
In a land weary of war, one woman personified it. Her head seemed to move heavily, her eyes slowly, as she looked up to the skies after four months in captivity. She told me she was 37 years old but she looked a decade older. She rolled up her sleeve to reveal the bruises and piercings of what she said was constant torture by her captors; rebels who accused her of being a spy.
She had been kidnapped inside a rebel held area; her religion, Alawite like Assad, raising the suspicions of Islamists and their allies who have been attacked by Assad's army there for nearly two years. So they beat her, electrocuted her, she said, women as well as men joining in the torture, week after week.
Her lips were chapped, her teeth almost orange with neglect, her whole body seemed deformed by her ordeal. She tried to stand up but could hardly walk. It was as if she had had a stroke. She escaped her torturers only because she was swapped for the wife of a rebel leader, in a prisoner exchange.
This then, is the nitty gritty of a dirty war without any end in sight. As she spoke, the battle raged all around us; the sniper fire across a sandbagged frontline; the thud of artillery shells landing amid the densely packed buildings; the occasional shouts of "Allahu Akbar", 'God is great', from across the rebel lines.
Only one small glimmer of hope emerged from her ordeal. The Syrian army commander who brokered the swap said he had many conversations on the phone with the rebel leader and had established a degree of trust. "I can talk to him", he said, "he seems like a good man. I won't trust him with everything but this is a start."
The woman, who did not want me to use her name because her brother was still missing, was lucky to escape. As the diplomats raised hopes of agreement on chemical weapons, the horrors of what conventional weapons and bitter enemies can do with them were detailed in a report on two of the most horrific massacres perpetrated here.
In May, pro-Assad forces entered the towns of al-Bayda and Baniyas, anti-government enclaves within in a loyalist area, and killed at least 248 men, women and children, according to Human Rights Watch. The sickening accounts, gleaned from witnesses, of men being separated from their families and executed together, of dead women clutching their dead children, and of corpses piled on streets and in back rooms or burned and mutilated, is familiar yet still utterly shocking.
The explanation for their deaths is that loyalist fighters wanted to clear out Sunni Muslims from the area once and for all, making the land along the Mediterranean more secure than ever for the government.
It is not that far from Baniyas to Maaloula, but Syria's tradition of Christian refuge from Arab slaughter, of tolerance for all religions, is being eroded by the brutality and desperation of a civil war that will soon have claimed 110,000 lives.
In the capital, Damascus, people are relieved to have escaped the immediate threat of more deaths, as America pushes, for now, to execute the diplomatic plan for Assad to hand over his chemical weapons, avoiding missile strikes.
"We're happy America won't attack us," a group of soldiers told me on a deserted street near their frontline, "but we're not fighting Americans, we're fighting terrorists."
Their commander questioned whether it was a good idea for Syria to give up its chemical weapons under the threat of future strikes. "We might need them," he said, "because Israel has nuclear weapons. America too. Why isn't anyone putting pressure on them?"
Many here are revelling in the seeming triumph of Russian president Vladimir Putin's diplomacy. The longtime ally of Assad has persuaded him to give up his chemical weapons and has flat footed President Barack Obama, much to the delight of government loyalists here.
Officials I've spoken to find it hard to keep the smiles off their faces. Others are a little stunned by the speed of the week's developments. "Until now, we didn't know whether the government has been lying for 40 years", said one businessman, "whether we really did have chemical weapons, or whether, like Saddam, it was a lie to make us look strong. Now we know."
Amid the sparring abroad, Syria has been forced to admit it has Sarin nerve gas, mustard gas and other poisons. I drove past one of the sites outside Damascus where these poisons are said to have been developed, but no-one knows if they're still there.
There are reports that the elite branch of Syria's army responsible for the weapons, Unit 450, has moved the stocks of gases to as many as 50 sites, many of them out in the desert to the east, perhaps to make it harder for the world to track, find and destroy.
For those who survived the chemical weapons attack three weeks ago, the diplomatic progress of the past week is cold comfort and a chilling betrayal. The residents of Zamalka, one of the neighbourhoods of the Damascus suburb of Ghouta that was attacked with chemical weapons, feel forgotten by the world. First the Americans pulled back from a bombing they hoped would avenge the deaths of their loved ones. Now, some are praising Assad, the man they believe ordered the attack, for agreeing to hand over the weapons.
The poisoned air has cleared in Zamalka but not the memories. "This is the centre of it," says one man, standing in the ruins of a house with a hole in its roof. "The rocket crashed through here and everyone within 50 yards was killed." A little boy breaks off from playing football to describe how "the chemical bomb dropped just behind me. I lost my Dad and my grandparents."
Another man says that of the 3,000 people who used to live in the area only about 200 are left; some 20 families. Their air was poisoned, now water is scarce in Zamalka. Every day the Syrian army keeps up its shelling of rebel held suburbs. One day, one area, the next, a different target.
And the plumes of smoke rise, and far beyond, the newly dead buried in the rubble of the barrage, the traffic flows and the millions who haven't fled their homes go about their business, hoping the spirit of tolerance that Maaloula represents might one day triumph over the hatred, casual killing and mass slaughter of this long war.
Its churches are empty, its monasteries deserted, many pitted and holed by the battles raging around them.
A general view of Maaloula village, northeast of the capital Damascus, Syria Photo: AP
By Bill Neely, International Editor, ITV News, in Damascus and Maaloula
On Sunday thousands of Christians should have filled its streets for the festival of the Holy Cross. But instead the streets of Maaloula are filled with soldiers and tanks, spent bullet casings and the noise of Syria's latest front-line fight.
Maaloula is a special place. It has been a safe haven for Christians for 2,000 years - until now. It was a place of refuge so secure in its rugged mountain isolation that a dialect of the language of Christ, Aramaic, is still spoken here. But not today.
Its Christian community of 2,000 has fled. In the tight alleyways and streets that wind up the Maaloula's mountainside their language has been replaced by the Arabic of two bitter enemies: rebels from three Islamist groups and the soldiers of President Bashar al-Assad.
Some 70,000 tourists a year used to come here from all over the Middle East, Europe and America to marvel at the Christianity carved into its rock. But the "Welcome to Maaloula" sign as I drove in seemed almost laughable.
There was hardly time to notice the white statue of Christ the Redeemer on the hillside before we were fired on, bullets aimed at our van, blowing our tyre and holing the chassis. We screeched to a halt and scrambled clear.
We were caught in the middle of a town the Syrian army had declared liberated from rebel control the day before. But it was not, and for the next four hours, I witnessed a fierce battle as the army tried to dislodge the snipers of, among other groups, Jabhat al-Nusra, the fighters allied to al-Qaeda.
Their occupation of Maaloula had begun with a suicide bombing by a Jordanian that killed eight soldiers, and now saw dozens of well-trained gunmen pinning down an army of hundreds of troops and tanks.
The statues of the Virgin Mary and Christ were shrouded in smoke and dust, as every few minutes a tank shell crashed into the mountainside. Christ's message of forgiveness had been forgotten here, the Bible's teaching that the peacemakers are blessed seemed to echo from another world.
Syria's soldiers were angry and frustrated. Many didn't want us to show their faces or film their failure to recapture one of the jewels of Syria's multi-faith mosaic. Others kissed crucifixes they wore and cursed the Nusra Islamists who, as more than one assured me "were helped and trained by Britain and America".
The rebels claim they took Maaloula to punish the Christians there for supporting the Assad government, a support that is real but tepid. For most Christians in Syria the fear of what Islamists might do if they win this war outweighs any dislike they have for Assad's system.
On Saturday, in a Damascus church heavy with gold and grief, they mourned the Christians killed in the battle. The framed photographs of the dead sat next to the holy icons of the Greek Orthodox faith, some men in the pews bandaged from injuries they'd received. "We blame Obama", one woman in black yelled at me, "he should have the Nobel peace prize taken away from him - he is helping the rebels who killed our Christian brothers".
The battle for Maaloula seems a long way from the diplomatic debate abroad about Syria's chemical weapons. And so it seems across the country.
In a land weary of war, one woman personified it. Her head seemed to move heavily, her eyes slowly, as she looked up to the skies after four months in captivity. She told me she was 37 years old but she looked a decade older. She rolled up her sleeve to reveal the bruises and piercings of what she said was constant torture by her captors; rebels who accused her of being a spy.
She had been kidnapped inside a rebel held area; her religion, Alawite like Assad, raising the suspicions of Islamists and their allies who have been attacked by Assad's army there for nearly two years. So they beat her, electrocuted her, she said, women as well as men joining in the torture, week after week.
Her lips were chapped, her teeth almost orange with neglect, her whole body seemed deformed by her ordeal. She tried to stand up but could hardly walk. It was as if she had had a stroke. She escaped her torturers only because she was swapped for the wife of a rebel leader, in a prisoner exchange.
This then, is the nitty gritty of a dirty war without any end in sight. As she spoke, the battle raged all around us; the sniper fire across a sandbagged frontline; the thud of artillery shells landing amid the densely packed buildings; the occasional shouts of "Allahu Akbar", 'God is great', from across the rebel lines.
Only one small glimmer of hope emerged from her ordeal. The Syrian army commander who brokered the swap said he had many conversations on the phone with the rebel leader and had established a degree of trust. "I can talk to him", he said, "he seems like a good man. I won't trust him with everything but this is a start."
The woman, who did not want me to use her name because her brother was still missing, was lucky to escape. As the diplomats raised hopes of agreement on chemical weapons, the horrors of what conventional weapons and bitter enemies can do with them were detailed in a report on two of the most horrific massacres perpetrated here.
In May, pro-Assad forces entered the towns of al-Bayda and Baniyas, anti-government enclaves within in a loyalist area, and killed at least 248 men, women and children, according to Human Rights Watch. The sickening accounts, gleaned from witnesses, of men being separated from their families and executed together, of dead women clutching their dead children, and of corpses piled on streets and in back rooms or burned and mutilated, is familiar yet still utterly shocking.
The explanation for their deaths is that loyalist fighters wanted to clear out Sunni Muslims from the area once and for all, making the land along the Mediterranean more secure than ever for the government.
It is not that far from Baniyas to Maaloula, but Syria's tradition of Christian refuge from Arab slaughter, of tolerance for all religions, is being eroded by the brutality and desperation of a civil war that will soon have claimed 110,000 lives.
In the capital, Damascus, people are relieved to have escaped the immediate threat of more deaths, as America pushes, for now, to execute the diplomatic plan for Assad to hand over his chemical weapons, avoiding missile strikes.
"We're happy America won't attack us," a group of soldiers told me on a deserted street near their frontline, "but we're not fighting Americans, we're fighting terrorists."
Their commander questioned whether it was a good idea for Syria to give up its chemical weapons under the threat of future strikes. "We might need them," he said, "because Israel has nuclear weapons. America too. Why isn't anyone putting pressure on them?"
Many here are revelling in the seeming triumph of Russian president Vladimir Putin's diplomacy. The longtime ally of Assad has persuaded him to give up his chemical weapons and has flat footed President Barack Obama, much to the delight of government loyalists here.
Officials I've spoken to find it hard to keep the smiles off their faces. Others are a little stunned by the speed of the week's developments. "Until now, we didn't know whether the government has been lying for 40 years", said one businessman, "whether we really did have chemical weapons, or whether, like Saddam, it was a lie to make us look strong. Now we know."
Amid the sparring abroad, Syria has been forced to admit it has Sarin nerve gas, mustard gas and other poisons. I drove past one of the sites outside Damascus where these poisons are said to have been developed, but no-one knows if they're still there.
There are reports that the elite branch of Syria's army responsible for the weapons, Unit 450, has moved the stocks of gases to as many as 50 sites, many of them out in the desert to the east, perhaps to make it harder for the world to track, find and destroy.
For those who survived the chemical weapons attack three weeks ago, the diplomatic progress of the past week is cold comfort and a chilling betrayal. The residents of Zamalka, one of the neighbourhoods of the Damascus suburb of Ghouta that was attacked with chemical weapons, feel forgotten by the world. First the Americans pulled back from a bombing they hoped would avenge the deaths of their loved ones. Now, some are praising Assad, the man they believe ordered the attack, for agreeing to hand over the weapons.
The poisoned air has cleared in Zamalka but not the memories. "This is the centre of it," says one man, standing in the ruins of a house with a hole in its roof. "The rocket crashed through here and everyone within 50 yards was killed." A little boy breaks off from playing football to describe how "the chemical bomb dropped just behind me. I lost my Dad and my grandparents."
Another man says that of the 3,000 people who used to live in the area only about 200 are left; some 20 families. Their air was poisoned, now water is scarce in Zamalka. Every day the Syrian army keeps up its shelling of rebel held suburbs. One day, one area, the next, a different target.
And the plumes of smoke rise, and far beyond, the newly dead buried in the rubble of the barrage, the traffic flows and the millions who haven't fled their homes go about their business, hoping the spirit of tolerance that Maaloula represents might one day triumph over the hatred, casual killing and mass slaughter of this long war.
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Denomination Selector Tool
I took the test at: http://selectsmart.com/FREE/select.php?client=christiandenom
I am very happy with the results.
Lutheran Symbol
Found this on the net and really like it. Luther's Rose, Jerusalem Cross, Book of Concord, and VDMA.
Emails Show IRS’ Lois Lerner Targeted Tea Party
By Stephen Dinan The Washington Times Thursday, September 12, 2013
Newly released emails show that Lois G. Lerner, the woman at the center of the IRS scandal over special scrutiny of conservative groups’ applications for tax-exempt status, specifically targeted tea party applications and directed they be held up in 2011 in order to come up with an agency policy.
The email, released by a House committee investigating the IRS, seems to counter Democrats’ arguments that tea party groups weren’t specifically targeted.
“Tea Party Matter very dangerous,” Ms. Lerner said in the 2011 email, saying that those applications could end up being the “vehicle to go to court” to get more clarity on a 2010 Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance rules.
In another email, from 2012, Ms. Lerner acknowledges that the agency’s handling of the tax-exempt applications had been bungled at the beginning, though she said they had taken steps to correct it.
“It is what it is,” she said in the email, released Thursday by the Ways and Means Committee. “Although the original story isn’t as pretty as we’d like, once we learned this [sic.] were off track, we have done what we can to change the process, better educate our staff and move the cases. So, we will get dinged, but we took steps before the ‘dinging’ to make things better and we have written procedures.”
That email suggests agency employees knew they had gone overboard in their scrutiny — despite top IRS officials telling Congress that there wasn’t any special scrutiny of conservative groups.
In another 2012 email, Ms. Lerner seemed to take sides in a battle between the Federal Election Commission and conservative group tax-exempt groups that were engaging in politics, saying that “perhaps the FEC will save the day.”
Ms. Lerner has been removed from her post at the helm of the tax-exempt organizations division, but has not been fired from the IRS.
She asserted her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in refusing to testify to the House oversight committee earlier this year, though committee members argue that she may actually have waived that right and should be recalled and forced to answer questions.
In releasing the latest emails, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp said they show a dangerous patter.
“There is increasing and overwhelming evidence that Lois Lerner and high-level IRS employees in Washington were abusing their power to prevent conservative groups from organizing and carrying out their missions,” he said. “There are still mountains of documents to go through, but it is clear the IRS is out of control and there will be consequences.”
But Sander Levin, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said there is still no evidence that the IRS was driven by a political motive to stifle conservative views.
“Lois Lerner was incompetent in her management of the IRS tax-exempt division and unprofessional in her conduct — reasons why I immediately called for her to be relieved of her duties,” Mr. Levin said.
He said, though, that the GOP is overselling what it’s found during its investigation.
“Selective leaking by Republicans does not change the fact that tens of thousands of documents and dozens of interviews with IRS employees have revealed absolutely no evidence of political motivation, no evidence of outside influence and no evidence of White House involvement,” Mr. Levin said.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/12/emails-ois-lerner-specifically-targeted-tea-party/#ixzz2ejdNiOFi
U.S. Weapons Reaching Syrian Rebels
The CIA has started delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, making good on a pledge made months ago. Rep. Adam Schiff (R-Calif.) tells On Background that doing so pulls the U.S. further into the conflict and diverts focus from national security interests.
By Ernesto Londoño and Greg Miller, Published: September 11 E-mail the writers
The CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, ending months of delay in lethal aid that had been promised by the Obama administration, according to U.S. officials and Syrian figures. The shipments began streaming into the country over the past two weeks, along with separate deliveries by the State Department of vehicles and other gear — a flow of material that marks a major escalation of the U.S. role in Syria’s civil war.
The arms shipments, which are limited to light weapons and other munitions that can be tracked, began arriving in Syria at a moment of heightened tensions over threats by President Obama to order missile strikes to punish the regime of Bashar al-Assad for his alleged use of chemical weapons in a deadly attack near Damascus last month.
The arms are being delivered as the United States is also shipping new types of nonlethal gear to rebels. That aid includes vehicles, sophisticated communications equipment and advanced combat medical kits.
U.S. officials hope that, taken together, the weapons and gear will boost the profile and prowess of rebel fighters in a conflict that started about 21 / 2 years ago.
Although the Obama administration signaled months ago that it would increase aid to Syrian rebels, the efforts have lagged because of the logistical challenges involved in delivering equipment in a war zone and officials’ fears that any assistance could wind up in the hands of jihadists. Secretary of State John F. Kerry had promised in April that the nonlethal aid would start flowing “in a matter of weeks.”
The delays prompted several senior U.S. lawmakers to chide the Obama administration for not moving more quickly to aid the Syrian opposition after promising lethal assistance in June. The criticism has grown louder amid the debate over whether Washington should use military force against the Syrian regime, with some lawmakers withholding support until the administration committed to providing the rebels with more assistance.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who has pressed the Obama administration to do more to help the rebels, said he felt embarrassed when he met with Syrians along the Turkish border three weeks ago.
“It was humiliating,” he said in an interview Wednesday night. “The president had announced that we would be providing lethal aid, and not a drop of it had begun. They were very short on ammunition, and the weapons had not begun to flow.”
The latest effort to provide aid is aimed at supporting rebel fighters who are under the command of Gen. Salim Idriss, according to officials, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because part of the initiative is covert. Idriss is the commander of the Supreme Military Council, a faction of the disjointed armed opposition.
U.S. officials, speaking about the provision of nonlethal aid, said they are determined to increase the cohesion and structure of the rebel fighting units.
“This doesn’t only lead to a more effective force, but it increases its ability to hold coalition groups together,” said Mark S. Ward, the State Department’s senior adviser on assistance to Syria, who coordinates nonlethal aid to rebels from southern Turkey. “They see their leadership is having some impact.”
more at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-begins-weapons-delivery-to-syrian-rebels/2013/09/11/9fcf2ed8-1b0c-11e3-a628-7e6dde8f889d_story.html?wpisrc=al_national
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
The Great Tradition—the Essential Guidance System for the Church
by Robert Benne at http://juicyecumenism.com/2013/09/04/the-great-tradition-the-essential-guidance-system-for-the-church/
Before writing his famous book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis was told by many advisors that ordinary Christians would not be interested in theology, that “dry old stuff,” but rather in plain, practical religion. He countered that he really didn’t think such ordinary readers were so foolish. He thought they would welcome the study of theology, which means “science of God.” “Any man who wants to think about God at all would like to have the clearest and most accurate ideas about Him which are available. You are not children: why should you be treated like children?”
He goes on to liken theology to a map. Theology is not first-hand religious experience or direct reading of the Bible, both of which are very important. Rather, Christian theology is a map based on the experiences and readings of thousands of intense and educated Christians throughout the centuries who really did experience God and read the Bible avidly. Their thinking provides a clear outline of what key teachings about God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, salvation, and the Christian life are essential to biblical Christian faith and what ideas and claims are not, including those that are genuinely mistaken. A map guides you in the proper direction and marks those departures that lead you astray from classic faith.
When he then proceeded to write Mere Christianity, Lewis did not just write any old—or new—theology. He aimed with great success “to explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times.” Further, he said, “I am not writing to expound something I could call ‘my religion,’ but to expound ‘mere’ Christianity, which is what it is and was what it was long before I was born and whether I like it or not.” In other words, he was trying to articulate the Great Tradition—those bedrock beliefs of the Bible, the early church, the creeds, the Reformers, and orthodox Christians throughout the ages.
Lewis was not oblivious to the many varieties of Christianity. He likened them to small halls and abodes that branch off from the great hall in which all Christians gather to affirm their common faith. The small halls and rooms are the places where Christians are nourished by the distinctive teachings and practices of their particular Christian tradition. There are Baptist halls, Lutheran halls, Catholic halls, and many more. But the distinctives that are celebrated in the small halls should not conflict with what is affirmed in the great hall of “mere” Christianity. They are particular interpretations of the common faith, not substitutes or competing versions of it. We are Christians first before we are Presbyterians or Methodists.
So the theological articulation of our common Christian faith—spiced with denominational distinctives—is what should provide the guidance system for our churches, whether or not those churches are shaped by hierarchical or congregational church orders. Such an articulation provides the map that allows them to move in the right direction and avoid the pitfalls that have plagued the church throughout history.
We badly need such a guidance system in our time because the Christian church in America is facing more aggressive challenges to its core beliefs than we have experienced for a long time. Two challenges are the most pressing and must be met with clear and firm guidance from the Great Tradition.
The first challenge disputes the orthodox teaching that Jesus Christ is only path to salvation, that Jesus and his work of redemption are unique and decisive for all the world. This is sharply opposed by current cultural demands that any acceptable faith be inclusive, universal, and non-judgmental. Any culturally accepted faith must affirm and include everyone as they are—the classic requirements of repentance, forgiveness, and amendment of life are simply too demanding. Further, Christians must drop their exclusive claims that Jesus is the only way and admit that all religions are simply different paths to the same goal. Evangelism must be turned into dialogue. Further, the old claim that there are two destinations for every soul—either heaven or hell—must be given up for the more palatable claim that all will be saved in the end. Thus, Christians must be tolerant of all sorts of beliefs since they finally will not matter anyway.
Now this challenge is held not only by “New Age” people outside the church who are “spiritual” but not “religious.” It is also held within churches by many theologians who are willing to compromise the teachings of the Great Tradition for those more compatible with a world that emphasizes diversity and tolerance. But the Great Tradition allows for no such distortions—Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Once the church departs from that affirmation it will soon lose its special mission to convey the Gospel. The decline of the missionary impulse in the mainline denominations is a case in point. Their over-involvement in political agitation is another.
The second great challenge—even sharper and more intimidating than the first—is aimed at the churches’ teaching on marriage and sexual ethics. The sexual liberation themes of the 60s have worked through the culture with relentless momentum and are now attempting to render classical Christian teachings outside the bounds of respectable public discourse. A Supreme Court Justice has even suggested that holding to the traditional teachings is mean-spirited, bigoted, and irrational, no longer fit for consideration by people of good will.
Many activists and theologians within the mainline denominations have succumbed to the cultural trends and convinced themselves that their churches can marry gays and lesbians, as well as accept partnered homosexuals as pastors. Homosexual conduct has been morally legitimized as a concession to the culture. These moves have been church-dividing because they are so obviously against the plain sense reading of the Bible as well as the long tradition of Christian sexual ethics. The same denominations have accommodated their teachings of allow for pre-marital sex, co-habitation, and abortion. Their slope is as slippery as the culture’s.
But the C.S. Lewis’ reading of the Great Tradition, of the Bible, of “Mere” Christianity, does not allow for such sliding. Neither do those of theologians who do theology on behalf of orthodox churches, be they Baptist, Lutheran, Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, or other sorts. The Great Tradition simply doesn’t allow it. Rather, it points to the sorts of teaching that are faithful to the apostolic faith that has been handed down to us from the beginning of the church in the New Testament. That should be our guidance system.
A theological map in accordance with the Great Tradition is necessary as the guidance system of all orthodox churches. Without it they will stray and experience real ship-wreck.
Before writing his famous book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis was told by many advisors that ordinary Christians would not be interested in theology, that “dry old stuff,” but rather in plain, practical religion. He countered that he really didn’t think such ordinary readers were so foolish. He thought they would welcome the study of theology, which means “science of God.” “Any man who wants to think about God at all would like to have the clearest and most accurate ideas about Him which are available. You are not children: why should you be treated like children?”
He goes on to liken theology to a map. Theology is not first-hand religious experience or direct reading of the Bible, both of which are very important. Rather, Christian theology is a map based on the experiences and readings of thousands of intense and educated Christians throughout the centuries who really did experience God and read the Bible avidly. Their thinking provides a clear outline of what key teachings about God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, salvation, and the Christian life are essential to biblical Christian faith and what ideas and claims are not, including those that are genuinely mistaken. A map guides you in the proper direction and marks those departures that lead you astray from classic faith.
When he then proceeded to write Mere Christianity, Lewis did not just write any old—or new—theology. He aimed with great success “to explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times.” Further, he said, “I am not writing to expound something I could call ‘my religion,’ but to expound ‘mere’ Christianity, which is what it is and was what it was long before I was born and whether I like it or not.” In other words, he was trying to articulate the Great Tradition—those bedrock beliefs of the Bible, the early church, the creeds, the Reformers, and orthodox Christians throughout the ages.
Lewis was not oblivious to the many varieties of Christianity. He likened them to small halls and abodes that branch off from the great hall in which all Christians gather to affirm their common faith. The small halls and rooms are the places where Christians are nourished by the distinctive teachings and practices of their particular Christian tradition. There are Baptist halls, Lutheran halls, Catholic halls, and many more. But the distinctives that are celebrated in the small halls should not conflict with what is affirmed in the great hall of “mere” Christianity. They are particular interpretations of the common faith, not substitutes or competing versions of it. We are Christians first before we are Presbyterians or Methodists.
So the theological articulation of our common Christian faith—spiced with denominational distinctives—is what should provide the guidance system for our churches, whether or not those churches are shaped by hierarchical or congregational church orders. Such an articulation provides the map that allows them to move in the right direction and avoid the pitfalls that have plagued the church throughout history.
We badly need such a guidance system in our time because the Christian church in America is facing more aggressive challenges to its core beliefs than we have experienced for a long time. Two challenges are the most pressing and must be met with clear and firm guidance from the Great Tradition.
The first challenge disputes the orthodox teaching that Jesus Christ is only path to salvation, that Jesus and his work of redemption are unique and decisive for all the world. This is sharply opposed by current cultural demands that any acceptable faith be inclusive, universal, and non-judgmental. Any culturally accepted faith must affirm and include everyone as they are—the classic requirements of repentance, forgiveness, and amendment of life are simply too demanding. Further, Christians must drop their exclusive claims that Jesus is the only way and admit that all religions are simply different paths to the same goal. Evangelism must be turned into dialogue. Further, the old claim that there are two destinations for every soul—either heaven or hell—must be given up for the more palatable claim that all will be saved in the end. Thus, Christians must be tolerant of all sorts of beliefs since they finally will not matter anyway.
Now this challenge is held not only by “New Age” people outside the church who are “spiritual” but not “religious.” It is also held within churches by many theologians who are willing to compromise the teachings of the Great Tradition for those more compatible with a world that emphasizes diversity and tolerance. But the Great Tradition allows for no such distortions—Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Once the church departs from that affirmation it will soon lose its special mission to convey the Gospel. The decline of the missionary impulse in the mainline denominations is a case in point. Their over-involvement in political agitation is another.
The second great challenge—even sharper and more intimidating than the first—is aimed at the churches’ teaching on marriage and sexual ethics. The sexual liberation themes of the 60s have worked through the culture with relentless momentum and are now attempting to render classical Christian teachings outside the bounds of respectable public discourse. A Supreme Court Justice has even suggested that holding to the traditional teachings is mean-spirited, bigoted, and irrational, no longer fit for consideration by people of good will.
Many activists and theologians within the mainline denominations have succumbed to the cultural trends and convinced themselves that their churches can marry gays and lesbians, as well as accept partnered homosexuals as pastors. Homosexual conduct has been morally legitimized as a concession to the culture. These moves have been church-dividing because they are so obviously against the plain sense reading of the Bible as well as the long tradition of Christian sexual ethics. The same denominations have accommodated their teachings of allow for pre-marital sex, co-habitation, and abortion. Their slope is as slippery as the culture’s.
But the C.S. Lewis’ reading of the Great Tradition, of the Bible, of “Mere” Christianity, does not allow for such sliding. Neither do those of theologians who do theology on behalf of orthodox churches, be they Baptist, Lutheran, Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, or other sorts. The Great Tradition simply doesn’t allow it. Rather, it points to the sorts of teaching that are faithful to the apostolic faith that has been handed down to us from the beginning of the church in the New Testament. That should be our guidance system.
A theological map in accordance with the Great Tradition is necessary as the guidance system of all orthodox churches. Without it they will stray and experience real ship-wreck.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
The Case of Obama's Missing Pants
There isn't much enthusiasm for Obama's plan for Syria. A lot of the Senate would like Obama to go bigger. A lot of the House would like Obama to just go.
Even the experts have trouble explaining how and why the attacks will do any good. The debate has congealed down to credibility.
The only real argument in favor of hitting Syria is that Obama laid down a red line and Congress is obligated to protect his credibility when making poorly thought out threats for the sake of national security.
But it's not Congress' job to protect Obama's credibility for the sake of the nation. It was Obama's job to protect the nation’s credibility by not setting a red line until he had Congressional approval.
Bush was able to go to Congress and get an authorization to use force against Iraq contingent on the failure of diplomacy and Saddam continuing to flout United Nations Security Council resolutions.
Obama could have done the same thing on Syria. He could have done it at any point in time after his original red line remark a year ago. Bush got his authorization half a year before the war. Obama had twice as much time to get his.
But he didn't bother with authorization in Libya. His style of governance is unilateral and he had no intention for asking for one in Syria. Instead Obama chose to wait until the last minute when an incident occurred that would force his hand, only to then backtrack by taking it to Congress, a move that his people repeatedly rejected until it became politically convenient.
And now Congress is supposed to somehow salvage his credibility from this mess.
What credibility?
While the media lectures Congress on its obligation to pretend that the emperor is wearing pants for the sake of the empire, they're forgetting that there were never any pants to begin with.
We're not dealing with a case of suspected emperor nudity to be covered up. The world has already seen video of the emperor flashing everyone on the National Mall since his first inauguration.
The media can spin Obama's failed strawmen into gold, but their spinning reels end at the border. Americans may be the captive audience of his media, but the enemies he needs to impress aren't.
Obama didn't impress our enemies with his inability to make up his mind about Afghanistan. The firing of multiple generals, the mounting death toll and the clumsy attempts to negotiate with the Taliban took away his credibility.
Bombing Syria at this late date will accomplish nothing except to provide a tepid anticlimactic conclusion to an incompetent policy.
The people he needs to impress, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Ayatollah Khamenei have already taken his measure and are unimpressed. If Congress belatedly approves his strikes on Syria, none of them are going to run off and hide under their desks or confuse the messy delayed outcome with a show of real strength.
Credibility isn't just about making and keeping threats. It's about knowing which threats to make and why to make them.
Our enemies don't doubt that we can bomb. They doubt that we know whom to bomb and why.
No one doubts that America has lots of cruise missiles. After Obama's sequester, we don't have as many as we used to, but our capabilities are not really in dispute. What is in dispute is whether we are capable of conducting a credible foreign policy. It's hard to characterize a belated bombing of Syria on behalf of a Free Syrian Army that everyone but us knows is our enemy as a credible policy.
America doesn't lack cruise missile credibility. We've used them in the past and everyone knows we'll use them again. There is even the distinct possibility that we might invade a country. But that is only intimidating to an Assad. It doesn't intimidate the bigger players in the game who know that we will never bomb them or invade them.
Credibility is about more than bombs. It's about being able to effectively play the game of nations. In the bigger picture, it's about the perception that your opponent knows what he's doing. Announcing that you have to bomb another country to demonstrate your credibility is about the best possible way of proving that you have no idea what you're doing. It's begging for your bluff to be believed.
No act of Congress can buy Obama any kind of credibility and no amount of bombs will put the mom jeans back on the naked emperor. It's too late for that.
The recurring argument that Iran is watching Syria and that its nuclear program hangs in the balance is hot air.
Iran knows that Obama isn't trying to bomb Syria because he really believes that WMD use is a red line. Its leaders know that the proposed attacks, like the arms being supplied to the rebels, are part of Obama's support for the Sunni opposition at the behest of the Sunni oil states who have a death grip on Washington.
The message from the attacks won't be that America takes human rights atrocities seriously. Sudan, Rwanda and countless other genocides make a mockery of that. The message will be that the Saudis can still call in the United States Air Force and Navy to clear the way for their regional objectives.
Losing Syria will weaken Iran, but that will only accelerate its nuclear program as it rushes to find an even bigger club to use to hold on to Lebanon and Iraq.
Obama will not bomb Iran. The Democrats did everything possible to stop Bush from doing it. They are not about to do it themselves. Any belief otherwise is wishful thinking. Israel's leaders have unfortunately allowed themselves to believe that the link is there. And Netanyahu has done some foolish and destructive things out of that mistaken belief.
Killing the myth that Syria is a gateway to Iran is good for Israel. It means that Israel may finally realize that it's alone and that Obama will not step in and do the right thing at the last minute once every ounce of diplomacy has been squeezed out and the sanctions have been tightened as much as they will go. And then it may finally look after its own interests.
Nor for that matter is Obama truly serious about dealing with Syria's WMD stockpiles, some of which were originally Saddam's missing weapons. If Obama were stepping in to eliminate Syria's stockpiles and had a convincing plan for doing it, that would be a legitimate national security issue and there would be far less debate over it.
But despite the wording of the resolution, that's not really on the table. Obama will either make some sort of empty gesture with cruise missiles; a bad habit that his people picked up from their previous employment with Bill Clinton who used cruise missiles to punctuate bad polls, or will pound away at Syrian military targets to aid the Islamist rebels.
Either way, the confidence trick will be in the discredited policies of soft power and nation building through Islamist democracy. And those policies have even less credibility than Obama does.
And it's the credibility of policies that was the real issue all along.
Obama did not have a credible policy on Syria, just like he didn't have one on Libya or Egypt. This is not an administration that is capable of foreseeing the unexpected consequences of its actions abroad. Instead it operates with the arrogant dogmatism of the left by assuming that ideological cred will translate into results. It hasn't and doesn't.
Now Obama would like to bomb Syria, while his advisers admit that there is no real plan for Syria.
Obama bombed Libya and now the Muslim Brotherhood has forced the elected government out of power while militias battle for control over its major cities. The media won't report that, just as it skims across the surface of Benghazigate, because it might give people the idea that bombing a place without having a plan for the aftermath is a bad idea.
The constant calls for protecting Obama's credibility are really demands that Congress enlist in the media's spin brigade by protecting his image for the sake of national security. But the only people being fooled by this show are other Americans. The spin corps isn't protecting American credibility abroad; it's promoting America credulity at home.
Obama's political palace corps still insists on selling Americans on the myth of his competence. That is the confidence trick they want to pull off with the help of Congress. It is a trick that will not be played on Assad or Putin or the rest of the world, instead it will once again be played on the American people.
Even the experts have trouble explaining how and why the attacks will do any good. The debate has congealed down to credibility.The only real argument in favor of hitting Syria is that Obama laid down a red line and Congress is obligated to protect his credibility when making poorly thought out threats for the sake of national security.
But it's not Congress' job to protect Obama's credibility for the sake of the nation. It was Obama's job to protect the nation’s credibility by not setting a red line until he had Congressional approval.
Bush was able to go to Congress and get an authorization to use force against Iraq contingent on the failure of diplomacy and Saddam continuing to flout United Nations Security Council resolutions.
Obama could have done the same thing on Syria. He could have done it at any point in time after his original red line remark a year ago. Bush got his authorization half a year before the war. Obama had twice as much time to get his.
But he didn't bother with authorization in Libya. His style of governance is unilateral and he had no intention for asking for one in Syria. Instead Obama chose to wait until the last minute when an incident occurred that would force his hand, only to then backtrack by taking it to Congress, a move that his people repeatedly rejected until it became politically convenient.
And now Congress is supposed to somehow salvage his credibility from this mess.
What credibility?
While the media lectures Congress on its obligation to pretend that the emperor is wearing pants for the sake of the empire, they're forgetting that there were never any pants to begin with.
We're not dealing with a case of suspected emperor nudity to be covered up. The world has already seen video of the emperor flashing everyone on the National Mall since his first inauguration.
The media can spin Obama's failed strawmen into gold, but their spinning reels end at the border. Americans may be the captive audience of his media, but the enemies he needs to impress aren't.
Obama didn't impress our enemies with his inability to make up his mind about Afghanistan. The firing of multiple generals, the mounting death toll and the clumsy attempts to negotiate with the Taliban took away his credibility.
Bombing Syria at this late date will accomplish nothing except to provide a tepid anticlimactic conclusion to an incompetent policy.
The people he needs to impress, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Ayatollah Khamenei have already taken his measure and are unimpressed. If Congress belatedly approves his strikes on Syria, none of them are going to run off and hide under their desks or confuse the messy delayed outcome with a show of real strength.
Credibility isn't just about making and keeping threats. It's about knowing which threats to make and why to make them.
Our enemies don't doubt that we can bomb. They doubt that we know whom to bomb and why.
No one doubts that America has lots of cruise missiles. After Obama's sequester, we don't have as many as we used to, but our capabilities are not really in dispute. What is in dispute is whether we are capable of conducting a credible foreign policy. It's hard to characterize a belated bombing of Syria on behalf of a Free Syrian Army that everyone but us knows is our enemy as a credible policy.
America doesn't lack cruise missile credibility. We've used them in the past and everyone knows we'll use them again. There is even the distinct possibility that we might invade a country. But that is only intimidating to an Assad. It doesn't intimidate the bigger players in the game who know that we will never bomb them or invade them.
No act of Congress can buy Obama any kind of credibility and no amount of bombs will put the mom jeans back on the naked emperor. It's too late for that.
The recurring argument that Iran is watching Syria and that its nuclear program hangs in the balance is hot air.
Iran knows that Obama isn't trying to bomb Syria because he really believes that WMD use is a red line. Its leaders know that the proposed attacks, like the arms being supplied to the rebels, are part of Obama's support for the Sunni opposition at the behest of the Sunni oil states who have a death grip on Washington.
The message from the attacks won't be that America takes human rights atrocities seriously. Sudan, Rwanda and countless other genocides make a mockery of that. The message will be that the Saudis can still call in the United States Air Force and Navy to clear the way for their regional objectives.
Losing Syria will weaken Iran, but that will only accelerate its nuclear program as it rushes to find an even bigger club to use to hold on to Lebanon and Iraq.
Obama will not bomb Iran. The Democrats did everything possible to stop Bush from doing it. They are not about to do it themselves. Any belief otherwise is wishful thinking. Israel's leaders have unfortunately allowed themselves to believe that the link is there. And Netanyahu has done some foolish and destructive things out of that mistaken belief.
Killing the myth that Syria is a gateway to Iran is good for Israel. It means that Israel may finally realize that it's alone and that Obama will not step in and do the right thing at the last minute once every ounce of diplomacy has been squeezed out and the sanctions have been tightened as much as they will go. And then it may finally look after its own interests.
Nor for that matter is Obama truly serious about dealing with Syria's WMD stockpiles, some of which were originally Saddam's missing weapons. If Obama were stepping in to eliminate Syria's stockpiles and had a convincing plan for doing it, that would be a legitimate national security issue and there would be far less debate over it.
But despite the wording of the resolution, that's not really on the table. Obama will either make some sort of empty gesture with cruise missiles; a bad habit that his people picked up from their previous employment with Bill Clinton who used cruise missiles to punctuate bad polls, or will pound away at Syrian military targets to aid the Islamist rebels.
Either way, the confidence trick will be in the discredited policies of soft power and nation building through Islamist democracy. And those policies have even less credibility than Obama does.
And it's the credibility of policies that was the real issue all along.
Obama did not have a credible policy on Syria, just like he didn't have one on Libya or Egypt. This is not an administration that is capable of foreseeing the unexpected consequences of its actions abroad. Instead it operates with the arrogant dogmatism of the left by assuming that ideological cred will translate into results. It hasn't and doesn't.
Now Obama would like to bomb Syria, while his advisers admit that there is no real plan for Syria.Obama bombed Libya and now the Muslim Brotherhood has forced the elected government out of power while militias battle for control over its major cities. The media won't report that, just as it skims across the surface of Benghazigate, because it might give people the idea that bombing a place without having a plan for the aftermath is a bad idea.
The constant calls for protecting Obama's credibility are really demands that Congress enlist in the media's spin brigade by protecting his image for the sake of national security. But the only people being fooled by this show are other Americans. The spin corps isn't protecting American credibility abroad; it's promoting America credulity at home.
Obama's political palace corps still insists on selling Americans on the myth of his competence. That is the confidence trick they want to pull off with the help of Congress. It is a trick that will not be played on Assad or Putin or the rest of the world, instead it will once again be played on the American people.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Classical Guitar - Michael Lucarelli
"Malagueña", is a song by Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona; written in 1928 it was originally the sixth movement of the Suite Andalucia, to which Lecuona added lyrics in Spanish. The song has since become a popular, jazz, marching band, and drum corps standard and has been provided with lyrics in several languages.
Asturias (Leyenda) is a musical work written by the Spanish composer Isaac Albeniz.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
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