Brutally Honest

Wisdom on the A&E; decision to cook Duck Dynasty's lead goose...

... from Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal:

“Phil Robertson and his family are great citizens of the State of Louisiana. The politically correct crowd is tolerant of all viewpoints, except those they disagree with. I don’t agree with quite a bit of stuff I read in magazine interviews or see on TV. In fact, come to think of it, I find a good bit of it offensive. But I also acknowledge that this is a free country and everyone is entitled to express their views. In fact, I remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment. It is a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh, and Phil Robertson gets suspended."

The GLAAD statement after A&E's decision to cut Mr. Robertson loose is so rich with hypocrisy:

"What's clear is that such hateful anti-gay comments are unacceptable to fans, viewers, and networks alike," said GLAAD spokesman Wilson Cruz. Robertson's removal "has sent a strong message that discrimination is neither a Christian nor an American value."

Who exactly, seriously, who, is being discriminated here?

Wouldn't it be Phil?  Wouldn't it be anyone who believes what Phil is believing?

The answer is obvious.

My advice to every person voicing support for Mr. Robertson is to heed the wisdom being offered by Mark Shea:

... I can urge people who are fans of Duck Dynasty to use the power of their economic vote and channel choices to tell A&E that this latest attempt to crush free speech by the Gay Legion of Menacing Visigoths for Tolerance is repellent. Like it or not, gays live in a world where millions of people think homosex is a sin and in a country where people have the right to say that if they like. It’s true that A&E doesn’t owe anybody a platform for that view. But it’s also true that nobody owes A&E their allegiance or patronage.

And the parent company that owns half of A&E, Disney.

Problem then solved.

Until the Intolerant repeatedly learn the lesson learned when they took on Chik-Fil-A, this sort of thing will continue.

So hit them... and hit them hard... where their God truly lives, their pocketbooks.

Carry on.

"The hypocrisy is so stunning..."

Victor Davis Hanson:

The hypocrisy is so stunning that it infuriates his critics and stuns his supporters.

Deriding the Iraq war was Obama’s signature selling point. He used it to great effect against both Hillary Clinton (who voted for the war) in the Democratic primaries and John McCain in the general election. For the last five years, disparagement of “Iraq” and “Bush” has seemed to intrude into almost every sentence the president utters.

And now? His sudden pro-war stance makes a number of hypocritical assumptions. First, the U.S. president can attack a sovereign nation without authorization from Congress (unlike the Iraq war when George W. Bush obtained authorization from both houses of Congress). Even if Obama gets a no vote, he said that he reserves the right to strike.

Second, Obama assumes that the U.S. must go it alone and attack unilaterally (unlike the coalition of the willing of some 40 nations that joined us in Iraq).

Third, it is unnecessary even to approach the UN (unlike Iraq when the Bush administration desperately sought UN support).

Fourth, the U.S. president must make a judgment call on the likelihood of WMD use, which is grounds ipso facto to go to war (unlike Iraq when the vast majority of the 23 congressionally authorized writs had nothing to do with WMD [e.g., genocide of the Marsh Arabs and Kurds, bounties to suicide bombers, harboring of international terrorists, violations of UN agreements, attempts to kill a former U.S. president, etc.]).

So review for a moment the Old Obama case against the New Obama.

Go on to the link and review.

It is stunning... to the thinking.

To the uninformed, the gullible, the easily led and distracted, not so much.

Carry on.

Obama, Biden and Syria

Guest posted by tim, The Godless Heathen

Alternative titles; ‘You Can’t Make This Stuff Up‘ or ‘Fact is Stranger Than Fiction’.

As we apparently sprint towards war with Syria, some things need to be brought up, for no other reason than say…irony.

Let’s start out with this quote - Via Ace of Spades: 

“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

Senator Barack Obama, speaking about Pres. Bush launching airstrikes on Iran.

Next, via Moonbattery, comes this wonderful video of then Senator Biden doing his best selfrighteousness, also about impeaching Pres Bush. The fun starts @ the 5:30 mark, but I encourage you to watch the full glorious 7+ minutes of Crazy Chris and Uncle Joe.

Last but certainly not least comes this delicious bit via Gateway Pundit -

"A scenario occurred to me that could change the American political landscape on a dime; What if the Obama ordered airstrikes are followed by UN weapons inspections and they discover the WMDs are the same ones theoretically transferred out of Iraq pre-US invasion of March 2003?"

The fascinating rest is here.

"Transporting the sperm out of the country without consent is also illegal."

If that title isn't strange enough, read the rest of the story:

Earlier this month a widow in her early 40s, referred to as Ms H, obtained a court order in the UK to get surgeons to extract sperm from her dying partner so that she could bear his child. The man, who had suddenly lapsed into a coma after a heart attack, had never given his consent.

Apparently the couple were not legally man and wife, although they had been married in the UK in an unrecognised Islamic ceremony.

Extraction without consent is of questionable legality in the UK. Physically, the procedure is quite brutal and in a conscious person, would be described as assault. As bioethicist Anna Smajdor, of the University of East Anglia, said about a similar case in 2008, “The bodies of dead and dying individuals are vulnerable to assault and exploitation, and the law's function is to protect them.”

However, a judge agreed to Ms H’s request so that she could search for evidence of her partner’s consent. Although this was never produced, she took the sperm out of Britain to an overseas IVF clinic, perhaps to Romania or Cyprus, where it is legal to use sperm without proof of consent. Transporting the sperm out of the country without consent is also illegal.

The UK’s fertility watchdog, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, did not contest any of these breaches. This means, as the Daily Mail’s correspondent put it, “the regulatory body effectively supported her and her doctors in breaking the law”. 

Wait a minute, doesn't a man, like a woman (we're constantly told) have a right to his own body? 

Apparently not.

H/T CMR.

“So who will President Obama identify with in this case?”

The case being the murder of a promising Australian baseball player by supposedly 'bored' teenage thugs.  The problem is that Alan West is the one asking the question and not anyone in the media:

Following the acquittal of shooter George Zimmerman for the murder of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, Obama said that Martin ”could have been me 35 years ago.” Earlier, Obama had said that if he had a son, “he’d look like Trayvon.”

West cast a wider net on Facebook.

“[S]hall we hear anything from the race industry crew, Hollywood elites, or maybe Oprah Winfrey? The issue is not about proliferation of guns in America. This is about a failing black community and the fact that its young men are desensitized to violence because a gangsta culture promotes it,” West wrote on Facebook, reiterating his Twitter question. “So who will President Obama identify with in this case?”

Chancey Allen Luna, 16, and James Francis Edwards Jr., 15, have been charged with first-degree murder in the Friday shooting death of Australian baseball player Chris Lane in Duncan, Oklahoma. Michael Dewayne Jones, 17, is being charged with the use of a vehicle in the discharge of a weapon and accessory after the fact to murder.

Jones told police that the teens killed Lane “for the fun of it” and because they “were bored and decided to kill somebody.”

We won't hear much of anything from the same folks who whined incessantly about the Zimmerman shooting, their hypocrisy evident for anyone with eyes to see.

Nothing to see here folks, move along... and understand that any attempt to suggest otherwise will likely lead to being labelled a racist.

Are the White House tours still shut down?

Because I wonder how many of those tours might've been funded by the family dog's trip to Martha's Vineyard:

Rooms have to be found for dozens of Secret Service agents, someone has to carry a selection of presidential basketballs, and of course the family dog needs his own state-of-the-art aircraft.

Arriving in the idyllic coastal retreat of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, Mr Obama left behind him in Washington DC high profile debates over the budget, government surveillance and his health care reforms. Instead, he will spend the next eight days playing golf, going to the beach, and buying books from the Bunch of Grapes bookstore.

In the air he swapped his suit and tie for khakis and a blue shirt with rolled-up sleeves, while Mrs. Obama wore a yellow-and-white summer dress.

It was the first time the Ospreys have been taken on holiday by a US president.

More than 70 hotel rooms, each costing up to $345 (£220) a night, have been booked out for Secret Service agents, who took charge of luggage including two large mesh bags full of basketballs.

The Obamas are staying in Chilmark on the western tip of the island, an area that is dotted with multi-million dollar homes. The neighbours include actor Ted Danson and the singer Carly Simon.

On several previous visits the Obamas had stayed at the 28-acre Blue Heron Farm, but it has since been sold to Britain's most celebrated architect, Baron Foster of Thames Bank.

The president has therefore had to downsize to a $7.6 million, 5,000-square foot retreat on nine acres which is owned by a businessman friend from Chicago. It includes a basketball court.

As a result Mr Obama will be staying closer to public roads which will have to be closed as his motorcade heads for the golf course or bookshop.

I think we need a countdown clock counting down the days before King Obama is dethroned.

You?

"There is no doubt that this whole tragedy began with the racial profiling of Trayvon Martin."

Jim Wallis has sunk to new depths, apparently deciding to channel Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and others who make their living dividing us on the basis of skin color. 

I read this last night and could do nothing more than shake my head in disbelief:

It’s time for white people — especially white parents — to listen, to learn, and to speak out on the terribly painful loss of Trayvon Martin.

If my white 14-year-old son Luke had walked out that same night, in that same neighborhood, just to get a snack he would have come back to his dad unharmed — and would still be with me and Joy today. Everyone, being honest with ourselves, knows that is true. But when black 17-year-old Trayvon Martin went out that night, just to get a snack, he ended up dead — and is no longer with his dad and mom. Try to imagine how that feels, as his parents.

It was a political, legal, and moral mistake to not put race at the center of this trial because it was at the center from the beginning of this terrible case. Many are now saying, “There was a trial; the results must be accepted.” How well the case against George Zimmerman was prosecuted, how fair the tactics of the defense were, the size and selection of the jury, how narrowly their instructions were given — all will be the subject of legal discussions for a very long time.

But while the legal verdicts of this trial must be accepted, the larger social meaning of court cases and verdicts must be dealt with, especially as they impact the moral quality of our society.

This is not just about verdicts but also about values. 

And the impact of race in and on this case, this trial, and the response to it around the country must now all be centrally addressed.

There is no doubt that this whole tragedy began with the racial profiling of Trayvon Martin. In George Zimmerman’s comments, rationales, and actions, the identity of Trayvon as a young black man was absolutely central. Both sides in the courtroom admitted that.

And when the defense put up as a witness a white woman who had been robbed by a black man as central to why Zimmerman picked out Trayvon Martin to follow and stalk — it really said it all. Was she robbed by Trayvon Martin? No. So why should he be suspect because of another black robber? That is racial profiling. Period.

As the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his most famous “I Have a Dream” speech, whose 50th anniversary is coming up this August 24th:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

King’s dream failed on February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Fla., when George Zimmerman decided to follow Trayvon Martin because of the color of his skin. This led to a confrontation in which a child was killed by an adult who got away with it, because of the way Florida laws were written and interpreted.

What exactly happened between Zimmerman and Martin will never be known, because the boy is dead and the adult did not have to testify and be cross examined. How a black boy responded to a strange man who was following him, and what the stranger did with that, is a story we can never really know. But regardless of the verdict that rests on narrow definitions of self-defense and reasonable doubt, it is absolutely clear that racial profiling was present in this whole incident.

And racial profiling is a sin in the eyes of God. It should also be a crime in the eyes of our society, and the laws we enact to protect each other and our common good.

Regular readers know I think little of what Jim Wallis thinks on just about any subject.

Today I think even less.

This is undoubtedly one of the most disgraceful things I've seen the man write.

He is fanning the flames that are already burning all while talking about how much the rest of us are sinning.

Mr. Wallis should spend more time navel gazing and less time pointing the bony finger of accusation at the rest of us.

Would Islamic madrassas also encourage division and discourage cooperation?

That's a question I'd love to hear someone in the media ask the President in the wake of these remarks made Monday in Ireland:

The US President has made an alarming call for an end to Catholic education in Northern Ireland in spite of the fact that Archbishop Gerhard Müller told Scots that Catholic education was 'a critical component of the Church.’

President Barack Obama (above), repeated the oft disproved claim that Catholic education increases division in front of an audience of 2000 young people, including many Catholics, at Belfast’s Waterfront hall when he arrived in the country this morning.

“If towns remain divided—if Catholics have their schools and buildings and Protestants have theirs, if we can’t see ourselves in one another and fear or resentment are allowed to harden—that too encourages division and discourages cooperation,” the US president said.

Obama has absolutely no credibility when preaching for cooperation and against division.

None.

He is arguably the most uncooperative and divisive President in history.

The President's grape-fruit sized 'nads

When I heard about this yesterday, I was incredulous:

President Obama used a speech at Mexico’s Museo Nacional de Antropología – the National Anthropology Museum – to claim that ‘most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States.’

‘I think many of you know that in America, our Constitution guarantees our individual right to bear arms,’ Obama said. ‘And as president, I swore an oath to uphold that right, and I always will.’

‘But at the same time, as I’ve said in the United States, I will continue to do everything in my power to pass common-sense reforms that keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people.’

‘That can save lives here in Mexico and back home in the United States,’ Obama added. ‘It’s the right thing to do.’

'So we'll keep increasing the pressure on gun traffickers who bring illegal guns into Mexico. We'll keep putting these criminals where they belong: behind bars.'

It's ballsy, to say the least, that this guy would in essence blame America for Mexico's violent culture while ignoring his administration's own culpability in the Fast and Furious scandal. 

Obama also did not mention the more than 2,000 firearms that his Department of Justice ‘walked’ across the Mexican border as part of Operation Fast and Furious, a federal law enforcement project that aimed to track weapons to drug traffickers.

Those guns have been connected to the deaths of at least 300 Mexican citizens. And U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry died in December 2010 when a so-called ‘Fast and Furious gun’ was recovered at the scene of his murder during a routine patrol in Arizona.

An ensuing Congressional investigation led to the first-ever citation of a sitting cabinet member – Attorney General Eric Holder – for contempt of Congress. Holder declined to provide most of the more than 140,000 documents subpoenaed by a House committee, although the Department of Justice did selectively turn over thousands of others.

The term gun ‘walking’ referred to the administration-approved practice of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) of instructing legal gun dealers to sell firearms to so-called ‘straw buyers’ who intended to pass them on to others.

Once sold, the guns would be ‘walked’ across the U.S.-Mexico border with the permission of federal authorities. While their intention was to follow more than 2,000 guns to their destinations inside the illicit Mexican drug trade, barely one-third of them – principally the weapons used in murders and then discarded at the scene, as is common in Mexico – were ever recovered.

Some gun rights groups have argued that Operation Fast and Furious was intentionally devised as a way to promote gun control, citing emails between senior ATF officials that discussed whether the Fast and Furious guns in one region ‘were all purchased from the same [dealer] and at one time.’

‘We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales,’ one email read.

In another, one ATF leader wrote to another that Fast and Furious ‘could be a strong supporting factor if we can determine how many multiple sales of long guns occurred during the course of this case.’

ATF’s intention, ultimately scrapped under political pressure, was to increase reporting requirements on licensed gun dealers when they sell more than one weapon in a single transaction.

A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment about whether President Obama was referring to Fast and Furious weapons in his speech.

It's glaringly revealing that this report comes not from a stateside media outlet but from abroad.

More revealing is that half the country knows not a thing about Obama's blatant hypocrisy.

We are as a country in deep kimchee.

They called it “Spend-Down.”

Margaret Rose Realy is scared, very scared.  Her words.

She has reason to be thanks to the shenanigans of this administration:

They called it “Spend-Down.” The Department of Human Services said this is how it works: “Some people have too much income to qualify for Medicaid. This amount is called excess income. Some of these people may qualify for Medicaid if they spend the excess income on medical bills first. This is called Spend Down”

Disability is not a lot of money, there is no need for a savings account to hold excess income. Disability teaches humility and frugality. The Social Security Administration attorney put me on permanent disability and approved my Medicaid in the autumn of 2012. I received medical benefits for about 90 days. And then in January 2013 my world radically changed…the government changed the Medicaid rules.

I ran the numbers that the DHS indicated as my deductible amount: my Spend Down deductible for medical expenses must be 75% of my disability check (that’s right 75%) before I will be reimbursed.  If it’s, say, 72%…oops, so sorry, you’re not getting any medical reimbursement and you’re out that amount to pay for your living expenses.

So, let’s imagine my SSA monthly income is on the higher end at $1000 a month. This must pay for mortgage, utilities, food, clothing, laundry soap, and, well, all other personal hygiene stuff. And now imagine my medical and prescription expenses are at the low end at $720 for the month. That is only 72%, three points below my required 75% Spend Down deductible. Do the numbers ($1000 SSA income – $720 un-reimbursable medical). That leaves me with $280 per month to pay my mortgage, utilities, and groceries. Oh, and DHS added to my income my qualifying amount of $20 a month in food assistance. $20 a month for food?!

How do I manage financially? Where is the excess income on which my Medicaid Spend Down is based? How do I choose between paying the mortgage or buying prescriptions, seeing a doctor or keeping the lights on?

What am I to do? What are any of us on disability to do?

It doesn't seem right.

It certainly doesn't seem like hope and change.

This is appalling.