Please get your head examined

After reading the following, if you still have ANY doubts that Barack Hussein Obama and his peeps are incompetent boobs who need to be put out to pasture post haste, I really hope you’ll make an appointment to have your head examined.

On March 19, 2012, Vice President Joe Biden told the crowd at a Democratic fundraiser in Morris Township, NJ:

“You can go back 500 years. You cannot find a more audacious plan. Never knowing for certain. We never had more than a 48 percent probability that he was there. Do any one of you have a doubt that if that raid failed that this guy would be a one-term president? This guy is willing to do the right thing and risk losing.”

In May 2011, President Obama ordered two dozen American SEALS to chopper into terrorist leader Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan and capture or kill him. The successful raid ended a man-hunt that had begun during the Clinton administration.

Audacious? Maybe. Certainly the SEALs were bold and daring. But Biden wasn’t referring to the guys who actually put their lives on the line in the raid.

He was referring to President Obama’s alleged audacity in ORDERING the assault.  Because, holy crap, if bin Laden hadn’t really been there, that would have damaged Obama’s popularity!

And the White House backed Biden up on this assessment.

“I think he [Biden] meant that the decision the president made … was a very difficult one,” press secretary Jay Carney told reporters at his daily briefing. The intelligence that bin Laden actually lived at that particularly compound was of “high quality” but “not conclusive.”

“In the end, he had to make a very fateful decision,” said Carney. “Obviously, it would have been a different story if bin Laden had not been in that compound.”

So was Biden right to say Obama’s decision to order the raid was more bold, more daring than say … General Eisenhower’s decision to launch the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944?

“The historical assessments I’ll leave to him and others, but there’s no question that this was a very very difficult decision,” Carney said.

Did the vice president misspeak?

“No,” Carney said.

Oh. My. God.

How audacious exactly WAS General Eisenhower’s decision to launch the D-Day invasion when he did?

Only a few days in each month were suitable for the plan to succeed. They needed a full moon and clear skies for night-time navigation by sea and air, plus calm seas during a spring tide to get landing craft over the crap the Germans had dumped into the water off the beaches.

Based on the moon and the tides, General Eisenhower tentatively selected June 5 as the best date. But on June 4, the weather was terrible.

The next full moon and high tide period would be nearly a month away, giving the enemy weeks more to figure out where the invasion landing site was and position troops to intercept it.

Making the right choice to go or to wait was vital.

On June 5, Eisenhower’s chief meteorologist told him he thought there might be a brief improvement in the weather on June 6.

Some of Eisenhower’s generals said go. Some said wait. Eisenhower had to make the critical decision. And it wasn’t his approval ratings or potential re-election that was at stake. It was the entire Allied offensive.

More than 5,000 ships and some 160,000 troops were set to hit a 50-mile stretch of French coastline in the largest amphibious invasion in world history. Another 24,000 parachute troops were set to be flown in and dropped off behind enemy lines.

All of these lives, plus the lives and freedom of all the citizens of all the countries that the Nazis had conquered were on General Eisenhower’s head as he made the critical decision to launch the invasion based on the iffy weather report of a single meteorologist and the contradictory advice from his top generals.

It proved to be the right decision. The invasion turned the tide of World War II and ultimately led to the defeat of the Nazi scourge.

Yet … according to the Obama White House, Eisenhower’s decision that night was NO WHERE NEAR as BOLD and DARING as Barack Obama’s decision to risk two dozen SEALS and a few popularity points based on “high quality” intelligence the CIA had spent more than a decade and tens of millions of dollars gathering.

Wow.

———–
Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/white-house-backs-biden-audacity-bin-laden-raid-175637661.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden#Death

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The ripest apple on the tree

If I Were the Devil: Paul Harvey (Warning for a Nation) [2:54]

This speech was broadcast by legendary ABC Radio commentator Paul Harvey on April 3, 1965:

If I were the Devil . . . I mean, if I were the Prince of Darkness, I would of course, want to engulf the whole earth in darkness. I would have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree, so I should set about however necessary to take over the United States. I would begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: “Do as you please.” “Do as you please.”   To the young, I would whisper, “The Bible is a myth.” I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. I would confide that what is bad is good, and what is good is “square”.  In the ears of the young marrieds, I would whisper that work is debasing, that cocktail parties are good for you. I would caution them not to be extreme in religion, in patriotism, in moral conduct. And the old, I would teach to pray. I would teach them to say after me: “Our Father, which art in Washington” . . .

If I were the devil, I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull an uninteresting. I’d threaten T.V. with dirtier movies and vice versa. And then, if I were the devil, I’d get organized. I’d infiltrate unions and urge more loafing and less work, because idle hands usually work for me. I’d peddle narcotics to whom I could. I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. And I’d tranquilize the rest with pills. If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine yound intellects but neglect to discipline emotions . . . let those run wild. I would designate an athiest to front for me before the highest courts in the land and I would get preachers to say “she’s right.” With flattery and promises of power, I could get the courts to rule what I construe as against God and in favor of pornography, and  thus, I would evict God from the courthouse, and then from the school house, and then from the houses of Congress and then, in His own churches I would substitute psychology for religion, and I would deify science because that way men would become smart enough to create super weapons but not wise enough to control them.

If I were Satan, I’d make the symbol of Easter an egg, and the symbol of Christmas, a bottle. If  I were the devil, I would take from those who have and I would give to those who wanted, until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. And then, my police state would force everybody back to work. Then, I could separate families, putting children in uniform, women in coal mines, and objectors in slave camps. In other words, if I were Satan, I’d just keep on doing what he’s doing.

Paul Harvey, Good Day.

Source of transcript:
http://nation.foxnews.com/paul-harvey/2012/03/20/1965-if-i-were-devil-paul-harvey

H/t to Pete for posting the video in the Illinois Sludge report.

Say good-bye to Gerry Mander!

Will wonders never cease!  Following the 2010 census, DEEP BLUE New York was forced to surrender two of its 29 seats in the United States Congress.  (That means, we also will have 2 fewer electoral votes this fall, thank God.)

Following the utter failure of our State pols to agree where the new districts should go, a panel of federal judges took over and decided for them.

And none too soon, I might add, seeing as New York candidates for Congress have to begin collecting signatures to qualify for a spot on the state’s primary ballot and kinda sorta need to know what districts they’re going to be running in. Duh.

Amazingly enough, the judges decided to go with compact, common-sense districts, putting people together based on geography and population density, rather than on how they’re likely to vote or on where the current incumbents happen to live.

The new map eliminated the mid-Hudson Valley district represented by retiring Democrat Maurice D. Hinchey, as well the Brooklyn-Queens district formerly represented by Democrat slime-bucket Anthony Weiner.

Weiner’s special election replacement, Republican Bob Turner, is seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Democrat Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand who occupies the seat Hillary Clinton vacated to become Secretary of State.

I’m feeling very schadenfreude-ish* over the fact that The Socialist Republican of Ithacastan is no longer gerrymandered to benefit the red diaper babies and effete elite ivory tower types, but instead is grouped with the rural, predominantly Conservative and Republican, wine-and-dairy counties of southwestern New York. Hee hee hee!

*Would you believe? Schadenfreude-ish is actually in the WordPress spell check dictionary! LOL I spelled it wrong at first, but it’s correct now, in case you’re ever wanting to use it. Such a cool word, dontchathink?

Chrissy’s Site Bites: http://news.webshots.com/photo/2447037180056011884NEcKfl
Click on graphic to embiggen.

Presidential Dollar Coins

I dunno why the email about In God We Trust not being on the gold Presidential Coin series is still circulating, but it is. In God We Trust was on the edge from the start. Two years ago, they moved it to below the President’s face.

Click on graphic to embiggen.

Establishment of Atheism

Chrissy’s Site Bites: http://news.webshots.com/photo/2513306460056011884iOSpZb
Click on graphic to embiggen.

On the establishment of religion:

What the Constitution really says

By Alan Keyes – August 26, 2003

http://www.wnd.com/2003/08/20465/

This is quite a long and detailed article, so I have made an outline to help you decide if you want to spend the time reading it in more detail or just trust that I’ve hit the high points correctly. 🙂

Introduction

Federal judges do NOT have the right to interfere with State actions that may or may not constitute an establishment of religion.

The first clause of the 1st Amendment to the Constitution plainly states:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

Since there can be no federal law on the subject, there appears to be no lawful basis for any element of the federal government – including the courts – to act in this area.

The 10th Amendment to the Constitution plainly states:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

This means that the power to make laws respecting an establishment of religion, having been explicitly withheld from the United States, is reserved to the States or to the people.

Taken together, the 1st and 10th Amendments clearly forbid federal judges from doing stuff like banning Ten Commandment displays on State property.

An erroneous premise

Federal judges and justices who do this stuff claim they have the right under the 14th Amendment:

“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

But, the 14th Amendment only restricts the legislative powers of the States where they deal with the rights of individual citizens.

And the first clause of the 1st Amendment deals with the rights of States, not individuals. Specifically, it reserves to each State the right to establish religion if a majority of the people of that State decide they want it.

Distinguishing rights of the people from individual rights

The first two clauses of the 1st Amendment are often treated as if they were one. This is incorrect.

The first clause — “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” — designates a power of government that is reserved to the States. Congress is forbidden to address the subject at all.

The second clause — “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” — deals with an action or set of actions (the free exercise of religion) that cannot be free unless they originate in individual choice. This clause allows for some federal action, but severely restricts the character of such action in favor of free exercise by individuals.

When federal judges ban a Ten Commandments monument on State property, they are violating both the clearly stated right of any State to establish religion and the right of individuals to freely exercise religion.

Parallel rights and actions

The assumption made by the judges that do this stuff is that the right of a State to do something somehow means individuals cannot do that thing.  That is wrong.

• The government’s power to arm soldiers does not interfere with an individual’s right to arm himself.
• The government’s power to establish schools does not interfere with an individual’s right to educate his kids at home or start a private school.
• The government’s power to run a postal service does not interfere with an individuals right to operate a messenger service or set up a company like UPS.

The way the Constitution is written puts religion into the same kind of category — i.e., a matter of parallel individual and governmental possibilities.

Federal and State governments are both forbidden to coerce or prohibit individual choice and action in matters of religion.

The Federal government is further forbidden to get involved in any way with a constitutional majority’s decision within a State to express or support religious beliefs or values. The point of this was to secure the right of the people of the States to live under a State government that reflects their religious inclination.

Subverting the wisdom of the Founders

Federal judges who over-turn State laws on religion violate Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution:

“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.”

Federal judges who ban Ten Commandments displays on State property say the majority is not allowed to have that right, because some minority … possibly even one person … does not like the result of the vote.

But the Constitution protects the right of State majorities to choose on religious matters. Furthermore, it guarantees the rights of every individual in the losing minority to either stick around and try to convince fellow State citizens to change their votes or else move to some other State that upholds a value system they find more congenial.

What it does NOT do is allow federal judges to establish atheism as the official religion of the entire United States.

Unlawful usurpation and lawful resistance

These federal judges put the force of law and the punishment of force behind their orders. These are the very definition of what constitutes “establishment of religion.” Thus, while pretending to protect religious freedom, they actually destroy it.

Ordinarily, we have a duty to obey a court order. But where that order is unlawful, we may have a right or even a duty to disobey it. For example, if a federal judge orders the governor of a state to take actions that he conscientiously believes violates a fundamental and constitutionally protected right of the people of his State, that official is duty-bound to refuse the order.

An aside from CtH: For our military, this duty is encoded in the UCMJ; there is no “I was ordered to commit that crime” exemption allowed to American Soldiers. For Catholics, the moral rights to and limits on civil disobedience were defined by Pope Paul VI in section 74 of his 1965 encyclical Gaudium et Spes.

Judge Moore and the people of Alabama

The citizens of Alabama are justified in bringing suit against those State officials who carried out the judge’s unlawful order. But since the federal judiciary is the perpetrator, what chance do they have?

Judicial self-interest

Federal judges are human and humans are prone to look first to their own self-interest. Thus expanding their own power is likely to distract federal judges from the legal merits of the case.

The people and their representatives

This is why the U.S. Constitution did NOT make federal courts the ultimate judges of their own powers. That job rests with the Congress.

The right and duty of Congress

Congress must pass legislation that says “hands off” to federal courts on matters of State religious expression, such as the placement of a Ten Commandments monument on State property, which neither prevent nor coerce any individual’s practice of religion.

THE ILLINOIS SLUDGE

Posted by Pistol Pete

This thread is dedicated (mostly) to the liberal armpit of the midwest that GP and I live in.

The local stations are saturated with political ads this morning,including a former newsreader who’s running for state senate(as a democrat,of course.)I didn’t even know he was running.