“I’m An Israeli Soldier, Proud To Be”

All you anti-Christian, anti-Semites, you can kiss my puwet. Tell your lies. They’re from Satan. I stand in solidarity with Israel, the Jews, Jesus, Providence and against Satan, who calls himself Allah among other names.

Deploying the National Guard overseas on the basis of an Executive Order?

NBC News reports

“President Barack Obama is expected to issue an executive order Thursday paving the way for the deployment of National Guard forces to Liberia to help contain the Ebola outbreak there, sources told NBC News.

The sources said that eight engineers and logistical specialists from the Guard, both active-duty and reservists, would probably be included in the first deployment. They are expected to help build 17 Ebola treatment centers, with 100 beds apiece. The sources said that no decision had been made.

Defense Department officials said that the executive order was necessary to speed the deployments, and would allow the president to send additional forces as needed. Health officials have recorded more than 2,400 Ebola deaths in Liberia, the highest of any country.”

The National Guard? There have undoubtedly been numerous changes for the worse in our laws in recent years, but when did the President get the authority to call up National Guardsmen for duty beyond our borders on his own imperial say so?

What the hell has this country, and have its people, become?

UPDATE:

In partial answer to my own question we have this from the Heritage Foundation. I have made paragraphs in some cases where none were before in order to emphasize certain points.:

“In the 1980s, governors again resisted a presidential call for the militia (National Guard). Some of them objected to the deployment of their states’ National Guard troops to Central America. Led by Minnesota governor Rudy Perpich, these governors withheld their consent to federally ordered National Guard active duty training, as was their prerogative under then current federal law.

In response, Congress enacted the Montgomery Amendment, which prohibited governors from withholding consent for National Guard active duty service outside the United States.

Perpich filed suit against the Department of Defense, arguing that the Montgomery Amendment was unconstitutional because it infringed on the militia training authority granted to the states under Article I, Section 8, Clause 16.

Perpich also sought to enjoin the use of Minnesota National Guard troops in any training outside the United States that did not have the governor’s consent. Ultimately, the Supreme Court upheld the supremacy of presidential control over the operations of the militia when called into actual service of the United States.

Like James Monroe and Justice Joseph Story, the Court held that a state governor could not veto the use of a state militia when called upon by the nation in accordance with Congress’s constitutional power and the President’s constitutional authority.

Recent Presidents have made more use of the National Guard as a reserve, calling units up for long periods of duty abroad, in actions in the two Gulf Wars, Bosnia, and Afghanistan.”

All this still leaves open the matter of Congressional assent, and under what legal authority the militia is being “called into the actual service of the United States”.

My, what a race of serfs we have become.

Jew-Hating Mainstream Media Used As Human Shields. Will They Become #Pro-Israel?

Yeah, like that’s ever gonna happen. But seriously, Hamas used the media as human shields as they launched a rocket aimed at Israel from the Gaza hotel that the media uses.

On August 1, terrorists fired a rocket at Israel from the al-Mashtal hotel frequented by foreign journalists in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/FzPXrA7zs2

— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) August 4, 2014

DAILY RECAP: Day 27 of Operation Protective Edge. 108 rockets struck Israel. pic.twitter.com/M2iLIxonEF

— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) August 4, 2014

Will the media wake up to the Truth? Is the Pope Hindu?

Veterans Day

I don’t intend to post up any extensive ruminations for Veterans Day. The “blogosphere” will be filled to brimming with retrospectives on the holiday, and on the soldiers, sailors, and airmen, who are veterans of the armed services.

Some significant attention will probably be given to the subject of the dwindling number of WWII veterans still among us.

I thought I would take the occasion to post a few images taken by, and of, a couple of that era’s veterans: brothers, who could not be any closer than they are, nor mean any more to me, than they already do.

Lest we forget.

Over here …

Review on parade grounds at M.B.T.S. N.Y 1945

A young sailor seated at a training piece. Probably a twin 40mm Bofors at Manhattan Beach

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over there

GIs

Dachau Spring 1945. Captioned “Lovely people – these Nazis”

Lined along the grade

German Civilians “volunteer” to lend a hand

German prisoner column marching through forest past US Military vehicles

DeGaulle

Paris

This Just In – Seventy-two killed resisting gun confiscation in Boston!

This may sound a little familiar. It just happened in Canada. But not the killing.

Seventy-two killed resisting gun confiscation in Boston!

Boston – National Guard units seeking to confiscate a cache of recently banned assault weapons were ambushed by elements of a Para-military extremist faction. Military and law enforcement sources estimate that 72 were killed and more than 200 injured before government forces were compelled to withdraw.

Speaking after the clash, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Gage declared that the extremist faction, which was made up of local citizens, has links to the radical right-wing tax protest movement.

Gage blamed the extremists for recent incidents of vandalism directed against internal revenue offices. The governor, who described the group’s organizers as “criminals,” issued an executive order authorizing the summary arrest of any individual who has interfered with the government’s efforts to secure law and order.

The military raid on the extremist arsenal followed wide-spread refusal by the local citizenry to turn over recently outlawed assault weapons.

Gage issued a ban on military-style assault weapons and ammunition earlier in the week. This decision followed a meeting in early this month between government and military leaders at which the governor authorized the forcible confiscation of illegal arms.

One government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, pointed out that “none of these people would have been killed had the extremists obeyed the law and turned over their weapons voluntarily.”

Read it all here:
http://fauquierfreecitizen.com/seventy-two-killed-resisting-gun-confiscation-in-boston/

Memorial Day 2013 – Marine Corps Monument – Iwo Jima Flag Raising

Note the size of the monument to the Marines. Just outside of Ft. Myer, VA near Arlington National Cemetery.

Just a Marine

From the Allentown, Pennsylvania, Morning Call:

NCAA to honor Kutztown U. grad who lost leg after Iraq War bombing

David Borden, a Marine, lost a leg after Iraq bombing and went on to Afghanistan.

Kutztown grad and US Marine David Borden, who lost a leg and nearly lost his life in a bombing in Iraq, only to return to active duty in Afghanistan, will receive the NCAA’s Inspiration Award Friday in Texas. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO, THE MORNING CALL / August 12, 2011)

By Jeff Schuler, Of The Morning Call | 10:06 p.m. EST, January 17, 2013

His right foot had been blown off. Later, infection would force the amputation of his leg just above the knee.

His right femur was broken. His right forearm was broken, his left shattered. He had a collapsed lung, a ruptured bladder, and doctors also estimated that between 150 and 200 ball bearings had been embedded in his body.

“There wasn’t a piece of his body except for maybe his left leg that wasn’t messed up,” David Borden Sr. said of the Jan. 19, 2008, suicide bomb attack in Ramadi, Iraq, that nearly took the life of his son, Marine Lt. David Borden, Kutztown University Class of 2003.

Yet shortly after coming out of a coma at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, and as he faced countless surgeries and months of rehabilitation, Borden had just two thoughts: to get out of his bed and help motivate others at the facility in their recovery efforts, and to eventually return to active duty.

A lot more at the link.

Captain Borden returned to the Middle East in January of 2011, as a Marine company commander, and he wasn’t just sitting behind a desk; he walked armed patrols outside of the gates as well.

He is being awarded the NCAA Inspiration Award because he played football at Kutztown University, but noted:

I’m not the only injured service member to return to active duty, and I’m not the only injured service member to lose a limb and return to active duty. A lot of people do this and don’t get the publicity I’ve received because of my command billet and this award.

Captain Borden doesn’t think that he is a “hero,” saying:

The word ‘hero’ is for the men and women who give the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

A hero? I will leave that for others to decide. To me, it sounds like he’s just a Marine.
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Cross-Posted on THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL.

Veterans’ Day 2012

From Cassy Fiano, six days ago:

Remember Fort Hood: Three Years Later

by CASSY | NOVEMBER 5, 2012

Three years ago today, there was a jihadist attack on Fort Hood perpetrated by Major Nidal Hasan. Michelle Malkin has the names of those murdered, which included one soldier’s unborn baby:

1. LTC Juanita Warman, 55, Havre de Grace, Md.
2. MAJ Libardo Caraveo, 52, Woodbridge, Va.
3. CPT John P. Gaffaney, 54, San Diego, Calif.
4. CPT Russell Seager, 41, Racine, Wis.
5. SSG Justin Decrow, 32, Plymouth, Ind.
6. SGT Amy Krueger, 29, Kiel, Wis.
7. SPC Jason Hunt, 22, Tillman, Okla.
8. SPC Frederick Greene, 29, Mountain City, Tenn.
9. PFC Aaron Nemelka, 19, West Jordan, Utah
10. PFC Michael Pearson, 22, Bolingbrook, Ill.
11. PFC Kham Xiong, 23, St. Paul, Minn.
12. PVT Francheska Velez, 21, Chicago, Ill. and her unborn baby
13. Michael G. Cahill, Cameron, Texas [civilian]

It still breaks my heart thinking of Pvt. Velez especially, who cried out for her baby as she lay dying.

A pregnant soldier shot during a rampage at a Texas Army post last year cried out, “My baby! My baby!” as others crawled under desks, dodged bullets that pierced walls and rushed to help their bleeding comrades, a military court heard Monday.

A soldier had just told Spc. Jonathan Sims that she was expecting a baby and was preparing to go home, when the first volley of gunfire rang out Nov. 5 in a Fort Hood building where soldiers get medical tests before and after deploying.

“The female soldier that was sitting next to me was in the fetal position. She was screaming: ‘My baby! My baby!’” Sims said.

It’s pretty much a known fact for anyone with more than two brain cells in their head that the attack on Fort Hood was a terrorist attack. Hasan had plenty of evidence against him there. He defended suicide bombings and said that Muslim service members were justified in killing US troops. He was in contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, one of the world’s most notorious terrorists. And what did they discuss? Carrying out jihad in the United States.

Yet Barack Obama continues to classify this attack as “workplace violence”.

Shame on him.

How can there be shame on someone who is shameless?

If there was ever a time for the Commander-in-Chief to change the designation away from the idiotic “workplace violence” tag to something which would allow the award of Purple Hearts to the victims of Nidal Hasan’s deliberate attack on American soldiers, Veterans’ Day would be that time.

I do not understand why he does not; it isn’t as though doing so could somehow inflame passions of the Muslims around the world against the United States more; we are at war against the Islamists, and are actively killing them in Afghanistan, directly, through combat, and in Pakistan via the occasional drone attack against al Qaeda leaders. We sent SEAL Team 6 into Abbottabad, Pakistan, to eliminate Osama bin Laden, and we used unmanned drones in Yemen to kill Anwar al-Awlaki and then his son,Abdulrahman al-Awlaqi, though the actual target at that time was (supposedly) Ibrahim al-Banna, an Egyptian al Qaeda operative. The Muslims know that we are at war with the Islamists, and the American people know that we are at war with the Islamists, and there is really no reason at all not to designate the Fort Hood massacre as an Islamist attack on our soldiers.

THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL salutes our veterans on Veterans’ Day, and as much as I can speak for our host here, TRUTH BEFORE DISHONOR does as well.
_______________________________________
Cross-posted on THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL.
_______________________________________
Related articles:

• A dry straight razor
• The Fort Hood Massacre victims: no Purple Hearts for them!
• Fort Hood and the Election
• My daughter is safe
• Fort Hood Massacre Is Just Another Workplace Violence Issue According to BO

A dry straight razor

John Hitchcock has informed me that Lee DeCovnick of the American Thinker picked up and referenced my article, The Fort Hood Massacre victims: no Purple Hearts for them!, published on TRUTH BEFORE DISHONOR. It was published on THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL as well, but the link was to the article on Mr Hitchcock’s site.

It’s interesting that that link came today; Sister Toldjah tweeted:

RT @breakingnews: Army appeals court rules Fort Hood shooting suspect can be forcibly shaved before trial – @ap

— Sister Toldjah (@sistertoldjah) October 18, 2012

Here’s the story:

Army appeals court rules Fort Hood shooting suspect can be forcibly shaved before trial

Published October 18, 2012 | Associated Press

FORT HOOD, Texas – An Army appeals court has ruled that the Fort Hood shooting suspect can have his facial hair forcibly shaved off before his murder trial.

The U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals’ opinion issued Thursday upheld the military trial judge’s decision to order Maj. Nidal Hasan to appear in court clean shaven or be forcibly shaved.

It also ruled that Col. Gregory Gross, the judge, properly found that the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act doesn’t give Hasan the right to have a beard while in uniform at trial.

Hasan has said the beard is an expression of his Muslim faith. His attorneys say they’ll appeal the ruling.

I wonder: do they have to use lather and hot water, or is a dry straight razor acceptable? 🙂

Of course, I’m sure that they will use an electric razor on this fine example of the religion of peace.

I suspect that Major Hasan’s insistence on wearing a beard is less “an expression of his Muslim faith” than it is of doing what little he can to spite the Army and the United States again. If it were truly his Muslim faith, after having launched a martyrdom attack, he would proudly plead guilty and ask for a sentence of death. Perhaps he thinks that he’ll be able to use his court martial to issue some kind of grandiose statement, but the presiding officer will quickly squelch that.

I don’t recall discussing the death penalty much on THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL, but readers of my old site will recall that I am opposed to capital punishment. Major Hasan could be sentenced to death if found guilty, and part of me would like to see that, just so we could see how the brave Islamist warrior shrinks from such a fate and appeals the sentence. But, in reality, the best sentence would be life in prison, deprived of all of his religious materials, with a crucifix hanging on his wall, forever out of his reach, and a promise to throw his body to the pigs when he finally dies. Let him languish, remembering every day as he urinates and defecates in his diaper¹ that while he may have killed fourteen people who were better than him, he is really a small and unimportant man creature, headed only for Hell.
_______________________________
¹ – Major Hasan was paralyzed from the waist down by fire from the security guards who finally stopped his rampage.
_______________________________
Cross posted on THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL.

Military Endorsements, And The Winner Is…

Barack Obama has six high-profile military endorsements, all male. Mitt Romney has six retired female flag officers* (that’s general/admiral stuff for you non-military types) among his military endorsements. Actually, Mitt Romney has 359 retired flag officers who have endorsed him for President.

Who do you suppose those who have served this country in uniform support?

*I didn’t count names like “Terry” and “Chris” (there were no Danas) or names that were only initials, so the count could be higher.

Communism, Socialism, Progressivism And The American Founding

[This article was originally published on the Fourth of July, 2011. I am republishing it today, the Fourth of July, 2012. As the election cycle heats up, the choices Americans make this year will decide whether the USA survives as a Free country or descends fully into Tyranny.  Brought to the front page on September 29, 2012.]

As we celebrate American Independence, it is important to know what it means and what it doesn’t mean. It is important to know what to fight for and what to fight against. After 236 years of American Independence, we are once again in a fight for the survival of the United States. While militant Islam is a grave threat from without, an even graver enemy from within is threatening to destroy the United States. That enemy is Communism, Socialism, Progressivism.

Communism, Socialism and Progressivism is essentially the same thing. Oh, there may be differences between them, but the differences are slight. As the sassafras tree has as many as four different leaf patterns on the same tree, Communism, Socialism, Progressivism and Fascism are all essentially from the same tree. Fascism may be considered the most unique of the four, but like the other three, Fascism is dependent on a large, centralized, and omnipotent government.

A look at the Communist Party USA Constitution provides some scary stuff. It is definitely totalitarian in form and function. And it is dependent on class envy and class warfare. The Communist Party USA Constitution precludes individual Liberty and mandates a loss of liberty — within the document.

The document begins immediately with class warfare and class distinction and class identification. There is nothing “individual” about it.

The Communist Party USA is the party of and for the U.S. working class

The document very clearly spells out its aim, within the preamble.

Our party fights for jobs and economic security, … with socialism as our goal. Only through the abolition of the capitalist system and the socialist reorganization of society… We seek to build a socialist society…

Three calls for Socialism in the second paragraph of the preamble, with two declarations that Capitalism is to be destroyed. Communism and Socialism are two completely different things? Not so, according to the Communists’ own governing document.

Marxists have long hailed its progressive significance… This legacy gives us, the working class and its allies, the right and responsibility to build a new society. We advocate an expanded Bill of Rights to guarantee religious, political, and individual freedoms, but also freedom from poverty, hunger, joblessness, and racism.

Not only a tie to Progressivism in the third paragraph of the preamble but also a demand for Constitutional rights to not be poor, hungry, unemployed. Add in a Constitutional prohibition on racism. Now, that would destroy the First Amendment’s Freedom of Speech and of the Press and of Association.

Paragraphs 4, 5, 6 of the preamble hit the class warfare gong some more, with ties into Progressivism and more attacks on capitalism. But there is something even more insidious in paragraph 6.

In the spirit of working-class internationalism, the Communist Party builds the closest bonds with Communist and Workers Parties throughout the world.

There is zero interest in National Independence and an overarching aim for One World Socialist government. Remember, the very beginning of the Communist preamble said Socialism was its goal; therefore, a single Socialist government is the Communist goal. That means the destruction of the US and everything it stands for.

Founded in Chicago in 1919, the Communist Party of the United States has an outstanding history in the struggles for peace, democratic rights, racial and gender equality, economic justice, union organization, and international solidarity.

“Economic justice” is a euphemism for taking from the rich and spreading it around. In other words, class warfare. And there’s that “union organization” thing. The Communists are very strong on unions (which, not coincidentally, are destroying government budgets nationwide). You’ll see more of that later. And once again, the internationalism and rejection of national sovereignty.

Article 2, Section 1, Paragraph 1:

The system of organization of the Communist Party is based upon the principle of democratic centralism, which means that decisions and policies are made through democratic procedures, and that once a final decision is made, all members are obligated to carry it out.

Centralized power. And no individual liberty. Everyone is required to work to fulfill the demands of the central power. No choice in the matter. Does that sound like the America you know? Does that sound like the America you want?

Article 2, Section 1, Paragraph 3:

Collectivity is the basic style of work of the Party.

You work for the Collective. You are not an individual.

Article 2, Section 3, Paragraph 1:

All members, including those who disagree, are duty bound to explain, fight for and carry out such decisions, as long as they do not conflict with national policies and decisions.

Nobody has a choice. Individual Liberty is lost. If the Party says it, it must be obeyed. If you disagree with it, you have no choice but to fight for it and push it. Freedom is done. The Collective, the Party rules. They own you. Is that something you want? Or is that something to fight tooth-and-nail against?

Article 2, Section 3, Paragraph 2:

While the appeal is pending, the decision must nevertheless be carried out by all members of the Party.

So, you can take your problem up the Communist chain, closer to the omnipotent central power, but in the meantime, you are required to do that which you do not want to do. Because the Communist Party said so. No freedom; no individual Liberty; no individual identity.

Article 2, Section 3, Paragraph 3:

Once a final decision is made, no member, club, committee or leader has the right to violate the decision or to combine with others to conduct an organized struggle against the decision.

A grass-roots campaign to shift the Communist Party in a different direction is expressly forbidden. Everyone is mandated to march in lock-step with the Central Power. Further in this insidious document, the Party allows its members to voice their differences of opinion, but only within the Communist Party structure, never in public. And then, once the Elites at the Top make their decision, all differences of opinion are vanquished. March in lock-step. No individual Freedom. No individual Liberty.

As I said, I’d get back to the union thing.

Article 6, Section 5:

All Party members who are eligible must belong to their respective labor unions. If no union exists at a Party member’s place of employment, he or she shall strive to organize, or help to organize, a labor union whenever possible.

You have zero say in the matter. You are required to be a Union member. No freedom of choice, no individual Liberty, no individual Freedom. So, you are required to pay Union Dues. Oh, and further up, you are also required to pay Communist Party Dues. No choice, no freedom, no liberty.

I almost forgot. According to the Communist Party Constitution, if you are an “informer,” you get thrown out. What is an informer? That, in itself, is insidious. That means there are Communist Party secrets it doesn’t want the people to know about. That is a major danger to a free society.

There is nothing American about the Communist Party USA. But there is plenty that is anti-American.

The Democratic Socialists of America are just as dangerous to the survivability of the United States.

American movements for social justice must of necessity adopt the internationalism of the socialist tradition.

Internationalism, One World Government, the end to National Sovereignty.

We are socialists because we reject an international economic order sustained by private profit…

Private profit… no more small business owners working to better their situations. It must be Collectivized.

We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane international social order based both on democratic planning and market mechanisms to achieve equitable distribution of resources…

Internationalism, One World Government, take it away from those who have it and give it to those who don’t. You are not allowed to become too successful, to acquire for yourself too much stuff. It must be taken away from you and spread around.

A democratic socialist politics for the 21st century must promote an international solidarity… Democratic socialists are dedicated to building truly international social movements – of unionists, environmentalists, feminists, and people of color -that together can elevate global justice over brutalizing global competition.

More Internationalism, One World Government. National Sovereignty dies. Individual Liberty, individual Freedom, individual choice die. Power to the Unions! Power to the environmentalists (while whole swaths of rich farmland become dust bowls where nothing will grow)! “Competition” also known as the Free Market is the enemy of the Socialist.

In the United States, we must fight for a humane public policies that will provide quality health care, education, and job training and that redirect public investment from the military to much-neglected urban housing and infrastructure.

Does that sound familiar? Why, yes indeed. That is the cry of the Progressives. Socialized health care system with all its mandates and freedom-stripping. Pump more money into State-run education, where all the other money did nothing to improve educational outcomes (but private education, costing much less, outperforms State-run education). Deplete the National Defense. And that “much-neglected urban housing” sounds very familiar, as well. HUD wasting billions of dollars producing next to nothing. CRA causing the mortgage bubble.

Democratic socialists recognize that for individuals to flourish, a society must be grounded in the moral values and institutions of a democratic community that provides quality education and job training, social services, and meaningful work for all. Leaving the provision of such common needs to the private marketplace guarantees a starkly inegalitarian class system of access to opportunity.

The Free Market and private enterprise are to be banished and replaced by a central power that will distribute everything evenly among everyone. You cannot become wealthy by your own ingenuity because that would mean someone else doesn’t have as much as you. And that’s a bad thing. Doesn’t sound very American, does it? Doesn’t sound like individual Liberty or Freedom, does it? And there’s that class warfare, that class envy business again. Very Communist. Very Progressive.

A democratic commitment to a vibrant pluralist life assumes the need for a democratic,responsive, and representative government to regulate the market, protect the environment, and ensure a basic level of equality and equity for each citizen. In the 21st century, such regulation will increasingly occur through international, multilateral action.

Internationalism, One World Government, the loss of National Sovereignty, the loss of Individual Liberty. And “equity for each citizen” once again means you’re not allowed to have more stuff than the person living down the street. Ironic that this was put in the “Liberty” section, no?

As democratic socialists we are committed to ensuring that any market is the servant of the public good and not its master. Liberty, equality, and solidarity will require not only democratic control over economic life, but also a progressively financed, decentralized, and quality public sector. Free markets or private charity cannot provide adequate public goods and services.

Loss of individualism. Loss of Individual Liberty. Destroy the Free Market system. Pay lip-service to “decentralized” public sector, knowing full-well that an omnipotent Central Government must be created. And there’s that Progressivism again.

There is no difference between Communism, Socialism and Progressivism once all the masks are off. They all go to the same place: Loss of Liberty, loss of National Sovereignty, loss of the Free Market, loss of opportunity to become successful and better off than the lazy person down the street, complete loss of Freedom.

And DNW quotes Fascist Oswald Mosley:

“The Fascist principle is Liberty in private, Obligation in public life. In his public capacity a man must behave as befits a citizen and a member of the State; his actions must conform to the interests of the State, which protects and governs him and guarantees his personal freedom. In private he may behave as he likes …

Every man shall be a member of the State, giving his public life to the State, but claiming in return his private life and liberty from the State, and enjoying it within the Corporate purpose of the State. ”

Oswald Mosley, British Union of Fascists

So the Fascists are part of the same tree with the Socialists, the Communists and the Progressives. The people are to be subservient to the all-powerful Government. Individualism, individual Liberty, individual Freedom is to be a thing of the past. And Fascism works great with the Socialist, Communist, Progressivist One World Government.

But that’s not what the United States is about. That’s not what the Founders fought and died to create and protect. That’s not what the Framers worked so hard to protect. And that’s why the Socialists, Communists, Progressives, Fascists all need to destroy all meaning in the US Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.

This Independence Day, think on those things. Consider the grave circumstances and events of the past few years and the great peril the US is now facing from within. Shall you be one of the “Good men who do nothing” or shall you fight for America’s survival?

BO To WW2 Vets of D-Day – I’d Rather Go Fundraising And You Don’t Have Enough Money

I guess the WW2 Vets don’t have enough money for BO to hit them up for Donations, so screw them. He’d rather go for the real money. History, oh, he’s out to erase it.

Obama Not Scheduled to Commemorate D-Day
by Keith Koffler on June 6, 2012, 10:10 am

It’s D-Day and President Obama is hitting the beaches – of sunny California!
Instead of scheduling a brief event to mark the 68th anniversary of America’s brutal landing on the shores of Normandy, Obama is already on his way to San Francisco, where he will hold two fundraisers before moving on to Beverly Hills to stage two more.

Obama failed to mark D-Day with either a speech or a written proclamation both last year or the year before. He did give a speech in 2009, the 65th anniversary of the event.

First Lady Michelle Obama, who has made much of her “Joining Forces” campaign to support military families, also has nothing planned for D-Day. She’ll be in New York City for a fundraiser and then in Philadelphia to meet with campaign volunteers.

More Here:

http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2012/06/06/obama-scheduled-commemorate-dday/

Utter madness

Thanks to William Teach, I found this article, from The Washington Post:

Secret U.S. program releases high-level insurgents in exchange for pledges of peace

By Kevin Sieff, Published: May 6, 2012

KABUL — The United States has for several years been secretly releasing high-level detainees from a military prison in Afghanistan as part of negotiations with insurgent groups, a bold effort to quell violence but one that U.S. officials acknowledge poses substantial risks.

As the United States has unsuccessfully pursued a peace deal with the Taliban, the “strategic release” program has quietly served as a live diplomatic channel, allowing American officials to use prisoners as bargaining chips in restive provinces where military power has reached its limits.

But the releases are an inherent gamble: The freed detainees are often notorious fighters who would not be released under the traditional legal system for military prisoners in Afghanistan. They must promise to give up violence — and U.S. officials warn them that if they are caught attacking American troops, they will be detained once again.

There are no absolute guarantees, however, and officials would not say whether those who have been released under the program have later returned to attack U.S. and Afghan forces once again.

“Everyone agrees they are guilty of what they have done and should remain in detention. Everyone agrees that these are bad guys. But the benefits outweigh the risks,” said one U.S. official who, like others, discussed the issue on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the program.

The story Mr Teach referenced was magnified by another:

U.S. hostage appeals to Obama in video released by al-Qaeda

WASHINGTON (AP) – In a video released Sunday by al-Qaeda, American hostage Warren Weinstein said he will be killed unless President Obama agrees to the militant group’s demands.

“My life is in your hands, Mr. President,” Weinstein said in the video. “If you accept the demands, I live; if you don’t accept the demands, then I die.”

Weinstein was abducted last August in Lahore, Pakistan, after gunmen tricked his guards and broke into his home. The 70-year-old from Rockville, Md., is the country director in Pakistan for J.E. Austin Associates, a Virginia-based firm that advises a range of Pakistani business and government sectors.

In a video message posted on militant websites in December, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri said Weinstein would be released if the United States stopped airstrikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. He also demanded the release of all al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects around the world.

I was strongly reminded of President Reagan’s misguided notion that he could somehow find some “moderate” Iranians with whom to negotiate for the release of American and other Western hostages being held in Lebanon, and that he could trade military weapons for those hostages. Some hostages actually were released, but, in a development which should have surprised no one, more Americans were then abducted to serve as replacement hostages. After all, seizing and holding American hostages now had a concrete value.

And yet another story in today’s news:

Recidivism rises among released Guantanamo detainees

By Mark Hosenball

(Reuters) – The proportion of militants released from detention at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay who subsequently were believed to have returned to the battlefield rose slightly over the last year, according to official figures released on Monday.

In a summary report, the office of the Director of National Intelligence said that 27.9 percent of the 599 former detainees released from Guantanamo were either confirmed or suspected of later engaging in militant activity.

The figures represent a 2.9 percent rise over a 25 percent aggregate recidivism rate reported by the intelligence czar’s office in December 2010.

The increase in the apparent recidivism rate, while not large, comes at a delicate time for President Barack Obama, and could further complicate his attempts to negotiate a peace deal with Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

As a “confidence building” measure, the Taliban have insisted on the release of five specific Taliban leaders currently held at Guantanamo. The Obama administration has been working on a plan under which the detainees could be transferred to the Persian Gulf state of Qatar but still held in detention.

I will eschew diplomacy here, and speak very plainly and bluntly: this is madness! We know that at least some of the released Guantanamo prisoners have returned to the battlefield, to fight against the United States. And while the first story noted that “officials would not say whether those who have been released under the program have later returned to attack U.S. and Afghan forces once again,” a recidivism rate of over 25% from the released Guantanamo prisoners strongly suggests that at least some of the prisoners released in Afghanistan have returned to the battlefield. President Obama is commander-in-chief of the United States armed forces, and is ultimately responsible for their safety and security; how many soldiers and Marines have died because of an idiotic policy to release the enemy, captured on the battlefield, back into the war zone?

I’m trying to picture President Roosevelt telling General Dwight Eisenhower to release some of the German troops captured during World War II as some sort of good will gesture, and somehow, I just can’t.

The notion that we can somehow negotiate a peace agreement with the Taliban is just as stupid as the notion we could find “moderate” Iranians with whom to negotiate. The idea that we can extract promises from prisoners about to be released that they will make nice and not shoot at Americans again, and that those promises will be kept is one that would be rejected as folly by a freshman — a high school freshman — but is, apparently, some sort of sophisticated wisdom by high ranking officials in the Obama Administration, including the President himself. The final line quoted in the first story is instructive:

“Everyone agrees they are guilty of what they have done and should remain in detention. Everyone agrees that these are bad guys. But the benefits outweigh the risks,” said one U.S. official who, like others, discussed the issue on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the program.

No, he wasn’t discussing the issue “on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the program,” he was discussing the issue on the condition of anonymity because he didn’t want to be publicly identified as a fool. Please tell me just what benefits here outweigh the risks to the soldiers and Marines who are being put at greater risk of being killed by returning enemy fighters to the battlefield.

If I sound angry here, it is because I am. I have two daughters in the United States Army Reserve, and while they are not deployed to Afghanistan, either or both could be ordered there tomorrow if the needs of the Army require it. Women are not assigned to combat units, though they can be “attached” to such units if required, and female soldiers and Marines have come under fire in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some have died. My daughters knew that there were risks involved in enlisting in the Army, as did John Hitchcock’s daughter, when she served, including fifteen months of duty in Iraq. It is one thing for soldiers and Marines to risk their lives in defense of our country and its missions, when they are under strong, sound leadership that cares for their safety, and puts their safety as paramount as it can be in pursuit of the mission.

It is something else entirely when their commander-in-chief is an idiot.
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Cross posted on THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL

Conservatives Understand Liberals #tcot

But Liberals don’t understand Conservatives.

This has been widely known to be true for a very long time, but a study has only recently come out proving such to be the case. And it also helps to explain why the radical Left, such as the Obama administration and the Reid-Pelosi Congress, thought their problem was a communications problem instead of what it truly was: a complete and total fully informed rejection of their agenda.

Tina Korbe wrote an article last week regarding the research, which was publicized a week or so prior to her article.

At The American, AEI resident scholar Andrew Biggs highlights an interesting study that confirms what most conservatives probably already know to be true of themselves: We understand why our liberal friends think what they think more than they understand why we think what we think. [link to the article]

[University of Virginia professor Jonathan] Haidt’s research asks individuals to answer questionnaires regarding their core moral beliefs—what sorts of values they consider sacred, which they would compromise on, and how much it would take to get them to make those compromises. By themselves, these exercises are interesting. (Try them online and see where you come out.)

But Haidt’s research went one step further, asking self-indentified conservatives to answer those questionnaires as if they were liberals and for liberals to do the opposite. What Haidt found is that conservatives understand liberals’ moral values better than liberals understand where conservatives are coming from. Worse yet, liberals don’t know what they don’t know; they don’t understand how limited their knowledge of conservative values is. If anyone is close-minded here it’s not conservatives.

Haidt has one theory to explain his results, while Biggs has another. Haidt says conservatives speak a broader and more encompassing language of six moral values, while liberals focus on a narrow subset of those values. Biggs says conservatives understand liberal positions because they’re inundated with them — by the media, by academia, even to a certain extent by the culture.

Haidt and Biggs both have a point. It takes just about a year of actively debating politics or witnessing the debate of politics to realize that (a) the two parties to the debate don’t speak the same language and (b) the liberal party will have few opportunities to learn the conservative’s language. It’s not only that we don’t use the same words, it’s that we also assign completely different meanings to the same words.

I wanted to take the same surveys from both perspectives to see how well I did but couldn’t find the way to do so. I did, however, find a long list of surveys to take, and I think I did fairly well. It’s a rather easy process. Follow the above link, register (which surveys your self-declarations for use during your survey-taking), then take whatever surveys you wish. Of course, I self-identified as Very Conservative, Very Conservative fiscally, Very Conservative socially (and Very Conservative on any other questions I have likely forgotten). How did I rate compared to Liberals, Conservatives, Libertarians?

First, how well did I do logically and how well did I do defeating bias inputs I received?

So, both my blog name (Truth Before Dishonor) and my byline (I’d rather be right than popular) are quite apt. Now, onto other charts.

So That North Korean Rocket Was A Dud

The First Street Journal has the report and some rather poignant commentary. As I was listening to WBAP 820-AM out of Dallas on my way home, I heard the good news. The Rocket went up, and at roughly the point where the first stage separates from the second stage, all the radars trained on it saw a much larger blip, like that of an explosion. Within moments, the rocket was no longer on any radar screen. And you betcha the US Military was watching. And they lost all contact with the rocket within moments of the separation stage, which had a much larger signature than would be expected.

WBAP reported that, because of the missile launch, the US has decided not to send that food relief they had planned to send to North Korea. It’s a rather weak protest, I know, but… North Korea absolutely depends on the entire world to feed its people and to keep its government supplied with free money and free munitions and free equipment. Communist China mostly.

With this aggressive, belligerent move from an out of control rogue state, Communist North Korea suddenly became that much poorer (if that is even possible at this stage, what, with their people eating grass and dirt).

You know, I have to wonder how much business Communist North Korea lost with their failed launch. All those terrorist organizations plus Iran looking to Communist North Korea for their hate-filled, anti-Semitic, anti-West plans. And it all went up in an inglorious fireball.