DEDICATED TO EXPOSING DISINFORMATION AND PROPAGANDA AND TO PROMOTING UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS - WITH SHARP ANALYSIS AND BLUNT COMMENTARY. NO ADS. NO TIP-JAR. JUST THE TRUTH.
Let's go children of the fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived!
Against us tyranny's
Bloody flag is raised! (repeat)
In the countryside, do you hear
The roaring of these fierce soldiers?
They come right to our arms
To slit the throats of our sons, our friends!
Grab your weapons, citizens!
Form your batallions!
Let us march! Let us march!
May impure blood
Water our fields!
YES, I KNOW: IT'S THE FWENCH ANTHEM! AND THEY'RE WIMPS NOW. BUT THEY ONCE FOUGHT GALLANTLY AND KNEW THE PRICE OF FREEDOM.
WE SHOULD ALL DWELL A MOMENT ON THE BRUTAL VIOLENCE THE LYRICS SING OF...
BRUTAL ARE THE BATTLES IN WHICH FREEDOM IS AT STAKE.
NOT BECAUSE THOSE WHO WISH TO BE FREE ARE BRUTAL, BUT BECAUSE TYRANTS SELDOM GIVE UP THEIR TYRANNIES WITHOUT A BRUTAL DEFENSE OF THEIR TYRANNICAL POWERS.
BONUS VIDEO:
AND NOTE THAT EVEN TODAY THE WIMPY WEASELLY FWENCH SING THE ANTHEM WITH PRIDE, UNASHAMED AT THE BRUTALITY OF THE LYRICS.
WHY?
SIMPLE:
FREEDOM IS GLORIOUS, AND THE COSTS OF WINNING FREEDOM ARE GLORIOUS, TOO.
MAY THE BLOOD OF THE IRANIAN TYRANTS FLOW IN THE STREETS OF IRAN UNTIL THE IRANIANS ARE FREE!
With Iran on a razor’s edge after a week of swelling protests, the Obama administration has fended off pressure from both parties to respond more forcefully to the disputed election there. But if Iranian authorities carry out their latest threat of a more sweeping crackdown, the White House would reconsider its carefully calibrated tone, officials said Friday.
Administration officials said events this weekend in Tehran — when demonstrators plan to rally in defiance of the authorities — would be a telling indicator of whether President Obama would join European leaders and lawmakers on Capitol Hill in more harshly condemning the tactics of the Iranian government.
Well, I think that Congressman Cohen's resolution that was unanimously passed by the House offered an apology, but it went into talking about how we ought to go about rectifying some of the current effects of that past discrimination. And that's what we're doing today as we roll out this working draft of our health care bill.Is Clyburn playing up victimology? Or does he know something about the proposed legislation that the rest of us don't?
What I would do is exactly what we're attempting to do with this legislation, energy legislation, health legislation. I would look at ways that we can programatically and with new policy, address these inequities and make concerted efforts to do things that would make up for them and eliminate the disparities. That's what I would do. We're talking about addressing inequities, disparities that exist in the health care in our communities. That's the kind of thing that we ought to be doing.
Government officials met with managers of the Chinese operations of Google on Thursday afternoon to warn them that the company would be punished if it did not remove the offending material from the Web site, according to a report on Friday by Xinhua, the state news agency.
Earlier Thursday, a government-supported Internet watchdog group, the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center, criticized the search engine for its erotic content and threatened punishment by the government...
On Friday evening, the associative-word feature of the Web site appeared to have been disabled. That is the function that displays a drop-down menu of words related to a search word that is typed into the search engine...
Google released a statement saying it was making greater efforts to clean up its Chinese Web site. “We have been continually working to deal with pornographic content, and material that is harmful to children, on the Web in China,” the statement said.
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any shadier, I’ve learned that the lobbyist now representing the Amazon Defense Coalition (via Kohn Swift & Graf, P.C.) in its $27 billion lawsuit against San Ramon, Calif.-based Chevron Corporation is the same man who represented Stanford Financial Group and its now-indicted founder R. Allen Stanford between 2002 and 2008.
*******UPDATE FOR FIREDOGLAKE "READERS": President Obama’s tepid response to the evidence the Iranian election was stolen from the people of that country by current president President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his thuggish allies is disappointing. …OUR TWO HIGHEST RANKING MUSLIM ELECTED OFFICIALS VOTED PRESENT ON IRAN:
GLENN:Plus, House Approves Iran Bill 405-1. “Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) was the only lawmaker opposed to the resolution. Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and David Loebsack(D-Iowa) voted present.”
Posted at 3:23 pm by Glenn Reynolds
WHAT A FREAKIN' SHAME.Senator John McCain, Obama's Republican rival in last year's US election, described the president's response as "tepid," and blasted him for abandoning the "fundamental principles" of the United States.
WSJ:The President yesterday denounced the "extent of the fraud" and the "shocking" and "brutal" response of the Iranian regime to public demonstrations in Tehran these past four days.
"These elections are an atrocity," he said. "If [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad had made such progress since the last elections, if he won two-thirds of the vote, why such violence?" The statement named the regime as the cause of the outrage in Iran and, without meddling or picking favorites, stood up for Iranian democracy.
The President who spoke those words was France's Nicolas Sarkozy.
Spoken like a good lawyer.
The French are hardly known for their idealistic foreign policy and moral fortitude. Then again many global roles are reversing in the era of Obama. The American President didn't have anything to say the first two days after polls closed in Iran on Friday and an improbable landslide victory for Mr. Ahmadinejad sparked the protests. "I have deep concerns about the election," he said yesterday at the White House, when he finally did find his voice. "When I see violence directed at peaceful protestors, when I see peaceful dissent being suppressed, wherever that takes place, it is of concern to me and it's of concern to the American people."
HOT AIR/THE NATION:Most of the criticism over Barack Obama’s lack of support for Iranians demanding political freedom and true self-determination has come from conservatives, leading some on the Left to jeer at the Right. That may be changing, though, as Obama continues to cling to the mullahs over the grassroots speaking some Truth to Power. John Nichols at The Nation, hardly a bastion of conservative thought, scolds Obama for his “disappointing” and “tepid” response to the Iranian crisis:
President Obama’s tepid response to the evidence the Iranian election was stolen from the people of that country by current president President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his thuggish allies is disappointing. …
EVERYONE AGREES: OBAMA HAS NOT PERFORMED WELL; HE'S BEEN VERY DISAPPOINTING, TO SAY THE LEAST.
“It’s important to not allow the Congress to be used in what is essentially an internal fight in Iran,” said Ellison, one of two Muslim members of Congress.THIS IS THE SAME CRAP WE HAVE HEARD ALL WEEK FROM OBAMA.
NKorea plans to fire missile at Hawaii on Independence Day...BLOOMBERG:
Gates Orders Interceptors to Island...
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he has ordered the U.S. military to take defensive measures should North Korea attempt to fire a ballistic missile toward Hawaii, even as officials express skepticism of the possibility.“I think we are in a good position, should it become necessary, to protect American territory,” Gates told reporters at the Pentagon today. Gates said he has directed the deployment of a missile interceptor system known as Theater High Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad, to Hawaii and the positioning of a sea- based radar system near the U.S. state.
Listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, which WC and I cohost. The show broadcasts live every Friday beginning at noon, Pacific Time.
Far too many misrepresent the significance of the Holocaust, especially in regard to the State of Israel and her people. And far too many people deny it happened altogether, out of bigotry, hatred, and spite. In the face of so much misunderstanding, I am compelled today to speak up about the role of the Holocaust in Israel’s history and Israel’s challenges in preventing anti-Semitic murder from continuing to happen. The Holocaust was the most sinister possible reminder that the Jewish population in exile was in constant jeopardy. It was a definitive argument that anti-Semitism could appear anywhere, and its horrors galvanized international support for the State of Israel.Read the transcript in its entirety. And, you can go here for a video of Menendez's own speech. He deserves much praise for being a US counterpart to Benjamin Netanyahu in correcting Obama's propaganda.
But let us be very clear: While the Shoah has a central role in Israel’s identity, it is not the reason behind its founding and it is not the main justification for its existence.
The extreme characterization of this mistaken view is the following: The Western powers established Israel in 1948 based on their own guilt, at the expense of the Arab peoples who lived there. Therefore, the current state is illegitimate and should be wiped off the face of the map.
This flawed argument is not only in defiance of basic human dignity but in plain defiance of history. It is in defiance of ancient history as told in biblical texts and through archeological evidence. It ignores the history of the last several centuries. Because of what is at stake, it is well worth reviewing this history in detail, and let me make a modest attempt at a very broad overview.
There has been a continuity of Jewish presence in the Holy Land for thousands of years. Jewish kings and governments were established in that area that is now Israel several millennia ago. After untold years of Jewish sovereignty, based in Jerusalem, the land of the Jewish people fell repeatedly to invaders—Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and many others. Jews were repeatedly massacred and expelled, and the departure of so many from the land they had always called home developed into an unparalleled diaspora. From the 16th century until the earliest 20th century, the land that is now Israel was under the control of a distant Ottoman caliphate based in Istanbul, and during this time, as earlier, many Jews returned to their ancestral homeland.
The Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War I, and the treaty granted Great Britain a mandate over the area then known as Palestine. The League of Nations endorsed and clarified this mandate in 1922, requiring Britain to reconstitute a Jewish national home within the territory they controlled, in accordance with the declaration made by British Foreign Secretary Balfour in 1917, making the restoration of Jewish communities in that area a matter of international law. By the time World War II had ended, there were more than 600,000 Jews living in the British Mandate of Palestine.
In 1947, the United Nations approved a plan to partition the territory into Arab and Jewish states. The Jewish Agency accepted the plan. The Arabs did not. On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel declared its independence. On May 15, five Arab nations declared war. Despite being surrounded on all sides, Israel prevailed and expanded its borders, providing a small additional measure of security against attacks which were certain to come and did. So to be clear, the more than 700,000 Palestinians who left Israel were refugees of a war instigated by Arab governments, bent on seizing more land for themselves. But the Arabs who left Israel after its modern founding weren’t the only displaced population in the Middle East. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of Jews who left Europe during and after the Holocaust in the 20th century, more than threequarters of a million Jews fled or were expelled from their homes in Arab and Middle Eastern nations—in cities that many of their families had lived in for nearly a millennium. Their possessions were taken, their livelihoods were destroyed, victims of nationalism and hatred of Israel.
The firing of Gerald Walpin as Inspector General was not an isolated incident, as the Chicago Tribune reports today. Two more IGs have been dismissed in the past two weeks, and Senator Charles Grassley has started demanding answers. The sudden push to rid the government of independent watchdogs appears to coincide with Barack Obama’s plans to use government spending to get control over more aspects of American life, such as with stimulus spending, the financial sector, and volunteer organizations (via Dan Riehl).These would be impeachable if the Congress wasn't run by totally unprincipled Democrats. Obama and Rahm are firing these guys so that the WH can have a free hand doling out PORKULUS money to the machine.
"A big part of what led General Motors and Chrysler into trouble in recent decades were the huge costs they racked up providing health care for their workers — costs that made them less profitable and less competitive with automakers around the world. If we do not fix our health care system, America may go the way of GM — paying more, getting less, and going broke. When it comes to the cost of our health care, then, the status quo is unsustainable."
A substantial majority of Americans say President Obama has not developed a strategy to deal with the budget deficit, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, which also found that support for his plans to overhaul health care, rescue the auto industry and close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, falls well below his job approval ratings.
The poll found a distinct gulf between Mr. Obama’s overall standing and how some of his key initiatives are viewed, with fewer than half of Americans saying they approve of how he has handled health care and the effort to save General Motors and Chrysler. A majority of people said his policies have had either no effect yet on improving the economy or had made it worse, underscoring how his political strength still rests on faith in his leadership rather than concrete results.
Josh Gerstein / The Politico:W.H.: Fired IG ‘confused, disoriented’ — President Barack Obama removed a government agency's internal watchdog last week and plans to fire him in part because he was “confused” and “disoriented” at a meeting last month, the White House said in a letter to Congress Tuesday night.
Palestinian Hamas members are helping the Iranian authorities crush street protests in support of reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, two protesters told TheJerusalem Post On Tuesday.They made their allegations as rioting on a scale unseen in Iran for nearly a decade continued in the wake of the elections and the allegations that the results were falsified. The protests have now spread from Teheran to other major cities.
Mousavi insisted on Tuesday that he would "protect" his supporters' votes "at all cost, even if I am at risk."
Shouting from a car roof to a roaring crowd of supporters, he declared: "The pillars of the revolution have been shaken... We must not be silent."
Unlike Bush, Obama has signaled that he would seek a dialogue with Egypt's opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood. Obama also suggested that his administration would recognize any MB victory, including in parliamentary elections scheduled for 2010 in Egypt."There are some who advocate for democracy only when they are out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others," Obama said. "No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion."
Below are links to the 10 most-recent posts published at Bob McCarty Writes:Enjoy!
OBAMA IS VERY GENEROUS TO HIS MACHINE'S FACTIONS WITH OUR HARD-EARNED MONEY.
President Barack Obama, under growing criticism for not seeking to end the ban on openly gay men and women in the military, is extending benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.
Obama plans to announce his decision on Wednesday in the Oval Office, a White House official said Tuesday.
... The decision is a political nod to a reliably Democratic voting bloc that in recent weeks has grown frustrated with the White House's slow movement on their priorities.
... the administration has tried to make small, quiet moves to extend benefits to gays and lesbians. The State Department has promised to give partners of gay and lesbian diplomats many benefits, such as diplomatic passports and language training.
But without a specific change in the Federal Employees' Health Benefits Program, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's promises left out financial benefits such as pensions. Obama's move could make that shift.
Gay and lesbian activists had expected Obama to take action some time in June, which is gay pride month.
Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that he urged Hamas leaders during a high-profile meeting here to take steps necessary to become accepted by the leading Western nations.... Ismail Haniya, the leader of the Hamas government in Gaza, and Mr. Carter held a joint news conference at which an American flag was displayed alongside a Palestinian national flag behind the speakers. There were no green Hamas flags in sight.THIS INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY IS ILLEGAL; IT VIOLATES THE LOGAN ACT:It was Mr. Haniya’s most public appearance since Israel ended its devastating three-week military campaign against Hamas in Gaza in January, an offensive that Israel said was intended to halt rocket fire by Gaza militants against southern Israel....
Israel, the United States and the European Union classify Hamas as a terrorist organization. They have set three conditions for dealing with Hamas, saying it must renounce all violence, recognize Israel’s right to exist and accept all previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements. Hamas has so far refused to comply.
Hamas leaders have said they will never recognize Israel, and will offer only a long-term truce, not a full-fledged peace treaty, in return for a Palestinian state.
Mr. Carter, 84, emphasized that he was in Gaza as a private citizen, not as a representative of his government. But he said he would write a report on his visit to the region for the Obama administration on his return.
In a three-hour meeting with Hamas government officials and senior representatives of the group, Mr. Carter told them to find a mechanism that would allow Hamas to meet the conditions set by international players, according to Ahmed Yousef, the Hamas deputy foreign minister who attended the meeting.In a brief interview before the meeting, Mr. Carter said that in order to break the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate, “first of all Hamas has to be accepted by the international community as a legitimate player in the future, and that is what I am trying to do today.”
Mr. Carter also called for Palestinian unity and elections, and for an end to the economic blockade of Gaza.
The Logan Act, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 953, states:CARTER HIMSELF HAS NO INJURIES, NOR IS HE A LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE OF ANYINE WHO DID HAVE INJURIES.
Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply, himself or his agent, to any foreign government or the agents thereof for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.
IN 1979, CARTER GAVE THE AYATOLLAHS IRAN.
In mid-December 1981, the Polish government declared martial law, hoping to suppress the Solidarity uprising that started in Gdansk earlier that year. The Soviet puppet Wojciech Jaruzelski imprisoned thousands, including Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, and attempted to suppress self-determination by the Poles through force and intimidation. Then-President Ronald Reagan immediately reacted to the imposition of martial law:the imposition of martial law in Poland has led to the arrest and confinement, in prisons and detention camps, of thousands of Polish trade union leaders and intellectuals. Factories are being seized by security forces and workers beaten.These acts make plain there’s been a sharp reversal of the movement toward a freer society that has been underway in Poland for the past year and a half. Coercion and violation of human rights on a massive scale have taken the place of negotiation and compromise. All of this is in gross violation of the Helsinki Pact, to which Poland is a signatory.
It would be naive to think this could happen without the full knowledge and the support of the Soviet Union. We’re not naive. We view the current situation in Poland in the gravest of terms, particularly the increasing use of force against an unarmed population and violations of the basic civil rights of the Polish people.
Violence invites violence and threatens to plunge Poland into chaos. We call upon all free people to join in urging the Government of Poland to reestablish conditions that will make constructive negotiations and compromise possible.
... The Polish nation, speaking through Solidarity, has provided one of the brightest, bravest moments of modern history. The people of Poland are giving us an imperishable example of courage and devotion to the values of freedom in the face of relentless opposition. Left to themselves, the Polish people would enjoy a new birth of freedom. But there are those who oppose the idea of freedom, who are intolerant of national independence, and hostile to the European values of democracy and the rule of law.
Two Decembers ago, freedom was lost in Afghanistan; this Christmas, it’s at stake in Poland. But the torch of liberty is hot. It warms those who hold it high. It burns those who try to extinguish it.
REAGAN SAID ALL THIS WHILE THE EVIL EMPIRE HAD 45,000 NUKES POINTED AT US AND MORE TANKS AND ARTILLERY AND TROOPS THAN ANY OTHER NATION ON EARTH. INCLUDING 40,000 TANKS IN EUROPE READY TO INVADE.
MEANWHILE OBAMA IS TOO TIMID TO COME OUT SQUARELY AGAINST THE CORRUPT MULLAH THEOCRATIC TYRANTS.The 1972 discovery of the earliest surviving Quranic manuscripts in the Great Mosque of Sana'a conclusively shows that the present Quran is different from the early manuscripts. It proves the Islamic claim---that the Quran is infallability, that it is Allah's original revelation word by word, and that it is copy of the version kept in a tablet in heaven---outright false.
... The devastating truth is that a large number of ancient Quranic manuscripts, dating from first century of Hijra were discovered in the Great Mosque of Sana’a (Yemen), which significantly differs from the present standard one. Carbon dating system confirmed that these Qurans are not forged one by religious rivalries. Moreover, these Qurans were discovered by Muslims, not infidels.This is, probably, the most embarrassing event to Muslims in the 1,400-year history of Islam.
... Until now, only three ancient copies of the Quran are found. The one preserved in the British Library in London, dates from the late seventh century and was thought to be the oldest one. But the Sana’a manuscripts are even older. Moreover, these manuscripts are written in a script that originates from the Hijaz—the region of Arabia where prophet Muhammad lived, which makes them not only the oldest to have survived, but one of the earliest authentic copies of the Quran ever.
... The ancient texts were found to be devastatingly and disturbingly at odds with the existing form. There are unconventional verse ordering, small but significant textual variations, different orthography (spelling) and different artistic embellishment (decoration).
It shattered the orthodox Muslim belief that the Quran, as it has reached us today, is “the perfect, timeless, and unchanging Word of God”. It means Quran has been distorted, perverted, revised, modified and corrected, and textual alterations had taken place over the years purely by Human hands.
The sacred aura surrounding this Holy Scripture of Islam, which remained intact for some 14 centuries is gone with this astonishing discovery and the ‘core belief’ of 1.4b Muslims that the Quran is the eternal, unaltered word of God is now clearly visible as a great hoax, a downright falsehood.
... As if it is not enough, many manuscripts showed the sign of palimpsests, i.e., versions very clearly written over even earlier washed off versions. The underwriting of palimpsest is, of course, often difficult to read visually, but modern tools, such as ultraviolet photography, can highlight them. It suggests that the Sana’a manuscripts are not only variants to the present version of the Quran, but the Sana’a manuscripts themselves were variants of earlier version, re-written on the same paper. It means, Allah’s claim that original text is preserved in heaven on golden tablets (Q 56: 77–78; 85:21–22), which none can touch except angels is also a fairy-tale.
... Today, when the divinity of the Quran is shattered by the Sana’a manuscripts, the spiritual nature of Islam is also exposed. Islam is nothing but a pure Arab political movement. The Divinity was attached to the Quran, when Arabs started conquering the surrounding nations, and Islam was imposed on them by force. Arabs not only imposed Islam on others, but also imposed this irrational belief of Quranic divinity to the minds of their victims, so that once Arabs are gone, the conquered people cannot come out from this mental enslavement, and return back to their original faith. It is a rare political skill.
Many companions of Muhammad clearly knew that the Quran was fake, but they remained with their prophet to share the booty and to enjoy the women. We all know, after Muhammad’s death, several Arab tribes returned back to their original belief, and idolatry flourished, but were forced back to Islam with the sword and bloodbath.
BOTTOM-LINE: IF THE KORAN WAS THE KEY TO PROPER LIVING, THEN WHY ARE THE MOST DEVOUT MUSLIM COUNTRIES HELL-HOLES?
IOW: HOW CAN WE TELL A TRUE PROPHET FROM A FALSE ONE?
"BY THEIR FRUITS YOU SHALL KNOW THEM".
