Memorial Day 2015: The saluting boy on Omaha beach [VIDEO]

“And a child shall lead them” — those are the words that came to mind as I watched this video of a young man honoring the memories of those who perished on D-Day. It is well worth seven minutes of your time.

The simple act of devotion from this 11-year-old American boy is more than commensurate to honor the last full measure of devotion of young American boys some 70 years prior.

Every now and then, when there are times of despair, despondency, and desperation we just need a little reminder of the greatness and goodness of America.

Bravo young man, Steadfast and Loyal!

EDITORS NOTE: This video originally appeared on AllenBWest.com. The Publisher of DrRichSwier.com served in combat with the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam. On the featured image you see this young American is wearing the Screaming Eagles patch. His heroes are those of the publisher and staff of this e-Magazine.

America’s Heroes: The Krissoff Family [Video]

As we approach Memorial Day 2015 I received a link to this inspiring video. It is worth the five minutes to watch the story of these American heroes, the Krissoff family.

Memorial Day 2015: Honoring America’s Veterans and the “VetSalute” Web Site

vet salute logoSince December 7, 1941 over one million members of the U.S. Armed Forces have been wounded and over 500,000 made the ultimate sacrifice having lost their lives in combat. A much larger number of U.S. military personnel have suffered injuries on active duty. It has been 70 years since the end of World War II, and still some of the Veterans from that war are seeking proper medical treatment from the Veterans Administration (VA).

Today an average of 23 veterans who served in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan are committing suicide each day. They may have PTSD, and other afflictions and may have not been receiving the proper medical or psychiatric therapy and treatment thru the VA. We encourage all Americans to support all efforts to provide proper medical treatment for all Veterans from the VA and other civilian medical facilities.

In 2008, because of the dedicated and steadfast efforts of Col Buzz Aldrin, USMA’51, USAF (Ret) PhD, Apollo XI Astronaut (the second Astronaut to set foot on the surface of the moon), a Law was passed, which can be fully explained by clicking on the below link. That law encourages and authorizes all American Veterans, in civilian clothes, to render a hand salute when the National Anthem is played at public events. It allows Veterans to continue to demonstrate their respect for the National Anthem, and it also allows all Americans at public events to see who the honorable Veterans are who served under the flag of the nation, and swore to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution.

At this critical juncture in the life of the Republic when our way of life is being threatened by enemies, foreign and domestic, we encourage all Americans to remember and adhere to President John F. Kennedy (Lt-USN) charge to all Americans during his Inaugural Address, when he said, “Ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country.”

The 24 million U.S. Veterans do not have to wonder what they can do for their country. At one point in their life, those Veterans wrote a blank check made payable to “The United States of America” for an amount “up to and including their lives.” Today and every day, we encourage you to remember and thank an American Veteran you may know for their honorable service in defense of the Republic.

Freedom is not free, and over the last 75 years, there were heavy prices paid by members of the U.S. Armed Forces for the liberties all Americans enjoy.

On this coming Memorial Day 2015, in solemn tribute, we join the nation to pay homage to those members of the U.S. Armed Forces, who made the ultimate sacrifice, when they gave “their last full measure of devotion to defend the nation” and by doing so, signaled the world the lengths Patriotic Americans will go to, to safeguard the freedom, liberty, and democracy for all Americans—God Bless their noble souls!

Please visit Vet Salute to learn more.

NYC Mayor De Blasio’s “Contract for Communism”

The Communist Party of the USA is aggressively competing for dominance in our country. The well-researched and written article below by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton is a Must Read and take action piece exposing the diabolical ways of a belief system adamantly and bitterly opposed to the values and ideals for which America was created.

The wolf has definitely worked his way into the hen house camouflaged as elected and high appointed officials, educators, opinion shapers in media, and even in pulpits and ministries purporting to do God’s work. Unless the people of the United States of America repent for their addiction to Humanistic Ways and Means, and return to the core values which made America the envy of the world (why else are so many jumping our borders to get in?), America will cease to exist as we have known her. The continued assault on our heritage and ideals from people like De Blasio and his colleagues spread through-out elected offices, along with the imminent threat from the Muslim Brotherhood and its’ many dimensions, will simply swamp the Ship of State called America.

Terresa Monroe-Hamilton has presented much food for thought that must be intellectually digested, but then acted on by Americans dedicated to preserving our exceptional Nation. Please heed the alarms sounding through-out our Ship of State…we have hit the ice berg and are taking on water. How long we can remain afloat at the hands of people like De Blasio is anyone’s guess, but my gut tells me not for too long!


 

De Blasio’s “Contract for Communism”

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Red Bill de Blasio just unveiled a 13-point national “Progressive Agenda” that is being touted as the liberal “Contract with America.” It more closely resembles a “Contract for Communism.”

And a majority of Democrats wholeheartedly approve this as the basis for the “Progressive Agenda” – the bedrock for their primary economic policies and the running platform for their anointed 2016 presidential candidate. The mask is coming off… they are going full bore Marxist/Communist and are proud of it. Members of Congress are praising de Blasio for uniting Progressives.

Rev. Al Sharpton stated that the shared goals of Progressives are more important than each individual leader’s specific opinions – how very communist of the Reverend:

“We don’t agree on everything but we agree that we have to deal with income inequality and wages and how we get there,” he said. “We can’t debate that America has to be fair for everybody. We can’t debate that the billionaires are playing games with us and treating us like hamsters on a treadmill rather than people that are focused on the goal line. We will change the debate starting today.”

Comrade Sharpton waxes poetic for the communist agenda. Is anyone surprised that the weasel who is vocally advocating for the nationalization of our police forces stands on a communist perch worthy of Lenin?

De Blasio comparing this to the Republican Party’s 1994 “Contract with America” only holds up if you consider it the very antithesis to such a political platform. But it certainly does lay bare their wealth redistribution and class realignment goals.

Aaron Klein at WND has documented that most of the 13 points in de Blasio’s “Progressive Agenda” can also be found in the manifestos and literature of the Communist Party USA and the Socialist Party USA:

Here is a comparison of the Agenda’s plan with literature from the manifestos and writings of the Community Party USA, or CPUSA, and the Socialist Party USA, or SPUSA.

  • Progressive Agenda: “Raise the federal minimum wage, so that it reaches $15/hour, while indexing it to inflation.”

SPUSA: “We call for a minimum wage of $15 per hour, indexed to the cost of living.”

CPUSA: Calls for “struggles for peace, equality for the racially and nationally oppressed, equality for women job creation programs, increased minimum wage. … Even with ultra-right control of the Federal government, peoples legislative victories, such as increasing the minimum wage, can be won on an issue-by-issue basis locally, statewide, and even nationally.”

  • Progressive Agenda: “Reform the National Labor Relations Act, to enhance workers’ right to organize and rebuild the middle class.”

SPUSA: “The Socialist Party stands for the right of all workers to organize, for worker control of industry through the democratic organization of the workplace.”

CPUSA: “One of the most crucial ways of increasing the strength and unity of the working class as a whole is organizing the unorganized. Working-class unity depends on uniting all the diverse sectors of the multiracial, multinational working class in the U.S. … Speeding up the organization of unorganized workers is one of the most important challenges to labor and all progressive forces.”

  • Progressive Agenda: “Pass comprehensive immigration reform to grow the economy and protect against exploitation of low-wage workers.”

SPUSA: “We defend the rights of all immigrants to education, health care, and full civil and legal rights and call for an unconditional amnesty program for all undocumented people. We oppose the imposition of any fees on those receiving amnesty. We call for full citizenship rights upon demonstrating residency for six months.”

CPUSA: Declares the “struggle for immigrant rights is a key component of the struggle for working class unity in our country today.”

  • Progressive Agenda: Pass national paid sick leave. Pass national paid family leave.

CPUSA: In October 2014, hails that “women are fighting back to defend their jobs and their families against candidates who want to destroy women’s reproductive rights, health care, family leave and paid sick days. Women’s voices and votes can make the difference in this election in the U.S. Senate and House, for Governors and State Legislatures, and in the movement going forward for full equality.”

  • Progressive Agenda: “Make Pre-K, after-school programs and childcare universal.”

SPUSA: “We support public child care starting from infancy, and public education starting at age three, with caregivers and teachers of young children receiving training, wages, and benefits comparable to that of teachers at every other level of the educational system.”

  • Progressive Agenda: “Earned Income Tax Credit.” “Implement the ‘Buffett Rule’ so millionaires pay their fair share.”

SPUSA: “We call for a steeply graduated income tax and a steeply graduated estate tax. …”

CPUSA: “No taxes for workers and low and middle income people; progressive taxation of the wealthy and private corporations. …”

Eerily similar, huh? Getting a little hot in our comrade’s kitchen – in fact, hot damn!

De Blasio considers Obama “too conservative” to implement a progressive economic vision and “too afraid to take the bold kind of action that President Roosevelt took” during the Great Depression. It is widely rumored that de Blasio is considering running for president in 2016. At the very least, his agenda for New York is very clear. No way would I live in New York these days – did you know 46% of the population there lives in poverty? Of course, de Blasio blames it all on the Bloomberg administration. Bloomberg deserves a lot of blame, but if he pulled the city into ghettosville, de Blasio is tripling down on it. He wants to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, just like Seattle. That was disastrous for Seattle by the way. And now LA has decided that they are copying this suicidal move. Looks like both coasts just can’t get enough Marxism going on. Both are racing to see who can go third-world first.

Speaking at the “Progressive Agenda” launch event, de Blasio said “something is changing in America.” Yeah and not for the better. “It’s time to take that energy and crystallize it into an agenda that will make a difference,” he said. “We’ll be calling on leaders and candidates to address these issues, to stiffen their backbones, to be clear and to champion these progressive policies.” It’s an all-you-can-eat Marxist buffet. In attendance were politicians, union leaders and of course, race monger, Al Sharpton. In other words, the who’s who of America’s communists.

The Hill quoted Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., saying de Blasio’s plan “could be the beginning of a revolution.”

Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., commented the mayor’s plan represents “the meat on the bones of a progressive agenda.”

Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., said, “The cavalry has arrived.”

Either de Blasio is taking his communist agenda on the election trail, or he is trying to force the Hildebeast even further to the left. But honestly, it’s hard to see how she could go much further left these days.

The Atlantic reported the coalition supporting de Blasio’s plan includes Dan Cantor, executive director of the Working Families Party. Cantor was also a founder of the socialist-oriented New Party. Did you know de Blasio once served as executive director of the New York branch of the New Party? Trevor Loudon has done massive research on Obama, who was also listed in New Party literature as a member. WND did as well.

De Blasio’s plan is based on a plan crafted by a George Soros-connected professor. De Blasio’s “Progressive Agenda” was formed around a 112-page policy report at the liberal Roosevelt Institute titled, “Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy.” The author is Joseph Stiglitz… the Columbia University economist who was an integral part of Occupy Wall Street. De Blasio is a big fan, which should tell you all you need to know. Stiglitz wants more government regulation of the economy.

Stiglitz previously chaired the Commission on Global Financial Issues of Socialists International, the world’s largest socialist organization. He’s also an economic adviser to Obama. His Keynesian economics are pure Marxist pablum.

Gavin Wright, chairman of Stanford’s economics department, summarized Stiglitz’s work:

“Broadly speaking, Joe’s theoretical work has had to do with the shortcomings and imperfections of market economy, not from the standpoint of a thorough-going rejection of the market economy but from the perspective that holds out hope for improvement through government regulation or use of the tax system,” Wright said.

From WND:

Stiglitz was a member of President Bill Clinton’s administration, serving both in Clinton’s cabinet and as chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Stiglitz’s most important contribution during his time in the Clinton administration was helping to define a new economic philosophy called a “third way,” which called for business and government to join hands as “partners,” while recognizing government intervention could not always correct the limitations of markets.

“Third Way” is an ideology first promoted as an alternative to free markets by Mikhail Gorbachev after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The “Third Way” of governing would be neither capitalist nor communist, but something in between.

In his 1998 “State of the Union” address, President Clinton outlined the “Third Way”: “We have moved past the sterile debate between those who say government is the enemy and those who say government is the answer. My fellow Americans, we have found a Third Way.”

The “Third Way” calls for business and government to join hands as “partners.”

Discover the Networks criticized the theory: “In short, Big Business would own the economy (as under capitalism), while Big Government would run it (as under socialism). Corporations would be persuaded to comply with government directives through subsidies, tax breaks, customized legislation, and other special privileges.”

Soros himself has been a vocal proponent of the “Third Way” economic policy.

Stiglitz, meanwhile, also became involved in “global warming” issues, including serving on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, helping to draft a new law for toxic wastes and serving on the boards of numerous environmental groups, such as the Alliance for Climate Protection.

Stiglitz is calling for a “New Global Economic Order” in which the world is “no longer dominated by one ‘superpower.’”

So you see, the communist ideals are endemic to de Blasio and his “Contract with America.”

In closing, here is the Progressive Agenda he is pushing:

Lift the Floor for Working People »

  • Raise the federal minimum wage, so that it reaches $15/hour, while indexing it to inflation.
  • Reform the National Labor Relations Act, to enhance workers’ right to organize and rebuild the middle class.
  • Pass comprehensive immigration reform to grow the economy and protect against exploitation of low-wage workers.
  • Oppose trade deals that hand more power to corporations at the expense of American jobs, workers’ rights, and the environment.
  • Invest in schools, not jails– and give a second chance to those coming home from prison.

Support Working Families »

  • Pass national paid sick leave.
  • Pass national paid family leave.
  • Make Pre-K, after-school programs and childcare universal.
  • Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and protect and expand Social Security.
  • Allow students to refinance student loan debt to take advantage of lower interest rates, and support debt-free college.

Tax Fairness »

  • Close the carried interest loophole.
  • End tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas.
  • Implement the “Buffett Rule” so millionaires pay their fair share.
  • Close the CEO tax loophole that allows corporations to take advantage of “performance pay” write-offs.

There are many on the right pushing some of this crap too – especially Van Jones‘ ’empty the prisons’ mantra. This is a blueprint for solid communism – just say no to Red Bill de Blasio and his commie policies. His “Contract for Communism” is a road map to tyranny and the fall of the Republic.

‘Politically contrived nonsense’: Scientific studies, data and history refute Obama’s climate/national security claims

“It is hard to even take today’s speech by Obama seriously on either a logical, scientific or political level. The speech was so farcical in its claims that it hardly merits a response. It is obvious that the climate establishment is seeking new talking points on ‘global warming’ to change the subject from the simple fact that global temperatures are not cooperating with their claims.

See: Global warming ‘pause’ expands to ‘new record length’: No warming for 18 years 5 months

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If any Americans actually believe the climate claims linking ‘global warming’ to a rise in conflicts, no amount of evidence, data, logic or scientific studies will likely persuade them. But given the high profile nature of the comments, a rebuttal to the President’s climate claims is necessary.

Claiming that melting ICE is more a threat to the U.S. than ISIS is a hard sell, particular given the latest data on global sea ice. See: Sea Ice Extent – Day 137 – 3rd Highest Global Sea Ice For This Day – Antarctic Sets 49th Daily Record For 2015

Contrary to the President’s claims, it seems ISIS may in fact trump ICE as a bigger concern.

Image result for obama climate change

Obama also claimed that climate ‘deniers’ were a huge part of the problem. Obama explained: “Denying it, or refusing to deal with it, endangers our national security and undermines the readiness of our forces.”

Obama seems to be borrowing his claims from Rolling Stone Magazine. See: Forget ISIS, skeptics are greatest threat?! – Rolling Stone: Climate ‘Deniers’ Put ‘National Security at Risk’

Also see: Paper: ‘Osama bin Laden cared more about global warming than GOP Sen. James Inhofe’

But actually believing the above statements endangers our capacity for rational thought and evidence based research. Actually believing Obama’s climate claims, undermines our nation’s ability to distinguish real threats from politically contrived nonsense.

UN climate treaties and EPA climate regulations will not prevent wars, conflicts or impact the creation of terrorist groups.

The President seems to believe every modern malady is due to ‘global warming’ See: White House doom: Climate change causes allergies, asthma, downpours, poverty, terrorism – Lists 34 effects

President Obama claimed that man-made climate change was partly responsible for the civil war in Syria. “It’s now believed that drought, crop failures, and high food prices helped fuel the early unrest in Syria, which descended into civil war in the heart of the Middle East,” Obama said.

First off, extreme weather is not getting more ‘extreme.’ See: Extreme weather failing to follow ‘global warming’ predictions: Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Droughts, Floods, Wildfires, all see no trend or declining trends

But such drought claims are not new or unique to President Obama. In 1933, similar baseless claims were made. See: 1933 claim: ‘YO-YO BANNED IN SYRIA – Blamed For Drought’

ScreenHunter_174 Sep. 03 22.08

For a larger view click on the image.

In addition, in 1846, in Australia, Aborigines blamed the bad climate on the introduction of the White man in Australia. During World War 2, some blamed the war for causing unusual weather patterns. In the 1970s, the exact same things (bad weather) we are talking about today, were  blamed on man-made global cooling.

Global warming is not a threat to the world, but global warming ‘solutions’ are. The estimated 1.2 billion people in the world without electricity who are leading a nasty, brutish and short life, will be the ones who “will pay” for global warming solutions that prevent them from obtaining cheap and abundant carbon based energy. See: S. African activist slams UN’s ‘Green Climate Fund’: ‘Government to govt aid is a reward for being better than anyone else at causing poverty’ — ‘It enriches the people who cause poverty’

Simple historical facts undermine the President’s claims about global warming and national security concerns.

Small Sampling of evidence countering President Obama’s claims.

Lord Christopher Monckton, Former Thatcher Adviser issues point-by-point rebuttal to Obama: ‘Does the ‘leader’ of the free world really know so little about climate?’– ‘If this Obama speech was the very best that the narrow faction promoting the extremist line on global warming could muster for their mouthpiece, then the skeptics have won the scientific, the economic, the rational, and the moral arguments – and have won them hands down.’

‘All Large European Wars Occurred With CO2 Below 350 ppm’ Via Real Science website- Most Of The World’s Wars Occurred Below 350 PPM CO2 — ‘Now that we know that war is caused by global warming, I was very surprised to discover that the vast majority of wars occurred before 1988 – including the War of 1812′

UN Climate Chief: Middle East Was Peaceful When CO2 Was Below 350 PPM — UN’s Christiana Figueres: ‘Food shortages and rising prices caused by climate disruptions were among the chief contributors to the civil unrest coursing through North Africa and the Middle East’

Scientific studies comprehensively debunk the notion that rising carbon dioxide will lead to more wars.

Flashback: Debunked: the ‘climate change causes wars’ myth –Peer-reviewed paper ‘thoroughly eviscerates’ climate war claims — ‘The primary causes of civil war are political, not environmental’

‘A total takedown’ of myth by the Center for Strategic and International Studies — ‘Since the dawn of civilization, warmer eras have meant fewer wars. The reason is simple: all things being equal, a colder climate meant reduced crops, more famine and instability. Research by climate historians shows a clear correlation between increased warfare and cold periods. They are particularly clear in Asia and Europe, as well as in Africa’

Scientific American: ‘Greens Should Stop Claiming More Warming Means More War’

Follow the (military) money: Is the military ‘taking on climate change denialists’ or simply following the lead of its civilian leaders?

Conflict Deaths and Global Warming – ‘The problem is that the conflicts that are cited as examples of the phenomenon are located in areas known for both frequent conflict prior to the current warming period and for historical patterns of extreme climates similar to those seen today.’

Der Spiegel Demolishes Syria War-Climate Paper By Kelley et al.: ‘Hardly Tenable’…’Distraction From Real Problems’

Even BBC features harsh criticism of new study: ‘Their strong statement about a general causal link between climate and conflict is unwarranted by the empirical analysis that they provide’ — BBC: Rise in violence ‘linked to climate change’ — ‘Changes in temperature or rainfall correlated with a rise in assaults, rapes and murders’

Climate Depot Round Up Counters global warming/war claims:

Climate Depot’s rebuttal to Sen. John Kerry’s climate change/national security claims

Study: Cold spells were dark times in Eastern Europe: ‘Cooler periods coincided with conflicts and disease outbreaks’ –Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’: ‘Some of Eastern Europe’s greatest wars and plagues over the last millennium coincided with cold periods’ — ‘The Black Death in the mid-14th century, the Thirty Years’ War in the early 17th century, the French invasion of Russia in the early 19th century and other social upheavals occurred during cold spells. The team suggests food shortages could explain the timing of some of these events’

New study: Global cooling led to wars, famine and plagues in 1560-1660: Cold ’caused successive agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and demographic catastrophes’

Global Conflict Not Linked to Global Climate Change — ‘Wars in Burundi, Chad, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Peru, the Comoros, Congo, Eritrea, Niger, and Rwanda are so numerous that I could probably make a statistical argument that one in five wars are due to the AFC winning the Super Bowl’

Discovery News: Cold times led to angry runts, famine, and war; warm times led to The Renaissance

Remarkably sane article in Science: Warm periods are good, cold periods are bad

Time Mag reports: ‘Peaks of social disturbance such as rebellions, revolutions, & political reforms followed every decline of temperature’ — ‘Number of wars increased by 41% in Cold Phase’ — ‘Peaks of social disturbance such as rebellions, revolutions, and political reforms followed every decline of temperature, with a one- to 15-year time lag’

Study: Climate change ‘NOT to blame’ for African civil wars — ‘Climate variability in Africa does not seem to have a significant impact on risk of civil war’

A UN IPCC Scientist’s New Study! ‘Global Warming Sparks Fistfights & War, Researchers Say’: ‘Will systematically increase the risk of many types of conflict ranging from barroom brawls & rape to civil wars & international disputes’ — Climate Depot Responds

Related Links:

Watch Now: Morano in lively TV climate debate with enviro lobbyist: ‘The points she just made are demonstrably not true’

Sen. Inhofe calls Obama’s climate national security claims a ‘severe disconnect from reality’– Inhofe: ‘While the president has spent at least $120 billion on climate change initiatives since first taking office, he has also set into motion more than $1 trillion in budget cuts to our national defense. When I talk to military personnel, whether in Oklahoma or overseas, their greatest concern is not climate change. Instead, what I hear is their concern for global instability, the disarming of America and the lack of vision from their commander-in-chief.’

As Ramadi Falls, Obama Gives Troops Global Warming Speech

Obama Readies U.S. Troops For The War On ‘Global Warming’

Obama Tells Coast Guard cadets ‘dereliction of duty’ not to fight ‘global warming’ – In his speech, Obama said denying climate change or refusing to deal with it is negligence and “dereliction of duty.” “If you see storm clouds gathering or dangerous shoals ahead you don’t just sit back and do nothing,” President Obama said Wednesday. “You take action to protect your ship, to keep your crew safe. Anything less is negligence. It is a dereliction of duty. So to with climate change.” “Denying it or refusing to deal with it endangers our national security,” Obama also said. “It undermines the readiness of our forces.” PRESIDENT OBAMA: Climate change is one of those most severe threats. This is not just a problem for countries on the coasts or for certain regions of the world. Climate change will impact every country on the planet. No nation is immune. So I am here today to say that climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security. And make no mistake, it will impact how our military defends our country. So we need to act and we need to act now. After all, isn’t that the true hallmark of leadership? When you’re on deck, standing your watch, you stay vigilant, you plan for every contingency. If you see storm clouds gathering or dangerous shoals ahead you don’t just sit back and do nothing. You take action to protect your ship, to keep your crew safe. Anything less is negligence. It is a dereliction of duty. So to with climate change. Denying it or refusing to deal with it endangers our national security. It undermines the readiness of our forces.

Obama: Climate ‘deniers’ endangering national security – “Climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security, and, make no mistake, it will impact how our military defends our country,” Obama told new Coast Guard officers at the academy’s New London, Conn., campus. “And so we need to act — and we need to act now.”
Republicans in Congress, however, have stymied legislative action on climate change. The president took aim at GOP critics, saying temperatures are rising even though “some folks back in Washington” refuse to admit it. “Denying it, or refusing to deal with it, endangers our national security and undermines the readiness of our forces,” Obama added. He also questioned how Republicans could claim to support the military while downplaying the effects of global warming. “Politicians who say they care about military readiness ought to care about this as well,” he said. Obama claimed the rise of Boko Haram in Nigeria and the civil war in Syria were both fueled by instability caused by severe drought and crop losses connected to rising temperatures.

Thinking About China

Napoleon Bonaparte purportedly said “Let China sleep, for when China wakes, she will shake the world.”

Cover - China ChallengeAs Thomas J. Christensen, the author of his recently published “The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power”, reminds us, “For millennia China was arguably the greatest civilization on the planet and for many previous centuries its most powerful empire.”

China is no longer an empire, but it remains a huge nation geographically and huge in terms of its population.

From the website worldometers.info, we learn:

Christensen is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Currently he is the William P. Boswell Professor of World Politics and director of the China and World Program at Princeton University. After reading his book, you might well conclude that there is little about China and Asia he does not know.

We are mostly dependent on various news stories about China to have any idea what is occurring, but the fact remains that just as the U.S. has its optimists and pessimists, conservatives and liberals who influence policy the same exists for China, so a lot depends on who is being quoted. Generally, though, it is only the top leaders who are. That means we are getting the Chinese “party line” and the occasional general or admiral warning against any aggression.

China did not begin to awaken as a modern nation until after the death of Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China, a Communist with a capital “C.” Christensen notes that, while keeping its political ideology, the leader that followed him made a “peaceful transformation launched under CCP leader Deng Xiaopping in 1978 and the collapse of the superpower Soviet Union thirteen years later that made China appear to stand tall again among the great powers.” The transitition was to a capitalist-based economy.

These days the Chinese and the Russians are making efforts to achieve areas of cooperation and, in particular, their militaries. They hold drills together for common defense strategies.

Christensen believes that “China’s return to great power status is perhaps the most important challenges in twenty-first century American diplomacy”, but to put that in context he points out that “China’s per capita income is only one fifth that of the United States” and “though a true trade superpower, many of its exporters are controlled at least in part by foreign investors.”

“Still, the pessimists do not give enough credit to the sustainability of U.S. leadership in Asia,” says Christensen. “For example, they often underestimate the value of American’s unparalleled network of allies and security partners.” You can be sure that the Chinese leadership does not.

They also have, as one would expect, concerns about U.S. military power in their area of the world, but they feel the same about Japan and South Korea as well. “China is not currently an enemy of the United States,” says Christensen, nor is it likely to be for a long time to come.

“It does not need to be contained like the (former) Soviet Union. Nor should China become the kind of regional or global adversary that we have faced in the past, although that outcome, unfortunately, is still a distinct possibility.” That possibility depends on China’s leadership now and in the future. For now they are concentrating on their economy and are likely to do so for many years to come.

Chinese Money“China’s economic clout is real and growing rapidly, especially since the 2008 financial crisis. China has been the main engine of growth for the world’s economy since that time and, by some measures, has become the world’s number one trading state.” There is only one reason why the U.S. has not yet recovered from the financial crisis and his name is Barack Obama.

I suspect that Obama is held in disdain by the Chinese leadership despite all the public handshakes. For one thing, China weathered the financial crisis far better than the U.S. “One of the burdens the new Obama administration inherited in early 2009 was a China bearing a mix of cockiness and insecurity that would negatively influence its policies in 2009-2010,” says Christensen and as the U.S. foundered in Afghanistan and Iraq “American power inspired less awe.”

“Sometime in 2012, the ‘Asia pivot’” of the Obama administration “would be jettisoned in Washington for the more subtle ‘Asia rebalance.’” If you get the feeling that the Obama administration has no real China policy or one that will have little influence, you are right.

With regard to China, It likely does not matter what the Obama administration does for its remaining one and a half years in office.

Various scholars and diplomats will continue to keep a watchful eye on China and most surely many corporate leaders and U.S. entrepreneurs will do so as well given its huge population as a marketplace. It’s already a great tourist destination.

Napoleon was right.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

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Your tax dollars at work. “Fraud charges added to ISIL terrorism case against 2 Twin Cities men,” by Paul McEnroe, Star Tribune, May 19, 2015 (thanks to Pamela Geller)

Two Twin Cities men charged with conspiracy to fight alongside terrorists now face financial fraud charges for allegedly using their college loans to purchase airline tickets to fly to the Middle East.

In a superseding indictment unsealed Tuesday by the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota, Hamza Ahmed and Hanad Mustafe Musse were charged with using more than $1,000 of financial aid provided to them.

Ahmed, 20, of Savage, and Musse, 19, of Minneapolis, are among seven young Somali-Americans from Minnesota who face charges of planning to leave the United States and fight alongside Islamic extremist groups. Six of them were charged in April.

During the past two years, more than 20 Somali-Americans from Minnesota have left to fight alongside terrorists with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, according to the FBI.

The new indictment says that Ahmed and Musse bought airline tickets on Nov. 8, 2014, from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport to Europe, using more than $1,000 in federal college financial aid. Ahmed used his aid money to purchase a flight to Istanbul, Turkey, authorities say. Musse used similar funds to buy a ticket to travel to Greece. From those two destinations, authorities say the pair then planned on heading to Syria. Ahmed had actually boarded his flight when he was ordered off the plane by officers from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

In a related matter, Abdirahman Daud, 21, another alleged conspirator, made his first appearance in federal court in Minneapolis on Tuesday morning before U.S. Chief District Judge Michael Davis. Daud was arrested by the FBI in San Diego in late April, along with alleged conspirator Mohamed Farah, after they drove from Minneapolis to California. They were accompanied on the trip by a confidential informant who was working for the FBI.

Daud and Farah allegedly planned to acquire false documents in San Diego in order to cross into Mexico. From there, they planned on flying to the Middle East with the intent of entering Syria to fight, authorities say….

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Canada: 10 Muslims arrested at airport on suspicion of leaving to join Islamic State

Politics and Pope Francis: What is the role of the Catholic Church and the State?

There has been growing concern that the Catholic Church has taken the wrong path under the leadership of Pope Francis. Pope Francis has made statements, some misunderstood, that baffle loyal Catholics, this author being one of them.

Pope Francis’ recent statement on climate change as a “scientific reality” requiring Catholics to have a moral and religious responsibility to do something about it has drawn praise from environmentalists and criticism from scientists who understand that changes in the climate are due to nature and nature’s (God’s) laws. Pope Francis seems more concerned over God’s climate than the fact that 11 Christians are slaughtered by members of Islam every hour.

A 1924 Time Magazine article on Pope Pius XI reported:

When Politics come near the Altar, then Religion, the Church, the Pontiff have not only the right but the duty to give directions and indications to be followed by Catholics.

The same reply was made by Moses. The same was made by Luther, Calvin, Knox. The same was made in unmistakable language by Pius IX, in the last Century: “It is an error to assert that the Church ought to be separated from the State and the State from the Church.”

[ … ]

Indeed, this Pontiff went further and declared: “It is an error to assert that every man is free to embrace the Religion he shall believe true, guided by the light of reason.”

But is this what Pope Francis is doing – giving directions and showing that the Church ought not be separated from the state? If so, at what cost?

When asked about homosexuality Pope Francis replied, “Who am I to judge.” But he appears to be judging (taking sides) on other political issues such as climate change, the Arab/Israeli conflict and the recognition of a Palestinian state. However, he refuses to address the persecution and slaughter of Catholics, Christians and Jews globally. His actions to embrace Islam as “the religion of peace” seems in conflict with the words of Pope Pius XI that, “It is an error to assert that every man is free to embrace the Religion he shall believe true…” No one would choose Islam as a religion as Pope Pius XI stated if they were “guided by the light of reason.”

Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), a defender of Israel, after the Vatican recognized Palestine, stated, “It’s interesting how the Vatican has gotten so political when ultimately the Vatican ought to be working to lead people to Jesus Christ and salvation, and that’s what the Church is supposed to do.” How can any Pope recognize the Palestinian state, which repeatedly calls for the destruction of Israel and  the Holy Land? The birthplace of Jesus Christ, upon whose teachings the Catholic Church is based?

The Vatican in now embroiled in several scandals involving gay orgies and murder. The Independent reports:

The Vatican has been embroiled in two separate, highly embarrassing, scandals.

In one, a north Italian priest has been removed from office after allegations emerged that he had been surfing the internet to find gay lovers and had been involved in gay orgies.

The other, which has generated – if possible – even more lurid press coverage in Italy, alleges a priest in the south of the country is under investigation on suspicion of murdering one of his parishioners.

[ … ]

Meanwhile, to the north of the country, the local Curia is scrambling to address the allegations made by a 32-year-old man from Rovigo, midway between Bologna and Venice.

The unidentified man apparently approached the media after church authorities failed to take action following his official complaint to the Ecclesiastical Court of the Puglia region against the unidentified 50-year-old priest.

The younger man claimed he met the priest through Facebook, forming a close friendship with the clerical figure who then confessed his homosexuality to his online correspondent.

In his complaint, according to Italian newspaper Corriere del Mezzogiorno, the man included a record of his conversations with the priest.

In these online interactions, the priest admitted to sexual relationships with other religious figures – as well as members of the Vatican’s elite Swiss Guard – using the internet to find new partners and engage in sexual encounters online.

Perhaps it is time to remove Satan from the Catholic Church and the public square.

Greg Laurie, from World Net Daily asks, “Is the world today changing the church? Or is the church changing the world? If we want to be a church that changes the world, then we need to get back to the church that Jesus started and live the Christian life as the early church lived it.”

As a Catholic I want a Church that changes the world, not a Church that changes with the world. Perhaps it is a time to get back to Christian basics, perhaps it is time for another reformation?

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Worldwide Persecution of Christians at an ‘Unprecedented’ High; Here’s How Many Believers Are Killed for Their Faith Every Hour

Irish Bishop: 11 Christians are murdered every hour

Bishop [John] McAreavey is an exception to the rule. Most of his brother bishops would be scandalized that he even dared to speak of this. But of course he did not identify the perpetrator. The Church is in full denial and appeasement mode. In other words, most bishops are betraying the Christians of the present and the future, and leaving them prey to savages. Apparently most bishops are indeed in the line of apostolic succession. They’re the successors of Judas.

“Talk about extreme, militant Islamists and the atrocities that they have perpetrated globally might undercut the positive achievements that we Catholics have attained in our inter-religious dialogue with devout Muslims.” — Robert McManus, Roman Catholic Bishop of Worcester, Massachusetts, February 8, 2013.

“‘Eleven Christians Killed Every Hour,’ Says Irish Bishop,” by Thomas D. Williams, Breitbart, May 19,2015:

According to Bishop John McAreavey, the Chair of the Council for Justice & Peace of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, statistics show that the situation of Christian persecution in the world is far more dire than most people understand.

The bishop called the breadth and scale of the suffering of Christians “unprecedented.”

At least 100,000 Christians are killed every year because of their faith, which amounts to 273 per day, or eleven every hour, McAreavey said, without mentioning those who are “being tortured, imprisoned, exiled, threatened, excluded, attacked and discriminated against on a widespread scale.”

In a sobering presentation before the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade this past week, McAreavey said that Christianity is the most oppressed religion in the world, and the followers of Jesus are actively persecuted in some 110 countries.

More striking still, he contended, according to the International Society for Human Rights, a non-religious organization, “80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed against Christians.”

The bishop recalled how the former Chief Rabbi of Britain, Jonathan Sacks, recently described this suffering of Christians in the Middle East as “one of the crimes against humanity of our time,” comparing it to the Jewish pogroms in Europe and saying he was “appalled at the lack of protest it has evoked.”

The barbaric actions against Christians, particularly in the Middle East, he said, call out for an urgent, coordinated and determined response from the international community. They are “a threat to our common humanity and to the religious and cultural patrimony of the world” as well as putting at risk “the peace and stability of the entire planet.”

The bishop noted with dismay what he called “a reluctance, including on the part of Christian based international aid agencies, to give direct support to minority religious communities, including to the Christian Churches.”

McAreavey also had strong words for the leaders of Western nations that refuse to commit to assisting Christians in the Middle East, or even to acknowledge the gravity of their plight.

“Perhaps because of a fear of being seen as less than aggressively secular in their own country,” he said, “many Governments of majority Christian countries in the west seem reluctant to give direct aid to Churches and religious minorities.”

The West also runs the risk of losing its own understanding of the importance of faith and of religion for a healthy society, he said, which can endanger religious liberty even in democratic nations.

As Catholics, he said, we appeal “to all governments and societies to affirm the vital importance of respecting the right to religious freedom and conscience as a fundamental principle of genuine pluralism in a tolerant society.”…

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Worldwide Persecution of Christians at an ‘Unprecedented’ High; Here’s How Many Believers Are Killed for Their Faith Every Hour

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Since converting to Islam, UK woman has murdered 400 people


Presentation to the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade by the Council for Justice & Peace of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference on ‘The ongoing Persecution of Christians’

Bishop John McAreavey, Bishop of Dromore and chair of the Council for Justice & Peace of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, today presented to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, on the subject of ‘The ongoing Persecution of Christians’. Bishop McAreavey’s delegation included:

Father Timothy Bartlett, an advisor to the Bishops’ Council for Justice & Peace and a priest of the Diocese of Down & Connor, and,
Mrs Áine O’Reilly, a member of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, a Catholic charitable organisation that provides solidarity and financial support to the Christian communities of the Holy Land.
Before its presentation, the Church delegation circulated a letter to the Joint Committee from the Patriarch of Bagdad appealing for greater solidarity and support for Christians being displaced, persecuted and killed in Iraq. Please see full presentation below:

Presentation

Thank you, Chairman.

My name is Bishop John McAreavey. I am here today as Chair of the Council for Justice and Peace of the Irish Bishops’ Conference. I am joined by Mrs Áine O’Reilly, a member of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. This is a Catholic charitable organization that provides solidarity and financial support to the Christian communities of the Holy Land. It has over two hundred members in Ireland and more than thirty thousand members worldwide. I am also joined by Father Timothy Bartlett, an advisor to the Council.

I thank the Committee for the invitation to be here this morning with Trócaire, Open Doors and Church in Chains. The ongoing persecution of Christians is an issue that unites all Christians. Pope Francis has called it the ‘ecumenism of suffering’. The breath and scale of this suffering is unprecedented. The Centre for the Study of Global Christianity in the United States estimates that 100,000 Christians are being killed every year because of their faith. That is eleven every hour. Others are being tortured, imprisoned, exiled, threatened, excluded, attacked and discriminated against on a widespread scale. The Pew Research Centre says that Christianity is now the world’s most oppressed religious group, with persecution against them reported in 110 countries. Many of these countries have significant trade links with Ireland. Persecution is increasing in China. In North Korea a quarter of the country’s Christians live in forced labour camps. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the Maldives all feature in the 10 worst places to be Christian. According to the International Society for Human Rights, a non-religious organization, 80 per cent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed against Christians.

As the other groups will explain in more detail, the situation for Christians in the Middle East is particularly acute and shocking. The rise of ISIS has accelerated a brutal religious genocide against Christians and other religious minorities that has been on-going for well over a decade. The former Chief Rabbi of Britain, Jonathan Sacks, recently described this suffering of Christians in the Middle East as ‘one of the crimes against humanity of our time’. He compared it with Jewish pogroms in Europe and said he was ‘appalled at the lack of protest it has evoked.’ I believe many Christians in Ireland, of all denominations, too are appalled at the relative lack of attention being given in the Irish media, in political discourse and in Irish Government policy and action to the urgent plight of persecuted Christians in the Middle East at this time. Children, women and men being beheaded. Young men brutalized and left to die on make-shift crosses in town squares in the part of the world that was once described as the cradle of Christianity and of civilisation itself. Ancient Churches and religious monuments from various traditions being destroyed.

Such barbaric actions call out for an urgent, coordinated and determined response from the international community. They are a threat to our common humanity and to the religious and cultural patrimony of the world for future generations. They put at risk the peace and stability of the entire planet. Any response will require an honest and comprehensive effort to address the sources of violent conflict that converge on this region and have wider political and religious implications across the world. Yet so many remain silent and inactive.

I have spoken to senior representatives of the Christian community in Iraq in recent days, whom I will not name to protect their security. They simply cannot understand why so many in the international community turn a blind eye to their plight. Many governments, including the Irish Government are supplying modest amounts of emergency aid. This is welcome and helps to address some immediate humanitarian needs. However there is a reluctance, including on the part of Christian based international aid agencies, to give direct support to minority religious communities, including to the Christian Churches. Yet if their presence is to remain, if they are to draw strength from one another and continue their own religious, educational and charitable activities in the places where they live and work, where they have contributed for millennia to the shared educational, economic and cultural patrimony of their countries, then they need direct aid. They have a right to be supported in rebuilding their bombed-out Churches, schools, hospitals and halls that are availed of by the whole community. They have a right to receive support in building bomb proof walls and security around these buildings and their own homes. They are also best placed to ensure humanitarian support gets to those who need it most in the villages, towns and refugees camps where the local Church continues to be present. Yet, perhaps because of a fear of being seen as less than aggressively secular in their own country, many Governments of majority Christian countries in the west seem reluctant to give direct aid to Churches and religious minorities.

The starting point for the Catholic response to this issue is our commitment to the inherent dignity and priceless value of every person before God, without distinction. Our concern is for all humanity. We utterly condemn the grotesque targeting and brutal murder of those with same-sex attraction by ISIS. We stand in solidarity and support with the Yazidi and other religious communities who face a similar extermination, displacement and lack of respect for their right to religious freedom and conscience as their Christian neighbours.

We appeal to all governments and societies to affirm the vital importance of respecting the right to religious freedom and conscience as a fundamental principle of genuine pluralism in a tolerant society. As Saint Pope John Paul II never tired of reminding the world, where this pivotal right to freedom of conscience and religion is denied, diluted or culturally suppressed other human rights abuses follow in its wake. The denial of religious freedom can run from subtle cultural exclusion of the religious voice from the public square and refusal to accommodate reasonable differences of conscience to active discrimination, forced displacement, exploitation and loss of life. Denial of religious freedom is a continuum along which many countries that pride themselves on being free, tolerant and diverse have already begun to travel.

I now hand over to Áine, who will conclude our presentation.

In commending the Committee for taking up this theme of the ongoing persecution of Christians, I would like to say that as a proud citizen of this country I believe many Irish citizens, Christian and others would like to see our political representatives and our Government give much greater attention to this issue. In particular, we ask you today:

To provide direct aid to the Christian Churches in the Middle East, and to other persecuted religious groups so that they can rebuild their communities and infrastructure and protect that which has not been destroyed. If they are to survive, they have urgent and particular needs which they alone are best placed to provide. They are also best placed to identify to provide humanitarian assistance in the most difficult to reach areas experiencing immediate violence and oppression;

We also ask you to assist the various Irish aid agencies in providing direct financial support to Christian and other religious communities in the Middle East without fear of being accused at home of being sectarian or giving offence to secularity in a predominantly Christian country. This is a real concern among Christian aid agencies which you can help to address;

We ask you to use your political influence to raise awareness of this issue where possible. In commending your own decision to hold this hearing, we encourage you to recommend a full Dáil debate on the ongoing persecution of Christians and respect for religious freedom and the particular plight of persecuted Christians across the world;

We ask you to encourage the Government and Irish MEPs to use their influence in the European Institutions to give greater political priority to addressing this issue at a European and international level. This includes the need to address the complex of issues in international relations that contribute to the ongoing conflict and instability across the region of the Middle East;

Finally, in keeping with its Christian roots and founding ideals, we appeal to you and through you to Europe to open wide the doors of our nations to the numerous refugees fleeing religious persecution in the Middle East. Many of them wish to return to their homeland at the earliest possible opportunity. Just as we did some decades ago for the Vietnamese boat people, let us open our shores, our homes and our vacant buildings in a welcoming and reassuring embrace to those fleeing the most brutal attacks by introducing special temporary immigrant schemes focused on responding to this issue.

In conclusion, I am reminded that the links between the Christian community in Ireland and the Christian community in the Middle East go back to the early Celtic Church. They continue today in the heroic work of many Irish missionaries who work in solidarity with persecuted Christian communities in the Middle East even at risk to their own lives. This continuing link is perhaps most poignantly symbolized by the new mosaic in the apse of the recently restored chapel of the Irish College in Rome. There in the midst of our national patron Saints Patrick, Brigid, Columcille and others, is the image of a young Iraqi priest. His name is Father Ragheed Ganni. He studied for several years in the Irish College. He worked in the pilgrimage site of Lough Derg and in various parishes around the country during his post-graduate studies. He loved the Irish people and they loved him. He radiated joy, gentleness and a true Christian spirit of service to all who knew him. Yet his heart was set on returning to bring comfort, strength and support to his suffering people in Iraq. The Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul in which he ministering was subject to regular bombings and attack. On the feast of the Holy Trinity in 2007, as he finished the celebration of Mass, Father Ragheed and three subdeacons were brutally murdered. The vehicle in which they had been killed was surrounded by explosives by those who had killed them so that no-one dare approach to offer comfort, prayers or help. Just a week before, Father Ragheed had written:

“In a sectarian and confessional Iraq, will there be any space for Christians? We have no support, no group who fights for our cause; we are abandoned in the midst of the disaster.”

It is with this painful, prophetic cry of a young man who knew, loved and appreciated the Irish people so much that we thank you again for giving time to the plight of persecuted Christians in our world today and appeal to you to consider positively the recommendations we have made.

Thank you for listening.

ENDS

Did the IRS Break the Law by Outsourcing an Audit to a High-Priced Law Firm?

By outsourcing an audit to a high-priced law firm, the IRS might have broken the law, and the Senate Finance Committee Chairman wants to know why.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) wrote a scathing letter to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen asking why his agency hired the “law firm of Quinn Emanuel on a $2.2 million contract” to assist in auditing Microsoft. “This contract marks the first time, to the Committee’s knowledge, that the agency has hired a private contractor to take such an involved role in an examination.”

Hatch is also asking why the IRS “issued a temporary regulation, without a notice and comment period” allowing the firm to “take compulsory, sworn testimony” weeks after it hired the firm.

Sen. Hatch has three problems with what the IRS has done.

Action Defies Will of Congress

First by hiring the firm, Sen. Hatch believes the IRS has stepped outside the law. In writing the tax code, “the Congress intentionally chose to restrict the performance of certain revenue functions, such as examinations and the taking of sworn testimony, to the Secretary and limited delegates,” Sen. Hatch writes. This doesn’t include hiring a law firm for $1,000 per hour.

Doesn’t Protect Taxpayers

Second, letting an outside law firm investigate a tax case doesn’t protect taxpayers:

Unlike private contractors, Treasury Department officials are required to swear an oath to the Constitution and are subject to rules of conduct and federal law regulating their interactions with taxpayers. This is one of the core reasons Congress has sought to limit certain examination actions to these officials, who are accountable to the public and for whom there is a clear chain of command.

The IRS Has the Resources to Investigate

Third, Sen. Hatch questions if the IRS is using its resources properly:

The IRS has over 40,000 employees dedicated to enforcement efforts, including more than 36,000 tasked specifically with exams and collections. If none of these employees, nor IRS Office of Chief Counsel or Department of Justice tax attorneys, have sufficient expertise to undertake the examination at hand, we should have a broader conversation about your agency’s hiring practices and recruitment needs.

What Kind of Law Firm is Quinn Emanuel?

On the “About Us” page of its website, Quinn Emanuel crows, “Litigation is a zero sum game. There is a winner and a loser. We know how to win.” The page also features a quote about the firm from The American Lawyer: “Better. Faster. Tougher. Scarier.”

Sleep well, America, the IRS gave some pit bull plaintiff lawyers the power to “take compulsory, sworn testimony.”

In Fiscal Year 2014, Congress gave the IRS over $11 billion. If it thinks one particular investigation is that important, it should dedicate enough internal resources. What the IRS can’t do is act like it’s above the law.

Sen. Hatch is demanding that Quinn Emanuel stop its investigation and that the IRS answer his questions immediately.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of the Internal Revenue Service headquarters in Washington, D.C. Photo credit: Dennis Brack/Bloomberg.

Stupefying Generations of Americans

I used the verb “stupefying” to describe a long process in our nation’s schools that has produced several generations of Americans, dumbed down and resulting in more than half who are functionally illiterate, nor can do math, and, as a recent headline reported “Student’s Results in Social Studies Stagnate.”

“U.S. middle-school students’ performance on social studies didn’t improve much between 2010 and 2014, federal test scores released Wednesday (April 29) show, underscoring concerns about the uniformed citizenry and workforce.” When it comes to U.S. history, the share of students scoring at or above proficiency last year was 18%, up one percentage point from 2010. In other words, over 80% failed to have a grasp on the subject, critical to every citizen’s understanding of U.S. history, its Constitution, and governance.

Cover - Crimes of the EducatorsAn extraordinary new book by Samuel Blumenfeld and Alex Newman, “Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children” should be the center of conversation for a nation’s media, but I suspect this may be among the few places you would learn about it. Blumenfeld has written ten books on education and Newman is an international journalist, educator and consultant.

What history does teach us is that progressives, also known as communists, have slaughtered millions in their quest to create the perfect society where everybody earns the same amount, thus abandoning them to equal poverty. To achieve this, it was necessary to exercise complete control over what the children learned and what the media shared as news.

Blumenfeld notes that “In the United States the socialist utopians adopted a new and unique method of conquering a nation; by dumbing down its people, by destroying the brainpower of millions of its citizens.”

This was launched in 1898 by John Dewey, a socialist, and outlined in his essay titled ‘The Primary-Education Fetich.’ “In it he showed his fellow progressives how to transform America into a collectivist utopia by taking over the public schools and destroying the literacy of millions of Americans.”

“The plan has been so successfully implemented that it is now a fact that half of America’s adult population are functionally illiterate. They can’t read their nation’s Constitution or its Declaration of Independence. They can’t even read their high school diploma.”

This was achieved by changing how children are taught to read in our government schools. Previously the method was phonetics in which children learned the alphabet, the sounds the letters represented, and how in combination they composed words. The present method is called “whole word” in which the child must recognize the whole word without identifying its alphabetical elements. “That forces children to read English as if it were Chinese,” says Blumenfeld.

He notes that most teachers are unaware of what they are doing and most parents trust the public schools that are supposed to represent the cherished values of our democratic republic. “But the unhappy truth is that today’s public schools have rejected the values of the Founding Fathers and adopted values from nineteenth-century European social Utopian plans that completely contradict our own concepts of individual freedom.”

pillsBlumenfeld also identifies a fact that is hidden in the growing numbers of people who having passed through our schools or attending experience dyslexia and learning disabilities. Brain scans have demonstrated this. Our schools are places where the answer to the normal child’s energy and curiosity is deemed being “over-active” and our schools “push various psychiatric drugs on millions of children by requiring them to take such powerful, mid-altering stimulants as Ritalin or Adderal to alleviate such school-induced disorders as attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). These drugs are as potent as cocaine and have even caused sudden death among teen athletes.”

“The long-term utopian plan required destroying America’s political, social, and moral culture of religious freedom, individual rights, unobtrusive government, and high literacy for all.”

That is a virtual definition of what has occurred in America today. We see it in the attack on religion, particularly Christianity, in America. We see it in the attack on traditional marriage in the name of the homosexual objective of “same-sex marriage.” We see individual businesses attacked for not wanting to give up their spiritual values and beliefs when challenged by homosexuals. We see it in the vast growth in the numbers of single mothers, often never married. And, of late, we see it in the obscene hatred being directed against our nation’s police forces.

The statistics cited in “Crimes of the Educators” have been published by Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education and they include:

Eighty-one percent of American 18 year olds are unprepared for college coursework.

More than 25 percent of students fail to graduate from high school in four years; for African-American and Hispanic students, this number is approaching 40 percent.

Seventy percent of those in prison and 70 percent of those on welfare read at the lowest literacy levels according to the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey.

According to tests in 2012 given to 15-year-olds by the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development, U.S. students were at 17th place in the world on reading, 29th in math, and 20th in science.

“These failures,” says Blumenfeld, “ are not the result of an accident. They are the result of programs created by the best-organized and best-paid educators on the planet. All of these programs that create failure were conceived to produce precisely the results we are getting.”

This explains, too, why many concerned parents have decided to teach their children at home while others spend their money to have their children tutored to overcome the damage of our public schools.

If you have looked around and thought to yourself that too many of the people who see, hear, work with, and who vote are dumb, you now know why.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

Republicans and Election Reform

Now that Republicans have working majorities in both houses of Congress, the American people can once again enjoy the benefits of the constitutional republic that the Founders designed for us.  Right?  Well, not so fast.  To expect the current crop of congressional Republicans to do what is necessary to restore constitutional government and repair the damage done by Barack Obama… let alone know what must be done… is entirely problematic.

As a case in point, the recent battle over construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline demonstrates the complete fecklessness of congressional Republicans.  From the instant the last ballot was counted in November, it was clear that one of the first bills to pass in the 114th Congress would be a bill to approve construction of the pipeline… a bill that Barack Obama promised to veto if and when it reached his desk.  Does Obama care about the environment or the leftists who politicize it?  Of course not.  What he does care about are the many millions of dollars that pour into Democrat Party coffers from a handful of radical environmentalists.

What congressional Republicans apparently failed to recognize was the immense political gains to be made if the issue was properly handled.  By developing best estimates of the number of engineers, contractors, welders, heavy equipment operators, truck drivers, and laborers required to complete the project, along with the generous salaries, wages, and benefits that those workers would command, Republicans could have armed themselves with the most potent political weapon they’d ever been blessed to have.  By seeing to it that every Republican in Congress had that information at his/her fingertips, with instructions to repeated it in every radio, TV, and print media interview, and in every public appearance, Republicans could have driven a very large wedge either between the Democrat Party and radical environmentalist, or between Democrats and organized labor.

By signing the pipeline bill Obama would reap the anger of the radical environmentalists and win the approval of organized labor.  Conversely, by vetoing the bill he would win high praise from environmentalists, but organized labor would be angered enough to split the Democrat vote in many national and state elections.  For Republicans, it was a win-win proposition.  However, instead of using that opportunity to their advantage, making a veto override a real possibility, congressional Republicans treated that opportunity as if it were a sexually-transmitted disease.

While Democrats can be counted upon to always play hardball, Republicans seem intent upon playing political softball.  So, if congressional Republicans aren’t smart enough to recognize a political advantage when one falls into their laps, how can we expect them to recognize the political damage to be done if Obama is successful in giving Social Security numbers, drivers licenses, and voter registration cards to millions of illegals, none of whom are eligible to vote?

Even though they are seriously victimized by fraud, violence, and intimidation in every election, congressional Republicans appear to be blithely unaware of the problem as Democrats continue to liberalize the electoral process.  In fact, it is unlikely that election reform is even on their wish list.  Although election law is generally a matter of state law, a comprehensive election reform law targeting federal elections would supersede state law.  A comprehensive election reform bill… one that would put Obama and congressional Democrats in a tight box… would contain the following elements of reform:

  • Voter registration must be done only in person.  Fraud-friendly motor-voter, postcard, Internet, and same-day registration schemes must be either repealed or superseded.

In same-day registration states, Democrats have recruited teams of college students to travel from precinct to precinct, registering to vote and voting numerous times in the same day.  In a heavily-Democratic county in Minnesota, an undercover investigator visited a county election board to ask whether or not it was necessary for new voters to register in person, saying that he had two friends, Tom Brady and Tim Tebow, who were unable to appear in person.  The investigator was given twenty registration forms and was told that he could register twenty voters with the forms.

  • Registrations must be done only by full-time registrars, employees of counties and/or township government, and only in the state, county, and/or township in which the registrant maintains his/her primary residence.  Third party registrars, paid and unpaid, must be prohibited.

In 2012, a voter registration study showed that, in North Carolina alone, some 35,570 voters shared the same first names, last names, and dates of birth with individuals registered to vote in other states.  Another 765 North Carolinians had the same first names, last names, birthdays, and final four digits of a Social Security number as those who voted in other states.  As a requisite for voter registration, each voter should be required to show proof of citizenship (birth certificate or passport) and proof of residence (drivers license, residential deed, apartment lease, utility bills, etc.).

  1. Before voting, each voter must show an official government-issued photo ID (drivers license, passport, etc.), or an official state-issued voter registration card complete with telephone number, home address, Social Security number, and precinct number.  As an alternative, and as a means of preventing voters from voting more than once in a single day, states may require voters to dip a finger into a vial of indelible ink after voting.
  2. Court administrators must be required to furnish local election boards with name, address, date of birth, and Social Security number of every individual convicted of a felony.  Election boards must be required to purge voter registrations rolls of all felons at least ten days prior to any election.  County Coroners must be required to furnish election boards with copies of all death certificates.  All deceased persons must be removed from the voter rolls no later than ten days prior to any election.
  3. Registered voters who move from one state to another, from one county or township to another, or from one precinct to another, must be required to obtain voter registration transfer documents from their local election board.  This document must be presented, in person, to voter registrars of the voter’s new place of residence.
  4. Absentee ballots must be received no later than ten days prior to an election.  Absentee ballots, other than those of overseas military personnel, must be tallied no later than the day and hour that polls close in any election.  Absentee ballots completed by residents of hospitals, nursing homes, elder care, and mental health facilities must be completed only in the presence of representatives of both major political parties.
  5. Other than absentee ballots, voting must be done in person, only on the day of the election, and only in the precinct in which the voter maintains his/her primary place of residence.  Electronic voting and vote-by-mail schemes must be repealed or superseded.  Provisional ballots must be limited only to the most serious instances of clerical error by election board officials.
  6. The Voting Rights Act must be amended to provide fines and mandatory jail sentences for any individual who would, in any election in which the name of a candidate for federal office appears on the ballot, do any of the following:
    • Vote in the name of another person.
    • Vote or attempt to vote more than once in any election.
    • Vote in the name of a deceased or fictitious person.
    • Vote in more than one state or political subdivision.
    • Vote without benefit of U.S. citizenship.
    • Intimidate, interfere with, or cause injury to the person or property of any other person peaceably engaged in the political process, or cause any other person to do any of the foregoing.

In an April 10, 2014, speech before Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, Barack Obama attempted to rally his base by charging, falsely, that Republicans were attempting to suppress the black vote in the 2014 elections.  Demonstrating once again that he is either totally dishonest or ignorant of the facts, he said, “The principle of one person-one vote is the single greatest tool we have to redress an unjust status quo.  You would think there would not be an argument about this anymore.  But the stark, simple truth is this:  The right to vote is threatened today in a way that it has not been since the Voting Rights Act became law nearly five decades ago.”

In truth, what Obama would like to see is a system in which only Democrats and illegal aliens get to vote twice.  If Republicans had any courage at all they would insist on tightening the noose around vote fraud and stop ignoring Democrat efforts to create more fraud-friendly processes.  They might use comprehensive voting reform as yet another issue that would require Democrats to identify themselves for who and what they are.

As Obama has said, one would think that there would no longer be a question about holding open and honest elections in the United States, but that’s not the way things are.  Decent, honest, men and women will endorse the reforms outlined above.  Democrats, on the other hand, are certain to oppose them.

Obama knew jihadis were planning Benghazi attack 10 days in advance

This makes his blaming of the freedom of speech — his attribution of the attack to a spontaneous reaction to a YouTube video — frankly insidious. What anti-free speech initiative was he hoping to implement in the wake of the attack?

“JW: Obama Admin Knew About Benghazi Before It Happened,” Judicial Watch, May 18, 2015:

Administration knew three months before the November 2012 presidential election of ISIS plans to establish a caliphate in Iraq 

Administration knew of arms being shipped from Benghazi to Syria

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it obtained more than 100 pages of previously classified “Secret” documents from the Department of Defense (DOD)and the Department of State revealing that DOD almost immediately reported that the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was committed by the al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood-linked “Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman” (BCOAR), and had been planned at least 10 days in advance. Rahman is known as the Blind Sheikh, and is serving life in prison for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and other terrorist acts.  The new documents also provide the first official confirmation that shows the U.S. government was aware of arms shipments from Benghazi to Syria.  The documents also include an August 2012 analysis warning of the rise of ISIS and the predicted failure of the Obama policy of regime change in Syria.

The documents were released in response to a court order in accordance with a May 15, 2014, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against both the DOD and State Department seeking communications between the two agencies and congressional leaders “on matters related to the activities of any agency or department of the U.S. government at the Special Mission Compound and/or classified annex in Benghazi.”

Spelling and punctuation is duplicated in this release without corrections.

Defense Department document from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), dated September 12, 2012, the day after the Benghazi attack, details that the attack on the compound had been carefully planned by the BOCAR terrorist group “to kill as many Americans as possible.”  The document was sent to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Obama White House National Security Council.  The heavily redacted Defense Department “information report” says that the attack on the Benghazi facility “was planned and executed by The Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman (BCOAR).”  The group subscribes to “AQ ideologies:”

The attack was planned ten or more days prior on approximately 01 September 2012. The intention was to attack the consulate and to kill as many Americans as possible to seek revenge for U.S. killing of Aboyahiye ((ALALIBY)) in Pakistan and in memorial of the 11 September 2001 atacks on the World Trade Center buildings.

“A violent radical,” the DIA report says, is “the leader of BCOAR is Abdul Baset ((AZUZ)), AZUZ was sent by ((ZAWARI)) to set up Al Qaeda (AQ) bases in Libya.”  The group’s headquarters was set up with the approval of a “member of the Muslim brother hood movement…where they have large caches of weapons.  Some of these caches are disguised by feeding troughs for livestock.  They have SA-7 and SA-23/4 MANPADS…they train almost every day focusing on religious lessons and scriptures including three lessons a day of jihadist ideology.”

The Defense Department reported the group maintained written documents, in “a small rectangular room, approximately 12 meters by 6 meters…that contain information on all of the AQ activity in Libya.”

(Azuz is again blamed for the Benghazi attack in an October 2012 DIA document.)

The DOD documents also contain the first official documentation that the Obama administration knew that weapons were being shipped from the Port of Benghazi to rebel troops in Syria. An October 2012 report confirms:

Weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The weapons shipped during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s, and 125 mm and 155mm howitzers missiles.

During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the ((Qaddafi)) regime in October 2011 and up until early September of 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The Syrian ports were chosen due to the small amount of cargo traffic transiting these two ports. The ships used to transport the weapons were medium-sized and able to hold 10 or less shipping containers of cargo.

The DIA document further details:

The weapons shipped from Syria during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s and 125mm and 155mm howitzers missiles.  The numbers for each weapon were estimated to be: 500 Sniper rifles, 100 RPG launchers with 300 total rounds, and approximately 400 howitzers missiles [200 ea – 125mm and 200ea – 155 mm.]

The heavily redacted document does not disclose who was shipping the weapons.

Another DIA report, written in August 2012 (the same time period the U.S. was monitoring weapons flows from Libya to Syria), said that the opposition in Syria was driven by al Qaeda and other extremist Muslim groups: “the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.” The growing sectarian direction of the war was predicted to have dire consequences for Iraq, which included the “grave danger” of the rise of ISIS:

The deterioration of the situation has dire consequences on the Iraqi situation and are as follows:

This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI [al Qaeda Iraq] to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters. ISI could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.

Some of the “dire consequences” are blacked out but the DIA presciently warned one such consequence would be the “renewing facilitation of terrorist elements from all over the Arab world entering into Iraqi Arena.”…

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The EPA Myth of “Clean Power”

There are many things I do not like about the Environmental Protection Agency, but what angers me most are the lies that stream forth from it to justify programs that have no basis in fact or science and which threaten the economy.

Currently, its “Clean Power” plan is generating its latest and most duplicitous Administer, Gina McCarthy, to go around saying that it will not be costly, nor cost jobs. “Clean Power” is the name given to the EPA policy to reduce overall U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 30% from 2005 levels by 2030. It is requiring each state to cut its emissions by varying amounts using a baseline established by the EPA.

Simply said, there is no need whatever to reduce CO2 emissions. Carbon dioxide is not “a pollutant” as the EPA claims. It is, along with oxygen for all living creatures, vital to the growth of all vegetation. The more CO2 the better crops yields will occur, healthier forests, and greener lawns. From a purely scientific point of view, it is absurd to reduce emissions.

Cartoon - EPA Torture ReportWriting in The Wall Street Journal on April 22, Kenneth C. Hill, Director of the Tennessee Regulatory Authority, said “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) set off a firestorm when he advised states not to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. Yet that advice isn’t as radical as his detractors make it sound. As a state public utilities commissioner who deals with the effects of federal regulations on a regular basis, I also recommend that states not comply.”

Noting its final due date in June, that refusal would impose a Federal Implementation Plan on states “that risks even greater harm,” said Hill. “But the problem for the EPA is that the federal government lacks the legal authority under either the Constitution or the Clean Air Act to enforce most of the regulation’s ‘building blocks’ without states’ acquiescence.”

As this is being written there is are two joined cases before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, State of West Virginia v EPA and Murray Energy v EPA. They are a challenge to President Obama’s “War on Coal” and the EPA efforts to regulate its use. Fifteen states, along with select coal companies, have sued for an “extraordinary whit” to prevent the EPA from promulgating the new carbon regulations found it the Clean Power plan.

Writing in The Hill, Richard O. Faulk, an attorney and senior director for Energy Natural Resources and the Environment for the Law and Economics Center at George Mason University, noted that “The EPA’s argument confidently hinges on convincing the courts that the Clean Air Act doesn’t mean what it says. By its plain language, the bill prohibits the EPA from regulating the power plants from which these emissions derive. Moreover, coal plants are already addressed under an entirely different section of the bill than the one EPA insists justifies its powers.”

The latest news as reported by Myron Ebell, the director for energy and environment of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, is that “Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) this week introduced a bill to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants. S. 1324, the Affordable Reliable Energy Now Act, has 26 original co-sponsors, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee Chairman James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), and Democrat Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).”

“Both Majority Leader McConnell and Chairman Inhofe have said that they are determined to stop EPA’s greenhouse gas rules, so I expect quick action to move Capito’s bill. In the House, a bill to block the rules, H. R. 2042, the Ratepayer Protection Act, was voted out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on 29th April and is awaiting floor action.”

It’s worth noting that, when Obama took office, fifty percent of America’s electrical energy was supplied by coal-fired plants and, just six years later, that has been reduced by ten percent. What kind of President would deliberately reduce American’s access to affordable power?

It’s the same kind of President that believes—or says he does—the pronouncements of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC’s “Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report” claims that world will face “severe, pervasive and irreversible damage” if coal-fired and other carbon-based—coal, oil, and natural gas—energy sources aren’t replaced with “renewable energy sources”—wind and solar—by 2050. It wants fossil-fueled power generation “phased out almost entirely by 2100.” Now this is just insanity, unless your agenda is to destroy the world’s economic system and kill millions. That would be the only outcome of the IPCC recommendations.

The columnist Larry Bell, a professor at the University of Houston, points out that “As for expecting renewables to fill in the power curve, European Union experiences offer a painful reality check. Approximately 7.8 percent of Germany’s electricity comes from wind, 4.5 percent from solar. Large as a result, German households already fork out for the second highest power costs in Europe—often as much as 30 percent above the levels seen in other European countries. Power interruptions add to buyer’s remorse.”

Heartland - Climate News (2)As reported in The Heartland Institute’s Environment & Climate News, “European governments, once at the vanguard of renewable energy mandates, appear to be having second thoughts about their reliance on giant wind farms…” There has been a sharp drop in such projects with installations plunging 90% in Denmark, 75% in Italy, and 84% in Spain.

What the EPA is attempting to impose on America is a drain on our production of electricity coupled with an increase in its price. It is an obscene attack on our economy.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of Shutterstock.

America Should Become More Racist

Two weeks ago, our First Lady, Michelle Obama seemed to have caused a hornet’s nest of controversy with her graduation speech to the students of Tuskegee University.  She was the wrong messenger, with the wrong message, at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

It was very difficult to listen to our First Lady rant on about the travails of being the first Black First Lady.  She travels around the world on a private jet, has maids and housekeepers at her beck and call, has a security detail and sends her kids to one of the most expensive private schools in the U.S.

But yet her speech centered on how racist America is.

Somehow she failed to talk about how America is racists enough to elect a Black man to be president; America is racist enough to create super wealthy people like Dave Steward, Oprah Winfrey, and Bob Johnson; America is racist enough to have a Black attorney general; America is racist enough to have a Black who owns a professional basketball team (Michael Jordan); America is racist enough to have over 200 Black owned newspapers; America is racist enough to have over 100 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

Though these students were about to receive their university degrees, they seemed totally unaware that many of those coming behind them may never have the chance to finish their degrees or it may take them longer to receive and might be more costly because of Obama’s husband.

Mrs. Obama received several thunderous applauses during her speech, but there was no mention of the devastation reeked upon HBCUs by the policies of her husband’s administration.  Based on conservative estimates, HBCUs have lost $ 150 million in funding during his presidency which has caused at least 28,000 Black students to drop out of school due to lack of money.

Obama was right, America does have a racist past and some of its vestiges continue rear its ugly head on occasion.  Slavery and racism are still the biggest blemishes on American history; but because we are Americans and showed resolve, we also have one helluva story of redemption to tell. We have come a long way from the days of slavery and Jim Crow. We have Blacks making millions of dollars in sports, music, business, science, and education.  Blacks have been to the moon and back.  And did I mention, we even have a Black president?

This graduation should have been a time for Obama to inspire and motivate these students about the best of America; to challenge them to take up the mantle of progress and take it even further. She could have used America’s racist past to celebrate our nation’s journey down the path toward redemption.

Now juxtapose Obama’s speech with that of actor Denzel Washington.  Earlier this month he spoke to the graduating class of Dillard University in New Orleans, LA, another HBCU.  Obama’s speech was just over 26 minutes; Washington’s was just over 12 minutes.

Washington gave one of the best graduation speeches I have ever heard; it was very powerful and motivational.  His speech centered on his faith in God and his realization that many, many people are responsible for the success he has attained in his life.  His achievements were not his alone.

He challenged the students to “put God first in everything you do;” to be humble and try to make a difference in other people’s lives; not to just be about material gain for oneself.

I sometimes think liberals continually want to obsess about America’s racist past and conservatives continually want to obsess about pretending that America has no racist past.

We should all be able to agree that America has come a long way over the past two hundred years or so.  America is not as bad as it used to be and not as good as it can be.

So, my problem with Obama’s speech was she chose the wrong time, place, and message for the occasion.

Washington’s speech made you want to go out and make America better, whereas Obama’s speech made you want to condemn America’s very existence.

If liberals like Obama continue to think America is such a terrible, racist country despite all that America has given to her and her family; I can only hope America becomes even more racist.

RELATED VIDEO: Denzel Washington – 2015 Dillard University Commencement Speech