Voters elected Republicans to end Obamaism, not expand it
Washington Examiner:
It has probably escaped the attention of all but the few who make it their business to pay attention to such things, so we note here that a subtle but dangerous piece of revisionism about the meaning of the November election crept into the national political conversation this week.
Nowhere was that revisionism more evident than in President Obama’s comments late Wednesday in lauding the just-ended 111th Congress, and in particular its lame-duck conclusion: “A lot of folks in this town predicted that after the midterm elections, Washington would be headed for more partisanship and more gridlock. And instead, this has been a season of progress for the American people. That progress … is a reflection of the message that voters sent in November, a message that said it’s time to find common ground on challenges facing our country.” A few paragraphs later, it became clear that Obama wants us to believe that voters meant for congressional Democrats and Republicans to find that common ground so they can do more of what made the 111th Congress “the most productive two years that we’ve had in generations.”
[...]
Britain redisovers its architectural heritage
Theodore Dalrymple:
Yet matters have improved greatly in the last few years. Acts of official vandalism are rarer, and when attempted cause a public outcry. Citizens have formed groups to protect what remains of their heritage and no longer stand by watching the destruction of whole townscapes. Old buildings are routinely adapted to new purposes (as civilized people have known how to do for centuries) instead of being treated as impediments to progress or to traffic. Victorian buildings are cleaned up instead of demolished, and the architectural detail beneath the grime has come as a revelation to many who previously might have held the Victorians in contempt. London’s remaining Victorian railway stations have been modernized, keeping their basic features, so that the elegance and beauty of the ironwork is obvious to all. St. Pancras station, a masterpiece of Victorian Gothic architecture, has been lovingly (and, admittedly, expensively) restored and made the terminus of the train to Paris. Fittingly, the concourse has a statue of the poet Sir John Betjeman, whose protests helped save the station from demolition and replacement—perhaps by something as ugly as the new Euston station, a few hundred yards up the road, which took the place of the magnificently neoclassical original Euston station. The open space around Euston, probably not coincidentally, is as dirty as anywhere in London: people vote with their litter.
Not only has the official vandalism been much reduced; architecture and urbanization have considerably improved. Cities such as Birmingham, Leeds, and Manchester have undergone something of a revival, though it is too late to save the parts of them destroyed in the frenzy of self-hatred, utopianism, social engineering, and financial corruption that I have described.
[...]
When Reason Fades — From Illegal Immigration to Jeffrey Sachs
by Victor Davis Hanson:
Illegal Immigration, Race, and Chauvinism
There is nothing about illegal immigration that should ipso facto involve matters of race, culture or ethnicity, given that it is a legal issue at heart. I think the great majority of opponents of open borders would be equally worried should 12 million illegal immigrants come here from a now bankrupt Ireland, Greece, or Portugal. That an illegal alien from a European country would claim my allegiance or empathy on the basis of ethnic solidarity would have zero currency.
So for most of us, the question is primarily a legal one — if federal statutes are not followed, what sanctity is left in the law itself? I am reminded of that classic exchange between Crito and Socrates, when the former urges the latter to break out of jail, disobey the law and its death sentence, and ignore what they both feel was an unfair verdict. Socrates, inter alia, reminds Crito that the individual cannot pick and choose his own level of compliance with those statutes he finds distasteful or inconvenient.
[...]
Montreal Joins the War against Israel
by David Solway, FrontPage:
Montreal is a diverse and cosmopolitan city, primarily French speaking but with an exotic mix of many of the world’s languages and cultures enlivening the atmosphere. There’s a bit of New York here, a soupçon of Paris, the flavor of pre-Katrina New Orleans, perhaps a touch of London before it became Londonistan. A big city with a congenial small-town feel, it is a nice place to live. Or at least, it was a nice place to live until, as in many other Western cities, Islam began making its muscular presence felt—less so, clearly, than in Hamburg or Malmo or Amsterdam, but the census is not encouraging,
For Montreal—like Canada in general—has not been immune to the demographic invasion of immigrants from Muslim countries. Many of these newcomers have integrated peacefully into mainstream culture; nevertheless a significant radical presence has concentrated in the city. Journalist Fabrice de Pierrebourg’s 2007 book Montréalistan profiles a veritable Who’s Who of terrorist plotters who have settled here. “All the ingredients of radical Islamism are present in Montreal,” he says. (One can listen to an informative French interview with the author on the Jeremaykovka blog site.)
[...]
Happy/Merry Christmas etc.
To my readers:
I tend to be a bit Scroogey about Christmas which means I put little religious value in it. That is not to say I devalue God’s gift of redemption through faith in the shed blood of Jesus/Yeshua. I am more interested in the Jewish observances. I therefore never get weepy or wistful at Christmastime. No maudlin meanderings here about ‘the true meaning of Christmas’ and all that codswallop. What I will say is I really appreciate those of you who come here. I do this for you. I want my readers to be informed. They are free to disagree but at least they will get exposed to perhaps a new or different take on the news that bombards us in today’s multidimensional media-saturated world.
So to all of you I say most sincerely: Thank you! And I wish you a truly very Merry Christmas and the happiest New Year to come. May God grant you health above all things.
Tim
Unethical: Bloomberg/Rauf Collusion
By Pamela Geller:
They’re emailing each other?
The New York Daily News reported Thursday that “Mayor Bloomberg’s top deputies went to great lengths to help those trying to build a mosque at Ground Zero – even drafting a letter to the community board for them, newly released documents show. City Hall on Thursday released a flurry of emails between its brass and Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam pushing to build a mosque near the sensitive site, and his supporters.”
It’s worse than we imagined.
The release of these documents, emails and various exchanges between Mayor Bloomberg’s office and the radical Imam Rauf and his motley crew of Islamic supremacists shows evidence of collusion, inappropriate political support for the Ground Zero mega mosque, and favoritism given to the project.
[...]
More evidence emerging that that Constitution supporters are considered “domestic threats
By Douglas Hagmann & Judi McLeod:
A report published today by Kurt Nimmo states that a Department of Homeland Security fusion center in Florida conducted surveillance on Ron Paul supporters and other political groups. A law enforcement sensitive bulletin dated 4 June 2010, issued by the Central Florida Intelligence Exchange, identified one event hosted by Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty that was subjected to official intelligence monitoring by that arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Nimmo notes that the Central Florida Intelligence Exchange was established with the assistance of an $850,000 Department of Homeland Security grant, which is your tax dollars at work. The center is specifically tasked with looking for terrorist leads.
As we detailed in our report dated 19 April 2009 , over a year before the Ron Paul event and today’s article, we informed readers of the existence of a FBI directive issued in March, 2009 that tasked FBI field offices to collect specific times, dates and locations of TEA party and other similar patriotic events. A second directive was issued the following month directing domestic intelligence agencies to perform covert video surveillance and data collection of the participants of the TEA parties. The directive instructed that surveillance was to be performed from “discreet fixed or mobile positions” and was to be performed “independently and outside of the purview of local law enforcement.”
[...]
Middle East Bloody Endgame
By Lee DeCovnick:
Describing the barbarity of a Civil War prison. Benson Lossing wrote in 1868, “Seventeen feet from the inner stockade was the ‘dead-line,’ over which no man could pass and live.” Lossing could well be describing the inevitable bloody endgame of the Israeli- Iran conflict during the final twenty-four months of the Obama administration. Both sides are acutely aware of this “dead- line”, Iran more so than Israel. Iran’s “dead-line” awareness reaches back 31 years to the release of 52 American hostages held for 444 days, just 20 minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President. (And after Jimmy Carter previously agreed to release $8 billion in frozen Iranian assets.)
[...]
The Palestinians’ brilliant ”peace’ strategy — Drive a big wedge between the U.S. and Israel
Leo Rennert:
You’ve got to give credit to the diplomatic and political savvy of the Palestinian Authority and its Fatah leaders, now only left with rule in the West Bank, while Hamas holds sway in Gaza.
Not wishing to be outdone by Hamas in taking a hard line against Israel, PA President Mahmoud Abbas seized an opportunity, when President Obama took his turn at U.S. mediation last year, by insisting that, even before negotiations were resumed, Israel had to freeze all Jewish construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
With Obama siding so conspicuously with the Palestinian side, Abbas saw no need to engage at all, and instead left it to the Americans to arm-wrestle with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and pressure him to go along with unilateral concessions. In turn, this created a predictable rift between Washington and Israel, which was not about to give up the store without anything in return.
Letting Obama and Netanyahu sweat it out for nearly two years suited Abbas just fine.
[...]
Union Visits Private Home To Intimidate, Local Media Calls It “Caroling”
by Dana Loesch:
From WGEM, and the only thing funnier than their headline is the thought that WGEM likely receives a lot of ad money from the union in advertising.
It’s Christmas caroling with a message.Wednesday night, locked out workers from Roquette America in Keokuk staged a very unique protest.
They took a break from the picket lines to go caroling outside the homes of top Roquette executives who live in Quincy.
[...]
They took a break from the picket lines to go caroling outside the homes of top Roquette executives who live in Quincy.
The union workers have been off the job for almost three months now.
Roquette locked them out on September 28th, and contract negotiations have pretty much stalled ever since.
Are you kidding me? A caravan of 80 people to sing insults and, according to eyewitnesses, shouting “F*CK YOU” at various houses right before Christmas? This isn’t “caroling,” this is intimidation. On private property. I’m told by locals that one of the houses they visited was down a private lane of an elderly couple whose granddaughter often stays with them (and luckily wasn’t the night the union struck) – the union trespassed.
[....]
Remembering Christians who are persecuted for their faith
Paul Marshall , National Review Online:
For Christians, Christmas commemorates a time not only of joy, but also of threat. At Jesus’s birth, Herod conspired to kill him and murdered all the newborn boys in and around Bethlehem. In recounting this, Matthew’s gospel compares it with “Rachel weeping for her children” after massacres by the Assyrians.
Herod has his current imitators. In 1991, China’s state-run press noted the role of the churches in undercutting Communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, adding that if China did “not want such a scene to be repeated in its land, it must strangle the baby while it is still in the manger.” Al-Qaeda has declared that all Middle Eastern Christians should be killed, and many Christians in Iraq have cancelled their Christmas celebrations lest they be targeted.
Others, while less explicit, have similar ends. Iran has passed a death sentence on Yousef Nadarkhani, pastor of the Full Gospel Church of Iran congregation in the northern city of Rasht. Nadarkhani became a Christian 16 years ago and was arrested on October 12, 2009, after protesting a government decision that his son must study the Koran. On Sept. 21 and 22, 2010, the Eleventh Chamber of the Assizes Court of Gilan Province said that he was guilty of apostasy and sentenced him to death for leaving Islam. (Apostasy is not a crime under any Iranian statute — the judges simply referred to the opinions of Iranian legal scholars).Another Iranian Christian pastor, Behrouz Sadegh-Khanjani, may face a similar fate. He was arrested on June 6, 2010, and is still being held even though his detention order expired in October.
[...]
Christmas Unwrapped: How angels fell from their pedestals
Charles Lewis:
When the archangel Gabriel landed in Nazareth 2,000 years ago to meet the woman who would become the Mother of God, as told in the New Testament, his greetings included necessary words of assurance: “Be not afraid.”
Despite myriad artistic depictions through the ages that show Gabriel looking like the most serene of creatures, Mary may have been shocked out of her wits by his presence. Being a Jew of her times, she would have known about the angels of the Old Testament, and so would have had good reason to fear. Angels were serious business in those days, even terrifying. They often carried flaming swords or their faces appeared to emit lightning. They were not the feathery sweet angels of today that hang from Christmas trees or appear in school plays. They certainly were not “Smiley the Angel,” an image that puts wings on the ubiquitous “smiley face” logo.
Indeed, only months before, a relation of Mary’s was struck dumb for having the audacity to doubt Gabriel’s words. So after greeting Mary with, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women,” the angel of the Lord needed to reassure her that all would be well.
“If you read early depictions of angels, they are complicated, frightening and wondrous beings that are extremely difficult to explain,” says Danielle Trussoni, author of the New York Times notable book Angelology.
[...]
Mark Steyn vigorously defends Tom Coburn over 9/11 bill
by therightscoop:
Mark Steyn, subbing in for Rush today, gave an amazing monologue praising Senator Tom Coburn for what he did with the 9/11 first responders bill. Despite tons of emotional manipulation, he said Coburn and a few others held strong and managed to cut 4 billion in waste out of this bill that would have been headed straight for the trial lawyers. Steyn says that this is the good news coming from the lame duck session and that he hopes Coburn will apply this method to all legislation coming out of the Senate. Otherwise, he says, if we can’t start cutting this massive waste iconified by this one bill, then there won’t be any more America.
[...]
Hitler’s pagan ‘winter solstice’
Hitler’s Christmas party: Rare photographs capture leading Nazis celebrating in 1941
Maybe this will shut up those who claim Hitler was a Christian.
The nice road to Santa and the difficult path to Christ
By Patricia Paddey:
[...]
But the story of Jesus? Well that’s a far different matter and one that could never be described in half-measures. The sweet infant sleeping on the hay in the Christmas crèche grows up to be the man who angers local religious authorities, is betrayed, abandoned and handed over for torture by disappointed friends, and dies a traitor’s cruel death. In the days and weeks after his death, hundreds of people are convinced of the reality of his resurrection – including his scared and scattered friends who ultimately hear him victoriously proclaim, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
It’s hardly the standard soft-focus, feel-good story that resonates with our age or with the mood of the season. But it is a story that rings true in the hearts and minds of Christians the world over, who aren’t shy about professing it, proclaiming it in public places or teaching it to their children, at Christmas or at any other time of the year.
For they know, from personal experience, that it is a potent story that – once considered, accepted, internalized and acted upon – has the power to transform hearts and change lives.
AFDI’s Two Pro-Israel, Counter Jihad Ad Campaigns Submitted in Seattle Now Metro Considers Changing Policy Over Anti-Israeli Bus Ads
Pam Gellar:
I put the finishing touches on the two ads AFDI will be running in Seattle to counter the nazi-style propaganda designed to incite violence and hatred towards the Jewish people.
Here are the two ads that have been submitted to Titan — Seattle transit.
[...]
Ex-Iran diplomat admits working toward nuclear bomb with North Korea’s help
Haaretz:
Mohammed Reza Heydari, formerly of the Iranian embassy in Oslo, Norway, told the British newspaper that he had helped North Korean technicians and military experts enter Iran while he was working for the Iranian foreign ministry office in Tehran’s airport.
Heydari said the North Korean experts helped Iran develop nuclear bomb capability and increase the range of Iran’s ballistic missiles.
He said that his mission was to allow North Korean military staff, as well as Palestinians associated with Hamas, to enter the country without any visa and passport inspection.
According to Heydari, Iran is recruiting nuclear scientists worldwide, especially in Africa. He claimed recruitment is carried out by foreign ministry staff in Iranian embassies, who track down local scientists and offer them contracts to work in Iran.
Iran’s claims that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes is a façade, Heydari added.
[...]
Preparations under way for Sudan vote
CNN:
A plane carrying thousands of ballots has landed in Southern Sudan ahead of a pivotal referendum there next month.
The plane carried nearly 45,000 pounds (20,400 kilograms) of ballots. People are scheduled to begin voting on January 9 on whether Southern Sudan should become independent or remain part of a unified Sudan.
[...]
The referendum is a key provision of a 2005 peace treaty that ended a north-south civil war in Sudan. The war killed 2 million people and displaced several million others, mainly from southern Sudan, from 1983 to 2005.
It pitted a northern government of Arab Muslims against blacks in southern Sudan who practice Christianity and animist religions.
Netanyahu: Incorrect to think PA wants peace and Israel doesn’t
Jerusalem Post:
The idea that the Palestinian are interested in moving forward on the peace process, but Israel is not, is one of two widely held politically correct misconceptions, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Thursday.
Netanyahu, in a private meeting, said Israel is ready for substantive negotiations, and has taken substantive steps to launch them, but the Palestinians have simply refused to engage.
[...]
Islamists’ War against ‘the Other’
Nina Shea:
This year, one aspect of the nativity scene deserves special reflection. Gathered around the manger that serves as the Christ Child’s cradle are representatives of three ancient religious groups indigenous to the region: Mary and Joseph, the first Christians; the shepherds of Bethlehem, the Jewish “city of David”; and the Magi, the name for Zoroastrian priests, who followed a celestial sign from their home in the East looking for the “King of the Jews.” (Though not depicted in the nativity art, John the Baptist himself attracted many followers, some of whom never converted to Christianity and became known as Sabean Mandeans.)
These figures in the Christmas story represent the principal monotheistic religions of Middle Eastern antiquity. It would not be until six centuries later that Islam arose in the Arabian peninsula. Even today, the Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and a group the Zoroastrians inspired, the Yezidis, as well as the Sabean Mandeans, constitute the main non-Islamic religions in the Greater Middle East.
But this is coming to an end. Since 2004, a relentless wave of Islamist terrorist attacks targeting Iraq’s indigenous Christians has prompted that group to flee en masse. At the time of Saddam Hussein’s fall, the number of Chaldean Catholics, Assyrian Orthodox, Armenians, Syriacs, and other Christians in Iraq was estimated at 1.4 million. Half of these Christians have since fled, and some observers speculate that this may well be the last Christmas in Iraq for the half remaining. In fact, it’s not just the Christian community that faces existential threats, and it is not just in Iraq. Every one of the indigenous religious communities evoked by the nativity story is disappearing from the region’s Muslim-majority countries.
[...]
Melting Leftist Arguments on Contact
by David Swindle, FrontPage:
Swindle: Please tell us a bit about your odyssey through academia. What drove you to pursue scholarly work? What were some of the subjects you studied which influenced you the most? How did your studies affect your political philosophy? What was it like being a son of Soviet dissidents in a leftist academic culture which celebrated the monsters who had brought so much pain to your family?
Glazov: Going to university was just a given thing to do. I come from a family of academics and pursuing knowledge is something that you just love and pursue, there’s not really a question about it. I did my undergrad in history and then went on to do Ph.D. studies in history as well. I did it because I longed for fighting for the truth about communism and for telling the truth about it. I studied the Cold War because America was a divine entity to me and the Soviet Union was, for anyone with eyes to see, a clear evil empire that represented a toxic threat to every single human being, whether they were under its totalitarian grasp or outside of it.
I detested the leftists in academia who not only apologized for the Soviet Union, but cheered for its victory. I observed the glorification of Mao, Che Guevara, Castro, the North Vietnamese and other mass murderers everywhere I went on campus. No academic professor, with an exception or two, had the courage or integrity to put Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago or Armando Valladares’ Against All Hope on their syllabuses, even though the Soviet Union and Cuba played prominent roles in their courses. No professor would dare to accompany his reading list full of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn with a counter-reading from a David Horowitz or Thomas Sowell. You were only allowed to get one side of the story. And if you thought that capitalism was a good thing or that Ronald Reagan was a great president, you would get a bad mark, because it meant you didn’t understand the course and the truth.
It hurt my heart and infuriated my whole being watching these people on campus apologize for evil and heap abuse and slander upon the United States and Israel, the two most beautiful countries in the world that represent and stand up for freedom, justice and equality (well, with the U.S. up until Obama), and are on the frontlines of defending it. In this context, a desire was born in me to expose leftists and their true motives. I wanted to understand and to explain the typical colleague I looked at daily who worshiped societies under which he himself would be exterminated and who heaped criticism at a society that was allowing him every luxury, liberty and material allowance to sit around and think up everything he hated about it.
[...]
The Persecution & Prayer Alert
The Persecution & Prayer Alert
The Voice of the Martyrs, Canada
http://www.persecution.net
Thursday, December 23, 2010
“Pain and suffering are not good; disobedience to Jesus is even
worse.”
– Dr. Kiflu, Eritrean prisoner
Sign up now to receive our free monthly newsletter at
http://www.persecution.net/nlorder.htm
.
***********************************
In this week’s edition: reports from Vietnam and Egypt
***********************************
1. Vietnamese authorities crack down on Christmas events
(Source: Compass Direct)
Authorities have put a halt to Christmas celebrations in several areas
of Vietnam in what appears to be a central government crackdown on
Christianity. On December 19, hundreds of Christians arrived at the
National Convention Center in the Tu Kiem district of Hanoi for a
planned Christmas event. However, they found the doors of the building
locked and police on scene who tried to send them away. In a bold
move, some of the Christians began to sing and pray in the square in
front of the center. Police then struck some Christians with their
fists and nightsticks. Christian leaders worked to calm the crowd,
which eventually left, but not before at least six people — including
Rev. Nguyen Huu Bao, the event’s scheduled speaker — were arrested.
At last report, the six individuals were still detained.
Similar incidents occurred on the same day in Thanh Hoa, Nghe An and
Quang Nam provinces, and in the city of Danang in central Vietnam.
Officials injured believers and, in some cases, also confiscated or
destroyed property belonging to the believers.
Pray the victims of these crackdowns will be encouraged and emboldened
by God, their Immanuel, who loves them and leads them at all times.
Pray for peace to reign in the hearts of God’s followers in Vietnam
this Christmas. Pray that authorities will receive the saving grace of
Jesus.
You can learn more about believers suffering for their faith in Christ
in Vietnam at http://www.persecution.net/vietnam.htm
.
***********************************
2. Egyptian Christian charged with “defaming Islam”
(Source: Compass Direct)
A convert from Islam to Christianity in Port Said, northeast Egypt,
has been charged with “defaming Islam.”
Ashraf Thabet, 45, came to faith in Christ in 2004. For years he
questioned his Muslim beliefs and learned about the Christian faith
through a Christian friend, as well as websites and other media.
During these years, he shared his doubts about Islam and told others
what he was learning about Jesus Christ.
Angry that he questioned Islam, Ashraf’s Muslim friends arranged for
him to meet with several Islamic leaders. During the meeting, the
Islamic leaders also expressed anger toward him for his questions.
They turned in Ashraf to state security officials, who interrogated
him multiple times and told him he could not talk to anyone about his
religious views.
One evening, police arrived at Ashraf’s home, kicking down his front
door and assaulting him in front of his crying wife and children. They
confiscated his computer, books and CDs, and then took him to jail. He
was repeatedly interrogated and spent time in solitary confinement.
After 132 days in jail, Ashraf was informed of the “defamation of
religion” charge against him. He also learned that Muslim leaders in
his neighbourhood bribed his wife to divorce him and take away his
10-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son.
On August 21, Ashraf was released from prison, but the defamation
charge remains against him with no indication of when the case will go
to court. He is extremely concerned about re-arrest. He has only been
able to see his children briefly, and his court battle has left him
unable to work, unable to obtain a driver’s license and without much
savings. Ashraf also receives death threats on a regular basis. Most
days, he is too fearful to venture outside his apartment.
Pray that Ashraf will draw strength from the Lord, entrusting his life
to God’s sovereign care during this difficult time. Pray that the
charges against him will be dropped. Ask God to equip him to be a bold
and gracious witness. Pray for his family, that they will be touched
by the transforming love of Jesus.
To learn more about the trials of Egyptian Christians, go to
http://www.persecution.net/egypt.htm
.
***********************************
3. Update: Pastor beaten, Bible school attacked in Vietnam
(VOM-Australia)
A prominent pastor was recently beaten and his home and Bible school
demolished by authorities in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 2, Vietnam.
On December 13, police arrested Pastor Nguyen Hong Quang, just minutes
before authorities demolished his home and Bible school. The police
beat Pastor Quang with batons so badly that he eventually lost
consciousness. He was held in an undisclosed location and released
later that day. Pastor Quang, a human rights lawyer and chair of the
Legal Committee of the Vietnam Evangelical Fellowship, has been
imprisoned several times in recent years (see
http://www.persecution.net/vn-2007-01-10.htm
for more). Stay tuned to an upcoming issue of The Voice of the
Martyrs newsletter for a special report on Pastor Quang. To subscribe,
go to http://www.persecution.net/nlorder.htm
.
Pray for healing for Pastor Quang, and praise God that he has been
released and reunited with his family. Pray for comfort and
encouragement for all those affected by the loss of the Bible school,
including the students who were forced to return to their villages.
Pray for the pastors, leaders and families in Vietnam to remain
steadfast in faith, trusting in the Lord to guide them.
Find out more about the cross-bearing disciples in Vietnam by visiting
the country report at http://www.persecution.net/vietnam.htm
.
***********************************
The Persecution & Prayer Alert is a ministry of The Voice of the
Martyrs, Canada. (Mailing address: P.O. Box 608, Streetsville,
Ontario, L5M 2C1)
Tel. (905) 670.9721. Website: http://www.persecution.net
A massive security threat just blossomed, and you’d be hard-pressed to find an MSM or administration official who cares.
by Mike McDaniel:
Recent revelations about hostile incursions into South America have raised alarm in those who care about U.S. interests and security, particularly in America’s hemisphere. They have also raised questions about whether the Monroe Doctrine — America will tolerate no hostile incursions in her own hemisphere — is dead. These revelations have been, for the most part, ignored by those who care little for American sovereignty and security, such as the MSM and apparently the Obama administration.
Among the two most alarming revelations is the already completed sale and delivery, to Venezuela by Russia, of nearly 2,000 advanced, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles capable of hitting aircraft as high as 19,000 feet. Equally and perhaps more alarming is an October agreement between Iran and Venezuela. The agreement establishes a joint ground-to-ground missile base on Venezuelan soil and calls for the sharing of missile technology and the training of technicians and officers. In addition, Venezuela may use the missiles as it chooses for “national needs” and in case of “emergency.” Several types of missiles will be deployed, giving Venezuela the ability to strike targets throughout South and Central America and throughout the U.S.
[...]
The jihad of the British Left
Melanie Philllips:
A new and authoritative report by Ehud Rosen has just been published by the Jerusalem Institute for Public Affairs, which maps the forces behind the campaign of demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel and shows how the UK has become the global hub of such bigotry.
But the UK has also become the global hub, outside the Arab and Muslim world itself, of Muslim radicalisation. The two phenomena are, of course, symbiotically connected. And what Rosen shows is how the radicalisation of British Muslims – an issue of the greatest possible concern in Britain — is not just the result of extremist Muslim preachers and the like. It has also been actively pushed by the far left.
[...]
Bad Science Makes Bad Predictions
By Dr. Tim Ball:
“Stephen Dorling, of the University of East Anglia’s school of environmental sciences, said it was not surprising the cold period raised questions over climate change – but the snowy weather should not be used as evidence against it.”
When scrambling to explain all the cold weather people only expose their ignorance of climate science. They also, fortunately, produce statements that, even those who don’t understand the science, see as illogical. Notice Dorling says “climate change” as he tries to suggest the current cold is just an anomaly in an overall warming trend. Others point to storms and flooding as further evidence of changes due to warming.
[...]
Bolton: Oval Office antics creating world instability
By Ellis Washington:
President Barack Obama speaks before signing the middle-class tax cut bill in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on December 17, 2010 in Washington DC. The measure would extend tax cuts for families at every income level, renew jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed and enact a new one-year cut in Social Security taxes that would benefit nearly every worker who earns a wage. UPI/Olivier Douliery/POOL Photo via Newscom
President Obama’s equivocation on matters of national interest and security – such as his lukewarm response to WikiLeaks release of classified documents – are creating instability around the globe and might be encouraging U.S. enemies to push their own agendas, including violence, according to former Ambassador John Bolton.
In a series of recent interviews, including with WND, Bolton said he has a high level of concern that “America’s adversaries will take the measure of our equivocation on world events and question whether or not we are willing to protect our allies.”
“The weak pace and scope in challenging our adversaries will incentivize them to increasing bad acts,” he warned.
Consequently, according to Bolton, America’s allies also might be in the crosshairs.
“The president,” Bolton elaborated in a report in the London Guardian, “unlike the long line of his predecessors since Franklin Roosevelt, simply does not put national security at the center of his political priorities.
“Thus, Europeans who welcomed Obama to the Oval Office should reflect on his Warren Harding-like interest in foreign policy. Europeans who believe they will never again face real security threats to their comfortable lifestyle should realize that if by chance one occurs during this administration, the president will be otherwise occupied.”[...]
ut-Face Like Orwell’s farm animals, we have awakened to see the new commandments on the barnyard wall.
Victor Davis Hanson:
This week Attorney General Holder was warning about the threat of terrorism — but not terrorism in the usual liberal Timothy McVeigh, “even Christians can be terrorists” sort of gobbledy-gook. Rather, Eric Holder, as this Christmas’s new Dick Cheney, is warning about U.S. citizens who are stealthy radical Islamists. Holder fears that they wish to succeed where the would-be Times Square, subway, Portland, and Christmas airliner bombers all failed. He assumes that the terrorists among us for some reason did not read the Al-Arabiya interview, fully appreciate the Cairo speech, see the famous bow to the Saudi king, or hear of administration pressure on Israel. In short, “All religions produce terrorists,” is now followed by “But some religions produce more terrorists than others.”
So, gone for the moment at least are we “cowards” who racially stereotype, oppose the Ground Zero mosque in Neanderthal fashion, and fail to appreciate Holder’s own commitment to shutting down Guantanamo and trying KSM in a New York federal court. Much like his colleague Harold Koh (who, as an Obama State Department justice official rather than a Yale law dean, is no longer suing to put an end to waterboarding at Guantanamo, but is instead opposing those who are suing to stop Predator assassination missions), Holder in a blink of an eye went from trashing the Bush-Cheney anti-terrorism protocols to sighing that it is almost a matter of when, not if, home-grown Islamic radicals will kill lots of us. Holder’s road to Damascus is eerily reminiscent of the sudden conversion in 1938 of British intellectuals, who, as Czechoslovakia was swallowed, abruptly went from 15 years of trumpeting League of Nations pacifism to calling for British military deterrence against fascism. Unlike Holder, however, they at least explained why they had made their about-faces.
[...]
Unions profiting from favoritism by Obama’s GSA
By: Examiner Editorial:
Why is the federal General Services Administration, the government’s purchasing agent and landlord, sending millions of tax dollars to unions? Last week, 19 members of Congress, including incoming House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., sent a letter to Martha Johnson, administrator of the GSA, asking why it is forcing contractors that are refurbishing federal buildings to accept Project Labor Agreements. A PLA mandates the use of union labor on government construction projects, which translates to inflated costs, delays, and inflexible work rules.
[...]
Ignatieff steers clear of C-word
Ezra Levant:
Michael Ignatieff’s Christmas card isn’t a Christmas card.
It’s a “holiday” card. It has a Jewish menorah on it, which is great. Fully 1% of Canadians are Jewish and though Hanukkah was three weeks ago, it’s a nice thought.
The card has some snowflakes on it, too, and mittens and a gingerbread man (or a ghost, it’s not clear). Those are symbols of winter. Which is great, because it is winter time.
But there’s not a single Christian symbol on the card, the religion of the majority of Canadians. It’s the faith our Queen Elizabeth is officially the “defender” of, the religion that inspired the names of so many places in this country, from the St. Lawrence Seaway to St. John’s.
It is the religion whose cross adorns the coats of arms of almost every province, the religion from whose Bible comes Canada’s motto, “From sea to sea.” Our anthem asks God to keep our land, and the French version says we will “carry the cross.”
Even the Charter of Rights begins with the reminder that neither judges nor politicians are at the apex of Canadian society, but rather both are under the “supremacy of God.”
[...]
Venezuelan socialists defy voters in lame-duck session
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES:
The United States isn’t the only country suffering a lame-duck power grab. On Friday, Venezuela’s outgoing socialist-dominated parliament granted President Hugo Chavez the power to rule by decree for 18 months. If democracy is not already dead in Venezuela, it’s about to breathe its last breath.
Chavez’s drive for dictatorship comes in the wake of an unexpected electoral reverse. In September’s parliamentary elections, the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, which had controlled 83 percent of the legislative seats, dropped to 59 percent control, while the opposition Coalition for Democratic Unity surged from 4 percent to 40 percent. More troubling to Chavez was that his party attracted only 48 percent of the popular vote against the opposition’s 47 percent. Had the election been more free and fair, the opposition likely would have found itself in the majority.
The new parliament doesn’t sit until Jan. 5 so the old majority took a page from the Pelosi-Reid playbook and decided to ram through as much of its unpopular agenda as possible while their supermajority lasted. The crowning achievement was the grant of dictatorial powers to Chavez, who – like President Obama – will face the electorate in 2012, if there is a Venezuelan electorate to face.
[...]
The Left Twists Net Neutrality into a “Civil Rights” Issue
by Michelle Malkin, FrontPage:
When bureaucrats talk about increasing our “access” to x, y or z, what they’re really talking about is increasing exponentially their control over our lives. As it is with the government health care takeover, so it is with the newly approved government plan to “increase” Internet “access.” Call it Webcare.
By a vote of 3-2, the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday adopted a controversial scheme to ensure “net neutrality” by turning unaccountable Democratic appointees into meddling online traffic cops. The panel will devise convoluted rules governing Internet service providers, bandwidth use, content, prices and even disclosure details on Internet speeds. The “neutrality” is brazenly undermined by preferential treatment toward wireless broadband networks. Moreover, the FCC’s scheme is widely opposed by Congress — and has already been rejected once in the courts. Demonized industry critics have warned that the regulations will stifle innovation and result in less access, not more.
Sound familiar? The parallels with health care are striking. The architects of Obamacare promised to provide Americans more access to health insurance — and cast their agenda as a fundamental universal entitlement.
[...]
Catholic NHS worker ‘faces sack’ after giving colleague booklet warning of abortion risks
dailymail:
A Roman Catholic health worker is facing the sack after she gave a colleague a booklet about the potential dangers of abortion.
Margaret Forrester, 39, feels she was bullied and ‘treated like a criminal’ after she handed the pro-life leaflet to a family planning worker at an NHS centre.
It warned of the physical and psychological problems suffered by five women after terminating pregnancies.
Miss Forrester said she offered the booklet during a private conversation with a colleague, because she felt the NHS did not give enough information about potential risks associated with abortion.
[...]
Terrorizing Our Own
By Daniel Greenfield:
Airline travelers flying the unfriendly skies are presented with two options, that are actually only a single option, to have themselves and their children degraded in public in order to spare Muslim feelings. That we have a ban on profiling travelers, but no ban on molesting or humiliating them, tells us everything we need to know about why we have the current system that we do.
In a war we terrorize the enemy. In a siege we terrorize our own. And we have been terrorizing our own for a long time now.
[...]
Obama, EPA to expand regulatory regime for climate change
Ed Morrissey:
After initially appearing to retreat in the face of the midterm onslaught, Barack Obama and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson have decided to pursue an end-run strategy to impose regulation on energy producers regarding greenhouse-gas emissions. The move sets up a confrontation between the White House and Congress, which has already signaled a willingness to play hardball with Obama on regulatory innovation:
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