Sebelius on the attack! Against the good guys, of course.

Shocking things have become such a daily occurrence under the Obama regime that I gave up blogging a few months ago.  There was no way to cover all the outrages — or even to pick what to cover from the overwhelming barrage.

This morning, however, something came along that hits so close to home, I am inspired to write.  The horror of ObamaCare has now gotten all too personal.  Kathleen Sebelius, Obama’s secretary of Health and Human Services, has chosen, as her first victim in the coming war on insurance companies, my own insurer, the company that has covered — and graciously served — my family for the past 19 years.

The Washington Times, via WeaselZippers, has the story:

The Obama administration on Monday called on a Mennonite-owned health insurance company to cancel its proposed 11.6 percent rate hike, marking the first time the government has tried to pressure a private company under the new health care law.

For those of you who may not know, Mennonites are a Christian denomination that emphasizes non-violence, much as the Quakers do, and mutual assistance, much as Jewish groups have historically been known for.  Mennonites originated in Switzerland in the 16th century, were persecuted by both Catholics and Lutherans, and now include members in many countries all over the world.  Mennonite congregations and lifestyles range over a broad spectrum, with the Amish being the most traditional.

While Pennsylvania-based Everence Insurance said it needs to raise rates on about 5,000 customers to cover costs, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius called the increase “unreasonable,” holding it up as evidence that the government has an important role to play in reining in the cost of coverage.

I won’t go into private family stories here, but suffice it to say that during some very difficult times, Everence (formerly Mennonite Mutual Aid) was there for us in a way I simply cannot imagine any other insurance company doing.  Not only have Everence employees been like angels to my family, they get high marks from all our healthcare providers, too.  I can’t tell you how often I’ve received spontaneous, out-of-the-blue remarks from healthcare professionals about how extraordinarily nice our insurer is to deal with.

In part, this is because Everence/MMA is a very small company, i.e., no huge, intimidating, cumbersome bureaucracy.  But perhaps more importantly, it’s because they are Christians, who take their mission seriously.  As an Everence case manager once told me, “We don’t see ourselves as an insurance company.  Look at our name: Mennonite Mutual Aid.  Christians helping Christians.  That’s what we try to be. We are a Christian mutual aid society, not an insurance company.”

Although I am a Catholic now, the rest of my family still attends a Mennonite church, and we have stayed with our Mennonite insurer.  You could look all over America, and I am convinced you would not find a more ethical and caring insurer than this small Mennonite association, which raises rates only with reluctance, and by no more than what’s needed for financial survival.  There is thus a particularly galling irony in the fact that of all the insurers in America, Kathleen Sebelius and her minions would pick this one to attack first.

But then again, perhaps it makes perfect sense in a perverse way.  We know that bullies are cowards at heart, so they usually go after the little guys.  And they often target Christians, whom they know hold themselves to a higher standard of behavior than that of the bullies.  Some readers might find additional irony in the fact that this leftist Administration is targeting a denomination whose most famous trademark is its strict pacifism.  You’d think the anti-war liberals would give them a break, wouldn’t you?  But some of us have been saying for a long time that, contrary to popular stereotypes, the Left is not and never has been nonviolent.

I am happy to note that the Mennonites, pacifists though they be, are resisting Sebelius’ efforts to intimidate them.

With the first plan to be ruled unreasonable by the administration, Everence indicated it would not back away from the rate hike, although the Mennonite-affiliated company will be required to publicly justify it on the website healthcare.gov.

The fact that Obama, Sebelius & Co. are going on big-time offense against such a small fish — and a virtuous, Christian one, at that — is just one more bit of evidence that these people really are doing the devil’s work.  But it may be taking them by surprise to come up against something of which they seem to have no concept: the unearthly strength and courage that Christ the King gives His humble followers, who bow to no one but Him.

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Lights-out time for incandescents

Better keep stockpiling those incandescent light bulbs, folks, because yesterday Congress voted not to overturn the phase-out of conventional incandescent light bulbs that begins less than six months from now.

Libertarian types have long opposed the virtual ban for lofty-sounding (although perfectly correct) reasons — government overreach, violation of free-market principles, blatant flouting of the Constitution — but I confess that my own visceral revulsion at the light-bulb mandate comes from more practical, down-to-earth considerations.

First, fluorescent light gives some people migraine headaches, it torments those of us with visual and/or auditory hypersensitivity, and it aggravates ADHD, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. (Could that be one reason ADHD rates have gone through the roof the last few decades, as schools have phased out incandescent lights as well as good old-fashioned windows?)

Secondly, compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) contain mercury. Have you read the EPA’s official guide on handling CFLs? Heaven help you if you ever break one of the darn things. The first thing you have to do is turn off the air-conditioner or heater (any forced-air system) and open all the windows, so that the mercury vapor released when the bulb broke can be aired out of the house. The guide hasn’t yet been updated to reflect the latest findings that some of the mercury may remain in your house for up to 128 days.

All the materials you use to do the cleanup have to be put into a sealed glass or plastic container and taken to the nearest Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) Disposal Center. If you live in a rural area, as I do, and that center is a long way away, you’ll just have to set aside the container of hazardous stuff in a safe place until your next trip to the big city. But you’d better call ahead; some HHW centers are only open one day a week, or month. (How many whipped American citizens does it take to change a broken light bulb? Three. One to open all the windows, one to keep the children out of the room, and one to call the HazMat team.)

Even bulbs that don’t get broken require special disposal procedures. Ideally, they should be recycled — either at a HHW disposal center, or at certain commercial establishments such as Ace, Lowe’s, Home Depot and IKEA. The EPA has a handy-dandy guide for that, too.  Unfortunately, according to the Association of Lighting and Mercury Recyclers, only about 2% of CFLs are being disposed of properly. The other 98% end up in landfills. Is anyone surprised?

And what is all of this folderol and rigmarole for, anyway — to save energy? When you factor in all the costs — manufacture and disposal — of these confounded bulbs, I’m not so sure that they save energy at all. But assuming they do save a little, why have they become such a sacred cow for the Left? Because of “global warming” (AGW)? Are you kidding me? It’s as if ClimateGate never happened. The veil has been lifted on what is probably the greatest scientific fraud ever perpetrated — but our government leaders continue to walk around with a blanket over their heads.

Unfortunately, they have little incentive to come out from under it. Al Gore with his billions he’s made in the global warming con game is only the tip of the iceberg. Vast multitudes of EPA and DOE bureaucrats, along with the scientists to whom they dole out grants (i.e., our tax dollars), make their living off of the “climate change” scam.

Molly Ivins was a diehard leftist, but I’ve always thought she got one thing right. She said that no matter how solid your facts and how logical your argument, you will never get someone to see the plain truth if they have a vested interest in not seeing it.

I think of that bit of wisdom when I consider GE, the largest manufacturer of CFLs as well as the largest manufacturer of the turbines used for wind power. Given that its CEO, Jeff Immelt, is one of Obama’s closest advisors, don’t expect any light bulbs to go on over the heads of either Immelt or Obama — or their legions of lackeys.

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U.S. troop withdrawal will hurt Afghan women the most

Afghan women are living in fear that they are about to be returned, once again, to the Dark Ages of misogynistic terror. The Asia Sentinel reports:

The report Wednesday from Washington, DC   that US President Barack Obama has set in motion a substantial withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan is hardly good news for Afghanistan’s women.  Withdrawal of 10,000 NATO troops is expected by the end of the year. Women in the country are hearing rumors that talks with the Taliban are already taking place in secret…. Women risk losing liberty, education and employment if the fundamentalist Taliban were to win a significant place in the Afghan government.

The presence of foreign troops has caused significant issues, too. For example, a recent errant NATO strike killed at least nine women and children. But women say this tragedy should not be used as a reason for a troop withdrawal. The Taliban are responsible for the majority of civilian deaths during the war and intolerable abuse of women.

In May, Safia Siddiqi, a women’s activist and former member of the Afghan National Economy Committee, said on a national radio broadcast that nothing had improved for women in rural areas and that women need each other and the international forces to attain peace and security.

READ MORE –>

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Osama bin Laden is dead — but HEZBOLLAH is stronger than ever. And they’re amongst us.

Oh, if only Osama bin Laden’s death could solve all our problems. No doubt we’ve dealt a serious blow to al-Qaeda. Unfortunately, Hezbollah, which has cells over the Western Hemisphere — including within U.S. borders — is an even greater long-term danger to us than al-Qaeda is.

In case anyone needs a refresher, Hezbollah is the Iranian-sponsored terrorist organization that has dominated Lebanon for many years, having made its first huge splash in 1983, when its suicide bombing of the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut killed 241 Americans. Since then, Hezbollah has spread all over the world, and has pulled off some very high-profile terrorist attacks, including the bombing of the largest Jewish center in Buenos Aires in 1994, and the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1998.

Hezbollah has had a growing presence in South America for over twenty years, with its heaviest concentration in the remote, lawless wildlands of South America’s “Tri-Border Area” (TBA), where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay intersect. Although Hezbollah’s chief target is the United States of America, few Americans are even aware of the group’s large and growing presence in our hemisphere. The fact that Iran is now building missile bases in Venezuela has perhaps gotten a few more people’s attention — but the media is not devoting to it anything like the coverage that its significance deserves.

If all that weren’t bad enough, Hezbollah is in Mexico, is actively and successfully recruiting there, and now we find out that its reach extends as far northward as Tijuana. Maybe I missed it, but as far as I can tell, virtually nobody is covering this. There’s one lone TV station down in San Diego that broke the story — and other than a mention on the Fox News website, and a few conservative blogs, the story has gone down a black hole. Barack Obama certainly didn’t mention it when he delivered his little “Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, bitter clingers!” speech last week in El Paso.

From Channel 10 News in San Diego:

A terrorist organization whose home base is in the Middle East has established another home base across the border in Mexico.

“They [Hezbollah] are recognized by many experts as the ‘A’ team of Muslim terrorist organizations,” a former U.S. intelligence agent told 10News.

From Small Wars Journal, we get the following account that illustrates just how sophisticated Hezbollah is:

Recently, FBI agents went to the Tri-Border Area on a covert mission, only informing a select few officials of the host country with little time before arriving. Hezbollah faxed the FBI New York office pictures of their agents de-boarding their plane, just minutes after it happened. ―The implicit message was clear: We know you‘re here. We‘re watching. It was a classic example of Hezbollah‘s superb counterintelligence, another reason why American officials consider the group so dangerous.

This is what we’re up against, folks. And they’re not just down in the wilds of South America any more. According to the former intelligence agent who spoke to 10News San Diego:

The group is now active much closer to San Diego. “We are looking at 15 or 20 years that Hezbollah has been setting up shop in Mexico.”

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, U.S. policy has focused on al-Qaeda and its offshoots. “They [al-Qaeda] are more shooters than thinkers … it’s a lot of muscles, courage, desire but not a lot of training.”

Hezbollah, he said, is far more advanced.

“Their operators are far more skilled … they are the equals of Russians, Chinese or Cubans,” he said. “I consider Hezbollah much more dangerous in that sense because of strategic thinking; they think more long-term.”

Hezbollah has operated in South America for decades and then Central America, along with their sometime rival, sometime ally Hamas.

Now, the group is blending into Shi’a Muslim communities in Mexico, including Tijuana.

Until a few months ago, when I first started researching Hezbollah’s activities in Latin America, I didn’t even know there were Shi’a Muslim communities in Mexico. But indeed there are — in part, emigres from Muslim countries; in part, Mexican converts to Islam. The 10News story continues:

Other [Hezbollah] pockets along the U.S.-Mexico border region remain largely unidentified as U.S. intelligence agencies are focused on the drug trade .

“They have had clandestine training in how to live in foreign hostile territories,” the agent said.

The agent, who has spent years deep undercover in Mexico, said Hezbollah is partnering with drug organizations, but which ones is not clear at this time.

He told 10News the group receives cartel cash and protection in exchange for Hezbollah expertise.

“From money laundering to firearms training and explosives training,” the agent said.

For example, he tracked, along with Mexican intelligence, two Hezbollah operatives in safe houses in Tijuana and Durango.

“I confirmed the participation of cartel members as well as other Hezbollah individuals living and operating out of there,” he said.

One of the things that is crucial to know about Hezbollah is that, although they are affiliated with Iran, each cell is set up to be self-sufficient with respect to personnel and funding. By and large, once a cell is established, it is not getting financial support from Iran. Each cell raises its own funds. This is why Hezbollah has gotten involved with the drug and human-trafficking cartels, along with currency-trading, import-export, and document-forging operations: These are money-makers.

But it’s a two-way street. The drug cartels give Hezbollah a piece of the action with the drug and human-trafficking trades, but on the other hand, Hezbollah’s particular specialties are useful to the Mexican cartels.

Tunnels the cartels have built that cross from Mexico into the U.S. have grown increasingly sophisticated. It is a learned skill, the agent said, [that] points to Hezbollah’s involvement.

“Where are the knowledgeable tunnel builders? Certainly in the Middle East,” he said.

Why have Americans not heard more about Hezbollah’s activities happening so close to the border?

That’s a very, very good question. Could it be (as I suspect) just good old-fashioned denial — i.e., we’re dealing with a threat so horrible, and seemingly so intractable, that deep down, we really just don’t want to know? A variation on that is that news media — and the interests that control them — are afraid of creating a panic. Regrettable, but understandable.

“If they [Hezbollah] really wanted to start blowing stuff up, they could do it,” the agent said.

According to the agent, the organization sees the U.S. as their “cash cow,” with illegal drug and immigration operations. Many senior Hezbollah leaders are wealthy businessmen, the agent said.

“The money they are sending back to Lebanon is too important right now to jeopardize those operations.”

The agent said the real concern is the group’s long-term goal of radicalizing Muslim communities.

“They’re focusing on developing … infiltrating communities within North America.”

Counterterrorism professionals tell us that Hezbollah already has cells in the United States. And we know that their operatives are continuing to enter the U.S. via Mexico. Obama and others like to make it sound as if Mexicans are the only people coming over our unsecured border. But every year, thousands of OTMs (other than Mexican) cross the border as well. According to the Dept. of Homeland Security,

federal law enforcement agencies detained 791,568 deportable aliens in fiscal year 2008 – and 5,506 of them were from 14 “special-interest countries”… Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen … [and terror sponsors] Cuba, Sudan, Syria and Iran.

Although only three of the thirteen Muslim countries on that list are listed as “terror sponsors,” Yemen is now al-Qaeda’s strongest base of operations, Somalia is the home base of the vicious terrorist group al-Shabaab, and we hardly need comment on the terror groups based in, funded by, or otherwise connected with Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Now consider: If border security personnel managed to catch 5,506, how many successfully got through without being caught?

The problem is bad enough that even Eric Holder’s Justice Department admits that terrorists have been crossing our borders.

There are nearly 2,000 mosques in the U.S.. Even if only one percent of them shelter Hezbollah operatives, that would still be 20 American cities that could be attacked simultaneously if the command went out.

Just the imaginative figments of spy-thriller authors? Hardly. This is actually the way Hezbollah works, according to counterterrorism expert Cyrus Miryetka. Hezbollah cells play “the long game,” biding their time for years or decades, waiting for the signal to do what they’ve trained for years to do. When the signal comes, we could see multiple Beirut-barracks type bombings. Or Mumbai-style massacres. Or Beslan-type massacres of schoolchildren. Or some combination of all the above. Or something we haven’t seen before and can’t even imagine. But the one thing we can almost surely count on, according to intelligence experts, is that it would be multiple attacks in multiple cities happening nearly simultaneously.

A useful analogy is red imported fire ants. Anyone who’s lived in the southern U.S. will know what I’m talking about. The tactic of those vicious, meat-eating insects — which have killed off much of the ground-nesting bird population in Texas and other states, and have even killed larger animals such as calves — is to crawl up your leg by the dozens or hundreds before you even know they’re on you — and then, upon the release of a pheromone signal by the first one to sting, they all sting simultaneously. The pain is excruciating.

Right now, Hezbollah operatives are figuratively crawling up our leg, infiltrating one cell after another into our country, getting in place, getting ready, awaiting the signal.

Frightening, depressing stuff — no wonder nobody wants to talk about it. But if a wildfire were headed directly toward your home as you slept, wouldn’t you want someone to call and wake you up, so you could survive, and possibly even save your home? We may be in for tragic events, but surely our odds of surviving or even preventing them are better if we’re aware and informed about the danger. Forewarned is forearmed.

So, what to do?

• Insist that our elected officials cease their willful ignorance of this problem, fulfill their constitutional duty to inform themselves about the enemy within, and in turn, inform the public. We have been bound and gagged by leftist-imposed “political correctness”; those gags need to come off, and quickly.
• Immediately shut down all jihadist training camps in the United States. It is scandalous that people openly training for the violent overthrow of the United States are permitted to operate here at all. On the contrary, these people should be put on trial for sedition and punished accordingly. And the people living in nearby communities should be alerted to the camps’ existence. It’s simply wrong to keep people in the dark about the presence of such dangerous enemies in their vicinity. We have laws requiring that people be notified about sexual predators in their neighborhood; why not about people who mean to kill them and their children?
• Vigorously investigate every mosque and Islamic center in the United States. Numerous intrepid researchers have already documented the nefarious purposes for which these centers are used. Shut down the guilty ones and deport their imams. Again, “political correctness” is just a euphemism for national suicide. We are facing a threat to our continued existence, both as a country and as individuals “guilty” of being “infidels.”
• Last but certainly not least : Seal the borders. (Mexico first, but don’t forget Canada.)

There are many more tactics in an effective strategy; these are just the most obvious ones to an amateur. Our intelligence agencies will know full well what to do; we just need to listen to them, and to free our law-enforcement personnel to implement life-saving measures.

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It’s 1938 — all over again

Nothing should shock me anymore about the depth of humanity’s oldest hatred — nevertheless I am in shock. The next Holocaust is being prepared — as the world looks on. And does nothing.

On Wednesday, in Cairo, Fatah — the terrorist group founded by Yasser Arafat that now styles itself as “moderate” and runs the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — signed a reconciliation agreement with Hamas, the terrorist group that runs the Gaza Strip. The signing was accompanied — as these things always are — by enough pomp and ceremony to disguise, for most onlookers, the monstrous evil taking place. It was attended by representatives not only of the Arab League, but of the E.U. and the U.N. That means us. Scandalously, the U.S. is not only a member of the U.N., but its chief financial contributor. So when “representatives of the U.N.” show up to cheer the consolidation of Palestinian power against Israel, they are doing that in our name.

From Big Peace:

The reconciliation agreement is an important step on the way to getting the United Nations General Assembly to unilaterally create a Palestinian state in September by international mandate. A reconciliation is an important prerequisite.

Abbas said that they had forever turned “the black page of divisions.” Meshall spelled out Hamas’s goal:

“Our aim is to establish a free and completely sovereign Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, whose capital is Jerusalem, without any settlers and without giving up a single inch of land and without giving up on the right of return [of Palestinian refugees].”

In fact, several years ago, the Middle East Quartet (United Nations, Russian Federation, United States, European Union) set three conditions for Hamas: recognize the state of Israel; renounce violence; and honor past Israeli-Palestinian agreements. Hamas has said that it will not agree to any of these conditions.

Well, of course it won’t. That would go against their whole reason for being. Hamas has been committed, from its origins, to the utter elimination of the Jews of Israel. Their very charter, Hamas’s founding document, is a declaration of war — against Israel, and against all of non-Muslim humanity. Here is the second paragraph of the Hamas charter in its entirety:

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

And do not suppose that Hamas intends to fold up shop once they’ve obliterated Israel. The charter is a manifesto of global Islamic conquest. Here’s a sample, from Article 7, which appears under the heading “The Universality of the Islamic Resistance Movement”:

As a result of the fact that those Muslims who adhere to the ways of the Islamic Resistance Movement spread all over the world, rally support for it and its stands, strive towards enhancing its struggle, the Movement is a universal one.

And what would life be like in Hamas’ utopia? Poor, nasty, brutish and short. That’s the only kind of life unmitigated hatred can yield.

I will never forget the heartbreaking scenes in 2005 as Israeli soldiers evicted their own fellow Jews from their homes in Gaza, so that Israel could give the whole Gaza Strip to the Palestinians — in hopes of peace. And I’ll never forget how sick I felt as that gift was trashed by its recipients.

Before

After

The Jewish settlers in Gaza had built some of the most state-of-the-art agricultural facilities in the world, exporting flowers, fruit and vegetables to Europe and elsewhere, and employing thousands of Palestinians, Israelis, and others. Wealthy Jewish philanthropists in the U.S. (as well as a couple of prominent non-Jewish ones such as Bill Gates) bought the Gush Katif hothouses for $14 million and donated them to the Palestinian Authority. The hothouses had taken years to build, but as PA police looked on, Palestinian mobs ransacked them within hours of the Israeli exit. They stripped them of their glass, wiring, computer and electronic equipment and irrigation pipes and timers, destroying a vital source of employment for Gaza Palestinians in the process.

Jewish minds had conceived and designed the greenhouses, Jewish hands had built them, Jewish families had earned their livings in them. Therefore they must be destroyed. Don’t want anything that’s been contaminated by the filthy Jews!

It would seem that the most well-honed skill in Gaza now is the art of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. The mentality of the suicide bomber.

There is only one way out of this pit. The late, great Israeli prime minister Golda Meir saw what it was. She said:

“Peace will come to the Middle East when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.”

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What kind of American MOURNS the death of Osama bin Laden? Well….

From The Jawa Report:

Islampolicy, the website run by former members of Revolution Muslim, had this reaction to Osama bin Laden’s death. The image of Osama bin Laden you see is from a YouTube video they embedded. It is a nasheed (hymn) dedicated to bin Laden.

A coblogger, Yusuf in New York, didn’t want to believe the news and had this to say:

But if it is true than May Allah accept him as a Martyr and may he be in the highest level of Jannah. Ameen

Yeah, but you don’t support al Qaeda.

Can we get SEAL Team Six to Queens? STAT!!

My sentiments exactly.

Hat tip: Gateway Pundit

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Obama slaps Israel in the face — on Passover!

Barack Obama seems to think that attending a Passover seder once a year will fool Jews into thinking he likes them.

Forget that he gave massive financial support — not to mention weekly attendance — to a church whose pastor, Jeremiah Wright, delivers anti-Semitic jabs on a regular basis. Forget that his first phone call from the Oval Office after his inauguration was to Mahmoud Abbas, and that his first formal TV interview as President was with al-Arabiya. Forget that one of his top advisers is Samantha Power, an inveterate Israel-hater who recently said that the U.S. should be prepared to send in our military to subjugate the Jewish state and facilitate its takeover by the Arabs. Forget that whereas Obama bowed to the Saudi king, he treated Prime Minister Netanyahu like something the cat dragged in.

We’re supposed to forget Obama’s unrelenting disparagement and undermining of the Jewish state because… he attends a Passover seder. That, he supposes, will make everything okay. To quote the man himself, “Do you think we’re stupid?”

From Israel National News:

Passover recalls the bondage and suffering of Jews in Egypt and the miracle of the Exodus, but U.S. President Barack Obama says its message is reflected in Muslim uprisings.

In his annual message, prior to his third straight participation in the Passover Seder, President Obama stated, “The story of Passover…instructs each generation to remember its past, while appreciating the beauty of freedom and the responsibility it entails. This year that ancient instruction is reflected in the daily headlines as we see modern stories of social transformation and liberation unfolding in the Middle East and North Africa.”

Did you notice the conspicuous omission? No, Barry, the haggadah doesn’t “instruct each generation to remember its past.” It instructs each generation of Jews to remember its past. And it’s not just about “the beauty of freedom,” but rather, it’s about deliverance of the Jews by God so that He could make His covenant with them at Mt. Sinai, establishing them as the Chosen People.

Unfortunately for the Jews, for thousands of years, the idea that God would choose one particular people to be His instrument of blessing to the world has really bothered a lot of non-Jews — and it’s bothered them enough to attempt genocide time and time again.

All over the Middle East and North Africa right now, radical jihadists are on the move. The Muslim Brotherhood — which is calling for war against Israel — has largely shut down the secular freedom movement in Egypt. Al-Qaeda is gaining territory in Libya. Thanks to all the unrest, anti-terrorist efforts and cooperation with U.S. intelligence have been disrupted and/or shut down all over the Middle East and North Africa.

It’s bad enough for Barack Obama to be celebrating these developments. But to celebrate them on Passover — the central, defining event of Jewish history — is beyond despicable.

Hat tip: Atlas Shrugs

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Black pastors in D.C. stand for life

We saw how quickly the forces of “political correctness” acted to remove a beautifully done advertisement that spoke the truth about the way abortion is decimating the African-American population. But, praise God, African-American pastors are standing up for truth.

From LifeSiteNews:

After the mayor of the District of Columbia was arrested for protesting a budget deal that banned taxpayer funds for local abortions, a group of local black pastors have expressed shock at the mayor’s pro-abortion “passion” and announced the planned opening of a new pregnancy center to help D.C. women avoid abortion. Washington, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray was arrested Monday on charges of trespassing after he led a group in front of Senate office buildings to protest the deal restoring the Dornan amendment banning abortion funding in D.C., which is estimated to save 1,000 lives from abortion in the city each year.

In response, a coalition of D.C. pastors are challenging the mayor to stand up for “the tiniest of constituents who truly cannot speak for themselves” – the unborn.

An open letter was signed by 10 African American pastors from the District of Columbia and surrounding areas, including Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Jr. and Rev. Dean Nelson of Care Net, a national network of 1,130 pregnancy centers.

“Who could have imagined during the height of the Civil Rights Movement a day when the mayor of Washington, D.C. would be arrested for protesting for the right to use tax dollars to abort babies, a disproportionate number of them black? As pastors and community leaders, we feel bewildered and betrayed,” states the letter.

At the 2011 Rally for Life in Washington, Pastor Luke Quinn, of Quinn Chapel A.M.E., Frederick, MD, asks: “Where is President Obama? Where is Jesse Jackson? Where is Al Sharpton?”

“Abortion is the leading cause of death in the black community nationwide,” the pastors write. “While African American women represent 13% of the female population, they undergo 37% of all abortions.

“As a leader charged with our protection and government, we are shocked at your passion to continue this trend with tax dollars.”

The letter also states that the coalition of pastors plan to open a new, privately-funded pregnancy center in Washington, D.C. this year in order to offer women life-affirming alternatives to abortion.

This center will be supported by their own congregations, non-profit organizations, and other private sources, to offer practical help, counseling, and resources to help women to carry their pregnancies to term.

In the pro-life movement, Protestants and Catholics have long spoken of their experience of “the ecumenism of the trenches.” When Catholics and Protestants are being carted off to jail together for blocking the doors of the abortion chambers, historical differences between their churches have a way of fading away into insignificance. Similarly, any traces of tension between different races melt away quickly in the crucible of pro-life activism.

The ultimate healing between the races will come not from government-imposed “politically correct” mandates, but from shared dedication to truth. And there are few truths more fundamental than that of the innate worth and dignity of every human being.

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Obama gives a middle-finger salute to Congress, keeps his unconstitutional "czars"

It’s getting hard to keep count of how many times Barack Obama has violated his oath to preserve, protect and defend the U.S. Constitution.

From Weasel Zippers: [emphasis added]

Let me get this straight, he strikes a deal, then turns around and issues a signing statement that he won’t abide by the section defunding his czars? Shame on you Boehner for trying to come to agreement with this thug.

President Obama signed into law on Friday the hard-fought legislation to fund government and keep it running through the end of September.

The president signed the legislation based on the deal he negotiated last week with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that cuts nearly $40 billion from the government through the end of this fiscal years and advances several policy goals.

But Obama took the key step of issuing a signing statement, a declaration of constitutional interpretation by a president of legislation he or she might sign into law. It essentially notified lawmakers that he would not abide by the section of the law defunding the establishment of so-called “czars.”

Obama has employed a good number of these informal policy advisers who aren’t subject to Senate confirmation, drawing the ire of congressional Republicans and prompting them to include in their spending bill a provision barring the use of federal funds for czars.

Once again, when something doesn’t go the way Obama likes, he simply does an end run around it. He’s above the law, don’t you see?

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A death panel by any other name is still a death panel

…and death panels are ghoulish. I have always said Barack Obama is a monster. If you can think of a more charitable term, go ahead and post it in the comments. For me, “monster” is cutting him a lot of slack.

From Erick Erickson at RedState:

While everyone else was focused on Barack Obama bashing Paul Ryan, I noticed that he took full ownership of death panels yesterday [in his speech on the budget]. Naturally, Obama did not call them death panels. He called them “an independent commission of doctors, nurses, medical experts and consumers.” But his description hits dead on with what his death panels will do.

According to Barack Obama yesterday, the death panels “will look at all the evidence and recommend the best ways to reduce unnecessary spending while protecting access to the services seniors need.”

We already know what they’ll recommend as “the best ways to reduce unnecessary spending”. Barack Obama’s own advisers have told us. They will prioritize giving health care to healthier people and let sicker people die. At end of life, they will deny people life sustaining treatment because, after all, they’re going to die anyway. Note his phrasing: “protecting access to the services seniors need.” Dying people, according to Obama’s advisers, need hospice not hope. They certainly do not need expensive treatments that may buy them time to see the birth of a new grandchild or other reasons.

“We will change the way we pay for health care – not by procedure or the number of days spent in a hospital, but with new incentives for doctors and hospitals to prevent injuries and improve results. . . . If we’re wrong, and Medicare costs rise faster than we expect, this approach will give the independent commission the authority to make additional savings by further improving Medicare,” Obama said. At a time Democrats are saying Republicans want to starve old people to death, Democrats are intent on embracing a cost savings model for Medicare that incentivizes doctors to encourage people to die and, when all else fails, gives a death panel “the authority to make additional savings by” ensuring the dying elderly die quickly.

“Our approach lowers the government’s health care bills by reducing the cost of health care itself,” Obama said. Really? The only way that will happen is by rationing. You may not like the use of the phrase “death panel,” but make no mistake about it — at the end of your life, in Barack Obama’s America, his death panel will throw you under the bus in a way much closer to reality than metaphor.

Can anyone say they’re surprised? Obama is, after all, a man who eagerly throws newborn babies under the bus. The man is pitiless. But unbelievably — even for him — he had the damn gall to accuse Republicans of leaving Down syndrome children out in the cold! Barack Obama prefers to leave them in hospital dirty-linen closets to die of exposure, suffocation and dehydration. Obama’s “Science Czar,” John Holdren, would have every one of those babies killed, if he had his way, along with millions of other “surplus” babies who are cluttering up the planet — even if the government has to force women to have abortions against their will, as in China.

But again, who’s surprised? Obama and his closest buddies — Bill Ayers, Van Jones, Anita Dunn — are all admirers of Mao Tse-Tung, who killed 40,000,000 human beings. Life is cheap with this crowd.

Resist, resist, resist.

In the words of the Manhattan Declaration of Christian Conscience (which I have signed, and I hope you have, too), “Because the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife, and the freedom of conscience and religion are foundational principles of justice and the common good,… We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence.”

Obamao, you’ve been put on notice.

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