Have fun partying tonight, but don't forget you live in a world where this is going on

Did you know ISIS has all-female brigades?  And they have devised a particularly evil brand of cruelty:

The brigades have been using a bear trap they call a “biter” on women’s breasts.  It is responsible for “causing severe pain and wounds [which] may lead women in some cases to be transported to the hospital.” A woman, known only as Batol, told the opposition group the brigade arrested her as she breastfed her baby in public. According to the Daily Mail:

I was in the market buying a few items when Khansa battalion came and arrested me on the grounds that the niqab [Islamic face covering] which I was wearing does not meet Sharia requirement because it was transparent[.]

[T]hey took me to the “Hesba” headquarters in the city, and escorted me to the torture chamber, then they asked me to choose between a whip or a “biter”[.]

I did not know what a “biter” was and I thought it is a reduced sentence, I was afraid of whipping, so I choose the “biter”, then they brought a sharp object that has a a lot of teeth and held me, placing it on my chest and pressing it strongly, I screamed from pain and I was badly injured. They later took me to the hospital.

I felt then that my femininity has been destroyed completely, we no longer afford to live this way, I was not the only one that was tortured with this instrument, there were a lot of women in the headquarters and their situation was tragic.

Coming to your town if the West doesn't get serious about defeating this.

Hey, Freedom-Haters, do you really want to compare Dutch's economic performance with the Most Equal Comrade's?

I saw the Adam Hartung Forbes piece mentioned in the American Thinker piece from which I'm excerpting when it first appeared.  Some smart-ass FHer trotted it out in the course of a Facebook snit, thinking he'd really stuck one up my tail and.

Not so fast, comrade:

In September, an opinion piece at Forbes.com argued that "Obama Outperforms Reagan on Jobs, Growth And Investing":

"Economically, President Obama's administration has outperformed President Reagan's in all commonly watched categories. Simultaneously the current administration has reduced the deficit, which skyrocketed under Reagan. Additionally, Obama has reduced federal employment, which grew under Reagan (especially when including military personnel,) [sic] and truly delivered a 'smaller government.'"

The data says otherwise. To ensure we are on the same page, all data used herein comes either from the Federal Reserve Economic Data or the Office of Management and Budget databases.

We'll start with this bold, and incorrect statement: "Economically, President Obama's administration has outperformed President Reagan's in all commonly watched categories."

Here are the trends in real GDP, real per capita GDP, and real per capita disposable personal income -- all in seasonally adjusted 2009 chained dollars by quarter -- for Reagan versus Obama. Last I checked, these were "commonly watched categories" in economics.

Reagan's economic progress on these core indicators vastly outperforms that of Obama.

The next claim requiring debunking:

"Simultaneously the current administration has reduced the deficit, which skyrocketed under Reagan."

Reduced the deficit? In 2008, the federal deficit was 3.1 percent of GDP. The OMB is projecting the 2014 deficit to be 3.7 percent of GDP. That is not a reduction. Similarly, the deficit in constant dollar terms has increased -- not decreased -- by $140 billion per year since 2008.

A smaller government under Obama compared to Reagan? In the year before Obama took office, federal outlays were 20.2 percent of GDP. They are current at 21.1 percent for 2014, and the OMB's estimate is for this to increase to 21.4 percent of GDP by 2016 -- meaning that Obama is on pace to preside over an increase in government outlays. Compare that to Reagan, whereby federal outlays declined from 21.1 percent of GDP in the last year of Carter's administration to 20.6 percent of GDP in Reagan's last year.

And according to the OMB, "total executive branch civilian full-time equivalent (FTE) employees" stayed exactly the same between 1981 and 1988 at 2,109,000 under Reagan, but have increased from 1,978,000 in 2009 to 2,100,000 in 2014 under Obama.

And with regard to the deficit increase during the Dutch era, let us remember the composition of Congress in those years.  Dutch had to get his military build-up passed, and there was no way the FHers were going to abide by a simultaneous cut in domestic programs, so he had that reality to face.

And his popularity didn't suffer the way the MEC's has.

That's the difference between an Oval Office occupied by a patriot and an Oval Office occupied by an enemy of America.

When the sugar daddy runs out of patience

Remember how I ended yesterday's post entitled "Greece Remains Europe's Problem Child" with these lines?

The continent's northern, productive folk will surely tell them the gravy train stops here.  Then what?

Today Germany makes that clear:

 Euro zone politicians are not obliged to rescue Greeceas the country is no longer of systemic importance to the single currency bloc, a senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party was quoted as saying.

In an interview with Rheinische Post newspaper published on Wednesday, Michael Fuchs also said Greek politicians could not now "blackmail" their partners in the currency bloc.

"If Alexis Tsipras of the Greek left party Syriza thinks he can cut back the reform efforts and austerity measures, then the troika will have to cut back the credits for Greece," he said.

"The times where we had to rescue Greece are over. There is no potential for political blackmail anymore. Greece is no longer of systemic importance for the euro."

The remarks are the clearest warning yet to Greek voters from a senior German politician that Athens might lose support if it flouts the terms of its 240 billion euro EU/IMF bailout after early elections next year.

We shall see if the snot-nosed ingrates on the Mediterranean have a clue.

Could it be any more clear that the Most Equal Comrade is playing for the other team?

How else to explain the list of fine upstanding gentleman he's been releasing from Gitmo?

The last releases saw terrorists rated as high risk freed by Obama. They included fighters with experience on the battlefield and covert operations. Obama set loose a suicide bomber, a document forger and a bomb maker who trained other terrorists to make bombs. Those are exactly the sorts of enemies whose license to Jihad will cost lives.

But that’s nothing compared to Obama’s latest gift to the Jihad.

When Mohammed Zahir was caught, among his possessions was found a small sealed can marked, in Russian, “Heavy Water U235 150 Grams.”

According to the classified report, the uranium had been identified by Zahir “in his memorandum as being intended for the production of an “atom bomb.”

Zahir was not just another captured Jihadist. He was the Secretary General of the Taliban’s Intelligence Directorate and was in contact with top leaders of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. His possessions included a fax with questions intended for Osama bin Laden and he had been arrested on suspicion of possessing Stinger missiles.

But that may not have even been the worst of it.

Among the items was a notebook containing references to large sugar shipments to Washington D.C. Investigators believed that sugar was used as a code word for heroin. The Black Sea stops mentioned in the notebook are major hubs for smuggling heroin and for nuclear smuggling as well. 

Not only was Mohammed Zahir a terrorist kingpin, but he was also a drug kingpin and the notebook suggested that his eye was on the United States of America.

It was no wonder that Mohammad Zahir had been rated as posing a high risk, but Obama had already freed a number of other high risk Guantanamo Bay detainees. Yet Zahir was the closest thing to a major nuclear terrorist in United States custody. Freeing him was wildly irresponsible even by the standards of a leader who had sacrificed thousands of Americans in a futile effort to “win” Afghan hearts and minds.

And back to Afghanistan  - from which post-America and its allies  have just withdrawn their troops - he goes.

2014: the year Muslims became 5.3 percent of the UK's population

 And how has that played itself out?  The entire list of ways enumerated in this Gatestone Institute article is too long to excerpt, but here are some highlights.

From last January:

In January, an analysis of census data showed that nearly 10% of the babies and toddlers in England and Wales are Muslim. The percentage of Muslims among children under five is almost twice as high as in the general population. By way of comparison, fewer than one in 200 people over the age of 85 are Muslim, an indication of the extent to which the birth rate is changing the religious demographic in Britain.

Also in January, Muslim fundamentalists threatened to behead a fellow British Muslim after he posted an innocuous image of Mohammed and Jesus on his Twitter account. The death threats against Maajid Nawaz, a Liberal Democrat Party candidate for British Parliament, added to the growing number of cases in which Islamists are using intimidation tactics to restrict the free speech rights of fellow Muslims in Europe.

On January 16, a Muslim woman was arrested by counter-terrorism police at Heathrow Airport as she was preparing to board a flight to Turkey. Nawal Masaad, 26, is accused of trying to smuggle £16,500 ($27,000; €20,000) in her underwear to jihadists in Syria. She and her alleged co-conspirator, Amal El-Wahabi, 27—a Moroccan who does not work and claims British social welfare benefits for herself and two young sons—were the first British women to be charged with terrorism offenses linked to the conflict in Syria.

On January 23, the head of Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism unit, Commander Richard Walton, revealed that 14 British minors were arrested on charges linked to the Syrian conflict in January alone, compared to 24 for the whole of 2013. He said it was "almost inevitable" that some fighters would try to mount attacks in Britain upon their return.

From April:

On April 17, the Sheffield Crown Court found Aras Hussein, 21, guilty of beheading his girlfriend, Reema Ramzan, 18, with a kitchen knife in her apartment in Sheffield in June 2013. He was sentenced to life, with a minimum of 20 years in prison.
On April 30, a jury at the Manchester Crown Court heard how Ahmed Al-Khatib, 35, murdered his wife for becoming "too westernized." The prosecution told the jury that the mother of three had been "in fear of her husband" and "believed he might one day kill her." She eventually sought help from the police and a lawyer. The prosecutor said:
"The family of the defendants were insulted that she had gone to the law. They wanted her and her children back within the family fold... Therefore, it was decided that she should either be forced to comply or be killed."
On April 19, the Charity Commission, a government agency that regulates charities in the UK, announced a crackdown on Muslim charities that send money to jihadist groups in Syria.
On April 24, British counter-terrorism officials launched a nationwide campaign aimed at encouraging Muslim women to contact the police if they were concerned that their family members or close friends might be preparing to travel to Syria to fight.

Also on April 24, a group of British lawyers launched a new organization called "Sharia Watch UK" to "highlight and expose those movements in Britain which advocate and support the advancement of Islamic law in British society." The group called Sharia law "Britain's Blind Spot." 

From August:

On August 21, it emerged that there are now more British Muslims fighting for the Islamic State than for Britain's military.

On August 23, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, warned that radical Islam is on the rise and "imperiling our way of life, threatening to undermine the values that have been bitterly won over the centuries." He called on Britons to "recover a confidence in our own nation's values. For too long we have been self-conscious and even ashamed about British identity." He added:

"By embracing multiculturalism and the idea that every culture and belief is of equal value we have betrayed our own traditions of welcoming strangers to our shore.
"The fact is that for too long the doctrine of multiculturalism has led to immigrants establishing completely separate communities in our cities. This has led to honor killings, female genital circumcision and the establishment of sharia law in inner-city pockets throughout the UK."

On August 26, Alexis Jay, the leader of an independent inquiry in the sexual abuse of children in Rotherham, released a horrifying report that found that gangs of mainly Muslim men of Pakistani heritage had groomed, terrorized and abused at least 1,400 girls, some as young as 11, in Rotherham over a 16-year period between 1997 and 2013.

On August 31, the Independent on Sunday reported that a House of Commons committee would launch an investigation into whether Tony Blair's Labour government knew about the Rotherham child abuse scandal as far back as 2001, but refused to act because of his government's desire to pacify Muslim communities.

On August 30, a straw poll conducted by the BBC's Saturday Morning Live Show found that 95% of respondents said that they think multiculturalism in Britain is a failure.

From November:

In London Borough of Croydon, a couple from Afghanistan threatened to kill their daughter if she rejected a forced marriage and to behead her if she contacted authorities for help.
On November 5, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, told an international terrorism conference that his officers are "struggling to cope" with the speed of immigration and because many of those coming to Britain speak different languages and hold different views of authority.
On November 16, senior officials at Scotland Yard advised British police officers not to wear their uniforms on the way to and from work amid concerns that Islamic extremists are plotting to target them on the streets.
On November 10, The Times reported that British intelligence officials warned senior ministers that the scale of terrorist activity is so great that an attack is "almost inevitable" in the coming months.
On November 26, the British government unveiled sweeping new counter-terrorism measures which—if approved by Parliament—would give the United Kingdom some of the "toughest powers in the world" to fight Islamic terrorism.
On November 12, the BBC reported that the British Islamist Abu Rumaysah skipped bail after being arrested on terrorism charges and is thought to be in Syria, despite being banned from leaving the UK. Rumaysah left London on a bus bound for Paris after blundering police failed to confiscate his passport. On November 2, 60 Minutes aired an interview with Rumaysah, who said:
"Ultimately, I want to see every single woman in this country [Britain] covered from head to toe. I want to see the hand of the thief cut. I want to see the adulterer stoned to death. I want to see Sharia law in Europe. And I want to see it in America, as well. I believe our [Sharia] patrols are a means to an end."

And, as I say, that's just a taste.

 

Because LITD says so: The top 20 stories of 2014

As I look this over throughout the day, I may alter my conclusion about the order in which I've put these.  But I can't see anything I've omitted, can you?

1.) Post-America surrendering to Iran.

2.) The rise of ISIS to the top of the Sunni jihad world.

3.) The flood of illegal immigrants across post-America's southern border.

4.) The aftermath of the Ferguson shooting.

5.) The Pub landslide in the midterm elections - on both the federal and state levels.

6.) The successes of the militant homosexual movement against Christianity in post-America.

7.) The obviating of the failure of Freedom-Hater-care.

8.) North Korea's continuing menace.

9.) Russia's gyrations throughout the year, from its meddling in Ukraine, to its announcement of Western-hemisphere air patrols to the collapse of the ruble.

10.) The marked acceleration of the EPA's power grab.

11.) The marked acceleration of American education's deterioration.

12.) The marked acceleration of the crumbling of the popular-music and movie industries.

13.) The Most Equal Comrade's sudden announcement of normalization of relations with Cuba.

14.) Israel's defeat of Hamas in yet another Gaza war.

15.) The clear demonstration of the economic benefits of hydraulic tracking.

16.) The apparent invincibility of Boko Haram.

17.) China's further gains in its ambitions as a Pacific power.

18.) Federal debt surpassing $18 trillion.

19.) Post-America's lack of preparedness for the spread of Ebola beyond western Africa.

20.) Al Sharpton's continuing ability to wield the magnitude of influence that he does despite being post-America's foremost charlatan.

Okay, I'm thinking of some runners-up:  Hillary Clinton's abysmal book tour, NATO's withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Most Equal Comrade's responses to ISIS beheadings of Westerners (particularly heading right back to the golf course after terse remarks about Foley).

Post-America's partner in patty-cake - today's edition

Memo to the Most Equal Comrade: Iran has a ways to go to qualify for any sane person's definition of a successful regional power.  It would have to not do this kind of thing anymore:

The Iranian regime hanged seven citizens on Christmas morning and at least 12 others in the days before and after the holiday, according to Iranian dissidents monitoring the human rights situation.

Seven prisoners being held in Iran’s Abdelebad prison were hanged “at dawn on Christmasday,” according to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an Iranian opposition group.

The latest round of state-sanctioned killings—which have hit an all time high in the past year—came just days after President Barack Obama praised Iran in an interview at the White House and said that it could be a “successful” member of the international community.

Oh, and about the MEC's speculation that maybe someday the time would be right for a post-American embassy in Teheran:

On Tuesday the Iranian regime quickly rejected the idea.
There will be no reopening of embassies.
Official Iranian Fars News reported:

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham categorically rejected a media report that Tehran and Washington plan to talk about reopening of their embassies, underlining that the negotiations between Iran and the US merely focus on the nuclear issue.

“The talks between the two countries (Iran and the US) are merely focused on the nuclear issue and this subject (the reopening of the two countries’ embassies) is not on the two countries’ agenda of talks,” Afkham told reporters in Tehran on Tuesday.

Afkham’s remarks came after an Arab media misquoted an unidentified source in the Iranian foreign ministry as saying that “Tehran and Washington might talk about the reopening of their embassies”.

She rejected the Arab media news report, and said, “No official of the Iranian foreign ministry has spoken to the media in this regard.”

A response of contempt to outstretched-hand gestures.  Arguably the world's most predictable pattern

Greece remains Europe's problem child

Seems that its cattle-masses are frustrating attempts for the welfare state on the Mediterranean to begin the trek towards fiscal sanity:

ANTONIS SAMARAS, the centre-right Greek prime minister, lost one election on December 29th. Now he will have to fight another. His New Democracy party’s candidate for president, Stavros Dimas, fell 12 votes short of the required three-fifths majority in a third and final ballot by Greece’s 300 MPs. As the constitution demands, a snap general election will now be held on January 25th. ND is trailing the far-left Syriza opposition, according to the opinion polls. Once again, the prime minister’s chances of victory look slim.

What they appear to be keen on is the redistributionist sweet nothings of the radical left's charismatic leader:

 Alexis Tsipras, Syriza’s radical leader, calls Mr Samaras “finished”. He plans to renegotiate Greece’s bail-out. Although he no longer threatens to halt debt repayments unilaterally if his party comes to power, he still wants to secure a big write-off. Greece’s creditors would oppose that, and also Mr Tsipras’s proposals to reverse other reforms and launch a €11 billion ($13 billion) welfare package, to be financed by better tax collection. With more than €7 billion of lending suspended until Athens reaches agreement with its “troika” of creditors on more tax, labour and pension reforms, Greece will soon run into trouble. Hard-pressed taxpayers are already struggling; more than €1 billion of income and property tax goes uncollected every month. Mr Tsipras’s promises sound alluring to angry, impoverished Greek voters.

The continent's northern, productive folk will surely tell them the gravy train stops here.  Then what?

Scalise

Savvy observer that you are (you read LITD), you're already aware of the Scalise dust-up.  The hard-left Southern Poverty Law Center came upon the factoid that he'd addressed a David-Duke-organized conference in 2002, and realized it had a nugget of incomparable value.  The headlines are now ubiquitous.

And what will the Freedom-Haters do about one of their own demonstrating a moment of integrity and fealty to truth?

Louisiana Democratic Rep. Cedric Richmond defended colleague Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) in the midst of reports that Scalise spoke at a white supremacist convention in 2002.

“I don't think Steve Scalise has a racist bone in his body," Richmond, who is black, told the New Orleans Times Picayune.

"Steve and I have worked on issues that benefit poor people, black people, white people, Jewish people. I know his character."

How valuable is this nugget to the FHers?  I think Jen Kuznicki lays it out with chilling accuracy:

The left has successfully planted enough stories and innuendo in the press that it will be impossible for the leadership of the House to ignore.  If they stand by him, and say he’s not a racist, this will hang over the entire House and soon you will read, “the white supremacist House” in slipshod so-called news sites across the internet.  They will have to make him step down and they will pick another Majority Whip.

Now, let us recall that Scalise was the Pub establishment's pick in the primary over Rob Maness, who  had the backing of conservatives.  I wouldn't go so far as to talk about a silver lining - this damages the overall Pub brand due to the sinister machinations of the enemy, there's no way around it - but it may force a shakeup to at least some degree in the upcoming House leadership structure.

And that's a good thing. With an enemy as vicious as the post-American Left, no Pub can afford to be clueless, as Erick Erickson points out:

Conservative commentator Erick Erickson laid into Scalise, too, saying via Twitter: “How Do You Show Up at a David Duke Event and Not Know What It Is?” Erickson is guest-hosting Rush Limbaugh’s nationally syndicated radio program on Tuesday, and hinted via Twitter that this storyline will be a major focus of the show. Nonetheless, the chaos in the political world over this—with unusual alliances forming on both sides of Scalise—does Boehner no favors heading into the all-important speakership vote next week.

Once again, the big lesson here is to be surprised at nothing the forces of darkness cook up.  They never relent.  

You knew this was going to happen - today's edition

Remember how calm the Most Equal Comrade and the rest of the overlords were last summer as the tsunami of illegal aliens washed across our border.  We can handle it, they said.  We can process them, keep track of them, accommodate the children in our schools, assimilate them into our society.

Hell, they've gone right into the proverbial shadows that the overlords speak so disparagingly of:

After six months of requests, the Executive Office of Immigration Review told Houston’s KPRC that 96 percent of the more than 4,100 families released on recognizance and ordered deported did not show up to court, prompting the government to classify them “in absentia.”

A similar 92 percent of the more than 1,600 unaccompanied children to be deported did not show up.

The Executive Office of Immigration Review usually reports an 11 percent to 15 percent annual “in absentia” rate, far below this year’s jump.

Need more proof that the whole thing was on purpose, that the overlords are Cloward & Piven disciples?

Now the jackboots don't just attack on a business level, they come after it all

As a Washington-state Christian florist is discovering:

Before the lawsuit, Barronelle Stutzman, owner of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Wash., had employed workers who identify as homosexual and sold floral arrangements to gay and lesbian customers.
One such customer turned out to be one of the men who would sue her for not being willing to be hired for their same-sex wedding.
Unlike businesses that face similar lawsuits for refusing to provide specific wedding-related services to gay and lesbian couples on religious grounds—among them bakers in Oregon and farmers in New York—Stutzman is being sued in both a professional and personal capacity.

For crying out loud, she even referred the homosexual couple to some other florists who would be willing to do business with them.  One of the guys had even been a valued customer for some time, making the situation touchy.

Then the state attorney general got involved, invoking RCW 49.60.030, the state's freedom-from-discrimination law.  I'm no legal scholar, but it looks to me like the AG's interpretation of this statute runs squarely up against the first amendment of the federal Constitution.

This situation is pitting the ACLU against the Alliance Defending Freedom, an attorney from which is representing Stutzman.

[ADF lawyer] Waggoner says it is unprecedented for the Washington attorney general’s office to sue a family business owner in a personal capacity unless that owner has committed acts of fraud or misrepresentation.
“They’re trying to set an example of her and punish her,” says Waggoner, noting the suit has the potential to cripple Stutzman’s livelihood. “She’s not wealthy, so common sense would tell you that it’s going to hurt pretty bad.”

Along with the Christianity-hating aspect of this, it's important to keep the economic-liberty aspect front and center.  Stutzman made a point of helping the gay guys to see their options.  At this late date in post-America, there are scads of florists willing to try to legitimize homosexual "marriage," and nothing was stopping this couple from moving on to one of them.

Because tax policy influences economic behavior

That's why a number of champions of economic freedom want a CBO chief who favors dynamic scoring:

In a letter sent to Republican leadership and budget committee heads Monday, representatives of 45 conservative libertarian groups wrote that the "CBO needs a new director who would use dynamic scoring more broadly, provide more transparency about models and assumptions, and constantly assess which models provided the most accurate assessments in the past so that methodologies can be refined for the future."

Douglas Elmendorf, a Democratic appointee, is the current director of the nonpartisan official budget scorekeeping agency. Republicans reportedly will not reappoint Elmendorf when his term expires in January and instead will install a budget expert more amenable to dynamic scoring, which takes into account the macroeconomic effects of tax and spending changes.

The letter's authors (correctly) assert that by not taking into account macroeconomic factors, the CBO comes to conclusions biased in favor of bigger government.

The signatories are an A-list of pro-liberty folks:

The letter was published on the site of Independent Women's Voice, a free-market women's nonprofit group. It was signed by leaders of conservative groups such as Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, Jenny Beth Martin of the Tea Party Patriots, and Michael Needham of Heritage Action, as well as by libertarians such as Lawson Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Dynamic scoring is based on the idea that money is put to its most productive uses in the hands of those who rightfully possess it, resulting even in government having more of it:

 if a 50% tax on $100 produces $50 in revenue, then lowering the tax rate to 25% will produce $25 in revenue, as static scoring predicts, but also that individuals will work more (if it's an income tax cut) or realize more capital gains (if it's a capital gains tax cut, etc.) because they will get to keep more of their money. This changed behavior will produce an extra $100, for example, which is also taxed at $25, resulting in a total of $50 in revenue, and no loss for the state.

The history of economic growth following tax cuts, from the Kennedy tax cuts to the Reagan tax cuts to the Bush tax cuts, repeatedly shows that the static score predictions have been way off the mark (overestimating the "cost") while the dynamic score predictions have been much closer to accurate.

To put it succinctly and in proper moral perspective, it rids us of the notion that letting people keep more of what is theirs somehow "costs" the government and must be "paid for."

 

It's increasingly clear that Pope Francis understands very little about human advancement

By now you've heard about the latest of his leftist gestures: his plans to issue an encyclical asserting that human activity is a cause of "global warming" and that the species has to drastically change its ways.

Fortunately, there are pockets of opposition within the church:

 . . . one of the factions who will denounce the paper as political will be the powerful US evangelical movement. The conservative Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation has already declared the US environmental movement to be “un-biblical” and a false religion.

A spokesman for the Alliance, Calvin Beisner has said: “The pope should back off. The Catholic church is correct on the ethical principles but has been misled on the science. It follows that the policies the Vatican is promoting are incorrect. Our position reflects the views of millions of evangelical Christians in the US.”

Let's here it for division.  Let's hear it for courage.  Let's hear it for common sense.

The Most Equal Comrade is a real piece of work

Have you ever noticed that he's always ready to wage war on the freedom of post-Americans

Warning from President Barack Obama to congressional Republicans: I have a veto pen and, come January, I won't be afraid to use it.

Continue reading

Since taking office in 2009, Obama has only vetoed legislation twice, both in fairly minor circumstances. But with Republicans set to take full control of Congress next year, Obama is losing his last bulwark against a barrage of bills he doesn't like: the Senate.

"I haven't used the veto pen very often since I've been in office," Obama said in an NPR interview airing Monday. "Now, I suspect, there are going to be some times where I've got to pull that pen out."

He added: "I'm going to defend gains that we've made in health care. I'm going to defend gains that we've made on environment and clean air and clean water."

while making moves internationally that allow the country's enemies to crow about having defeated post-America:

Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan on Monday declared the "defeat" of the U.S. and its allies in the 13-year-old war, a day after the coalition officially marked the end of its combat mission.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force is shifting to a support mission for Afghan army and police more than a decade after an international alliance ousted the Taliban government for sheltering the planners of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on American cities. 

"ISAF rolled up its flag in an atmosphere of failure and disappointment without having achieved anything substantial or tangible," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in an statement emailed on Monday.

Post-America is a weaker and less free nation with each passing year of the MEC's rule.

The citizens of post-America are not completely sold on tyranny yet

For instance, they see that the EPA is a tool for the overlords' machinations:

A record-low number of voters have a favorable view of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to a new survey from conservative polling outlet Rasmussen Reports.

The survey found only 32 percent of likely voters view the EPA favorably, the lowest number since Rasmussen started asking the question three years ago.

The last time Rasmussen took the poll in June, 36 percent of respondents had favorable opinions of the agency.Weak public support could make it more difficult for the EPA to push through top Obama administration priorities, like cutting carbon emissions from power plants, which it plans to do with two final regulations next year.

Encouraging.

H/T: THe Weekly Standard

 

A confluence of poisons

House member Andre Carson (Freedom-Hater-IN) has some unsavory associates:

Congressman Andre Carson found himself in strange company Saturday evening when he was scheduled to be featured on a panel with a known Al-Qaeda webmaster and Taliban fundraiser, Mazen Mokhtar, during the just-concluded 2014 Muslim American Society/Islamic Circle of North America (MAS/ICNA) 2014 convention held in Chicago.

The panel was titled “Ferguson is our issue: We Can’t Breath.”

Mokhtar is presumably well-known to Carson, one of two sitting Muslim members of Congress, since Mokhtar is well-known to the FBI.
In 2004, Mokhtar was named in a federal affidavit in the case of a UK-based Al-Qaeda website that raised money for the Taliban and other terrorist organizations.
According to the Washington Post:
Meanwhile, a New Jersey man is under investigation for having helped a British computer specialist, also arrested in London this week, allegedly solicit funds for a terrorist group by creating and operating an exact replica of the British man’s Web site.
Mazen Mokhtar, an Egyptian-born imam and political activist, operated a Web site identified in an affidavit unsealed Friday by the U.S. attorney’s office in Connecticut. The Web site solicited funds for the Taliban and Chechen mujaheddin, according to the affidavit. It is an exact replica of Web sites operated by Babar Ahmad, who was arrested in England on a U.S. extradition warrant this week.
The affidavit said the New Jersey home of the mirror Web site operator, identified on a Web site as Mokhtar, was searched in the recent past and that copies of Azzam Publications sites, operated by Ahmad, were found on Mokhtar’s computer’s hard drive and files.

Officials at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, which is leading the investigation, declined yesterday to comment on Mokhtar or the New Jersey investigation. 

Communists and Muslims have been keen to get in on the racial-unrest action stemming from the Ferguson and Staten Island incidents all along.  Will the good people of Carson's district, inner-city Indianapolis, demand that he explain his presence at this event?  Are there any to whom it will seem perfectly natural and even laudable?

What to remember when you see those social-media posts about the economy starting to rock

This post at Powerline is somewhat lengthy and full of lengthy, wonky excerpts and graphs, but the upshot is that the much-touted Q3 5% percent annual growth rate is due to the Bureau of Economic Analysis picking the most favorable quarter for adding Freedom-Hater-care's costs to "personal consumption," which would give that quarter a boost that financial services & insurance, nondurable goods, cars & car parts, recreational goods & vehicles, housing & utilities, other durable goods, and furnishings & household equipment couldn't hope to contribute.

A tale of two coasts

In Los Angeles, the crowd for the annual Kwanzaa parade and this year's bonus Black Lives Matter rally afterward numbered three.

The local CBS affiliate tried its best to doll up the proceedings:

Here’s how Mills’ employer, CBS Los Angeles, covered the event:

The 38th annual KwanZaa Gwaride parade made its way down Crenshaw Boulevard Friday, marking the start of the seven-day festival of Kwanzaa.

…

The gwaride began at the corner of Crenshaw and Adams boulevards, headed south along Crenshaw to Leimert Park, where organizers held a “Black Lives Matter” rally.

Some participants walked the parade carrying signs underlining important issues to the community, such as police brutality, home foreclosures, judicial corruption, transparency in government and environmental racism.

No mention that the parade lasted only 10 minutes. No mention of the lack of attendees. Hooray for real journalism!

Meanwhile, in New York, at Rafael Ramos's funeral, thousands of police officers turned their backs when De Blasio started speaking. 

Not taking it lying down from the Freedom-Haters

The pro-decline-and-tyranny regime is getting resistance from the makers of post-America's favorite pie:

It’s been a month since the Food and Drug Administration announced its final rule for menu labeling, a regulation that’s already proving to be a nightmare for the major chain restaurants and retail food establishments that must comply by Dec. 1, 2015, or face a stiff penalty. 

“It got much worse in the final rule,” Lynn Liddle, chairperson of the American Pizza Community and executive VP of communications and investor relations for Domino’s Pizza, told Townhall. “I was surprised, disappointed, and befuddled because there’s all this new stuff in there where I go, ‘I don’t know how we’re gonna do this.’ … We’re gonna need a lot more time to untangle this mess, which I don’t think is viable or workable.” 

While the regulation is bad for all industries, pizza has been hit particularly hard. For one, it’s a food industry unlike any other—90 percent of customers get their food delivered, making the idea of in-store displays of calorie information unnecessary and costly, not to mention extremely difficult since it’s such a customizable food. 

It's not just the big players getting squeezed, by any means.  And, once again, the main point is for the nannies-in-jackboots to be able to congratulate themselves on how caring they are for the ignorant cattle-masses (who, much to the consternation of the overlords, still don't care how many calories a 14-inch meat lovers' pie has in it):

While Domino’s is a major pizza chain across the country, the vast majority of stores are franchises, meaning the burden of implementation falls squarely on the backs of small business owners. And failure to have the appropriate signage or serving food that’s outside of the labeled calorie range can carry civil and criminal penalties, Liddle said, but specificity over how it will be policed and what the penalties are remains unclear.

Meanwhile, studies continue to show that menu labeling has little to no effect on consumers’ purchasing habits. In other words, despite the cost to small business owners across the country, menu labeling will have no significant impact on obesity in America, the purported benefit the FDA used to justify the law as part of the Affordable Care Act to begin with. 

Liddle sees the rule as a way for its proponents to feel like they’ve done something that will be good for Americans. “I’ve seen a number of article and commentary from people … saying we need to tell people what to eat,” she said. “I think there’s this belief that … Americans can’t or won’t ever help themselves.”

“I don’t think slapping calorie ranges on a pizza menu board that no one looks at is gonna be any kind of a solution [for reducing obesity],” she continued. 

It’s been a long road fighting against the rule since it first came out as part of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, and Liddle says she isn’t done yet. 

“I don’t think I have the luxury to stop fighting against this because it’s hurting my small business franchisees … and it’s hurting the [entire] pizza industry with an additional cost their customers haven’t asked for,” she said. 

Do your part.  Eat their products.  The ones with extra cheese and sausage.

Thanks for nothing, Governor Cuomo

Lie-perpetuating Freedom-Haters might like the fracking ban, but normal people are getting squeezed by it:

Environmentalists may be cheering the news that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has decided to ban hydraulic fracturing, but farmers and small businesses across the state are reeling.

“I’m devastated,” apple farmer David Johnson told The Guardian after Wednesday’s announcement that New York was banning fracking. “I have concerns about how to continue this farm that’s been in the family for 150 years.”

“If we had been able to get some gas drilling going it would have made our lives a little easier and taken a few of the stresses away,” echoed Judi Whittaker, who owns a dairy farm and hoped for gas royalties to help pay her high property taxes. “We’ll just have to rethink what we’re doing and move ahead. Agriculture has ups and downs all the time. You just have to go along for the ride.”

The Marcellus shale formation covers New York’s Southern Tier, which is covered by small towns and farms that would have benefited from royalties paid out by natural gas drillers. High taxes and restrictive land use laws have made it tough for Upstate farmers to eke out a living, however, and many family farms are on the chopping block now that fracking is indefinitely banned.

It's said that states can act as policy laboratories, so that we can examine what works, what doesn't and why.  Memo to the other 49:  This kind of planned decline shutters farms and small businesses and drives people out.

You knew this was coming

The world's leading jihad outfit sees a crown jewel within reach:

The war against ISIS is taking a dangerous, perhaps inevitable turn. The terror organization has been keen to expand to southern Syria and the Syrian capital of Damascus. Now it says it has recruited three Syrian rebel groups operating in the south of the country in an area bordering the Israeli occupied Golan Heights — that have switched their loyalties to ISIS.

This switch means that Israel, the U.S.’s closest ally in the Middle East, could be threatened from the southwest by the Egyptian ISIS group of Ansar Bait al-Maqdis in Sinai and by ISIS in southern Syria.

The ISIS war is not going well at all for the US-led alliance in Syria. ISIS and al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, are still the dominant rebel groups in the country. The U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army is still not a reliable fighting force.

The three rebel groups that just joined ISIS could make that situation even worse. Two of the groups are small in number, but the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade has hundreds of fighters. The Yarmouk Brigades has been at odds with al-Nusra Front and switched now to join what leaders of all thrwee groups believe is the future of Islam.

“If Israel was attacked by ISIS, America would expect a proportionate response by Israel, which is militarily capable of defending itself,” said Geoffrey Levin, a professor at New York University. “America would counsel against sustained Israeli involvement because it could threaten the tacit alliance between America, Iran, Turkey, and several Arab states against ISIS.”

Meanwhile, it's tee time for the Most Equal Comrade.

That which is worth preserving, and that which is worth resisting

Christmas Eve 2014 finds Western civilization as imperiled, defiled and fractured as it's been in my lifetime.  Europe is rubbed raw with Jew-hatred and the sense that its hope for revived economic robustness is gone.  And it's been served notice that its time for existing in any kind of recognizable form is growing short:

The radical terror group ISIS has claimed that it is only a matter of time before its fighters conquer Europe. The claim was made by the spokesman of the outfit to veteran journalist Juergen Todenhoefer, who undertook a risky visit to the the ISIS controlled areas in Mosul of Northern Iraq. 

"We will conquer Europe one day. It is not a question of we will conquer Europe, just a matter of when that will happen. But it is certain. ... For us, there is no such thing as borders. There are only front lines," the spokesman identified as a German ISIS fighter told the German journalist. 

Religious Cleansing 

Defending mass enslavement and beheadings, the ISIS spokesman said it is planning to carry out "the largest religious cleansing campaign" in history and will not hesitate to kill hundreds of millions of people, if required, reported the Christian Post. 

"Our expansion will be rapid and perpetual. The Europeans need to know that when we come, it will not be in a nice way. It will be with our weapons. Those who do not convert to Islam or pay the Islamic tax will be killed," the spokesman said. Todenhoefer visited the Iraqi city of Mosul, which had a large Christian population before it was taken over by ISIS in June and clamped Islamic laws on the land, forcing people to convert to Islam or face death.

Latin America, as was illustrated in the post below from Monday about the Uruguay-Cuba connection, has decidedly moved leftward again, and is host to plots to weaken the US as much as possible.

In the US - more accurately called post-America at this point - race-card hucksters have whipped up a frenzy of police hatred across the land.  Borders and sovereignty mean nothing.  No sooner was the nation's health care sector put on a socialist footing than the scheme became unworkable.  A huge portion of the economy is devoted to addressing a nonexistent atmospheric trend, and people who demand to be taken seriously perpetuate the fiction, trampling those who would point out their mendacity like cockroaches.

And a post-American film studio, owned by a Japanese conglomerate, has its computer system hacked by a nation that, in a world stinking with evil, surpasses all other agents of evil, if that can be imagined. Said nation has a growing nuclear arsenal, and is currently threatening to attack the White House, the Pentagon, and the entire post-American mainland.

How evil is the nation in question?  This evil:

Horrific detail has emerged from a UN report on human rights abuses in North Korea suggesting prison officials in the state "cooked" a female prisoner’s baby and "fed it to their dogs".

The alleged "unspeakable atrocities" were published for the first time in February when a 372-page report by an independent UN panel of inquiry into the North Korean regime was released.

Even more disturbing detail was brought to light on Monday however, when members of the UN Security Council put the issue of human rights abuses in the state on the agenda for the first time.

Among the many accounts described in the Commission of Inquiry report were recollections of rapes, mass starvation and forced abortions.

In Monday's meeting, US Ambassador Samantha Power cited even more shocking accounts from defectors who fled prison camps in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) - accounts Pyongyang has dismissed as fabricated.

"Ahn Myong Chul, a former guard at Prison Camp 22, spoke of guards routinely raping prisoners," she was quoted by Reuters as saying. "In one case in which a victim became pregnant and gave birth, the former guard reported, prison officials cooked her baby and fed it to their dogs."

How dark is the heart that does this?

Mr Ahn also described another occasion where a guard “sat on a chair and used a fishing rod, baited with pork fat to entice a nude female prisoner to crawl like a dog and jump after the meat”.

And still one finds social-media posts by moral preeners who want to make the Senate Intelligence Committee "report," composed entirely by the committee's Freedom-Haters, into a statement on the shameful nature of America's attempt to prevent attacks of the kind it has already suffered, in 2001.  These self-congratulating  poseurs take the liberty of lecturing us on the proper morality with which post-America ought to conduct its affairs, saying that "we stoop to their level" if we "torture" those who plot incessantly to wreak catastrophe on our cities and security infrastructure.

For centuries, up until quite recently, Western civilization served as a beacon to the rest of humanity on how to live with dignity and reverence, how to unleash natural human curiosity in the service of advancement in scientific knowledge, philosophical understanding, artistic refinement, and wisdom and humility.  It led the world, and rightly so.

And at the core of what made the West the leader of human advancement was a message about a sovereign Lord with infinite patience regarding the foibles of His creatures.  That message tied together all the rest of it: the science, the philosophy, the art.

It was always a fragile arrangement, and, indeed, came undone to a large degree a few times throughout history.

We are at such a juncture once again.  We are so debased that we can no longer recognize the jewel of incomparable worth that has elevated our lives beyond the naked crawling after pork fat that human life otherwise amounts to.

We need a Savior.  The good news is that we have one, but the question is whether we are equipped to avail ourselves of His grace.