Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 10/24/2011 11:15 am
Judson Phillips of Tea Party Nation warned members that President Obama is making the military far weaker through his controversial use of drones. While the use of drones has sparkedcontroversy, they were essential in the killing of Col. Muammar Gaddafi and Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki, and in monitoring Osama bin Laden.
Phillips explains that Obama’s increased use of drones is a result of liberals’ aversion to military action. “Drones are great for a cowardly President,” Phillips writes, “He can order the drone to hit a target and if there is success, he can claim the glory for it and if the drone fails, there is no captured American pilot or the corpse of an American pilot to be paraded about on TV.” Phillips derides liberals for supposedly not caring about the military and claims they are only determined to protect the reputation of a “liberal president”:
Obama is a many singularly devoid of his own accomplishments. There are types of men who must build their legacy on the acts of others. Obama is one of those. His legacy of war is not only dangerous but opens the door for America’s defeat.
What is his legacy?
Obama’s primary military legacy is the use of UAV’s or drones. Drones are great for a cowardly President. He can order the drone to hit a target and if there is success, he can claim the glory for it and if the drone fails, there is no captured American pilot or the corpse of an American pilot to be paraded about on TV.
In Obama’s military, gone are the swaggering fighter jocks of Top Gun or World War Two. Instead, Obama warfare is little more than a very expensive video game.
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Under the Obama Defense Department, unmanned vehicles are the flavor of the day. Unmanned vehicles do have their uses, but as our primary military strike tool, they leave a lot to be desired.
Of course, for liberals, there is only one consideration with the military. In liberal land, the military must never be a political embarrassment for the liberal President. Yes, they can be around to transport the President. Yes they can be around for disaster relief. But if there is a military operation, they had better not screw up and end up with collateral damage or Americans captured or killed.
That is why Obama and the left love drones so much.
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Liberals never ask the important question about defense. What are our threats and how do we defend ourselves? Instead, defense is always a political question. How do we have defense without “embarrassing” the liberal President? The answers they come up with are always wrong.
By relying on technology alone, without American airmen and soldiers actually doing the fighting, Obama is creating a legacy like his liberal predecessors.
A hollow defense that may not serve America in her time of need.
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 10/24/2011 11:04 am
Shortly after Rick Perry's prayer rally earlier this year, organizers of that event started promoting a Religious Right voter mobilization effort called "Champion The Vote," which seeks to "mobilize 5 million unregistered conservative Christians to register and vote according to the Biblical worldview in 2012."
It turned out that the Champion The Vote effort was a project of organization called United In Purpose, which is being funded by conservative millionaires for the purpose of mobilizing "40 million out of the estimated 60 million evangelicals in the United States to vote" over the next decade.
As part of this effort, United In Purpose/Champion The Vote are producing an event called "One Nation Under God" where churches and Religious Right activists will gather to watch a three-hour DVD being provided United In Purpose and featuring David Barton, Newt Gingrich, James Dobson, and others talking about the importance of keeping America "one nation under God":
The media was advised that Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s speech to a gathering of Florida pastors Friday would be closed to the public, but apparently the group behind the meeting didn’t even want media in the same hotel.
A couple weeks ago, Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry were announced as possible speakers at a two-day event in Orlando Thursday and Friday called the Florida Renewal Project. But this week no one wanted to talk about it, except to say it would be closed to the media and public.
Perry’s staff even denied he would attend. Gingrich’s staff confirmed his appearance but would not return phone calls to discuss it.
I went anyway this morning, to the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando, to see if Gingrich would be willing to talk to me before or after his speech. When he arrived shortly before noon, I was the lone journalist on the scene, waiting in the hallway outside the meeting room. Gingrich and his staff agreed to talk to me later, at another hotel. After seeing that exchange, hotel officials approached me and, saying they were acting on behalf of event organizers, ordered me to leave the Rosen Centre property immediately, and escorted me to my car.
...
Then it turned out Perry had attended after all, sort of, Thursday night - by satellite link-up, according to tweets posted Thursday night by John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council, which was a participant in the Florida Renewal Project.
That appearance, which included a speech and taking questions from the pastors, came just hours after the Texas governor’s campaign staff assured the Sentinel he would not attend.
Who organized the event though? No one would say for sure, though Stemberger acknowledged that the California-based organization United in Purpose, which had organized similar “Renewal Project” events in California and Iowa earlier this year, “was involved.”
The last time United In Purpose hosted one of these conferences, we caught Mike Huckabee telling the audience that Americans ought to be forced to listen to David Barton at gunpoint. But when United In Purpose later broadcast the event, that exchange was entirely edited out.
So while organizers are going to be releasing a DVD of this Florida event in the coming weeks, it seems that they want to be able to control what people actually see and don't want reporters around revealing what was really taking place.
Eric Cantor bravely canceled his speech on income inequality when he found out it would be open to the public.
A hotel refuses to host one of her speaking engagements, which obviously means that the hotel caved to Islamic supremacists and America is falling under Sharia.
Finally, the quote of the day from Star Parker: "We can’t divorce our sexual promiscuity from our fiscal promiscuity. Restoring personal responsibility in both areas is what we need today to get our nation back on track."
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 10/21/2011 4:40 pm
Herman Cain has said this week that he is pro-life and that abortion should be made illegal, but also that the government shouldn’t have any role in it and the decision should be left up to the woman and her family. As Kyle notes, it seems that Cain’s position is that abortion should be outlawed but “in situations where a family was deciding whether or not to break the law, it is none of the government’s business to tell them what to do.” Cain seems to be the only person who understands this view, and the Religious Right is not happy, to say the least.
Rick Perry’s campaign suggested that Cain, along with Mitt Romney, has “flip flopped” on the issue and Rick Santorum went so far as to call him “pro-choice.” Concerned Women for America CEO Penny Young Nance said that Cain “needs to decide whether or not he is a social conservative”:
Last week Herman Cain said he didn’t support a federal marriage amendment, this week he has backed away from his earlier position on the sanctity of human life. Herman Cain needs to decide whether or not he is a social conservative. The issue of life is like the issue of slavery, it is an inalienable right. The life issue is a dividing line proving whether or not a leader’s moral compass is intact. This is not a point on which social conservative women will negotiate. Cain needs to figure out what he believes.
Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association argued that Cain’s remarks “could have come right out of the Planned Parenthood playbook” and wrote a column taking Cain to task:
Herman seems to be saying that he is pro-life with no exceptions for rape and incest — unless the family wants an exception, and then it’s none of his business.
Ouch.
In other words, Herman’s position on conceived-in-rape is virtually indistinguishable from the typical liberal position: personally pro-life, politically pro-abortion.
Although the rape and incest issue is obviously controversial, and a subset of the larger pro-life debate, this will create real problems for Herman in the campaign. It will be difficult for him to walk this one back.
Christian talk show host Janet Mefferd, like everyone it seems besides Cain, was utterly befuddled, saying that “his answer sounds awfully pro-choice,” charging, “that’s how the pro-abortion side talks!”
Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber later called into Mefferd’s show and urged Cain to clarify:
Guy Benson of Townhall also writes that after watching Cain’s interviews with Piers Morgan and with John Stossel, where Cain said that “abortion should not be legal” but an abortion “is her choice, that is not government’s choice,” it seems that Cain’s position, on the face of it, is pro-choice:
I'm a bit mystified that I'm even asking this question, frankly, because I simply assumed Cain was rock solid on the life issue -- but after a puzzling interview with CNN's Piers Morgan, I'm not sure what to think any more.
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He starts out by saying he believes that life begins at conception, and that he supports "abortion under no circumstances." When Morgan presses him on the government's role in enforcing that belief -- an exchange that at least begins with a hypothetical question about a rape exception -- Cain begins to sound a lot like a "personally opposed to abortion, but still pro-choice" candidate. If you didn't know the following quote came out of Herman Cain's mouth, I wouldn't blame you for presuming its source was a Democrat.
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 10/21/2011 3:43 pm
You really have to feel for Herman Cain because it seems that people are always misunderstanding his perfectly consistent and reasonable statements.
Like how his 9-9-9 plan will not raise taxes on the poor because he has a super-secret solution that he just hasn't told anyone about or how just because he said he wouldn't allow any Muslims to serve in his administration, that doesn't mean he wouldn't allow Muslims to serve in his administration.
Yesterday Cain made news again after saying that it is not the "government’s role, or anybody else’s role" to make the decision about whether to have an abortion in cases of rape or incest.
That, of course, was not the end of the story because it directly contradicted what Cain had just said. So now Cain is out there trying to set the record straight by explaining that he believes that abortion ought to be illegal in all circumstances ... but that the decision to break the law and get an abortion is none of the government's business:
FOX HOST MARTHA MACCALLUM: Do you believe that abortion should be legal in this country for families who want to make that decision [to abort]?
CAIN: No. I do not believe abortion should be legal in this country, if that's the question.
MACCALLUM: So then you're saying that if those circumstances come up and the family does make that decision, that they decide that that is the best thing for this young person or she decides that on her own, then if that's what they decided, then it would be an illegal abortion that they would seek.
CAIN: It would be an illegal abortion! Look, abortion should not be legal -- that is clear -- but if that family made a decision to break the law, that's their decision.
In attempting to clarify his position, Cain has done the opposite and is only generating more confusion.
If the government outlaws abortion, then obviously a decision about whether to break the law and get an abortion anyway is not a situation where the government "shouldn’t try to tell them what decision to make for such a sensitive decision" ... mainly because the government has already made that decision for them by outlawing abortion.
Is this really Cain's position: that in situations where a family was deciding whether or not to break the law, it is none of the government's business to tell them what to do?
Here is helpful tip for Cain to consider: if people are repeatedly asking you to clarify your incoherent positions and your clarifications only induce further confusion, then just maybe it is not everyone else that is woefully misinformed.
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 10/21/2011 3:15 pm
Taking a break from her usual diatribesagainstgaysandlesbians, who she doesn’t even believe exist, Mission America’s Linda Harvey dedicated her radio show today to attacking Halloween. Harvey warned that Halloween represents “rebellious flirtation with fallen angels and deceptive spirits” and warned that children will be exposed to the holiday’s demonic spirituality and “dark elements.” Harvey argued that it is not “loyal to Jesus to participate in the event” and concluded that “it isn’t appropriate for the bride of Christ to observe a holiday founded on the priorities of our spiritual enemy.”
Harvey: Everyone thinks Halloween is harmless fun but just for a second, let’s look at from God’s perspective, at least from what He’s told us in His word. We’ve been taught not to worship or bow down to or in any way acknowledge any other gods. But Halloween is built around just exactly that. Behind the costumes and candy is a rebellious flirtation with fallen angels and deceptive spirits, and this definitely does not honor God. Where are these other spirits and gods you ask? Well, Halloween is all about fortune telling, magic, Ouija board, witches, it’s really hard to get away from all this. It’s definitely spiritual and that spirituality is not from our Lord.
So even if your child doesn’t directly participate in these activities, I think we’d be less than honest not to admit that yes it’s a huge part of Halloween. Dressing your child in a clown costume and going door-to-door may seem innocuous but your child has learned the following: blend in and don’t make waves. In those waves at some point in your child’s life will be all the dark elements we just mentioned and more. But the problem is your child will, by that time, have learned from you that Halloween is fun and no problem.
In my agnostic life before I knew the Lord, I loved Halloween. And even after I first became a believer, I had no intention of giving it up - I didn’t want to be a weird fundamentalist. But when I researched the origins and current celebration of Halloween, I was convicted in my heart and it boiled down to this: is it loyal to Jesus to participate in this event? If you’re married, it’s not appropriate to date someone other than your spouse and it isn’t appropriate for the bride of Christ to observe a holiday founded on the priorities of our spiritual enemy.
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 10/21/2011 1:00 pm
As Right Wing Watchreported earlier this week, Tea Party Nation sent out to its members an email alert from member Melissa Brookstone calling on businesses to pledge to “not hire a single person” as a way to undermine President Obama.
Now, Tea Party Nation president Judson Phillips is responding to the inevitable backlash. In an email today, Phillips writes that the boycott was just one idea of many from Tea Party members and accuses those who have decried the idea of trying to stifle free speech. The progressive backlash to Brookstone’s proposal, Phillips writes, proves that “liberalism is incompatible with liberty”:
We conservatives believe in the free market of ideas. We are not afraid of ideas. We debate ideas. We like ideas. Liberals do not like ideas because they are threatened by them.
…
At Tea Party Nation, we often talk about the need to defeat liberalism. Both stories are examples of why liberalism is incompatible with liberty and why it must be defeated. Liberalism is about the control of speech and thought and the suppression of any belief that does not agree with the liberal orthodoxy. Liberty means that we debate ideas and let the free market of ideas decide which one’s have merit and which ideas do not.
Tea Party Nation also sent a rambling message about the controversy from Brookstone herself, who claims that her article (which can be read here in its entirety) was taken “out of context” and that the “socialist left” raised “a literal crap storm aimed at me.” She goes on to say that now she is a victim of terrorism and that the left “seeks only to control and enslave all of humanity, as its grand goal”:
It must have touched quite a nerve with the socialist left, because it raised a literal crap storm aimed at me.
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But of course the response from the left has been what it always is from them – to take things out of context, spin, lie and smear with ad hominem attacks, and I've born the brunt of that for the last two days.
But it could be a “blessing in disguise”. If they don't manage to encourage some of their “useful idiots” to actually come and kill me, they may actually direct enough attention towards me, for people to see that I published a book earlier this year, based on the fundamental principles that we should own our own lives ( not be owned by “the collective” ) and that all adult human relationships should be consensual, things that the very philosophy of socialism is firmly against.
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But the behavior of the left during this whole inquisition they started against me a couple of days ago, only further illustrates the psychological techniques of projection that they indulge in, accusing the opposition of the very things they themselves are doing. One guy called me a “nazi ho”, when in fact the American Nazi Party ( as well as the Socialist Party ) endorsed the “Occupy Wall Street” movement this past weekend?
Smearing me as a “terrorist”, when they post photos of me, as if to encourage people to come after me, with the intent of terrorizing me, “racist” for disagreeing with Obama ( yawn – so old and frankly, boring by now... ), and that we're somehow all idiots because we don't have Harvard degrees, etc... The spinning, taking out of context, smearing and lying that typifies a movement that is devoid of all reason and apparently seeks only to control and enslave all of humanity, as its grand goal.
UPDATE: Stepehn Colbert gave his “tip of the hat” to Tea Party Nation last night, 0:40 into the segment:
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 10/21/2011 11:16 am
During an interview with Piers Morgan on Wednesday, Herman Cain ignited controversy by stating that homosexuality is a choice and presenting an incoherent view on abortion: that he is against abortion rights but that “it’s not the government’s role or anybody else’s role to make that decision.” In the same interview, Cain also repeated his claim that he never said he’d ban Muslims in his administration if elected president:
Morgan: You got into hot water about the whole issue of Muslims in a potential cabinet. Cain: Yes. Morgan: And you have kind of flip-flopped a bit. I think you would concede, you've backtracked, haven't you? Cain: Well, you media people call it flip flopping. Morgan: What would you call it? Cain: I call it explaining the intent of my comment. Morgan: Back tracking. Cain: You either flip-flop or backtrack. It's either all or nothing. Morgan: Initially, it appeared to be that you were saying you wouldn't feel comfortable, your words, with having a Muslim in a cabinet. Cain: Exactly. And this is an example of where I spoke to quick because I'm thinking about extremists, not all Muslims. I do recognize there are peaceful Muslims and there are extremists. At the moment that I was asked that question, I wasn't thinking about peaceful Muslims.
Cain was referring to an interview with Think Progress in which he first said that he “would not” be comfortable with appointing a Muslim to his Cabinet. But it wasn’t a one-time comment. Almost a month after the Think Progress interview, Cain doubled down, telling the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer, “I wouldn't have Muslims in my administration.” While Cain told Morgan that he regretted that he “spoke too quick” about Muslims, he took the exact opposite approach in his interview with Fischer, complimenting himself for not caring what the media and even his own campaign staff thought about his ban on Muslims:
Cain: I have been upfront, which ruffles some feathers, but remember Bryan, being politically correct is not one of my strong points; I come at it straight from the heart and straight from the way I see it. And the comment that I made the become controversial, and that my staff keeps hoping will die, is that I wouldn't have Muslims in my administration. And it's real simple: the Constitution does not have room for sharia law. I want people who are going to believe and enforce the Constitution of the United States of America. And so I don't have time, as President of the United States, to try and screen people based upon their religious beliefs - I really don't care what your religious beliefs are, but I do know that most of the people of the Muslim faith, they believe in sharia law. And to introduce that element as part of an administration when we have all of these other issues, I think I have a right to say that I won't.
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 10/21/2011 11:00 am
In an interview yesterday with Janet Mefferd to promote his book Suicide of a Superpower, Pat Buchanan reminisced about the national unity and common culture that existed…during segregation. Buchanan warned that America will soon look like California, where he claims religious faith is obsolete, gangs roam and the English language is marginalized. Buchanan added that America was “created” by whites and lamented that “we will have a country in 2041 that will consist of entirely of minorities.” He went on to say that while segregation was “wrong,” African Americans and whites shared a “common culture” during the segregation era that is now nonexistent.
Listen:
Buchanan: It’s going to be 2041 when white Americans of European descent will be a minority in the country their ancestors created, and what will that mean? I tried to, the article in The Atlantic celebrated it as I said and I tried to take a look at it and I’m more apprehensive because the things that held us all together, even though we’ve had conflicts, racial conflicts and others, were you know a common faith, a common culture, a common history we all loved, literature and poetry, all these things we learned in schools, all of us in the public and parochial schools. This doesn’t exist anymore, all these things are breaking down and we will have a country in 2041 that will consist of entirely of minorities.
And if you take a look at the state of California, for example, where that already exists, you see a state that is de-Christianized, or perhaps the most de-Christianized of the American states, you find that a situation where there’s a black-brown war among the underclass among these gangs which are proliferating and in the prisons. You find a state that is bankrupt or not exactly bankrupt but whose bond-rating is the worst in the United States, who was issuing script. You have something like 23% of the folks there are illiterate and you have half the people in Los Angeles County speaking a language other than English in their own homes. All of America is going to look like this in 2041 and my question is, what holds us together? How do we survive as one nation and one people if we can’t even understand each other?
I grew up in Washington, D.C. when it was 400,000 black folks and 400,000 white folks and segregation was wrong and that existed there, but we had a common religion, a common culture, we read all the same newspapers, we listened to the same radio, we cheered the same ball teams, we read the same history, we celebrated Christmas, Easter, Columbus Day, all the rest of it. And all these things are going out and the problem is once this common ground where you rise above, if you will, diversity that has always been a problem, if you a rise above that to the common ground upon which we can all agree and stand, that’s where you achieve the unity.