Contact Form

Name

Email *

Message *

Saturday, October 1, 2011

North Carolina Governor Wants To Cancel Upcoming 2012 Elections

No elections in 2012? Why only one year? Why not suspend the Constitution and declare Obama President for Life?  Wouldn't that solve all our problems? No more endless campaigns, no more out of this world spending to get elected and stability in leadership--all of these would be advantages of suspending elections.  Why has no one ever thought of this before?


Governor Perdue might have hit on a great idea.  After all, President Obama has stabilized the economy after the disastrous Bush Administration, he has pulled all our troops out of the adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, he closed Gitmo, he punished those who abused prisoners at Abu Grab, he passed Obama care which immediately reduced health care costs and he saved two great companies (GM and Chrysler), Wall Street and the banks. 


In foreign relations,  countries around the world come to the President to get economic and political advice.  The Israelis and Palestinians solved their long lasting disagreements during one short meeting with him.  The UN is considering naming him Ambassador at large due to his abilities to get conflicting parties to agree.


Of course, this is a joke. We would hope that the Governor's suggestion would also be one, however, It is doubtful. A trial balloon, maybe, but a joke, hardly.


Last year,  we wrote a blog "2010--A Year of Infamy" in which we suggested a similar idea. Had that happened, the Democrats would not have lost control of the House and the legislative process.  So as outrageous you might think the idea is, when a sitting governor suggests it, we must realize that others are also considering the possibility. 


Could this happen? I believe so. All it will take is an "emergency".  We passed the Patriot Act after 9/11 which cut into our civil rights. We must face virtual strip searches when we go through the airport. States have allowed their police to invade personal residences without warrants. So yes, it can happen. Will it?   I sure do hope not!  What about you?


Here is the article:








Speaking to a Cary rotary club today, N.C. Gov. Bev Perdue suggested suspending Congressional elections for two years so that Congress can focus on economic recovery and not the next election.  "I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that," Perdue said. "You want people who don't worry about the next election."  The comment -- which came during a discussion of the economy -- perked more than a few ears. It's unclear whether Perdue, a Democrat, is serious -- but her tone was level and she asked others to support her on the idea.

Guns Bought By Us, Used Against Us


We have written about Operation Fast and Furious previously on this blog however, with each day that the perpetrators of these crimes go unpunished further imperils the rule of law in this country. The news media has been mostly impotent, hearings in Congress have gone no where and no one has been charged with a crime. This is a very sad state of affairs.


As you might remember, Fast and Furious was an operation  where ATF agents bought legal guns from legal dealers and then sold them to Mexican drug dealers. The entire mess was discovered when the patriotic law abiding gun sellers reported the plan to the government.  Had these patriots not done the right thing, we might not have heard about it. Or we might have heard about it when the gun dealers were charged with crimes, which we believe was the intention of the entire scheme. Otherwise, the entire plan makes no sense.


The "justice" department (can we still call it that when they are involved in "entrapment" plans like this?) has stonewalled all investigations which only adds credence to our beliefs.  Why would they create a plan to trick legal gun dealers and sell the guns to drug dealers?  The only reason that makes sense is political. If in the upcoming weeks, no one is charged with crimes, you will know that the plan is all about an attempt to eliminate the Second Amendment.

In the following article, Roger Arnoff makes the point that this is a scandal and the cover up will be worse than the plumbers at the Watergate!  Do you agree with Roger? Please comment. 


Aronoff: Operation Fast and Furious - The Scandal that Can No Longer be Denied

By Roger Aronoff 
The usual truism is that many politicians make the mistake of not coming completely clean when allegations of wrongdoing surface. The cover-up, it is said, is often worse than the underlying crime or ethical violation. This has often been cited as the mistake made by people including Richard Nixon (Watergate break-in), Bill Clinton (Lewinsky, not to mention Filegate and Travelgate), and John Edwards (love child and cheating on his cancer-stricken wife). More recently, Anthony Weiner. There is a long list.
But in some cases, the crime, or lapse in judgment, is definitely worse than the cover-up. That appears to be the case in a simmering scandal engulfing the Obama administration that the mainstream media have tried their best to ignore for many months. It is known as Operation Fast and Furious.
It involves the Obama Justice Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). It involves some 1,500 guns, about 1,000 of which ended up in Mexico, and a Border agent, Brian Terry, who was murdered with weapons found near the scene of the crime in Arizona. The weapons were among 57 linked to Fast and Furious which have been tied to at least 11 violent crimes in the U.S., including the Terry murder. The Justice Department, while largely stonewalling, has admitted this much to Congress, as reported by The Los Angeles Times. In addition, at least 200 people have been killed or wounded in Mexico with weapons linked to the operation.
There has been some reporting on the incident in the mainstream press, but not much. Congressional hearings have taken place under the chairmanship of Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). Charles Grassley has led the way in the Senate. But they have mostly been met by a stonewalling Justice Department.
There has been some good reporting by Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News, and Brian Ross of ABC News. Fox News has been all over the story, and Sean Hannity had a one-hour special back in July devoted to this emerging scandal. Others in the conservative media have done an excellent job, including Pajamas Media, Michelle Malkin, Andy McCarthy of National Review Online, American Thinker, WorldNetDaily, the Heritage Foundation and Andrew Breitbart through his many platforms, among others. This has perhaps been why the mainstream media have largely ignored the story. Even when they have reported it, they have gone to great lengths to be sure that it didn’t implicate President Obama, much less his Attorney General Eric Holder, for anything other than being out of the loop.
But that may have ended with recent revelations that the federal government apparently purchased weapons and sold them directly to criminals in Mexico. As Michael Walsh of the New York Post wrote, “the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives apparently ordered one of its own agents to purchase firearms with taxpayer money, and sell them directly to a Mexican drug cartel. Let that sink in: After months of pretending that ‘Fast and Furious’ was a botched surveillance operation of illegal gun-running spearheaded by the ATF and the US Attorney’s office in Phoenix, it turns out that the government itself was selling guns to the bad guys.”
This revelation may prove to be the game changer, and force the Obama administration to turn this over to an independent counsel.
Last night the story gained critical mass in the establishment media. CNN decided it can no longer duck and cover, and shield the Obama administration from a scandal that has the potential to make Whitewater and Watergate pale by comparison. Anderson Cooper deserves a lot of credit for putting this story together. In a long overdue report that I urge you to watch, he detailed much of what is known so far, including comments from Rep. Issa talking about the stonewalling he has met from the Justice Department, and from Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal
Cooper’s reporter on this story, Drew Griffin, tried to explain a possible motive for Fast and Furious. He said that “the operation makes no sense.” So in attempting to explain it, he invoked the usual bogeymen. “So what's the real purpose?,” asked Griffin. “The lack of sense, the apparent cover-up has opened the door now for these conspiracy theorists. And you got to follow this. They believe this was part of a convoluted plan for the Obama administration and the attorney general to actually increase the level of violence on the Mexican border with assault weapons purchased in the U.S. in an apparent attempt to rekindle interest in an assault weapons ban. As wacky as that may sound, I must tell you that theory is gaining traction, not just among the second amendment crowd, because this operation makes no other sense.”
Griffin is correct that such theories are out there. But until some independent entity can get to the bottom of this, hopefully with the cooperation of the Obama administration rather than the stonewalling and obstruction that has characterized their response up to now, the reasons for the operation might remain theoretical. Let’s see if the cover-up proves worse than the crimes.
---
Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media. He can be contacted at roger.aronoff@aim.org.

Friday, September 30, 2011

The Truth Teller--Joe Biden?



Did you fall off your chair when you read the title? Many would not think that the "out of control mouth" could be labeled as a "truth teller."  It is our opinion that it might not be truth that always emanates from the Bidenator,  it definitely will be what the current administration is thinking, or at least his opinion of its thought process. We  have seen it before and believe that as long as he is Vice President we will continue to him spout off.

This latest episode puts to rest the liberal rant of "it is Bush's fault."  No longer can that phrase be used. Democratic strategists must be very angry as it takes away their greatest catch phrase. Republicans will play this latest blast from Biden over and over. 

Now that we know the economy is Obama's fault, what tact can they take in his re-election bid? It will be interesting. He has blasted the Congressional Black Caucus, today his approval numbers were reported  to have dropped to 39%, his Middle East attitudes lost Weiner's seat in New Year and his Vice President can't keep his mouth closed.  What is a President to do?

Dick Morris thinks there is a chance he will pull an LBJ and not run for re-election.  With each passing day, that could become a reality. However, in our poll of our readers, 80% thought that he would run. The remaining are more on our side. If he did pull out, who would be the candidate? Biden? Hillary? Pilosi? Harry Reed?

Tell us what you think.  We are listening.




comment
Print

Joe Biden’s moment of candor

By Armstrong Williams 09/30/11 12:36 PM ET
Say what you will about the vice president, but Joe Biden has one helluva mouth on him. Whether it’s telling the president in front of a large crowd (and a very hot mic) this is one big … er, well, you know … or telling a key swing presidential state that his boss is to blame for its financial woes, he’s nothing if he ain’t honest.

Early yesterday (while on a campaign swing, mind you), Joe Biden missed a key talking point while visiting a local Florida radio station. Apparently, the abysmal state of America’s economy is no longer former President Bush’s fault, but his own!

“There’s a lot of people in Florida that have good reason to be upset because they’ve lost jobs," Biden told WLRN in the interview. "Even though 50 some percent of the American people think the economy tanked because of the last administration, that's not relevant.

"What’s relevant is, we’re in charge. And right now, we are the ones in charge, and it’s gotten better but it hasn't gotten good enough. And in states like Florida it's even been more stagnant because of the real estate market.”

And now here come the RNC attack ads, Mr. Vice President …

Look, it seems everyone in the country BUT the White House knows the Obama administration has underperformed in fixing the economy. I’m just glad someone high in the administration finally admitted it.

The sad truth here is there is still time to turn this economy around and take credit for it. If Obama would quit the shrill complaining and finger-pointing and go about responsibly addressing the nation’s woes, his handlers wouldn’t have to worry about Joe Biden going off the reservation.

Ron Paul Discussed



This posting is for one of our favorite blogging writers, David. He has written many comments on what has been written here. All of his comments are well thought out and researched. In other words, he is exactly what this blog is all about.

He also is a big Ron Paul supporter so that when we saw this posting, we thought of David.  We know he will not agree with some/many/all of the assertions about his candidate but it will be good to hear from someone in the Paul camp.So here you go David, make some comments and lets have some fun!

Conservative Tom





comment
Print

Some Ron Paul supporters should man up and stop whining

By Brent Budowsky 09/30/11 03:43 PM ET
I love you guys, but some of you have to stop acting like 8-year-old crybabies every time someone criticizes Ron Paul.

The fact is that Ron Paul supports a very extreme version of laissez-faire economics that is God's gift to big banks. The issue is not whether Ron supported the bailout; he did not. The issue is that his approach is what let the banks get away with murder, which caused the bailout in the first place, and after the bailout he continues these same extreme laissez-faire policies that tolerate rip-offs like the new Bank of America fee.

I have criticized Geithner and others during the Clinton years and then during the Obama years for not being tough enough on the banks.

I criticized everyone in Congress, in both parties, for the way the bailout was done and the way they let the banks get away with murder, largely because they took a ton of dough from the banks.

In my column “Hemingway at war” Thursday I criticized Obama for telling blacks to stop complaining and stop grumbling and stop crying. Obama should have directed those comments to CEOs and bankers who hoard cash while they enjoy great wealth, not to blacks or anyone else seeking jobs.

But Ron Paul takes certain stands based on a very extreme view of laissez-faire economics and purist libertarian economics. This is a gift to the banks, which continue abuses today. Ron Paul's views would allow the banks to get away with anything.

Those of you who support him should man up, stop whining, stop acting like crybabies.

Ron Paul doesn't act this way. He doesn't whine or complain. He gives a hard punch, he takes a hard punch, all with good humor in the give-and-take of the battle of ideas. That's why I like him and respect him.

To take a page from Ron's playbook: You need to take responsibility if you support Ron Paul. If you want to defend his extreme view of libertarian laissez-faire, let’s boogie. Let’s debate. But don't pretend these views don't exist, and don't get upset when I call Ron out on them, the same way Barack Obama and the White House get upset when I and others call them out at times.

Politics is not a cult of personality, not for Ron, not for Barack, and darn well not for me.

So give me your arguments, but cut out the crybaby whining

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Repeat of Rabbi Schlomo Lewis 2010 address

Last year the following was posted on Conservative Musings and it still is the highest viewed article. It was important last year but with the Palestinian request for statehood, its value has grown significantly. It is long but well worth reading.




Monday, October 11, 2010

Rabbi Schlomo Lewis Rosh Hashanah Speech

For those of you who are not aware of the holiday, Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year and starts the ten days of reflection to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. These two days are called the High Holidays and are the two that most Jews celebrate. Sermons given by the Rabbi differ in tone and topic depending upon the Rabbi and the times. Some are feel good and some are earth shaking.

This past September, Rabbi Schlomo Lewis of Atlanta delivered one of those earth shaking sermons. It has been posted on several blogs and has been forwarded by others. Whether you have read it before or were lucky enough to have hear it first hand, a second read (for most of us) is definitely recommended. I have attached a copy of the sermon and would suggest that it should be forwarded again to your entire email list.

I agree with the Rabbi. We are facing a threat not seen since WWII. A threat that does not care who you are, what good you have done, how much or little your net worth is, or what your religion is. If you are not one of them, you are the enemy and must be destroyed. Radical Islam must be stopped, however, it will not be unless "regular work-a-day" Muslims speak up and take back their religion. Will that happen, I doubt it.

You see, humans are funny people. Most of us just want to go along and get along. We don't want to ruffle any feathers and don't want to fight city hall or in this case, the radicals. I must assume that most Muslims are just regular people as were the Germans in WWII. They want the same things that all average people want. However, the Radicals are not different. They don't care what you or their fellow Muslims think, they have an agenda and that is world domination. Nothing is going to deter them from making every effort to reach their goal. If it means they give up family and fortune, so be it. If it means they have to kill and maim (even other Muslims who get in the way), so be it.

Why would a moderate Muslim want to risk all he/she has built here (or anywhere else in the world) to take on these people? Why would he risk his/her family's security? The answer is, he/she would not. To date, the moderates have not felt no pressure to speak out against those who have hijacked their religion. In fact, CARE has said that any comment against Islam is Islamaphobia. It is a handy excuse not to address the core issue. When, and if, Muslims do feel the pressure to speak their mind, most will not. Only a brave few will call out the radicals and they will soon be marginalized or worse. So to expect moderate Muslims to take any action against those who are our enemies is a fools hope.

If the moderates are not going to correct the problem, then we must speak out loudly against those who would take everything we hold dear. Are you one of those, I am. Can I count on you?







EHR KUMT
First Day of Rosh Hashanah 2010
Many years ago a Chasid used to
>travel from shtetl to shtetl selling holy books. On one occasion he came to a wealthy
>land owner and banker and asked if he would like to purchase a book of Torah teachings.
>The banker agreed and not only purchased the book, but paid for it with a hundred
>ruble note.
He then began to chat with the
>Chassid and offered him a cigar, taking one also for himself. The Chassid noticed
>that the banker proceeded to rip a page from the holy book he had just bought and
>holding it to the open flame on the stove, used the page to light his cigar. The
>Chassid said not a word but simply drew out from his pocket the 100 ruble note he
>had just received from the banker, held it over the stove as well and used it to
>light his cigar.
This simple, little tale reflects
>a profound divergence of values. Our sympathy clearly and instinctively is not with
>the banker but with the pious Chassid. None of us would come to the defense of the
>banker. None of us would claim moral supremacy for the banker. None of us would
>justify his boorish deed. As the sages of the Talmud would say – “Pshita – It is
>so obvious.”
Sadly though our planet is immersed
>in perversity where morality is not so manifest – where the book burner is a hero
>and the pious one, a villain.
I thought long and I thought hard
>on whether to deliver the sermon I am about to share. We all wish to bounce happily
>out of shul on the High Holidays, filled with warm fuzzies, ready to gobble up our
>brisket, our honey cakes and our kugel. We want to be shaken and stirred – but not
>too much. We want to be guilt-schlepped – but not too much. We want to be provoked
>but not too much. We want to be transformed but not too much.
I get it, but as a rabbi I have
>a compelling obligation, a responsibility to articulate what is in my heart and
>what I passionately believe must be said and must be heard. And so, I am guided
>not by what is easy to say but by what is painful to express. I am guided not by
>the frivolous but by the serious. I am guided not by delicacy but by urgency.
We are at war. We are at war with
>an enemy as savage, as voracious, as heartless as the Nazis but one wouldn’t know
>it from our behavior. During WWII we didn’t refer to storm troopers as freedom fighters.
>We didn’t call the Gestapo, militants. We didn’t see the attacks on our Merchant
>Marine as acts by rogue sailors. We did not justify the Nazis rise to power as our
>fault. We did not grovel before the Nazis, thumping our hearts and confessing to
>abusing and mistreating and humiliating the German people. We did not apologize
>for
Dresden , nor for The Battle of the Bulge, nor for El Alamein , nor for D-Day.
Evil – ultimate, irreconcilable,
>evil threatened us and Roosevelt and Churchill had moral clarity and an exquisite
>understanding of what was at stake. It was not just the
Sudetenland , not just Tobruk, not just Vienna , not just Casablanca . It was the entire planet. Read history and be shocked at how frighteningly
>close Hitler came to creating a Pax Germana on every continent.
Not all Germans were Nazis – most
>were decent, most were revolted by the Third Reich, most were good citizens hoisting
>a beer, earning a living and tucking in their children at night. But, too many looked
>away, too many cried out in lame defense – I didn’t know.” Too many were silent.
>Guilt absolutely falls upon those who committed the atrocities, but responsibility
>and guilt falls upon those who did nothing as well. Fault was not just with the
>goose steppers but with those who pulled the curtains shut, said and did nothing.
In WWII we won because we got
>it. We understood who the enemy was and we knew that the end had to be unconditional
>and absolute. We did not stumble around worrying about offending the Nazis.
>We did not measure every word so as not to upset our foe. We built planes and tanks
>and battleships and went to war to win….. to rid the world of malevolence. We are
>at war… yet too many stubbornly and foolishly don’t put the pieces together and
>refuse to identify the evil doers.
We are circumspect and disgracefully
>politically correct. Let me mince no words in saying that from
Fort Hood to Bali , from Times Square to London , from Madrid to Mumbai, from 9/11 to Gaza , the murderers, the barbarians are radical Islamists. To camouflage their
>identity is sedition.. To excuse their deeds is contemptible. To mask their intentions
>is unconscionable.
A few years ago I visited Lithuania on a Jewish genealogical tour. It was a stunning journey and a very personal,
>spiritual pilgrimage. When we visited Kovno we davened Maariv at the only
>remaining shul in the city. Before the war there were thirty-seven shuls for
>38,000 Jews. Now only one, a shrinking, gray congregation. We made minyon for
>the handful of aged worshippers in the Choral Synagogue, a once majestic, jewel
>in Kovno.
After my return home I visited Cherry Hill for Shabbos.. At the oneg an elderly family friend, Joe Magun, came over to
>me. “Shalom,” he said. “Your abba told me you just came back from
Lithuania .” “Yes,” I replied. “It was quite a powerful experience.”
“Did you visit the Choral Synagogue
>in Kovno? The one with the big arch in the courtyard?”
“Yes, I did. In fact, we helped
>them make minyon.”

>
His eyes opened wide in joy at
>our shared memory. For a moment he gazed into the distance and then, he returned.
>“Shalom, I grew up only a few feet away from the arch. The Choral Synagogue was
>where I davened as a child.”
He paused for a moment and once
>again was lost in the past. His smile faded. Pain filled his wrinkled face. “I remember
>one Shabbos in 1938 when Vladimir Jabotinsky came to the shul” (Jabotinsky was Menachim
>Begin’s mentor – he was a fiery orator, an unflinching Zionist radical, whose politics
>were to the far right.) Joe continued “When Jabotinsky came, he delivered the drash
>on Shabbos morning and I can still hear his words burning in my ears.. He climbed
>up to the shtender, stared at us from the bima, glared at us with eyes full of fire
>and cried out. ‘EHR KUMT. YIDN FARLAWST AYER SHTETL – He’s coming. Jews abandon
>your city.’ ”
We thought we were safe in Lithuania from the Nazis, from Hitler. We had lived there, thrived for a thousand years
>but Jabotinsky was right -- his warning prophetic. We got out but most did not.”
We are not in Lithuania . It is not the 1930s. There is no Luftwaffe overhead. No U-boats off the
>coast of
long Island . No Panzer divisions on our borders. But make no mistake; we are under attack
>– our values, our tolerance, our freedom, our virtue, our land.
Now before some folks roll their
>eyes and glance at their watches let me state emphatically, unmistakably – I have
>no pathology of hate, nor am I a manic Paul Revere, galloping through the countryside.
>I am not a pessimist, nor prone to panic attacks. I am a lover of humanity, all
>humanity. Whether they worship in a synagogue, a church, a mosque, a temple or don’t
>worship at all. I have no bone of bigotry in my body, but what I do have is hatred
>for those who hate, intolerance for those who are intolerant, and a guiltless, unstoppable
>obsession to see evil eradicated.
Today the enemy is radical Islam
>but it must be said sadly and reluctantly that there are unwitting, co-conspirators
>who strengthen the hands of the evil doers. Let me state that the overwhelming number
>of Muslims want nothing more than a Jeep Cherokee in their driveway, a flat screen
>TV on their wall and a good education for their children, but these good Muslims
>have an obligation to destiny, to decency that thus far for the most part they have
>avoided. The Kulturkampf is not only external but internal as well. The good Muslims
>must sponsor rallies in
Times Square , in Trafalgar Square , in the UN Plaza, on the Champs Elysee, in Mecca condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent.
>Thus far, they have not. The good Muslims must place ads in the NY Times. They must
>buy time on network TV, on cable stations, in the Jerusalem Post, in Le Monde, in
>Al Watan, on Al Jazeena condemning terrorism, denouncing unequivocally the slaughter
>of the innocent – thus far, they have not. Their silence allows the vicious to tarnish
>Islam and define it.
Brutal acts of commission and
>yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil.
I recall a conversation with my
>father shortly before he died that helped me understand how perilous and how broken
>is our world; that we are living on the narrow seam of civilization and moral oblivion.
>Knowing he had little time left he shared the following – “Shal. I am ready to leave
>this earth. Sure I’d like to live a little longer, see a few more sunrises, but
>truthfully, I’ve had it. I’m done. Finished. I hope the Good Lord takes me soon
>because I am unable to live in this world knowing what it has become.”
This startling admission of moral
>exhaustion from a man who witnessed and lived through the Depression, the Holocaust,
>WWII, Communist Triumphalism, McCarthyism, Strontium 90 and polio. – Yet his twilight
>observation was – “The worst is yet to come.” And he wanted out. I am convinced
>that it was not his age speaking but his heart.
I share my father’s angst and
>fear that too many do not see the authentic, existential threat we face nor confront
>the source of our peril. We must wake up and smell the hookah .
Lighten up, Lewis. Take a chill
>pill, some of you are quietly thinking. You’re sounding like Glen Beck. It’s not
>that bad. It’s not that real.” But I am here to tell you – “It is.” Ask the member
>of our shul whose sister was vaporized in the
Twin Towers and identified finally by her charred teeth, if this is real or not. Ask the
>members of our shul who fled a bus in downtown
Paris , fearing for their safety from a gang of Muslim thugs, if this is an exaggeration.
>Ask the member of our shul whose son tracks Arab terrorist infiltrators who target
>– pizza parlors, nursery schools, Pesach seders, city buses and play grounds, if
>this is dramatic, paranoid hyperbole.
Ask them, ask all of them – ask
>the American GI’s we sit next to on planes who are here for a brief respite while
>we fly off on our Delta vacation package. Ask them if it’s bad. Ask them if it’s
>real. Not a perfect parallel but did anyone imagine in the 1920’s what
Europe would look like in the 1940’s. Did anyone presume to know in the coffee houses
>of
Berlin or in the opera halls of Vienna that genocide would soon become the celebrated culture? Did anyone think that
>a goofy-looking painter named Shickelgruber would go from the beer halls of
Munich and jail, to the Reichstag as Feuhrer in less than a decade? Did Jews pack
>their bags and leave
Warsaw , Vilna, Athens , Paris , Bialystok , Minsk , knowing that soon their new address would be Treblinka, Sobibor, Dachau and Auschwitz ?

>
The sages teach – “Aizehu chacham
>– haroeh et hanolad – Who is a wise person – he who sees into the future.” We dare
>not wallow in complacency, in a misguided tolerance and naïve sense of security.
>We must be diligent students of history and not sit in ash cloth at the waters of
Babylon weeping. We cannot be hypnotized by eloquent-sounding rhetoric that soothes
>our heart but endangers our soul. We cannot be lulled into inaction for fear of
>offending the offenders. Radical Islam is the scourge and this must be cried out
>from every mountain top. From sea to shining sea, we must stand tall, prideful of
>our stunning decency and moral resilience.
Immediately after 9/11 how many
>mosques were destroyed in
America ? None. After 9/11, how many Muslims were killed in America ? None.. After 9/11, how many anti-Muslim rallies were held in America? None. And yet, we apologize.
>We grovel. We beg forgiveness. The mystifying litany of our foolishness continues.
Should there be a shul in Hebron on the site where Baruch Goldstein gunned down twenty-seven Arabs at noonday
>prayers? Should there be a museum praising the
U.S. Calvary on the site of Wounded Knee ? Should there be a German cultural center in Auschwitz ? Should a church be built in the Syrian town of Ma’arra where Crusaders slaughtered over 100,000 Muslims? Should there be a thirteen
>story mosque and Islamic Center only a few steps from Ground Zero?

>
Despsite all the rhetoric, the
>essence of the matter can be distilled quite easily. The Muslim community has the
>absolute, constitutional right to build their building wherever they wish. I don’t
>buy the argument – “When we can build a church or a synagogue in
Mecca they can build a mosque here.” America is greater than Saudi Arabia . And New York is greater than Mecca .. Democracy and freedom must prevail.
Can they build? Certainly. May
>they build? Certainly. But should they build at that site? No -- but that decision
>must come from them, not from us. Sensitivity, compassion cannot be measured in
>feet or yards or in blocks. One either feels the pain of others and cares, or does
>not.If those behind this project are good, peace-loving, tolerant Muslims, as they
>claim, then they should know better, rip up the zoning permits and build elsewhere.
Believe it or not, I am a dues-paying,
>card carrying member of the ACLU, yet from start of finish, I find this sorry episode
>disturbing to say the least.
William Burroughs, the novelist
>and poet, in a wry moment wrote – “After one look at this planet, any visitor from
>outer space would say – “I want to see the manager.”
Let us understand that the radical
>Islamist assaults all over the globe are but skirmishes, fire fights, and vicious
>decoys. Christ and the anti-Christ. Gog U’Magog. The Sons of Light and the Sons
>of Darkness; the bloody collision between civilization and depravity is on the border
>between
Lebanon and Israel . It is on the Gaza Coast and in the Judean Hills of the West Bank . It is
>on the sandy beaches of Tel Aviv and on the cobblestoned
mall of Ben Yehuda Street . It is in the underground schools of Sderot and on the bullet-proofed inner-city
>buses. It is in every school yard, hospital, nursery, classroom, park, theater –
>in every place of innocence and purity.
Israel is the laboratory – the test market.
Every death, every explosion,
>every grisly encounter is not a random, bloody orgy. It is a calculated, strategic
>probe into the heart, guts and soul of the West. In the Six Day
War, Israel was the proxy of Western values and strategy while the Arab alliance was the
>proxy of Eastern, Soviet values and strategy. Today too, it is a confrontation of
>proxies, but the stakes are greater than East Jerusalem and the West Bank . Israel
>in her struggle represents the civilized world, while Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Queda,
>Iran , Islamic Jihad, represent the world of psychopathic, loathesome evil.
As Israel , imperfect as she is, resists the onslaught, many in the Western World have
>lost their way displaying not admiration, not sympathy, not understanding, for
Israel ’s galling plight, but downright hostility and contempt. Without moral clarity,
>we are doomed because
Israel ’s galling plight ultimately will be ours. Hanna Arendt in her classic Origins
>of Totalitarianism accurately portrays the first target of tyranny as the Jew..
>We are the trial balloon. The canary in the coal mine. If the Jew/Israel is permitted
>to bleed with nary a protest from “good guys” then tyranny snickers and pushes forward
>with its agenda.
Moral confusion is a deadly weakness
>and it has reached epic proportions in the West; from the Oval Office to the UN,
>from the BBC to Reuters to MSNBC, from the New York Times to Le Monde, from university
>campuses to British teachers unions, from the International Red Cross to Amnesty
International, from Goldstone
>to Elvis Costello, from the Presbyterian Church to the Archbishop of
Canterbury.
There is a message sent and consequences
>when our president visits
Turkey and Egypt and Saudi Arabia , and not Israel .
There is a message sent and consequences
>when free speech on campus is only for those championing Palestinian rights.
There is a message sent and consequences
>when the media deliberately doctors and edits film clips to demonize
Israel .
There is a message sent and consequences
>when the UN blasts
Israel relentlessly, effectively ignoring Iran , Sudan , Venezuela , North Korea , China and other noxious states.
There is a message sent and consequences
>when liberal churches are motivated by Liberation Theology, not historical accuracy.
There is a message sent and consequences
>when murderers and terrorists are defended by the obscenely transparent “one man’s
>terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”
John Milton warned, “Hypocrisy
>is the only evil that walks invisible.”
A few days after the Gaza blockade incident in the spring, a congregant happened past my office, glanced
>in and asked in a friendly tone –
“Rabbi. How’re y’ doing?”
I looked up, sort of smiled and
>replied – “I’ve had better days.”
“What’s the matter? Is there anything
>I can do to cheer you up?” he inquired.
“Thank you for the offer but I’m
>just bummed out today and I showed him a newspaper article I was reading.
Madrid gay pride parade bans Israeli group over Gaza Ship Raid.” I explained to my visitor – “The Israeli gay pride contingent
>from Tel Aviv was not allowed to participate in the Spanish gay pride parade because
>the mayor of Tel Aviv did not apologize for the raid by the Israeli military.”
The only country in the entire Middle East where gay rights exist, is Israel . The only country in the entire Middle East where there is a gay pride parade, is Israel . The only country in the Middle East that has gay neighborhoods and gay bars, is Israel .
Gays in the Gaza would be strung
>up, executed by Hamas if they came out and yet
Israel is vilified and ostracized. Disinvited to the parade – by moral morons.
Looking for logic? Looking
>for reason? Looking for sanity?
Kafka on his darkest, gloomiest
>day could not keep up with this bizarre spectacle and we “useful idiots” pander
>and fawn over cutthroats, sinking deeper and deeper into moral decay, as the enemy
>laughs all the way to the West Bank and beyond.
It is exhausting and dispiriting.
>We live in an age that is redefining righteousness where those with moral clarity
>are an endangered, beleaguered specie.
Isaiah warned us thousands of
>years ago – “Oye Lehem Sheh-Korim Layome, Laila v’Laila, yome – Woe to them who
>call the day, night and the night, day.” We live on a planet that is both Chelm
>and
Sodom . It is a frightening and maddening place to be. How do we convince the
>world and many of our own, that this is not just anti-Semitism, that this is not
>just anti-Zionism but a full throttled attack by unholy, radical Islamists on everything
>that is morally precious to us?
How do we convince the world and
>many of our own that conciliation is not an option, that compromise is not a choice?
Everything we are. Everything
>we believe. Everything we treasure, is at risk.
The threat is so unbelievably
>clear and the enemy so unbelievably ruthless how anyone in their right mind doesn’t
>get it is baffling. Let’s try an analogy. If someone contracted a life-threatening
>infection and we not only scolded them for using antibiotics but insisted that the
>bacteria had a right to infect their body and that perhaps, if we gave the invading
>infection an arm and a few toes, the bacteria would be satisfied and stop spreading
>Anyone buy that medical advice? Well, folks, that’s our approach to the radical
>Islamist bacteria. It is amoral, has no conscience and will spread unless it is
>eradicated. – There is no negotiating. Appeasement is death.
I was no great fan of George Bush
>– didn’t vote for him. (By the way, I’m still a registered Democrat.) I disagreed
>with many of his policies but one thing he had right. His moral clarity was flawless
>when it came to the War on Terror, the War on Radical Islamist Terror. There was
>no middle ground – either you were friend or foe. There was no place in Bush’s world
>for
Switzerland . He knew that this competition was not Toyota against G.M., not the Iphone against the Droid, not the Braves against the
>Phillies, but a deadly serious war, winner take all. Blink and you lose. Underestimate,
>and you get crushed.
I know that there are those sitting
>here today who have turned me off. But I also know that many turned off their rabbis
>seventy five years ago in
Warsaw , Riga , Berlin , Amsterdam , Cracow , Vilna. I get no satisfaction from that knowledge, only a bitter sense that
>there is nothing new under the sun.
Enough rhetoric – how about a
>little “show and tell?” A few weeks ago on the cover of Time magazine was a horrific
>picture with a horrific story. The photo was of an eighteen year old Afghani woman,
>Bibi Aisha, who fled her abusive husband and his abusive family. Days later the
>Taliban found her and dragged her to a mountain clearing where she was found guilty
>of violating Sharia Law. Her punishment was immediate. She was pinned to the ground
>by four men while her husband sliced off her ears, and then he cut off her nose.
That is the enemy. If nothing
>else stirs us. If nothing else convinces us, let Bibi Aisha’s mutilated face be
>the face of Islamic radicalism. Let her face shake up even the most complacent and
>naïve among us. In the holy crusade against this ultimate evil, pictures of Bibi
>Aisha’s disfigurement should be displayed on billboards, along every highway from
>Route 66 to the Autobahn, to the
Transarabian Highway . Her picture should be posted on every lobby wall from Tokyo to Stockholm to Rio . On every network, at every commercial break, Bibi Aisha’s face should appear
>with the caption – “Radical Islamic savages did this.” And underneath – “This ad
>was approved by Hamas, by Hezbollah, by Taliban, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,
>by Islamic Jihad, by Fatah al Islam, by Magar Nodal Hassan, by Richard Reid, by
>Ahmanijad, by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, by Osama bin Laden, by Edward Said, by The
>Muslim Brotherhood, by Al Queda, by CAIR.”
“The moral sentiment is the drop
>that balances the sea” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Today, my friends, the sea is woefully
>out of balance and we could easily drown in our moral myopia and worship of political
>correctness.
We peer up into the heavens sending
>probes to distant galaxies. We peer down into quarks discovering particles that
>would astonish Einstein. We create computers that rival the mind, technologies that
>surpass science fiction. What we imagine, with astounding rapidity, becomes real.
>If we dream it, it does, indeed, come. And yet, we are at a critical point in the
>history of this planet that could send us back into the cave, to a culture that
>would make the Neanderthal blush with shame.
Our parents and grandparents saw
>the swastika and recoiled, understood the threat and destroyed the Nazis. We see
>the banner of Radical Islam and can do no less.
A rabbi was once asked by his
>students….“Rebbi. Why are your sermons so stern?” Replied the rabbi, “If a house
>is on fire and we chose not to wake up our children, for fear of disturbing their
>sleep, would that be love?” Kinderlach, ‘ di hoyz brent ..’ Children our house is
>on fire and I must arouse you from your slumber.”
During WWII and the Holocaust
>was it business as usual for priests, ministers, rabbis? Did they deliver benign
>homilies and lovely sermons as
Europe fell, as the Pacific fell, as North Africa fell, as theMideast and South America tottered, as England bled? Did they ignore the demonic juggernaut and the foul breath of evil?
>They did not. There was clarity, courage, vision, determination, sacrifice, and
>we were victorious. Today it must be our finest hour as well. We dare not retreat
>into the banality of our routines, glance at headlines and presume that the good
>guys will prevail.
Democracies don’t always win.
>Tyrannies don’t always lose.
My friends – the world is on fire
>and we must awake from our slumber. “EHR KUMT.”