Andrew Klavan: Good News, Beheaded Christians, Truth Revolt, Andrew Klavan via You Tube, February 26, 2015
Archive for the ‘Humor’ category
Andrew Klavan: Good News, Beheaded Christians
February 27, 2015Humor: Thoughts from the ammo line
February 21, 2015Thoughts from the ammo line, Power Line, Scott Johnson, February 20, 2015
(Jobs for jihadists. — DM)
[T]his strategy is surely worth a try. Why, I remember when Granddad, fresh from a stint in the Crusades, sat me on his knee and said, “Honey, we are so bleeping marginalized. We are one of the few families in this little South Dakota town that is neither Norwegian nor even Lutheran. I have no job except trying to raise a few pigs in the back yard. If I don’t get a job pretty soon, I may be forced to behead someone. It’s one of the few perks of marginalization.”
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Every few months, this wretched Administration announces with great fanfare that, having succeeded in ruining everything else, it is now going to “pivot” to jobs. Of course, as anyone who has ever played basketball knows, you pivot enough, you just go in circles, unless your pivot foot slips and you get called for the ancient foul of “traveling.” Now in the NBA you can walk the ball from the door of your mansion to the basket, no problem. But I digress.
The pivot happened again last week, only they weren’t even pretending to talk about American workers. No, we need to provide jobs for psychotic jackasses lest they become jihadis. Michelle Malkin had her usual brilliant takedown on the “poverty” of the leading jihadis. Well worth a read – take notes! – if you missed it.
But this strategy is surely worth a try. Why, I remember when Granddad, fresh from a stint in the Crusades, sat me on his knee and said, “Honey, we are so bleeping marginalized. We are one of the few families in this little South Dakota town that is neither Norwegian nor even Lutheran. I have no job except trying to raise a few pigs in the back yard. If I don’t get a job pretty soon, I may be forced to behead someone. It’s one of the few perks of marginalization.”
And Grandma just nodded and continued cooking for her tiny cafe where you could get (true story) roast beef, mashed potatoes, a slice of homemade bread and butter and a piece of apple pie for a quarter. She had a job that she created herself but it only occupied her about 15 hours a day so she had plenty of time to sew orange jumpsuits for the doomed.
Down the block (another true story) there lived a man whose enterprising 10-year-old son had a popcorn wagon and this kid made more money in a week (sometimes several dollars) than the man himself did. So, the man had no choice, no choice at all, but to go to the neighboring town and kidnap all the female persons and “marry” them off to his friends. Who could blame him, being underemployed and all? On the way back, he dropped in to the high school to behead the teacher in front of the students. Yay – job opening!
Yes, during the Depression, what with 25 percent of the workforce unemployed, and the other 75 percent mostly underemployed, there was a lot of beheading, crucifixion, kidnapping, stoning, and immolation. These side effects of unemployment have been hitherto relatively unknown but that will be corrected with Depression History Month coming up in August right after High Horse Month where all the terrible, no good, very bad things that Christians and Jooz have done will be highlighted. (Sure, you might think the Salk polio vaccine and Wasserman tests for syphilis were good, but, hey, autism!)
Meanwhile, back in South Dakota, because of unemployment, all the young girls also had to have mutilation of important lady bits, and several “bachelor” farmers were thrown off the barns and stoned if they survived. What a lot of bad stuff can happen when you don’t have a good job! After the Depression, that little popcorn wagon boy became a multimillionaire (still true story) and prosperity reigned. Beheadings tapered off to almost nothing.
Humor: Organizing for Action will help lead Obama’s war on violent extremism
February 19, 2015Organizing for Action will help lead Obama’s war on violent extremism, Dan Miller’s Blog, Senator Ima Librul, imaginary guest author, and Dan Miller, February 19,2015
(The views expressed in this article are mine and those of my (imaginary) guest author, Senator Ima Librul. They do not necessarily reflect the views of Warsclerotic or any of its other editors. — DM)
Editor’s note: This is another post by my (imaginary) guest author, the Very Honorable Ima Librul, Senator from the great State of Confusion Utopia. He is a founding member of CCCEB (Climate Change Causes Everything Bad), a charter member of President Obama’s Go For it Team, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of the Meretricious Relations Subcommittee.
Senator Librul is also justly proud of his expertise in interfaith dialogue, on the basis of which he has explained to the entire world that Islam is the religion of peace, grossly distorted by the non-Islamic Islamic State and other textual deviants. He was recently awarded the Obama Foundation’s cherished award for exemplary political correctness on the basis of his interfaith outreach. We are humiliated honored to have a post of this caliber by a quintessential Librul such as the Senator. Without further delay, here is the Senator’s article.
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The Non-Islamic Islamic State and its equally non-Islamic cohorts can be defeated only through the heroic efforts of community organizers: they are needed to help members and potential recruits find jobs and happiness. Our Dear Leader Obama cannot do everything Himself, even with His pen and His phone.
A spokesperson for the State Department recently announced that murdering affiliates of the non-Islamic State and other violent non-Islamic organizations will not end violent extremism. Instead compassion, particularly in providing suitable jobs and pathways to happiness and ultimately to true enlightenment, are needed.
Our Dear Leader is working tirelessly on just that, but even He needs help.
CAIR and Muslim Brotherhood
Many violent right wing terrorists — substantial numbers of them extremist Christians and Jews — have complained that our Dear Leader has sought help from benign Islamic organizations, such as the Council on American-Islam Relations (CAIR) and Muslim Brotherhood affiliates, to help win His war on violent extremism. Those organizations, and their members, have been among the victims of violent Islamophobia for years. Along with their successful efforts to organize Muslim communities, they have begun to emulate our Dear Leader in dealing with the curse of Islamophobia.
Islamophobia is the worst threat (other than climate change) now facing humanity and can cause even peaceful but depressed Muslims to become violent; even to become extremists. It can also enrage others, who also claim to be Islamic but are not, to intensify their violent extremism. Similarly, falsely characterizing violent extremists as Islamic gives them a false patina of legitimacy and encourages poor, ignorant savages Muslims to accept them as truly Islamic and hence to join them. That is among the reasons why our Dear Leader has steadfastly refused to do so.
CAIR, various Muslim Brotherhood affiliates and Organizing for Action are joining with our Dear Leader to fight on our behalf. We already know that CAIR is dedicated to thwarting Islamophobes who falsely accuse Islam of being violent and that the Muslim Brotherhood is dedicated only to promoting true brotherhood for all. Hence, the focus of this article will be on Organizing for Action.
Organizing for Action
The membership of this highly valued organization is diverse, but many members have been involved since early childhood. The following video is so inspiring that I find myself in tears every morning when I watch it to give me the strength I need to continue my fight against all evil forces.
As they and other kindred spirits have matured, their devotion to our Dear Leader has increased. They are now, and will continue to be, at the forefront of Organizing for Action. They applaud His righteous stand against Islamophobia and will now extend their efforts beyond what little is left of the Obama Nation’s borders to bring peace and understanding to those most in need.
The Non-Islamic State and its non-Islamic cohorts have mistakenly taken refuge in grossly distorted perceptions of Islam to justify their senseless, random violence. Only by awakening their adherents to the need to promote social justice, social progress and community service will they be led to the proper understanding of the Religion of Peace. The best way to accomplish this is by teaching them useful skills — vegan cookery, nursing, barbering, knife sharpening, business management, computer programming and Islamic sign language, for example. As they become increasingly aware of the benefits these skills will provide to them and to others, they will support their own governments in providing freedom, security, prosperity and health care for all. Free, or at least affordable, government mandated health care for all will come to be seen as their most urgent need. They will also gain the skills needed to implement their own versions of health care. No longer poor, sick and depressed they will become our friends.
Although fluency in the use of Islamic sign language will be very important, most Organizing for Action volunteers have not learned much Arabic. Sign language is easier, and our Dear Leader Himself will provide much of the necessary instruction. Here is a recent photo of Him expressing His vision of true Islamic peace to other Islamic leaders.
Here is a close up of His beautiful gesture:
Here is a photo of random Muslims returning His gesture of peace that passeth all understanding:
Although our Dear Leader has tried to use similar but different sign language in dealing with His disloyal opposition — violent right wing tea party terrorists all — they have rejected His conciliatory efforts.
We are truly blessed to have Dear Leader Obama in charge of our national destiny; all patriotic Americans must give Him their unstinting support. He is the way, the truth and the light unto all ages; all who oppose Him must convert or be silenced.
Editor’s comments:
Senator Librul has done a masterful job of presenting his and Obama’s views of Islam and how best to deal with it. Absurd, but that’s their custom.
In the following video, Pat Condell explains a big factor in Muslim unemployment:
Would better job skills ameliorate any of these problems?
As observed in a February 18th Wall Street Journal article titled The radicals are waging a war of ideas the West refuses to fight,
Above all, we need to recognize that the strength of radical Islamists is directly correlated to their battlefield success, and the growing perception that they are the strong horse against moderate Muslim leaders. Communist ideology lost its appeal when it was seen to fail against the prosperity and freedom of the West. Islamic State will lose its allure when it is defeated and humiliated in the arena it cares about most, which is the battlefield. Mr. Obama and other Western leaders must summon the will to win the war on the ground, or they will find themselves in permanent retreat in the war of ideas. [Emphasis added.]
After we and our allies had defeated Nazi Germany and Japan militarily, we tried to rebuild them substantially in our own image. Recognizing that Russia had been, at best, a temporary ally of convenience, and that our real allies lacked the necessary resources, we alone rebuilt Japan. The decision to exclude Russia — which wanted to “help” — from Japan was General MacArthur’s baby. Our reconstruction of Japan was far more successful than the reconstruction of Germany, which became Communist East and democratic West Germany. The points are, (1) first defeat them militarily and only then help them to recover and prosper; (2) don’t allow our enemies to “help.”
Islam is itself “extreme.” It is based on the Hadith, Sharia law and the Koran as Allah “dictated” it to Mohamed as he became a powerful warlord. Since Muslims believe that the Koran is the word of Allah, only Allah can change or interpret it. Not even Obama can do it. Hence, under the doctrine of abrogation, Allah’s later words rejected and displaced earlier conciliatory and contradictory passages, which therefore warrant no Muslim adherence. Nor is Islamic violence “random” or “senseless.” It is directed, purposefully, against those viewed as its enemies — non-Islamists and other Islamists of different brands. Until those in control of western governments realize at least these three points — and behave accordingly — we will continue to lose the battle against Islam.
Truly secular Muslims are not a significant part of the root problem; religious Muslims are. Yet Obama’s convocation of Muslim leaders includes few if any secular Muslims. By proclaiming that the Islamic State and its cohorts in their war against what’s left of Western civilization are not Islamic, Obama will not precipitate an Islamic reformation. Similarly, no matter how often I may state that my stallion is a mare, I will not succeed in milking it; at best, I will only irritate it. More likely it will try to kill me; if I persist, it may well succeed. On balance, I need to reject any notion that I can milk my stallion and recognize it for what it is.
Senator Librul maintains that Islam is the religion of peace. It is, in its own way. Islamic peace comes through submission to whatever brand of Islam is in power; without submission there is no peace. Leaving aside the problems this presents for Christians, Jews, and other non-Muslims, the various brands of Islam are hostile to each other and seek submission of those others through violence. Until, if ever, non-secular Muslims become secular or cease to exist that problem will persist. Nothing in Obama’s “war on violent extremism” is calculated, or likely, to achieve that end– even assuming that that is what He wants to happen.
UPDATE, with a hat tip to Iburt at Counter Jihad Report.
Humor: Senseless, violent, random “extremism” is not Islamic
February 14, 2015Senseless, violent, random “extremism” is not Islamic, Dan Miller’s Blog, Sen. Ima Librul, February 14, 2015
(The views expressed in this article are mine and those of my (imaginary) guest author. They do not necessarily represent the views of Warsclerotic or any other editor. — DM)
Editor’s note: This is a post by my (imaginary) guest author, the Very Honorable Ima Librul, Senator from the great State of Confusion Utopia. He is a founding member of CCCEB (Climate Change Causes Everything Bad), a charter member of President Obama’s Go For it Team, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of the Meretricious Relations Subcommittee.
Senator Librul is also justly proud of his expertise in interfaith dialogue, on the basis of which he has explained to the entire world that Islam is the religion of peace, grossly distorted by the non-Islamic Islamic State and other textual deviants. He was recently awarded the Obama Foundation’s cherished award for exemplary political correctness on the basis of his interfaith outreach. We are humiliated honored to have a post of this caliber by a quintessential Librul such as the Senator. Without further delay, here is the Senator’s article.
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Almost no perpetrators of senseless, random, violent extremism are Muslims. Obama’s war on violent, random and senseless non-Islamic extremism will end the cycle of violence. Soon, all will come to trust and love us.
Here are just a few videos of non-Muslims engaged in extreme and senseless random violence.
The woman who was attacked was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She has only herself to blame and should have known better.
Like the senseless random attacks on Charlie Hedbo and a grocery store in France, this was also the fault of the alleged victim.
Even our best friends can do it.
Finally, here’s absolute proof of my analysis;
Whoops. Wrong video, but there is no proof that these folks were in any way motivated to engage in senseless, extremist and random violence by the religion of peace. Nobody is, and there is not one single word in the Holy Koran, other Muslim Holy texts or in Sharia law that so much as tolerates senseless, random extremist violence!
Besides, others do it too. Obama is absolutely right in not supporting savages like these bloodthirsty cowards in their efforts to murder innocent adherents to the religion of peace!
Senator Ted Cruz is wrong to claim that any senseless random violent extremism is Islamic.
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Editor’s comments:
Senator Librul is correct in stating that Islam does not promote senseless, random violence. However, he fails to explain why: Islamic violence is almost always directed against those viewed as enemies of Islam. It is therefore purposeful, not senseless. Nor, for the same reason, is it “random.” And, as I contend here, it is not “extremist.”
Here is a suggestion from one of Senator Librul’s many devoted followers:
As soon as we remove all deer crossing signs directing deer to dangerous places for highway crossings they will find safe places to cross instead. On a parallel theory, as we cease to attribute senseless, random “extremist” violence to Islam, there will be no violence of that type of which we can properly accuse Muslims.
As is his wont, Senator Librul hit the hammer on the head with the nail. The Center for American Progress most likely agrees. Although People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) may disagree, Obama’s pup Bo has graciously offered to help.
Soon Bo, with Obama leading bravely as always from behind, will end senseless non-Islamic random violence. Then, the world will be a safer and better place in which we will all enjoy peace and happiness in our time. Right?
End random, senseless “extremist” Islamic violence? What’s that? Obama and Senator Librul deem there to be none and they are probably correct. So what’s the rush?
The infinitely wise Dear Leader of North Korea, Kim Chi-un, has proclaimed, “let us turn ours into a country of mushrooms!” “Our very own” infinitely wise Dear Leader Obama is doing His best to beat him to it.
Obama’s task of mushrooming* will be easier, and not only because He has no doppelganger to pester Him. Of greatest importance, He already has a tremendous head start.
*To keep in the dark and feed a rich diet of manure.
“Extremist” Islam is not extreme.
February 13, 2015“Extremist” Islam is not extreme, Dan Miller’s Blog, Dan Miller, February 13, 2015
(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
“Extremist” Muslims believe that the Koran and the Hadith must be taken literally and that Sharia law, rather than “man made” law, must control everyone. Secular Muslims seem to disagree or not to be very interested. “Extremist” Roman Catholics believe that birth control, abortion and pre-marital sex are sinful and oppose governmental support for them. Secular Roman Catholics seem to disagree or not to be very interested.
“Extremist” Muslims are “literalist,” because they believe that the Koran is the word of Allah as faithfully transcribed by Mohamed, his messenger, and that there is no room for interpretation. The many conflicting verses in the Koran present a problem.
Rather than explain away inconsistencies in passages regulating the Muslim community, many jurists acknowledge the differences but accept that latter verses trump earlier verses. Most scholars divide the Qur’an into verses revealed by Muhammad in Mecca when his community of followers was weak and more inclined to compromise, and those revealed in Medina, where Muhammad’s strength grew. [Emphasis added, footnotes omitted.]
Classical scholars argued that anyone who studied the Qur’an without having mastered the doctrine of abrogation would be “deficient.” Those who do not accept abrogation fall outside the mainstream and, perhaps, even the religion itself. [Emphasis added.]
Islamist literalism coupled with abrogation now has temporal, and often fatal, consequences for non-Muslims as well as for “apostate” Muslims because, as Mohammad grew stronger, his words became stronger and more violent toward apostates and other non-believers.
According to an article titled “What is Islam?” Revisited by Father James V. Schall, S.J., posted at Catholic World Report on January 8th,
Islam considers itself the only true religion. It has a “narrative” of itself that all branches of Islam hold, although they differ somewhat on how it is to be achieved. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
In the Quran, there is no mention of the Trinity or Incarnation, except explicitly to deny them. It is blasphemy to believe in them, as well as to question anything connected with the Quran. Allah intends the whole world to observe the Sharia, the Muslim legal code, observing its letter. As soon as it can, this law is imposed in every Muslim land or smaller community, even in democratic states. No distinction between Islam and the state exists. Everyone is born a Muslim. If he is not a Muslim, it is because his parents or teachers corrupted him. It is impossible to convert from Islam to another religion, without grave, often lethal, consequences. [Emphasis added.]
It is not against the Quran to use violence to spread or enforce Islamic law. Those Islam conquers, even from its beginnings till now, it either kills, forces conversion, or imposes second class citizenship. The Islamic State, now so much to the forefront, seems to have the correct understanding of what the Quran intends and advocates. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Dialogue is looked upon as a sign of weakness unless it can be used to further Muslim goals. In the case of the killings that Coren lists, if they are looked upon as legitimate means, there is no need either to talk about them or to cease their presumed effectiveness in spreading Islam. One cannot really appeal to the Quran to cease these killings, as there is ample reason within it to justify them as worthy means. Had it not been possible to justify these means in the Quran, the whole history of Islam would be different. Indeed, it probably never would have expanded at all. [Emphasis added.]
Similarly, “extremist” Christians can be characterized as “literalist” because they believe, for example, that Jesus was literally conceived immaculately and literally ascended bodily into Heaven. These views now have no deadly temporal consequences for Christians or anyone else.
As for the crusades and the inquisition, which Obama used to try to divert our attention from Islam,
Islam is the only religion the textual core of which actively and unequivocally defames other religions.
Soon after Muslim gunmen killed 12 people at Charlie Hebdo offices, which published satirical caricatures of Muslim prophet Muhammad, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)—the “collective voice of the Muslim world” and second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations—is again renewing calls for the United Nations to criminalize “blasphemy” against Islam, or what it more ecumenically calls, the “defamation of religions.”
To ban “defamation” of Islam — in reality to ban accurate factual analyses of its core tenets — is to engage in jihad via lawfare with the help of non-Islamic nations, including Obama’s America, while violent Islamic jihad against all religions except “true” versions of Islam continues apace.
Yet the OIC seems to miss one grand irony: if international laws would ban cartoons, books, and films on the basis that they defame Islam, they would also, by logical extension, have to ban the entire religion of Islam itself—the only religion whose core texts actively and unequivocally defame other religions, including by name. [Emphasis added.]
For example,
Consider Christianity alone: Koran 5:73 declares that “Infidels are they who say God is one of three,” a reference to the Christian Trinity; Koran 5:72 says “Infidels are they who say God is the Christ, [Jesus] son of Mary”; and Koran 9:30 complains that “the Christians say the Christ is the son of God … may God’s curse be upon them!”
. . . .
[T]he Christian Cross, venerated among millions, is depicted—is defamed—in Islam: according to canonical hadiths, when he returns, Jesus (“Prophet Isa”) will destroy all crosses; and Muhammad, who never allowed the cross in his presence, once ordered someone wearing a cross to “throw away this piece of idol from yourself.” Unsurprisingly, the cross is banned and often destroyed whenever visible in many Muslim countries.
Reforming Islam
Egyptian President al-Sisi — who appears to be a fairly secular Muslim — told Muslim clerics in Cairo on New Years Day (on or about the date when Mohamed’s birthday is celebrated) that Islam needs to be reformed, substantially. He “accused Islamic thinking of being the scourge of humanity—in words that no Western leader would dare utter.” Following his address,
Sisi went to the St. Mark Coptic Cathedral during Christmas Eve Mass to offer Egypt’s Christian minority his congratulations and well wishing. Here again he made history as the first Egyptian president to enter a church during Christmas mass—a thing vehemently criticized by the nation’s Islamists, including the Salafi party (Islamic law bans well wishing to non-Muslims on their religious celebrations, which is why earlier presidents—Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak, and of course Morsi—never attended Christmas mass). [Emphasis added.]
(Under the Coptic calendar, Christmas falls on January 7th.)
Obama, who continues to oppose al-Sisi and recently met with supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, ignored al-Sisi’s words and deeds. So did a spokesperson for His State Department which, in January
met with a delegation aligned with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood . . . . It is understood that the group, which included a leading Brotherhood-aligned judge and a Muslim Brotherhood parliamentarian, discussed their ongoing efforts against the current Egyptian government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. [Emphasis added.]
El-Sisi came to power after he deposed the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamist government in a popularly backed coup. After only one year of Muslim Brotherhood rule, 15 million people came out onto the streets demanding an end to their rule.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s stated goal is the recreation of an Islamic caliphate, although they follow a policy of the gradual implementation of sharia law. [Emphasis added.]
The Muslim Brotherhood, and “extremist” Islam in general, are Obama’s friends and advisers. They are also now the largest and most destructive enemies of western civilization; Obama assists them at every opportunity.
Meanwhile, a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate, Hamas, is busily training thousands of youth to attack Israel, the only free and democratic nation, as well as the only outpost of western civilization, in the Middle East.
On February 10th, a Jordanian columnist wrote, consistently with President al-Sisi’s remarks, that
“The escapism that mainstream Islam has nothing to do with those atrocities does not hold water anymore because Wahabism and Islam have become indistinguishable. To understand the crisis of Muslims today, one has to remember that Wahabism exists in several textbooks containing the alleged sayings of the Prophet Mohammad, or books of ‘Hadith,’ revered by so many. What we must confront is the undeniable fact that it is from many stories found in these books that the unprecedented cruelty of groups such as the so-called Islamic State and Jabhat Al-Nusra emanates. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
“There is obviously a propensity towards eliminating ‘the other’ imbedded deep within Wahabist ideology. It is not only foolish to deny this fact, it is also dangerous, for we would be covering the cancerous tumour with a bandage. What we cannot deny is that many of the Wahabist textbooks are the same operating manuals that Islamist butchers use to justify their savagery. For example, very few people know that while [the Jordanian pilot] Muath was being set on fire in that macabre video, the voiceover was a recitation of an Ibn Taymiyah fatwa deeming the incineration of unbelievers a legitimate act of jihad. Ibn Taymiyah is not some obscure scholar on the fringe of Sunni Islam. In the Sunni world, he is universally venerated with the title ‘Sheikh of Islam,’ elevating him to an almost infallible clerical status. [Emphasis added.]
“If we really want to defend Islam as a religion of mercy, if we really want to be believed when we proclaim the innocence of this religion, we need to do more than just repeat this meaningless mantra about us having nothing to do with [ISIS]. We have to muster the courage to identify the specific texts that actually defame Islam, denounce them and permanently cleanse Islamic tradition of them.” [Emphasis added.]
Until “extremist” Islam reforms itself, as al-Sisi (and a few other Muslims) contend that it must, Islam in all of its manifestations will remain an existential threat to what’s left of western civilization. If Islam manages to reform itself Obama — who considers Islam to be just peachy now — will, once again, be shown to have been on the wrong side of history.
Nuclear Iran
Unfortunately, Obama’s place on the wrong side of history may become apparent long before Islam is reformed, when Iran gets (or is permitted to keep) and uses “the bomb.” Iran, and perhaps Obama, have availed themselves of the Islamic doctrine of taqiyya, which
allows Muslims to have a declared agenda, and a secret agenda (Jihad, slaughter, and mayhem) during time of weakness, this is called Taqiyya.” To put it in simpler words, it is the “art” of deception, or more correctly, of deceiving non-Muslim infidels. [Emphasis added.]
As noted in a Gatestone Institute article titled Iran speeding to nuclear weapons breakout, Prime Minister Netanyahu is a lone voice crying in the wilderness.
[H]e is one of the two world leaders in the West telling the truth, warning of what is to come (Geert Wilders of the Netherlands is the other). This burden of responsibility for his people (how many of us wish our leaders had even a bit of that?) has earned him only the venom of the Obama Administration, who see him as trying to spoil their strategy of leading by procrastination. [Emphasis added.]
It is also becoming increasingly clear that the Obama Administration’s policy consists of running after Iran, in order to concede everything it wants, just to be able wave a piece of paper not worth the ink on it, claiming there is “a deal.” Iran, for its part, would probably prefer not to sign anything, and most likely will not. Meanwhile, both sides continue strenuously to claim the opposite. [Emphasis added.]
Iran seems likely to get and use, or to keep and use, nuclear weapons by virtue of the essentially bilateral Iran – US nuclear negotiations. Please see also The Iran scam continues, which I wrote in January of last year. The situation has worsened since then, with substantial concessions to, and few if any of significance by, Iran.
The U.S. concessions have, in part, been in exchange for Iran’s “help” in defeating the Islamic State and hence becoming the major power in the Middle East.
Iran would be the hegemon of the Middle East. Some states would accept Tehran’s authority, striking deals and kowtowing in order to survive. Europeans would accommodate Iran, based on its control of the flow of Gulf oil. Israel and Saudi Arabia, nations that Iran’s rulers have threatened to wipe from the map, would be left to fend for themselves. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Doran cites evidence that in the first year of Obama’s first term, there were more White House meetings on Iran than any other national security concern. Detente with Iran was seen as “an urgent priority,” but the president “consistently wrapped his approach to that priority in exceptional layers of secrecy” because he was convinced that neither Congress nor the American public would support him. [Emphasis added.]
A year ago, Doran further reports, Benjamin Rhodes, a member of the president’s inner circle, told a group of Democratic activists (unaware that he was being recorded) that a deal with Iran would prove to be “probably the biggest thing President Obama will do in his second term on foreign policy.” He made clear that there would be no treaty requiring the Senate’s advice and consent. [Emphasis added.]
The president believes that “the less we know about his Iran plans, the better,” Doran concludes. “Yet those plans, as Rhodes stressed, are not a minor or incidental component of his foreign policy. To the contrary, they are central to his administration’s strategic thinking about the role of the United States in the world, and especially in the Middle East.” [Emphasis added.]
Obama’s plans may well blow up in His face and, of greater importance, ours. Iran, particularly with the help of Russia and North Korea, will be able to do it. Here is a
short animated film being aired across Iran, [which] shows the nuclear destruction of Israel and opens with the word ‘Holocaust’ appearing on the screen, underneath which a Star of David is shown, Israel’s Channel 2 reported on Tuesday.
Don’t worry; be happy
Here’s the Revolting Truth from Andrew Klavan, which debunks everything bad ever said about Obama. Sort of.
Oh. And He’s not a narcissistic jerk either.
ALL of My policies are the best ever
Humor(?): Brian Williams for President
February 9, 2015Brian Williams for President, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, February 9, 2015
(Not so fast. As explained here, Williams should become the Secretary of State first. That is necessary in order to gain foreign policy experience gravitas. — DM)
If Brian Williams is fired, then even NBC News will have higher standards than the Democratic Party. And then Brian Williams can become the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in 2016.
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Two years ago NBC and MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell tried to invent a Romney gaffe by playing an edited tape of Romney. Mitchell wasn’t just another angry MSNBCite, but NBC’s Chief Foreign Affairs correspondent and a colleague of Brian Williams who often appeared on his newscast.
NBC was criticized, but Mitchell wasn’t fired. Neither was anyone else. She didn’t even apologize.
The network had even more outrageously edited George Zimmerman’s tape to make him sound racist. A local producer and correspondent were fired. The correspondent, Lilia Luciano, had reported for, among other NBC outlets, The Nightly News with Brian Williams.
Brian Williams is in trouble for lying, but he was part of a media culture of deceit where lies were acceptable for a good progressive cause. Williams isn’t really in trouble because he lied, but because he got caught. Worse still, the lies were self-serving. They served Brian Williams; they didn’t serve the left.
Williams had failed to draw the line between the “good lie” (ObamaCare is making life better) and the “bad lie” (I swam the flooded French Quarter with puppies on my back during Katrina while Al Qaeda shot RPGs at me). But the borders between the “good lie” and the “bad lie” have been vague when it comes to the titans of the left.
The media did its best to cover up for Hillary Clinton’s rather similar claims about “landing under sniper fire” in Bosnia. There was no sniper fire. There was a little girl with flowers. Today Hillary is in the lead to become the Democratic Party’s nominee for the White House in 2016.
Are there really higher ethical qualifications for reading the news from a teleprompter for NBC than there are for the President of the United States? If so, maybe we should just replace the Democratic Party with NBC. They’re hard to tell apart anyway.
Joe Biden, the Democratic Party’s own official Brian Williams, claimed during the Democratic presidential debate that he had been shot at in Iraq. He boasted to a National Guard conference, “If you want to know where Al Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me. Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are.”
“Where is that safe haven? It is not Baghdad. It is in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan where my helicopter was recently forced down.”
At a fundraiser, he spoke of “The superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan where my helicopter was forced down. John McCain wants to know where bin Laden and the gates of Hell are? I can tell him where. That’s where Al Qaida is. That’s where bin Laden is.”
In reality, the pilot had landed due to a snowstorm. Biden had been there with Kerry and Hagel.
Al Qaeda’s safe haven was in Iraq. It wasn’t in the “superhighway of terror” in the mountains where Biden waited out a storm in an area under American control. And Bin Laden wasn’t there either.
Joe Biden and Brian Williams are both compulsive liars. Over the years, Joe Biden lied about everything from his academic degrees to the car accident that killed his wife. Biden lied and claimed to have three degrees. He lied and claimed to have played college football. He lied and claimed to have heard the gunshots from a school shooting.
In his defense, Biden claimed in the eighties, “I exaggerate when I’m angry.”
Apparently Biden gets angry a lot. Still none of these scandals and lies, going back generations, ever got Biden fired. His harshest punishment came in law school when he was called before a disciplinary committee for plagiarizing a paper. Biden’s aide claimed that he was exonerated. In fact he was found guilty, but Biden “threw himself on the mercy of the board“and promised not to do it again.
He did it do it again as a politician, lifting a speech from UK Labor Leader Neil Kinnock, but there was no longer a disciplinary committee to hold him accountable.
As a senator and vice president, Biden had become too big to fail. He can no longer be held accountable. And if the Vice President of the United States can get away with telling crazy lies about his own accomplishments, why not the anchor for NBC News? They’re both just bad actors with fake hair.
Biden, like Hillary Clinton, is running for the Democratic Party’s nomination in 2016.
Fake heroics and stolen valor are common problems for Democratic senators. Senator Blumenthal lied about serving in Vietnam. He responded with an angry press conference surrounded by veterans in which he barked that he would not allow anyone to “impugn my record of service to our country.”
It was a shameless performance even by his standards. And he won. His party certainly did not ask him to step down.
Kerry’s pal, Senator Tom Harkin lied and claimed to have flown combat missions over North Vietnam. He stayed on and grew old in the Senate.
If lying about your Vietnam military service is fine for Senator Blumenthal, Senator Harkin not to mention former Senator and current Secretary of State John Kerry, how can anyone object to Brian Williams making up stories about saving puppies from fires at gunpoint in the French Quarter in Iraq?
Democratic politicians are allowed to lie about their heroism because they are the cause. At some point along the way, Brian Williams decided that he was important enough to be the cause. He wasn’t just the guy lying for Obama and Hillary. He was important enough for NBC News to lie for him.
And that’s exactly what NBC News did.
The days when the average politician and journalist had served in the military are long over. All that’s left is stolen valor and borrowed heroics.
Obama lied and claimed that his uncle had liberated Auschwitz during his Memorial Day remarks. (In real life he skipped the 70th anniversary commemoration of the day for the Saudis.) NBC News at the time defended it as an “innocent mistake”. But then again Obama had also claimed that his parents got together because of Selma, which took place three years after he was born.
Is NBC News really supposed to have higher standards for its talking heads than the Democratic Party does for the President of the United States?
And when a news organization like NBC News tells constant lies in support of the political agendas of Obama, Clinton and Biden, should one of its big talking heads really be expected to draw the line at lying about their records to lying about his own?
Brian Williams did the same thing that Hillary Clinton had been doing throughout her career.
Hillary Clinton not only lied about coming under fire in Bosnia, but she claimed to have been instrumental in the Northern Ireland peace processand had “negotiated open borders” for refugees in Kosovo. She claimed that her daughter (and future NBC correspondent) was jogging around the World Trade Center on 9/11 when the hijacked plane hit.
None of that was true.
If Brian Williams is fired, then even NBC News will have higher standards than the Democratic Party. And then Brian Williams can become the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in 2016.
Humor: Brian Williams should replace Secretary Kerry
February 7, 2015Brian Williams should replace Secretary Kerry, Dan Miller’s Blog, February 6, 2015
(The views expressed in this article are not necessarily mine or those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
Although it would be hypocritical for NBC to fire Mr. Williams for mis- speaking lying, it would enhance his chances of becoming our next Secretary of State. Like Hillary Clinton, Williams sorta told some truth when he admitted to lying for a dozen years. Hillary became Obama’s Secretary of State in 2009. Williams, also a very good liar, deserves no less this year. After that? Perhaps “our” next President.
Here is a timeline of the progression of Williams’ tall tales, based on a Stars and Stripes article:
In late March 2003, the New York Daily News reported that “the one (helicopter) carrying Williams and (Retired General and current NBC consultant Wayne) Downing landed” after another chopper ahead of them had been hit by “a rocket-fired grenade.” Even this early report appears to have been exaggerated. Larry O’Connor at Truth Revolt, reacting to Williams’ on-air statement Wednesday night, noted that Williams was really “in an aircraft that followed the one hit by RPG fire by an entire hour.”
Several days later, USA Today reported that Williams “was stranded in the Iraqi desert for three days.” That hardly appears to be the case. In a comment at an NBC Facebook page, a clearly frustrated Lance Reynolds, the flight engineer on the helicopter that was hit, wrote: “I remember you guys taking back off in a different flight of Chinooks from another unit and heading to Kuwait to report your ‘war story’ to the Nightly News.”
By 2007, the helicopter that was hit was, according to a Williams blog entry, “the chopper flying in front of ours.” A University of Notre Dame press release in 2010, the year he gave the commencement address there, referred to how “the lead helicopter was shot down.”
In March 2013, Williams told Alec Baldwin of “being in a helicopter I had no business being in in Iraq with rounds coming into the airframe,” and, after prompting, said that he “briefly” thought he would die.
Later that month, Williams crossed the fairy-tale Rubicon, telling David Letterman that “two of the four helicopters were hit by ground fire, including the one I was in,” and that after that, the problem was how “we figure out how to land.” We?
Finally, on January 30, Williams, applying even more mustard, told the nation on Nightly News that “the helicopter we were travelling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG.”
The indispensable Kristinn Taylor at Gateway Pundit has found that “speech promotional bios touted Williams’ bravery in returning to Iraq after he claimed being under fire.”
Here’s a video of Williams’ 2013 love feast with David Letterman. His Iraq narrative begins at 2:50.
According to Sharyl Attkisson, Presidential Candidate Clinton [like Brian Williams],
never fully explained how she could have made such a mistake as saying she had ducked sniper fire when there hadn’t been a sniper in sight. Initially, she stated “I was sleep deprived and I misspoke.”
But as my report below (“Clinton Doubles Down”) shows, Clinton told varieties of the embellishment over a long period of time, not just when she was sleep deprived.
Had Clinton somehow convinced herself that it had all really happened? Or did she knowingly advance a false story?
“So I made a mistake,” Clinton also stated at one point. “It proves I’m human, which you know, for some people, is a revelation.”
Whoops.
In the next video, Mr. Williams and a guest from NBC discuss Clinton’s Bosnia adventures, Senator Obama’s candidacy and their anticipated consequences for her 2008 Democrat presidential nomination. Note the apparent puzzlement about why Clinton confessed to having “misspoken.”
Clinton didn’t get the Democrat presidential nomination in 2008 but was confirmed as Obama’s Secretary of State in 2009. Doesn’t Williams deserve a promotion comparable to what Clinton got (from failed Presidential Candidate to SecState)? Shouldn’t he be held to the same standard?
Williams had seen what happened to Clinton just weeks earlier, yet kept telling his own fish tale. To paraphrase one of his own NBC colleagues, this isn’t Little League, it’s a nightly news anchor with an audience of millions. Will he be held to the same standards to which NBC and the rest of the media held Clinton?
What standards were those then and, of more importance, what have they been since? She still “deserves” to become “our” next President.
Tom Brokaw, also of NBC, contends that Williams should go. Perhaps, however, NBC will forgive and forget.
The Los Angeles Times, quoting anonymous NBC News execs, reported that Williams’s on-air apology has been accepted internally and that he’s expected to face no disciplinary action for his serious journalistic lapse, which included showing video of a combat-damaged helicopter and representing it wrongly as the Chinook on which Williams had been a passenger.
As noted by Howard Kurtz at Fox News,
When it comes to the NBC franchise, Brian Williams is too big to fail. He’s the face of the network, he hosts the top-rated network newscast, he guest-hosts “Saturday Night Live.” He’s a bankable asset. And in fairness, Williams has a pretty unblemished track record.
Oh well.
Reality is often unpleasant and hard to deal with, so we need a creative Secretary of State who will continue to reject reality, base policy on fantasy and do so with impunity for a decade or more.
Clinton, a likely Presidential Candidate for 2016, did her “best.”
Obama does what Obama does and gets away with it. According to an article at Breitbart, the seven Muslims at a recent White House meeting on domestic and foreign policy issues have been named.
According to a White House statement on the President’s meeting, the domestic issues discussed were the “Affordable Care Act, anti-Muslim violence and discrimination, the 21st Century Policing Task Force, and the upcoming White House Summit on Countering Violence Extremism.” On the foreign policy front, “the President discussed the need to continue countering ISIL and other groups that commit horrific acts of violence, purportedly in the name of Islam,” while also congratulating Muslims on their “remarkable contributions” to America. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Comedian and left-wing pundit Dean Obeidallah revealed that he was one of the fifteen Muslim-American “leaders” brought to the White House on Wednesday afternoon.
“The No.1 issue raised: The alarming rise in anti-Muslim bigotry in America,” Obeidallah said of the meeting with the President. Their chief collective concern was not the rise of the Sunni Islamic State, nor the expansion of the Caliphatist Shiite Iranian regime and its messianic drive towards nuclear weapons, but instead, “anti-Muslim bigotry in America.” [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
The Detroit Free Press also revealed that senior Obama advisers Valerie Jarrett and Ben Rhodes were present in the Muslim leaders’ meeting. [Emphasis added.]
Dean Obeidallah also revealed that Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, was behind the effort to get Muslim leaders to the White House.
Muslim Advocates reveals on its website that its three main objectives are to “end profiling,” “strengthen [Muslim] charities,” and “counter hate.” Its Press Center section is filled with posts demanding intelligence organizations, such as the New York Police Department and federal agencies, end their “Muslim Suspicionless Spying Program,” while also dictating to the media that it should “Report Accurately on Muslims.” Another post reads, “What You Need to Know About the New Federal Racial Profiling Policy.” Review of Muslim Advocates’ press releases reveals that the only foreign policy issue with which the group has concerned itself over the past year was urging Sec. of State John Kerry to ensureMuslim “Americans are able to safely perform the annual religious Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.” [Emphasis added.]
Keep up the good work, Big Guy, Insha’Allah.
Kerry has bravely continued the march.
Williams, who should be rehabilitated as quickly as was Senator Clinton, could not be worse and might even be better than Kerry. Then, his path to the presidency should be clear even if he (unlike Obama) is candid in public on rare occasions.
Hey, Grandpa! I need some of that stuff.
Humor: How to deal with enemies, foreign and domestic
February 2, 2015How to deal with enemies, foreign and domestic, Dan Miller’s Blog, Sen. Ima Librul, February 2, 2015
(The views expressed this article are mine and those of my imaginary guest author. They do not necessarily represent the views of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
Editor’s note: This is a post by my (imaginary) guest author, the Very Honorable Ima Librul, Senator from the great State of Confusion Utopia. He is a founding member of CCCEB (Climate Change Causes Everything Bad), a charter member of President Obama’s Go For it Team, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of the Meretricious Relations Subcommittee. He is also justly proud of his expertise in the care and breeding of unicorns, for which his Save the Unicorns Foundation has received substantial Federal grants. We are honored to have a post of this caliber by a quintessential Librul such as the Senator. Without further delay, here is the Senator’s article.
***********************
As the anointed leader of my Librul kingdom, countless methods for dealing with “enemies” are at my disposal. I, along with my loyal Secretary of Slyness (SOS) Sir Ketchup, bring happiness to all. Many “enemies” of my kingdom have yielded to my wisdom without even knowing that they have. I owe everything to my dear leader Obama, my rock of ages in the past and hope for years to come.
Example One
When my kingdom was threatened by wolves and foxes, which intended to eat all of my free range chickens, I bravely sent Sir Ketchup to deal with the problem. At my direction, he immediately put half of my chickens into secure coops and invited the invaders to do as they desired with the rest. That satisfied them only briefly, so he dispatched half of my remaining chickens to be eaten. The process continued until I had only one chicken left.
Here’s why I can humbly wear the label “The Won,” along with my dear leader Obama. The invaders, stuffed pleasantly full of chicken and amazed at my brilliance, resolved not to attack my kingdom again until my chicken population had been restored and it was once again worthwhile to invade. Unfortunately for them, a single chicken cannot reproduce, so they will never again have any reason to return.
Example Two
A few weeks later, my kingdom was again invaded by “wild and vicious” packs of wolves and foxes. They divided their attentions between slaughtering each other and slaughtering and eating my sheep. I solved the problem by giving ample sheep to both packs and explaining to them that they were neither wild nor vicious, but simply misguided in attacking each other. Their mistake lay in believing that the traditions of their ancestors mandated such activities, even though it is not true. As a widely acknowledged expert on the traditions of wolves and foxes, I understand these matters far better than they do. Hence, I was able to convince them that with reality-based understanding such as I possess, they too would seek the beauties and benefits of unity permitting them to slaughter and eat my sheep peacefully and together.
Some who do not fully understand the inherent beauty and fairness of multiculturalism might contend that my actions were unfair to the sheep. They would be wrong. Sheep are gentle creatures and have been good to me; I have always ensured that they have plenty to eat and I have fleeced them only to provide for their well-being. We are as one and, to the extent that I am able, these benign practices will continue.
However, it is far more important to bring happiness and unity to creatures which have suffered for ages because of their erroneous but stereotypical characterization as evil. There is no evil and there is no good; all is relative. Who are we to declare that sheep are good and that wolves and foxes are evil? Don’t we also kill sheep and eat mutton? Wolves and foxes are neither better nor worse than human carnivores and it is prudent to act only on the basis of what is best for all.
My plan was successful. Happy with their full bellies, the wolves and foxes departed my kingdom in peace, promising to return together and in harmony only when they need my sheep. In the interim, they will devote their attentions to visiting neighboring farms in hopes that the owners will see the justice in my methods and adopt them. I promised to help my neighbors to adopt my enlightened multicultural views and to accord wolves and foxes every courtesy. As wolves and foxes come to understand the beauty and benefits of true multiculturalism, they will cease to be significant threats to anyone. That is a hope for change we can — and must — believe in.
In fairness, I must acknowledge that my dear leader Obama demonstrated the efficacy of this solution several years ago when, with remarkable success, He persuaded diverse groups of Muslims to unite against America to force her to reject her old ways of dealing with what she wrongly characterized, not only as enemies, but even as evil enemies. Since then, we have made great progress in defeating the Non Islamic Islamic State (NIIS) and others allegedly intent upon endangering our national security. The world be a far better place now if President Roosevelt had fully accepted Nazi Germany, not as an evil enemy or even as an enemy, but as a friend and a humanitarian force for peace and enlightenment of civilization. Had my dear leader then been our President, that would have happened and there would have been no more war.
Example Three
This year, representatives of the Non-Islamic Taliban (NIT) sought to use several acres of my kingdom for an insurgent training camp. They explained that since my dear leader Obama has declared that they are not foreign terrorists, I should have no objection. On that basis, I saw no problem in dealing with them. They offered to pay me $5,000 per acre per week and I accepted, subject to the requirement that they wear Girl Scout costumes rather than their traditional attire so that none of my Islamophobic neighbors would be offended irrationally. The deal was struck.
Since they had not stated which part of my kingdom they wanted to use, I provided land on which my free range unicorns frolic. I assumed that they would not notice, and they didn’t. Only truly superior beings, like our own glorious dear leader Obama, myself and unicorns can communicate with unicorns; the NIT members couldn’t even see them.
I promptly advised my dear leader of my findings, and He stated that He will soon dispatch brigades of well trained unicorns, under the command of Brevet General Bowe Bergdahl, to do battle with both NIT insurgents and NIIS terrorists. When the unicorn brigades triumph, dear leader Obama will be able to proclaim yet another grand mission accomplished and demonstrate, once again, that we stand firmly, shoulder to shoulder, behind our gallant friends and allies who have been harmed by our dastardly non-Islamic enemies. No longer will we be viewed as impotent.
It may be true that, until now,
Nothing in all that standing together has been potent enough to stop these barbaric, brutal, heinous beheadings of American and British and Japanese citizens.
Brevet General Bergdahl and his brigades of unicorns will change that!
I have many more inspiring stories to tell, but must leave immediately to chair a meeting of my Meretricious Relations Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Former President Clinton, the principal speaker on “How to lie with impunity,” will be accompanied by his lovely wife and confidant, Saint Hillarion, also a long recognized expert on that topic as well as concerning infamous right-wing conspiracy theories.
Their talents, like those of our current dear leader Obama, are much needed in dealing with our domestic enemies, evil right-wing terrorists all!
I look forward to serving under Saint Hillarion when she becomes our next dear leader, just as I have served under dear leader Obama.
******************
Editor’s comments
Senator Librul words of wisdom will be of great assistance to Obama in His war on non-Islamic terror and insurgency. Ideas such as the Senator’s are badly needed because in the aggregate they are far better, and hence far more likely to bring success, than what Obama has tried thus far.
If the spirits shine brightly and in copious quantities upon us, we may be able to believe that even before Obama’s son Trayvon II becomes our President, our enemies will have ceased to be our enemies and unicorns will again be able to frolic in peace throughout the entire world, Insha’Allah.
No Room for Parody
January 18, 2015No Room for Parody, American Thinker, Clarice Feldman, January 18, 2015
I was sound asleep when the phone rang and so I cannot be absolutely sure the conversation was not a dream, but it seemed real enough.
“Hello,” the caller began. “My name is Mr. Mensch, I am president of the Parodists of the World, professional comedy writers, and we want to engage you in a suit against the administration for tortious interference with our livelihood.”
“What exactly are you alleging, I mean specifics?” I responded.
He then launched into a litany of grievances against the administration which the Parodists claimed had made it impossible for them to continue making a living.
“First, our country sent no one to the important anti-terrorism demonstration in Paris, and then there’s Valerie Jarrett calling the march against the slaughter of innocents in Paris a ‘Parade’, as if this were some sort of celebration.‘ Certainly We Would Have Loved To Participate In The Parade,” But We “Got The Substance Right”’.” She said and then proceeded to claim that Holder couldn’t attend because he was in a very important terrorism conference at the time, forgetting that we knew everyone else at the conference made it to the march except Holder. So at the time of the march he was meeting with himself, it seems.”
“Well, that was silly, “I agreed. “And?” I waited for the next item.
“Then our secretary of state, John Kerry, whose entire life has been fashioned around his self-imagined superior diplomatic skills and international affairs expertise, shows up speaking execrable high school level French, accompanied by an aging ex-druggie who sings to the grieving French ‘You’ve Got a Friend’”
“I have to agree that was preposterous and really embarrassing. One wag suggested the French ought to respond by having Carly Simon sing, ‘You’re so Vain’ to the President and his Secretary of State. ‘Send in the Clowns’ comes to mind.”
“It’s all of a piece you know. It’s cutting substantially into our employment prospects. Let me read this to you,” Mensch said:
“ ‘A scandal has erupted in the American Consulate in Jerusalem, as three Israeli security guards have quit following a plan to hire 35 armed Palestinian guards from East Jerusalem. The Palestinians have been undergoing weapons training in Jericho in recent days. The decision to hire and arm the Palestinian security personnel was made by the consulate’s chief security officer, Dan Cronin. The plan is to employ them mostly as escorts to American diplomats’ convoys in the West Bank. Their operating base will be at the consulate in the city’s west, as well as six other facilities around the city belonging to the consulate, of which five are in western Jerusalem.
The plan is a breach of a 2011 agreement between the consulate and the Israeli government, which determined that only former IDF combat soldiers hired by the consulate would be allowed to carry weapons. That year, Israel gave the consulate approval to keep about 100 guns for its security guards, but only if they’re American diplomats or Israelis who served in the army. While the consulate employs scores of guards from East Jerusalem, they have not been armed up until now.’”
“Sounds like a bad joke to me,” I replied. “With the world’s attention focused on Moslem extremists. New jihadi groups showing up all through Europe, and Palestinians continuing to attack our ally Israel and we train and arm Palestinian guards to protect us in Jerusalem in violation of our agreement with Israel?”
“Even the liberal foreign policy pundit Leslie Gelb is concerned that the administration is absolutely clueless,” sputtered Mensch.
“And he keeps releasing men from Gitmo who then return to fight against us. He released Mullah Abdul Rauf and immediately on his return he’s recruiting for the Taliban in Afghanistan.”
By this time Mensch was on a roll.
“The White House spokesman, Josh Earnest is tripping over his own tongue trying not to say the magic words ’Moslem extremist’. Listen to this circumlocution of his: ‘We want to describe exactly what happened. These are individuals who carried out an act of terrorism. And they later tried to justify that act of terrorism by invoking the religion of Islam and their own deviant view of it.’”
“Then there’s the nonsensical negotiations with Iran,” I interjected.
Mensch sputtered, “Thursday Obama announced he would not tighten sanctions on Iran which is violating the sanctions already in place because if we tighten the reins it will only drive them to war. Think about that! If we impose stricter sanctions on them, they’ll go to war, and if we don’t, they’ll go to war with nuclear weapons.”
“That’s nothing to joke about,” I said.
“Precisely! Obama‘s leaving us nothing to parody. We can’t make a living in comedy. He and his administration are themselves the joke. We might as well just send in news clippings to our editors as try to dream up anything wackier than what they’re doing. And, look, it’s not just foreign affairs. Take the Keystone Pipeline — I mean it should be clear to everyone that we are hurting Iran and Russia financially each time we and others increase the supply of gas and oil on the world market and we need jobs badly, so why is he still sitting on this? George Will captured this bit of nuttiness,” he added and I heard the rustle of newspaper as he read this to me.
Actually, there no longer is any reason to think he has ever reasoned about this. He said he would not make up his mind until the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled. It ruled to permit construction, so he promptly vowed to veto authorization of construction.
The more Obama has talked about Keystone, the less economic understanding he has demonstrated. On Nov. 14, he said Keystone is merely about “providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land, down to the gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else. That doesn’t have an impact on U.S. gas prices.” By Dec. 19, someone with remarkable patience had explained to him that there is a world market price for oil, so he said, correctly, that Keystone would have a “nominal” impact on oil prices but then went on to disparage job creation by Keystone. He said it would create “a couple thousand” jobs (the State Department study says approximately 42,100 “direct, indirect, and induced”) and said, unintelligibly, “Those are temporary jobs until the construction actually happens.” Well.
“I understand your distress,” I sympathized, “but to make your case you have to prove that Obama intended to harm your business, and as Will notes it’s just that he isn’t that smart.”
“C’mon,” the parodist, countered, “Almost every professor in America supported and voted for him. Are you calling them all stupid?”
A thought experiment about Islam
January 15, 2015A thought experiment about Islam, Dan Miller’s Blog, January 15, 2015
(The views expressed in this article are mine, and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
A religion which blesses and encourages the slaughter of those who offend it or its “prophet” should be condemned, not praised, unless and until it stops doing both.
On January 14th, I posted an article titled Obama plans to restrain media offensiveness to Islam. As a thought experiment, this less than obviously relevant cartoon appeared at the top:
I considered the cartoon offensive and hope that everyone else did too. It might depict Mohamed, or it might not. Beyond vague descriptions, likely of questionable value, we have little information about Mohamed’s physical appearance. The cartoon could depict any obese human male wearing a turban. The same is true of other cartoons purporting to depict Mohamed in various poses.
Had a similar cartoon shown instead a Roman Catholic priest or a rabbi on a roasting spit, with a giant pencil extending into his anus and thence through his body and mouth, present day Christians, Jews and those of most other world religions, as well as those of no religion, would quite likely be offended; far less because of the religious significance of the victim than because we do not do that sort of thing to people. We would not on either account murder the cartoonist. Many Muslims might well consider the cartoon funny and approve of what they consider an appropriate consequence of being Jewish or Christian.
As far as I am aware, no world religion other than Islam worships, and seeks to have its followers emulate, a “prophet” or saint who condoned and demanded the killing of those who mocked or otherwise offended him. Mohamed did. Neither Jesus nor Moses did. Nor, as far as I am aware, did any prophet or saint of any other current world religion.
Other Mohamed cartoons of which I am aware do not show him being killed or tortured. For example this cartoon, which inspired the vicious animosity of many Muslims, merely depicts him with a bomb in his turban and gazing with hatred at someone or some thing. It does not depict him being tortured or killed.
Rather than consider it offensive, I consider it a humorous way of depicting one (of the many) barbaric things done by Muslims in the name, and with the blessing, of their religion. Current day non-Muslims also use bombs and some of the same weapons. They use more advanced weapons as well. However, they do not generally do it in the name and with the blessings of their religions because of what they perceive as insults to those religions. That is a significant difference.
Modern cultures should not seek to prevent the publication of cartoons presenting Mohamed, or anyone else, in an unfavorable light. Nor should they seek to prevent cartoons of the objectionable type I posted on January 14th. They can also generate controversy and, hopefully, peaceful discussion. A cartoon of the sort suggested above, depicting a Roman Catholic priest or Jewish rabbi instead of Mohamed, probably would generate nothing more than peaceful controversy, aside from the pleasure of some Muslims.
If cartoons cause bad people to kill those who create or publish them, all of the subsequent adverse consequences should befall those who kill, not those who would create or publish more cartoons.Obama is intent upon imposing adverse consequences on the latter, while claiming that those who kill or attempt to kill in the name of Allah act on behalf of no religion. He would, and would have the rest of us, shield the murderers’ coreligionist supporters even from our displeasure. Obama is a disgrace to civilized humanity.
ADDENDUM
anneinpt
artaxes
danmillerinpanama
davidking1530
Peter Hofman
Joseph Wouk
Peter
Louisiana Steve
WarSclerotic 
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