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Rep. Xavier Becerra (D – CA) laughs out loud when staff member from Ari David For Congress suggests that they start off their SEIU meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance. The Representative and his Purple People Beater supporters got a kick out of that. Video here: http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/02/dem-congressman-laughs-out-loud-at-pledge-of-allegiance-suggestion-at-seiu-meeting-video/

WASHINGTON, Feb. 17, 2010 – As national elections in Iraq loom on the horizon, Iran continues to subvert its western neighbor’s security and political infrastructure, top American military officials said. Army Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the top American commander in Iraq, said Iran aims to foment violence in Iraq and to play diplomatic and other nonmilitary roles that call into question Iran’s respect for Iraqi sovereignty. “Iran clearly has a strategy that goes across lethal aims, diplomatic aims and then soft-power aims -- i.e., influencing people through investment in the economy -- and into some other practices inside of Iraq,”...

President Barack Obama will on Thursday propose new limits on the size of US banks after spending billions of tax-payer dollars to bail out "too-big-to-fail" firms, a senior official said. The measures would place sweeping new restrictions on a sector seen as responsible for sparking the largest recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. "A couple of months ago the president began discussing with his economic team the need to include in financial reform more specific and stronger provisions to limit the size and scope of financial institutions" the official told AFP. The proposals aim "to cut down on...

Oh boy. I don't even know where to start with this one. This story is just a microcosm of so much that's wrong with so many of our "Catholic" universities. The Jesuit run University of San Francisco has removed a number of confessionals and replaced them with a "pagan" art gallery. Yup. You read that right. And they say they're doing it as a "testament to St. Ignatius of Loyola." You know the St. Ignatius whose Exercises state:In consequence, having made a better Confession and being better disposed, one finds himself in condition and prepared to receive the Blessed Sacrament:...

How will the left consolidate its political power and try to wipe out what’s left of America? A document titled “National Progressive and Party Infrastructure” offers a few clues. Here are some nuggets from the document, as distilled by David Freddoso of the Washington Examiner: The mention on page 10 of the “Independent Coordinating Entity: America Votes” under which 40 different groups are “working together to coordinate their independent electoral activity.” The Atlas Project, which has compiled a database of more than 100,000 campaign documents. This will mean that future liberal campaigns will not need to reinvent the wheel. AP...

The Bard tells us, rightly, that the past is prologue. But until America's greatest military intelligence success -- and failure -- becomes common knowledge Americans will remain intellectual sitting ducks, herded hither and yon, hoping to build a sheltering future on shaky misinformation. I'm talking about the Venona Code intercepts: The 3000 encrypted communications between Soviet spies operating in this country and their masters in Moscow, which American and British code breakers began deciphering in 1946. These KGB messages revealed that the Soviets had agents at the highest levels of the executive and legislative branches of our government -- and...

Just who is a "young adult"? Common sense says it starts with legal adulthood at age 18. But elements of our society have unofficially declared that the onset of adulthood matches the onset of puberty at the very grown-up age of 12. Which is one of the reasons why parents often seem uncertain about how to parent during the critical teen years. I've come to believe that the term was designed to diminish parental influence during the years when our growing children need the most direction. It's a subtle way of telling us that we should relinquish our influence in...

....Like Poo-bah in the Mikado, the president seems to be Lord High Everything Else, Secretary of Everything and a non-stop presence before the television cameras. Some of his supporters are chagrined. The New Republic's publisher Marty Peretz, who evinces buyer's remorse over Obama's Middle East policy, diagnosed the president with "Narcissistic Personality Disorder" in his blog on October 4. The reason for Obama's peculiar mode of governance, though, may have less to do with his apparent narcissism than with his objectives. It is a credible hypothesis that this president holds views that he cannot easily share, even with his own...

President Obama has not made significant progress in his plan to infuse federal courts with a new cadre of judges, and liberal activists are beginning to blame his administration for moving too tentatively on what they consider a key priority. During his first nine months in office, Obama has won confirmation in the Democratic-controlled Senate for just three of his 23 nominations for federal judgeships, largely because Republicans have used anonymous holds and filibuster threats to slow the proceedings to a crawl. But some Democrats attribute that GOP success partly to the administration's reluctance to fight, arguing that Obama's emphasis...

WASHINGTON - For the past five years, researchers in a modest office overlooking the New Haven green have carefully documented cases of assassination and torture of democracy activists in Iran. With more than $3 million in grants from the US State Department, they have pored over thousands of documents and Persian-language press reports and interviewed scores of witnesses and survivors to build dossiers on those they say are Iran’s most infamous human-rights abusers. But just as the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center was ramping up to investigate abuses of protesters after this summer’s disputed presidential election, the group received word...

ome things are not up for a vote. Some things we as creatures do not have the right to even think we can change. We as creatures have forgotten our place. Instead of prostrating ourselves face down on the ground before God, Our Father and Our Creator, in humble obedience and prayer, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America—as a shrinking “sideline” denomination—decided to continue its in-your-face unfaithful and disrespectful conduct toward God, Our Maker, ignoring all interventions, warnings and signs. The ELCA put God’s Word and all of its teachings on the natural order, marriage and family up for a...

An article on a semi-official Chinese site details a roadmap to divide India in 20 or more little states, giving support to nationalists, separatists, Tamilians, Srilankans and Bangladeshis The government of New Dehli made an official protest for the content of an article appeared on a Chinese site that aims to divide India in “20-30 small states” giving support to guerillas and nationalist movements present on the territory of the great nation or abroad. Posted on April 8 on the website, iiss.cn (International Institute for Strategic Studies) the article detailed a roadmap for breaking up India. There it is stated:...

With the help of unions, partisan politicians and pro-amnesty groups, the White House intends to push for back-door amnesty and bypass Congress altogether. “It makes sense to do now what the administration can do… it doesn’t have to go through Congress. It (amnesty) doesn’t have to go through the toxic political process,” said Ana Avendano of the AFL-CIO at a recent press conference. The AFL-CIO is one of the largest union representatives which include all the radio/broadcasters as well as the Hollywood crowd. The Obama Administration is making a three pronged effort to gain amnesty without bringing the always hot-button...

.......... Stealth analysis “Saifullah” of North Carolina spent his 20s and 30s (or so we know) in his rural home. His neighbors saw him walking the dog and never heard him threatening anyone, per the media reports. By popular American standards he would be a regular guy. But by jihadi doctrine he was performing taqiyya. Combatants “in the path of Allah,” as instructed by ideologues to “fake” normalcy, and lie if needed, about their real beliefs so that the deception of the enemy is full. The question is how many other American “Saifullahs” are practicing taqiyya and since when? Are...

"Suzanne", a female caller to Mark Levin's show on June 25th, revealed the ominous secret of the Democrat health care reform effort. "I want to tell you that last week I attended a conference on health care reform sponsored by La Raza. And I will tell you that what they had to say, Mark, is scarier than anything that's been said so far on the health care plan. The kind of comments that were made and the notes that I took... they started the conference out by saying "America does not need health care reform, but Latino immigrants need health...

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), whose officials in the past have been convicted for being associated with Muslim terrorist groups, said it will announce at a news conference Tuesday that it is launching an “education campaign” and will distribute 100,000 copies of the Koran to local, state and national leaders. The books will provide an English translation and commentary. CAIR said the distribution is prompted by U.S. President Barack Obama’s recent speech in Cairo, in which he said he wants to reach out to Muslims throughout the world. He praised the Muslim community in the U.S, whose values he...

Inhofe: 'I don't know whose side he's on' @ 11:05 am by Eric Zimmermann Via Steve Benen, it appears Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) isn't one of the conservatives who liked Obama's speech yesterday. The Oklahoma Republican called Obama's speech "un-American" for labeling Iraq a war of choice and failing to condemn Iran's nuclear program. "I just don't know whose side he's on," Inhofe said. Yikes. For the record, here's what Obama said about Iran's nuclear program: The third source of tension is our shared interest in the rights and responsibilities of nations on nuclear weapons. This issue has been a...

OBAMA'S JUSTICE DEPT WILL ALLOW NON-CITIZENS TO REGISTER TO VOTE IN GEORGIA Any shot for Americans to take back this country from the hard left in 2010/2012 is looking increasingly dim .... Obama Justice Department Decision Will Allow Non-Citizens to Register to Vote in Georgia (hat tip Clyde) Decision Bars Georgia From Continuing Voter Verification Process Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel issued the following statement following the U.S. Department of Justice’s denial of preclearance of Georgia’s voter verification process Atlanta - “The decision by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to deny preclearance of Georgia’s already implemented citizenship verification...

Part 3:According to a central tenet of Islam, any lands that Muslims ever conquered or controlled belong to Islam for eternity. Muslims believe themselves "the best of peoples, evolved for mankind" (Qur'an 3: 110)---and appointed to hold all lands in trust for Allah. Both Sunni and Shi'ite followers of Mohamed's 7th century ideology also envision an end-time Islamic Apocalypse forcibly gathering all non-Muslims within their faith---eliminating all known beliefs except Islam---and rendering the whole planet earth an Islamic trust. On these shari'a (i.e., Islamic law) concepts rest the Muslim contention that the United Nations' 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights...

East German Spy Shot West Berlin Martyr The name of Benno Ohnesorg became a rallying cry for the West German left after he was shot dead by police in 1967. Newly discovered documents indicate that the cop who shot him may have been a spy for the East German secret police. It was one of the most important events leading up to the wave of radical left-wing violence which washed over West Germany in the 1970s. On the evening of June 2, 1967, the literature student Benno Ohnesorg took part in a demonstration at West Berlin's opera house. Mohammad Reza...