Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday morning.
Sarah Palin boldly, clearly and sharply articulated the stakes in the 2012 election on Saturday when she addressed a "Patriots in the Park" Tea Party event. The event took place in Michigan and was sponsored by the Michigan branch of Americans for Prosperity and the Willow Run Tea Party Caucus.
“2012 is a race between the party of big government and the party of big freedom,” Palin said, contrasting the Republican party's vision with that of President Barack Obama's.
In reference to Obama and his policies, Palin said there was something “wrong with someone” who would want to fundamentally transform a country that was good and strong.
"If that’s what you call hope, then we want change,” Palin said.
Palin dubbed Obama’s economic policies as “Obamanomics,” called it a form of “crony capitalism on steroids” and said some aspects of Obamacare should be dubbed “no bureaucrat left behind” for the thousands of I.R.S. jobs the bill has created to collect what the Supreme Court found to be a tax.
She accused Obama of having “recklessly mortgaged our children’s future $5 trillion in new debt,” being “constantly adrift,” and being afraid of the Tea Party.
She also mocked the Obama administration's responses to dismal jobs reports. The job reports were a subject of a classic Mitt Romney press release titled “Broken Record, Broken Promises,” in which the Romney campaign cleverly compiled 30 responses from the Obama White House that dismissed unfavorable jobs with the same line: “It is important not to read too much into any one monthly report...”
“Now, the mainstream media gets these reports and gives the White House a pass,” Palin said. “The lapdogs in the media let them get away with that kind of B.S.”
Palin mocked the press releases, saying Obama didn't want to read too much into America’s credit downgrade, the debt tripling, the attorney general cited for contempt of Congress, and failed green energy gambles like Solyndra.
And referring to herself as a “proud bitter clinger,” Palin condemned the Obama administration’s role in the “Fast and Furious” scandal. She suggested there would be revelations in the future of a nexus between gun-control advocates and those involved in the scandal responsible for the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
“Let me go out on the limb here and predict we will find a connection between this tragic blunder of a mission and the anti-Second Amendment officials who love to give all firearms a bad name,” Palin said before adding that those anti-Second amendment officials want an “erosion of our our Second Amendment rights and even more government gun control.”
Palin accused Obama of having “downsized and outsourced American prosperity” and called him an “imperial president” who chooses to “enforce and ignore” whatever laws he wants.
In recent months, Obama has issued an executive directive that stated certain illegal immigrants would not be deported and essentially rewrote the federal work requirements in the welfare reform law.
“We know he is bringing America to her knees and our vision will have her standing tall again,” Palin said, before saying “our vision is of the optimistic pioneering spirit in the frontier ... of the pilgrim and the patriot ... of pioneer and the hard working immigrant.”
Palin defined this generation’s mission statement and said the current generation has a “rendezvous with destiny” to fundamentally restore what Obama has transformed.
She called that restoration “our sacred duty to the past and the future.”
Love Sarah or hate her, but no one can deny that Sarah Palin is a force in the Republican Party, in the tea party and among conservatives of all stripes and even with many independents, especially if you have ever heard her speak in person. So where is her invitation to the GOP Convention… to speak at the convention? Palin rocked the house in 2008 as 2nd on the ticket, while McCain put them to sleep. She represents a part of the Republican Party, that although are warming up, still have not embraced Romney fully.
[T]he Romney campaign has not asked Palin to speak at the convention nor contacted her about even attending the party’s marquee event in Tampa. Queries to the Romney camp about any possible Palin role at the convention meet with a stony silence. Palin does not seem surprised. “What can I say?” she responded in an email from Alaska, when asked by Newsweek about the convention, just before heading to Michigan to deliver an Obama-thumping speech. “I’m sure I’m not the only one accepting consequences for calling out both sides of the aisle for spending too much money, putting us on the road to bankruptcy, and engaging in crony capitalism.”
Romney was the choice of the party’s elites, whom Palin has regarded with open disdain ever since her rough treatment during the 2008 campaign. They are some of the same people who anonymously disparaged Palin as a clueless bumpkin, and some of them are now helping to run Romney’s campaign. When unnamed Romney aides tell reporters that Romney will likely go with a “safe” choice for vice president because of the 2008 “disaster,” Palin notices.
[....]
The Romney camp will not comment on Palin, or on plans for the convention, but one adviser associated with the campaign suggested that Palin would be prohibited from speaking at the Republican convention by her contract with Fox News. “It’s true I’m prohibited from doing some things,” Palin says, “but this is the first I’ve heard anyone suggest that as an excuse, er, reason to stay away from engaging in the presidential race. I’m quite confident Fox’s top brass would never strip anyone of their First Amendment rights in this regard.” (Fox says her contract would not prohibit speaking at the convention if she sought permission.)
So… Does Romney Have a Palin Problem and if Not, Where’s Her Convention Invite? – A RomneyAdvisor Has Intimated That Romney Will Not Be Asking Palin to Attend the Party Nor to Dance… ah Speak.
Photo illustration by Gluekit; Source: Scott Olson / Getty Images (Cain and Palin), Jewel Aamad / AFP-Getty Images (romney)
(The Daily Beast) Palin would certainly light up the base at the convention—her 2008 vice-presidential acceptance speech was, in terms of partisan enthusiasm, the high-water mark of the McCain campaign—but a jolt of Palin at Romney’s convention seems most unlikely. The Romney campaign prides itself on a slavish adherence to script, and Palin cannot be trusted to avoid the impulse to go rogue. That is why, perhaps, the Romney campaign has not asked Palin to speak at the convention nor contacted her about even attending the party’s marquee event in Tampa. Queries to the Romney camp about any possible Palin role at the convention meet with a stony silence. Palin does not seem surprised. “What can I say?” she responded in an email from Alaska, when asked by Newsweek about the convention, just before heading to Michigan to deliver an Obama-thumping speech. “I’m sure I’m not the only one accepting consequences for calling out both sides of the aisle for spending too much money, putting us on the road to bankruptcy, and engaging in crony capitalism.”
Palin shares much of the reservations of the Tea Party about Romney. “Romney has said before that he doesn’t want to have to light his hair on fire,” Palin said on Fox last week. “Well, there are a lot of his base supporters, independents, who are saying, ‘Well, light our hair on fire, then!’” Palin’s objections to Romney are not so much about the man himself—she speaks of him respectfully, as he does about her—but about who, and what, he represents. Romney was the choice of the party’s elites, whom Palin has regarded with open disdain ever since her rough treatment during the 2008 campaign. They are some of the same people who anonymously disparaged Palin as a clueless bumpkin, and some of them are now helping to run Romney’s campaign. When unnamed Romney aides tell reporters that Romney will likely go with a “safe” choice for vice president because of the 2008 “disaster,” Palin notices.
“In accepting those consequences,” she added, “one must remember this isn’t Sadie Hawkins and you don’t invite yourself and a date to the Big Dance.” Read full article Here
As Palin said in her “Patriots in the Park” speech there is too much at stake in this upcoming election for every (any) concerned American not to vote for Romney and to surround him with a Republican House and Senate, but many of us hope that Mitt, who showed courage this past week in calling President Obama out on his falsehoods by demanding an apology and speaking before a less than friendly crowd at the NAACP and getting 17 ovations including one standing ovation verses only one round of jeers (but all we heard about), to embrace the tea party and ask Sarah Palin to give a uniting speech at the Convention.
Michigan Republican Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, who launched a short-lived White House bid in 2011, announced Friday that he was resigning from Congress, citing personal family issues.
"After nearly 26 years in elected office, this past nightmarish month and a half have, for the first time, severed the necessary harmony between the needs of my constituency and of my family," McCotter said in a statement. "As this harmony is required to serve, its absence requires I leave."
In March, McCotter failed to acquire the necessary amount of signatures to appear on the party's primary ballot to represent his district near Detroit. He initially launched a write-in campaign, but announced last month he would end his efforts, choosing instead to retire from Congress when his term ended in January 2013.
"Today I have resigned from the office of United States Representative for Michigan's 11th Congressional District.
After nearly 26 years in elected office, this past nightmarish month and a half have, for the first time, severed the necessary harmony between the needs of my constituency and of my family. As this harmony is required to serve, its absence requires I leave.
The recent event's totality of calumnies, indignities and deceits have weighed most heavily upon my family. Thus, acutely aware one cannot rebuild their hearth of home amongst the ruins of their U.S. House office, for the sake of my loved ones I must "strike another match, go start anew" by embracing the promotion back from public servant to sovereign citizen.
I do not leave for an existing job and face diminishing prospects (and am both unwilling and ill-suited to lobby), my priorities are twofold: find gainful employment to help provide for my family; and continue to assist, in any way they see fit, the Michigan Attorney General's earnest and thorough investigation, which I requested, into the 2012 petition filing.
While our family takes this step into the rest of our lives, we do so with the ultimate confidence in our country's future. True, as at other times in the life of our nation, we live in an Age of Extremes that prizes intensity over sanity; rhetoric over reality; and destruction over creation. But this too shall pass, thanks to the infinite, inspired wisdom of the sovereign people who, with God's continued blessings, will again affirm for the generations American Exceptionalism.
Truly, it is a challenging and fortunate time to live in our blessed sanctuary of liberty.
In closing, to The People of Michigan's 11th Congressional District, I can but say this: Thank you for the privilege of having worked for you."
A Chinese group known as "Sino-Michigan Properties LLC" has bought up 200 acres of land near the town of Milan, Michigan. Their plan is to construct a "China City" with artificial lakes, a Chinese cultural center and hundreds of housing units for Chinese citizens. Essentially, it would be a little slice of communist China dropped right into the heartland of America. This "China City" would be located about 40 minutes from both Detroit and Toledo, and it would be marketed to Chinese business people that want to start businesses in the United States. Unfortunately, this is not just an isolated incident. In fact, Chinese companies have been buying up land and businesses all over the country in recent years. There has even been talk of establishing "special economic zones" inside the United States modeled after the Chinese city of Shenzhen. It was inevitable that the Chinese were going to do something with the trillions of dollars that they have made flooding our shores with cheap products. Now they are rapidly buying up pieces of America, and many of our politicians are welcoming them with open arms.
The town of Milan, Michigan is a small farming community of only about 6,000 people, but big changes are coming their way. The following is from a recent Dayton Daily News article about this new project....
A group of mainland Chinese known as Sino-Michigan Properties LLC paid $1.9 million for 200 acres of farmland on Milan city limits in purchases this year and in 2011, according to local officials and property records.
Unfortunately, the goal does not appear to be to integrate this new "city" into the existing community in and around Milan.
Rather, it appears that all of the new housing will be sold to people coming over from China. According to the Milan News Leader newspaper, the new housing units "would be marketed to Chinese business people who want to start companies in the United States".
In essence, we would be looking at a new Chinese city right in the middle of Michigan.
Doug Smith, senior vice president for business and community development for the Michigan Economic Development Corp., recently said the following about what the Chinese group plans to do....
"It’s a group that wants to build a China city, starting with housing over there in Milan"
Milan is not far from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, which is a very popular destination for Chinese students. Apparently that is one reason why Milan was chosen.
This new project would be a Chinese community built by Chinese and specifically designed for Chinese.
But isn't this supposed to be America?
Fortunately, the project does not have final approval yet. It still must be approved by the two townships outside of Milan where the land is located.
For some reason, the Chinese seem to be particularly interested in this area of the country.
For example, a different Chinese investment group has been busy buying up chunks of real estate over in nearby Toledo, Ohio. The following is from an article in the Toledo Blade on May 26th, 2011....
Dashing Pacific Group Ltd., which has already purchased the nearby Docks restaurant complex for $2.15 million, put its $3.8 million offer to buy the southern 69 acres at the Marina District in East Toledo back on the table for approval by Toledo City Council. Additionally, Dashing Pacific Chairman Yuan Xiaohong, in a letter signed in Hangzhou, said the firm wants a two-year option to buy the decommissioned Toledo Edison power plant property on the site.
So should we be alarmed that the Chinese are buying up pieces of America?
Well, if they simply wanted to enjoy living in America and wanted to integrate into the wider community that would be one thing.
But it is another thing altogether to start dropping slices of communist China inside of U.S. territory.
A Chinese national company is interested in developing a 10,000- to 30,000-acre technology zone for industry, retail centers and homes south of the Boise Airport.
There was talk that this "technology zone" would be modeled after the "special economic zones" that have been developed in China. The city of Shenzhen is perhaps the most famous example of this.
Fortunately that deal appears to have stalled, but other mammoth deals have been moving forward in other parts of the country.
For example, the Chinese have been very busy gobbling up oil and gas fields. The following is a quote from a local Texas news source about a deal that a company owned by the Chinese government did with Chesapeake Energy down in Texas....
State-owned Chinese energy giant CNOOC is buying a multibillion-dollar stake in 600,000 acres of South Texas oil and gas fields, potentially testing the political waters for further expansion into U.S. energy reserves.
With the announcement Monday that it would pay up to $2.2 billion for a one-third stake in Chesapeake Energy assets, CNOOC lays claim to a share of properties that eventually could produce up to half a million barrels a day of oil equivalent.
You can read more about that particular deal right here.
So is it really a good idea to be allowing the Chinese to buy up our precious energy resources?
The answer to that question is obvious.
Sadly, the examples noted above are not isolated incidents. The truth is that the Chinese have been snapping up real estate and business assets all over America as a recent Forbes article explained....
According to a recent report in the New York Times, investors from China are “snapping up luxury apartments” and are planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on commercial and residential projects like Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. Chinese companies also have signed major leases at the Empire State Building and at 1 World Trade Center, the report said.
So get ready - the Chinese are buying up U.S. land and they are moving in whether you like it or not.
So what will the long-term consequences be of allowing a communist superpower to buy up large sections of America?
The United States on Wednesday opened its banking market to ICBC, China's biggest bank, for the first time clearing a takeover of a US bank by a Chinese state-controlled company. Just days after high-level US-China economic talks in Beijing, the Federal Reserve approved an application from Industrial and Commercial Bank of China to buy a majority stake in the US subsidiary of Bank of East Asia. The transaction will make ICBC the first Chinese state-controlled bank to acquire retail bank branches in the United States. ICBC has been the most aggressive of China's "big four" banks in expanding overseas. According...
www.FinancialSurvivalNetwork.com presents: "Ranting" Andy Hoffman gives us the update on the latest precious metals slam down; the reasons to own gold and silver couldn't be stronger. If the prices stay down this low, don't be surprised to witness a major flood of buying. We're also getting into the Indian Wedding Season, which will result in increased demand along with massive sovereign central bank purchases. This is worse than 2008, and banks are blowing up all over Europe. Spain has just bailed out its third largest bank. Who's going to bail out Spain? Greece is planning to reneg on its debt....
World Affairs Brief
Both Republican and Democratic administrations have been supplying the Chinese with high technology weapons systems for years, knowing that they, in turn, are supplying other enemies (Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, North Korea) as well. Both Russia and China continue to protest against any US anti-ballistic missile system, even though such systems are purely defensive. It doesn't take a genius to understand that ABM systems only threaten someone who intends to launch ballistic missiles someday.
"The US supplying Chinese with US high tech weapons systems?”
Note: He went into personal details not shown here, of experiences when as a person holding security classification, in U.S. weapons development, how they were ordered to allow Chinese military officers go over the details of secret projects they were working on !!
Customs officials in South Korea have uncovered a horrifying reality coming from China. Since last August, the Koreans have confiscated over 17,000 "energy pills" that were made from the dried flesh of babies. The rest of the nauseating details can be found HERE.
China Has Hacked Our Electric Power Grid: Read About It In Screwed! By DICK MORRIS - Published on DickMorris.com on May 10, 2012 In our new book Screwed!, we report that almost unnoticed and with no threat of retaliation, China has likely hacked into the United States electric grid, potentially giving it the ability to paralyze our economy and our nation by tapping a few keys on a computer. (This is an ad by Dick Morris for his book… but the book is well worth reading. He covers a lot of important topics in great detail that others are ignoring!)
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Bush's anti-terrorism coordinator Richard Clarke reports that "in 2009, the control systems for the U.S. electric power grid [were] hacked and secret openings created so that the attacker could get back in with ease. One expert noted that the hackers "left behind software that could be used to cause disruptions or even shut down the system."
While we cannot confirm that it was China that did the hacking, it is the only country with the technical expertise in hacking to have accomplished it.
What were the hackers after? Clarke notes that "there is no money to steal on the electrical grid, nor is there any intelligence value that would justify cyber espionage. The only point to penetrating the grid's controls is to counter American military superiority by threatening to damage the underpinning of the U.S. economy. Chinese military strategists have written about how in this way a nation like China could gain an equal footing with the militarily superior United States."
Anti-terror watchdogs have long been aware of the danger of an electromagnetic pulse triggered by the explosion of a nuclear device in the atmosphere over the United States. But by acquiring the ability to enter our grid anytime it wishes and disable it, China has likely acquired the ability to accomplish the same result without exploding a bomb.
Not only has Beijing likely hacked into our grid but, according to authors Brett M. Decker and William C. Triplett II in their excellent book Bowing to Beijing, China has even hacked into the Pentagon computer network "including the one serving [then] Defense Secretary Robert Gates."
James Lewis, director of the technology and policy program at the Washington think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies called the Chinese hacking "an espionage Pearl Harbor." Lewis told 60 minutes that China had downloaded vast amounts of information from every major U.S. agency saying that we have lost more information than is stored in the entire Library of Congress through Chinese hacking.
What is the U.S. doing about it? Nothing. The modern day story of appeasement is not Obama's kowtowing to Muslim extremists as much as his total failure to confront China.
The president and Secretary of State Clinton fret over alienating China for fear that they will stop lending us money. Romney, who understands these things better than either Obama or Clinton, emphasizes China's vulnerability. "We sell then $50 billion. They sell us $400 billion. They want a trade war? Bring it on!"
The Chinese lend us money because they have to. They buy dollars to make our currency artificially expensive and theirs' commensurately cheap. With their currency manipulation, our products are 40% more costly in their markets and theirs' are 40% cheaper in our stores, fueling the imbalance of trade. Once they own the dollars, what are they going to do with them? The only safe thing is to buy U.S. Treasury notes, hence they "lend" us money. If they stopped buying dollars and acquiring an unfair trade advantage over us, we wouldn't need them to keep lending us money, our economy would be thriving.
We cannot sit by complacently and let China rob us blind, hacking our technology, our military secrets, and our power grid. We need a president who will stand up for America.
To grasp the appalling extent of Chinese hacking and espionage against the U.S. commercial and military sectors, read about it in Screwed!, on sale now!
You might not meet a dental floss tycoon, but a bunch of far left loons who are eagerly peddling sharia.
One could get the idea that Montana is one of the states that is somehow targeted by the soldiers of Allah. But not to worry, go back to sleep, kafir. Negative thoughts are ‘counterproductive’. This is all about ”removing misunderstandings and hatred”, nothing to do with stoning of women, chopping off limbs on opposite sides or killing homosexuals. Nothing but ‘myths’ concocted by greasy Islamophobes to give Islam a bad name. Right?
Earlier this semester, Jeff Renz, a law professor at The University of Montana, appeared on a conservative radio show to discuss the myths and realities of Islamic law. Accompanying him to Missoula’s KVGO studio were UM professor Mehrdad Kia and Robert Seidenschwarz, president of theWorld Affairs Council of Montana. (WTF is the “World Affairs Council of Montana.?”
According to Renz, the talk stirred up a fair amount of debate.
Nothing but myths:
“It was an interesting conversation,” he said. “A lot of the myths were repeated and we talked about those as well as a lot of the accuracies that are negative.”
This development adds UM to the growing number of American universities offering classes on Islamic law, ranging from the University of Minnesota to Yale. Islamic law, also known as Shariah law, guides the daily behavior and actions of Muslims while influencing the legal code of Islamic countries.
The three-credit class, ANTY 491, will meet three times a week and is open to UM undergraduate, graduate and law students. Renz said the course will examine the development of Islam along with the four principles of Islamic jurisprudence and will address the challenges of applying Sharia law in the 21st century.
Renz said Shariah law is not monolithic and that legal codes vary from one Muslim country to another and are often intertwined with tribal law.
“The most important thing they’ll learn is that what people perceive to be Islamic law is really local and national law rationalized, and falsely rationalized, by reference to the Quran,” he said.
Renz said that Shariah law’s core values are dignity, equality and justice, principles that were overshadowed in the midst of Islamic imperialism and European colonialism. Today, Renz said that Shariah law is in “enormous ferment” with regards to women’s and human rights and that he wants to explore both the negative and positive aspects.
Renz developed an interest in the subject due to his travels throughout Central Asia. After years spent studying books and journals on the topic, last fall he attended a week-long Islamic law and human rights conference in Salzburg, Austria. The conference solidified past talks with UM’s Central and Southwest Asian Studies Center about creating the class.
“Somewhere along the way we said we had to do it,” Renz said. “Once the decision was made to do it, things moved fast.”
Seidenschwarz, who participated with Renz on the radio show, said he’s glad UM would offer the course.
“I would greatly encourage anyone to take this class,” he said. “There’s so much misunderstanding and misinformation about what it is and there’s no uniformity in the Islamic world on interpretation.”
He said that many fears revolve around the question of whether Shariah law will either supplement or subordinate the current U.S. legal system.
Despite experiencing “not a peep” of backlash, Renz contends that there might be some disapproval of the class, and he does expect there will be controversy in the classroom.
It is good to see that there are a growing number of such bills all over the country. They will always be challenged by claims that they infringe upon Muslims’ religious liberties. But they wouldn’t exist at all, of course, were it not for the political and authoritarian aspects of Sharia. Backers of such bills need to familiarize themselves with those aspects and be ready to answer those challenges. “Bill would ban courts from using ‘foreign law,’” by Michael Biesecker for the News & Observer, April 29
It doesn’t show you what Jones is saying or doing, though.
—————————–
So yesterday Terry Jones held his protest, but at City Hall. And well… let’s read how the New York Times covers it:
Michigan: Koran-Burning Pastor Draws a Boisterous Crowd
Tensions flared Friday as Terry Jones, the Florida pastor whose burning of a Koran sparked violence in Afghanistan, demonstrated Friday on the steps of City Hall in Dearborn, home to one of the largest Muslim communities in the nation. In rambling remarks over three hours, he mostly spoke against what he called “extremist Muslim influences” in the United States. Dearborn police made three arrests for misdemeanors. The department estimated the crowd at 700 people. Mr. Jones’s comments were often drowned out by the horns of passing cars and the boos and chants of protesters, some of whom carried signs saying, “Terrorist Go Home” and “Leave Us Alone.”
You got that? They were boisterous. And only three arrested. Move along, nothing to see here…
Except it wasn’t really that. It was a riot of about fifty people. Of course the local papers, such as the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press couldn’t very well ignore it. So in their news pages they editorialize that all of this is his fault.
Quran-burning Pastor Terry Jones had his say in Dearborn. Few appeared to hear him.
Thunderous boos from a crowd of about 700 protesters drowned out much of his speech Friday afternoon at Dearborn City Hall. The 90-minute event momentarily erupted into chaos when Jones and several dozen of his supporters approached a metal barricade around City Hall and engaged his opponents.
A crowd of at least 50 people surged across Michigan Avenue, breaking a barricade, throwing water bottles and shoes. Riot police restored order within minutes and took at least two people into custody.
Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly Jr. said Jones is partly to blame. “Even though we said, ‘Please don’t go to the barricades,’ he just ignored it,” O’Reilly said. “My assessment is this is a man without character.”
Funny, I feel the same way about you, Mayor.
Jones said he approached the barricade to recite the Pledge of Allegiance with opponents, but witnesses said the pastor appeared to egg them on, opening his palms in a provocative manner.
Opening palms is provocative? Opening palms is a peaceful gesture. This is what this site says on the subject of hands and body language:
There are 2 basic rules you have to remember when looking at hand gestures: Open palms (when you can see the palms of someone’s hands) suggests openness, honesty, and a liking, whilst closed palms(when you can see the back of someone’s hands) suggests that they may be hiding something, are closed to your ideas, or are feeling like they are in authority.
And it’s something I have heard over and over again. It is believed that by opening your palm, the cave man parts of our brains recognize that this means you are disarmed and that creates greater ease. It is downright bizarre to tell us that opening your palms is an aggressive gesture.
And of course Mayor O’Reilly continues to be a tool:
“This is not man of great depth,” O’Reilly said. “We saw the extent of his knowledge today. If he comes back and gets coverage by the media, then shame on the media.”
Hey, Mayor O, maybe the media won’t cover it if (1) city hall stops trampling on his speech rights, (2) everyone stops pretending he is responsible when radical Muslims react violently and (3) when radical Muslims stop reacting violently. Seriously, what do you think would have happened to him if the police weren’t there?
Tempers flare at Pastor Terry Jones’ Dearborn rally
Don’t you love these headlines? “Tempers flare”? “Fracas”? They never mention who precisely was being violent, and they don’t correctly label the violence. Shouldn’t the headline be more like this:“Radical Muslims Riot at Terry Jones Protest”? I mean feel free to argue that should be tweaked a little, but isn’t that closer to the mark?
And here’s what they say about it:
Jones repeatedly provoked the crowd and insulted them. At one point, he ignored police requests by ambling down to the front of police barricades while taunting his opponents.
Angered, some of those protesters stormed past their police barricades and marched across Michigan Avenue as they hurled bottles and shoes at Jones’ supporters across from them. One woman spit in Jones’ direction.
Notice, of course the contrast. When a Tea Partier was falsely accused of spitting at a black congressman, this was taken as proof that the entire Tea Party were bigots. But when these people spit and riot, it’s Jones that is tarred.
The young crowd then pushed down a security fence that separated them from Jones’ supporters and surged forward, their faces tight with anger. For a moment, it appeared a major clash was about to break out.
But Arab-American leaders and police pushed back the angry group as dozens of police officers in full riot gear marched out in single file to separate the two sides. At least two were arrested. Dearborn Mayor John O’Reilly Jr. said afterward that Jones was responsible for creating the disturbance by ignoring city requests not to approach the barricade.
“He refused to comply,” O’Reilly said. “He was asked, ‘Please don’t come to the barricade.’ He just ignored us. … His goal was to start trouble. … That shows his character.”
Yeah, just like those evil black people who sat at lunch counters to protest segregation. Didn’t they know that by just sitting where they were not supposed to they were provoking violence?
And of course I am being facetious. Yes, those civil rights protesters did know. It was a sign of their courage that they knew and they went anyway. And yes, they did intend to provoke violence, to show the world that just sitting at a lunch counter could get those hateful, ignorant idiots to attack them. Yes, it was provocative, but only because the segregationists were easily provoked—unreasonably easily provoked. And we all understand that in that context. And none of us blame those civil rights protesters for the violence that did break out in those sorts of things.
But why don’t we apply those principles to acts like this?
Oh, right because they don’t like his point of view. And I will be first to admit that if this is true…
Jones launched an attack on Obama, questioning the president’s speech in Cairo, Egypt, in which he said Islam was part of the American story.
“Islam has never been part of the American story,” Jones said.
…that Jones is a bigot. I am reluctant to believe it because the media has been so shameful during this entire episode, but if he said it, that is a bigoted thing to say. But the fact remains that they are just words. And it doesn’t justify a riot. And it certainly doesn’t exactly prove him wrong when he says that Islam is a violent religion. Indeed, seriously, someone with moderate PR skills really needs to talk to these protesters…
The crowd grew as they spoke, with more Muslims appearing as the rally took place. Some waved shoes, an Arab symbol of disrespect. Others held up Qurans. American, Palestinian and Lebanese flags also were waved. More than 600 counter-protesters appeared to assemble.
Um, guys, if you want Americans to get on your side, don’t protest a man claiming that you are not part of the American story by waiving flags for Palestine and Lebanon. Consider that a free tip.
And of course they remind us of the injustice last week:
Jones’ rally at City Hall came a week after he failed to get permission to protest at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, the largest mosque in metro Detroit.
On April 22, a jury said Jones was likely to breach the peace if he carried out a rally there. Jones and Sapp were briefly jailed and then released after posting a $1 bond each. They were banned from the mosque and adjacent property for three years.
Well in fact, Jones did not once breach the peace. The protesters did. So they will be lifting that order any minute now, right? No, of course not. And it is a travesty that it remains in place.
All this city has done is make this man, who apparently is an anti-Muslim bigot, into a free speech martyr and put a state endorsement on the idea that Muslims can’t be expected to control themselves. Would it be too much to ask the media to treat these guys as badly as Tea Partiers, or conversely, to treat Tea Partiers as good as rioting radical Muslims?
This is a message from a Teacher to all the Tea Bags here in Michigan. It was posted on Craigslist yesterday, during school hours.
Little tea bags (capitol)
Date: 2011-03-11, 10:46AM EST Reply to: comm-vzqqj-2259517268@craigslist.org
So you Tea Bags want to take away my hard earned blue ribbon bennies. Well guess what you scum sucking Tea Bags, I got your kids all day long in my classroom and with just a few slick questions I know who the little tea bags are! And you think you'll have the last laugh HA-Ha-Ha
Location: capitol it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
This reminded me a bit of the Wisconsin Teacher’s Union consistently pushing the idea of their great concern for their students being the reason they weren’t in the classroom but rather out in the street protesting during school hours… and then we find out that 2/3 of 8th graders in Wisconsin could not pass their proficiency tests… and can’t sufficiently read.
Andrew Klavan: Behold! Your Public Sector Unions at Work
(Reuters) - The Idaho state legislature approved a bill on Tuesday to strip public school teachers of many of their collective bargaining rights while protesters in five states rallied against Republican efforts to curb union power.
The Idaho bill, which excludes issues like class size and workloads from negotiations for the state's 12,000 unionized teachers, was given final approval by the Republican-led House and is expected to be signed by Republican Governor Butch Otter.
The bill also eliminates teacher tenure, limits the duration of teacher labor contracts to one year and removes seniority as a factor in determining the order of layoffs.
Idaho is one of several U.S. states to take up Republican plans for sweeping restrictions on public sector unions in what has become a growing national debate over labor union power.
Republicans say the proposals are needed to rescue recession-battered budgets from deficits, but Democrats and union supporters say they are an attack on organized labor that could linger as an issue into the 2012 presidential elections.
Most national attention has focused on the stalemate in Wisconsin over Republican Governor Scott Walker's proposal to curb union rights, which sparked large protests in the capital Madison.
Wisconsin Senate Democrats have fled the state to block a vote on Walker's proposal, but e-mails released on Tuesday showed Walker has indicated he may be willing to compromise on elements of his plan.
The e-mails, released following a Freedom of Information Act request from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper, show Senate Democrats and a senior Walker aide discussed some flexibility on issues such as his demand for annual votes to keep unions in existence.
Protests against Walker's plan continued in Madison on Tuesday. Similar Republican plans to curb public union rights sparked new protests in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Iowa.
DEATH OF THE MIDDLE CLASS? - EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE!
In Indianapolis, where most Indiana House Democrats remain out of state to block a vote on a bill they say is anti-worker, union protesters staged a mock "funeral" for the middle class with a New Orleans-style musical procession in honor of Mardi Gras.
In Ohio, Republican Governor John Kasich touted a plan that passed the state Senate last week to curb collective bargaining rights of public employees and ban them from going on strike.
In his "State of the State" speech, Kasich said the bill, which still must be passed by the Ohio House, was necessary to give local governments more flexibility in their budgets.
"Frankly, folks, the provisions of collective bargaining reform are examples of what we want to do to allow people to control their costs," said Kasich, setting off cat-calls from the gallery in the legislative chamber.
Pro-union demonstrators packed the Capitol rotunda after the speech, shouting, "Kill the bill."
n Michigan's state capital Lansing, hundreds of pro-union protesters jammed the rotunda and gathered outside the Capitol to oppose a bill to give emergency authority to break labor contracts to revive failing schools and cities. The state's largest school district of Detroit is under emergency management.
The Michigan House approved the measure in February. A final vote in the Senate, where Republicans hold a 26-12 majority, is expected on Wednesday.
In Iowa, hundreds of union workers crowded the state House chamber to protest a bill that would prevent negotiations on healthcare benefits for government workers and forbid union workers from negotiating layoff schedules.
The measure will be debated in the Republican-led Iowa House on Wednesday. It is expected to run into trouble in the Democratic-majority state Senate.
Curbing public union power and demands is only the first step, but a critical one to saving America. Anyone who hasn’t realized that by now is either a radical Progressive or really doesn’t understand economics and capitalism.
How is it that people in California are still buying into Progressive ideas??
Elitism of the rich and cultural liberalism of the masses.
(although there is a grassroots base growing… they were the state who elected Ronald Reagan… twice for Governor and twice for President)
But remember who some of their leaders are: Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Maxine Waters…
California is exactly in the same place we find the Federal Government and is run by the same people that we now have in Washington… Progressives~
And just like with the Obama, Pelosi and Reid… just last week, instead of reining in their spending… Yet Sacramento last week they were in the process of passing their own version of “socialized” ObamaCare?? Hello?? And they have no rainy day fund at all.
These states counted on the continuous flow of earnings to support their budgets and programs. They depend on personal income taxes and business taxes. But housing crashes, big businesses moving out of state.
But even some conservative states like Arizona, Wyoming, Texas, Montana are under the water because of the Tsunami that is and has it! But they re-coop much more easily. One major reason… less union control~ Texas has no personal revenue tax at all.
California, like Progressives, have convinced themselves that they can have anything and let the top 3% pay for it??? Except now the top 3%, at least the businesses are leaving. And California Progressives have managed through legislation passed for years to make it almost impossible to stop or streamline everything. Hence, not that we feel he is without blame but in many ways created, the position that Arnold Schwarzenegger has found himself in.
California just passed the cost of their prison system off the federal government… the American taxpayer. Did anyone notice??
Michigan is a state on fire. And it is a perfect example of what “Big Unions” can help cause. (If we do not either break the unions or get the unions to downgrade their benefits and retirement packages… the unions will destroy what is left of our economy). Retiring after 30-years with 90% of your salary is unsustainable. And in California these types of pensions and retirements are also found at the County levels.
Right to work states have a better chance of re-cooping
Look at Texas as a model, even though they have been effected by the housing crash somewhat, to rebuild. (Texas is the model for success. California is the (Progressive) model for failure… exactly where the Federal Government is heading.)
Enact a spending bill of rights like Colorado uses
Get Public sector payrolls under control first! The average U.S. salary is $40K. The average government salary is $70 and they are still getting 3% greater increases than everyone else, plus benefits packages that trump everyone and are killing the entire system.
Glenn Beck will be in California all next week, culminating with two Bold Fresh shows with Bill O’Reilly on Saturday Feb 13th.
Related:
EVIDENCE FOUND!!! Clinton administration's "BANK AFFIRMATIVE ACTION" They forced banks to make BAD LOANS and ACORN and Obama's tie to all of it!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivmL-lXNy64
California’s credit rating was just lowered. Like the Titanic, the unsinkable ship, California was supposed to be the unsinkable state. What does the lower credit rating mean for California?
Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Co.may have to cut more U.S. hourly jobs after an offer of buyouts and early retirements fell about 7,500 workers short of the reorganized automaker’s target.
The possibility of layoffs was disclosed today by Sherrie Childers Arb, a spokeswoman, in an interview after GM announced that more than 6,000 United Auto Workers members, or 11 percent of the hourly workforce, left the company on Aug. 1.
GM’s latest voluntary exits pushed the total of U.S. hourly workers leaving through buyouts and retirement offers to about 66,000 since 2006. The biggest domestic automaker is shrinking its workforce to match reductions including the shutdown of 14 U.S. plants and 3 warehouses by the end of 2011.
“It’s not surprising they didn’t reach their goal,” said Dennis Virag, president of Automotive Consulting Group Inc. in Ann Arbor, Michigan. With U.S. unemployment at 9.5 percent in June, “workers are more reluctant to accept a buyout because the prospects for other employment are more challenging.”
GM aims to eliminate 13,500 hourly positions in 2009, trimming that payroll to about 40,500 jobs, said Tom Wilkinson, a spokesman. Detroit-based GM began the year with about 61,000 U.S. hourly jobs and cut that total to about 54,000 at the end of April with buyouts and early retirements.
Moving Jobs
Any layoffs probably wouldn’t total 7,500, Childers Arb said. Some employees are likely to leave on their own or retire rather than relocate once GM shuffles work among its facilities, dropping jobs in some locations while keeping others, she said. GM hasn’t said where the job cuts will take place.
Hourly workers who took the buyout and retirement offers are receiving cash payments of $20,000 to $115,000 as well as $25,000 vehicle vouchers.
Chief Executive Officer Fritz Henderson is also paring the U.S. salaried workforce and chopping its eight domestic brands in half.
GM left a government-backed bankruptcy on July 10 as a new company whose largest shareholder is the U.S. Treasury. Losses at predecessor General Motors Corp. totaled $88 billion since the company last posted an annual profit in 2004.
