It’s Deja Vu.

Once again, we find out that Barack Obama is being advised and mentored by a radical reverend, one who simply doesn’t preach “mainstream” religion.

I just don’t get it.

We already know about Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wright, the reverend who married Barack Obama, baptized his children, and preached to him and his family for 20 years at Trinity Church in Chicago. We’ve heard the stories of his Black Liberation Theology, a religion that believes African Americans must be “liberated from multiple forms of bondage”, including economic, social, and political bondage. The religion began as an off-shoot of Malcolm X’s proclamation in the 1950s against Christianity being taught as “a white man’s religion.”

Suffice it to say, from what Reverend Wright teaches, there is no “room at the inn” in this church for whites or Jews.

Barack claims that he didn’t see any of this reverse racism when he attended on Sundays and wasn’t aware that this church preached hate. It seems that the good reverend held his racist views to himself when he saw Barack at Sunday service.

Huh.

Then along came Barack’s inauguration and another “mentor”, Reverend Joseph Lowery who Barack asked to give the Benediction on this historic day. The good reverend read a poem that he had written, a poem which included a couple of interesting statements: “We look forward to the day when Black won’t be asked to give back” and “when White would embrace what is right.”

Huh.

Sounds a bit racist, doesn’t it?

This was cast off as the simple utterance of an old man- certainly not a reflection on the feelings of our President.

Hey, do you think that someone might have or should have proof-read the poem before Reverend Lowery read it?

Just a thought.

And then there’s the issue of Obama’s faith-based adviser, Harry Knox. It seems that Harry has a few issues with the Catholic Church -with the Pope in particular- and he isn’t afraid voice his opposition. You see, Harry is gay, and personally believes that the Pope is “hurting people in the name of Jesus” by not promoting the use of condoms to prevent AIDS.

The Catholic Church has 100’s of years of history promoting abstinence and I guess the Church didn’t feel like changing its policies to pacify the beliefs of Harry Knox.

Harry also verbally berated the Pope on other issues and didn’t mince words about the Knights of Columbus when they wouldn’t denounce Proposition 8, the gay marriage initiative in California. Rick Warren, the famous minister and author of “The Purpose Driven Life” also supported Prop 8, which led Harry Knox to throw a few barbs his way.

Maybe Harry needs to start his own progressive church- or maybe he should join Reverend Wright’s church, the one that finds fault with everyone but themselves.

Instead, this man has a job advising our President on the virtues of spirituality and acceptance.

Now we have another member of Obama’s faith counsel who is causing a few waves. Reverend Jim Wallis is described as a “spiritual adviser to the president” by World Net Daily. They claim he is a “social activist who has championed communist causes and previously labeled the U.S. ‘the great captor and destroyer of human life.’”

Oh, and Wallis has asked everyone to stop watching Glenn Beck because Glenn teaches the evils of social justice.

You see, Wallis is the editor of a magazine called “Sojourners” and he preaches social justice- things like wealth distribution and “government managed economies”- in his publication. Interestingly enough, it turns out that Wallis has known Barack “for years”.

Huh.

Better yet, Sojourners has been known to publish writings by all kinds of radicals, including the founder of Black Liberation Theology.

Hey, isn’t that the same religion that Reverend Wright was preaching?

Yes, as a matter of fact, it is.

Oh, and did I mention that Reverend Wallis was the Michigan leader of the Students for a Democratic Society when he was younger? Remember that group? They were the socialist/communist group of kids who helped Francis Fox Piven with her “Cloward and Piven” theory of overwhelming the New York welfare system. They were also the group where Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Jeff Jones, and Wade Rathke (of ACORN) got their start.

Now this man is a faith adviser to the President. He works with Harry Knox, the anti-Catholic adviser.

Between the two of them, it looks like our President is getting some really good advice from their wholesome perspective on Christianity.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, has had an association or two with a person of questionable character. I believe that during the last election, most Americans wanted to give Barack the benefit of the doubt when it came to Trinity Church and Reverend Wright.

It was strike one, and we didn’t want to jump to too many conclusions.

Then came Lowery. Again, maybe that was just an old man speaking.

Strike Two.

Then came Knox. Now there’s Wallis.

Three strikes, Barack. You’re out.

You’ve surrounded yourself with socialists, communists, Maoists, Black Panthers, Black liberation theologists, Weatherman Underground believers, and other radicals. Yet, you deny knowing anything about these people. You refuse to acknowledge them and when you are told of their ideology, you refuse to fire them.

Huh.

That’s all- just “huh”.

lsm
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Go to Home Page: www.awakentheelephants.com

Remember the old “Life” commercial with little Mikey sitting at the kitchen table with his siblings?

The now famous tag line- “Try it, you’ll like it” -brought smiles onto the faces of everyone who watched Mikey give Life a try. And the siblings were correct- Mikey DID like the cereal, just as his siblings predicted.

The democrats are hoping beyond hope that they can convince us this health care bill is just like a box of Life cereal. They are hoping that if they shove it down our throats, we’ll suddenly lay down our doubts and sing the praises of free health care.

They’ve underestimated our taste buds.

It’s easy to tell how important this bill is to these liberals by the means in which they are willing to cram it down our throats. 81% of Americans believe that the Health Care bill will raise our taxes and insurance rates. 57% are begging the government to drop this bill and start over. The Dems are twisting and turning the law, using tactics like Reconciliation, and even going to the extreme measure of attempting to pass the bill without signing it. They tried to pass a “fix” for the bill before they passed the bill itself- until they were told it was unconstitutional. Most members of Congress don’t even understand what they are signing.

Not to worry. Nancy Pelosi has this all figured out: ” We have to pass the bill so we can see what’s in it.”

This was uttered by the most powerful woman in the United States. And to think that the proud citizens of the San Francisco Bay area keep voting her into office…

Wow.

Wouldn’t you think this would be enough to make the average democrat think twice about what they are doing?

Well, wouldn’t you?

Could it be that the democrats have studied the exemplary socialized health care in other countries? Could it be that they want to emulate the health care in places like England or Canada?

The health care in the UK is in a state of chaos. Life saving drugs and treatments are not readily available to those who desperately need them. Women are forced to give birth in sub-par hospitals, and at times, in the corridors of these facilities because of the lack of space. A woman cannot get a cervical cancer screening test, even if she’s willing to pay for it, until she’s 25 years old. A common MRI or CAT Scan is subject to a wait of months or years. A female member of the Parliament in Canada came to the United States and paid for her breast cancer surgery as did the Premier of Newfoundland when he needed heart surgery.

They PAID for care in the United States when care in Canada was free. Why?

Years ago, I lived in Boston and had a good friend there who was originally from the Soviet Union. She and her husband “escaped” that life to move to the United States with their son to give him a better life. She often told me stories about the health care- or lack thereof- in Russia. You see, in Russia, if you wanted to get a good doctor, you paid under the table. If you wanted to get good care for your loved one, you paid under the table. If you wanted to get drugs for your loved one to stop pain, you paid under the table.

Oh, basic health care was free- but it was basic.

If you were poor, you got poor care. Hospitals were dirty and full of disease. She told me that “if you wanted your family member to eat, you must bring them food from home.”

Not exactly the picture Nancy Pelosi is painting, is it?

Think that maybe the Soviet Union never promised its citizens quality health care? Think again.

ARTICLE 42 OF THE SOVIET CONSTITUTION – The Right to Health Protection.

This right is ensured by free, qualified medical care provided by state health institutions; by extension of the network of therapeutic and health-building institutions; by the development and improvement of safety and hygiene in industry; by carrying out broad prophylactic measures; by measures to improve the environment; by special care for the health of the rising generation, including prohibition of child labour, excluding the work done by children as part of the school curriculum; and by developing research to prevent and reduce the incidence of disease and ensure citizens a long and active life.

Hey, how’s that working out for them?

Michael Moore tells us tales of the fabulous health care in Cuba. What he forgot to get on film were the “non-staged” facilities in Cuba, those that any American can readily see on You Tube, showing conditions in hospitals that would not be fit for a dog kennel in the U.S., let alone a sick human being. An immigrant from South Vietnam has told me stories about the “deep pockets” you must have in that country if you want medical care. Just like in Russia, the quality of care you receive is in direct relation to how much you can pay. If you cannot pay, you are sent home to die.

Hey, I thought that socialized health care promised care to everyone, regardless of status?……..

It has become abundantly clear that none of this is about health care. This is about getting a socialized health care framework in place that can be easily expanded to meet the needs of this controlling administration.

You see, once Obama can control our health, he can control our lives.

This fight is more important than our health; we are fighting for our freedom, for our American way of life.

Watch Nancy . Watch Nancy cram. Watch Nancy cram this down our throats.

Watch the American people open their mouths.

It’s disgusting.

lsm.
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Go to Home Page: www.awakentheelephants.com

Folks in Kansas City are up in arms over the imminent closing of 29 of its 61 schools because of budget problems.

More specifically, the inner city schools are losing money hand over fist.

I assume the cries of “racism” have already begun.

So what happened to these schools and why are they forced to close? Is it that they have been neglected for years? Is it that they have been underfunded?

Hmmm….

In 1985, a federal district judge ordered the state to spend approximately $2 Billion over the next 12 years on schools in the Kansas City, Missouri school district, claiming the facilities were “dilapidated” and the district was unconstitutionally segregated, causing the students to perform badly.

The “wise” judge felt that if the state simply threw a couple of billion dollars at the problem, justice would be served and all would be well.

Obviously, this judge was a true liberal.

So where did the money go?

Well, Kansas City allocated $11,700 per pupil, more money than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country. They built 15 schools and increased teacher salaries.

You see, in the world of the liberals, more money means better education.

But that’s not all. According to American Thinker, $2 Billion also bought these kids an Olympic sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, a robotics lab, a zoo (doesn’t every school district need its own zoo?), a 25-acre wild life sanctuary, and a television and animation studio. Students were able to take trips to Mexico and Senegal on the tax-payer’s dime. The schools even had a model United Nations equipped with headphones that had simultaneous translation capability.

I wonder if they translated into ebonics?

The caveat was that the all-important student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1, the lowest of any major school district in the country.

Basically, the liberals got everything that they claim will create a perfect educational environment for students-lots of money, increased teacher pay, new schools, extra amenities, and small class size.

In 1998, The Cato Institute evaluated this little $2 Billion experiment and concluded that it was a failure. “The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration.”

Huh.

Better yet, Reuters reported in 2000 that “Kansas City’s public school district has become the first in the nation to lose its accredited status by failing all Missouri’s performance standards, and could be abolished unless it improves.”

Now 29 schools are closing and the folks are not happy.

How could this be? How could a state plug $2 Billion into education and still end up with a result this poor?

Do you think it had anything to do with waste? I mean, call me an idiot, but do you think that kids need a zoo and a wild life sanctuary or would they learn more with books and a decent curriculum? Do you think students need to sit in a room that simulates the United Nations or would they be better served with a slide rule and some discipline?

Could this experiment put to rest the notion that teachers who are paid more will produce students who perform better?

And one more thing….Where is this judge now and has he apologized for stealing $2 Billion from the taxpayers of Missouri?

The good news in all of this is that the students who were lucky enough to have their own petting zoo but failed to learn basic math don’t really need an education under our new Obama administration. There are no academic qualifications for those who collect welfare checks or who want to join ACORN and become community organizers.

When Obama completes his vision of “spreading the wealth around a little bit”, all of those kids who didn’t bother attending class or learning to read will be just as well off as those who actually go to school, get a job, pay their taxes, and make something of themselves.

Isn’t it nice to live in this new world of liberal “fairness”?…

Spread the cash, spread the grades, spread the welfare…….

And systematically watch apathy envelope our country.

lsm
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Go to Home Page: www.awakentheelephants.com

By: Kitty Werthmann

What I am about to tell you is something you’ve probably never heard or will ever read in history books.

I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We elected him by a landslide – 98% of the vote.. I’ve never read that in any American publications.

Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force.

In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25% inflation and 25% bank loan interest rates.

Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn’t want to work; there simply weren’t any jobs. My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people – about 30 daily.

The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party were fighting each other. Blocks and blocks of cities like Vienna , Linz, and Graz were destroyed. The people became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted.

We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany , where Hitler had been in power since 1933. We had been told that they didn’t have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living. Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group — Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria . We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back. Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler.

We were overjoyed, and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed.

After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service.

Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn’t support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage.

Hitler Targets Education – Eliminates Religious Instruction for Children:

Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school.. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn’t pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang “Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles,” and had physical education.

Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail. The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free. We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had.

My mother was very unhappy. When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn’t do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun – no sports, and no political indoctrination. I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing. Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler. It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn’t exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy.

Equal Rights Hits Home:

In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn’t work, you didn’t get a ration card, and if you didn’t have a card, you starved to death. Women who stayed home to raise their families didn’t have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men.

Soon after this, the draft was implemented. It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps. During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys. They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines. When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat.

Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service.

Hitler Restructured the Family Through Daycare:

When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children.. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.

Health Care and Small Business Suffer Under Government Controls:

Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna . After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.

As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80% of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.

We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn’t meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.

We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.

“Mercy Killing” Redefined:

In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps . The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated. So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work. I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van. I asked my superior where they were going. She said to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months. They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness.

As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. We called this euthanasia.

The Final Steps – Gun Laws:

Next came gun registration.. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long after-wards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.

No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up.

Totalitarianism didn’t come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria . Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism.

Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.

After World War II, Russian troops occupied Austria . Women were raped, preteen to elderly. The press never wrote about this either. When the Soviets left in 1955, they took everything that they could, dismantling whole factories in the process. They sawed down whole orchards of fruit, and what they couldn’t destroy, they burned. We called it The Burned Earth. Most of the population barricaded themselves in their houses. Women hid in their cellars for 6 weeks as the troops mobilized. Those who couldn’t, paid the price. There is a monument in Vienna today, dedicated to those women who were massacred by the Russians. This is an eye witness account.

“It’s true..those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity. ”

America truly is the greatest country in the world. Don’t Let Freedom Slip Away.

“After America , there is No Place to Go”
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Go to Home Page: www.awakentheelephants.com

There’s one thing you can say consistently about Muslims. They are persistent.

Remember the outrage when the Danish newspaper printed a cartoon of a man wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with its fuse lit, drawn by cartoonist Kurt Westergaard? Remember the death threats against those at the newspaper along with Westergaard, himself? Remember the protests of members of Muslim countries and the demands for apologies?

Remember the mainstream United States media who were too afraid to print this simple cartoon?

Yup, that’s right. Even when this cartoon became news in itself, causing a global uproar, not one major newspaper had the guts to show the American people what the “uproar” was all about.

Hey, isn’t that their job?

The Dallas Morning News printed the cartoon, but in pixelated form- as if it was porn- to hide the readers’ delicate eyes from the obscenity. The Philadelphia Enquirer, a small paper, also printed the cartoon and found protesters outside of their news building with signs which read, “No To Hate.”

“No to Hate”? What hate? IT’S A CARTOON!!

I wonder if those protesters brought their signs back to march on the day that the newspaper printed the Pope-bashing cartoons about pedophile priests? I wonder if they showed up and marched against the numerous cartoons printed about the Mormon faith? Or those against the Jews?

It seems that the death threats against Mr. Westergaard weren’t enough, nor were the global protests. A Muslim group, calling themselves “The Descendants of Mohammad”, are demanding apologies and retractions from 11 other Danish newspapers who also had the gall to print the cartoon. The Politikkan, the original Danish newspaper who printed the cartoon, has bent over backwards with an apology to all who were offended, hoping to escape the wrath of this group.

It seems that an OIC (Organization of Islamic Conference) spokesman said 1.5 billion Muslims had “felt humiliated, insulted and deeply hurt by the publication of the cartoons.” They want these 11 newspapers to “follow suit” with Politikkan and issue a formal apology.

Douglas Murray, the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion – a think tank focusing on extremism in Britain –pretty much summed it up when he said that there is a recent acceptance of the false ideology that ” Muslims somehow have deeper feelings than the rest of the world.”

I would go so far as to say that Muslims seem to have thinner skins than the rest of us. Most Americans have been brought up in a world of free speech where we long ago learned the concept of “sticks and stones” breaking our bones. Most of us who grew up in the 50’s and 60’s learned to laugh at ourselves.

Muslims don’t seem to like sticks or stones. They seem to get their way if they pretend to “be offended.”

Earth to the Islamic world: There is nowhere in the U.S. constitution that grants us a freedom from being offended.

We do, however, have a clause that allows us freedom of speech and freedom of the press. If there is a law in Denmark which protects citizens from being offended, then so be it. Muslims who come to America need to understand that should not be offered protection here.

More importantly, U.S. newspapers should not participate in keeping Muslims sheltered any more than they protect any other religion.

But they do.

In 1987, a little-known artist named Andres Serrano, took a photograph of a Crucifix, a strong Christian symbol, in a glass of urine. He named it “Piss Christ” and entered it in the Visual Arts competition, sponsored, in part, by the government-run National Endowment for the Arts.

Guess what? “Piss Christ” won first prize and the artist was given a $15,000 award- partially funded by taxpayer dollars- for his “art.”

This, I assume, is acceptable by U.S. standards. In fact, it is so “acceptable” that it is rewarded with the taxpayers’ money! Imagine our government giving out a financial reward to someone who defaced a Muslim symbol, such as a Koran, and put it in a glass of human urine.

Andres Serrano has become a celebrated artist since that time. His works include “art” that depicts aborted fetuses, post autopsy corpses, and even the KKK. Most of these have made their way into some of our most famous art museums for everyone to see and celebrate.

The Muslim cartoons are nowhere to be found. They’re not in art museums. Heck, they’re not even in newspapers.

Political correctness runs amok. We, as a country, are afraid of the wrath of the Islamic religion. We cater to their whims- whether they ask for prayer rooms in airports or foot baths in universities. We do this in the name of tolerance.

Meanwhile, we are discriminating against other religions in the process, removing all visible signs of their existence wherever possible.

We’d better be careful.

Giving this Islamic group too much power is dangerous. Look to Britain, look to France. Look to Lebanon, a country which once lived peacefully with Christians and Muslims coexisting.

Not anymore.

I say this all the time…

Think it can’t happen here? Think again.

lsm
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Go to Home Page: www.awakentheelephants.com

I always wondered what happened to “Rosemary’s baby.”

Now I know.

“The Son of the Devil’s Spawn” has now been located and it seems he works in Washington DC- in that big, white house- the one that Obama calls “home.”

At least, this is what Rep. Eric Massa is telling us. You see, Massa, a congressman from NY, went on record, revealing a few recent encounters he has had with Obama’s right-hand man, Rahm Emanuel. Although Massa is a democrat, he doesn’t always see eye to eye with Emanuel and Obama….

That doesn’t sit very well with the dynamic duo.

Emanuel called Massa after a vote last year on the Cap and Trade bill when Massa chose to side with the conservatives. I guess the NY representative didn’t think it was a good idea to raise electricity rates on the entire nation and put millions of people out of work. This warranted a phone call from the thug that Obama hand-picked to be his top adviser. Massa claims that expletives were used during the conversation which should not be repeated outside of a Navy warship.

Massa also claims he held his own in that department.

Rahm was also ticked off with Massa when he failed to support the President’s budget. In fact, he paid Massa a little visit, Chicago-style, in the showers of the congressional gym, where Massa was lathering up. According to Massa, Emanuel approached him when he was “naked as a jaybird” and “put a finger in my chest because I wouldn’t vote for the president’s budget.”

Emanuel didn’t have “so much as a towel around his tush.”

It’s all very strange. Most civilized people conduct business in a suit and tie.

Even drug dealers are wearing hats and sneakers.

The fun didn’t stop in the shower. Rahm has continuously harassed Massa for his voting record to the point where Massa described him as the kind of man who “would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive.”

Hmmm… wouldn’t want to be one of his relatives.

Sounds a bit like the Mafia, doesn’t it? Sounds a bit like Chicago politics, doesn’t it? Sounds like the White House is in the business of harassing, coercing, bribing, and threatening members of Congress who don’t vote their way.

It makes you wonder…..Could this be happening to other members or is Massa just a single member who is getting “picked on”?

Hey, I seem to recall Joe Lieberman’s wife getting some heat…and didn’t Ben Nelson from Nebraska get paid off…and how about Mary Landreiu…?

The latest series of events in the Emanuel/Massa conflict came when Massa voted against the health care bill. It seems that Ms. Pelosi needed 217 votes in the House to pass her precious bill and Massa was standing in her way because she only had 216.

What’s a Speaker to do? Maybe, just maybe, a few strong-arm tactics would convince Massa to change his vote….

So the rumor mill started with allegations that Massa was gay.

Isn’t Barney Frank, the celebrated member of the House who had a prostitution ring in his basement, gay?

The ethics committee, yes, the same ethics committee that can’t get around to prosecuting Charlie Rangel for his tax-evasion, was put to work, investigating Massa for “inappropriate comments” he made to a male staffer at a wedding.

According to Massa, “I have to come find out that on New Year’s Eve, I went to a staff party — it was actually a wedding for a staff member of mine. I was with my wife, and in fact we had a great time. She got the stomach flu, I went down to sing “Auld Lang Syne.” And with cameras on me — I’m talking three of them — filming me, I danced with the bride, and I danced with the bridesmaid. Absolutely nothing occurred.

“I said goodnight to the bridesmaid. I sat at down at the table where my whole staff was, all of them, by the way, bachelors. One of them looked at me and — as they would do after, I don’t know, 15 gin and tonics and goodness only knows how many bottles of champagne — a staff member made an intonation to me that maybe I should be chasing after the bridesmaid. His points were clear, and his words were far more colorful than that.

“And I grabbed the staff member sitting next to me and I said, ‘What I really ought to be doing is frakking you,’ and then tossled the guy’s hair and left, went to my room, because I knew the party was getting to a point where I shouldn’t be there.”

Really? The ethics committee is investigating this?

In a strange turn of events, Massa was a guest on the Glenn Beck show, where he had promised to “air details about the corruption in this administration.” Instead, he retracted his comments about Rahm, stating that he went a bit overboard with the “Spawn Devil” analogy. He blamed the corruption in Washington on BOTH parties, and refused to “name names” of those who were the worst offenders. He blamed his departure from Congress on his health, not on the current events, and took sole responsibility for his “inappropriate actions” with staffers.

I wonder who got to him. I wonder who threatened his family. I wonder who let him know that he needed to shut up.

It seems Massa got the message. Loud and clear.

It’s Chicago through and through. It’s gangster politics. The Mafia has arrived in Washington.

The Godfather sits in the Oval Office, hands wiped clean because he has “people” who do the dirty work for him.

“People” like Rahm “Corleone” Emanuel.

lsm
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He lives.

Al Gore lives. We weren’t sure for awhile where he had hidden himself, but now we know. Old Al was busy hiring a writer, a very good writer, to pen a retort to the current global warming skeptics who have come forward since the temperature fraud has been revealed.

It seems he needed a formal “explanation” of his unwavering premise- that our world is warming because of evil man-before he could show his face.

So what did he write?

Al told us that “it is true that the climate panel published a flawed overestimate of the melting rate of debris-covered glaciers in the Himalayas, and used information about the Netherlands provided to it by the government, which was later found to be partly inaccurate. In addition, e-mail messages stolen from the University of East Anglia in Britain showed that scientists besieged by an onslaught of hostile, make-work demands from climate skeptics may not have adequately followed the requirements of the British freedom of information law.”

“But the scientific enterprise will never be completely free of mistakes. What is important is that the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged.”

Yes, that’s right. Al says that the Himalayan glaciers might not be melting and that some scientists were so stressed from climate skeptics that they didn’t give the correct information , but those are just a couple of silly mistakes. We can’t expect perfection, can we?

Nothing else has changed. Really. The consensus of scientists remains the same.

He also told us that although many of us believed January to be a very, very cold month with record amounts of snow, it was actually the warmest January on record. Honestly. We were only imagining the cold. The snow we saw in places like Dallas and Houston was a mere figment of our imagination. You see, when Al adds up the temperature data from his strategically placed thermometers- most of which are located on the equator or on a blacktop surface- the numbers seem to show that the overall globe is warming just like Al thought it was….!!

In Al’s warped world, the extra condensation caused from the warming has put more moisture in the air, causing enormous amounts of rainfall and snowfall in areas.

One problem, Al: It wasn’t RAINING in Dallas, it was SNOWING. In order for it to snow, it must be below 32 degrees. That’s cold-not hot.

Al also mentions that the sea levels are continuing to rise, a claim that is now disputed by his own experts at the IPCC. In fact, Dr. Nils-Axel Morner, a sea-level expert, was shocked when he was asked to review the documentation of sea levels at the IPCC. He said that the IPCC report had 22 authors, but none of them—none—were sea-level specialists. “They were given this mission, because they promised to answer the right thing.”

All information was obtained, not by trained scientists, but by computer simulations, which have been repeatedly proven unreliable.

Dr. Morner claims that whether you look at Venice or at the Tuvalu Islands, two areas which would immediately show signs if sea levels were rising, you can readily see that this isn’t happening. Yet global warming alarmists, like Al Gore, need sea levels to rise because if there is no rise, there is no death threat.

Al didn’t mention Venice in his latest writing.

How about the “hockey stick” graph, Al? You know, the one that was proven defunct when it was revealed that you took the Medieval Period out of the graph?

Gosh, he didn’t mention that either.

How about the rainforests, Al? Are the rainforests- which thrive on CO2- going to die because of the increase of CO2 like you promised?

Al forgot that, too.

Those, according to Al’s theory, are simply “little” matters, none of which have a bearing on the big issue, our warming planet.

There’s one problem: Al sold everyone on his theory PRECISELY BECAUSE of these arguments- including the Himalayan glaciers, the rainforests, the sea levels rising, the polar bear decrease, and the melting of ice caps on the Alps.

How inconvenient that none of those are true.

It’s also a bit strange that Al Gore, a man who stands to make millions of dollars of profit off of his little scam, refuses to debate global warming skeptics like Lord Christopher Monckton, a man who has never wavered in his theory. Long before the emails were discovered at East Anglia University, long before their lead scientist stepped down and admitted that there has been NO warming since 1995, Monckton asked to have a conversation with Al, which was quickly denied.

Most experts love nothing more than a good, healthy debate- especially when they think they are right. Why doesn’t Al?

News Flash: Later this week, Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman are expected to present for consideration cap-and-trade legislation.

No lie.

They don’t give up, do they?

These politicians still insist the increase in rain means global warming. Snow-or no snow- means global warming. Hurricanes or lack of hurricanes both mean global warming. Earthquakes mean global warming- as do floods or no floods. More polar bears, less polar bears- it doesn’t matter…the planet is warming.

They claim that carbon dioxide, the gas we exhale with every breath, is a “known pollutant” and they plan on taxing it.

Why?

For power. For control. For money.

Don’t kid yourselves- many people, including Al Gore- are getting very rich off of this little scam.

Like taking candy from our babies…..literally.

lsm
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Go to Home Page: www.awakentheelephants.com

If you were to debate an American liberal about the benefits of socialism, the argument would eventually include a debate about a little country we hear little about.

Sweden.

The liberal/socialist would tell you this country is utopic. Sweden, the country where big government and social programs are the norm, is considered the “gold standard” of socialist countries.

Hmm…..let’s take a look.

In Sweden, the top personal income tax rate is about 57 percent- payroll taxes are at 40 percent of income. Wealth is taxed, as are capital gains. And then there’s the the value-added tax which stands at 25 percent, the maximum rate allowed for European Union nations.

So much for discretionary income. No wonder everyone rides around on bikes.

The real unemployment rate is between 15-20%. Worse yet, the number of folks who are applying for unemployment and entitlement programs is beginning to climb dramatically, proving the old theory, “Why work when you can get paid not to?”.

Sweden is the country considered ultra-liberal on social issues. In 2004-2005, there was a campaign in Sweden to abolish marriage and replace it with a gender-neutral partnership system that allows for multi-partner relationships. Many felt that even homosexual marriage was too restrictive. According to this campaign, “marriage is not the key to homosexual, bisexual, and transgender liberation. What’s essential is the battle for norm-free, sex-neutral legislation, and a society without heterosexual norms.”

Anyone who thinks that gay marriage doesn’t eventually lead to “multi-person partnerships” should look toward Sweden for some enlightenment.

In 2005, the push for these polygamist partnerships was dropped, but only because of a concession on other matters. Suffice it to say that this issue will reemerge in time.

How about family values in Sweden? They care about families, don’t they?

According to Stanley Kurtz of NRO: “In 2005, lesbian couples were given the benefit of government-supported insemination regardless of whether they were registered partners or simply cohabiting. The government was treating registered partnership on a par with mere cohabitation as a setting for parenthood. The government also agreed that both members of the lesbian couple would be recognized as a child’s mother, thereby creating potential claims of triple parenthood and contributing to the notion that fathers are dispensable.”

Fathers are dispensable? Hey, isn’t that what the “woman’s movement” has been saying here in the U.S. since the 60’s?

In fact, feminists in Sweden released a documentary called “The Gender Wars” which claimed that “men are animals”. The documentary stated that half of all women in Sweden are victims of male violence. They proposed a “man tax”, a tax on males which would pay for the cost of battered women’s shelters. These women began to adopt a philosophy from the 60’s group called SCUM (Society for Cutting up Men) which said that we needed to “destroy the male sex” by using science to insure that only females were born. They bashed marriage, claiming they needed to “free the family from heterosexual norms.” One of their leaders, Tiina Rosenberg was quoted as saying, “The history of marriage is not about love and living together, it’s about ownership.”

Luckily, the feminists reached too far, became too outrageous, and lost their strong base, setting them back temporarily. In 2007, gay marriage was legalized in Sweden. This is NOT what the ultra liberals wanted- they want to abolish marriage completely and allow gender-neutral, multi-partner relationships. It is only a matter of time before this agenda is pushed again.

There’s more. Parental rights are denounced in favor of the “nanny-state’s” rights to raise your child.

I guess the government knows better.

A 7 year old Swedish boy, Dominic Johansson, was recently abducted by the government because his parents were homeschooling him.

No kidding.

The family was preparing to move to India last year when the government came onto the plane and confiscated Dominic. Currently, the parents are only allowed to see their son for 60 minutes every 5th week. They have a myriad of organizations trying to help them get their son back, one of which is the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA).

According to World Net Daily: HSLDA is fighting the behavior of the Swedish government in this and other cases- children have also been taken from their families when parents refuse to give them state-required immunizations. “At times referred to as a ’social utopia,’ Sweden is completely antagonistic toward homeschoolers and, in reality, anyone who deviates from what the Swedish government defines as ‘normal.‘ The government’s quest for conformity produces troubling side effects: the criminalization of actions – such as a parent’s decision regarding the best form of education for his child – that ought to be the hallmarks of a free, democratic society.”

Swedish authorities have cited the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child to explain and defend their actions, the same treaty that many U.S. liberals would willingly sign onto if given the opportunity.

Sweden is not alone. The German government has also abducted homeschooled children from their parents. Some German parents have been thrown into jail and others have had to undergo extensive psychological evaluations.

Socialism, folks. Not quite the cozy picture we’ve been drawn, is it? Can you see how easily it happens? Can you see how a government can slowly, over time, gain more and more control of us and our families? Can you see the eventual harm of a man-bashing feminist movement and a tolerant gay marriage movement?

Think it’s not happening here?

Think again.

lsm
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Out of sight, out of mind.

We haven’t heard much lately from some of our old czar friends, have we? Are they still collecting a paycheck from the American taxpayer? You’d think that we’d hear more about them- after all, they were hand-picked by our president because of their expertise, and they are each pulling in a salary of somewhere between $150,000 and $190,000 per year.

Gosh, what have they been up to?

Well, Kevin Jennings, our Safe School Czar, has managed to stay under the radar for quite some time. He seemed to fade into the back round when that petition was circulating, the one that called for his resignation because of a filthy, pornographic, gay agenda that he was helping to push in Massachusetts schools. He also seemed to dodge a few bullets when we found out that gay, sex books were on his list of “best reading material” for kids who were in 2nd grade, or when we found out that the organization he founded was giving out lists of gay bars to underage teenagers. He wrote the forward to another book, “The Queering of Elementary Education”, the title of which, pretty much tells us all we need to know about this man.

I guess Obama really must like this guy.

Either that, or he’s simply letting Mr. Jennings get his ‘gay tolerance’ framework in place so that someone else can come in and take over where Mr. Jennings left off.

A few red flags have been raised recently, regarding this gay agenda and our public schools. Have these initiatives come directly from Mr. Jennings? We don’t know, however, we must assume that he’s been doing something with his time in the past year.

Activists, including gay activists, tend to be active.

According to World Net Daily, a homosexual congressman from Colorado, Democrat Rep. Jared Polis, has proposed a law critics say would give controversial federal school safety czar Kevin Jennings “almost unlimited authority to mandate indoctrination in public schools at taxpayer expense.”

Under the legislation Jennings “can create pro-homosexual programs and policies to their hearts’ delight.”

You see, Polis’ legislation (HR 4530) would provide special protections “for students who claim they are discriminated against because of their ‘perceived sexual orientation.’ ” This bill would protect these kids by classifying “actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity” alongside other discriminatory classifications such as race, sex, disability, etc.

This is all being done under the guise of “tolerance” and presented to schools as a way to protect gay students from any type of discrimination.

The truth of the matter is that this bill will simply give Jennings an open door to set up whatever pro-homosexual programs he would choose. Let’s review what happened the last time Jennings was given an “open door.” Remember Fistgate, the controversy that ensued when Jenning’s organization, GLSTEN, promoted graphic, gay, sex techniques to teenagers at a school seminar? Remember his membership in ACT UP, a sometimes radical gay activist group? Remember his advice to a 15-16 year old boy who came to him for advice on a relationship he was having with a much older man?….Remember Jennings telling the boy to “use a condom”? ….

Here’s the worst part of this bill: If a school currently receives federal funds from a government agency, it will be subject to the new rules of that agency , rules which will be changed to conform to this bill. If the school refuses to adopt this agenda, then the government agency will stop funding to that school.

Better yet, individual states will be held liable for violations, so states will put pressure on individual schools to adopt these policies.

Got it? Basically, our kids are screwed. If schools don’t adopt Kevin Jenning’s radical, pornographic gay agenda- implemented under the guise of ‘gay tolerance’- then they will lose federal funding.

Hmmmm…..how many public schools do you know that want to lose their federal funding?

Rep. Polis claims, “Every student has the right to an education free from harassment and violence. This bill will protect the individual freedoms of our students and enshrine the values of equality and opportunity in our classrooms.” Unfortunately, his bill doesn’t accomplish this. It simply is a ‘foot in the door’ approach to more radical sexual education for our kids.

A good example? Maine. In 2005, a state law was written to add sexual orientation as a protected class, giving people the right to public accommodation. It was never meant for schools. 5 years later, the Maine Human Rights Commission is meeting to determine whether or not transgendered students have the right to enter not only the restroom of their choice, but also the right to dress and undress in the locker room of their choice.

The privacy of non-transgendered students is obviously not a big deal.

A foot in the door. That’s all it takes.

And it’s all that Kevin Jennings needs.

lsm.
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By STEPHEN SPRUIELL

‘We have some strong disagreements on the numbers,” President Obama said after Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) concluded his devastating critique of the Democrats’ budget claims, “but I don’t want to get too bogged down.” In the ensuing debate, what became clear is that the Democrats just don’t have an answer to Ryan’s arguments. They ducked, dodged, and changed the subject repeatedly, because Ryan’s numbers themselves are unimpeachable.

The Democrats are touting an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office that their health-care bill would reduce the deficit by around $130 billion over the next ten years. What Ryan pointed out — and what no Democrat even attempted to counter — is that this is because the legislation front-loads tax hikes and Medicare cuts and defers costs, forcing the CBO to score ten years of offsets with only six years of spending. Looked at on a level playing field, the true ten-year cost of the bill is $2.3 trillion rather than $950 billion, Ryan said.

Then he brought up another gimmick: The bill is full of double-counting. “Savings” are counted as offsets for new health-care spending and at the same time set aside to pay for future entitlements. For instance, the Democrats claim $52 billion in offsets as a result of increasing Social Security payroll-tax revenues. But these dollars are already claimed for future Social Security beneficiaries. They can’t pay for both. The Democrats take another $72 billion in premiums intended to fund a new long-term-care program and count them as offsets for other spending. Ryan pointed out that Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad has called this “a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of.”

Perhaps most important, Ryan confronted the Democrats with the issue of the “Doc Fix” — a separate bill that would have added $371 billion to the Democrats’ legislation if it hadn’t been stripped out. The Doc Fix would have prevented Medicare reimbursements to doctors from plummeting by 21 percent, a drop that Congress put into the bill to improve its CBO score but never planned to allow, most political observers agree.

Obama responded to Ryan by saying he didn’t want to get “bogged down” in a debate over the numbers; instead, he dared Republicans to defend Medicare Advantage, the program Democrats are planning to cut in order to generate some legitimate savings to pay for their new programs. But the merits of Medicare Advantage are irrelevant to Ryan’s critique, which, put simply, is:

1. Obama said he wouldn’t sign a bill that adds to the deficit;
2. The bill he supports clearly would; even though
3. Democrats have rigged the legislation to produce a deficit-neutral CBO score.

Rep. Xavier Becerra (D., Calif.) was the only Democrat who really attempted to address Ryan’s critique. First, he implied that Ryan was trying to question the integrity of the CBO. But Ryan’s critique calls into question the Democrats’ integrity, not the CBO’s, by pointing out that the CBO’s analysts must by law score what is set in front of them, and that what the Democrats have set in front of them is full of gimmicks designed to hide the cost of the bill.

Second, Becerra attempted to address the argument that by delaying certain spending provisions, the Democrats have hidden the bill’s true cost. He pointed out that the CBO has estimated that the Democrats’ bill would reduce the deficit by 0.5 percent of GDP in the second ten years, when all the spending would be included. But he failed to mention that the CBO’s estimate included the following caveat: “A detailed year-by-year projection for years beyond 2019 . . . would not be meaningful because the uncertainties involved are simply too great.”

Neither Obama nor Becerra — nor any other Democrat — addressed the issue of double-counting. And the only response to Ryan’s point about the Doc Fix was a rather oblique statement by Obama that “if what you’re saying is that we can’t make hard decisions on entitlements, then we’re in big trouble.” In fact, that’s exactly what conservatives have been saying: Not only can’t the political class make hard decisions on entitlements, the Democrats are trying to create a new entitlement and hide its cost. And if they succeed, we are in very big trouble.
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