White House Stoked Violence with Benghazi Blame Game

It is no surprise by now that the White House is engaged in a full-blown cover-up of the 9/11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. First, the Obama administration blamed a YouTube video insulting Islam for the violence, saying a mob protesting the film got out of control, leading to the deaths of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty and Information Management Officer Sean Smith. We now know through multiple reports and emails that the White House and as many as 400 national security officials knew within two hours of the attack that it was carried out by terrorists linked to al Qaeda.

But let’s take a look at the deadly and violent consequences that came as a result of the Obama administration blaming the video after the initial planned attacks.

On September 11, the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya and the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, were attacked. The United States flag in both locations was torn down and al Qaeda flags were raised in their place. Neither event was a “spontaneous action.” The attack in Libya was pre-planned, with armed Islamic militants wielding RPGs leading the way. The riots in Egypt were pre-planned for 9/11 to protest the imprisonment of World Trade Center Bomber and “Blind Sheikh” Omar abdel Rahman, with al Qaeda sypathizers rallying the crowd.

It was after the initial attack in Egypt that the administration threw free speech under the bus. The U.S Embassy in Cairo released the following statement on 9/11, the same day as the attacks. Notice “the video” isn’t mentioned.

“The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.”

A day later, the same argument with a specific reference to an anti-Islam video was used by administration officals to explain the attack in Benghazi, the place Americans were brutally murdered and where they left bloody finger streaks on the walls of the U.S. consulate.

Although the White House initially distanced itself from the embassy statement above, they had their straw man. Obama administration officials decided to push the argument that the amateur YouTube video insulting Islam, with just 300 views at the time, was the reason for the violence. A spontaneous protest of the film that spun out of control was the talking point.

Then, after Obama administration officials repeatedly blamed the YouTube video, the Muslim world erupted, with U.S. Embassies in multiple countries coming under siege, just as we saw with the Danish cartoon fiasco.

On September 14, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, “The cause of the unrest was a video,” adding, “The reason there is unrest is because of the film.”

In this case, Carney was actually telling the truth. The cause of the unrest was a result of a video, a video the Obama administration cynically promoted.

In its attempt to avoid taking a political hit and to distract away from the fact al Qaeda is getting stronger, not weaker as President Obama has claimed on the campaign trail, the Obama administration successfully enraged radical Muslims around the world in more than 25 countries including Indonesia, Yemen, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Morocco, Tunisia, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Iraq, and London after the planned attacks in Libya and Egypt. The administration’s efforts to blame the video fanned the deadly flames of anti-American sentiment around the world. In Pakistan alone, 17 people were killed.

We now know the YouTube video had nothing to do with sparking the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi or the U.S. Embassy in Cairo on 9/11. However, we do know that the White House narrative of the video being responsible did give thousands of Muslims a reason to riot around the world. The Obama administration’s false talking points, attack on free speech and bogus narrative, put U.S. personnel further at risk, despite President Obama claiming his number one priority is to keep U.S. diplomats safe.

“My number one priority is always to keep our diplomats safe and to keep our embassies safe,” Obama said during an interview with Univision on September 20.

The more the video was discussed, the worse the riots became. In front of the U.N. on September 25, President Obama said, “In every culture, those who love freedom for themselves must ask themselves how much they’re willing to tolerate freedom for others. And that is what we saw play out in the last two weeks, where a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world.”

President Obama sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world by promoting a film that had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks on 9/11. The maker of that video was thrown in jail, and more people died. In the end, the “blame the video” move, or using humans as collateral damage, was one Obama was willing to make in order to save his re-election campaign.

Katie Pavlich is the News Editor at Townhall.com. Follow her on Twitter @katiepavlich. She is also the author of Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up.

http://townhall.com/columnists/katiepavlich/2012/10/25/the_deadly_consequences_of_the_white_house_blaming_a_video_for_benghazi/page/full/

An Ambassador Died. Obama Lied.

“Bush Lied, People Died” they chanted. When the intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — information that was believed by the intelligence agencies of our major allies; that was described by the Clinton-appointed head of the CIA as a “slam dunk”; and that was agreed to by heads of state and leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties — turned out to be badly mistaken, George W. Bush was branded a liar.

Even Democrats such as Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Tom Daschle, and Ted Kennedy, who had warned about Saddam’s WMD program on various occasions, quickly scurried to the “Bush lied, people died” slander when the intelligence proved inaccurate.

Neither Bush nor Secretary of State Colin Powell lied about Iraq. They received bad information. Error is part of the human condition. So is venality, and that is what marked the Democrats’ scurrilous attacks on Bush when the intelligence failure came to light. They could have reasonably criticized Bush for not being more skeptical of intelligence reports, but no, they resorted to slurs.

On the 11th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, an al-Qaida-linked band of terrorists attacked our consulate in Benghazi, Libya and killed our ambassador and three other Americans. President Obama and his entire administration denied that the attack had anything to do with the anniversary of al-Qaida’s greatest victory, attributing the attack to spontaneous rage at an Internet video. On September 13, White House spokesman Jay Carney said, “The protests we’re seeing around the region are in reaction to this movie. They are not directly in reaction to any policy of the United States or the government of the United States or the people of the United States.” They stuck to this story for more than a week, even as evidence accumulated that it was false.

If it were a simple matter of bad information, the administration had ample opportunities to modify its initial response to the tragedy. As Eli Lake reported in The Daily Beast, intelligence agencies were confiding within 24 hours that the attacks seemed pre-planned. Intercepts showed that an al-Qaida affiliate boasted of its success to another al-Qaida group on September 12. “There was very good information on this within the first 24 hours,” an intelligence official told Lake. Skeptical Republicans with military experience like John McCain and Mike Rogers also observed, in those first hours after the attack, that RPGs are not usually carried to “spontaneous” protests.

Nevertheless, five days after the attacks, and long after it was clear that the consulate (along with a safe house half a mile away) had been targeted by terrorists, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice toured five Sunday morning TV shows to deliver the administration’s line that the murder of our diplomats was a case of mob violence that had been “hijacked by extremists.” Appearing on ABC’s This Week, Rice said, “Our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous — not a premeditated — response to what had transpired in Cairo.” Jay Carney repeated that spin at White House briefings.

Except that, as CBS reported, there was never any protest at all in Benghazi about the Internet movie. It was a straight-up terror attack. Only on September 20 did Carney finally acknowledge the obvious — “It is, I think, self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack. Our embassy was attacked violently, and the result was four deaths of American officials.”

Why would the administration attempt to deceive the world about a terror attack?

Two possibilities suggest themselves. The Obama administration has substituted a bumper sticker, “Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive,” for a foreign policy. They’ve been hoping that the death of bin Laden would be seen as total victory over Al-Qaeda and jihadism. A brazen and successful attack against Americans in Libya, including the first assassination of an ambassador in more than three decades, undercuts that self-satisfied narrative, suggesting that, while bin Laden is dead, bin Ladenism is very much alive.

The second explanation is that this administration has relied on the supposed appeal of Barack Obama’s persona in place of American military and diplomatic strength. That appeal is proving chimerical, and the administration will go to great lengths to disguise that reality.

But whatever the rationale, the facts are clear: The administration purposely misled the country, and has so far not been held accountable.

Mona Charen

Mona Charen is a syndicated columnist, political analyst and author of Do-Gooders: How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help .

http://townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/2012/10/02/an_ambassador_died_obama_lied/page/full/

Benghazi-gate – Obama Knew

In the days following the assassination attack in Benghazi, Libya on September 11 that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and three aides dead it was appalling to watch the Obama Administration’s painstaking efforts to deny any connection to radical Islamic terror.   A week later, the White House was forced to admit a connection to al Qaeda after the Director of the National Counterterrrorism Center, Matthew Olsen, testified to a Senate Committee that Benghazi was indeed a “terrorist attack on our embassy” with likely “connections to al Qaeda.”

The week long contortions and denials by the Administration became even more befuddling when Eli Lake at the Daily Beast raised the stakes with this bombshell disclosure on September 26:

“Within 24 hours of the 9-11 anniversary attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi, U.S. intelligence agencies had strong indications al Qaeda–affiliated operatives were behind the attack, and had even pinpointed the location of one of those attackers. Three separate U.S. intelligence officials who spoke to The Daily Beast said the early information was enough to show that the attack was planned and the work of al Qaeda affiliates operating in Eastern Libya.” Read more

Anderson Cooper at CNN disclosed on September 23 that Ambassador Steven’s journal indicated he believed he was targeted by al Qaeda, yet apparently the State Department took no steps to protect his safety.  That added to the questions….why?

Instead of coming clean, the State Department attacked CNN calling the disclosure “disgusting” and “not a proud moment in CNN’s history.”  Again, raising more questions.

High ranking House and Senate Republicans fired off letters and issued public statements directed to the President demanding more information.  What did the President know, and when did he know it?

Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) was the first to mention the “c” word -  cover up. “There has to be something they’re trying to hide or cover up,” he said.  “We just want answers.”

Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) gave the growing scandal a name; Benghazi-gate.

Lake’s newest revelation raises the stakes yet again.  Jennifer Rubin in her “Right Turn” column in the Washington Post today asks the newest most obvious question – “Did Obama lie?”

“Obviously the report (Eli Lake’s in the Daily Beast), if true, suggests that the White House lied to the American people by insisting for over a week that this was a spontaneous attack. It is one thing for the president to be so benighted as to think a video sets off multiple attacks on Sept. 11. It is quite another to send out his advisers, including his own spokesman, to mislead voters.” Read more

Rubin also raises three other important questions that logically follow:

1. Can Obama squirm out of this scandal unscathed as he has so many others, or
2. Will Mitt Romney effectively make this a campaign changing moment, and
3. Will the media live up to their responsibilities and hold the Administration accountable?

The answers to Rubin’s first and second question are going to be highly dependent on the outcome of the third.  Coming days will tell, but Rubin rightfully prods the mainstream media; “…now is the time when we see if reporters and pundits are more than shills for the president.”

However, Rubin doesn’t see much “evidence that an epidemic of fairness is breaking out in the mainstream media.”

And, then the biggest question; will the American people continue to let Obama get away with it?  “Certainly, we shouldn’t have a president in office who would lie to the American people about a critical national security issue for the sake of his own reelection, right?” Rubin asks rhetorically.  We’ll find out soon enough.

Bob Beauprez

Bob Beauprez is a former Member of Congress and is currently the editor-in-chief of A Line of Sight, an online policy resource. Prior to serving in Congress, Mr. Beauprez was a dairy farmer and community banker. He and his wife Claudia reside in Lafayette, Colorado. You may contact him at:  http://bobbeauprez.com/contact/

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/bobbeauprez/2012/09/29/benghazigate__obama_knew/page/full/

Israel is America’s Shield

Editor’s Note: This column was coauthored by Bob Morrison.

We are used to hearing that America defends Israel. President Obama assures Israel that he has their back. That may be convincing talk in the `hood, but it rings hollow from this invertebrate administration to talk about anyone’s back. Actually, we may have all that backward. It may well be that Israel that is defending us. Israel may yet prove America’s Shield.

All the usual chin-pullers and deep thinkers are warning of the parade of horribles that will descend on the world if Israel strikes Iran to prevent the mullahs from getting nuclear weapons. Why, says Georgetown University think tanker Anthony Cordesman, “a strike by Israel will give rise to regional instability and conflict as well as terrorism.”

What else, Dr. Cordesman, do we see daily in that region? Our TV sets seem to have “Mideast Turmoil” painted on their screens. Instability? Where is the stability? Conflict? What elsedoes the region export but conflict? Terrorism? Sen. John McCain tries to assure us that the young Egyptians in Tahrir Square all idolize Mark Zuckerberg. The truth is Mark Zuckerberg, or anyone else who is Jewish, could not last a day in Tahrir Square today.

We have been fed a line of rubbish by the talking heads and Mideast “experts” for twenty years. Let’s start with legitimizing the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The idea that Yasser Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas could ever reform and behave like true democrats was always an illusion. They are terrorists plain and simple. Arafat even inventedairline hijacking for terror purposes. It did not matter that he got a Nobel Peace Prize, or that he was welcomed to the White House by Bill Clinton. He was always a mass murderer.

And the Saudis? They are our special friends, are they not? President Obama even bowed to the Saudi King Abdullah in London. Well, we can find evidence of their friendship in the official 9/11 Commission Report. There on page 122 we learn that then-Vice President Al Gore went to Saudi Arabia in 1998 to ask then-Crown Prince Abdullah for access to Madani al-Tayyib. The Saudis were holding this finance director for al Qaeda and we wanted to talk to him. Madani al-Tayyib was said to have been the key figure who had to approve every al Qaeda expenditure over $1,000. The report deadpans the next line. The United States never obtained access to Tayyib. This man might have unraveled the entire attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, if only our friends the Saudis had let us at him. They declined. With friends like the Saudis, who needs enemies?

Instead of more of this tripe from experts who should long ago have been discredited and disregarded, we recommend reading Columnist David P. Goldman in Asia Times.

Writing as “Spengler” Goldman lays out the case for what will happen if Israel does not strike the Iranians. It is a far more realistic and compelling picture than the “save Mideast stability” crowd offers.

Goldman warns that withoutan Israeli strike, we will likely see:

A nuclear-armed Iran;

Iraq’s continued drift towards alliance with Iran; An overtly hostile regime in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood government will lean on jihadist elements to divert attention from the country’s economic collapse; An Egyptian war with Libya for oil and with Sudan for water; A radical Sunni regime controlling most of Syria, facing off an Iran-allied Alawistan ensconced in the coastal mountains; A de facto or de jure Muslim Brotherhood takeover of the Kingdom of Jordan; A campaign of subversion against the Saudi monarchy by Iran through Shi’ites in Eastern Province and by the Muslim Brotherhood internally; A weakened and perhaps imploding Turkey struggling with its Kurdish population and the emergence of Syrian Kurds as a wild card; A Taliban-dominated Afghanistan; and Radicalized Islamic regimes in Libya and Tunisia.

Suddenly, the case for Israeli action begins to look a lot more persuasive than the tired old “stability” arguments.

Goldman writes that Israeli action may actually slow America’s slide into impotence. Whoever wins the presidential election here, it seems no military action against Iran by the U.S. would be possible in the next 4-6 months, and by then it could be too late.

Once before, from May to August 1940, America’s fate was being decided “over there.” In the Cabinet War Rooms in London during those fateful days, Winston Churchill made the decision not to negotiate with mass murderers, notto give in. Despite being bombed on a daily basis, Churchill and his War Cabinet colleagues stood firm–and in that process, this Dreadnought Democracy was America’s Shield. Churchill’s courage protected us, too.

Before Osama bin Laden ever dreamed of flaming towers collapsing in Manhattan, Adolf Hitler dreamed the same dream. He even took steps to equip Nazi suicide bombers, to bring about the destruction of what he then regarded as a Jewish Citadel. We can thank God that Winston Churchill stood between Hitler and us. And we will thank God if Benjamin Netanyahu does the same thing for us now.

Don’t wait, Israel: Shield America. Strike Iran’s nuclear weapons program before it’s too late for all of us.

Ken Blackwell

Ken Blackwell, a contributing editor at Townhall.com, is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and the American Civil Rights Union and is on the board of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. He is the co-author of the new  bestseller The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency, on sale in bookstores everywhere..

http://townhall.com/columnists/kenblackwell/2012/09/22/israel_is_americas_shield/page/full/

Words of Comfort

“Nothing can heal you; your wound is fatal. All who hear the news about you clap their hands at your fall, for who has not felt your endless cruelty?” — Nahum 3:19

On May 1, 2011 the world learned that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in his compound. From the time that the President of the United States began his official announcement until the end of the speech, 4,000 tweets per second were sent on Twitter. The world erupted in celebration. Universities around the country set off fireworks, and people threw parties.

As one reporter put it, “Some Americans responded to news about the death of Osama bin Laden much like the Munchkins did when Dorothy vanquished the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz!” There were similar sentiments around the world. The news was welcomed as a fitting end to a man who had inspired and directed so much bloodshed.

There must have been a similar outbreak of celebration at the demise of Nineveh. The Book of Nahum foretells and describes the downfall of that evil nation. Yet, Nahum is a funny name for a prophet who mainly preached death and destruction. You see, Nahum is the Hebrew word for “comfort.” Certainly, his was not a very comforting message for the people of Nineveh!

http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/words-of-comfort

The prophet refers to Nineveh as “the city of blood” (Nahum 3:1) because the people were so cruel and murderous that the streets flowed with blood. Nineveh was also the superpower of the world, and the end of its brutal regime seemed unlikely.

Nineveh was a powerhouse just hitting its prime. The city had captured many parts of the world, including the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Now it set its sight on the Southern Kingdom and Jerusalem. Judah would be the next to fall into Nineveh’s bloodstained hands.

But God would not let that happen. Nahum was sent to tell the world that Nineveh’s reign would come to an end, and no one shed a tear. Nahum says: “All who hear the news about you clap their hands at your fall, for who has not felt your endless cruelty?” The news of Nineveh’s fall was a welcomed message by the world who had suffered so much cruelty at its hands. A world without Nineveh would be a safer world for everyone.

Nahum’s words may be violent, but they are also words of comfort – not for Nineveh, but for the rest of us. His message is one of hope and encouragement. Though it often seems that evil dictators have the upper hand, Nahum reminds us that no one is above the Lord God. Though evil nations may seem invincible, they will perish in an instant when it is the will of God.

Take comfort in Nahum’s words. Good will triumph over evil. Though the battle still rages, we know how the story ends. There will be a time when the world will celebrate the end of all evil dictators and innocent blood will never be shed again.

5 Values We Don’t Teach the Way We Should In America

“Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.” — Thomas Sowell

We like to think of children as innocent little angels. Of course, that’s only true in the sense that there aren’t any three year olds who’ve stabbed their cousins to death for drug money or set up a stock swindle designed to bilk senior citizens out of their life savings. Children are not naturally good. To the contrary, they begin their lives as selfish, completely self-absorbed little savages whose entire world revolves around meeting their own needs regardless of who else it impacts. How else could they be when they’re too small to take care of themselves and don’t have any concept of how their demands affect people around them?

The values a society imparts to children while it’s civilizing them have a great deal to do with how functional that society will be when those kids grow up. Over time, standards change. Some values are emphasized more, while others are emphasized less. Some values we place a great deal of emphasis on and others, we teach sparingly. As children absorb the “proper” way to behave from their parents, friends, schools, churches, music and television, and now, the Internet and social networks, the generational differences can be enormous. Here are five important values that are no longer being accentuated enough.

1) Chastity: My friend Dawn Eden wrote an absolutely outstanding book called The Thrill Of The Chaste. It is about her decision to become chaste at 31, something that would have once prompted very few raised eyebrows in this country. Yet disturbingly, the whole idea of encouraging virginity and chastity has become so out of the ordinary that she managed to score numerous TV interviews out of it.

No society in history has ever been as bombarded with as much sexual imagery as modern day Americans have. Between music, TV, and the Internet, Americans are constantly being told that not only is sex outside of marriage permissible, you’re a failure if you’re not having as much sex as possible.

That mentality has serious repercussions.

“73 percent of black children, 53 percent of Latinos and 29 percent of white children are born to unwed mothers.” This has devastating consequences since “children brought up in single-mother homes ‘are five times more likely to commit suicide, nine times more likely to drop out of high school, 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, 14 times more likely to commit rape (for the boys), 20 times more likely to end up in prison, and 32 times more likely to run away from home.’” Solid statistics on the percentage of people who commit adultery are hard to come by, but most studies suggest that roughly 25% of men and 17% of women in marriages cheat on their spouses. In addition, 1 in 4 teenage girls have some form of STDand more than 50 million children have been slaughtered via abortion since 1973.

Even if you were to set moral concerns completely aside, it’s clear that we’re paying an INCREDIBLE price in this country because our culture promotes promiscuity instead of chastity.

2) Shame:One of the reasons that there is such an overemphasis on creating high self-esteem in our society is that it tends to be an antidote to shame. Admittedly, shame can be a very harmful emotion and psychologists have undoubtedly spent millions of man hours trying to get their clients over issues that they never should have been ashamed of in the first place.

That being said, judging by the way people behave, there are far too many people who don’t feel shame when it’s appropriate. If you don’t believe that, look to most of the politicians in this country, their spokesmen, people taking handouts from their fellow citizens who don’t feel bad about it, 26 year olds who still want to be on their parents’ insurance, the cast of Jersey Shore, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and innumerable other charlatans, leeches, and malcontents in American society.

Maybe we should stop worrying so much about low self-esteem and should start being more concerned with all the shameless people who have high self-esteem for no good reason along with a completely undeserved sense of entitlement.

3) Self-reliance:Our ancestors were some of the most self-reliant people who’ve ever walked the earth. They fought and defeated the super power of their day to become free, took on Spain, Mexico, and innumerable Indian tribes to acquire more land, explored a massive nation under brutally difficult conditions, and then civilized the country one wagon train at a time.

Meanwhile today, we have a record number of Americans receiving food stamps and disability payments, people are protesting in the streets because the government won’t pay off their college loans for them, businesses want the government to bail them out, and many Americans would rather let future generations live in squalor rather than receive a few less dollars in Social Security and Medicare payments per month.

It’s not the government’s job to take care of you. It’s YOUR job to take care of you. This may seem harsh and cruel to some people, but this is the philosophy responsible Americans already live their lives by. America already has far too many “takers” who have their hands out while it desperately needs more self-reliant producers.

4) Patriotism: “A thoughtful mind, when it sees a Nation’s flag, sees not the flag only, but the Nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the Government, the principles, the truths, the history which belongs to the Nation that sets it forth.” — Henry Ward Beecher

One of the great ironies of our modern age is that the most damaging and vicious anti-American propaganda isn’t supplied by Al-Qaeda, Cuba, China, Iran or any other foreign enemy. Believe it or not, the most skilled purveyors of anti-American hatred are prominent Americans who are making a wonderful living here teaching others to despise the nation where they became successful.

This is a great tragedy because if you’re an American, this nation is the largest group of people you can belong to that has any genuine concern about your welfare. When Americans have a hard time, some people in other nations are happy about it, some generally wish us well, but the only people who deeply care what happens to us are other Americans. Keep in mind that we’re still hunting down and killing Al-Qaeda for what it did more than a decade ago on 9/11. Yes, there are some other countries helping a little bit, but they’re doing it to stay on our good side, not because any of them want justice for the Americans who were killed.  Only Americans truly care about that because it was our people who were killed.

American citizenship is a precious thing. Giving future generations the same great opportunities we’ve had growing up is extremely important. It’s no surprise that so many Americans don’t seem to understand that any more since we spend more time talking up global warming and teaching gay marriage propaganda to kids than explaining to them the importance of loving their own country.

5) Godliness: “Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.” — C.S. Lewis

This is a Christian nation with a Christian history that has been successful largely because of Christian values. The less we teach those values, the less moral our country will become and the less successful we’ll be. Many people don’t acknowledge those basic facts because the way Christianity has shaped the culture is taken for granted. The Puritan work ethic, the decency of the people, the relative lack of corruption compared to other nations, the charitable constitution of the American people — this comes from Christianity. The weaker Christianity becomes and the less godliness is taught, the weaker all of those American strengths become.

No legalisms, manmade ethics system, or meaningless exhortations to be “nice” can come close to replacing Christianity. The less it’s taught, the more we’ll morally degrade as a people.

John Hawkins

John Hawkins is a professional blogger who runs Right Wing News, Linkiest, and Viral Footage. He’s also the co-owner of the The Looking Spoon. You can read more from John Hawkins on Facebook, Twitter, G+, You Tube, & Pajamas Media.

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2012/07/24/5_values_we_dont_teach_the_way_we_should_in_america/page/full/

Twenty Things this Conservative Believes

1) Any illegal alien caught in this country should be forever barred from legally visiting this country, working here, or becoming an American citizen.

2) If you take welfare or food stamps or if your kids have to get free meals at school, you should be ashamed. Your kids should feel ashamed by your failure, too.

3) There is no such thing as a conflict between Christianity and science or a reason for any Christian to have his religious beliefs override any conclusions that he’d reach by simply following the science. Any and all apparent conflicts between science and God are just a result of our limited human understanding. If there was evolution, God chose that path. If the world was created by a “Big Bang,” God set it in motion.

4) William Bennett once said it was “morally plausible” to execute drug dealers. I agree with him. I’d also like to see the death penalty expanded to cover rape and child molestation as well.

5) It’s unlikely to ever happen, but we’d be much better off in this country if the voting age were 25 and only people who paid income tax could vote.

6) All people except the poor should be paying enough in taxes to cover all the services they receive from the government each year. If they don’t want to pay that much, then we should cut government down to a level that they think is worth paying.

7) On average, government workers should make less than people who do the same jobs in private industry.

8) Government workers also shouldn’t be allowed to unionize. The Democrats give the government unions more taxpayer money and the unions take part of that money and use it to campaign for the Democrats, who then promise to give them more money in return. It’s nothing but the Democratic Party and the unions collaborating against the taxpayers.

9) Ninety nine times out of a hundred when someone cries racism, it’s either a lame excuse or a political tactic.

10) If you’re a Christian, then your faith requires you to oppose gay marriage.

11) I wish the best for people everywhere, but I’m not a citizen of the world. I’m an American and our country comes first.

12) The biggest threat to America’s future isn’t Al-Qaeda, China, or Iran; it’s our own government spending so much money that it bankrupts the country.

13) If you sue someone and lose, you should have to pay his legal bills.

14) Hand counting ballots is LESS ACCURATE than machine counting them and it allows human beings to manipulate the results of the election with arbitrary counting standards.

15) People who think black Americans are too stupid and incompetent to handle getting a voter ID are just as racist as the KKK, although they show it differently.

16) If public universities want to hire terrorists and communists to teach their classes, harass Christians, push around Republican groups, and bring in liberal speakers, but not conservatives, then state legislators should cut off their taxpayer funding until they behave.

17) We don’t need to get religion out of politics; we need to get more religion in politics. The politicians certainly don’t seem to have any qualms about stepping into areas better left to the church; so pastors have to be willing to encourage their flocks to vote their values to protect themselves from a rapacious government.

18) The whole purpose of our immigration system should be to benefit the Americans who are already here. Therefore, we should favor the best and brightest emigrants from Western cultures. Other immigrants to this country who get in because of family ties should have someone who’s willing to vouch for them and take care of them if they have hard times. No naturalized American citizens should ever be eligible for food stamps, welfare, school lunches, or any other hand-outs from their fellow citizens.

19) You can no more change your sex than you can change from a human being into a Water Buffalo. Believing otherwise is a mental disorder that should be handled by a psychologist, not catered to with surgery. A doctor wouldn’t cut off a healthy person’s leg if he asked or cut out part of someone’s brain because a voice in his head wanted it and sex change operations shouldn’t be done either.

20) People who’ve served time in prison for committing a felony may have been punished, but they haven’t “paid their debt to society.” Repaying their debt would require them to be rehabilitated and to fully compensate their victims, which isn’t even possible in some cases. Additionally, even if society forgives, it shouldn’t forget. There’s no way a felon should ever have the right to vote, own a gun, or teach children among other activities.

John Hawkins

John Hawkins is a professional blogger who runs Right Wing News, Linkiest, and Viral Footage. He’s also the co-owner of the The Looking Spoon. You can read more from John Hawkins on Facebook, Twitter, G+, You Tube, & Pajamas Media.

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2012/06/01/twenty_things_this_conservative_believes/page/full/

Blindsided: 9/11 Was the Rule, Not the Exception

At 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001, the first plane struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center, and America woke up to the terror of jihad. I use the words “woke up” because jihad existed long before that terrible morning. And it continues to cause much of the world’s violence today.

On 9/11, we were blindsided. But we never should have been.

The word jihad literally means “struggle,” but it’s often used to communicate the concept of holy war. It is on the lips of violent terrorists, but it is also shouted by Egyptian mobs who assault Coptic Christians. And it’s the first word that Palestinian children learn from their reading primers.

It is critically important to understand the permeating motivations of Islamic extremism. For that reason, I wrote Blindsided: The Radical Islamic Conquest,which is being released on April 1.

I was born in the Middle East. I was raised within its culture and return there often. I have had many long conversations in Arabic with Muslims, including Islamist hardliners. I have witnessed Islamic practices and understand the thought processes. Because of that, I know that jihad is an unavoidable and pervasive reality.

In Blindsided, I write:

 

Many scoff when jihad is declared by a small group of extremists from a tiny Islamic nation about which little is known. The imperative to subjugate non-Muslims, however, runs deep among Muslims around the world—not just in the hills and caves of Afghanistan or the remote sands of Yemen. 

Jihad is an essential ingredient of Islamic philosophy, and all who truly love the Koranic faith are devoted to jihad. The concept of jihad is the nail on which hangs all rationales for the use of political power, military force, and terrorist violence to advance the Islamic cause.

 

Although the Koran decries murder and urges mercy in general, mercy is not to be extended to those who stand in the way of Islam’s domination.

The Koran states: “When the sacred months are past, kill those who join other gods wherever you find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them with every kind of ambush; but if they convert and observe prayer and pay the obligatory alms, let them go their way” (Koran 9:5).

September 11 turned over a rock to expose the horror of jihad against Americans—the “infidel crusaders.” But the recent uprisings across the Middle East have exposed the everyday occurrences of jihad.

Its overthrown dictators, although ruthless and violent themselves, had kept a check on Islam’s militant urges. But now, without that restraint, it is a very dangerous time to be a non-Muslim.

After 9/11, President Bush and others declared that Islam was a “religion of peace.” But every day, that statement is proven to be false.

On March 4, 1,500 Muslim villagers, brandishing swords and knives, converged on a school in Egypt. Chanting Islamic slogans, they trapped nuns, who were volunteer teachers, and threatened to burn them alive.

Last week, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, reportedly declared that it was “necessary to destroy all the churches” in the region. Al-Asheikh’s words supported the belief that no other religion except Islam should be tolerated.

Because of the constant stream of jihad-inspired attacks, Christians throughout the Middle East are fleeing for their lives. According to Raymond Ibrahim of the Stonegate Institute, half of Iraq’s indigenous Christians have fled. Approximately 100,000 Christian Copts have escaped Egypt. And up to 95 percent of Christians in Yobe, a state in Nigeria population have left that country. Now, as al-Qaeda and others fight the Assad regime in Syria, Christians living there are coming under attack.

Norman Geisler, co-author of Answering Islam, writes: “What Islam engages in is consistent with the teachings of the [Koran] and Muhammad, while what some Christians did in the Crusades is contrary to the teachings of the Bible and Jesus Christ.” Geisler says that although violence is the “illogical” result of Christianity, “Violence is the logical outworking of Islam”

That is why, in Blindsided I write:

 

Some Americans believe that by rounding up hundreds or thousands of Al-Qaeda leaders and fighters, we can end Islamic terrorism. But this would be like washing blood with blood. No matter how many terrorists you kill, there are always more lining up to take their place. Though the War on Terror is critically important to restraining the jihadist onslaught, war alone is not the answer.

 

We must also fight for the hearts and minds of Muslims. Jihad is at the core of Islam. It is the method through which militant Islam tries to rule the world. It is the rule, not the exception.

Until we confront that reality, victories over terrorism will be short-lived. Peace will be elusive.

Tags:                 Middle East            ,                                    Muslim Brotherhood            ,                                    Islamic Extremists            ,                                    Radical Islam            ,                                    9/11

Michael Youssef

Dr. Michael Youssef is the author of 27 books including his most recent and timely Blindsided: The Radical Islamic Conquest. His blog: www.michaelyoussef.com Follow on Twitter: @MichaelAYoussef

http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelyoussef/2012/04/01/blindsided_911_was_the_rule_not_the_exception/page/full/

Obama Calls It Fairness. The GOP Calls It Class Warfare. Scripture Calls It Envy

Obama, in his State of the Union address and during his initial five-state, multi-million dollar taxpayer funded re-election jaunt has stated repeatedly that his platform and policies are not about class warfare, which means, of course, that his ticket is all about class warfare—or “fairness,” as he likes to call it … or as the Scripture labels it, envy.

You don’t hear much about envy anymore, do you? We hear a lot about greed being bad, but in Obamaland envy is no longer a rank vice but a right and a virtue. However, historically speaking, envy has always been seen as a high-ranking sin. Envy, matter of fact, is second on the Seven Deadly Sins list as it lags behind pride a wee bit in being the nastiest and most common vice.

Ancient in its poison, envy forms a big chunk of the foul compost heap that stimulates the growth of human stupidity. Envy is an extremely toxic sin that doesn’t get the verbal hailstorm that other sins receive in our current entitlement culture with its totemic view of vice. Someone who has been saddled by the envy monkey will probably not make the evening news like a politician who has been caught in bed with a live man or a dead woman or who keeps his freezer stuffed with cash.

No, envy is not that sexy and doesn’t have the buzz that zings around a greedy Goldman Sachs exec. Because this sin doesn’t get MSNBC’s attention like the more juicy transgressions, we tend to see it as less naughty. But be not deceived, my brethren: This sin is disastrous once it sticks its talons into a person, party, religion, or nation.

Another distinguishing feature of the funk of envy is that it is no fun. All vices sport a momentary spice. All of them, that is, except for envy. Envy is the one sin the sinner will never like or admit. You’ll never see someone who is envious chilling out, laughing his butt off, or relaxing with his friends while this demon rules the roost. The more envy grows, the more it drives its impenitent coddler nuts.

So, what is envy? Well … let’s start with what it is not. It’s not admiring what someone else has and wanting some good stuff also. This desire will make you get off your butt in the morning and get busy. It is good to crave; a man’s appetite will make him work. Where envy differs from admiration/emulation is that envy is “sorrow at another’s good” (said Thomas Aquinas). Someone who is centered can watch another person, party, or nation prosper and not grow hateful because of it.

The whacked, petty, envious dolt, however, sees someone else excel and is slapped in the face with the reality that he just got dogged. So, instead of sucking it up and working harder and smarter, the unwise envious freak allows his pride to fuel his wounded little spirit. This sets the dejected perp down a path of disparagement of the prosperous that eventually morphs into the desire to destroy the person, party or nation that has just trumped this sad little person.

Os Guinness, best-selling author and renowned lecturer, states that the sin of envy has several common characteristics:

1. Envy is the vice of proximity. We are always prone to envy people close to us in temperament, gifts or position.

2. Envy is highly subjective. It is in the eye of the beholder. It is not the objective difference between people that feeds envy, but the subjective perception. As a Russian proverb says, “envy looks at a juniper bush and sees a pine forest.”

3. Envy doesn’t lessen with age. It gets worse as we run into more and more people of happiness and success, offering more fodder for envy.

4. Envy is often petty but always insatiable and all consuming. However small the occasion that gives rise to it, envy becomes central to the envier’s whole being. The envier “stews in his juice.” Envy begins with pride and then plunges the person into hatred.

5. Envy is always self-destructive. What the envier cannot enjoy, no one should enjoy, and thus the envier loses every enjoyment. The envier’s motto is “if not I, then no one.” As an eighth-century Jewish teacher put it, “the one who envies gains nothing for himself and deprives the one he envies of nothing. He only loses thereby.”

Y’know, there are many forces tearing at this land and many nations that would like to level our nation. That said, I believe this envious entitlement funk that’s speedily weaving its way into the fabric of our national life will destroy it faster than al-Qaeda could ever al-Hope to.

Tags:                 Media and Culture            ,                                    Faith and Family            ,                                    GOP            ,                                    Barack Obama            ,                                    Envy

Doug Giles

Doug Giles is the author of Raising Righteous & Rowdy Girls. Follow him on Twitter @Doug_Giles and on Facebook. You can see and hear Doug’s video blog and talk show at ClashRadio.com.

http://townhall.com/columnists/douggiles/2012/01/29/obama_calls_it_fairness_the_gop_calls_it_class_warfare_scripture_calls_it_envy/page/full/