Spy on the Press? Yes we can!!

Obama's pathetic excuse
for Attorney General,
Eric Holder

As they like to say here in the south before they "diss" you, "Bless his sweet little heart, President Obama is so phony." At a recent press conference, he was answering a reporter's question about Fox News reporter, Jame Rosen's emails and phone records subpoenaed by the DOJ on trumped-up charges of espionage.

President Obama, always wanting to have it both ways, always wanting to be on both sides of the issue so as to appear reasonable and above the fray, tells the assembled journalists that he's for freedom of the press, but he also WON'T STOP his own Justice Dept. from investigating Fox reporter James Rosen on charges of consorting with the enemy. 

Esteemed journalist, James Rosen, Fox News

Then, in an effort to placate the press and show how magnanimous he is, President Obama tosses them a bone and says he's proposing a MEDIA SHIELD LAW that would protect journalists from having their emails and phone records subpoenaed by the DOJ or any government agency.

In case you've been living in a cave for the past month, the Dept. of Justice headed up by Eric Holder shopped phony, trumped up charges to 3 different judges before they found one stupid enough or ideological enough to sign a court order allowing them to seize Fox reporter James Rosen's emails & phone records. They told the judge that Rosen was a flight risk and that he was a criminal co-conspirator engaging in possible espionage against his own country! How's that for serious charges?

Of course, you know it would have to be a Fox News reporter. Obama and Holder wouldn't go after any reporter of the NY Times, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC--because they're ALL in the tank for the Obama administration. In fact, the mainstream media are nothing more than stenographers for Obama. They report whatever the Obama administration wants. That's why they all have the same talking points, using the same words, because they're ALL reading it from the same White House script.

Jump forward to today, June 6. As of today, we learn that Attorney General, Eric Holder, told reporters this past Tuesday in a "candid", closed meeting, that James Rosen wasn't aiding the enemy--he was just reporting the news. So which is it? If he was just reporting the news, then why were his phone & emails sought by the Dept. of Justice with phony, trumped up charges?

Back to Obama's suggestion that we need have a Media Shield Law to protect journalists from evil men like Eric Holder, who BTW, is only doing Obama's bidding. And Obama says he's proposing that just such a law like a Media Shield Law be enacted by Congress.

I have a news flash for our President who is supposed to be a constitutional scholar (of course we'll never know since his academic records are sealed and we don't even know if he ever attended one day of classes or graduated from any school including Harvard) regarding the Media Shield Law--We already have it and it's called the FIRST AMENDMENT.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

What does "salt of the earth" have to do with a gymnasium?

Sardis, located in present day Turkey

My wife is always telling me that I use too much salt, and when I have my yearly visit to the doctor, this is also confirmed by elevated blood pressure numbers. Before there was refrigeration, salt was used as a preservative. Along these lines, Jesus said in Matthew 5:13, "You are the salt of the earth. If the salt loses its saltiness, it's no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled on the ground by men."

In the book of Revelation, Jesus issues a strong warning to the church at Sardis which has lost its saltiness. "I know your deeds. You have a reputation of being alive but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God" (Revelation 3:1-2).

What led Jesus to say such strong words to this community of faith in Sardis? Was it because they were slowly compromising what they believed with the pagans among them? Or where there other reasons that Jesus' words became such a powerful teaching for those believers who chose to live at the crossroads of their world?

One of the most impressive ruins in Sardis (located in present day Turkey) is that of a Greek gymnasium and Roman bathhouse. The gymnasium was the center of Greek culture much as our fitness clubs, athletic centers and gyms are today. But for the Greeks, their gymnasium also served as the center for instruction in literature about the Greek gods, philosophy, math and medicine. They also enjoyed the pleasures and vices of the Roman baths.

The Sardis Gymnasium Synagogue

Here is the amazing thing--In one corner of that immoral, self-glorifying gymnasium, archaeologists have uncovered the largest synagogue of that time period ever found. They discovered defaced pagan symbols on the walls of the synagogue as well as images of the goddess Cybele.

I've always thought that it would be cool to have a church service within a gymnasium and then during the week, the gym would serve to benefit the community with basketball, volleyball, etc. But obviously, there was more going on in the Greek gymnasium than a simple pickup game of basketball.

Here's the question: Did the Jews in Sardis place their synagogue within the walls of the Greek gymnasium in order to influence the Greek citizens or did they adapt to the pagan way of life so much so that they saw no discrepancy between worshiping God and the pagan way of life? In other words, did the believers at Sardis lose their saltiness? Did they compromise with the culture of their day to such an extent that they would be seen by the Lord as asleep or dead? Are we making similar compromises? Are we losing our saltiness? Would the Lord utter similar words about our state of slumber or appearing to be dead? Just wondering?

Follow the Rabbi website

If you want to read more about Sardis and "The Salt of the Earth", go to one of my favorite sights: Follow the Rabbi.

 At Follow the Rabbi, you can learn about the world of Jesus, and journey in the footsteps of the disciples. You'll be able to study the Word in the original context, and explore the culture of Jesus' day. This website is a seminary education in itself since it opens your understanding to the Word of God and it's actual meaning to us through the context of the prophets and the apostles. 

Check it out. You won't be sorry. Follow the Rabbi will help you to better understand the Bible and bring you to a closer relationship with Jesus, the Rabbi of all rabbis, our Lord and Savior. 

Raised on the mother's milk of the Saturday Afternoon Matinee

When I was a kid, my mom and dad would take me and my brother to the drive-in to see movies like "Jailhouse Rock" with Elvis. I also remember my parents taking us to the Fox Theater in Redondo Beach, CA. to see the monster film, "The Monster That Challenged the World" where giant mollusk monsters attack coming up out of the sea. Since the Fox Redondo was situated next to the Pacific Ocean, I'll never forget my dread that we might see one of those monsters rising up out of the water on our way back to our car. 

On another occasion, my mom chaperoned me and my friend on a Friday night to see The Spirit of St. Louis" with Jimmy Stewart. What a great film. I felt like I was there in the cockpit with Charles Lindbergh as he was battling fatigue and an annoying fly buzzing around the cockpit.

If Hollywood films were my movie cradle, then Saturday afternoon matinees were my mother's milk, once my mom decided to let me venture out with my friends to the Park Theater on Crenshaw Blvd. in Gardena. She had to overcome the thought of me being run over by a car or beat-up by some neighborhood thugs. Those were the days when no one ever thought about their kid being abducted.

Our first stop was Sav-On Drugs where we could buy 3 candy bars for 10-cents, or 8 candy bars for 25-cents. Even then this was an amazing price and it was several decades before they downsized the candy bars. Even if you decided to buy candy from the theater snack bar, the price was more like 15-cents for a Butterfinger candy bar, and 25-cents for popcorn.

Today, you have to take out a loan to buy popcorn and soda at your local cinema. The matinees seemed to go on forever with movie trailers, Roadrunner, Bugs Bunny & Disney cartoons, shorts like The Three Stooges, and then a double-feature. This was before movie ratings, so you might see a Bob Hope movie paired with Paul Newman's "Long Hot Summer" which was definitely an adult film. But more often than not,  the films would be suited for kids with features like Francis, the Talking Mule, and the Absent-Minded Professor, or Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein paired with Michael Landon in "I Was a Teenage Werewolf."

My tastes were varied and I could just as easily enjoy "The Pit and the  Pendulum" starring Vincent Price and Peter Lorre, the Rogers and Hammerstein musical, South Pacific, "Lawrence of Arabia" with Peter O'Toole, or Ben-Hur with Charlton Heston.

It was the Saturday matinees that started my love affair with motion pictures. In college, I traveled in my VW bug to see the student films at USC and UCLA. I saw the student films of George Lucas (before Star Wars' fame), as well as Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard (after his stint as Opie on Andy Griffith). I also remember an assignment in a college design course which required all of us to go to UCLA on a Thursday night to see Lawrence Olivier's Wuthering Heights, made in 1939 in beautiful b&w. It was BORING and I think I slept through most of it. But the accompanying feature awakened me from my slumber and made my entire trip to Westwood worthwhile: "To Kill a Mockingbird" with Gregory Peck. It too was in b&w but I could not have cared less. I was drawn in to the story of Atticus Finch, a lawyer in the South during the depression who decided to defend a black man. 

This film was so atmospheric. You felt the summer heat wave as Atticus walks in loosening his tie and wiping the perspiration off his forehead. For two hours, this film, told through the eyes of his daughter, Scout, made me feel like I was in the South during the depression and it gave me a glimpse into racism, fear, ignorance and hatred. This film was also the acting debut of Robert Duvall as Boo Radley.

I still have a love for movies and over the years have developed a taste for foreign films. I don't have any problems with subtitles. In fact, I prefer subtitles any day to a dubbed film. (Check out my Pinterest board of favorite documentary films.)

Finally, living here in Western Kentucky, I meet Christians all the time who never go to the movies, and never went to movies as a kid--unless it was a Billy Graham film, or something really gripping like "Thief in the Night." No offense cause I was "saved" at a Billy Graham Crusade and felt that some of the Billy Graham films were pretty decent and entertaining as well as presenting the gospel. I wish I could say the same for "Thief in the Night." But, if all you were able to watch were "Christian films" while growing up, I feel sorry for you. You missed some really great movies, some cinematic masterpieces, which for me personally, opened up the world and brought me face to face with some unforgettable actors in roles I'll never forget.

I am thankful that my mom and dad placed a quarter in my hand every Saturday so I could go to the matinee. It was money and time well-spent. 

Obama declares: "all wars must end...." but doesn't say when? Duh??

Here I am on vacation at Ft. Morgan Beach (a narrow peninsula) on the Gulf, and even though I’ve scanned the Wall Street Journal daily, I've tried to abstain from posting this week. This was supposed to be a get away from the daily grind. 

The view from our front deck. Ft. Morgan beach, Gulf Shores, Alabama

For the most part, I’ve succeed with time in the water, sitting on the beach reading my Nook, eating loads of shrimp while enjoying my own personal air show courtesy of the Navy’s Blue Angels. On their daily flyovers from Pensacola, FL., they engage in incredible maneuvers, heading straight up into the clouds then descending like a bullet to within a few hundred feet from the ocean, followed up by flying upside down with an afterburner trail of smoke. These guys are amazing! Even the Navy for all its political-correctness has not yet succeeded in emasculating the Blue Angels and our Top Gun pilots.

F-18 flyover upside down

Unfortunately, my vacation was interrupted last night by news that President Obama was “resetting the war on terror.” Duh?? What’s that mean??

What grabbed my attention was his babbling statement: 'This War, Like All Wars, Must End'." What tripe! This is RICH, coming from the very man who has been so busy demonizing fat cat bankers, millionaires and billionaires when he should have been targeting Islamic terrorists. Instead for the past five years, Obama’s target has been successful Americans.

"all wars must end..." Well bozo, this one isn't over, as illustrated by the killings of military, more than 10, the same day of his babbling. The idea that Obama will cozy up to the Muslims by closing Guantanamo and sending a hundred or so back to Yemen (so they can fight again) is crazy because at no time in history has a nation released its prisoners until a war came to an end and a treaty was signed.

From my knowledge of history, a war NEVER truly comes to an end until one side (your enemy) is defeated. In other words, WWII did NOT come to an end until Germany and Japan were defeated.

Where would we be today if Germany and Japan had not been conquered and brought to their knees? This is why it’s so foolish to expect a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians to really work. It's not worth the paper it's written on. No peace treaty will succeed until one of them is defeated and humbly brought to the table to sign a treaty as a defeated foe (and that would be the Palestinians). On a similar note, Jesus does not come back to earth to reign and rule until the great Battle of Armageddon where all the nations that attempt to destroy Israel are defeated. He also does not create a new heaven and a new earth until Satan is defeated and sent packing to the Lake of Fire (Rev. 20). 

I have a news flash for Pres. Obama—Al Qaeda is growing and expanding its outreach worldwide, including Al-Shabaab in Somalia, Sudan, Kenya as well as Boko Haram and Ansaru in northern Nigeria who have received training from Al Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is making inroads in Latin America in Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. We also have the fast-growing Jemaah Islamiyah terror group in Indonesia.  

According to Obama and the Left,
 Rush is America's greatest threat

The war on radical Islam (and re-read my past posts—most of Islam IS RADICAL) will not be won until it is defeated. Unfortunately, we currently have a president who won’t even use the term “Islamic terrorist.” He is still fighting a battle against America’s greatest enemy: Rich, successful, white, conservative Christians. Oh and the other big enemy (worse than any Islam terrorist) is one that Obama would target with a drone strike if he thought he could get away with it. That enemy? Rush Limbaugh.

The President fires the acting IRS commissioner--I know I'm going to sleep better tonight!

We can all rest easier now that Obama has demanded the resignation of acting IRS commissioner, Steven Miller, who by the way, was going to leave his post in another 4 weeks. What Obama did was fire a guy less than a month before he planned to leave anyway. Miller took one for the team, and he will be rewarded with another high-level job.

All Obama did was toss a bone to conservatives and the Media (Obama's stenographers) with his stellar acting performance, portraying an outraged president. 

This will satisfy low-information voters who get their news from Jon Stewart, USAToday, NBC, MTV, or People Magazine. But for the other 50% who really know what's going on, it's a joke and Obama is laughing at all of us behind closed doors. 

Lois Lerner, director of IRS exempt organizations division

What about firing Lois Lerner who is at the center of all this? She is the director of the IRS exempt organizations division. The National Review Online has an excellent headline article today: The Nine Lies of Lois Lerner by Kevin D. Williamson (follow the link).

What about Doug Shulman, former director of the IRS who in March 2012 lied before Congress, under oath, saying that there was NO targeting of any political groups. 

Here's a novel idea: Start by issuing subpoenas to the low level "rogues" in Cincinnati. They'll spill their guts in a New York minute and lead investigators up the food chain to the source.

Is it any comfort to you that Obama has hired 17,000 new IRS agents to run Obamacare? Do you see where this is going? If you are a left-wing liberal, or progressive organization, you'll probably be given exemptions to Obamacare.

If Obama or his minions don't like you or your politics, they can effectively stop you from getting the healthcare you need or they can make you pay through the nose to get any kind of health coverage. We are becoming more and more like Nazi Germany in the 1930s--only instead of the Gestapo, we have the IRS. Instead of Hitler, we have.....fill in the blank.

Corruption in the IRS? Say it isn't so.

Corruption in the IRS? Say it isn't so. Who would've thought that people who work for the government would show an intolerance toward those who want to eradicate their careers. The IRS has always been a blood=sucking leech on society. What would we do without big government programs to redistribute our money to their friends? This is the same IRS that is hiring 13000 new agents to ENFORCE Obamacare (with emphasis on "enforce").

The IRS denies having conducted a partisan witch-hunt against tea-party groups in the run-up to the 2012 election, arguing that its improper targeting of conservative groups was the result of a series of procedural errors rather than a political attack with malice forethought.

But the IRS is keeping the relevant evidence secret, so you will just have to take the agency’s word for it. Lois Lerner, the IRS official in charge of handling tax-exempt organizations, made what appeared to be an impromptu confession Friday during a tax conference hosted by the American Bar Association, saying that groups with the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their names were improperly targeted for additional levels of tax-status review by the agency. Those actions, she said, were “wrong” and “inappropriate,” but she denied that they were the result of political bias against tea-party groups.

When asked how the IRS determined that the actions were not the result of political bias, Ms. Lerner could only say, “That is not how we do things.

Does Ms. Lerner really expect us to believe that these low-level grunts at the Cincinnati IRS decided on their own with no orders from above to target conservative groups? 

" The IRS also stresses that our employees—all career civil servants—will continue to be guided by tax law and not partisan issues."

The funny thing is that the IRS thinks this is a comforting statement. Methinks the "career civil servants" need to be fired. While we're at it, fire the person they reported to. It's high time to name names. 

Apologies? Sorry, but we need more than weak, half-hearted apologies. Please provide the list of those fired from the IRS and confirm that their pensions have been forfeited. Every IRS employee knows what is permitted and what is not. These are serious crimes. Who in the Cincinnati office targeted these groups. Give us the names and stop your efforts to paper over the IRS' criminal behavior.

The Wall Street Journal concludes their editorial on Saturday with this sober reminder: 

Other than the power to prosecute, the taxing authority is the most awesome power the government has. It can ruin people and companies. When wielded for political purposes, it is a violation of the basic contract the American people have with their government. The abuse admitted by Ms. Lerner can't be dismissed in a casual apology on a casual Friday as no big deal. It's a very big and bad deal.

Blessed Be the Ties that Bind the Left to Islam

The LEFT here in America loves Islam

(By the LEFT, I mean folks like President Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton, the entire Democrat Party, your mainstream media including: NBC (Comcast), ABC, CBS, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, USA Today, etc. The LEFT even includes most of our State Department along with increasing representation from the Pentegon, U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force. Fortunately, for the time being, the Marines have not succumbed to Leftist politics.)   

The ties that bind the Left to Islam are many and include the LEFT's disdain for individual liberty, freedom, self-reliance and private property. One of the Left's great writers who had profound influence on Karl Marx is Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He has been an inspiration to many totalitarian regimes. Rousseau equated "freedom" with total submission to authority. Can you see why Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, FDR and Obama would love this guy? Rousseau believed in "democratic centralism." In other words, centralized control in the hands of the government which has the final word. This is nearly indistinguishable from Islam's "free choice" to surrender oneself totally to Allah.

From Obama's writings and many speeches, we learn that he is virulently anti-capitalist, anti-western, and anti-American. For Obama and his Islamist allies, capitalist democracy is an abject failure, full of racism and materialism. Obama as well as Islam deride the very thing that makes American society exceptional: Individual liberty and freedom.

Obama and the LEFT subscribe to "Alinsky's Rules." He was a committed Leftist revolutionary who wrote
the "Rules for Radicals." Obama was trained in this ideology, which influenced Malcolm X's clarion call: "By any means necessary." You can see that Islamic radicals also believe in the clarion call, "by any means necessary" including strapping bombs to themselves and blowing up buses with passengers, airplanes, even runners at the Boston Marathon.

On Jan. 26, 2009, Obama gave his first interview as America's new president to the Muslims on Arabic television where he pronounced: "My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy." Presidents of the United States do not have a "job to the Muslim world." Their job, actually, is to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution against all enemies, including Muslims if they happen to want to destroy our society.

On the heels of this interview to the Muslim world, Obama ordered the detention center at Guantanamo Bay closed within one year. His reasoning is that this would prohibit torture and make the world think nice happy thoughts about America. This is the same President who has no problem with killing unknown individuals, including civilians with drone attacks, but let the record show that he's opposed to any kind of torture. I guess being vaporized by a drone attack does not constitute torture since it happens so fast--where's the pain???

President Obama also charged NASA with a new mandate, not to go to Mars or to make another trip to the Moon--no this new charge was to reach out to the Muslim world to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science. Can you tell me how any Muslim contributions to science have helped us in our space endeavors? When this outrageous, idiotic pronouncement was made, not a peep was heard from the LEFT. Why? Because they hate NASA and anything that smacks of the military. That money could be better spent on government schools, or public housing, or green energy like Solyndra.

In Leftist ideology, there can only be equal protection under the law only if those laws produce equal outcomes. We can only have laws protecting us from terror provided that those who terrorize us (radical Muslims) are also protected. That's why Maj. Nidal Hassan, who while serving in the U.S. Army verbalized

Lt. Colonel, Nidal Hassan, U.S. Army terrorist

his support for radical Islam and jihad again and again, and this only served to get him promoted through theranks in the U.S. Army. On Nov. 5, 2009, he shot and killed 13 people and injured over 30. While doing this, he shouted out, "All praise to Allah!!" This terrorist act has been classified by our President and the Dept. of (in)Justice not as an act of terrorism but as "workplace violence."

It has been almost 4 years and Hassan has not been tried for his act of terrorism. But here is something worth noting. While he has been incarcerated at Leavenworth, awaiting trial, Army officials have promoted him to Lt. Colonel. Isn't it good to know that in today's Army, you can kill 13 of your fellow soldiers in the name of Allah, as an act of Jihad, and you can still receive a promotion. In our politically-correct, leftist Army, not even terrorism can keep you from moving up through the ranks!