OBAMA LIED, PEOPLE DIED (OR WENT TO JAIL)

Well, it seems our President has been lying to us.  Surprise, surprise.  Apparently an al Qaeda splinter group called Ansar-al-Sharia claimed responsibility for the attack early on and this information was on secured diplomatic wires within two hours of the start of the raid.  Including, according to Reuters, the White House Situation Room.

The most common argument coming from the left right now on the issue of whether or not President Obama knew the attack on our mission in Benghazi was a planned terrorist attack relies heavily on the reasoning that Obama didn't want to "shoot first and aim later", as he (incorrectly) accused Romney of doing regarding his critique of the US Embassy's statement on free speech and the Egyptian protests. The problem with that argument is that, while it is commendable to want to get all of the facts first, the reality is, he didn't.   Apparently when he made that statement about the video on Sept. 12th, he didn't know that the White House also released a statement distancing themselves from the embassy's statement, mirroring Romney's 10pm release, at 11pm on Sept. 11th.

Perhaps he was concerned with not wanting to damage whatever progress he has made with the members of the Muslim Brotherhood that have been visiting the White House recently, so instead he made the executive decision to introduce a whipping boy to keep the heat off the real perpetrators.  How else to explain his blaming events on a Coptic christian in California who made a stupid, obscure video instead of the very real terrorist threat ever rising in North Africa?

The excuse of "He didn't want to jump to conclusions" is specious, because he did, in reality, 'jump to conclusions'.  Unfortunately, the conclusion he jumped to was that, as per usual with Mr. Obama, America is somehow to blame for everything.  And this time, instead of a straw man for the usual speech denouncing whatever it is he wants to distance himself from, he had a real man on whom to pin the blame.  The problem isn't the terrorists, you see, it's our pesky right to free speech.

By the way, why is it award-winning 'art' to fantasize about Jesus' sex life, but a crime to do the same with Mohammad?

That real man languishes even now - weeks after his arrest, and in solitary confinement - in prison on a parole violation.

Where is the outrage over this?

Yes, the fact that the President lied about the events in Libya are concerning, but no more so than the fact that he is okay with a US resident being thrown in jail and labeled a murderer by society so that he doesn't take a political hit on his campaign stump claim that al Qaeda is on the run.  What is really mind-boggling is the fact that the media - the fourth estate, our vital watchdogs - are trying their best to sweep it all under the rug.  Who would have thought that the American media wouldn't question a Nobel Peace Prize winner thinking it's okay to jail people for speaking their minds when his political life is on the line?  Rush Limbaugh likened it to Woodward and Bernstein covering up Watergate for Nixon. 

This isn't the only example of Obama's refusal to cop to terrorism being a major issue.  Let's not forget the Ft. Hood shooting that claimed thirteen service members and injured dozens of others.  The Obama administration to this day refuses to call it an act of terror, preferring instead to label it 'workplace violence'.   Even though Hasan was mentored by Anwar al-Awlaki.   Even though he shouted 'Allahu akbar!' as he murdered members of our military on home soil.  Even though he had a history of support for jihad.  Even though he continues to follow the al Qaeda playbook on working the judicial/military tribunal systems in the event of capture - right down to suddenly growing a beard and then refusing to shave it for religious reasons (in reality it is about flaunting army hygiene rules and quite effectively putting the brakes of postponement on his impending trial). 

It's interesting how our president is so concerned about not wanting to have a knee-jerk response to terrorists, but is quite comfortable throwing American citizens and military personnel under the bus.  Doesn't this speak to character?  Is this really the best man to be in charge of our country and our military?

Isn't this just as important as who knew what, and when, in Benghazi?

It isn't just that the White House knew within two hours that Benghazi was a terrorist attack - although finding out our president has been baldly lying to us is never 'optimal' and deserves a high level of scrutiny to determine just how big the lie might be.  It's that we now know that the White House, for more than two weeks (and in front of an international audience), blamed and demonized a private citizen for exercising his right to free speech when they knew damn well that, at best, that video was just a convenient excuse for al Qaeda to gin up cover for their actions.

Can you imagine the hue and cry if it had been a republican president who had sat quietly by as Nakoula was taken escorted from his house at midnight and placed in custody for a parole violation and some friendly "quizzing" after spending weeks demonizing him in every forum available?  It's not hard to envision the protesters now, camped out near both the prison where he awaits his fate and in front of the White House, signs in hand calling for impeachment or arrest for war crimes and maybe even a burning effigy or two.  There would be a whole cottage industry of 'Free Nakoula!' t-shirts and bumper stickers, quite possibly with a picture of him pensively staring off into the distance, towel draped at a jaunty angle on his head.  Celebrities would speak out against the dictatorship that had incarcerated this innocent man....oh, I'm sorry, the celebrities come out for homicidal maniacs and cop killers, not free speech.  Silly me.  You get the picture, though.

Have we really reached the point where, a mere eleven years out from 9/11, we are okay with assuming the terrorists are innocent and Americans guilty? 

If the American president doesn't have the backs of American citizens and our most basic Constitutional rights, who does?

Read more...

OBAMA LIED, PEOPLE DIED (OR WENT TO JAIL)

OCCUPYING THE HUNGER GAMES

As the mom of a teenaged daughter, I find myself reading many books I normally might not, such as the less than exciting Twilight series (although kudos to author Stephanie Meyer for keeping it clean and having Bella wait 'til her wedding night - a rare and refreshing thing in young adult literature these days).  But I like to know what my kids are reading, as there are so many questionable books out there.  And so I found myself reading the much-hyped Hunger Games.  I absolutely loved them.  In fact, I read all three books in four days.

For those unfamiliar with the series, it follows the events of heroine Katniss Everdeen and the two young men who love her, Peeta and Gale.  But this is no love story, not by a long shot.  No, this book is bloodsport and survival.  A David and Goliath story, in which Goliath isn't some rich banker or CEO; Goliath is a vicious, ends-justify-the-means, oppressive totalitarian governmental regime.   Unfortunately, one of the stars of The Hunger Games, Donald Sutherland, (perhaps lead there a bit by the interviewer) said this at a recent interview:

Q: It's interesting that you could really connect it to the Occupy moment. The underdog speech is something you might hear on conservative radio.


Sutherland: Exactly, yeah. Yeah. Except for Rush [Limbaugh] [laughs]. I bet Lionsgate doesn't want us to dwell too much on Occupy Wall Street. But you're right. I went there. I went to Occupy Vancouver. It felt so good. Somewhere around '74, whatever we were doing was co-opted. It was commercialized. It became a brand and everybody lost heart. I have here [reaches for his briefcase], I have it here I don't want to take it out, The Port Huron Statement, that the SDS made in 1962... Oh god, read it. Read it! Read it! It's so -- it's just brilliant. It's really brilliant. It's brilliant today and I can't read it because I can't see properly, but it ends with something to the effect of 'You might think that what we are proposing is unattainable. But we're proposing that because otherwise what is going to happen is unimaginable.' And that's what happened.

Uh, okaaaay....  By the way, for those not in the know, the SDS is the Students for a Democratic Society - a radical '60's group that eventially spawned the Weather Underground, the radical group of bombers headed by William Ayers.  So, what Sutherland expects us to believe then is that Occupy's main target isn't bankers, hedge fund managers or CEO's, it's the over reaching federal government?  Interesting.  And here I though that was the Tea Party.  Silly me.

Anyhoo, back to the book.  Learning a little about the story is all you need to see how wrong Sutherland is in his socialistic rapture.  His interpretation is so off the mark that it's difficult to imagine he even read the script, let alone the books. 

The setting is a post-apocolyptic America, now called Panem, which has been broken down into thirteen Districts, all ruled by the iron fist of the Capital's President Snow (Sutherland's character).  Each district is known for the product it produces:  District Four, being near the ocean, produced fish and seafood; District Seven produced lumber; District Twelve, Katniss' home, produced coal.  Travel between districts was only allowed to Capital officials, military, and lesser officials stationed in the various districts, not the general population.  If you were born in District Three, you died in District Three. 

Many years before Katniss' time, District Thirteen rebelled against the Capital.  Reprisal was swift and merciless - no less than the total destruction of the district - and the legacy of that rebellion was the Hunger Games.

The Games are a yearly event where two candidates, or 'tributes', were sent from each District to the Capital.  The tributes, children between the ages of 12-18, were selected at the annual "Reaping", where one male and one female tribute would be randomly chosen from each district.  Of those twenty-four chosen, only one would survive.  The Games were a major event, broadcast to every District.  Viewing was required. 

The point of the Reaping and the Games themselves was psychological warfare, meant to keep the remaining districts docile and in line.   The yearly reminder of the ruthlessness with which the Capital put down Thirteen's rebellion is the harshest imaginable: Defy us, and we will kill all of your children.

The prize for the winner?  Fame and riches beyond measure courtesy of the Capital, plus additional bonuses of food and other necessities to the winner's home district for that year.  This was an important incentive for Katniss, whose home district was the poorest of them all and starvation was something barely kept at bay.  In fact, the spectre of starvation was so strong that, upon the loss of her father at a young age, Katniss took it upon herself to learn to hunt with a bow, sneaking out of the district into the fertile hunting grounds of the surrounding wilderness to keep her mother and sister alive. 

Katniss' culture shock upon arriving at the wealthy Capital is much like the culture shock citizens of communist block countries endured after the fall of the Iron Curtain.   As with totalitarian states in the real world, Panem's Capital sucked up all the resources of it's satellite districts, concentrating the wealth in the elite political classes and those who leech off of them. 

The pomp and propaganda of the Games is reminiscent of both the Roman Circus and the propaganda films of the Nazi party.  The blood quells the masses and every moment is spun politically to favor the State.

Katniss rebels against this system, not out of noble intent or a revived American spirit.  America is something she knows nothing about, becasue her history was stolen from her long ago by the Capital.  But self preservation and a desire for freedom cannot be quashed, not even by the most ruthless regimes.  We see parallels today in Syria, where the people refuse to back down, even though their leader, Assad, has now resorted to bombing their cities. 

Katniss eventually (in subsequent books) comes across an underground network whose sole mission is to depose Snow and bring down the Capital.  She joins forces with them, only to discover later that the system they would impose is no better (and possibly a bit worse) than that of the Capital. 

The point is, at every turn, Katniss chooses freedom over the totalitarian state.  The enemy isn't the people who make the goods, the enemy is the government that unfairly prospers while the people they profess to be loving caretakers of languish and die from starvation and disease.

Perhaps Sutherland misunderstood his character.  Perhaps he thought the character's name, President Snow, denoted some other title, such as CEO.  Now granted, this first movie only covers the first book, which doesn't include the later information involving the possible overthrow of the Capital.  So perhaps he thinks that Snow wins out in the end, and the nanny state, which Sutherland apparently believes knows best, continues on unaltered. 

Unfortunately for President Snow, author Suzanne Collins ends the rule of the Capital the way many totalitarian regimes end - with rebellion and bloodshed.  If the Occupy movement were a part of the story, they would be fighting on the side of their beloved nanny state, not the side of the rebels, who want to take away their "free" stuff and replace it with true liberty.

Long story short, my daughter and I can't wait to see the movie (opening nationwide March 23rd).  And I can't wait for the sequels to start production, too, so that Mr. Sutherland can get a fuller picture of just what, exactly, the whole thing is all about.

Read more...

OCCUPYING THE HUNGER GAMES

THE SPENDING IS NUTS

My husband sent me this (thanks, Joe!), and I just had to post it.  It is a short film by Justin Folk called "The Spending is Nuts".  It's a charming story about a nation of squirrels gone awry.  This film is so good, you might even want to show it to your kids (via ebaums world):





Looks like it's up to us to give those squirrels a happy ending in 2012!

Read more...

THE SPENDING IS NUTS

COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET

Over the past decade or so, the far left have managed to create a climate of hate and disdain for America. It's one thing to bash a president or member of Congress - it's nothing new, really. Taken in present-day context, is it any wonder that the creator of the Democrat party, Thomas Jefferson (a slave owner, btw) hired a "hatchet man" to slander opponent John Adams and "steal" the election?   And how did he do it?  Called him a bunch of names and accused him of wanting to go to war with France.  Amazing how the tactics haven't changed in 210 years, isn't it?  But I digress.  Somewhere along the way, the hyperbole mutated and it became fashionable to hate the country, too. 

It's safe to say that a lot of this mindset has germinated in the fertile minds of our teenagers and young adults - planted there by their elitist, European-wannabe teachers and college professors.  The media has also had a hand in this, as has the Hollywood propaganda machine.  It is well known that conservatives in Hollywood have to keep their views quiet if they want to work. 

It is, quite frankly, nothing short of a miracle that pro-capitalist, anti-government characters like Ironman's Tony Stark are permitted to be portrayed anymore.  Even Captain America is emigrating to London.  Good riddance.  To be fair, since most of the movie revolves around WWII, the Captain America shoot in Europe makes some sense, but the kicker is that they made the final decision to do the filming there because of England's favorable tax incentives.  Hard to believe that just a few decades ago, we had a "British Invasion" of artists coming to the US to escape high European taxation....

Those who love their country have been forced underground.  Hollywood's liberal elites and their blackballing of conservatives is by far the worst case, but elsewhere in the country people look down their noses at those who are unabashedly proud of their country.  One such person is actress Gwyneth Paltrow (via TownHall):

"At the moment there's a weird, over-patriotic atmosphere over there, like, 'We're number one and the rest of the world doesn't matter."

Yes darling, it's called patriotism.  Just as the English love England, the French love France, the Swedes love Sweden, and on and on.  Generally, those who don't like the country of their birth are free to leave at any time, as Ms. Paltrow has so graciously done.  Apparently her disdain for America and it's citizens doesn't keep her from taking the money they spend on her movies.  Hopefully she is paid in euros so she doesn't have to see all that awful patriotic symbolism on our greenbacks, which would no doubt be quite upsetting for her. 

It is just amazing to me that those who love this country have to hide it, for fear of retribution.  "Coming out" as a patriot seems to be as shocking and culturally unacceptable these days as coming out as a gay person was twenty years ago.  Back then, coming out gay meant you were slandered as a freak or "unnatural", and there have unfortunately been some instances of hate crimes.  Coming out as a patriot means you are a danger to society and not in your right mind, and there are also, unfortunately, instances of hate crimes.  Just ask Kenneth Gladney.  What really gets me is those who think patriots are treasonous or seditious. 

There is a beautiful song called "American Heart" that has become the unofficial anthem of the Tea Parties:





The song's writer and singer, Jon David, had to hide his identity (Johnathan Kahn) because he also happens to be a Hollywood screenwriter/director.  He finally came out of the closet and declared himself a conservative.  Good for you, Mr. Kahn.  Hopefully he will still be able to find employment in Hollywood after this. 

Ah, Hollywood - the hypocritical center of the liberal universe.

Only in Hollywood can they rail against the blackballing and "political witch-hunts" of the 1950's while simultaniously seeing nothing wrong with blackballing conservatives today.  But then, they are also one of the largest, most vocal anti-capitalism groups in the country, while simultaniously making obscene money in their purely capitalist endeavours.  And let's not forget their love of corporation bashing - good thing they don't use corporate tie-ins, product placement or sell merchandise related to their movies. 

And so Mr. Kahn's career is in jeopardy now because he dared to speak his mind and support his country.  You might say he's suffering under Hollywood's own "don't ask, don't tell" policy.  Since the liberals seem so fond of boycotting these days, perhaps it's time to remind Hollywood that they are really capitalists at heart and that punishing others for exercising their rights to free speech and bashing the country and people who have made them rich and famous can have repercussions. 

Since summer is the movie industry's biggest moneymaking season, it's time to boycott Hollywood.  Not just the movies, but the merchandise and DVD sales too.  Instead of having to take out a second mortgage to plunk down a ridiculous amount of money for tickets, popcorn, drinks and candy, bypass the theater this summer.  Dust off some pre-merchandising, pre-product placement classics like "George Washington Slept Here", "The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer", "The Wizard of Oz", "The Long, Long Trailer", or even "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and introduce your kids to the golden age of Hollywood.  Those are all great American movies, made at a time when being American was a point of pride, and Hollywood was actually a patriotic place.

It's no accident that the "Golden Age of Hollywood" ended when the liberal counter-culture took root. 

Those classic movies have no explicit sex scenes, cursing or humor that would make you or your kids blush, and because they didn't use those cheap devices; they had to rely on good storylines to make a hit.   It sure beats the rehashed dreck Hollywood is passing off as entertainment these days.  More importantly, though, the image of America that Hollywood projected then was unabashedly patriotic, because those in Hollywood back then understood how lucky they were.  Not just to be in movies, but to be in America, the land of opportunity. 

So join Mr. Kahn and come on out of the closet.  Be loud, be proud, and make 'em get used to it.  And please try to support those artists who are brave enough to buck the system.  With any luck, it will encourage more to do the same, and we'll have a counter-counter-cultural revolution!

Read more...

COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET