Pennsylvania Voter Law Outrage: People Buying Guns Should Sue Over ID Requirement Because It Places Impossible Burden On 2nd Amendment Rights

“… the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”  — 2nd Amendment

Only that right IS being infringed, and infringed massively.  Don’t believe me?  Just listen to Democrats talk about the impossible barrier of trying to provide an ID to vote.

If it’s so hard to provide an ID to exercise my right to vote, then how the hell am I supposed to be able to produce one to exercise my right to buy a gun – said right being one that government isn’t supposed to be able to infringe?

If Democrats are right in protecting voters from meeting such a difficult burden, it means that Democrats are treasonous, Constitution-trampling fascists who have fundamentally and profoundly violated the 2nd Amendment.

Judge blocks Pennsylvania voter ID law ahead of election
Published October 02, 2012
FoxNews.com

A Pennsylvania judge on Tuesday blocked the state from enforcing its strict  voter ID law before the presidential election, citing “disenfranchisement”  concerns. The ruling in a vital battleground state comes five weeks before the  election.

The ruling, which could still be appealed, followed two days of testimony  about the state’s efforts to make it easier to get a valid photo ID, as well as  possible hurdles for those seeking proper identification.

The challenge to the six-month-old law is one of several across the country  to laws — largely backed by Republican legislators — requiring voters to show  photo identification.

Republicans say the laws are necessary to prevent election fraud. But  Democrats, who in Pennsylvania joined up with the AARP and NAACP in opposition,  claim residents could be blocked from exercising their right to vote.

Judge Robert Simpson said in his opinion Tuesday he anticipates that by  Election Day, “the gap between the photo IDs issued and the estimated need will  not be closed.”

He added: “Consequently, I am not still convinced in my predictive judgment  that there will be no voter disenfranchisement arising out of the Commonwealth’s  implementation of a voter identification requirement for purposes of the  upcoming election.”

The ruling blocks the law before November, but would still allow it to go  into effect next year. Shannon Royer, the state’s deputy secretary of state,  said officials are “reviewing all legal options” but said the state is “pleased”  the law itself was upheld.

“Under today’s ruling, voter ID will be implemented on a different timeframe.  This November, all voters will be asked to show photo ID when they vote, though  it will not be required,” she said in a statement.

The law was already a partisan lightning rod when a top Republican lawmaker  boasted over the summer that it would allow Republican nominee Mitt Romney to  beat Democratic President Obama in Pennsylvania.

Republicans, long suspicious of ballot-box stuffing in the Democratic bastion  of Philadelphia, justified the law as a protection against potential election  fraud.

Critics claim it could suppress minority turnout.

The plaintiffs — a group of registered voters, plus the Homeless Advocacy  Project, the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania chapter  of the NAACP — had sought to block the law from taking effect in this year’s  election as part of a wider challenge to its constitutionality.

The judge’s decision Tuesday could be appealed to the state Supreme Court,  but it could easily be the final word on the law before the Nov. 6  election.

The constitutionality of the law was not a question before the  judge.

Other states face similar debates over voting.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter ID law in 2008, and Georgia’s  top court upheld that state’s voter ID law. But a federal panel struck down  Texas’ voter ID law, and the state court in Wisconsin has blocked its voter ID  laws for now. The Justice Department cleared New Hampshire’s voter ID law  earlier this year.

Now here’s the damn deal: either recognize that photo IDs are a part of life today such that you can’t go visit Eric Holder’s Justice Department without having to show one, and you can’t go inside the Democrat National Convention without showing one, or you decide that it is such an impossible burden to meet which becomes a barrier to people being able to exercise their rights that we do away with the requirement to keep and bear arms.

Do I HAVE a right to visit the Justice Department?  Do I have a right to access a government courtroom?  I’ve got to show an ID to get in, you know.  And thus according to Democrats, I have been denied my right to access the government.  Just as I have been denied the right to access the goods and services of a free market because try to buy a TV without having to show an ID these days.

This is really a pretty asinine argument.

The problem, of course, is that Democrats are pure, distilled hypocrite in meat suits, and if you were to lock a Democrat in a room and sterilize hypocrisy from that room, you would find nothing but empty clothes.  Because if you take the hypocrite out of a Democrat, there’s nothing left of that Democrat.

Which is why the same Democrats that are literally doing everything they can to ensure that voter fraud can prevail among black and Hispanic areas (because such groups tend to vote Democrat) have likewise done everything they can to disenfranchise active duty military personnel from voting (because such members tend to vote Republican).

The right to vote is a dangerous thing; the Nazi Party (not to mention George W. Bush and Barack Hussein Obama) were elected into power.  It seems to me that ensuring that only authorized persons be allowed to vote is every as reasonable as ensuring that only authorized persons are allowed to exercise other rights.

I hope the next guy who is asked to show an ID when trying to buy a gun sues because it’s just too darn difficult a burden for him to provide and therefore his 2nd Amendment right has been violated.  And to prove that it is an impossible burden, all you’d have to do is start quoting the statements of Democrats and the decisions of liberal judges.

The Three Fingers Pointing Back At Atheists When Atheists Point A Finger At Christians About Evil And Judgment

You’ve probably heard that expression, “When you point a finger at me, three fingers are pointing back at you.”  Let’s work with that today.

I recently wrote an article with the deliberately provocative title, “Atheist Country Japan Smashed By Tsunami.”

It generated quite a few cross postings to atheist blogs and forums.

One recent example attacked Christians as being “happy” that Japan was stricken by disaster, and, in linking to my blog, said:

Of course, maybe it’s because of all teh gay [sic] in Japan, or because the Japanese are all atheists. Or maybe it’s because they worship demons.

…

What a nasty, horrible God is the one in which they believe. What nasty, horrible sentiments they have expressed in the wake of so much suffering by their fellow human beings. What a nasty, cynical thing they do to promote their own religion by using this tragedy and other recent catastrophic events to “win converts” for Jesus.

Naming them charlatans and hypocrites does not do justice to the utter lack of compassion that resides in their hearts.

And the blogger cites my blog as an example of a fundamentalist who argues that God struck Japan “because the Japanese are all atheists.”

Well, first thing, did I actually even say that?  I quote myself from that article:

But is Japan’s unbelief the reason why Japan just got hit with an awful tsunami?

My answer is, “How on earth should I know?”

I cite passages of Scripture that clearly indicate that a disaster does not necessarily mean that God is judging someone, such as Luke 13:1-5.  I could have just as easily also cited passages such as John 9:1-3 about Jesus’ distinction between suffering and sin.  I could have cited 2 Peter 3:9, describing God’s patience with sinners rather than His haste to judge.  These passages aren’t at all out of tune with what I was saying.  And I actually DO single out by name for criticism men like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell who have immediately pronounced the wrath of God following some disaster.

I begin my article saying, “That headline is a deliberate provoker.  But please let me explain why I used that headline before you erupt one way or another.”  Then I proceed to state two undisputed facts: that Japan is atheist, and that Japan got hit by a disaster.  I urge someone to actually read the article and reflect on the possibilities.  But Boomantribune is an example of most of the atheists who cross-posted or commented to my article by NOT being someone who wanted to read or reflect; he or she is someone who refused to look beneath atheist ideology and immediately began demonizing the other side to “win converts” for his religion of atheism.  [And let’s get this straight: atheism IS a religion.  “Religion” does not need to depend upon belief in God, or Buddhism would not qualify as a religion.  The courts have ruled that atheism is a religion, and it is a simple fact that atheism has every component that any religious system has].

You can’t have a valid argument with someone like Boomantribune, I have learned.  They are either too ignorant, or too dishonest, or both to accurately represent the other side’s position or arguments.  They create straw men and then demolish claims that Christians like me aren’t even making.

Boomantribune viciously attacks me as harboring the “nasty, horrible sentiments they have expressed in the wake of so much suffering by their fellow human beings.”  But I end my article on Japan by saying:

You need that gift of divine grace.  I need that gift of divine grace.  And the people of Japan desperately need it today.

I pray for those who are in Japan.  I pray for their deliverance from both the tsunami and from their unbelief.  And I will join with many other Christians who will send relief to the Japanese people, with prayers that they will look not at me, but at the Jesus who changed my heart and my life, and inspired me to give to others.

It is also a simple fact that religious people are FAR more giving than atheists:

In the US, anyway, they don’t. Here’s just one study, done in 2003: The differences in charity between secular and religious people are dramatic. Religious people are 25 percentage points more likely than secularists to donate money (91 percent to 66 percent) and 23 points more likely to volunteer time (67 percent to 44 percent). And, consistent with the findings of other writers, these data show that practicing a religion is more important than the actual religion itself in predicting charitable behavior. For example, among those who attend worship services regularly, 92 percent of Protestants give charitably, compared with 91 percent of Catholics, 91 percent of Jews, and 89 percent from other religions…Note that neither political ideology nor income is responsible for much of the charitable differences between secular and religious people. For example, religious liberals are 19 points more likely than secular liberals to give to charity, while religious conservatives are 28 points more likely than secular conservatives to do so…The average annual giving among the religious is $2,210, whereas it is $642 among the secular. Similarly, religious people volunteer an average of 12 times per year, while secular people volunteer an average of 5.8 times.

And this is “secular” people who aren’t particularly religious.  A lot of people rarely ever go to church, but still believe in God (basically 90% of Americans belive in God).  Since the evidence is rather straightforward that the more religious one is, the more giving one is, it is justified to conclude that atheists who are less religious than the merely “secular” are even LESS giving.

And, guess what?  My church has already taken its first of several offerings for Japan, and I have already given – and plan to give again.

I would also point out a couple of historical facts:

Christians actually began the first hospitals.

More hospitals have been founded by Christians than by followers of every other religion – including atheism – combined.

That said:

Atheist doctors are more than twice as likely to pull the plug on someone than a doctor who believes in God.

So just who is being “horrible” here?

Here’s another example of an atheist attack on me that backfired, followed by the dishonest atheist “cutting and running” from his own attack:

For what it’s worth, I have never withdrawn a single post:

Also, unlike too many blogs – particularly leftwing blogs, in my experience – I don’t delete anything. When the Daily Kos hatefully attacked Sarah Palin and her daughter Bristol and claimed that Bristol Palin had been impregnated by her own father with a baby, and that Sarah Palin faked being pregnant – only to have that hateful and vile lie blown away by Bristol giving birth to a child of her own – they scrubbed it like nothing had happened.

I’m not that despicable. Every single article I have ever written remains on my blog. And with all due respect, I think that gives me more credibility, not less: I don’t hit and run and then scrub the evidence of my lies.

If I post something that turns out to be wrong, I don’t destroy the evidence; I stand up and take responsibility for my words.  I apologize and correct the record.  As I did in the case above.

That, by the way, is the first finger, the finger of moral dishonesty pointing back at these atheists. 

That’s not the way the other side plays.  History is replete with atheist regimes (e.g. ANY of the officially state atheist communist regimes) destroying the record and any debate; history is replete with atheist-warped “science” making one claim after another that turned out to be entirely false.  As examples, consider Java Man, Nebraska Man, Piltdown Man, Peking Man and the various other hoaxes that the “scientific community rushed to embrace in their rush to falsify theism.  In some cases “scientists” created an entire community – or even an entire race of people – around totally bogus evidence in “It takes a village” style.  There was the bogus notion of “uniformitarianism” by which the “scientific community” ridiculed creationists for decades until it was proven wrong by Eugene Shoemaker who documented that the theory of “catastrophism” that they had advanced for millennia had been correct all along.  And then all of a sudden the same evolutionary theory that had depended upon uniformitarianism suddenly morphed into a theory that depended upon catastrophism. It morphed so that it was equally true with both polar opposites.

Then there’s this:

Ann Coulter pointed it out with the false claim that evolution was “falsifiable” versus any religious claim which was not. Darwin said, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” And Ann Coulter brilliantly changed a couple of words to demonstrate what a load of crap that was: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by God, my God theory would absolutely break down.”

In any words, evolution is no more “scientifically falsifiable” than even the most ardent young earth creationist claim. Their standard is impossible to prove. I mean, you show me that God “could not possibly have” created the earth.

The whole way they sold evolution was a lie.

There is NEVER an admission of guilt or an acknowledgment of error by these people.  They simply suppress or destroy the evidence, or “morph” their argument, or anything but acknowledge that just maybe they should be open-minded and question their presuppositions.

There is the extremely rare admission:

For the scientist who has lived by faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. -Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers

But those are extremely rare, indeed.  The rest of the atheist-assuming “scientific community” is all about saying, “Move on, folks.  Nothing to see here.  Why don’t you look at our new sleight-of-hand display over in this corner instead?”

Phillip Johnson, in a very good article, points out how the “bait-and-switch” works:

Supporting the paradigm may even require what in other contexts would be called deception. As Niles Eldredge candidly admitted, “We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports [the story of gradual adaptive change], all the while knowing it does not.”[ 1] Eldredge explained that this pattern of misrepresentation occurred because of “the certainty so characteristic of evolutionary ranks since the late 1940s, the utter assurance not only that natural selection operates in nature, but that we know precisely how it works.” This certainty produced a degree of dogmatism that Eldredge says resulted in the relegation to the “lunatic fringe” of paleontologists who reported that “they saw something out of kilter between contemporary evolutionary theory, on the one hand, and patterns of change in the fossil record on the other.”[ 2] Under the circumstances, prudent paleontologists understandably swallowed their doubts and supported the ruling ideology. To abandon the paradigm would be to abandon the scientific community; to ignore the paradigm and just gather the facts would be to earn the demeaning label of “stamp collector.”

[…]

Naturalistic philosophy has worked out a strategy to prevent this problem from arising: it labels naturalism as science and theism as religion. The former is then classified as knowledge, and the latter as mere belief. The distinction is of critical importance, because only knowledge can be objectively valid for everyone; belief is valid only for the believer, and should never be passed off as knowledge. The student who thinks that 2 and 2 make 5, or that water is not made up of hydrogen and oxygen, or that the theory of evolution is not true, is not expressing a minority viewpoint. He or she is ignorant, and the job of education is to cure that ignorance and to replace it with knowledge. Students in the public schools are thus to be taught at an early age that “evolution is a fact,” and as time goes by they will gradually learn that evolution means naturalism.

In short, the proposition that God was in any way involved in our creation is effectively outlawed, and implicitly negated. This is because naturalistic evolution is by definition in the category of scientific knowledge. What contradicts knowledge is implicitly false, or imaginary. That is why it is possible for scientific naturalists in good faith to claim on the one hand that their science says nothing about God, and on the other to claim that they have said everything that can be said about God. In naturalistic philosophy both propositions are at bottom the same. All that needs to be said about God is that there is nothing to be said of God, because on that subject we can have no knowledge.

I stand behind a tradition that has stood like an anvil while being pounded by one generation of unbelievers after another.  That tradition remains constant because it is founded upon the unchanging Word of God.  My adversaries constantly change and morph their positions, all the while just as constantly claiming that their latest current iteration is correct.

That is the second finger of intellectual dishonesty which so thoroughly characterizes atheism and anything atheism seems to contaminate with its assumptions.

Lastly, there is the finger of ethical dishonesty that is the ocean that the “walking fish” of atheism swims in.  [Btw, when I see that fish riding a bicycle I’ll buy their “walking fish” concept].

Basically, for all the “moral outrage” of atheists who want to denounce Christians for their God’s “evil judgments,” atheism itself has absolutely no moral foundation to do so whatsoever.  And the bottom line is that they are people who attack the five-thousand year tradition of Scripture with their feet firmly planted in midair.

William Lane Craig provides a devastating existential ethical refutation of atheism in an article I posted entitled, “The Absurdity of Life without God.”

To put it simply, William Lane Craig demolishes any shred of a claim that atheism can offer any ultimate meaning, any ultimate value, or any ultimate purpose whatsoever.  And so atheism denounces Christianity and religion from the foundation of an entirely empty and profoundly worthless worldview.  Everyone should read this incredibly powerful article.  I guarantee you will learn something, whatever your perspective on religion.

The thing I would say is that atheists denounce God and Christians from some moral sort of moral posture.  Which comes from what, exactly?  Darwinism, or more precisely, social Darwinism?  The survival of the fittest?  A foundation that comes from the “secure” footing of a random, meaningless, purposeless, valueless and entirely accidental existence?

As atheists tee off on God and at Christians for being “nasty” and “horrible,” what is their foundation from which to judge?

First of all, what precisely would make one a “nasty” or “horrible” atheist? 

Joseph Stalin was an atheist:

“God’s not unjust, he doesn’t actually exist. We’ve been deceived. If God existed, he’d have made the world more just… I’ll lend you a book and you’ll see.”

Mao Tse Tung was an atheist:

“Our God is none other than the masses of the Chinese people. If they stand up and dig together with us, why can’t these two mountains be cleared away?”  [Mao Tse Tung, Little Red Book, “Self-Reliance and Arduous Struggle chapter 21”].

Hitler was an atheist:

Hitler described to them that “after difficult inner struggles I had freed myself of my remaining childhood religious conceptions. I feel as refreshed now as a foal on a meadow” (Ernst Helmreich, “The German Churches Under Hitler,” p. 285).

Joseph Goebbels, a top member of Hitler’s inner circle, noted in his personal diary, dated 8 April 1941 that “The Führer is a man totally attuned to antiquity. He hates Christianity, because it has crippled all that is noble in humanity.”  Now, one may easily lie to others, but why lie to your own private diary?

Goebbels also notes in a diary entry in 1939 a conversation in which Hitler had “expressed his revulsion against Christianity. He wished that the time were ripe for him to be able to openly express that. Christianity had corrupted and infected the entire world of antiquity.”

Hitler also said, “Our epoch will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.” [Hitler’s Table Talk, Enigma Books; 3rd edition October 1, 2000, p. 343].

Albert Speer, another Nazi in Hitler’s intimate inner circle, stated that Hitler said, “You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion… Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?”

Konrad Heiden quoted Hitler as stating, “We do not want any other god than Germany itself.” [Heiden, Konrad A History of National Socialism, A.A. Knopf, 1935, p. 100].

Now, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Chairman Mao were terrible, despicable, evil people.  But what made them ” bad atheists,” precisely?

When Mao infamously expressed this attitude –

“The atom bomb is nothing to be afraid of,” Mao told Nehru, “China has many people. . . . The deaths of ten or twenty million people is nothing to be afraid of.” A witness said Nehru showed shock. Later, speaking in Moscow, Mao displayed yet more generosity: he boasted that he was willing to lose 300 million people, half of China’s population.” [Annie Dillard, “The Wreck of Time” in Harper’s from January 1998].

– or when Joseph Stalin was similarly quoted as having said:

“One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.”

– were these men who were responsible for some 100 million deaths of their own people during peacetime expressing anything that violated some principle of Darwinian evolution, or the morality that derives from the ethic of survival of the fittest?

Mao put his disregard for human life and the lives of his own people to terrible work:

LEE EDWARDS, CHAIRMAN, VICTIMS OF COMMUNISM MEMORIAL FOUNDATION: In 1959 to 1961 was the so-called “great leap forward” which was actually a gigantic leap backwards in which he tried to collectivize and communize agriculture.

And they came to him after the first year and they said, “Chairman, five million people have died of famine.” He said, “No matter, keep going.” In the second year, they came back and they said, “Ten million Chinese have died.” He said, “No matter, continue.” The third year, 20 million Chinese have died. And he said finally, “Well, perhaps this is not the best idea that I’ve ever had.”

CHANG: When he was told that, you know, his people were dying of starvation, Mao said, “Educate the peasants to eat less. Thus they can benefit – they can fertilize the land.”

Did that somehow disqualify him from being an atheist?  How?  Based on what foundation?

Let me simply point out that the most evil human beings in human history and the most murderous and oppressive political regimes in human history have the strange tendency to be atheist.  It would seem to me that these atheists should frankly do a lot less talking smack and a lot more shutting the hell up.  But two verses from Scripture illustrate why they don’t: 1) The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God'” (Psalm 14:1) and 2) “A fool does not delight in understanding, But only in revealing his own mind” (Proverbs 18:2).

Let’s talk about “evil” for a few moments.  I have already begun addressing the “third finger” that points back at atheists when they denounce Christians or God.  But the idea of “evil” makes that “finger” the middle one.

Christians talk about evil.  A lot of people do.  Even atheists routinely do.  But what is their foundation for evil?  What is “evil”?  Most give answers such as, “Murder or rape is evil.”  But those would at best only qualify as examples of evil – not a definition that would allow us to make moral judgments.  Christians have an actual answer.  They point out that “evil” is a perversion from the way things ought to be.  But what “oughtness” is there in a random, purposeless, meaningless and valueless universe that was spat out by nothing more than pure chance?

Let’s just say at this point that the atheists are right in what is in reality a straw man attack of God?  So what?  I ask “so what?” because even if what they were saying were somehow true, by what standard would either God or Christians be “nasty” or “horrible”?  What is the objective, transcendent standard that stands above me, that stands above every Christian on the planet, that stands above the entire human race across time and space and holds it accountable, such that if Christians or even God do X or say Y, or believe Z they are “nasty” or “horrible”?

It turns out that they don’t have one.  And in fact, their very worldview goes so far as to literally deny the very possibility of one.  At best – and I would argue at worst – we are trapped in a world in which might makes right, and the most powerful dictator gets to make the rules.  Because there is nothing above man that judges man and says, “This is the way, walk in it.”  There is only other men – and men disagree with one another’s standards – leaving us with pure moral relativism. 

And if moral relativism is true, then the atheists STILL lose.  It would be a tie, given that atheists have no more claim to being “good” than any other human being or group of human beings, no matter how despicable and murderous they might be.  But they would lose because there are a lot fewer atheists (137 million) than there are, say, Christians (2.3 billion).  And it only remains for Christians to disregard their superior moral and ethical system just long enough to rise up and annihilate all the smart-mouthed atheists, and then say afterward, “Boy, we sure feel guilty for having done THAT.  Let’s pray for forgiveness!”  And the only possible defense atheists would have would be to abandon their “survival of the fittest” mentality and embrace superior Christian morality and cry out, “Thou shalt not kill!”

Even if Christians don’t wipe out the atheists physically, most would readily agree that the Christian worldview is still far stronger than the atheist one.  Dinesh D’Souza makes a great argument to illustrate this on pages 15-16 of What’s So Great About Christianity that shows why religion is clearly the best team.  He says to imagine two communities – one filled with your bitter, cynical atheists who believe that morality just happened to evolve and could have evolved very differently; and one filled with Bible-believing Christians who embrace that life and their lives have a purpose in the plan of a righteous God who put His moral standards in our hearts. And he basically asks, “Which community is going to survive and thrive?”

As a Christian, I don’t have all the answers (although I can certainly answer the question immediately above).  I am a human being and my mind cannot contain the infinite plan of an infinitely complex and holy God.  But I have placed my trust in a God who made the world and who has a plan for His creation which He is bringing to fruition.  And that worldview doesn’t just give me explanatory powers that atheism by its very nature entirely lacks, but it gives me a strength that I never had before.  Even when evil and disaster and suffering befall me beyond my ability to comprehend, I can say with Job – the master of suffering:

“But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last.  And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God!  I will see him for myself. Yes, I will see him with my own eyes. I am overwhelmed at the thought!”  Job 19:25-27 (NLT).

Atheist Country Japan Smashed By Tsunami

That headline is a deliberate provoker.  But please let me explain why I used that headline before you erupt one way or another.

First of all, Japan is in fact one of the most atheistic countries in the world:

And Japan certainly got hit with a monsterous tsunami:

As I write this, I hear that there are 88,000 people missing in Japan.

So there is little question that the title for this article is factually completely accurate.

But is Japan’s unbelief the reason why Japan just got hit with an awful tsunami?

My answer is, “How on earth should I know?”

God doesn’t explain to me why He does a lot of things.  I think He figures I’m too dumb to understand His infinite mind and the infinite complexity of His plan for an incredibly complex world filled with going on 7 billion souls.  And He’s probably right.

I am familiar with Christian “leaders” (I put that in quotes because neither of these men are on my list of Christian leaders) such as Jerry Falwall or Pat Robertson have essentially stated that acts of human destruction such as 9/11 or acts of natural destruction such as Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans were acts of divine judgment for homosexuality.

And they might have been such judgment for such sin, I suppose.  But I doubt if God told Falwell or Robertson any more than He told me.  For one thing, if these men were acting as God’s prophets, God would have told them BEFORE the disasters happened in order to forewarn the people to repent.  That’s the rather clear prophetic pattern of Scripture.  That’s kind of what makes it “prophetic.”

Me?  I don’t pray for God’s destructive violence to destroy my ideological or religious enemies.  Let me explain why.

In a word, I don’t want God to ruthlessly punish others for their sins for fear that God will ruthlessly punish me for mine.  You see, it turns out that I’m not perfect either.

That’s part of a detailed solution to the so-called “problem of evil.”  When the human race fell into sin (as recorded in Genesis), it affected the entire created order (see Romans 8:22).  Evil has become part of the human condition.  And there are literally billions of degrees of evil in the world.  And – unless He destroys the whole world (as He has done and as He will one day do again) – just where is God supposed to draw the line?

What we tend to want is for God to judge everyone who is at least slightly more evil than we are.  But why should that be God’s standard?  But maybe God should obliterate you and all of your family and friends, too.  It’s His universe, after all; not yours.  You don’t get to make the rules in God’s universe.

There’s an interesting passage from Jesus in Luke 13:1-5:

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

There is no question: God sovereingly rules over the universe.  And we know that God judges the nations and individual people for sin (see Romans 3).  But only rarely – as recorded even in Scripture (e.g. Psalm 73, why do the wicked prosper?) – do we know the details.

We also know that God is patient.  We know from the Old Testament that God will literally wait hundreds of years before He brings judgment.  And we know from the New Testament (2 Peter 3:9) that God is patient, not wanting any to perish.

We also know that God often holds His sons and daughters by faith to a much higher account (Hebrews 12:5-11).  Just as a good Christian father may not concern himself with other people’s children, but his own had better tow the line.

We will never know this side of eternity why many terrible things happen.  Or why God judged this nation or that individual and spared another.

But we certainly can look upon a great diaster and pause in our own lives to take a look at ourselves and at our own nation, and tremble.  Because what happened to “them” can easily overtake “us” – whoever “they” are or “we” are.  And we all of us need to be ready to meet our Maker.

If we all lived as though death were a postential heartbeat away, I do believe we would live in a much better world.

I look at the many major earthquakes and the disasters they are causing as a sign that we are truly in the last days.  Jesus told us in Matthew 24:7 that ethnic groups (the word is “ethnos”) would rise against ethnic groups, and that there would be famines and earthquakes erupting all over.  And in verse 8 He spoke of them as birth pangs, meaning that as the end came, they would get more and more severe. 

There are certainly famines and fears of famines galore.  That is one of the key realities behind the massive unrest in the Middle East (see also here).

It is a fact that at the beginning of the 20th century, there was at most one major earthquake a year.  Now there are “big ones” erupting all over creation.  There was another huge and deadly earthquake just last month in New Zealand.  And we’re even seeing a rash of earthquake activity in the midwest(see also here).

Jesus also spoke of great catastrophic signs in the waves (e.g. tsunamis) in Luke.  And in Luke 21:8 Jesus said, “Now when you see these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Bottom line: we ought to be looking around, and we ought to be straightening up and flying right.  And if you are a perfect, sinless human being, good for you; but if you have ever sinned so much as once in your life, if you have ever once violated even your own conscience and standard, let alone a perfect, holy God’s, you had better fall at the feet of the one Savior for the human race (John 14:6) and embrace the Lamb of God (John 1:29-34).

Let me provide my own parable to explain a powerful biblical reality.  It’s called the ants on the elephant’s back:

Two ants of different species happen to bump into each other as they crawl across the back of a huge bull elephant.  The larger ant says to the smaller one, “I can’t help by notice I’m larger than you.  That means that I’m closer to being the same size as the elephant we’re crawling on than you.”  Well, in a way, that larger ant is right; but his comparison is nevertheless utterly ridiculous.  Why?  Because the elephant is so enormous compared to the size of either ant – let alone the amount of difference between the ants’ sizes – that a comparison is meaningless.  And that’s the way it is with human righteousness and God’s righteousness.  Billy Graham is considerably more righteous than, say, a Skid Row bum.  But the difference in their personal degress of righteousness is as nothing compared to the awesome holiness and perfection of God.  And you might think you’re better than someone else.  You might even be right.  But you are comparing yourself to the wrong subject.

When we stand before God, we will answer to how we compared to the righteousness of God.  “Be holy, as I am holy” (Leviticus 20:26, 1 Peter 1:13-16), God told us.  And just as we bear His perfect image (Genesis 1:26-27), we bear the responsibility to living up to His perfect character.

Only Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life (Hebrws 4:14-15).  Even the Quran affirms this (Quran 40:55; 48:1-2).  Jesus, fully God, God the Son, assumed a human nature and lived a perfect life on earth.  And He died for our sins so that we could have His perfection by faith.  He became our substitute.  That’s what “Lamb of God” means.

You need that gift of divine grace.  I need that gift of divine grace.  And the people of Japan desperately need it today.

I pray for those who are in Japan.  I pray for their deliverance from both the tsunami and from their unbelief.  And I will join with many other Christians who will send relief to the Japanese people, with prayers that they will look not at me, but at the Jesus who changed my heart and my life, and inspired me to give to others.

Update: I have since written an article entitled, “The Three Fingers Pointing Back At Atheists When Atheists Point A Finger At Christians About Evil And Judgment.”

When Assessing Obama, The Best Word Turns Out To Be ‘Contempt’

How many times have we heard some breathless-with-adoration mainstream media “journalist” tell us that Barack Obama is a “constitutional professor”?

What we actually find when examining the record is that Obama is more like a “constitutional demolition expert.”

Take a look at two recent developments to witness Obama’s contempt for our Constitution and the Separation of Powers that has kept it intact for going on 230 years:

Judge in La. holds Interior Department in contempt over offshore oil drilling moratorium
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN , Associated Press
Last update: February 2, 2011 – 8:05 PM

NEW ORLEANS – The federal judge who struck down the Obama administration’s moratorium on deepwater drilling after the Gulf oil spill held the Interior Department in contempt Wednesday, and ordered the federal agency to pay attorneys’ fees for several offshore oil companies.

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman chided the department for its “dismissive conduct” after he overturned the agency’s decision to halt any new permits for deepwater projects and suspend drilling on 33 exploratory wells after the Deepwater Horizon blast, which killed 11 workers and triggered the massive spill.

After Feldman overturned the government’s moratorium in June, the agency issued a second nearly identical suspension.

“Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the reimposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government’s contempt of this court’s preliminary injunction order,” he wrote.

A magistrate will consider how much the companies’ attorneys should get.

An Interior Department spokeswoman wouldn’t comment. A lawyer for the companies hailed the ruling.

“We’re obviously delighted with the court’s recognition of the government’s manipulation of the judicial review process,” said Carl Rosenblum, an attorney for Hornbeck Offshore Services and other companies that sued over the first moratorium.

Realize that the Interior Department isn’t in contempt; Obama is in contempt.  The Secretary of the Interior serves at the pleasure of Barry Hussein.  The Interior Department is pursuing the will of the president.  And the president has contempt for the court, contempt for the law and naked contempt for the Constitution.

And simultaneously there is this (story from Legal Insurrection):

Monday, January 31, 2011
Florida Judge Rules Against Obamacare, Injunction Denied As Unnecessary Since Entire Law Unconstitutional

Federal Judge Roger Vinson of the Northern District of Florida, in a lawsuit by 26 state attorney generals, has held that Obamacare is unconstitutional.  Judge Vinson first found that the mandate was unconstitutional, and then found that the mandate could not be severed from the rest of the law, requiring that the entire law be deemed unconstitutional.

Judge Vinson found that there was no need for an injunction, since the declaratory judgment that the entire law was invalid was sufficient.  In effect, there is nothing left to enjoin, since no part of the law survived.  By contrast, in the ruling in Virginia last year invalidating the mandate, the Judge severed the mandate from the rest of the law (but denied an injunction preventing the rest of the law from taking effect). 

Here is the key language from the Order showing that Judge Vinson expects the federal government to obey the declaration that the law is unenforceable in its entirety:

“…there is a long-standing presumption “that officials of the Executive Branch will adhere to the law as declared by the court. As a result, the declaratory judgment is the functional equivalent of an injunction.” See Comm. on Judiciary of U.S. House of Representatives v. Miers, 542 F.3d 909, 911 (D.C. Cir. 2008); accord Sanchez-Espinoza v. Reagan, 770 F.2d 202, 208 n.8 (D.C. Cir. 1985) (“declaratory judgment is, in a context such as this where federal officers are defendants, the practical equivalent of specific relief such as an injunction . . . since it must be presumed that federal officers will adhere to the law as declared by the court”) (Scalia, J.) (emphasis added).

There is no reason to conclude that this presumption should not apply here. Thus, the award of declaratory relief is adequate and separate injunctive relief is not necessary.”

In this sense, this decision is far more sweeping than the Virginia case, and presents a greater problem for the Obama administration which arguably does not have authority to implement any aspect of Obamacare.

Here is the conclusion of the Order (emphasis mine):

“The existing problems in our national health care system are recognized by everyone in this case. There is widespread sentiment for positive improvements that will reduce costs, improve the quality of care, and expand availability in a way that the nation can afford. This is obviously a very difficult task. Regardless of how laudable its attempts may have been to accomplish these goals in passing the Act, Congress must operate within the bounds established by the Constitution. Again, this case is not about whether the Act is wise or unwise legislation. It is about the Constitutional role of the federal government.

For the reasons stated, I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate. That is not to say, of course, that Congress is without power to address the problems and inequities in our health care system. The health care market is more than one sixth of the national economy, and without doubt Congress has the power to reform and regulate this market. That has not been disputed in this case. The principal dispute has been about how Congress chose to exercise that power here.

Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void. This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications. At a time when there is virtually unanimous agreement that health care reform is needed in this country, it is hard to invalidate and strike down a statute titled “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” …

In closing, I will simply observe, once again, that my conclusion in this case is based on an application of the Commerce Clause law as it exists pursuant to the Supreme Court’s current interpretation and definition. Only the Supreme Court (or a Constitutional amendment) can expand that.

For all the reasons stated above and pursuant to Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment (doc. 80) is hereby GRANTED as to its request for declaratory relief on Count I of the Second Amended Complaint, and DENIED as to its request for injunctive relief; and the defendants’ motion for summary judgment (doc. 82) is hereby GRANTED on Count IV of the Second Amended Complaint. The respective cross-motions are each DENIED. 

In accordance with Rule 57 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Title 28, United States Code, Section 2201(a), a Declaratory Judgment shall be entered separately, declaring “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” unconstitutional.”

[Please click on that article for more on this story.]

“Contempt” is all over Obama on both of these major federal cases.  Obama is all about contempt.  Along with hypocrisy, contempt is the blood that flows through his veins.

To put it succinctly, to whatever extent Obama knows a damn thing about the Constitution, it merely makes him all the more in contempt of it, and all the more personally contemptible.

This “constitutional expert” is on the record tacitly saying, “I’m the pharaoh; I’m the emperor.  And the Constitution means whatever the hell I want it to mean.  And federal judges be damned.”

Barack Hussein’s contempt for our freedoms and the Constitution which guarantees those freedoms is evident in other areas, as well.  And we see that this rabid intolerance for freedom characterizes the thinking of the left.

For the record, this contempt for the Constitution extends beyond Obama and contaminates his entire Democrat Party. 

Even when liberals like Obama pay lip service to the Constitution, they only do so as a purely rhetorical device in order to ignore everything it stands for.  Because the REAL intent of the Democrat Party is “to control the people.”  Democrats believe that there is no constitutional limit on their ability to regulate the lives of the American people.  And “Democrats” and “democracy” are antonyms. 

Obama is making the founding fathers spin in thier graves.  And they will keep spinning in their graves until Obama is finally out of the White House on his ear in disgrace.

Obama is our first Afrocentrict socialist redistributionist radical president.  His vision of the Constitution is – to phrase it in his own terms when he demonized the Constitutiona and the founding fathers who wrote it – “fundamentally flawed.”  And because of that fundamentally flawed thinking, Obama believes that the Government should stand in the place of God and owns everything that the people create and produce.

Prop 8: Contemptuous Judge Overturns Will Of Both God And The People

Here’s the latest story of judicial abuse:

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal judge overturned California’s same-sex marriage ban Wednesday in a landmark case that could eventually land before the U.S. Supreme Court to decide if gays have a constitutional right to marry in America.

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker made his ruling in a lawsuit filed by two gay couples who claimed the voter-approved ban violated their civil rights. Gay couples waving rainbow and American flags outside the courthouse cheered, hugged and kissed as word of the ruling spread.

Despite the favorable ruling for same-sex couples, gay marriage will not be allowed to resume. That’s because the judge said he wants to decide whether his order should be suspended while the proponents pursue their appeal in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The judge ordered both sides to submit written arguments by Aug. 6 on the issue.

Supporters argued the ban was necessary to safeguard the traditional understanding of marriage and to encourage responsible childbearing.

California voters passed the ban as Proposition 8 in November 2008, five months after the state Supreme Court legalized gay marriage.

“Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples,” the judge wrote in a 136-page ruling that laid out in precise detail why the ban does not pass constitutional muster.

The judge found that the gay marriage ban violates the Constitution’s due process and equal protection clauses.

“Because Proposition 8 disadvantages gays and lesbians without any rational justification, Proposition 8 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” the judge ruled.

This is now the third time that a judge substituted his will for the clear will of the people in the state of California.  There’s a phrase in the Declaration of Independence that no longer matters: “deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed.”  Of course, there are other phrases that liberals despise in the Declaration of Independence as well, such as “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”

For the official record, Thomas Jefferson – who wrote the Declaration of Independence – would have led the revolt against these evil, malicious, degenerate judges and supervised their tarring and feathering.

Just one of Jefferson’s comments about such “judges” as Vaughn Walker:

“The Constitution . . . meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other.  But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.”
—Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804. ME 11:51

Thus this isn’t judicial activism; it’s judicial DESPOTISM.

The people no longer have any real power in this country.  Some unelected judge overturned the will of the people in Arizona by substituting her own ridiculous reasoning for the law.  Now this.  And soon states like Missouri – which issued a 71%-to-29% smackdown to ObamaCare – will likewise fall prey to judicial despotism.  Why even bother to vote when your will is continually overturned by despotism?  Of course, that’s exactly how liberal fascists want you to think.  They want you to give up.  Because socialism is only accepted by an apathetic, defeated people.

Let me address the specific objections to traditional marriage:

“Equal protection”? How is that violated by a law that defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman?

A gay man has the right to marry any adult woman who will have him – the same as me.  There’s your “equal protection.”  On a platter.

If a gay man doesn’t want to take advantage of that, then that’s his loss.  But radically redefining marriage into something it has never been in the history of this nation – or for that matter the history of Western Civilization, or for that matter any civilization period – is not a response that any morally intelligent individual would descend into.

How about the concept of “due process”? How does redefining marriage from an institution to a convention that can be radically transformed by judicial fiat encourage due process?  All it does is create undue process.  How will this judge now prevent three men from marrying?  If you can redefine the “one man and one woman thing,” why can’t you redefine the “two people” thing?  And by what objective standard that can never be overturned?  And if three people can marry, why can’t fifteen or more?  Just who are you to impose your narrow-minded morality on thirty people who want to get married to each other?

The same thing goes to inter-species marriage: just who the hell are you to say that that weird woman next door can’t marry her Great Dane?  Or her Clydesdale Stallion, for that matter?  Why can’t I marry my canary?

And you’d better have a damn good reason for restricting each of these, or they’ll probably be legal next month.

Gays want the right to marry.  The North American Man/Boy Love Association wants the right to have men marry boys.  Unlike homosexuals, pedophiles actually have something approaching a historic case: the Roman world had something called pederasty, in which men gave boys mentoring and help with their futures in exchange for the boys giving up their virginal backsides.

The liberal culture says a twelve year old girl has the right to an abortion on demand without her parents’ consent.  That’s a very adult decision, not unlike a very similar adult decision to have a relationship with the adult who impregnated her in the first place.  Why not give NAMBLA what it wants?  It’s not fair to allow two people who love each other not to marry, after all, right?  That’s the argument we keep hearing, so let’s be consistent.  Why are we denying the right of men and boys to marry whomever they choose?

NAMBLA once actually had United Nations status, due to its membership with the “legitimate” International Lesbian and Gay Association.

NAMBLA has been a member of the International Lesbian and Gay Association for 10 years. We’ve been continuously active in ILGA longer than any other US organization. NAMBLA delegates to ILGA helped write ILGA’s constitution, its official positions on the sexual rights of youth, and its stands against sexual coercion and corporal punishment. We are proud of our contributions in making ILGA a stronger voice for the international gay and lesbian movement and for sexual justice.

Today the gay community excludes NAMBLA as a matter of pure political expediency.  Harry Hay, the founder of the first gay organization in America, ultimately condemned the “gay community” and “reviled what he saw as the movement’s propensity for selling out its fringe members for easy, and often illusory, respectability.” The simple fact is that the gay community is just a bunch of narrow-minded, intolerant bigots and naked political opportunists who want to deny others the basic rights they demand for themselves.

And, of course, President Obama appointed a pro-NAMBLA guy to be the “Safe Schools Czar,” so we have a pretty high-level endorsement right there, don’t we?  We’re talking mainstream stuff here, these days.

Given the fact that judges can usurp the clearly expressed will of the people and impose their own “morality” as they choose, it is guaranteed that we will legalize the buggery of young boys down the road.  Secular humanism  simply doesn’t have the moral resources to prevent it.

Who are you not to allow your little boy to get married to some forty-year old “lover,” you intolerant pig?

People who defend traditional marriage have an easy and powerful defeater for these objections.  Gay marriage proponents have none.  If I’m wrong, then just finish this thought: “A marriage of three people will never be allowed by a court to happen because…”.  And don’t say that it won’t ever happen because marriage is a particular type of thing, because that was our argument, and you ran roughshod over it.

The last idea is this commonly-heard challenge: “How does allowing gay marriage harm heterosexual marriage?”

That one really isn’t very hard to answer.

For one thing, it cheapens marriage to the point of meaninglessness, which is why marriage has declined markedly in every single country in which gay marriage was imposed.  I mean, given how marriage becomes a mere convention, why even bother getting married?

Gay activists look at the gay-marriage countries and argue that divorces have leveled off.  But the problem with that line of reasoning is that divorce only becomes a factor if people actually bother to get married in the first place.  And the fact of the matter is that they AREN’T bothering to get married.  Because marriage is being destroyed.

When a young man today says “I do” in a marriage to his wife, he is continuing an institution that his parents, his parents’ parents, and his parents’ parents’ parents – going all the way back to Adam and Eve (i.e., and NOT Adam and Steve).

We go back to the very beginning when GOD instituted marriage.  And God said:

“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).

“Shall cleave to his WIFE” – not to whoever or whatever the hell happens to turn his fancy.

Gay marriage does to marriage what cancer does to the cells of a body – it alters it, it corrupts it, and ultimately it destroys it.

Marriage is no longer a holy union between a man and a woman under God that the state recognizes; it becomes a convention BY the state APART from God that can be changed at will by powerful elites who have determined that they know better than God.

So yeah, gay marriage hurts legitimate marriage.  Because it destroys the very concept of marriage.

Another Milestone Day For Obama: The Monstrous Mistake Of Trying Foreign Terrorists Like U.S. Citizens

I didn’t used to believe in anything special about “Friday the 13th.”  It was just another day.  Turns out I was wrong.

Obama has brought about yet another “change.”

Friday the 13th now features a new monster – the President of the United States of America – as the Creature Who Made Terrorists Feel Right At Home.  I know the name doesn’t sound as scary as “Jason Voorhees,” the hockey-masked hacker-slasher, but believe me, this is a monster that can kill more Americans than Jason Voorhees ever did.

Under Obama, we’re undermining our CIA.  We’re mirandizing terrorists captured on foreign battlefields.  And now we’re trying mass-murdering terrorists like American citizens in our justice system.

And, of course, when a terrorists actually guns down more than two score unarmed soldiers on a military base, he denies the man is even a terrorist in a rush to whitewash lest the revelation somehow undermine our “diversity.”

Hope you terrorist-murderers feel at home.  If there’s anything else we can do for you, please let us know.  Our president will go to any lengths to make you as comfortable as possible.

And don’t you mind that whole “slaughtering” thing.  We’re really like sheeple now; we don’t mind.  Murder 3,000 of us, or 3,000,000; we’re fine with it.  Really.

Why are we going to put the 9/11 mastermind and four of his fellow murderers on trial in civilian court?  Because Barack Obama is more righteous and wonderful than our despicable presidents of the past – such as Abraham Lincoln and the admittedly less-righteous FDR – have ever been.  Honest Abe was actually DIShonest Abe because he had military tribunals.

NYC trial of 9/11 suspects poses legal risks

By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 33 mins ago

WASHINGTON – In the biggest trial for the age of terrorism, the professed 9/11 mastermind and four alleged henchmen will be hauled before a civilian court on American soil, barely a thousand yards from the site of the World Trade Center’s twin towers they are accused of destroying.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced the decision Friday to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to trial at a lower Manhattan courthouse.

It’s a risky move. Trying the men in civilian court will bar evidence obtained under duress and complicate a case where anything short of slam-dunk convictions will empower President Barack Obama’s critics.

The case is likely to force the federal court to confront a host of difficult issues, including rough treatment of detainees, sensitive intelligence-gathering and the potential spectacle of defiant terrorists disrupting proceedings. U.S. civilian courts prohibit evidence obtained through coercion, and a number of detainees were questioned using harsh methods some call torture.

Holder insisted both the court system and the untainted evidence against the five men are strong enough to deliver a guilty verdict and the penalty he expects to seek: a death sentence for the deaths of nearly 3,000 people who were killed when four hijacked jetliners slammed into the towers, the Pentagon and a field in western Pennsylvania.

“After eight years of delay, those allegedly responsible for the attacks of September the 11th will finally face justice. They will be brought to New York — to New York,” Holder repeated for emphasis — “to answer for their alleged crimes in a courthouse just blocks away from where the twin towers once stood.”

Holder said he decided to bring Mohammed and the other four before a civilian court rather than a military commission because of the nature of the undisclosed evidence against them, because the 9/11 victims were mostly civilians and because the attacks took place on U.S. soil. Institutionally, the Justice Department, where Holder has spent most of his career, has long wanted to reassert the ability of federal courts to handle terrorism cases.

Lawyers for the accused will almost certainly try to have charges thrown out based on the rough treatment of the detainees at the hands of U.S. interrogators, including the repeated waterboarding, or simulated drowning, of Mohammed.

The question has been raised as to whether the government can make its case without using coerced confessions.

That may not matter, said Pat Rowan, a former Justice Department official.

“When you consider everything that’s come out in the proceedings at Gitmo, either from the mouth of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others or from their written statements submitted to the court, it seems clear that they won’t need to use any coerced confessions in order to demonstrate their guilt,” said Rowan.

Held at Guantanamo since September 2006, Mohammed said in military proceedings there that he wanted to plead guilty and be executed to achieve what he views as martyrdom. In a letter from him released by the war crimes court, he referred to the attacks as a “noble victory” and urged U.S. authorities to “pass your sentence on me and give me no respite.”

Holder insisted the case is on firm legal footing, but he acknowledged the political ground may be more shaky when it comes to bringing feared al-Qaida terrorists to U.S. soil.

“To the extent that there are political consequences, I’ll just have to take my lumps,” he said. But any political consequences will reach beyond Holder to his boss, Obama.

Bringing such notorious suspects to U.S. soil to face trial is a key step in Obama’s plan to close the military-run detention center in Cuba. Obama initially planned to close the prison by next Jan. 22, but the administration is no longer expected to meet that deadline.

Obama said he is “absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice. The American people will insist on it and my administration will insist on it.”

After the announcement, political criticism and praise for the decision divided mostly along party lines.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said bringing the terrorism suspects into the U.S. “is a step backwards for the security of our country and puts Americans unnecessarily at risk.”

Former President George W. Bush’s last attorney general, Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge in New York, also objected that federal courts were not well-suited to this task. “The plan seems to be to abandon the view that we are at war,” Mukasey told a conference of conservative lawyers. He said trial in open court “creates a cornucopia of intelligence for those still at large and a circus for those being tried,” and he advocated military tribunals instead.

But Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the federal courts are capable of trying high-profile terrorism cases.

“By trying them in our federal courts, we demonstrate to the world that the most powerful nation on earth also trusts its judicial system — a system respected around the world,” Leahy said.

Family members of Sept. 11 victims were also divided.

“We have a president who doesn’t know we’re at war,” said Debra Burlingame, whose brother, Charles Burlingame, had been the pilot of the hijacked plane that crashed into the Pentagon. She said she was sickened by “the prospect of these barbarians being turned into victims by their attorneys.”

From McClatchey:

Congressional Republicans, however, promptly accused the Obama administration of trying to return to a pre-Sept. 11 mentality of criminalizing the war on terrorism.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas warned that “bringing these dangerous individuals onto U.S. soil needlessly compromises the safety of all Americans.”

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said the possibility that the accused terrorists “could be found not guilty due to some legal technicality just blocks from Ground Zero should give every American pause.”

Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder – who actually has a track record for PARDONING AND FREEING TERRORISTS had this to say:

A big obstacle could be whether an impartial jury can be impaneled so close to where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood.

Holder said that a careful jury selection process should dispel those concerns.

“I would not have authorized the bringing of these prosecutions unless I thought that the outcome … would ultimately be successful,” he said. “I will say that I have access to information that has not been publicly released that gives me great confidence that we will be successful in federal court.”

But what happens if you thought wrong, Holder?  What happens then?

What happens if these guys are found not guilty?  Are we supposed to just let them go?

What happens if the five terrorists draw a liberal activist judge who wants to make “torture” and issue, rather than “terrorism” and “3,000 murdered Americans”?  Is Obama and his Justice Department at work to circumvent the system relating to the assigning of judges to particular cases and guarantee that “the right” judge hears the case?  Wouldn’t that be tantamount to the very worst that Obama has claimed he wants to avoid in the first place?  Wouldn’t that amount to a show trial?

Obama is either taking a giant chance, a literal roll of the dice, or he’s already stacked the deck.

What happens if a Muslim is on the jury pool?  That one’s kind of interesting.  A single juror can hang the jury and lead to a mistrial.  Do we want to take a chance that a sympathizer throw a monkey wrench into the system?  Is the Obama team that so values “diversity” going to try to prevent Muslims from serving on the jury?

What about a change of venue?  Surely a judge would HAVE to grant such an obvious petition, given the fact that the attacks occurred in New York, virtually every adult was impacted, and “New York” is hardly the best place to find an untainted jury pool for the 9/11 attack on the “World Trade Center attack in New York”?  And yet New York has this mulit-million dollar high tech courthouse complex to deal with them.

I mean, again, if you grant the change of venue, people will justifiably become enraged.  And if you DON’T grant the change of venue, people will justifiably think that the fix is in.

A military tribunal of KSM and his terrorist buddies at Gitmo would have been a ho-hum affair.  A civilian trial in a lower Manhattan courthouse with the press swarming over every detail like cockroaches would be the trial of the century.

Propaganda forum?  You bet.  Journalists will cover every remark that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his merry band of mass murderers offers.  Including the words of solidarity with other jihadist murderers.  Including words of encouragement to any who would murder Americans anywhere on the planet.  This is hardly the message that the American media should be broadcasting, but rest assured we’ll be broadcasting every word of it.

Terrorists are different from jewel thieves and even from gang bangers: every single thing they do is directed toward spreading a message.

These terrorists want a big stage.  And Barack Obama and Eric Holder want to make sure they have that stage.

And what happens if the trial – whether it’s held in New York or somewhere else – stimulates more terrorist attacks?  It’s one thing if terrorists try to attack Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, quite another if they launch an attack in New York, Los Angeles, or wherever else.

And assuming (no guarantee anymore) that these terrorist monsters go to prison, you can bet in the age of Gitmo (which is actually a model prison) being shut down under Obama that these guys will end up in the U.S. civilian system.  And they will be welcomed like rock stars.

Authorities are becoming increasingly alarmed over the radicalized Muslim population coming out of the U.S. prison system:

“Over the past 30 years, Islam has become a powerful force in the U.S. prison system, with some estimates that up to 20% of the inmate population is now Muslim.  Terrorism experts are increasingly concerned that disaffected inmates drawn to radical Islam could become a source of homegrown terrorist activity.”

Authorities are seeing more and more “homegrown jihadists” coming out of the prison system.  Just two weeks ago, federal authorities were confronted by radicalized Muslims coming out of the U.S. prison system and organizing a cell that was claiming “that the government was the enemy and they must be willing to take on the FBI — even if it meant death.”  And thanks to this brain dead decision by Barack Hussein, we’re going to start seeing a lot more of this.  Putting these terrorists into the U.S. prison system is tantamount to putting crack cocaine in the hands of addicts.  It will not end well.

This is a truly stupid idea on every level imaginable.

My question is, what are we gaining from taking what Obama’s Justice Department ADMITS is a risk?  That we were “open”?

There’s the obvious question, “You know what?  This thing could backfire.  I mean these guys could be acquitted.”  And MSNBC Justice Department Correspondent Pete Williams has this to say, based on his sources:

“No.  They’ve got a drawer full of other charges that they could bring against these defendants.  There are already indictments pending against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for other crimes, so they will just re-arrest them and charge them with something else.”

The thing about a fair game is that either team could actually win.  This isn’t a fair game.  And everyone in the world is going to know that, no matter where it is held.  Contrary to what the White House might think, the inhabitants of the rest of the world are not as stupid and gullible and willing to believe propagandist drivel as Democrats are.  This isn’t going to be any kind of demonstration about how “open” we are.  People who didn’t believe it before won’t start believing it now – unless and possibly even including that we allow the five terrorists to walk out of court free men.

A National Review article entitled, “Holder’s Hidden Agenda,” reminds us of how Obama’s people just ripped into the CIA and started pulling out every wire and diode they could.  They demanded an investigation and just plain released all kinds of previously classified information that made the US and the CIA look as bad as they possibly could.  To what end?

This summer, I theorized that Attorney General Eric Holder — and his boss — had a hidden agenda in ordering a re-investigation of the CIA for six-year-old alleged interrogation excesses that had already been scrutinized by non-partisan DOJ prosecutors who had found no basis for prosecution. The continuing investigations of Bush-era counterterrorism policies (i.e., the policies that kept us safe from more domestic terror attacks), coupled with the Holder Justice Department’s obsession to disclose classified national-defense information from that period, enable Holder to give the hard Left the “reckoning” that he and Obama promised during the 2008 campaign. […]

So: We are now going to have a trial that never had to happen for defendants who have no defense. And when defendants have no defense for their own actions, there is only one thing for their lawyers to do: put the government on trial in hopes of getting the jury (and the media) spun up over government errors, abuses and incompetence. That is what is going to happen in the trial of KSM et al. It will be a soapbox for al-Qaeda’s case against America. Since that will be their “defense,” the defendants will demand every bit of information they can get about interrogations, renditions, secret prisons, undercover operations targeting Muslims and mosques, etc., and — depending on what judge catches the case — they are likely to be given a lot of it. The administration will be able to claim that the judge, not the administration, is responsible for the exposure of our defense secrets. And the circus will be played out for all to see — in the middle of the war. It will provide endless fodder for the transnational Left to press its case that actions taken in America’s defense are violations of international law that must be addressed by foreign courts. And the intelligence bounty will make our enemies more efficient at killing us.

Like I said.  The new Friday the 13th monsters revealed today as Barack Obama and his AG Eric Holder are far more dangerous to Americans than Jason Voorhees ever was.

Update, November 14: TEN jihadists terrorists are coming to the U.S. to stand trial in civilian court, rather than the five that Obama and Holder claimed.

Update, November 14: Barack Obama, on September 27, 2006, in the debate concerning “The Military Commissions Act of 2006,” assured America that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and those like him would face MILITARY justice, and that he would NOT get “all kinds of rights.”  Obama is, as usual, a documented liar.

Obama’s Demonic Czars: Obama ‘Safe Schools Czar’ Supported Pedophile Molestation Of Student

“No, no, no!  Not God bless America!  God damn America!” – Reverend Wright, Barack Obama’s pastor and spiritual mentor for 23 years.

During the 2008 Presidential campaign Barack Obama told audiences, “Judge me by the people with whom I surround myself.”

And he has surrounded himself with demons.

He surrounded himself with Van Jones – a communist; a supporter of cop murderers; a man who took the terrorists’ side on 9/11; a man who signed a “truther” statement demonizing President Bush for secretly attacking the World Trade Center Twin Towers on September 11; a racist who accused even white liberals of being murderers who deliberately poisoned people of color; etc. etc. etc.

He surrounded himself with men like Cass Sunstein and Ezekiel Emanuel, who have said things like:

– “When implemented, the Complete Lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated… The Complete Lives system justifies preference to younger people because of priority to the worst-off rather than instrumental value.” – Ezekiel Emanuel, Obama’s handpicked health policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget, and appointed by Obama to serve on the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Resarch

– “I urge that the government should indeed focus on life-years rather than lives. A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people.” – Cass Sunstein, Obama’s Regulatory Czar.

And Dr. Mengele couldn’t have put it much better.

Barack Obama has surrounded himself with men like his science czar, John Holdren, who has stated:

– Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.

– It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have abortions, perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the society.

– Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.

And now we are learning that he has surrounded himself with a teacher who refused to protect a child under his counseling from being sodomized by a pedophile.

Kevin Jennings, appointed as the Director of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, is another Obama buddy out of ultra-corrupt Chicago.

In 1997, according to a transcript put together by Brian J. Burt, managing editor of the student-run Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Jennings said he hoped that promoting homosexuality in schools would be considered fine in the future.

“One of our board members” was called to testify before Congress when they had hearings on the promotion of homosexuality in schools,” Jennings said. “And we were busy putting out press releases, and saying, “We’re not promoting homosexuality, that’s not what our program’s about. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…. ‘

“Being finished might someday mean that most straight people, when they would hear that someone was promoting homosexuality, would say ‘Yeah, who cares?’ because they wouldn’t necessarily equate homosexuality with something bad that you would not want to promote.”

The group Jennings founded has also been accused of promoting homosexuality in schools. At a GLSEN conference in 2000, co-sponsored with the Massachusetts Department of Education, the group landed in hot water when it was revealed that it had included an educational seminar for kids that graphically described some unorthodox sex techniques.

A state official who spoke to teens at the conference said:

“Fisting (forcing one’s entire hand into another person’s rectum or vagina) often gets a bad rap….[It’s] an experience of letting somebody into your body that you want to be that close and intimate with…[and] to put you into an exploratory mode.”

You see, I think most parents would rather teachers and public schools teach their kids to be in “exploratory mode” of damn near anything else than their children’s rectums.  Am I wrong?

And then we have Kevin Jennings sharing how he provided advice to a fifteen year-old sophomore:

Another controversy from Jennings’ past concerns an account in his 1994 book, “One Teacher In 10,” about how, as a teacher, he knew a high school sophomore named Brewster who was “involved” with an “older man”:

“Out spilled a story about his involvement with an older man he had met in Boston. I listened, sympathized, and offered advice. He left my office with a smile on his face that I would see every time I saw him on the campus for the next two years, until he graduated.”

The account led Diane Lenning, head of the National Education Association’s Republican Educators Caucus, to criticize Jennings in 2004 for not alerting school and state authorities about the boy’s situation, calling Jennings’ failure to do so an “unethical practice.”

Jennings threatened to sue Lenning for libel, saying she had no evidence that he knew the student in question was sexually active, or that he failed to report the situation.

But a professor at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, Warren Throckmorton, has produced an audio recording of a speech Jennings gave in 2000 at a GLSEN rally in Iowa, in which Jennings made it clear that he believed the student was sexually active:

“I said, ‘What were you doing in Boston on a school night, Brewster?’ He got very quiet, and he finally looked at me and said, ‘Well I met someone in the bus station bathroom and I went home with him.’ High school sophomore, 15 years old’ I looked at Brewster and said, ‘You know, I hope you knew to use a condom.’”  [Audio is available here via Youtube, and the professor’s website contains a transcript of Jenning’s account with Brewster].

The Washington Times reported in 2004 that “state authorities said Mr. Jennings filed no report in 1988.” A spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Department for Children and Families, the department to which Jennings — as a Massachusetts teacher — would have been legally obliged to report the situation, did not return calls from FOXNews.com.

Kevin Jennings is an advocate for homosexual pedophilia.  He has in his past openly supported the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) by way of praising Harry Hay.  Jennings wrote the forward to a book entitled, The Queering of American Education.  For what it’s worth, fellow Chicago Obama buddy and terrorist Bill Ayers wrote a note endorsing the book on its cover jacket.

This is the man that Obama “entrusted” with ultimate care over your children.  But he is a demon in masquerade.

The despicable personal conduct, followed by the threat of a lawsuit when it was revealed, reminds me of another organization that Obama chose to surround himself with — ACORN.

Contrary to the left’s dismissal, Obama’s ties with ACORN are deep, and go back more than 20 years.

Two kids who were sick of the lefts’ corruption, hypocrisy, and vileness decided to see if ACORN would fall for the most horrendous scenario they could imagine: a prostitute and her pimp seeking to commit federal income tax fraud so they could purchase a house with the intent of importing child sex slaves from El Salvador so they could start a brothel.

And Obama’s ACORN fell for it – on film – on at least five separate occasions in five separate ACORN offices.

Let us judge Obama by the people with whom he has surrounded himself.  Because he has surrounded himself with the devil – and demons are doing his bidding.

And let us finally begin to think about how God will judge these demons – and the president who surrounded himself with them.  And, yes, the nation that elected that president.

Galatians 6:7 makes it clear, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.”  And it is not just individuals who fall under God’s judgment, but nations.  As Psalm 110:6 says, “He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth.”

“No, no, no! Not God bless America!  God damn America!”

Philadelphia: Liberal Judge Removes GOP Poll Watchers While lack Black Panthers Intimidate Voters

Philadelphia was the birthplace of freedom in this nation, given that the Declaration of Independence was signed there.  But things have a way of coming full circle when one reads history, and it is happening again:  the birthplace of freedom is proving to be the dying place, as well.

We can start with a liberal judge removing GOP Election Board members from “at least” half a dozen polling locations.  As Amanda Carpenter reports, “A Pennsylvania judge previously ruled that court-appointed poll watchers could be NOT removed from their boards by an on-site election judge, but that is exactly what is happening, according to sources on the ground.”

Denying access to the minority (in this case Republican) poll watchers and inspectors is a violation of Pennsylvania state law. Those who violate the law can be punished with a misdemeanor and subjected to a fine of $1,000 and sent to prison between one month and two years.

But in this case, that would only happen if one liberal judge put another one in jail.  Don’t hold your breath.

What is most frightening of all was the judge’s justification for removing Republicans:

A liberal judge previously ruled that court-appointed Republican poll watchers could be removed from their boards by an on-site election judge, citing their “minority” status as cause.

This along with the fact that the Democratic Ohio Secretary of State had to be ordered to verify voter registrations after huge numbers of falsified registrations turned up in the process.  Rather than do her duty, and basically do her job, Jennifer Brunner instead found a “better judge” to overturn the ruling of the first.

The official corruption, the court orders that enable voter fraud, the looking the other so the mice can play, is truly frightening.

ACORN (which is deemed “non partisan” when it comes to getting $126 MILLION in government funding but is as partisan as hell when it comes to putting itself behind Democrats) is being investigated for voter fraud in at least 22 states.  And, strangely, all the states in which fraud keeps being found are all battleground states, where a few thousand votes (or even just a few votes) could decide the election.

Our judges are corrupt.  They are using their power to open the field for Democratic corruption.  That is a truly terrifying thing.  Given the corruption of our judges and of our media, it is “GAME OVER” for our democracy.

Meanwhile, while all this corruption is going on, while judges allow liberals to commandeer the premises in vital polling places so that Democrats can start running bogus ballots through the machines, we’ve also got this:

BLACK PANTHERS WITH NIGHT STICKS BLOCK POLLING PLACE IN PHILLY

Two black panthers were blocking the doorway at a polling place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Rick Levanthal of Fox News is reporting live.

One of the panthers said “the black man was going to win the White House no matter what.”

Brandishing a night stick, and swinging it menacingly, the police were called – one of the black panthers and his night stick were moved.

Do you think little old white ladies would want to walk past the black panther with a night stick?

That story continues:

Leventhal interviewed a Republican poll observer who offered details of how he approached the entrance to the polling location — what appeared to be a multi-family apartment building — only to see the men “close ranks” in an attempt to stop him from entering.  Describing himself as an Army veteran, he said he was not afraid of the nightstick-wielding men and proceeded to walk between them and into the polling place to talk with officials inside.

A few minutes later, he said, he exited through the same doorway, was confronted by the men with the nightsticks and told them he wasn’t going to get into a fist fight with them.  After walking away, he called police and they ordered the most aggressive man to leave the polling location.

It’s at least getting a little bit of legitimate news coverage (youtube video).  A man with a camera and a couple of questions confronted the uniformed, billy-club weilding black panthers (youtube video).

In this world-turned-upside-down, it’s okay to be a member of a radical leftist organization with a violent past standing in front of a polling location intimidating voters; it is NOT okay to be a Republican poll watcher conducting lawful obversation and trying to keep the process honest.

This nation is heading for a disaster.  It is only a matter of time.