Category → Immigration
Israel’s Independence Day, Holocaust Remembrance Day, So Where are We Today?
Israel Independence Day and Holocaust Remembrance Day are here.
Obviously these two milestones are related in the sense that out of the ashes of the European genocide against Europe’s Jewish minority (not to be confused with the similar and nearly simultaneous Muslim Arab ethnic cleansing of the Jewish minority once living in the Middle East, now presently applied to Christians there) arose the modern state of Israel on the soil of the ancient state of Israel.
Here in America most Jewish communities spend a full 24-hour period on Holocaust Remembrance Day reading the names of Nazi victims. By reading their names, they are in some small but meaningful way not forgotten. And by remembering them as people, larger society is supposed to remember what happened so that people, and government, do the necessary things so genocide does not happen again.
This is all sound logic to me, although it is questionable whether it works, or not.
Why am I sounding a bit skeptical here? Because the evidence isn’t supportive that this approach works, in the sense that it does not inspire humans around the globe to treat one another better, much less treat Jews any better. The evidence in front of us demonstrates that Holocaust Remembrance Day, with all its universalist activities, primarily appeals to Jews, their friends, and liberal-minded news reporters. Meanwhile, plenty of genocide is going on ever since, namely in Rwanda, Bosnia, Kurdistan, and now once again in the Middle East, where Muslim Arabs are sadistically rampaging among the religious and ethnic minorities among them.
And Israel has been under sustained and increasing attempted genocide from the day it was founded in 1948. Every libel, slander, lie and contrivance has been drummed up to delegitimize Israel and to justify the ceaseless murders of unarmed Jews within and outside Israel. Boycotts, divestment from Israeli companies, and sanctions against Israeli academic institutions and the government of Israel are proof that Israel, and Jews, receive an incredibly harsh and unjustified treatment from a world that really ought to know better.
Making things even worse, and totally odd to me and to most people I know, is the overwhelmingly liberal mindset American Jews maintain. Their liberal political views, on a policy-by-policy basis, are completely contrary to the Torah (the Bible) to which their ancestors swore loyalty and which created Western Civilization.
Abortion-on-demand and as a form of birth control, faith in big government, rejection of religion’s role in good government, gun control, you name it, every single one of the politically correct issues that liberal Jews believe in are at odds with their own founding document, the Bible.
One would logically conclude that a group of people who had recently undergone such incredibly painful and devastating attacks, round-ups, shot on sight, murder in the street, painful medical experiments, gassing, bodies burnt to hide the atrocity, and so on, you would think that the survivors and heirs would adopt a more self-preserving view. That is the conclusion that their friends have arrived at and said is needed many times, and asked why Jews don’t, for many years.
You know, why do most Jews vote for people and policies that are against their own interests? Like for Obama, or against gun rights?
That American Jews are overwhelmingly supportive of intense gun regulation is without question. Public surveys show it. Even more to the point are the lists of leaders on gun regulation; nearly all of them are Jews – Past and present US Senators Feinstein, Schumer, Metzenbaum, Lautenberg, Boxer – joined by an endless list of Jewish members of Congress, and not to mention the actual leaders of gun regulation, Josh Sugarmann, Shira Goodman, to name but a few, and not to mention the Jewish donors to anti-gun rights groups, like Bloomberg and Hechinger, to name but a few.
More locally, two years ago I sat in on a meeting between my then-newly elected state senator Democrat Rob Teplitz and a group of citizens gathered at a local Harrisburg synagogue. As the morning Boy Scout function there was the drawing attraction, and not everyone there was Jewish, there was one group of men who had just completed their prayers and who had then gathered to join in the following meeting with Senator Teplitz. Either the first or second question of the event came from a man in that group, who asked Senator Teplitz when he was going to become an ardent and active advocate for serious gun regulation. Heads nodded in agreement around the table, and Teplitz responded that he would be neither “too pro gun nor too anti gun.”
Further confusing many Americans is how vociferously anti-Israel so many American Jews have become. Whether by strongly supporting an obviously anti-Israel Obama or by actively participating in anti-Israel actions and activities, lots of American Jews clearly are at war with the one nation designed to protect them should the very things they are remembering now begin to happen once again.
Why would a tiny group of people, who have experienced such awful tragedies and injustices over and over again, seek to both disarm themselves and their fellow citizens in favor of big government, which has never anywhere been a friend to Jews or liberty, and also disarm and undermine the one country capable of protecting Jews should the you-know-what hit the fan?
Folks, I know you are moved by recalling victims and inured to maintaining victimhood. It is practically the Jewish identity to the point where “Holocaust worship” has been decried by the more religiously observant Jews; you know, the Bible believers.
If you really want to remember the European Holocaust and say “Never Again!” in a way that means something, then be able to defend yourself. Get a 12-gauge pump shotgun, learn to use it with buckshot and store it safely, and support a strong Israel capable of easily defending itself against all attackers. That’s it.
Otherwise, you just make people ask “Do Jews today really remember what happened, and do they really understand how important Israel is to them?”
In other words, people just must ask “are Jews really so smart?”
PA Leadership Conference gets better and better every year
Thanks to the hard work of Lowman Henry, Dan Mosel and others, the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference was a resounding success.
Scott Davis did the straw poll (I have not been emailed the results; I voted for Cruz and Ben Carson), and despite running around on a million errands, he managed to keep a chipper air.
Chris Liliks was center stage Mister Organization, and USMC Col. Frank Ryan gave the most convincing Pledge of Allegiance ever. Frank and I were opponents in the 2009-2010 four-way congressional race for the then-Tim Holden seat, now gerrymandered into something unrecognizable. Frank is a great guy and it brought me a lot of pleasure to see him again and shake his hand.
Dauphin County Commissioner Jeff Haste had endless patience discussing with me the dynamics and aggravations of the establishment versus the grass roots, and although he was dead wrong on every single thing, he still kindly sat with me and provided great company (as well as thereby serving as the genesis of some great political rumors…).
Business guru Fred Anton provided opening remarks that impressed everyone at our table, as he succinctly hit on every hot political and economic issue in a Spartan speech that artfully blended politics and economy without sounding so dullingly or partisanly political. Vote for PA Supreme Court candidates who are going to fill out their full ten-year terms, Fred told us. That’s not bad advice. But remember that the legislature is considering raising the mandatory retirement age for judges, so candidates who might only serve for two years now could get on the court and then serve seven years, which is plenty long enough.
Rick Santorum gave a heartfelt, moving, extemporaneous speech about Iran that brought inspired tears to the eyes of many audience members. It was a stellar performance that reminded everyone in the packed ballroom why Santorum is still in the political leadership mix – he operates from the heart and from principle, not from from some shallow, meaningless political calculation. Iran’s danger to Western civilization was the topic of Santorum’s speech, where he pointed out that both Republicans and Democrats are failing to lead on this critical security issue. He also hit the Republican Party hard for not incorporating working people into their mantra of money and prosperity, suggesting that if the R’s miss this much more, then maybe it is time for everyone to become Independent or some other third party. Ouch! And he is 100% right, as can be seen from the machinations in the PA 15th Senate District, where yet another super-rich businessman with the articulate capabilities of a junk yard dog is the “chosen one.” If you ask me, and who am I to criticize (;-D), this looks like another one-dimensional effort to lose the seat to the Dems once again.
Senator Pat Toomey gave one of his trademark understated policy speeches where you’re half-way into it and falling asleep before you realize “Oh My God this is serious stuff.” Although I do not agree with Toomey that the senate Democrats should have been allowed to exploit all of the procedural niceties they did not allow the Republicans for five years. Recall that as US Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid conducted “the nuclear option” and dismantled 150 years of Senate procedural rules designed to let the minority have some say and have some votes. Recall that for five years there were something like a total of 16 actual votes on the Senate floor, a historic embarrassment and indication that American democracy was held hostage by the Senate Democrats. Despite suffering under Reid’s mismanagement, Toomey believes in being “nice” now with his Republican majority, somehow proving that the Republicans are nicer than the mean ol’ Democrats. I think he is mistaken. But I am not a US Senator, so I have little to say about it but what I write here. Let us not take away here from Senator Toomey his outstanding and laser-like focus on Iran’s nuclear threat to America.
Everything went as smoothly as possible, with the only unusual thing the large walk-out by a significant portion of the audience when Grover Norquist took the stage. A couple things struck me about Mister Jihadi Norquist. One, he is remarkably small in stature and frame, almost child-size with a squeaky high voice, like the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz. This may explain his need for a larger-than-life personality and desire to dominate everyone. The second unusual thing I noticed was how Norquist required all kinds of security guys, and a big limo, and superstar treatment, in contrast to Santorum, Toomey, and other well-known speakers who just walked right in to the Radisson with a “Hey How are Ya?” attitude and hallos and handshakes and other casual chit-chat on their way to the podium.
It seems that Mister Muslim Brotherhood Secret Operative Blow Up America From The Inside Grover Norquist requires lots of marching band accompaniment to look and feel good. I was happy when I looked around and saw the steady stream of audience members heading for the doors with me, while my colleague remained behind at our front-and-center table “so I can say I got to hear Grover lie in person to a whole room of people.” In other words, it does not appear that Mister Ollie Snackbar Nukem Norquist enjoys much political cover any longer. He was asked to suspend himself from the NRA board of directors four days ago, an indication that his weaseling ways and sneaky days are numbered.
So that is my brief round-up and I could write so much more, but why should I? Really, you should come to next year’s PLC and see how grand it is for yourself.
Going where no Western man has gone before
Each day this past week I have waited for the other-other shoe to drop. And sure enough, each day some new incomprehensible surprise greeted us.
Obama’s most endearing trait is his public persona. His smoothness. His likeability. But what has come out more in the past week than in the past six years is how treacherous Obama is, how deliberately two-faced he is, how big of a blatant liar he is, how evil he is and how intent he is upon tearing down America and replacing it with…God knows what.
In his rapprochement with genocidal Iran and his war on Western Civilization Israel, Obama is dragging the United States into a place no Western human has ever gone before: Down.
Obama is dragging all of us into an abyss from which our nation will not climb out, if Iran gets to own nuclear bombs. And it is clear that Obama wants Iran to have them, just as it is clear that he resents Israel having them (note the release of Israel’s deepest nuclear secrets by Obama’s Pentagon this week).
Odd as it is, Obama’s supporters still include most American Jews, whose recent brushes with genocide would under normal circumstances remind them to place their sympathies elsewhere. However, political correctness is the new religion of the people formerly known as American Jews, and political correctness demands utter fealty to The Human One, whomever that may be at any given time, not The One who created Heaven and Earth. This is a sad development because so much of America’s intelligentsia is represented by the people formerly known as American Jews, such as academia and the media.
In going Down, instead of on the Upward trajectory Western Civilization has carried all of us over the past thousand years, minorities are most likely to suffer badly, one way or the other. One of the largest minorities in America today are Caucasians. How will they fare under the new America? Will there be a place for them? Will faux “White Guilt” force them to become willing slaves? Are they becoming that already, working as they do to support a tax-heavy government intent on wiping away their free speech and self-defense rights?
So many have placed their trust in a Muslim Marxist, whose mask is beginning to fall away, and yet they hope, in vain, that the dirty deeds he does now will not really exist later on. That’s the hope they voted for.
Just as surely as you can keep your doctor and your health plan, you can bet on everything working out just fine, folks. That’s the change we got.
Everybody is Irish today
Americans celebrate a multitude of holidays. Some are religiously based, some are ethnic, some are historic, and some are just fun.
Today is Saint Patrick’s Day, a holiday we borrowed from Ireland and made even better. In Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day has a load of religious meaning, which is fine, and yes, they have some festive public drinking to lend a celebratory air to it.
But here in America, we celebrate St. Patty’s Day as if every American is a little Irish, as indeed many, even most, are.
And that is important, because the Irish were among the very first slaves brought to America, and even as freed men they helped build this incredible nation, knowing that they had as much a share in it as anyone else. Coming from a place – Ireland – where Catholic Irish had their lands stolen on a whim, and where Catholics could be shot on sight just for the fun of it, any place was better.
Irish pluck, Irish luck, Irish humor, Irish fierceness…all are key ingredients in America’s success today. So here’s to the Irish today, and of yesterday, and to all of us Americans. We owe ye much, lads! Today we are all a little bit o’ Irish, just by being Americans.
Obama Administration bears responsibility for ambush of two cops
In Ferguson Missouri late last night, two police officers were ambushed and shot. Both are in critical condition.
Just last week the Obama Administration’s Department of Injustice issued an outrageous, cockamamie “report” that accused the Ferguson police force of racism, despite a lack of evidence to support such a claim. This was outgoing radical Attorney General Eric Holder’s gift to racists everywhere, who have tried to leverage every single justified police shooting into a judgment of American society at large.
Holder’s report gives succor to those who blame everyone but themselves for their problems, and it provides political cover for the Black Panther-type militarism that is sweeping large segments of America’s urban populations. The logic of Holder’s activism is this: If the police force is so racist, then it’s no crime to go out and shoot police.
We saw the same exact dynamic and result when New York City Mayor DeBlasio accused the NYCPD of being a bunch of racists, and then two police officers were immediately ambushed and killed by a racist thug who used DeBlasio’s own words to justify his actions.
Obama has introduced radicalism into every aspect of government action. He has filled senior government posts with people who have had a long history of militating against America as it was founded, constantly judging everyone around them, constantly harassing and accusing everyone around them, and this is just one more piece of evidence that Obama is at war with American citizens.
The blood of these two officers is on the hands of Barack Hussein Obama and Eric Holder.
My heart goes out to these two brave police officers; may they recover soon and completely.
The day after
The day after Netanyahu’s historic speech before the US Congress, people who care about real things, for good or for bad, are doing 180-degree analyses of its impact, the merits of the policy he advocated, the audiences he addressed, the politics behind, surrounding, and in front of him, and implications of a nuclear Iran for America.
Shocking was the news blackout by the major TV networks and NPR/PBS.
While Netanyahu was speaking, I dialed into WITF, the local NPR affiliate here in Harrisburg. Instead of listening to Netanyahu speak, as any listener would normally expect if any other head of state were addressing Congress, I was treated to a sarcastic discussion about health care by advocates for ObamaCare.
NPR is already an especially egregious mis-use of taxpayer money, and this one latest example serves to illustrate how corrupt and intellectually bankrupt NPR, PBS, and their affiliate stations are, despite couching themselves as sources of real debate and substance.
NPR’s news blackout of Netanyahu is done for one reason: To serve the interests of the Obama Administration, which itself not only did not attend the speech, but also issued empty, juvenile statements immediately after Netanyahu finished.
If you are NPR and you are blacking out Netanyahu’s speech, then you are not a real news organization. Rather, you are a political activist, an advocate, far from some kind of fair-minded arbiter of plain fact that you represent yourself to be.
Likewise, here in Harrisburg, the staff of the Patriot News has fallen all over themselves to protect Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse from the legal fallout of his decision to hold onto illegal anti-gun ordinances.
I am a plaintiff in a suit against the city over these illegal ordinances. Yesterday our attorney Josh Prince scored a default judgment against Harrisburg City.
When people like Mayor Papenfuse engage in official lawless behavior, it’s not some sort of hip civil disobedience, it’s tyranny. Government must absolutely live by its laws. Papenfuse believes he is above the law, and that deserves a broadside by newspapers everywhere. But like NPR and the mainstream media’s blackout treatment of Netanyahu, the Patriot News serves a different master – liberals at war with the foundations of Western Civilization. So Papenfuse gets away with legal murder. Iran readies to commit nuclear genocide.
That is a hell of a thing to confront first thing in the day.
A man who loves his nation
How refreshing to witness a leader who loves his country speak passionately about protecting his people.
Netanyahu was speaking for Israel, and also for America, which is leaderless.
One just hopes that enough elected officials can get up enough steam to stop America’s current administration from facilitating Iran getting the nuclear bomb.
Otherwise, the next 9-11 attack won’t be about planes into buildings; it’ll be about entire American cities being vaporized.
Downton Abbey’s “field sports” Part II
Guess I shot from the hip, shot first and asked questions later, didn’t identify my target too well, or another euphemism you may enjoy applying to the lack of foresight I brought to yesterday’s analysis of Downton Abbey’s field sports.
Yes, I could have sneaked a peak ahead of the coming scenes, like many other avid watchers of PBS’s hit show do, but because I lack the time and the inclination to sneak anything, I just sat down in my easy chair and watched the show unfold last night without advance knowledge of its content.
My Sunday afternoon essay about the mediocre depiction of the field sports of Downton Abbey was written beforehand.
So, yes, there was a shooting scene last night, or more accurately, some scenes of wing shooting at driven partridge from bona fide shooting butts, using authentic guns and nice clothes, woven in and out of the story about the Scottish castle party.
But once again, there was more focus on the clothes on the people holding the guns than on the Purdeys, Rigbys, and other Best-quality side-by-side shotguns being used to down the birds.
In 1924, $150,000-then-equivalent Purdey shotguns do not get left with the menial help in the kitchen. They are fussed and obsessed over by their owners, kept locked in their rooms, cased with abundant hand-made accoutrements, labeled beautifully by their makers, and often proudly handed down from generation to generation and worn with traditional hunting clothes.
Scottish castles are loaded with arms and armor, and we barely got a peak at the edged weapons welcoming guests through the front door.
The wagons taking the hunters to the field were right, and a nice touch. I have ridden in such wagons on traditional hunts, and they are today an unnecessary throwback. But back then, they were a necessity through muck and muddy moors.
Shooting driven partridge from the butts was mostly done right, with gun loaders ducking to avoid being seen by the birds, and we did see some people bunched up waving white flags, but a real drive could have been filmed for full authenticity. Actual dead birds could have fallen. Smoke could have emitted from the barrels. Etc etc.
Depicting the shooting sports in so briefly and so shallow a manner is the equivalent of dressing Lady Mary in a perfect 1920s top with modern hip-hugger blue jeans below. It is just wrong. Don’t do that!
A lot of non sequiturs occurred last night that really deprive the Downton Abbey audience of a full appreciation of the English field sport lifestyle, which actually reached its pinnacle in the 1920s (when cheap skilled labor was matched with newly superior steel and modern technology to create firearms that even today still command huge sums of money, not to mention the introduction and propagation of Asian pheasants to the English countryside), the time we are watching in the show.
I am sorry to criticize you, Julian Fellowes, because Downton Abbey is otherwise a great show, everything we want it to be.
Last night was disappointing, because the rich details of noble Scottish and English hunting rites should have been indulged. As a student of English history, you are missing a great, even important opportunity here to dig into a meaty subject which your audience will surely enjoy, even if it involves G-U-N-S.
Maybe in January 2016 we will get a more thorough treatment of a subject that may be missing from Mr. Fellowes’ life today, but which was a nearly daily ritual for the actual residents of Downton Abbey and their peers in the 1920s.
What if concerned citizens blocked the FCC vote tomorrow?
What if concerned citizens went to the FCC headquarters and blocked the five members from meeting there and holding a quorum?
What if the American citizenry decided that they had had enough of Obama’s lawlessness, and they determined the only way to keep the FCC from taking over the Internet was to #OccupyFCC?
What happens when the FCC takes over the Internet, the FEC begins regulating what is posted on the Internet, and the government continues to dispense “waivers” to its regulations like it has with ObamaCare, except that in the case of the Internet the establishment legacy media are allowed to continue on in their partisan way, and everyone else must obey or be severely punished?
Will armed citizens storm the FCC building and take it over, or destroy the hard drives controlling the Internet, to get their freedom back?
These are dangerous times indeed. A lawless takeover of America is rapidly occurring on many fronts, with government coercion and control behind all of it. Americans in the past have not responded well to this sort of power grab. And by bringing in a tidal wave of illegal aliens to vote themselves more of our hard-earned tax money, well, that is the recipe for war. In fact, there are historic precedents for this throughout human history, where alien nations used surreptitious control from behind the throne to take over a competing nation they could not vanquish through warfare.
Obama did not love the America he became president of in 2008, there is no question about that. He is seeking to fundamentally transform America into something else, completely deviating from its founding principles, the principles that made our nation great and a beacon of freedom and hope.
To be fair, Obama is being aided by the weakest group of elected officials in our nation’s history. The Republicans in Congress are obsessed with their own personal power and prestige, their long careers, not with staying true to our Constitution, or to good government, or freedom of speech.
To quote many of my good friends, this situation is “unsustainable.”