Category → Government Of the People…
Election Day is Nigh
Election Day is Nigh
By Josh First
Three political races are of consequence where I live: Mayor of Harrisburg, Dauphin County Judge (Court of Common Pleas), and Susquehanna Township school board.
Like all elections, this one is important, and unlike all elections, this one is also uniquely of little consequence. Here’s why:
The mayor of Harrisburg has been reduced to an almost figurehead role, because the state is running the city. Yes, the mayor’s desk is a bully pulpit, if you want it to be. But don’t count on many people listening, because the city is broke, broke, broke, and a long time will pass before its citizens feel like things are going right. Harrisburg’s school district is largely out of reach of the mayor’s office, and it requires open heart surgery to bring it back to life before it taxes everyone to death.
Bottom line: No matter who is mayor, it isn’t going to matter a lot right now.
Several candidates are vying for the Democrat nomination. Reportedly, Louis Butts has just been caught defacing Eric Papenfuse’s signs. Personally, I like Louis a lot. But, scratch that candidate, right?
Eric Papenfuse is possibly an intellectual, but he is smitten with terrorist Bill Ayers, and so probably a lightweight. Going against Papenfuse is an op-ed he wrote a couple years ago, lamenting that the poor black kids of Harrisburg might actually get a useful education (vocation) at SciTech, instead of the hard-far-Left issues indoctrination that street organizers prefer their soldiers to march to. Papenfuse is a wannabe plantation owner. Good luck with that one, Harrisburg!
Then there is candidate Dan Miller, a smart guy, a hard working guy, who has tried to hold the line on irresponsible spending. Dan has taken to showboating once in a while, which elected officials can do, but he has also demonstrated careful thinking, and an autocratic streak a mile wide to go with it. Some developers have been rubbed the wrong way by Dan’s style. The Harrisburg Stonewall Brigade have been rubbed the right way. Stallions may become the next de facto Mayor’s office. The owner of Stallions, Mickey Shefet, is one of Harrisburg’s best, hardest working, and most dedicated businessmen, and he deserves a break for having invested in the city for so many years. Go Dan!
Finally, Mayor Linda Thompson is an outspoken woman of faith, an attribute sorely lacking in these modern days. I have worked with Linda on the Tree issue, and she is much smarter than people know. She is also carelessly outspoken on many other issues, some of which matter to city taxpayers. Her “scumbag from Perry County” line shall be etched in Central Pennsylvania infamy for generations, and has already spawned a cellar bootleg T-shirt industry among the proud denizens of that beautiful county. Like those who wear the “Infidel” T-shirt in Arabic across their chests, many Perry Countians are proud to wear Linda Thompson’s most famous line, in camouflage, of course.
Waiting to take on the Democrat nominee is Independent Nevin Mindlin, a long-time professional with fantastic government credentials and a kindly, nerdy disposition that I find magnetic. Mindlin is my choice to run the cit-tay.
The second race is for judge. Democrat Anne Gingrich Cornick appears to many political observers to be a magical creation of Judge Scott Evans, a Republican whose behind-the-scenes power is legendary. Cornick cross-filed as a Republican, reportedly also at the urging of Evans, whose claim to President Judge once more has not necessarily been completely bolstered by the candidacy of two other Republicans, Bill Tully and Fran Chardo.
Both Tully and Chardo are stand-up guys (I have written about their race previously), and I would like to see Chardo gain a few years before he sits in judgment of anyone like me. Tully has the seniority, seasoning, broader experience, and disposition necessary for a good judge. Chardo has the political establishment contacts, so this otherwise-boring judge race may actually be pretty exciting. But the outcome is that the county will get a good judge, no matter which Republican wins.
Finally, Susquehanna Township’s school board is being rocked by racial politics that no one wants to talk about and which threaten to turn Harrisburg’s famously stable, integrated suburbs into a bitter political war zone.
Leading the charge is Coach Jesse Rawls. Rawls was one of the first black wrestling coaches in America, and for that he has my undying admiration. But his emphasis on stocking the school district with skin color and not necessarily with talent is psychotically destructive and, well, it’s racist. Coach, I admire you greatly, and you have also disappointed me terribly, because of all people a wrestling coach knows the value and importance of individual merit and accomplishment. Especially a black wrestling coach in Central Pennsylvania.
Skin color never won a wrestling match, but emphasis on excluding skin color has cost America plenty, so my choice in that election are Bruce Warshawsky and Robert Marcus. Both Bruce and Bob are emphasizing a color-free focus on academic excellence. What other criterion do taxpayers want in teaching? Excellence in all things should be the only thing anyone cares about, talks about, or votes about. Sadly, even if Bruce and Bob win, they will likely be outnumbered by other school board members who see life through skin-tinted lenses, thus limiting their influence on district hiring criteria.
And so, as they say in Chicago, dear friends, vote early and vote often!
IRS and US State Department Spying On Citizens
That Sad, Unimaginable Moment Has Arrived
By Josh First
Incredible as it may sound to some people, and I admit to being naive enough myself that I did not see this coming, proof is out that the Internal Revenue Service and the US State Department have been spying on US citizens and using their official capacities to crush Constitutionally protected political dissent.
American citizens who disagree with Obama administration policies have been targeted by the IRS with intrusive questions and audits designed to either collect information to be used against them, or to intimidate them into dropping their non-profit status and political activities. Simple citizens, non-profit groups, businessmen, have all been targeted by the IRS in a patently illegal effort to stifle dissent. Christian groups, Jewish groups, better-government groups, all targeted with crushing audits designed to open up the groups and expose their members and financial sources to potential faux criminal charges, or to intimidate them into submission and compliance with policies they are against.
The US State Department has now been caught recording phone calls by US reporters and whistleblowers, including retired military officers and civil servants long released from their confidentiality obligations. News reporters being targeted by the government? Sounds like efforts to silence news reporting, right?
This isn’t normal behavior for a US government. At least it is not supposed to be normal. It is not acceptable in America. All of this behavior and activity is illegal on its face, contravening most of the US Constitutional rights and all of the many court holdings designed to uphold those rights. Similar efforts in the 1950s were used to try and shut down the civil rights movement. President Richard Nixon was impeached for crimes much less intrusive and less far-reaching in the 1970s.
Deafening silence about these illegal activities by my friends on the left means only one thing: They are in politics to win by any means. As discouraging as that is, it is reality, and again, I admit to being naive enough to think that kind of behavior is not generally accepted outside of certain small, very narrowly focused political circles.
And so, the moment has come to do what must be done, what in America might be called “the nuclear option.” And that is impeachment of a sitting president, in this case Barack Hussein Obama.
The newly unveiled crimes of this administration are monstrous and demand an adequate response. Nothing short of impeachment will suffice. Democracy, freedom, liberty, and government of the people, by the people, and for the people require it if we are to survive as a unified nation.
Pentagon Policy on Faith Turns American Armed Service Upside Down
Military chaplains are just as limited as rank and file service members by the new Pentagon policy on expressing a member’s faith to others.
Apparently, supposedly, it’s aimed at unwanted proselityzing. Mikey Weinstein is not someone I am familiar with, but he sounds like yet another fallen Jew on the warpath against anyone else having a religious belief. Mr. Weinstein and his organization is reportedly behind the new policy.
It’s one of those oddities of the left that assimilated Jews demand that no one else have religious views if they themselves do not have them. Inverting the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, they say that the mere practice of religion establishes religion, thus violating the Constitution. This is clever. And sad.
Service members are placed in harm’s way every day. Faith is often what inspires them to do it. Faith is often all they have when mortally injured. That service members and their chaplains will have their First Amendment rights muzzled is one more of many extreme policies emanating from the Obama Administration.
Bill Tully for Judge sporting clay shoot
Bill Tully is a candidate running for Dauphin County Judge. He is the older and much, much more experienced of two candidates vying for the same seat. Bill is holding a sporting clays shoot at Hummelstown Field & Stream Association on May 4th, starting with the 8:30 breakfast.
It is $75 per participant and is open to kids 12 and up.
Questions should be directed to www.billtullyjudge.com
Islam Coexists? Really?
ISLAM COEXISTS?
By Bill Warner
April 26th, 2013
There is an enormous irony contained in the Boston Marathon bombing. When the jihadi Tsarnaev brothers carjacked a Mercedes, it had a Coexist bumper sticker.
The Coexist bumper sticker is the religious symbol of the multicultural crowd — you know — all religions are the same. Well, the leading symbol of those who want to Coexist is the star and crescent Islam. And exactly how well has Islam coexisted with all the others? What kind of neighbor has Islam been over history?
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/assets/Coexst.png
Start with Mohammed. We know an enormous amount about Mohammed as a neighbor to Kafirs (non-Muslims), pagans, Jews, and Christians.
When Mohammed was in Mecca before he became a Muslim, he was a good neighbor who was prosperous and helped to settle disputes. But, that all changed when he became the prophet of Allah. Once he became a public preacher of Islam, he became an irritant to his neighbors. You see, not only did Mohammed know what was right, he demanded that everybody do everything his way, Allah’s way. He was a neighbor who was always right and you were always wrong. Not only were you wrong, but your parents and grandparents were wrong. Mohammed no longer settled arguments; he created arguments. After 13 years of this, the Meccans told Mohammed to leave Mecca.
So he went to the town of Medina, which was half Jewish. And what kind of neighbor was Mohammed to the Jews? Put briefly, two years later, Medina was Judenrein (cleansed of Jews). When he arrived, there were three tribes of Jews. In rapid order, the first tribe was driven out of town, bereft of its goods. Then the second tribe of Jews was exiled. They were lucky. The last of the Jewish tribes suffered the most. The women were enslaved and sold wholesale for money to purchase horses and arms for jihad. For the rest of his life, Mohammed used slavery to help finance his jihad. The children were kidnapped and adopted into Muslim families to be raised as Muslims. Then the 800 male Jews were all beheaded.
But wait. Mohammed was not through coexisting with the Jews. Later he left Medina and went to Khaybar and attacked them. Mohammed crushed them, took their wealth and put them to work under the Sharia s dhimmis and give him half of what they earned.
That was how Mohammed coexisted with the Jews.
But Mohammed was not through with coexisting with the Arabians. He attacked the Meccan caravans. His jihadists killed, kidnapped, stole, assassinated and fought the pagan Arabs at every turn. Mohammed’s coexistence policy with the Arabs was jihad. This went on until every Arab became a Muslim.
After Mohammed made every soul in Arabia convert to Islam, he turned his coexistence policy to the Christians north of Arabia in Syria. He attacked the Christians, with the losers becoming dhimmis just like the Jews.
Dhimmis are the way that the Sharia allows Kafirs to coexist within a Muslim society. The dhimmi is a third-class non-citizen who pays special taxes and has no real civil rights. A dhimmi cannot testify against a Muslim in court, for instance.
Look at how Islam coexisted with Africa. A clue as to the nature of that coexistence is that Arabic has one word, “abd”, that means both black slave and African. Context must supply which meaning is used. Islam ran the slave trade on the West coast, East coast and Mediterranean coasts of Africa. Islam sold every slave that was brought to the Americas. Conservative estimates are that 120 million Africans were killed in the jihad that produced all of the slaves in Africa.
How did Islam coexist with the Buddhists in what is now Afghanistan? Jihad annihilated every single Buddhist and their libraries and monasteries.
There is a massive database of the coexistence between Islam and the rest of the world at thereligionofpeace.com. It catalogs more than 20,000 jihad attacks around the world since 9/11 2001. Here is a chart of the data of the top 4 nations as victims of jihad:
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/assets/Jihad%20stats.png
Put another way, this is how Islam coexists today with Jews, Buddhists, Christians and Hindus. It practices jihad against all non-Muslims – Kafirs.
The idea of “coexist” has a social ring to it: we’re all one big happy family. But how do we talk about all religions and not get into which one is right or best? Well, there is an easy way to do it. If you are not a member of a religion, the only thing you care about is how you are treated by those who belong to that religion. In short, you only care about the ethics and character of the adherent.
All of the world’s religions have an ethical code that is rooted in the Golden Rule. Islam does not have a Golden Rule. Mohammed’s life is the perfect example of how not to be a good neighbor. How do you coexist with a neighbor who has the ethical choice of jihad – of murder and deceit?
What do religious leaders in American think about coexisting with Islam? They love it. “Coexist” is the mental mush that fills the heads of the useful idiots that go to the Family of Abraham religious dialogues. The ministers and rabbis who attend these dialogues know as much about Islam as can be found on the Coexist bumper sticker. Their ignorance is astounding. They are there to coexist and the imam is there to dominate. Dhimmi Christians and Jews want to tie, the Muslim wants to win.
But the mental mush of coexistence is not just in the heads of the dhimmi religious leaders, it also fills the heads of law enforcement and military. Under Bush and Obama, all of those who actually know something about Islam inside the military and law enforcement have been removed. FBI and military training files have been purged to satisfy the Muslim Brotherhood. So our protectors are forbidden to study the war doctrine of political Islam. They are prevented from naming the enemy and studying them.
There is only one way to coexist with Islam over time. Islam must submit to Kafir civilization and we must never submit to Islam, not even in the smallest detail. This means we must all know the smallest details of Islam and that begins with the knowledge of Mohammed and his wars against all Kafirs.
Bill Warner is the director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam
An Internet Tax? Oh, come on
Now an Internet tax is being proposed.
Once we have an internet tax, then everything related to the Internet is subject to government regulation and nosing around. The only way the government (IRS) can discover whether or not you have paid your Internet tax is to nose around in your Internet business to verify it. Can you imagine what impact this nosing around might have on your use of the Internet?
What if the IRS agent casually mentions that you’re visiting racy websites. Does that mean that it effects your taxes? Is it a come-on from the IRS auditor? Will your free speech rights be reduced or eroded?
Sounds like another way to get government involved with everything you do.
Sounds like yet another bad policy.
Call your elected officials and say NO to the proposed Internet Tax. Please.
So much to write about, so little time to do it!
Upcoming subject matter includes: Boy Scouts of America policy on sexualizing children (don’t do it), immigration ‘reform’ and the Boston bombing (don’t do it), trading off the Second Amendment for the First Amendment after Muslims blow up the Boston Marathon (don’t do it), the lack of coverage of mainstream media of the Gosnell Abortion House of Horrors and Freak Show (msm is not doing it), and the Obama administration’s odd handling of a young Saudi Arabian kid who was caught up in the Boston bombing and then whisked away by federal officials and scheduled for deportation, without being brought to justice in America….
Separately, thank you to Kim Stolfer and FOAC who organized yesterday’s wonderful Second Amendment rally at the PA state capitol. I enjoyed catching up with many friends and fellow activists, including Shira Goodman, an activist for the other team. Shira works for CeaseFirePA, a gun prohibition group. Yet Shira continues to surprise me, saying she reads this blog regularly (Hi Shira! Thank you!), and that she is taking shooting lessons (DO IT!).
Thank you also to the PA Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, which held its annual Legislative Shoot yesterday at the Mechanicsburg Sportsmen’s Association. Well over 50, maybe 60 members of the PA House attended, as well as quite a few state senators. It was my great pleasure to teach a young Democrat how to shoot an AR-15, so he could see that it’s not a weapon of war, nor is it inclined to jump up and immediately start shooting people of its own accord.
Second Amendment Rally – Tuesday
Tuesday April 23rd at 10:00 am, the annual Second Amendment Rally will be held at the PA State Capitol, and hopefully you can be there. Sadly, it appears that Kim Stolfer may not be there. Kim is the driving force behind Firearms Owners Against Crime (which endorsed me in 2012) and the leader of the rally. His health condition may keep him away, and I know that the thousands of freedom-loving citizens there tomorrow will miss him greatly
Chechen Muslims, Welcome! (KABOOM)
As if the debate about the soft invasion of America, softly described as illegal immigration, didn’t have enough heat on it already. Now we learn that the Boston bombers are/were Chechen Muslims who hate America.
As I write this, there is a huge international hatefest taking place on Dzokar’s personal page (like facebook). Dzokar is the dark-haired bomber, and his page is here http://vk.com/id160300242.
He says his world view is Islam, and on his page right now, he has a lot of unpleasant fellow Chechens and Muslims saying impolite things about America and Western Civilization.
Yesterday I wrote that these guys looked like Chechens, and I am sure that CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations, a Muslim Brotherhood group operating at the highest levels of federal government in America) will now try to line me up against a wall and gun me down for saying it, but what other evidence do Americans need to see that a war is under way against Western Civilization?
The Angry President, The Angry Citizen
Reports across the media spectrum describe Obama as “angry,” because the US Senate shot down lousy, unconstitutional proposed legislation yesterday. Guns are bad, goes that silly narrative.
If Obama is so angry about lousy policy, is he willing to get into the current trial of Dr. Gosnell, the Philly abortionist who professionally killed (murdered) perhaps dozens of children born fully alive, many of whom were crying or making other sounds associated with childbirth as the sharp objects were inserted into their skulls?
The same trial that the mainstream press has steadfastly refused to cover from Day One, as if that refusal to report itself is not a clear indication of an active agenda to suppress information and facts contrary to the beliefs and values of the reporters supposedly leading the charge for a more transparent America.
The disgust I feel for Dr. Gosnell is only slightly more than I feel for a president who refuses to acknowledge what his policies have lead to in Philly. In fact, it makes me plain angry. Guess I am in good company, or lousy company, as it may be judged…