Category — History

As July 3, 2008 slides into July 4th on the East Coast, I hear fireworks in the distance. Likely, few of those setting them off appreciate what they originally symbolized.

First, I am deeply grateful to America’s military men and women for standing tall over the last two and a half centuries in the face of such fearful opposition at home and abroad. You are true heroes. May God grant those of you now serving victory in the field and a safe return the country that honors the traditions you sacrifice so much to defend. May He grant us here at home the courage, virtue and insight to win back - through civil debate and due process — the freedoms we enjoyed until such a short time ago.

John Adams is among the most profound and prolific political philosophers of America’s founding generation. If given the opportunity, I wonder what Adams might say to us “modern” Americans on our national birthday. Would he be pleased at how the Constitution has evolved since his passing on July 4, 1826? [Read more →]

Barack Obama has taken exquisite care to mask his personal ideology. What he says is anything but consistent. He is so reticent on this score that — if not for his pronounced narcissism — we might conclude he is modest.

Yet, despite the ideological stealth, who Obama hangs (and has hung) with — mentors, managers and sidekicks — reveals the real deal. In sharp contrast to Obama’s policy meandering, his mentor/ staffer/ pal pattern is consistent. Like plotting points on a map, paste these faces on a wall and a decidedly Marxist tapestry emerges. [Read more →]

Is that a shocking headline or what? I’m working on building a resume to work at KUTV-2 in Salt Lake.  How am I doing?

Anywhoo . . . A BYU engineering professor has worked a miracle in Ghana, harnessing kid power to generate electricity in otherwise powerless towns. Click on the picture (above) for the full story. And  don’t nobody tell Texas CPS!

This is one of the most heartwarming stories of the year, perhaps the decade.  I did not mean earlier to minimize it.  Many thousands if not millions of Colombians will rightfully celebrate this wonderful, bloodless victory.   May I extend my heartfelt congratulations to some of America’s most faithful allies and friends, el pueblo de Colombia.  To the Colombian military: Muy bien hecho!  Viva Colombia!

[Read more →]

This is major news.  CNN reports that Ingrid Betancourt and 11 other hostages have finally been rescued from their kidnappers.  Congratulations to los Colombianos!  Felicitaciones!

Speaking of religion, this story from Foxnews — assuming its accuracy — is the kind of thing that has me wondering whether Muslims, ultimately, can ever peacefully co-exist with anyone but themselves. Take a good look at the pup, then read what follows the picture:

[Read more →]

The Heritage Foundation website features a great expose on the stupidity and/or hypocrisy of those who continue to oppose drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The whole post is worth a read but check out the map, below, showing where ANWR is and isn’t. This tiny slice of U.S. real estate (that tiny red square in the map) is not prime resort or agricultural land.

Green knuckleheads in Congress might want to think strategically, for once. Bleeding American pocketbooks dry by forcing us to buy oil from enemies like Venezuela (and so-called friends like Saudi Arabia) when domestic oil is literally sitting on America’s doorstep will doom America’s economy and its foreign policy. This, I believe, is actually the primary agenda of the big ANWR drilling opponents. Somebody needs to get this idea through John McCain’s noggin.

[Read more →]

In a notorious April 2008 Obama gaffe, Mr. Obama put down small-town Pennsylvanians before a San Francisco crowd, describing them as bitterly taking refuge from economic woes in guns and religion. The remarks demeaned not only small town residents but belief in religion itself.

St. Barack spoke of neither guns nor religion in a context of respect. The questions he raises by disparaging religious faith–we’ll leave guns for others to discuss–are answered in large part, for those capable of connecting the dots, by Obama’s history, by his choice of Jeremiah Wright as his pastor, by his Muslim-leftist family background, and by his education and history to date. [Read more →]

America’s voters would do well to scrutinize Barack Obama very carefully. One of the most disturbing facets of the man is his deep, long-running involvement with liberation theologists, marxists and jihadists the world over. Earlier this year, considerable space on this blog was dedicated to documenting some of Obama’s more obvious connections to such anti-American agitators. We’re not done yet, not by a long shot, no matter what cruelties the State of Texas meanwhile inflicts in its own mini jihad against the FLDS.

Along these lines, David J. Jonsson’s Feb 9, 2008 piece, The Clash of Ideologies in Africa: Kenya, in the NewMediaJournal is a must read. Excerpts follow: [Read more →]

Reader Ozmar notes that Judge Barbara Walther (a member of First United Methodist Church of San Angelo) now appears on First United’s Prayer Concerns page. In case the page is later altered as Walther’s once glowing Wikipedia entry was, here’s a link to a permanent Flash copy. I have a feeling that with the atrocities she has inflicted on FLDS families, Walther will need those prayers and I applaud First United for offering them.

Ozmar — whom I now interpret as a member of the congregation — proposed prayers for the FLDS, as well. If I understand him correctly, it is a very welcome suggestion. I hope, however, that the good citizens — I know there are some — of San Angelo will do more than pray. Judge Walther needs another job.

Speaking of atrocities, First United’s web logo (above) raises uncomfortable questions. Anthropologists may have fun with this one. Where else have we seen burning crosses? I wonder how many protestant churches in Texas use such a logo?

Is there any connection between Judge Walther’s persecution of the FLDS and this ADL story on a resurgent Texas Ku Klux Klan? Here’s an ADL excerpt:

Texas has been a strong scene of Empire Knights activity. In early August 2006, members of the Empire Knights of Texas, based in San Angelo, held a heavily publicized anti-immigration rally in the northwest Texas city of Amarillo. It was only one of several recent Empire Knights events in Texas. In June 2006, over 20 Empire Knights held an anti-immigration rally in the west Texas city of Midland . . .

Hmm. The Empire Knights of Texas based in San Angelo. Burning crosses. First United Methodist touts its colorful post-Civil War history that began — according to the Church’s website — with its founding by the “Reverend A.J. Potter, known as the ‘fighting parson’ because he preached at times with a pistol on his hip and a Winchester in his pulpit . . . .” It’s quite a picture. I’m not suggesting that most members of the congregation are in the KKK. Maybe none of them are. But something wicked is going on in San Angelo and I’m not talking about polygamy.

The FLDS arrived in the San Angelo area in 2004. In early August 2006, the Empire Knights held their big rally. Nah, there couldn’t be any connection. And surely neither Judge Walther nor her prominent San Angelo radiologist husband could be members of the Empire. But that burning cross has me wondering. . .

Quoting myself from April 17:

Texas State troopers had been planning to raid the FLDS in El Dorado for a long time. Just how long isn’t revealed, but the local sheriff, David Doran — who coincidentally carries a brass-tabbed Bible in his official, county-owned SUV — says he had an “informant” inside the YFZ Ranch for four “frustrating” years during which he “never received any outcry, a complaint [about the FLDS and] there was no evidence of illegal activity nor an offense in plain view.”

Surely, brass-tabbed-Bible-totin’ Sheriff Doran isn’t a Klan member. Surely. And surely none of the Texas Rangers or CPS thugs who invaded the FLDS ranch in April is a member. Surely. But, geez, when I Googled “San Angelo” + “Ku Klux Klan” I got “about 21,000 hits.” Can this all really be just a coincidence? And which “cult” did you say makes its home in West Texas?

By the way, can I just say that Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly have been an embarassment on this story, fanning religious hatred and siding with big government. I used to think of Hannity as at least a nice guy. That view is rapidly changing. And where are Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt and . . . Oprah?* You can’t possibly be members of the Empire. Are you really going to let this story slide by without comment?

Kudos, by the way, to Michael Savage and Mike Gallagher who both get it.

* * * * *

*CNN’s Nancy Grace and the entire Fox so-called-news blonde harem — who also fanned the flames — have such low intellectual horsepower they’re collectively worth only a footnote. Fox “news,” indeed. What a joke of a network.