The temptation for President Obama to double down on Iran will grow rapidly as he concludes that Afghanistan will remain a festering sore as far as anyone can peer into a murky future, hardly a recipe for success at the polls in November. With a war in Afghanistan, which is bound to get worse, and a military theater in Iraq replete with sectarian violence, the bombing of Iran may give Mr. Obama a three-front war - and a chance to retain both houses of Congress.
Does President Obama care about religious freedom? It's disconcerting that this question needs to be asked of a U.S. president, but prominent observers are sounding the alarm.
"The Obama administration seems to have decided that other policy initiatives -- outreach to Muslim governments, obtaining China's cooperation, advancing gay rights -- would be compromised by vigorous advocacy for religious freedom," Thomas Farr, director of the State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom under President Clinton, recently wrote in the Washington Post.
As we learned earlier this week, even NASA's "foremost" mission is now Muslim engagement. The problem is that the Obama administration doesn't seem to know the difference between Muslim engagement and Muslim appeasement.
With little fanfare, the administration has quietly changed its religion rhetoric. Administration officials no longer speak of supporting "freedom of religion." Instead, they now speak of "freedom of worship."
It should be noted with bitter irony that the president first used the phrase at the memorial service for victims of the Muslim terrorist attack at Fort Hood, Texas. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have used the phrase many times since then.
The change is of enormous significance. "[Freedom of worship] excludes the right to raise your children in your faith; the right to have religious literature; the right to meet with co-religionists; the right to raise funds; the right to appoint or elect your religious leaders, and to carry out charitable activities, to evangelize, [and] to have religious education or seminary training," Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom, told Christianity Today.
Even Saudi Arabia could be said to have "freedom of worship," as the government allegedly guarantees the right to worship in private. Yet, proselytizing there is illegal, and Muslims who convert to Christianity face the death penalty.
Not to mention that foreign Christians worshipping privately together are subject to arrest and imprisonment without warning, and Jews are not permitted into the country at all, even without engaging in any worship at all. I should not have done well there, had Mr. Wife been foolish enough to accept the assignments his company offered him.
Your government is now sending a signal to the world it is OK with this state of affairs. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, of which Shea is a member, worried in its annual report that the shift in rhetoric could have "concrete policy implications."
As if this concession weren't bad enough, the president just slapped religious freedom advocates in the face again. After leaving the position of ambassador at large for international religious freedom in the State Department vacant for 18 months, Obama finally got around to nominating someone for the position.
Pending approval by the Senate, the job will go to the Rev. Dr. Suzan D. Johnson Cook, author of "Too Blessed to be Stressed," "A New Dating Attitude" and "Moving Up: Dr. Sujay's Ten Steps to Turning Your Life Around and Getting to the Top." Her Web site describes her as a "funspirational" speaker.
*shudder* It doesn't sound like she took any of the challenging courses at her divinity school.
To her credit, Cook is also a New York City police chaplain and served on a presidential commission under Clinton. No one doubts she is an able preacher. However, "Dr. Sujay's resume,
Ah. Dr. Suzan Johnson... Dr. Sujay. See how clever that is?
with no discernible international policy experience, her close ties to the Clinton administration, and several ill-defined business ventures, suggest that Obama cares little about supporting religious freedom around the world," wrote Anthea Butler at Religion Dispatches magazine.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/13/2010 00:00 ||
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obama needs a good mommy to slap him upside the head: he always did. What a pathetic little man.
Even President Obama has come around to acknowledge that "all of us should be worried about the fact that we have been running the credit card in the name of future generations. We've got to get our debt and our deficits under control." Good idea. Let's pass a $785 billion "stimulus" package to do that.
In office less than two years, Obama has already become the biggest-spending chief executive of all time. His newfound concern about debt and deficits is reminiscent of the old story about the guy who killed his parents, then begged the judge for mercy as an orphan. Even so, we welcome Obama's lately discovered fear about the long-term consequences to this nation of a nearly $14 trillion national debt and $1.4 trillion federal budget deficit for 2010. The supplemental "stimulus" package should take care of that. What is it? $285 billion. $785 billion and $285 billion should wipe out most of a $1.4 trillion deficit, right?
But debt and deficits aren't the only monstrously growing manifestations of out-of-control government in the nation's capital. When government spends tax dollars, a flood of rules and regulations invariably follows. Some of the red tape is meant to prevent waste, fraud and abuse. But far more of it is a damaging burden on the individual liberty and free enterprise that have made this country the most prosperous in human history. The recently issued 2010 edition of the Competitive Enterprise Institute's "Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State" provides some chilling insights into just how burdensome federal bureaucracy has become. I keep waiting for someone to ask the question "How does this make us more competetive?"
Regulatory compliance costs imposed on businesses last year exceeded $1.87 trillion, ... which is slightly more than the deficit, comparing apples with oranges...
or an amount equal to 8.3 percent of the gross national product, according to the CEI report. Such costs are only going to grow. Washington issued 3,508 new regulations in 2009. More than one-tenth of the new regulations issued in 2007 each resulted in at least $100 million in compliance costs. All of us pay for these regulatory costs because businesses pass their costs on to consumers in the form of higher prices. Yeah. The gummint oughta do something about that. Pass a law, maybe.
But as CEI notes, there are other, more hidden costs of regulations: "Since disclosure and accountability for regulation are limited, policymakers have little incentive to care about the extent of regulatory costs or where those costs stand in relation to ordinary government spending." And since regulatory compliance costs appear nowhere as a line item in the federal budget, they escape the kind of public and media attention normally devoted to direct government spending. As CEI notes, the result is regulatory compliance costs become a form "off-budget taxation." There's also the fact that compliance is often accomplished by contracting with politicians' relatives. Just give them a bunch of money and let them take care of the details.
Clearly, it's not going to be enough just to reduce government spending and debt; the time has come to take a blunt ax to the Code of Federal Regulations.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/13/2010 00:00 ||
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Drunken hussy in a shopping cart.
No Obama, YOU ran the federal reserve out of cash in the first 18 months you had executive power.
Everything that comes out of your mouth is guile. Not a word of truth do you live, believe, or execute.
You are a false prophet, and I do not care how you write history books because the GOD guy watches you every day, and you know no GOD. You know nothing SIR.
You are the most useless tool on this planet since King James, in fact, you are worse.
You have a month to grow up, your curse awaits.
BTW, NEVER try to school me on anything you petulant, ignorant jerk.
In an article reported by Reuters today, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that Iran is moving closer to possessing the potential which in principle could be used for the creation of nuclear weapons.
The is one of the first times that Russia, who has traditionally been a steadfast ally and supporter of Iran, has publicly criticized the regime and conceded that it is moving closer to obtaining nuclear weapons.
Khalili warned that the Iranian regime was irrational:
Stop dreaming, please. You are not dealing with rational people. Every time you extend a hand, it is not seen as sincerity, but stupidity.
Prophetically, Kahlili said of Iran:
This is a messianic regime. There should be no doubt -- they are going to commit the most horrendous suicide bombing in human history. They will attack Israel, European capitals, and (the) Persian Gulf region at the same time.
In order to stop this 'most horrendous suicide bombing in human history', Khalili called for a pre-emptive strike. "The question is -- is it going to be more destabilizing now or when they have the nukes" he asked. Khalili stressed that any such attack ought to be specifically directed against the Revolutionary Guards and not the Iranian people or the country's infrastructure.
Importantly, Khalili said that any attack must be simultaneously accompanied by a vocal announcement of the support for freedom in Iran "and the people will do the rest". The ultimate goal Khalili proclaimed must be the overthrow of the brutal regime.
Khalili's comments echo those of Yousef Al-Otaiba, the UAE Ambassador to the United States, who -- only days ago -- spoke of the dangers of a nuclear armed Iran and said that the benefits of bombing Iran's nuclear program outweigh the short term costs of such an attack.
The question remains though -- is the world paying attention to these warnings?
#2
Many relationships witnessed in the military that are forbidden do flourish into marriage, despite, or in spite of, the regs against it. Maybe all the nos from commande make the big "Yes" in the Church all the more sought after. One wonderful couple I know personally went to their command, told them they'd be having a relationship, took their punishment and now they are happily married with two great children. After all is said and done, I guess All is fair in LOVE and WAR.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
