“…The United States of America and much of the West are currently in a fit of hysteria. A wildfire is burning through it. Up is down. Down is up. Good is evil. Evil is good. Wrong is right, and right is wrong. Boys can suddenly be girls. Sex and gender are suddenly different things. And Justice Anthony Kennedy believes that because someone may look at the horizon and find loneliness, the Constitution guarantees him the right to marry another man.
Leave aside the fact that any judge who can redefine a multi-thousand-year-old institution on a whim has more power than our Founders would want. Our society is going through a round of hysteria.
…There is also a relentless desire to make those who recognize the madness think they are alone. Voices of dissent must be silenced. You must think you are all alone so that you might decide to go along to get along. The media elite are in cahoots with the censors, having picked a side now declared a “fundamental right,” and you are not to know others disagree with elite consensus.
But you are not alone. Wildfires eventually burn out. The question for you is not whether you take a break from it all and step back to protect your family. The question for you is whether, after you do step back, you prepare yourself to step forward into the rubble, smoke and char to help rebuild civilization once the fire burns itself out.“
While we’ll continue to hate the sin while loving the sinner, like Joshua and the Israelites, America faces a decision:
We’re down with Joshua; besides, we’ve always been adamantly opposed…
…to idol worship.
In a related item of Progressive-promoted insanity, as you’ve likely heard…
“The man arrested in connection with the seemingly random killing of a woman who was out for a stroll with her father along the San Francisco waterfront is an illegal immigrant who previously had been deported five times, federal immigration officials say. Further, Immigration and Customs Enforcement says San Francisco had him in their custody earlier this year but failed to notify ICE when he was released.
“DHS records indicate ICE lodged an immigration detainer on the subject at that time, requesting notification prior to his release so ICE officers could make arrangements to take custody. The detainer was not honored,” ICE said in a statement Friday afternoon.
…On Friday, ICE revealed their records indicate the individual has been previously deported five times, most recently in 2009, and is from Mexico. “His criminal history includes seven prior felony convictions, four involving narcotics charges,”…”
Here’s the juice: every time they’re looking to rewrite the Constitution, particularly the 2nd Amendment, Dimocrats deem eviscerating the rights of hundreds of millions of law-abiding citizens worth the resultant tyranny were only one life saved. Yet when it comes to protecting innocent Americans from marauding illegal aliens…
…not only do they refuse to even enforce laws already on the books, they blame the all-too-predictable result on REPUBLICANS!!!
“The fact is that the president has done everything within his power to make sure that we are focusing our law enforcement resources on criminals and those who pose a threat to public safety and it’s because of the political efforts of Republicans that we have not been able to make the kind of investment that we’d like to make in securing our border and keeping our community safe,” Earnest said.
Josh Earnest…and every other Progressive; truly the offspring…
…of their father!
And for those still confused as to why Señor Lopez-Sanchez chose the City by the Bay as his residence, wonder no longer:
San Francisco; it’s an asylum alright:
Since we’re on the subject of collective insanity, in his latest installment of the Morning Jolt, Jim Geraghty voices a well-founded suspicion we’d all be wise to emulate:
I Fear the Greeks, Even When They Bring Gifts
I see the Greeks gave their answer to their creditors Sunday:
Take a good look, young people. This is where quasi-socialism, with unaffordably generous pension programs and early retirement, runaway borrowing and spending, and a kleptocratic unenforced system of tax collection leaves you:helpless, penniless, and crying in the streets.
Retiree Giorgos Chatzifotiadis had queued up at three banks in Greece’s second city of Thessaloniki on Friday in the hope of withdrawing a pension on behalf of his wife, but all in vain. The 77-year-old told AFP that he had broken down because he “cannot stand to see my country in this distress”. “That’s why I feel so beaten, more than for my own personal problems,” Chatzifotiadis said.
The image of him sitting outside the bank, openly crying in despair with his savings book and identity card on the floor, was captured by an AFP photographer illustrating how ordinary Greeks are suffering during the country’s debt crisis.
Athens had imposed capital controls and shut all banks since Monday to stem a haemorrhage of cash, but on Wednesday allowed some branches to reopen for three days so retirees who have no bank cards could withdraw their pensions — capped at 120 euros. That’s about $132. Imagine being told you’re only allowed to take that out, and God only knows when the banks will reopen.
You’ve got money in a safe deposit box? Tough luck, the left-wing Greek government declares:
Greeks cannot withdraw cash left in safe deposit boxes at Greek banks as long as capital restrictions remain in place, a deputy finance minister told Greek television on Sunday.
This may seem harsh to the Greeks. But they willingly and knowingly tried to build a society where everyone was allowed to retire early – really early:
Early: “Trombone players and pastry chefs get to retire as early as 50 on grounds their work causes them late-career breathing problems. Hairdressers enjoy the same perk thanks to the dyes and other chemicals they rub into people’s hair. Then there are masseurs at steam baths: They get an early out because prolonged exposure to all that heat and steam is deemed unhealthy.”
Really Early: “The Greek government has identified at least 580 job categories deemed to be hazardous enough to merit retiring early — at age 50 for women and 55 for men… The law includes dangerous jobs like coal mining and bomb disposal. But it also covers radio and television presenters, who are thought to be at risk from the bacteria on their microphones.”
Really, really early:“In the public sector, 7.91 percent of pensioners retire between the ages of 26 and 50, 23.64 percent between 51 and 55, and 43.53 percent between 56 and 61.”
Yes, in the past years, they raised the retirement age, trimmed pensions, and tried to raise taxes – although because they have a deep-rooted culture of not paying taxes, it didn’t do nearly enough good. Once a people get a taste of unbelievably generous entitlement spending, they begin to feel . . . well, entitled to it.
In the case of Greece, they will demand that they keep getting those benefits long after the money runs out, even as it grows clearer and clearer no one will loan them any more money.They’ll vote, overwhelmingly, “no” to bailout offers they deem insufficiently generous . . . ignoring that the alternative is unknown, and probably worse.
Not “probably”; inevitably!
Greece may currently be the word, at least as regards state insolvency; but closer to home, NRO wonders…
“Puerto Rico cannot pay its debts. The question now before us is not how it will go about making good on its financial obligations but how it will go about not making good on them.
A number of factors have contributed to this sorry state of affairs. Puerto Rico’s government spends too much relative to its income, and the commonwealth is plagued by familiar problems: dysfunctional tax and regulatory policies imposed by Congress;excessive pension and benefits promises offered to government employees as a cowardly way to keep compensation increases off the books; a political environment dominated by public-sector unions, which threw out Luis Fortuño, the last governor to make a halfway serious attempt at fiscal reform;an economy hampered by relatively low work-force participation, with the concomitant loss of private-sector production; an electorate susceptible to gimmicky non-solutions that promise real results without real reform; brain drain as its most skilled, energetic, and entrepreneurial residents leave as quickly as they can for better economic opportunities elsewhere in the United States…”
Make no mistake about it: California, Illinois…
…and the rest of the country aren’t far behind. To borrow a couple lines from Tinseltown:
Turning now to International News of Note, in the And If You Buy THAT, I’ve Got This Bridge In Brooklyn segment, America’s most implacable foe tells Team Tick-Tock exactlywhat they want to hear:
“Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif urged world powers in a video message Friday to stop the “coercion and pressure” at the nuclear talks, suggesting a favorable agreement could open the door to cooperation on fighting extremism in the Middle East.
Though Zarif didn’t mention the U.S. by name, the seemingly bilateral talks between the two sides make his words clearly directed at the Americans, who have been the primary drivers of the crippling economic sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program…”
Which of course has John Kerry…
…skipping the life, quite literally, all too fantastic. Which just goes to prove, if something sounds too good to be true, it undoubtedly is…an irony which is totally lost on the fools…
…currently conducting America’s sorry excuse for a foreign policy.
Moving on, courtesy of EAG News, coming soon to a school near you…
Teachers granted power to ‘confiscate and destroy’ unhealthy school lunches
The British government is urging school leaders to use their “common law powers” to search student lunches and potentially confiscate any items they deem “unhealthy or inappropriate.”
Education minister Lord Nash tells Express, “Schools have common law powers to search pupils, with their consent, for items. There is nothing to prevent schools from having a policy of inspecting lunch boxes for food items that are prohibited under their school food policies.A member of staff may confiscate, keep or destroy such items found as a result of the search if it is reasonable to do so in the circumstances.”
…There have been glimpses of such policies in the U.S.
A teacher at an Aurora, Colorado school blocked a preschool girl from eating Oreo cookies in her home-packed lunch.They were accompanied by a ham and cheese sandwich and string cheese. When the girl returned home from school, the cookies were still in her lunchbox, along with a note:
“Dear Parents, it is very important that all students have a nutritious lunch. This is a public school setting and all children are required to have a fruit, a vegetable and a heavy snack from home, along with a milk. If they have potatoes, the child will also need bread to go along with it. Lunchables, chips, fruit snacks, and peanut butter are not considered to be a healthy snack. This is a very important part of our program and we need everyone’s participation.”
Pearson’s daughter says her teacher didn’t allow her to eat the cookies during lunch, because “they don’t have enough nutritional value,” according to 9 News.“What the school thinks is healthy for her is not what I think is healthy for her,” the mother says. “That’s between me and her and our doctor – not the school.”
And now, apparently, to progressives in power.
In a related item detailing utterly misguided and maleficent Liberal policies, courtesy of Life News, we learn public schools in Washington state, instead of concentrating on instructing students in the Three R’s, are instead focused on preaching the Progressive gospel of infanticide:
“Middle and high school students can’t get a Coca-Cola or a candy bar at 13 Seattle public schools, but they can get a taxpayer-funded intrauterine device (IUD) implanted without their parents’ consent...”
After all, who cares if Dick and Jane can’t read, write or do arithmetic; Liberals can at least ensure they can practice problem-free, under-age premarital sex!
And since we’re on the subject of things which don’t add up, proof The Gang Who Still Can’t Shoot Straight is every bit as willing to obfuscate the truth as the opposition. Remember Cindy Archer, the lesbian advisor to Wisconsin governor Scott Walker whose rights were egregiously violated by Dimocratic Milwaukee County DA John Chisholm in what was indisputably an unconstitutional, Lois Lerner-like witch hunt? Writing at the WSJ, Archer seeks to explain…
“…I was a close adviser to Scott Walker in the county executive’s office and then in the statehouse, but it never occurred to me that my own happiness would be collateral damage in a political vendetta.
Nothing could have prepared me for waking up to the shouts of men with battering rams announcing that they were about to break down my door on that morning in 2011.
…In the months following the raid, I was interrogated by the district attorney’s deputies numerous times on a variety of topics related to the governor’s tenure as Milwaukee county executive, but I was never charged with a crime. I faced seven grueling confrontations that seemed designed simply to intimidate and harass me into providing damaging information about Gov. Walker—though I had none.
I have also been subjected to derogatory headlines and made the butt of jokes on talk radio and anti-Walker websites about everything from my personal appearance to my sexual orientation and mental stability. Neighbors became distant and suspicious.
Worst of all, I have discovered that my demotion as Gov. Walker’s deputy director of administration, which came four weeks before the raid on my house, appears to have been engineered by the governor’s team after word reached them that I had been targeted by the district attorney. Subsequently, I have not been given any role in the administration that may bring public attention.
My reputation and career have been damaged beyond repair…”
“My reputation and career have been damaged beyond repair”; really?!?
“The state’s public defender passed over two finalists to award a plum state position to a longtime former aide to Gov. Scott Walker, setting the official’s salary at $113,000 a year, or 31% more than her predecessor in the same information technology job.
Cindy Archer hadn’t applied for the civil service job and she was not among the two finalists put forward to state Public Defender Kelli Thompson by a hiring committee. Archer will receive a hefty increase over the $101,121 a year that she had been making in her previous job with the public defender’s office and over the $86,278 salary of her predecessor…”
Please note: Archer’s home was invaded in September 2011; she was…”awarded”…her high-paying government gig July of 2014; yet she’s still singing the blues in June 2015. Sorry, but we believe in truth in advertising, regardless of religion, race, sexual preference…or party affiliation.
Which brings us to The Lighter Side:
Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with this well-deserved homage to…
“Last week marked the passing of a woman whose missionary work and writings inspired hundreds of thousands of Christians to live lives of faith and obedience to God, and led thousands to bring the gospel to people in countries around the world. Elisabeth Elliot died June 15 at age 88, but her legacy will continue through the lives transformed by her example. I knew her simply as “Aunt Betty,” as she was my father’s sister.
Elliot first entered the news in January 1956, when her husband, Jim Elliot, and four other missionaries were killed by a group of Auca Indians, today known as Waorani, in the deepest jungles of Ecuador. The five missionaries—three of them, like Elisabeth, were former students at Wheaton College in Illinois—felt called by God to bring the gospel to this fiercest of tribes, one that had no connections to the outside world.
After months of groundwork, the missionaries made friendly contact with three tribal members near the main Waorani village. But two days later, several warriors burst out of the jungle and speared and hacked the men to death. The missionaries were armed, but when the attack came they only fired their weapons into the air, as they had agreed they would in such an event. Why? Because they believed that they were ready to meet their maker, while the Waorani were not. The incident made headlines around the world, including articles in Life, Time and Reader’s Digest magazines.
The story might have ended there, but it didn’t. Less than two years after her husband’s death, Elisabeth Elliot and Rachel Saint, whose brother had been among those killed, left their homes to live with the tribe that had murdered their loved ones. Elliot also brought her daughter, Valerie, a toddler at the time. For most of us, living with the people who killed your spouse and the parent of your child would be unthinkable. Elliot, who had previously worked in Ecuador as a missionary, saw it as obeying God’s call.
“The fact that Jim loved and died for the Aucas,” she wrote, “intensifies my love for them.” Later she wrote: “My reason for being a missionary was one of the few things I had never doubted. I knew one thing—I must obey God, and I believed this was the thing He meant me to do, just as He meant others to be fishermen . . . draftsmen, housewives. The role seemed incidental.The goal was all-important.”
Elliot lived among the Waorani for two years and discovered that the tribe’s need for God mirrored her own. In her 1961 book “The Savage My Kinsman,” she wrote that “the Aucas are men. Human beings, made in the image of God. . . . We have a common source, common needs, common hopes, a common end.” The “lucid recognition of the Auca as my kinsman was at the same time a new acknowledgment of Jesus Christ, of our common need of Him.” The two American women worked to decipher the tribal language and they shared meals, traditions, and most important, the news of Jesus Christ. The tribe numbers around 2,000 people—up from about 250 in the 1950s when the tribe settled disputes by spearing one another—and about a third have become Christians…”
Well done, thy good and faithful servant; greater love hath NO man…or woman…
…than they lay down their life for their friend…let alone their enemy!
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