Shocking things have become such a daily occurrence under the Obama regime that I gave up blogging a few months ago. There was no way to cover all the outrages — or even to pick what to cover from the overwhelming barrage.

This morning, however, something came along that hits so close to home, I am inspired to write. The horror of ObamaCare has now gotten all too personal. Kathleen Sebelius, Obama’s secretary of Health and Human Services, has chosen, as her first victim in the coming war on insurance companies, my own insurer, the company that has covered — and graciously served — my family for the past 19 years.

The Washington Times, via WeaselZippers, has the story:

The Obama administration on Monday called on a Mennonite-owned health insurance company to cancel its proposed 11.6 percent rate hike, marking the first time the government has tried to pressure a private company under the new health care law.

For those of you who may not know, Mennonites are a Christian denomination that emphasizes non-violence, much as the Quakers do, and mutual assistance, much as Jewish groups have historically been known for. Mennonites originated in Switzerland in the 16th century, were persecuted by both Catholics and Lutherans, and now include members in many countries all over the world. Mennonite congregations and lifestyles range over a broad spectrum, with the Amish being the most traditional.

While Pennsylvania-based Everence Insurance said it needs to raise rates on about 5,000 customers to cover costs, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius called the increase “unreasonable,” holding it up as evidence that the government has an important role to play in reining in the cost of coverage.

I won’t go into private family stories here, but suffice it to say that during some very difficult times, Everence (formerly Mennonite Mutual Aid) was there for us in a way I simply cannot imagine any other insurance company doing. Not only have Everence employees been like angels to my family, they get high marks from all our healthcare providers, too. I can’t tell you how often I’ve received spontaneous, out-of-the-blue remarks from healthcare professionals about how extraordinarily nice our insurer is to deal with.

In part, this is because Everence/MMA is a very small company, i.e., no huge, intimidating, cumbersome bureaucracy. But perhaps more importantly, it’s because they are Christians, who take their mission seriously. As an Everence case manager once told me, “We don’t see ourselves as an insurance company. Look at our name: Mennonite Mutual Aid. Christians helping Christians. That’s what we try to be. We are a Christian mutual aid society, not an insurance company.”

Although I am a Catholic now, the rest of my family still attends a Mennonite church, and we have stayed with our Mennonite insurer. You could look all over America, and I am convinced you would not find a more ethical and caring insurer than this small Mennonite association, which raises rates with great reluctance, and only by what is necessary for its financial survival. There is thus a particularly galling irony in the fact that of all the insurers in America, Kathleen Sebelius and her minions would pick this one to attack first.

But then again, perhaps it makes perfect sense in a perverse way. We know that bullies are cowards at heart, so they usually go after the little guys. And they often target Christians, whom they know hold themselves to a higher standard of behavior than that of the bullies. Some readers might find additional irony in the fact that this leftist Administration is targeting a denomination whose most famous trademark is its strict pacifism. You’d think the anti-war liberals would give them a break, wouldn’t you? But some of us have been saying for a long time that, contrary to popular stereotypes, the Left is not and never has been nonviolent.

I am happy to note that the Mennonites, pacifists though they be, are resisting Sebelius’ efforts to intimidate them.

With the first plan to be ruled unreasonable by the administration, Everence indicated it would not back away from the rate hike, although the Mennonite-affiliated company will be required to publicly justify it on the website healthcare.gov.

The fact that Obama, Sebelius & Co. are going on big-time offense against such a small fish — and a virtuous, Christian one, at that — is just one more bit of evidence that these people really are doing the devil’s work. But it may be taking them by surprise to come up against something of which they seem to have no concept: the unearthly strength and courage that Christ the King gives His humble followers, who bow to no one but Him.

If you don’t know who Thad McCotter is, don’t worry; you will soon. The next GOP candidate debate is scheduled for August 11, and it’s safe to say that McCotter’s presence in the lineup will get a lot of folks’ attention. Let’s put it this way: he’s not only the tallest guy in the room, but the brainiest. Also, the wittiest — as anyone who’s seen any of his frequent appearances on FOX’s “RedEye” knows.

When I first heard the name Thaddeus McCotter several years ago, I pictured an older Southern gentleman, white-haired, with spectacles and an old-fashioned pocketwatch in his vest, complete with a fob… Colonel Sanders without the bowtie. Whoa. I was way off base. Turns out the five-term Michigan Congressman is lean and tall, relatively young, athletic (football and baseball), and the lead guitarist in a Congressional rock-n-roll band, the “Second Amendments.“

Formerly the head of the Republican Policy Committee — the #4 GOP leadership position in the House — McCotter represents Michigan’s 11th district, which includes western and northwestern suburbs of Detroit. A Detroit native, McCotter is highly sensitive to the automotive industry which employs (or has employed) many of his constituents. This may explain several pro-union votes cast by McCotter that many GOP primary voters, myself included, may find troubling.

However, since there is no perfect candidate (“perfect” being defined as: “agrees with me 100% on every issue”), I have a one-free-pass policy: I give each candidate a “Get Out of Jail Free” card on one issue. I figure that’s as close to perfect as you’re ever going to get in an imperfect world — and in the particularly imperfect world of politics. And that’s just on the issues. The perfect candidate also needs to be someone who can win.

Let me tell you how close to perfect McCotter is. He has the sheer intellectual firepower of Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann’s passion for the Constitution, the even temperament of Tim Pawlenty, the moral compass of Rick Santorum, and Herman Cain’s can-do American spirit. All that, plus a great sense of humor.

On the issues, McCotter is pro-life, pro-Israel, anti-Obamacare; he advocates lower taxes, reduced spending, small government, a strong defense, energy independence and Paul Ryan’s budget plan. He believes in responsible stewardship of natural resources but doesn’t buy the global warming hoax. The most recent piece of legislation he’s introduced is H.R. 2261, a bill to cut off United States contributions to the United Nations if if the U.N. goes through with recognizing an independent Palestinian “state” as planned this fall.

Actually, most of the GOP candidates share those views. I don’t understand conservative pundits who complain about the lineup of Republican candidates. I happen to think we suffer from “an embarrassment of riches.” Our candidates — those who have announced and the potential ones waiting in the wings — are fabulous, in my opinion, both in their stands on the issues and in their personal skills and experience. If anything, the problem is one of choosing between many excellent and virtuous people.

So what makes McCotter stand out? At least two very major things. First, he has a profound vision of the Big Picture — and, crucially, the ability to articulate it — that is reminiscent of G.K. Chesterton. Second, he has thought through, and deeply cares about, some hugely important issues that I don’t see anyone else in the GOP addressing:

1. the very real challenges posed by globalization (jobs go to where labor is cheapest, even if that means prison and slave labor);

2. the fact that Communist China is really and truly Communist, can not be trusted, and indeed is taking hostile action against us politically, economically, technologically and militarily;

3. the fact that both for economic and for military security, we need a manufacturing base in this country;

4. the crucial importance of “intermediating institutions” to the social fabric — churches, parent-teacher organizations, Kiwanis clubs, softball leagues, Boy Scouts, small-town chambers of commerce, etc. — without which society is hollowed out, reduced to isolated and vulnerable individuals on one end and an intrusive, overreaching government on the other. It is these intermediating institutions that help keep families and communities strong, strong enough to neither desire nor create an opening for the “nanny state.”

This last point is what Catholic social teaching calls “subsidiarity” — the principle that “human affairs are best handled at the lowest possible level, closest to the affected persons.” In other words, if a need can be met by one’s family, then the school or community should not interfere. If the local community can meet the need, then the state or its agencies should stay the heck out of the picture.

Thad McCotter “gets” all this on a deep, instinctual level — and that’s another reason his thinking reminds me of G.K. Chesterton, who was probably the most able exponent in the English language of the concept of subsidiarity. Many of our conservative candidates are “pro-family” — but precious few (Santorum is the only other one I can think of) explicitly recognize the crucial principle of subsidiarity, without which the bones of a pro-family stance have no flesh.

McCotter asserts that too many of us on the political right, losing sight of subsidiarity, have become almost as ideological as our enemies on the left. We have gotten suckered into the ideology of “creative destruction,” which is not true conservatism at all. Here’s how McCotter explains it in his book, Seize Freedom!: “Creative destruction” is

the ideology that led “conservatives” to falsely think materialist panaceas — notably the chimera of “free trade” — would solve all problems between peoples. Enrapt by this deceit, the heralds of “creative destruction” (for everyone but themselves) placed a greater value on saving five dollars on an imported shirt from a sweatshop than on defending the inherent dignity of individuals; than on ensuring fair competition and jobs for American manufacturers and workers; than on securing the national security of the United States from predatory nations like Communist China; and, yes, than on preserving the moral foundations of American culture, which secures and sustains our free-market prosperity.

I like and trust Thad McCotter because he espouses the basic, common-sense truth that I first heard articulated by Mike Huckabee back in 2008: To be secure and to remain free, our country absolutely must be self-sufficient in three things — food, energy and defense. Did you know that we have been outsourcing various defense-systems components? Not to mention that we import many of the machine tools that we need for manufacturing the components that we do still make here. Unlike any of the other candidates, Thad McCotter prioritizes not just “jobs” in the abstract, but specifically the necessity for America to restore its manufacturing base, which he calls our “Arsenal of Democracy.”

As for the “food” leg of the three-legged food-energy-defense stool, you will notice that McCotter is the only Republican candidate who mentions farmers. (He even put that electric guitar of his to use playing at a Farm Aid concert.) McCotter believes that the information-and-services economy so beloved by the liberal elites is no stable economy at all. A healthy, secure America, he says, is a nation of factories, and (significantly to this heartlander) “a nation of farms.”

As an admirer of E.F. Schumacher, Wendell Berry, and G.K. Chesterton, I love it that McCotter believes these things to his marrow. But the scheming political activist in me that wants to win elections rejoices that McCotter’s combination of conservative social values, strong-national-defense advocacy, and blue-collar (both factory and farm) sympathies will appeal to precisely those same working-class voters who enabled Ronald Reagan to win the White House, introducing the term “Reagan Democrats” to the American political lexicon.

McCotter can win those people in the middle who in 2008 bought the lie that Obama was a “moderate” and a “uniter.” Those people, now disillusioned, are more than ready to vote for a Republican, provided that they feel that he or she understands their concerns. Most importantly, Thad McCotter will win them not by watering down conservatism, but by explaining it well enough to persuade people of the logic and rightness of conservatism. Just as Reagan did.

Congressman Pat Tiberi of Ohio says that McCotter represents an important part of the Reagan coalition that the GOP is going to have to win again to be a successful national party. “When my dad voted for Ronald Reagan, it was the first Republican he ever voted for,” Tiberi says. “He was a Catholic, a union worker, an immigrant. We need to reach voters like that who share our values but identify with the Democrats for demographic reasons.” McCotter, he says, “clearly and confidently communicates what he believes” in a way that “speaks to them.”

All right, enough about Thad McCotter. Check him out for yourself. Here he is in Whitmore Lake, MI, announcing his candidacy at a July 4th weekend “Freedom Fest”:

As you can see, Joshua Sharf got it right when he said, “McCotter takes his politics seriously, but not himself, a rare characteristic in a politician.”

McCotter has a solid worldview, not just a set of talking points; a philosophy, not just a personal promotion strategy.

His book, Seize Freedom!, is available from Amazon; many of his speeches and interviews are online at YouTube; and the best profiles I’ve seen of the man are at American Spectator and the New York Daily News.

Check out his campaign website, McCotter 2012.

As for me, I’m counting down the days until the Iowa Straw Poll. McCotter’s going to rock it — in more ways than one.

Cross-posted at The Heartlander

Here is a chillingly prophetic piece dating from January 7, 2009. Think back, for a minute, to those days after Obama had been elected but before he’d been inaugurated… those days of “The Office of the President-Elect” and the cheap-imitation presidential seal… And then, only 25 days after this piece was written, Obama was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize — after being in office less than two weeks. I never saw this article at the time. As I read it today, I got goosebumps — and not the good kind — as I compared what we know now with what people such as Henry Kissinger were thinking 29 months ago as they looked forward to the age of “hope and change”….

WASHINGTON, DC, January 7, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In an interview with CNBC Monday, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that President-Elect Barack Obama’s most important, or defining task would be the creation of “a new world order.”

“The president-elect is coming into office at a moment when there is upheaval in many parts of the world simultaneously,” said Kissinger.

“Upheaval,” he says. Isn’t that cute? And that was before Greece went up in flames, Spain erupted in protests, Hezbollah dug in near Tijuana, Mexico descended into total chaos, North Korea sank a South Korean ship and attacked one of their islands, the Deepwater Horizon oil well blew out, China (or someone) test-fired a missile off the coast of Los Angeles, a Muslim U.S. Army doctor massacred soldiers at Ft. Hood, Iran started building missile bases in Venezuela, Christian churches got burned down everywhere from Iraq to Egypt, Mubarak got ousted, Iranian protesters got slaughtered in the streets, Libyan protesters got slaughtered in the streets, Syrian protesters got slaughtered in the streets, Bahraini protesters….  you know the rest. Kissinger continues:

“You have India, Pakistan; you have the jihadist movement. So he [Obama] can’t really say there is one problem, that it’s the most important one. But he can give new impetus to American foreign policy partly because the reception of him is so extraordinary around the world. [Right, Henry. Especially from the queen of England. And the prime minister of Israel. And French president Sarkozy.] I think his task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period when, really, a new world order can be created.”

“It’s a great opportunity, it isn’t just a crisis.”

Henry is sounding nearly word-for-word like Rahm Emanuel here. And Frances Fox Piven. And Saul Alinsky. Ah, yes, Kissinger the “community organizer” — who knew?

Some commentators have suggested that the highly escalated conflicts in the Middle East and the world financial crisis have made the time ripe for a long-anticipated and foreshadowed “New World Order” to come to fruition. Celebrated Canadian author Michael O’Brien, who has written extensively on the ‘new world order,’ spoke with LifeSiteNews.com about Kissinger’s statement.

“Only in one sense is Kissinger’s analysis correct,” said O’Brien. “The current world situation is presently one of a multitude of crises and at the same time a moment of opportunity. However, positing a leap towards what he calls a ‘new world order’ is fraught with difficulties.

“What does the term mean? In all likelihood it can only mean an imposed top-down global social-political revolution. In other words, solutions would then come from a reigning authority over all nations putting aside individual conscience and principles of national self-determination.”

O’Brien added: “A true and healthy order in the human community can only arise from an internal revolution of the moral order. It cannot be imposed without imposing greater ills. In all likelihood, Kissinger and like-minded globalists, see the present world configuration as a creative disintegration which would usher in a new form of world government. In such a situation, management by crisis overrides authentic exercise of human freedom and responsibility.”

Because the real agenda of the one-world control freaks revolves around global population control, pro-lifers have long been ahead of the game in recognizing the core dynamic of the globalists.

For pro-life advocates, the proposal of a ‘new world order’ has been linked to the anti-life principles promoted at the United Nations. Pope Benedict, while still a Cardinal, expounded on this matter in the introduction to a book published in 1997. Then-Cardinal Ratzinger wrote the preface to a book by Michel Schooyans, entitled “The Gospel: Confronting World Disorder.

…Ratzinger first denounces the “new world order” describing it as more or less a culmination of Marxism. He goes on to say that a Christian is “obliged to protest” against it.

Now, Christian protest, if it is truly Christian, will have a different character than Leftist/secular protests — both in what we advocate, and in how we advocate it. In my opinion, the starting point for every citizen who is a Christian should be signing the Manhattan Declaration of Christian Conscience.

As we stand for our principles in the political sphere, we need to always remember that the root problem is spiritual in nature, and that is where the real war must be fought, both within ourselves as individuals, and within the culture: “an internal revolution of the moral order,” in Michael O’Brien’s wise words.

The world-government control freaks and their initiatives, from the United Nations to the Bilderberg Group, from Agenda 21 to the Millennium Goals, represent a mind-set that, far from being limited to the Kissingers of the world conferring in dark-paneled rooms, is right out in the open and pervades our public life. That mind-set is materialism — the unspoken assumption that man is nothing more than an evolved combination of chemicals, therefore any individual life is worth little to nothing, and the great masses of human beings should be managed by their self-appointed “superiors.”

If there is no soul, if all that exists is what we see with our eyes, then why not have government-forced abortions in America, as Obama’s science czar, John Holdren, has advocated? If an individual life is worth nothing, then why not impose social conformity by “eliminating” 25 million Americans in “re-education camps,” as Obama’s friend Bill Ayers and his Weather Underground terror group once discussed?

It’s quite telling that Saul Alinsky, the father of “community organizing,” dedicated his book to Lucifer, a.k.a. Satan. You may recall that when Jesus was tempted in the desert, one of the temptations Satan proffered was global rule — worldly power — the only kind of power that an Alinsky, a Kissinger, or an Obama seems to recognize. But Jesus did not choose that kind of power. He chose — and enables every one of us to choose — the power of self-giving love. And that is the only power that can change the world for the better.

Oh, if only the death of Osama bin Laden’s death could solve all our problems. No doubt we’ve dealt a serious blow to al-Qaeda. Unfortunately, Hezbollah, which has terrorist cells all over the Western Hemisphere — including within U.S. borders — is an even greater long-term danger to us than al-Qaeda is.

In case anyone needs a refresher, Hezbollah is the Iranian-sponsored terrorist organization that has dominated Lebanon for many years, having made its first huge splash in 1983, when its suicide bombing of the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut killed 241 Americans. Since then, Hezbollah has spread all over the world, and has pulled off some very high-profile terrorist attacks, including the bombing of the largest Jewish center in Buenos Aires in 1994, and the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1998.

Hezbollah has had a growing presence in South America for over twenty years, with its heaviest concentration in the remote, lawless wildlands of South America’s “Tri-Border Area” (TBA), where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay intersect. Although Hezbollah’s chief target is the United States of America, few Americans are even aware of the group’s large and growing presence in our hemisphere. The fact that Iran is now building missile bases in Venezuela has perhaps gotten a few more people’s attention — but the media is not devoting to it anything like the coverage that its significance deserves.

If all that weren’t bad enough, Hezbollah is in Mexico, is actively and successfully recruiting there, and now we find out that its reach extends as far northward as Tijuana. Maybe I missed it, but as far as I can tell, virtually nobody is covering this. There’s one lone TV station down in San Diego that broke the story — and other than a mention on the Fox News website, and a few conservative blogs, the story has gone down a black hole. Barack Obama certainly didn’t mention it when he delivered his little “Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, bitter clingers!” speech last week in El Paso.

From Channel 10 News in San Diego:

A terrorist organization whose home base is in the Middle East has established another home base across the border in Mexico.

“They [Hezbollah] are recognized by many experts as the ‘A’ team of Muslim terrorist organizations,” a former U.S. intelligence agent told 10News.

From Small Wars Journal, we get the following account that illustrates just how sophisticated Hezbollah is:

Recently, FBI agents went to the Tri-Border Area on a covert mission, only informing a select few officials of the host country with little time before arriving. Hezbollah faxed the FBI New York office pictures of their agents de-boarding their plane, just minutes after it happened. ―The implicit message was clear: We know you‘re here. We‘re watching. It was a classic example of Hezbollah‘s superb counterintelligence, another reason why American officials consider the group so dangerous.

This is what we’re up against, folks. And they’re not just down in the wilds of South America any more. According to the former intelligence agent who spoke to 10News San Diego:

The group is now active much closer to San Diego. “We are looking at 15 or 20 years that Hezbollah has been setting up shop in Mexico.”

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, U.S. policy has focused on al-Qaeda and its offshoots. “They [al-Qaeda] are more shooters than thinkers … it’s a lot of muscles, courage, desire but not a lot of training.”

Hezbollah, he said, is far more advanced.

“Their operators are far more skilled … they are the equals of Russians, Chinese or Cubans,” he said. “I consider Hezbollah much more dangerous in that sense because of strategic thinking; they think more long-term.”

Hezbollah has operated in South America for decades and then Central America, along with their sometime rival, sometime ally Hamas.

Now, the group is blending into Shi’a Muslim communities in Mexico, including Tijuana.

Until a few months ago, when I first started researching Hezbollah’s activities in Latin America, I didn’t even know there were Shi’a Muslim communities in Mexico. But indeed there are — in part, emigres from Muslim countries; in part, Mexican converts to Islam. The 10News story continues:

Other [Hezbollah] pockets along the U.S.-Mexico border region remain largely unidentified as U.S. intelligence agencies are focused on the drug trade .

“They have had clandestine training in how to live in foreign hostile territories,” the agent said.

The agent, who has spent years deep undercover in Mexico, said Hezbollah is partnering with drug organizations, but which ones is not clear at this time.

He told 10News the group receives cartel cash and protection in exchange for Hezbollah expertise.

“From money laundering to firearms training and explosives training,” the agent said.

For example, he tracked, along with Mexican intelligence, two Hezbollah operatives in safe houses in Tijuana and Durango.

“I confirmed the participation of cartel members as well as other Hezbollah individuals living and operating out of there,” he said.

One of the things that is crucial to know about Hezbollah is that, although they are affiliated with Iran, each cell is set up to be self-sufficient with respect to personnel and funding. By and large, once a cell is established, it is not getting financial support from Iran. Each cell raises its own funds. This is why Hezbollah has gotten involved with the drug and human-trafficking cartels, along with currency-trading, import-export, and document-forging operations: These are money-makers.

But it’s a two-way street. The drug cartels give Hezbollah a piece of the action with the drug and human-trafficking trades, but on the other hand, Hezbollah’s particular specialties are useful to the Mexican cartels.

Tunnels the cartels have built that cross from Mexico into the U.S. have grown increasingly sophisticated. It is a learned skill, the agent said, [that] points to Hezbollah’s involvement.

“Where are the knowledgeable tunnel builders? Certainly in the Middle East,” he said.

Why have Americans not heard more about Hezbollah’s activities happening so close to the border?

That’s a very, very good question. Could it be (as I suspect) just good old-fashioned denial — i.e., we’re dealing with a threat so horrible, and seemingly so intractable, that deep down, we really just don’t want to know? A variation on that is that news media — and the interests that control them — are afraid of creating a panic. Regrettable, but understandable.

“If they [Hezbollah] really wanted to start blowing stuff up, they could do it,” the agent said.

According to the agent, the organization sees the U.S. as their “cash cow,” with illegal drug and immigration operations. Many senior Hezbollah leaders are wealthy businessmen, the agent said.

“The money they are sending back to Lebanon is too important right now to jeopardize those operations.”

The agent said the real concern is the group’s long-term goal of radicalizing Muslim communities.

“They’re focusing on developing … infiltrating communities within North America.”

Counterterrorism professionals tell us that Hezbollah already has cells in the United States. And we know that their operatives are continuing to enter the U.S. via Mexico. Obama and others like to make it sound as if Mexicans are the only people coming over our unsecured border. But every year, thousands of OTMs (other than Mexican) cross the border as well. According to the Dept. of Homeland Security,

federal law enforcement agencies detained 791,568 deportable aliens in fiscal year 2008 – and 5,506 of them were from 14 “special-interest countries”… Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen … [and terror sponsors] Cuba, Sudan, Syria and Iran.

Although only three of the thirteen Muslim countries on that list are listed as “terror sponsors,” Yemen is now al-Qaeda’s strongest base of operations, Somalia is the home base of the vicious terrorist group al-Shabaab, and we hardly need comment on the terror groups based in, funded by, or otherwise connected with Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Now consider: If border security personnel managed to catch 5,506, how many successfully got through without being caught?

The problem is bad enough that even Eric Holder’s Justice Department admits that terrorists have been crossing our borders.

There are nearly 2,000 mosques in the U.S.. Even if only one percent of them shelter Hezbollah operatives, that would still be 20 American cities that could be attacked simultaneously if the command went out.

Just the imaginative figments of spy-thriller authors? Hardly. This is actually the way Hezbollah works, according to counterterrorism expert Cyrus Miryetka. Hezbollah cells play “the long game,” biding their time for years or decades, waiting for the signal to do what they’ve trained for years to do. When the signal comes, we could see multiple Beirut-barracks type bombings. Or Mumbai-style massacres. Or Beslan-type massacres of schoolchildren. Or some combination of all the above. Or something we haven’t seen before and can’t even imagine. But the one thing we can almost surely count on, according to intelligence experts, is that it would be multiple attacks in multiple cities happening nearly simultaneously.

A useful analogy is red imported fire ants. Anyone who’s lived in the southern U.S. will know what I’m talking about. The tactic of those vicious, meat-eating insects — which have killed off much of the ground-nesting bird population in Texas and other states, and have even killed larger animals such as calves — is to crawl up your leg by the dozens or hundreds before you even know they’re on you — and then, upon the release of a pheromone signal by the first one to sting, they all sting simultaneously. The pain is excruciating.

Right now, Hezbollah operatives are figuratively crawling up our leg, infiltrating one cell after another into our country, getting in place, getting ready, awaiting the signal.

Frightening, depressing stuff — no wonder nobody wants to talk about it. But if a wildfire were headed directly toward your home as you slept, wouldn’t you want someone to call and wake you up, so you could survive, and possibly even save your home? We may be in for tragic events, but surely our odds of surviving or even preventing them are better if we’re aware and informed about the danger. Forewarned is forearmed.

So, what to do?

• Insist that our elected officials cease their willful ignorance of this problem, fulfill their constitutional duty to inform themselves about the enemy within, and in turn, inform the public. We have been bound and gagged by leftist-imposed “political correctness”; those gags need to come off, and quickly. We need more Sue Myricks and Peter Kings.
• Immediately shut down all jihadist training camps in the United States. It is insane that people training for the violent overthrow of the United States are permitted to operate at all. On the contrary, these people should be put on trial for sedition and punished accordingly. And the people living in nearby communities should be alerted to the camps’ existence. It’s simply wrong to keep people in the dark about the presence of such dangerous enemies in their vicinity. We have laws requiring that people be notified about sexual predators in their neighborhood; why not about people who mean to kill them and their children?
• Vigorously investigate every mosque and Islamic center in the United States. Numerous intrepid researchers have already documented the nefarious purposes for which these centers are used. Shut down the guilty ones and deport their imams. Again, “political correctness” is just a euphemism for national suicide. We are facing a threat to our continued existence, both as a country and as individuals “guilty” of being “infidels.”
• Last but certainly not least : Seal the borders. (Mexico first, but don’t forget Canada.)

There are many more tactics in an effective strategy; these are just the most obvious ones to an amateur. Our intelligence agencies will know full well what to do; we just need to listen to them, and to free our law-enforcement personnel to implement life-saving measures.

Cross-posted at The Heartlander.

What exactly is the nature of Islam?

Specifically:

• Is Islam itself evil — or only certain interpretations of it?
• Can Islam be reformed — or is that impossible by its very nature?
• Should we encourage “moderate” Muslims — or is that just wasted effort?

Ever since 9/11, Americans have been asking themselves these questions.

Christians often ask an additional question:

• Is it worthwhile, or even morally right, for the Church to “dialogue” with Muslims — or should all our effort be focused on converting them?

Personally, I’ve gone back and forth on these questions more times than Barack Obama’s head goes back and forth when he gives a speech. As a Christian, and particularly as a Catholic, I feel like I get mixed messages from Scripture, history, Church teaching, and reason.  Christians from St. Thomas Aquinas to C.S. Lewis, and all the way back to St. Paul (see Romans 1:19-20; Acts 17:22-28), have explained that God reveals Himself even to those who have never heard the name of Jesus, and that glimmerings of truth exist within other religions. In the words of Nostra Aetate, the Vatican II declaration on the relationship of the Church to non-Christian religions,

The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions.  [emphasis mine]

Of Muslims (note: Muslim persons, not Islam itself) the document states:

The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth….

On the other hand, St. Paul said to “test the spirits” to discern whether they’re good or evil, and Jesus said we can judge a tree by its fruit.

Roy H. Schoeman, a Jewish Catholic, in his book Salvation Is from the Jews, has this to say about Islam:

[Satan] has one goal — to deprive man of salvation, of eternal happiness — and one of the ways to achieve that is through the propagation of false religion, the primary victims of which are its own adherents…. Of all the major religions of the world, only Islam arose after God’s full revelation of Himself to man in His incarnation in the person of Jesus Christ…. Only Islam’s revelation came after Christ, aware of Christianity yet contradicting it. Hence one must ask what the source of the revelation was — was it of human or of supernatural origin? If of supernatural origin, did it come from God or from fallen spirits?… One must ask just what spiritual entity lies behind the revelation of Islam. [pp. 295-300]

And yet… I believe that beauty is one of God’s attributes, and I have personally seen and heard things within Islam that are stunningly beautiful — Sufi dancing (in which I have even participated), the poetry of Rumi, the goosebump-inducing sound of certain Muslim melodies.

On the other hand, when I tried to read the Qur’an for myself, I had to stop, because it so disgusted and outraged me that I could not continue. It’s as if someone tore all the pages out of the Bible, discarded 90% of them, put the remaining 10% through a shredder, cut and pasted the shreds together randomly, then tried to cover the ugliness of the pastiche by throwing a lot of overly flowery language over it.

But that’s just my subjective opinion. If we want to stick to more objective criteria, we can look at the statistics on the cold, hard facts of life in Islamic countries, such as clitorectomy, polygamy, burqas, honor killings, forced child marriages, wife-beating, domestic imprisonment, acid attacks, gang rapes, and other cruelties toward Muslim women and girls.

So… Is Islam the direct work of the devil, and was Muhammad possessed by demons? Or, is Islam merely a very faulty instrument that God in His omnipotence and mercy can use, anyway, to reach His beloved human creatures — kind of like the way a cheap toy flute, with badly spaced holes and flimsy keys, might still make music in the hands of a master?

Should Western Christians band together with virtuous atheists, such as the late Oriana Fallaci, to fight the anti-human cult of Islam? Or, should we join forces with Muslims of goodwill in order to combat what may be the even greater evil of secularism, what Pope Benedict XVI termed the “dictatorship of relativism”?

Can Islam be reformed and made compatible with the modern world of progress, liberty and individual rights? Or, is it inherently unreformable?

To stage a debate on the question, “Can Islam be reformed?” you’d be hard-pressed to find two more qualified and articulate principals than the two men you’ll see in the video below.

For the affirmative, we have Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, who is, hands down, my favorite Muslim in public life. He’s earnest, likable, accomplished, patriotic, has integrity and goodwill, and is smart and engaging. A medical doctor and formerly an officer in the U.S. Navy, Jasser is founder and head of a group called the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), whose goal is genuine Islamic reformation. He has started programs to inculcate young Muslim Americans with the principles of our Founding Fathers, a love of liberty, and commitment to the Constitutional rule of law, and separation of mosque and state.

If you can’t watch the whole debate, try to at least watch from the 5:10 mark to the 10:20 mark, which is the first segment in which Dr. Jasser comments. If you’ve never seen Jasser interviewed or read his articles, you owe it to yourself to hear his views, for he is an entirely different breed from the duplicitous, seditious CAIR types who dominate the discussion of Islam in our media. I don’t agree with everything Jasser says, but I appreciate hearing his perspective; he makes me think. I believe he is completely sincere — which makes him a very brave man.

On the other side is another brave man, Dr. Robert Spencer, head of Jihad Watch, co-founder of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), and one of my longtime personal heroes — right up there with Pamela Geller, Geert Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, all of whom face constant death threats because of their leadership in the fight to defend liberty and human rights against the creeping imposition of shariah all over the globe.

Moderating the discussion is Andrew McCarthy, author of Willful Blindness and The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America. McCarthy headed the legal team that prosecuted and convicted Sheikh Abdel Rahman, “the blind sheikh,” who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. McCarthy knows more about Islam than 99% of Americans — but on the questions raised in my first paragraph, he freely admits he’s ambivalent. Introducing the debate topic, he says, “I’ve been having this argument with myself for about eighteen years!”

I’ll be honest. Although I, like McCarthy, am ambivalent, I mostly tend to think that, while countless individual Muslims are good people, Islam itself is an evil ideology, Muhammad was probably possessed by demons, and the Twelfth Imam in Iran is probably the Antichrist. There. I’ve said it.

But, if there is anyone who could make me doubt all that, it would be Zuhdi Jasser.

The debate took place on April 3 at a retreat sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

Nothing should shock me anymore about the depth of humanity’s oldest hatred — nevertheless I am in shock. The next Holocaust is being prepared — as the world looks on. And does nothing.

On Wednesday, in Cairo, Fatah — the terrorist group founded by Yasser Arafat that now styles itself as “moderate” and runs the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — signed a reconciliation agreement with Hamas, the terrorist group that runs the Gaza Strip. The signing was accompanied — as these things always are — by enough pomp and ceremony to disguise, for most onlookers, the monstrous evil taking place. It was attended by representatives not only of the Arab League, but of the E.U. and the U.N. That means us. Scandalously, the U.S. is not only a member of the U.N., but its chief financial contributor. So when “representatives of the U.N.” show up to cheer the consolidation of Palestinian power against Israel, they are doing that in our name.

From Big Peace:

The reconciliation agreement is an important step on the way to getting the United Nations General Assembly to unilaterally create a Palestinian state in September by international mandate. A reconciliation is an important prerequisite.

Abbas said that they had forever turned “the black page of divisions.” Meshall spelled out Hamas’s goal:

“Our aim is to establish a free and completely sovereign Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, whose capital is Jerusalem, without any settlers and without giving up a single inch of land and without giving up on the right of return [of Palestinian refugees].”

In fact, several years ago, the Middle East Quartet (United Nations, Russian Federation, United States, European Union) set three conditions for Hamas: recognize the state of Israel; renounce violence; and honor past Israeli-Palestinian agreements. Hamas has said that it will not agree to any of these conditions.

Well, of course it won’t. That would go against their whole reason for being. Hamas has been committed, from its origins, to the utter elimination of the Jews of Israel. Their very charter, Hamas’s founding document, is a declaration of war — against Israel, and against all of non-Muslim humanity. Here is the second paragraph of the Hamas charter in its entirety:

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

And do not suppose that Hamas intends to fold up shop once they’ve obliterated Israel. The charter is a manifesto of global Islamic conquest. Here’s a sample, from Article 7, which appears under the heading “The Universality of the Islamic Resistance Movement”:

As a result of the fact that those Muslims who adhere to the ways of the Islamic Resistance Movement spread all over the world, rally support for it and its stands, strive towards enhancing its struggle, the Movement is a universal one.

And what would life be like in Hamas’ utopia? Poor, nasty, brutish and short. That’s the only kind of life unmitigated hatred can yield.

I will never forget the heartbreaking scenes in 2005 as Israeli soldiers evicted their own fellow Jews from their homes in Gaza, so that Israel could give the whole Gaza Strip to the Palestinians — in hopes of peace. And I’ll never forget how sick I felt as that gift was trashed by its recipients.

Before

After

The Jewish settlers in Gaza had built some of the most state-of-the-art agricultural facilities in the world, exporting flowers, fruit and vegetables to Europe and elsewhere, and employing thousands of Palestinians, Israelis, and others. Wealthy Jewish philanthropists in the U.S. (as well as a couple of prominent non-Jewish ones such as Bill Gates) bought the Gush Katif hothouses for $14 million and donated them to the Palestinian Authority. The hothouses had taken years to build, but as PA police looked on, Palestinian mobs ransacked them within hours of the Israeli exit. They stripped them of their glass, wiring, computer and electronic equipment and irrigation pipes and timers, destroying a vital source of employment for Gaza Palestinians in the process.

In some cases, the mobs even burned them down. After all, Jewish minds had conceived and designed the greenhouses, Jewish hands had built them, Jewish families had earned their livings in them. We sure don’t want anything that’s been contaminated by those filthy Jews!

It would seem that the most well-honed skill in Gaza now is the art of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. The mentality of the suicide bomber.

There is only one way out of this pit. The late, great Israeli prime minister Golda Meir saw what it was. She said:

“Peace will come to the Middle East when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.”

Cross-posted at The Heartlander

Many psychologists and pundits have commented, over the years, on Barack Obama’s aloofness, stiffness, weird sense of humor and apparent emotional disconnect from those he is supposed to be serving. In the last few days, this topic has again come to the fore, as many Americans have noted the rather strange discrepancy between Obama’s knowing, as of Friday, about the planned attack on Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, and the jolly, partying, normal (for him) way he spent the weekend — even having to be called in from the golf course on Sunday (after only nine holes!) to be present in the White House situation room to follow the unfolding events.

Frankly, though, nothing ever surprises me about Obama’s “emotional disconnect” — because way back, in the fall of 2008, I saw this:
[Click on image to see video]

Cross-posted at The Heartlander

Don’t get me wrong. I recycle every kind of paper, metal, glass and plastic; I take my own reusable canvas tote bags with me to the grocery store; I purchase from local and/or organic farmers as much as possible. I believe in good stewardship of the earth God has given us. What’s changed is my attitude toward “environmentalist” advocacy groups.

I joined the Sierra Club in 1982 because at that time I bought the establishment-media line that Reagan’s Interior Secretary, James Watt, was evil incarnate and had to be stopped. I joined Audubon because I love birds. I joined World Wildlife Fund because I was concerned about the rate at which tropical rainforest was disappearing.

Well, I still love birds, trees and everything else God created besides us humans — but I quit all three of the above organizations quite a few years back because they crossed the line from love of animals to hostility toward humans; all of them, especially Sierra Club, vigorously promote population control — which always comes down to abortion. It’s bad enough I’m forced to pay for abortions with my tax dollars; I’ll be darned if I’m going to donate to abortion promoters of my own free will.

Nevertheless, all through the ’90s, I continued to support two watchdog groups, the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). Silent on the population issue, they instead focused on making sure that laws already on the books were enforced, and that governments and businesses were held accountable. I saw a place — and still do — for watchdogs. After all, when I was living in Texas in the ’80s, I myself had fought — and rightly so, I believe — to get the State of Texas to enforce its own regulations on several uranium mill-tailings dumps. The uranium mills not only were out of compliance, but were continuing to operate despite the fact that their licenses had long since expired.

NRDC and EDF were not involved with our effort on that front, but I’d always seen their mission as similar. Somewhere along the line, though, these groups came to represent, whether intentionally or not, an agenda that is less about holding corporations accountable than it is about destroying the free-market system altogether.

Of course, nowadays, these groups (which I no longer support) are largely redundant, since the Environmental Protection Agency itself has become the most radical anti-business entity of all.  Case in point:

Shell Oil Company has announced it must scrap efforts to drill for oil this summer in the Arctic Ocean off the northern coast of Alaska. The decision comes following a ruling by the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board to withhold critical air permits. The move has angered some in Congress and triggered a flurry of legislation aimed at stripping the EPA of its oil drilling oversight.

Shell has spent five years and nearly $4 billion dollars on plans to explore for oil in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. The leases alone cost $2.2 billion. Shell Vice President Pete Slaiby says obtaining similar air permits for a drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico would take about 45 days. He’s especially frustrated over the appeal board’s suggestion that the Arctic drill would somehow be hazardous for the people who live in the area. “We think the issues were really not major,” Slaiby said, “and clearly not impactful for the communities we work in.”

The closest village to where Shell proposed to drill is Kaktovik, Alaska. It is one of the most remote places in the United States. According to the latest census, the population is 245 and nearly all of the residents are Alaska natives. The village, which is 1 square mile, sits right along the shores of the Beaufort Sea, 70 miles away from the proposed off-shore drill site.

The EPA’s appeals board ruled that Shell had not taken into consideration emissions from an ice-breaking vessel when calculating overall greenhouse gas emissions from the project. Environmental groups were thrilled by the ruling. [emphasis added]

Got that? The EPA wants Shell to flush its $4 billion investment down the drain because of carbon dioxide emissions from a ship! (What does the EPA have to say about the carbon dioxide being emitted by every one of those 245 natives every time they exhale?) The world’s main institutions dealing with “climate change” (NASA, IPCC, CRU, et al.) have been shown to have engaged in scandalous fraud — egregious enough that the whole theory of man-caused climate change has been thrown into doubt, if not substantially disproven — and yet, the Obama administration persists in acting as if ClimateGate never happened!

At stake is an estimated 27 billion barrels of oil. That’s how much the U. S. Geological Survey believes is in the U.S. portion of the Arctic Ocean. For perspective, that represents two and a half times more oil than has flowed down the Trans Alaska pipeline throughout its 30-year history. That pipeline is getting dangerously low on oil. At 660,000 barrels a day, it’s carrying only one-third its capacity.

Production on the North Slope of Alaska is declining at a rate of about 7 percent a year. If the volume gets much lower, pipeline officials say they will have to shut it down.…

“It’s driving investment and production overseas,” said Alaska’s DNR Commissioner Dan Sullivan. “That doesn’t help the United States in any way, shape or form.”

The EPA did not return repeated calls and e-mails. The Environmental Appeals Board has four members: Edward Reich, Charles Sheehan, Kathie Stein and Anna Wolgast. All are registered Democrats and Kathie Stein was an activist attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund. [emphasis added]

Environmental “watchdogs”? No, they’ve become attack dogs — and they’re going for the jugular of the free-market system that keeps you and me and other human beings clothed, sheltered and fed.

Hat tip: Weasel Zippers

Cross-posted

Here’s something we all can do — and all you need is some post-it notes!

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A Facebook page has been set up for this campaign. The people behind it are encouraging people to send in photos of their own like the ones above.

To borrow a line from an old leftie, “…and, friends, they’ll think it’s a movement!”

By the way, I like the emphasis on food and gasoline, since the official Consumer Price Index does not include — are you ready for this? — food and energy!

Grocery prices increased 6.5% in March from early January, an annualized increase of 26%, according to a report from Consumer Growth Partners. The group called the rise the “sharpest in a generation.”

…A 25% increase in gasoline prices this year combines with higher food costs to take $18 billion out of monthly household spending on discretionary items… Consumer Growth said in its report, which compiles data from Target, Walmart and Aldi stores in four U.S. states.

No word on whether the price of sticky notes has gone up significantly. If we all do our part, however, demand should skyrocket!

Hat tip: Doug Ross

Cross-posted