I have always thought that Newt Gingrich would make a great president.   From the beginning I have believed that he is the best candidate to run against Obama.  However, the majority of primary voters have not agreed so far.

Romney’s smear machine has been successful in in its attacks on Newt but it has not been successful in delivering the conservative vote to Romney.   The combined Gingrich-Santorum vote eclipsed Romney almost everywhere.   The entire dynamic of the race would be different if the conservatives were united.

The point of no return is rapidly approaching.   If conservatives do not unite, the elites will get there way and Romney will be the nominee.   Gingrich and Santorum need to find a way to come together for a conservative victory.   Gingrich’s Big Solutions can only be implemented in the case of a conservative Republican victory.   Santorum can only win with a united conservative vote.  Negotiate a merger! Come together for victory and for our country!

This week the liberal media treated us to allegations that former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich asked his second wife for an open marriage.  A few months ago, they  brought us a soap opera starring Herman Cain and a cast of women with various lewd allegations.  This would all be very informative if the media were reporting on a group of people seeking dates through a dating service.   Their potential dating partners might very well be interested in this sort of information.  However, the public is not seeking a date with these candidates.  The public is seeking to potentially hire one of them for a job – the Presidency of the United States.

This raises the question, does the duties of the Office of the President of the United States include personal relationship activities? No it does not.  We have had several Presidents who were unfaithful, rumored to be unfaithful, or who were previously divorced who are considered to be great presidents, including John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, Bill Clinton, and potentially others about whom we have not heard the details of their personal lives.

Who has ever been asked about details of their past or present marriage or dating activities on a job interview?  This never happens.  Job interviewers ask potential applicants about their knowledge and qualifications to perform the job at hand.   The knowledge and qualifications required for the Office of the President of the United States includes knowledge of the operation of a capitalist economy, knowledge of the relationship of the United States with other countries in the world and an understanding of the potential threats to the country.

We are living in serious times with serious threats to the global economy and to global security.  We need a President who is competent to handle them.  In a job interview for the Office of President, the news media should be asking questions seeking to discover the best person to navigate the ship of state through these troubled times.  However, the liberal media prefers to behave as if we are asking someone for a date.

In the United states a priest or a pastor of a church can not give a sermon endorsing a particular candidate or political party.  If he does, the church can loose its tax exempt status.  This is because in endorsing a candidate or political party, the priest or pastor leaves the realm of religion/spirituality and crosses into the realm of politics.

Political speech is not part of the free exercise of religion.  Political speech is guaranteed under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution under the Freedom of Speech clause, not the Free Exercise [of religion] clause.

A clergyman still has his freedom of speech to state his political opinions about how society should be governed, but he can not claim that people must not object to his political opinions  because by doing so they are interfering with his free exercise of religion.

As shown below, a person advocating for the adaption or application of
Sharia Law is making a political, not a religious statement, although his motivation may be religious.

The 1976 edition* of the Encyclopedia Britannica’s entry under Islam states as follows: “During [its] early period, Islam acquired its characteristic ethos as a religion uniting in itself both the spiritual and temporal aspects of life and seeking to regulate not only the individuals relationship to God (through his conscience) but human relationships in a social setting as well. Thus there is not only an Islamic religious institution, but also an Islamic law, state, and other institutions governing society.”

The article goes on to say “Jihad means an active struggle using armed force where necessary. The object of Jihad is not the conversion of individuals to Islam, but rather the gaining of political control over the collective affairs of societies to run them in accordance with the principals of Islam.”

Regarding Islamic Law (Sharia) , the Encyclopedia Britannica says: “Total and
unqualified submission to the will of Allah (God) is the fundamental tenant of Islam: Islamic law is therefore the expression of Allah’s command for Muslim society.” The article goes on to explain that “Sharia differs from Western systems of law in two principal respects.  In the first place the scope of Sharia is much wider, since it regulates not only man’s relationship with his neighbors and with the state, which is the limit of most other legal systems, but also with God and his own conscience. … The second major distinction between the Sharia and Western legal systems is the result of the Islamic concept of law as the expression of the divine will. … In Islamic jurisprudence, it is not society that molds and fashions the law, but the law that precedes and controls society.”

A person advocating for the adaption or application of Sharia Law is advocating for the establishment of a form of government, which by definition is political.  Herein lies the root of the problem that the United States has had with understanding Islam since 9/11: Islam is a religion that advocates for a particular set of laws for society, i.e. a form of government, a political ideology that does not believe that law comes from the consent of the governed.

This is in direct conflict with the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which begins by saying “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” This clause was specifically  put into the Constitution by the founders for situations such as this.

The 9/11 hijackers sought the establishment of Sharia Law in the United
States. They used violent Jihad as their method to hasten its implementation.

The imam who wants to build the Mosque / Community Center / Whatever -They-Are-Calling-It-Now at Ground Zero also calls for Sharia Law in
America but he apparently is not using violent Jihad as his methodology. He is using the confusion of Americans regarding Islam as stated above.

He  desires to place a Mosque at the sight where violent Jihadist died
(were martyred) attacking America. He desires to open the Mosque on
September 11, 2011, quite obviously linking it to the terror attacks.
He also wrote a book in Malaysian titled “A Call to Prayer From the
World Trade Center Rubble. Islamic Da’wah from the Heart of America,
Post 911.” Da’wah is Islamic proselytizing. In the Islamic law, da’wah
precedes jihad.  See:http://www.911familiesforamerica.org/?p=4754

There is nothing in Islam that states that a Mosque must be built at this site near the World Trade Center.  By doing everything he can to link this Mosque to 9/11, this imam is showing his sympathy with the hijackers who attacked America and is, in effect, building a monument to them.

This is all political.  Objecting to the political statement made by choosing this site for the Mosque does not violate anyone’s right to exercise his religion freedom.

* This edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica was written well before
America’s current difficulties with Islam began.

On June 8, 2010 Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise held an Oil Spill town hall meeting in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie.

Before the meeting began, staff members handed out a flier which said that the federal government had “finally agreed to require BP to pay for the cost of six of Governor JIndal’s 24 proposed sand barrier protection segments, but the fact that the process took more than three weeks to occur is completely unacceptable.  Eighteen more segments of this barrier have yet to be approved, and because of these inexcusable delays, we are loosing valuable time while Louisiana’s environment, economy, and ecosystems pay a hefty price.”

During the meeting Congressman Scalise said, “One of my frustrations is that we’ve heard so many different ideas that seem to make a lot of sense … putting hay out in the water to absorb the oil and then hay would roll up and then you dispose of the hay .. we have plentiful resources that can be used to soak up oil before it gets to the marsh.  You’ve heard about these big supertankers from Saudi Arabia.  You’ve heard about so many other ideas that are out there and yet you don’t see any of them being implemented.  There are more than enough good ideas. … There’s no excuse for these ideas not being implemented”  Scalise went on to say “There are too many good ideas that have not been implemented which tells me that they are not doing everything in their power to help us mitigate this disaster.”

Congressman Scalise went on to lament the lack of a command structure and accountability.  He also addressed the President’s ban on offshore deep water drilling and its affect on the economy and the national deficit.  For more details please see http://americanaffairs.suite101.com/article.cfm/drilling-ban-will-increase-unemployment-deficit-gas-prices

In his speech on May 9, 2010 at Hampton University, President Barack Obama told the graduates, “You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank all that high on the truth meter … information becomes a distraction, a diversion a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation …”  Information is NOT a distraction or a diversion.  It is an essential component of democracy.  Information leads to the truth.  That is why the Founders enshrined Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press in the First Amendment.   A wide variety of opinions and commentaries were published in the early days of our Republic.  The Founders trusted the public to be smart enough to sift through the information and find the truth.

It is interesting that the President made these comments at a time when the administration is seeking to regulate the internet as a “public utility.”  Every person who supports democracy, whether on the left, right, or center, should support the free flow of information and not the regulation or control of information.

Bin Ladinism – A political ideology characterized by its goal of ultimately imposing a totalitarian government worldwide that adheres to strict Sharia Law and bans all religions except for Islam and by its use of any means necessary to achieve its goals, including, but not limited to terrorism.

Why haven’t we heard this term used by the government?