Every elected Democrat supports the Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda. All of ‘em. There is no such thing as a “conservative Democrat” and there is nothing as offensive as the idea of a “pro-life Democrat”. Or a Democrat that supports immigration enforcement for that matter. Especially in Arizona. And it’s time to start making these hypocrites pay for the positions of their party. As in pay with their jobs. The O/P/R Agenda is an albatross that EVERY Democratic candidate/officeholder needs to have hung around their neck.

Specifically in Arizona, the Democratic Party is leading the charge to boycott our state because of SB1070. The call for boycotts has been led by a Democratic CongressCritter and needs to be hung around every Democratic candidate in Arizona. In addition to their support for boycotts, Arizona Democrats also support – and get support from – unions. Arizona is a right-to-work state and we really have no use for card check or union thugs.

Governor Brewer – who I have no particular use for – is doing a good job through her campaign spokesman on this issue and national Republicans should take note.

From today’s AZ Republic…

The unions also have encouraged boycotts of Arizona, including moving the 2011 Major League Baseball All-Star Game out of the state.
The targeted Democrats – including gubernatorial candidate Terry Goddard, attorney-general candidate Felecia Rotellini, treasurer candidate Andrei Cherny, as well as congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords and Ann Kirkpatrick – all have been endorsed or received campaign funding from the unions.
“Democrats like Terry Goddard can claim to be against the boycott, but when it comes down to it, he embraces the union interests who are leading the effort to kill Arizona’s economy,” Brewer said in a news release.
The governor’s voter-approval ratings have soared in recent months, in part due to her signing of SB 1070 in April. And many Arizonans have a natural distrust of unions, so playing off that feeling is a smart strategy, said Bruce Merrill, director of the Cronkite/Eight Poll.
“It’s an argument that will have good resonance in Arizona,” he said.

Now is the time to go to war. Now is the time to win. If we don’t do it now it’ll never get done. Now is the time to demand that Republican Leaders actually lead and show the American people the true face of the enemy of the American Dream.

And I’m not even talking about Democrats.

I would specifically be talking about one Mitch McConnell, currently Senate Minority Leader and resident holder of the Bob Michel Steer in a China Shop award. I’m sure Mitch is nice to his grandchildren and a wonderful guy to work for. He also happens to be a gutless wonder who has spent his tenure as Republican Leader trying to find new and creative ways to sell MY country down the river the “good & patriotic americans [sic]” who sit across the aisle in the Senate. Mitch, it’s time for you to step down. The American People need a man who is willing to fight for our nation. A man who is willing to use every tool available to stop the rolling agenda of the Obama Administration. A man who is comfortable with all out war on the real and present enemies of the United States of America – and that would be Democrats.

Here’s the problem Mitch has. He has a “kitchen cabinet”. It’s made up of people who “are flexible”. They look like this…

For the uninitiated, this would be: Sens. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), John McCain (R-AZ), Robert Bennett (R-UT), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT)

Of the “flexible ones”, Bennett is gone, Murkowski may be gone and Hatch is very likely to run into the same buzzsaw that Bennett did if he continues his flexible ways. The conservative caucus in Utah is already queuing up a solid conservative contender to run against him in ‘12. Tim Carney has the full story in today’s Washington Examiner, but the interesting thing is that the tide seems to be flowing against McConnell as much as it is the Democrats.

Lets keep in mind that McConnell is an institutional guy. He’s in Washington to “do the people’s business” and in his view that requires working with Democrats even when it means passing bad legislation that erodes our freedom and our individual liberties.

He’s lost probably two of his cohorts in the current round of primaries and I wouldn’t expect Senator Hatch to be all that “flexible” in the next couple of years because he’s likely to be on the street if he continues to be a smurf (even if he “gets tough” for that matter). And then there’s John McCain. McCain hasn’t been all that “flexible” for the last year, and IMO it had nothing to do with the primary squabble with JD Hayworth. It has everything to do with the fact that McCain is a contrarian and he excels at getting under the President’s skin, without regard to who POTUS may be. If that’s true, he’s going to be an inflexible pain in the butt for both Obama and McConnell for the next two years at a minimum. That leaves Johnny Isakson.

Oh, and then there’s the newbies who look like they’re coming to the Senate.

… trading Bennett for [Mike] Lee is trading a senator with a lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 84 percent for one who will be above 98 percent. But more importantly for Capitol Hill dynamics, it’s trading a quintessential team player for an inflexible conservative stalwart. Put Miller [replacing Murkowski] and Lee in the same chamber, and the legislative calendar could back up worse than the Washington Beltway at rush hour. One Republican operative, comparing these future senators with the upper chamber’s current gadflies, said Lee and Miller will make Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn look like lapdogs.

Lets not forget Rand Paul, from McConnell’s home state of Kentucky. He beat the tar out of Trey Greyson in their primary and Greyson was endorsed by McConnell. I’m guessing that if Paul turns out to be a team player of any variety he won’t be playing on Mitch’s team. And might some conservative firebrands have an effect on the overall tenor of the “worlds greatest deliberative body”? Ummm probably.

If Miller and Lee set the tone of the incoming freshman class, that could ensure that Colorado’s Ken Buck, Nevada’s Sharron Angle, and Kentucky’s Rand Paul — if they win — never fully assimilate to the Old Boys (and Girls) Club.

And lets not forget the new Senator from Pennsylvania. I have a hard time seeing Pat Toomey sucking up to Mitch. If the Republicans actually do the previously unthinkable and take over the Senate, I really like the idea of Senate Majority Leader Jim DeMint. If they don’t, but have a significant minority – 48 seats or so – I like the idea of DeMint leading the opposition with a group of Senators who will actually fight like hell for the country.

Does anybody out there know if there’s a primary challenger for Mitch next time around?

The Glenn-Beckoned, conservative multi-racial throngs honoring God, Country, and the Constitution in Washington, D.C. this past weekend, now own Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream.

Conservatives and Republicans have lived the dream in public and private for decades from the GOP’s birth as the party of slavery abolition; passage of two Civil Rights Acts combating Jim Crow before President Lyndon Johnson; and voting in greater percentages than Democrats for the 1964-5 Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, respectively.

Yet, despite that history, it has been the Democrats and their Media branch that has wielded the racial and bigotry moral cards against Republicans for over 40 years, even as they victimized blacks and the poor wither their proven failed economic, welfare, and foreign policies

As David Horowitz points out in the chapter “How to Beat Democrats” (also a separate book by that name) chapter in his 2003 Left Illusions, the World’s Oldest Political Party has long understood that:

“…the key to American politics is the romance of the underdog …[as] the cause of the underdog wins American hearts because it resonates with our deepest religious and moral convictions…”

Horowitz goes on to explain how every Democratic Party policy is presented as a program to help victims. When de jure segregation was being torn down, there were many identifiable authentic victims of actual racism and racist laws. But after legal racism was abolished in the late 1960s, the increasing paucity of actual such victims caused the Left to invent “institutional” racism that made every black person in the Lower Forty-Eight a victim based on the presumed racism of all Caucasians.

Meanwhile, as most whites and blacks increasingly got along in the actual America as they enjoyed Oprah, Michael Jordan and Colin Powell; the Democratic Party treated us to an ongoing vision of bridges in Selma with tolerance and amens for the sermons of Jesses, Als, Jeremiah Wrights and even Louis Farrakhan.

Southern whites rightly had to purge or reform their kooks. The Democratic Party and the Media protected radical whites like Bill Ayers and all the black kooks on the left, even as they branded Clarence Thomas and Condoleeza Rice as “Uncle Toms.”

Whites indulged this fiction in fits and starts, especially after the Reagan Revolution fixed the economy for 25 years. Then came the recession, a Bush-McCain-damaged GOP brand, and a hear-no-evil indulgence in Hope, Change and the final purging of White Guilt.

The race cards have were purged from the Left’s political deck of effective cards as Obama has acted out Reverend Wright’s sermons he supposedly never heard.

Who are the underdogs now?

Now we have moral high ground of King’s Dream.

So, what will we do with it?

I hope we do what the Dreaming Preacher did and wield it as a moral club to shame those liberals and Democrats, black and white, and all that have betrayed content of character evaluations according to America’s creed in favor of Jim Crow 3.0 race-based laws and judgments.

Much of the housing bubble can be traced to federal government-forced lending to people that couldn’t dream of paying the mortgages, with much of the prodding done under threat of being charged with racial discrimination; and even the new Fannie-Freddie guidelines have racial quotas.

Republicans and conservatives have long been reluctant to wield the moral card against their opponents, even as it has been wielded against us 24/7/365 for 45 years. The GOP has too often discussed issues such as welfare and economic policy as management issues rather than the moral issues they are.

Our Founders considered themselves as victims of a distant King and Parliament that were denying them their rights to earn a living.

So, who are the victims today?

Well, nearly half a million people don’t seek out sweltering D.C. heat for the joy of the heat. No, majorities of We the People now understand that they are being victimized by failed liberal policies that are hitting their pocketbooks and liberty hard, even while being accused of being racists, bigots and homophobes for daring to preserve marriage, Ground Zero and the border.

One of the more vile characteristics of the Left is that they accuse conservatives of being bad people rather than making reasoned arguments against our policies or for their own. We routinely accept the “goodness” of the intentions of the Left and argue against the wisdom of their policies based on actual results.

I do not want the GOP to mimic the vile demonization characteristic of the Left.

But I do think that we must seize the moral underdog narrative on behalf of the victims of ObamaDems’ policies.

We must point out the immorality of false racism allegations at home; insulting apologies for America on the foreign soil of true tyrants that ignore the sins of aliens that justifiably bring on American wrath; economic policies that demonize job producers at the expense of rewarding political allies in unions, banks and state and local governments; and of policies that rub 911 in our face with “OJ” trials for KSM and a mosque for him to pray in during court breaks.

Captain Ahab Liberals search for the Moby Dick KKK Whale

The Drive-By Media and Democrats have breathlessly reported the overwhelming numbers of Caucasians, especially including notorious white conservatives Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, at this weekend’s “Restoring Honor” rally at the Linc0ln Memorial, on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a Dream” speech, as if it were a blight on the Christian preacher’s legacy.

Lewsi Grizzard used to write often of the obsession of Yankees with imagining most Southerners having Grand and minor Wizard eye-hole-punched sheets hanging in their closets. Instead, no such sheets were found among the hundreds of thousands with Beck. Rather, they found whites shedding tears of racial-harmony joy while living Martin’s Dream.

Would the Left prefer that significant portions of the 75% majority white population eschew celebrations of honor, faith, hope and charity? “Rev Al” claimed it was an “insult” to King for Glenn Beck’s rally to be held on the anniversary of the March on Washington. Really?

Let’s see: King honored “America’s Creed” (Constitution); was an ordained minister and gave a speech. We wonder, when was the last time Al Sharpton and CNN “reporters” read these lines:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

The character content message anathema to a Democratic Party obsessed with the identity politics of race and sex.

The Pathology IV

Finally, the kooks and pathologies (I, II and III) regarding same in the black community are coming home to roost so that maybe they can finally be purged, thus paving the way for blacks to escape the Democratic Party plantation.

Americans who held their hands over their ears while wanting to like Obama more than McCain, now hear echoes of Wright and Farrakhan in denunciations Cambridge cops protecting the property of a black man and apologies for imams that won;t denounce Hamas.

When welfare changed

Mike DeVine

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Charlotte Observer, The Minority Report and Examiner.com archives

www.devinelawvista.com

It’s Chuckles Rangel, long time member of the Congressional Thieves Caucus and one of at least three good reasons to stop gerrymandering Congressional Districts for any reason, but especially for race.

Note: “He Delivers”

Over the weekend Chuckles made a statement – thank you NY Post – with two pearls embedded in it. The first is a history lesson, the second is a statement about the future that most of us knew was true but we’ve just never heard anybody stupid enough to actually say it. Until Chuckles came along of course.

First, with respect to history, and when you read this you’ll understand that for a certain class of dolt, history began on January 20, 2009…

“It’s very difficult to understand . . . when the commander-in-chief is leading our great nation involved in two wars for people to be so overtly critical of him knowing, knowing, that the enemies of democracy are listening to that — it’s just not right,”

I’m certainly glad I’ve never had to live through such a horrendous experience as people attacking a sitting President during two wars. I don’t understand why President Obama doesn’t get at least the same level of support from Republicans that President Bush got from Chuckles and his FellowTravelers™. So much for history.

Second, with respect to the future, lets talk about racism. And the fact that it will be with us forever, focused on as a tool to ensure permanent victimhood for minorities and an excuse for every kind of thievery and vile behavior you can imagine. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that only members of the CBC are thieves and criminals, there’s lots of pale members who are charter member of the CTC, including John Kerry who should be hanged for treason. The point of my criticism of Chuckles is that he actually fessed up that folks like him have institutionalized “racism” as an excuse for bad and illegal behavior and it ain’t going away if he’s got any say in it.

Lets hope that any say he has, along with any say Eddie and Maxine might have, comes through their lawyers because the Federal Corrections folks don’t usually let inmates have press conferences. Good riddance to the lot of you.

Personally, I’m holding out for the latter.

in an OpEd yesterday in The Week In Review by Peter S. Goodman discussing the state of the economy, Mr. Goodman tossed in this little gem…

Yet even as vital signs weaken — plunging home sales, a bleak job market and, on Friday, confirmation that the quarterly rate of economic growth had slowed, to 1.6 percent — a sense has taken hold that government policy makers cannot deliver meaningful intervention.

Wow! Now I’ll warn you ahead of time that this one paragraph has not just one but three quotables in it. This first one doesn’t say so, but since it’s’ coming from The Times I think it’s a safe assumption on my part to note that the “meaningful intervention” that can’t be delivered would be implementation of a total command economy run from the offices of the DNC. I happen to be a believer in the concept that real meaningful intervention could be delivered, and delivered quickly, but it would look like something neither TheOne™ or his acolytes at The Times could stomach. It would look like this:

• a major overhaul of tax policy – namely something that looks like the “flat tax” where EVERYBODY pays a fixed percentage with no exemptions;
• a major reduction of business taxes – “businesses” don’t pay taxes folks, their customers do;
• and major reductions in the number of departments at the federal level along with about 100% of the budgets of those departments reduced to zero – think Education, Commerce and Agriculture on day one.

Frankly, even with the caveat, I’m pretty surprised that The Times would go so far as to admit that their preferred solution set is not achievable, even with a solidly Democratic Congress and an avowed Socialist in the Oval Office. The reason they give is utterly wrong as well.

I noted above that there are three notable quotables in the one paragraph, here’s number two…

That is because nearly any proposed curative could risk adding to the national debt — a political nonstarter.

It’s NOT because “a solution” will raise the national debt, nobody at The Times or the DNC gives a rip about the national debt (I doubt anybody at the RNC does either, to be fair). The reason is that the great unwashed masses in flyover country – and even a few in the northeast – understand that gummit solutions don’t work and THOSE FOLKS just happen to be paying attention right now.

And number three [drum roll please]…

The situation has left American fortunes pinned to an uncertain remedy: hoping that things somehow get better.

Yeah, it is The Times. But, I would point out that “HOPE” happens to be the platform that TheWon™ campaigned on and he did win. So, you guys are stuck with it. And just to be really clear about what you’re stuck with – and what you’ve stuck the rest of us with – reflect on how far we’ve come…

The difference between the unwashed masses in flyover country and the folks who carry on multi-syllable word conversations without moving their lips or chin is that we unwashed knew what TheWon™ was before the election.

If you read the rest of Mr. Goodman’s little piece, you’ll find the standard leftist prescriptions for fixing the economic nightmare that leftist policies have led us in to. Lots more of the same but just managed better.

Ending on a happy note, I really am encouraged that somebody over at The Times would at least note that what they want they’re not gonna get. Even if the reason they’re not getting it is because the problem happens be that they got a whole bunch of what they want in the first place.

For instance, last weekend, TV entertainer, Dick Cavett, wrote a column titled, Real Americans, Please Stand Up. (Did you get that? If you disagree with him about the Ground Zero mosque, you aren’t a “real American”.) In this op-ed, Cavett goes on to lament how “ashamed of us” he is, and he even goes so far as to write the following insanity–

As a war kid, I also heard an uncle of mine endorse a sentiment attributed to our Admiral “Bull” Halsey: “If I met a pregnant Japanese woman, I’d kick her in the belly.”

So now, not only am I not a “real American”, but I want to kick pregnant Japanese women in the belly.

Oh, but Mr. Cavett is not alone in his inane ramblings. On Sunday, theater critic, Frank Rich, wrote a column titled, How Fox Betrayed Petraeus, and on Monday cultural writer, Nicholas Kristof, wrote a column titled, Taking bin Laden’s Side.

Now, just from the titles of these op-eds alone, it should be painfully obvious what The New York Times is trying to do–i.e., “otherize” all opponents of the Ground Zero mosque as bigoted, anti-American rednecks with the worst possible motives. However, all of these columns were rich in over the top rhetoric, but deeply lacking in any information about the previous troubling, statements from Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (the man behind the mosque), or the fact that that Iman Rauf has not been at all transparent about where the money’s coming from to build this mosque at Ground Zero. So, for flat out slandering the American people as anti-American bigots–and being disingenuous as to why they are really upset about the Ground Zero mosque–The New York Times deserves to wear “The Cone of Shame”.

Speaking of Imam Rauf, I would very much like to take a closer look at him before going much farther. To be specific, soon after 9/11, Imam Rauf called America “an accessory to the crime” (in reference to 9/11–see embed below), has refused to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization, has stated that, “The US has more Muslim blood on it’s hands than Al Queada”, and has refused to swear off money from Iran or Saudi Arabia for the one hundred million dollar Ground Zero mosque (that could very well be terrorist/blood money).

Click Here to Watch Laura Ingraham’s “Talking Points”

Second of all, it seems to me that Imam Rauf is being deliberately provocative by calling the Ground Zero mosque “The Cordoba Mosque”, which would be named after The Cordoba Mosque in Spain built by the Moors when they conquered the Christians in 600 AD. (It is a well-known fact that Muslims build a mosque on ground after they conquer it. Why don’t they just call the Ground Zero mosque the “We Conquered Your Ass/Who’s Your Daddy?” mosque and get it over with?)

Furthermore, I find the sheer size of the mosque–or the fact that it looks like a skyscraper or a giant monument to Islam, rather than a house of prayer–to be deliberately provocative as well. Now, in his recent column, Nicholas Kristof shamefully compared the Ground Zero mosque to a YMCA. However, how many YMCAs look like the image below? I rest my case.

[FYI, my husband and I went to Egypt on our honeymoon and we toured a slew of Medieval era mosques--NONE OF THEM looked like that, but I digress.]

By the way, it’s not just me who feels like this. Real moderate Muslims–you know, the ones who don’t blame America for 9/11 and who have no problem calling Hamas a terrorist organization–have stated that the Ground Zero mosque is in poor taste and is deliberately provocative. To be specific, on The O’Reilly Factor, moderate Muslim, Raheel Raza, called the Ground Zero mosque “confrontational, in bad faith, and a slap in the face to all Americans” (see embed below). (Ms. Raza has since received a threatening phone call from the property owner of the Ground Zero mosque for speaking out against it.)

Click Here to Watch Raheel Raza Discuss the Ground Zero Mosque With Bill O’Reilly

Moreover, a secular/moderate Muslim, named Neda Bolourchi whose mother was killed on 9/11, wrote a column for The Washington Post titled, Build Your Mosque Somewhere Else. Specifically, she wrote the following with regard to the Ground Zero mosque–

From the first memorial ceremonies I attended at Ground Zero, I have always been moved by the site; it means something to be close to where my mother may be buried, it brings some peace. That is why the prospect of a mosque near Ground Zero — or a church or a synagogue or any religious or nationalistic monument or symbol — troubles me.

I do not like harboring resentment or anger, but I do not want the death of my mother — my best friend, my hero, my strength, my love — to become even more politicized than it already is. To the supporters of this new Islamic cultural center, I must ask: Build your ideological monument somewhere else, far from my mother’s grave, and let her rest. “

Oh, but silly me. I forgot. According to Dick Cavett and The New York Times, Ms. Bolourchi is just an Islamaphobic bigot who wants to kick pregnant Japanese women in their bellies.

However, what I find to be the most troublesome feature of the whole Ground Zero mosque brouhaha, is the fact the Imam Rauf has referred to America as “A Sharia compliant state”.

Now, why is calling America a “Sharia complaint state” so troubling? Well, to understand why that statement is so troubling, one has to first understand what exactly Sharia Law is and what it entails/allows for.

Sharia Law is a particular type of fundamentalist Islamic law that dates back to the time of Muhammed, and deals specifically with many topics addressed by secular law, including crime, politics and economics, as well as personal matters such as sexuality, hygiene, diet, prayer, and fasting. Classic Sharia Law is most famously practiced in Iran and Saudi Arabia (two places that Imam Rauf won’t swear off taking money from). For instance, under Sharia Law, hanging homosexuals is perfectly OK (warning–Allahphundit has the photos of this happening in Iran in this link and they are disturbing)–which is why Greg Gutfeld has called for a Muslim gay bar to be built right next to the Ground Zero mosque. Furthermore, strong adherents to Sharia Law have absolutely no problem with beating women, or even disfiguring them, if they disobey their husband. (For example, we’ve all seen the, now, infamous image below of the woman whose nose and ears were cut off by the Taliban. However, The New York Times was mad at Time magazine for running the image–they called it “war porn”–instead of the Taliban and Sharia adherents for cutting her face up in the first place.)

However, I would say that the worst part about Sharia Law is that it condones honor killings of women (which have recently been on the rise in America)–and, in particular, stoning them to death. Below is an embed of an exert of a film called The Stoning of Soraya M that NewsReal’s own Chris Yogerst has written about in great detail. It is extremely painful to watch (it, literally, gave me nightmares), but it is important that we don’t turn away and avert out eyes from this horror simply because it makes us uncomfortable.

Click Here to Watch an Excerpt of “The Stoning of Soraya M” From Hannity

Now, after gazing into the horrible face of Sharia Law, I can’t help but be reminded of David Horowitz’s chilling exchange with a member of the Muslim Student’s Association when he asked her if she would condemn Hamas (who also condones Sharia Law).

Here is a piece of the exchange (see embed below for the entire exchange)–

Horowitz:

If you don’t condemn Hamas, obviously you support it. Case closed. I have had this experience at UC Santa Barbara, where there were 50 members of the Muslim Students Association sitting right in the rows there. And throughout my hour talk I kept asking them, will you condemn Hizbollah and Hamas. And none of them would. And then when the question period came, the president of the Muslim Students Association was the first person to ask a question. And I said, ‘Before you start, will you condemn Hizbollah?’ And he said, ‘Well, that question is too complicated for a yes or no answer.’ So I said, ‘Okay, I’ll put it to you this way. I am a Jew. The head of Hizbollah has said that he hopes that we will gather in Israel so he doesn’t have to hunt us down globally. For or Against it?

MSA member:

For it.

Horowitz:

Thank you for coming and showing everybody what’s here.

Click Here to Watch David Horowitz’s Exchange With an MSA Member

So, in conclusion, I would like to ask all of the liberals at The New York Times who are in support of the infamous Ground Zero mosque–”Are you for it or against it?”, with regard to the US becoming “a Sharia compliant state”, as well as Imam Rauf’s refusal to condemn Hamas. These are not issues that you can sit back and shamelessly sip your latte while you try to morally equivocate by uttering idiocies such as, “Radical Christianity is as big a threat as radical Islam!” or, “But, George Bush!!”. You are either for honor killings, or you are against them. You are either for hanging homosexuals, or you are against it. You are either for stoning women, or you are against it. You are either for mutilating women, or against it. You are either for rounding up all of the Jews and killing them, or you are against it. There is no middle ground on these issues or wiggle room for a nuanced position. And, if you take money from countries who support these kinds of activities in order to build a mosque at Ground Zero, refuse to call out Hamas as a terrorist organization, or support the building of a mosque by someone who thinks that “America is a Sharia compliant country”, then that is the same thing as being “for it” in most sane people’s book, who don’t want any part of America to be “Sharia compliant”, much less Ground Zero.

Moreover, it’s quite obvious to me what happened here–or rather, how The New York Times (and liberals in general, not to mention President Obama) found themselves on the wrong side of this issue and siding with an Imam who actually praised the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The New York Times, as well as many of it’s readers, reflexively and shamefully side against the majority of Americans and always assume that they are racist or have bad intentions. (One only need to look to the fact that Frank Rich wrote an entire column bashing America on The Fourth of July as evidence of this unfortunate fact.) In other words, if the bitter, gun-clingers in Middle America are against the Ground Zero mosque, then The New York Times is reflexively for it, without even looking into it, or asking any hard questions about the project. They, blindly, took this Imam at his word that he was a “moderate”. (By the way, I went to medical school with several moderate/secular Muslims, and they would be insulted if you lumped them in the same category with this Imam.) And now that they got caught with their pants down not having done their homework, they are screaming “Raacist!!” in order to shut people up and distract from their own incompetence. I think that Mark Hemingway put it best when he wrote the following–

It reminded me a of a joke from last season’s “30 Rock,” where Alec Baldwin’s character was being told that in order to protect the feelings of a co-worker, he needed to “lie to her, coddle her, protect her from the real world.”

Baldwin’s retort? “I get it. Treat her like the New York Times treats its readers.”

The media seem to think they must reflexively defend any minority thrust into the public square from intolerant hordes throwing nooses around lampposts. But since 9/11 there’s been almost no violence or concerted oppression of America’s peaceful Muslim community.

At the same time, Americans remain clear-eyed about the fact certain Muslim attitudes are on a collision course with Western society. The mosque’s backers may be tolerant relative to the Taliban and other Muslim extremists. However, their refusal to condemn Hamas and the fact that they won’t rule out taking money from Iran cannot be considered tolerant by any enlightened standard.

Furthermore, Dick Cavett’s shameful ignorance was on full display for all to see when he wrote the following–

“What other churches might be objectionable because of the horrific acts of some of its members? Maybe we shouldn’t have Christian churches in the South wherever the Ku Klux Klan operated because years ago proclaimed white Christians lynched blacks. How close to Hickam Field, at Pearl Harbor, should a Shinto shrine be allowed? I wonder how many of our young people — notorious, we are told, for their ignorance of American history — would be surprised that Japanese-Americans had lives and livelihoods destroyed when they were rounded up during World War II? Should all World War II service memorials, therefore, be moved away from the sites of these internment camps? Where does one draw the line?”

My response would be if that Christian church was funded in part by white supremacists, and refused to call out the KKK, then no, they should not be allowed to build next to a monument where blacks were lynched by whites. Not to mention, if Fred Phelps–you know, the “God hates F*gs” guy–wanted to build a church next to a military base (or even next to a gay bar in San Fransisco), I would say no to that idea as well. And finally, I think that Charles Krauthammer explained it beautifully when he wrote the following–

“That’s why Disney’s 1993 proposal to build an American history theme park near Manassas Battlefield was defeated by a broad coalition that feared vulgarization of the Civil War (and that was wiser than me; at the time I obtusely saw little harm in the venture). It’s why the commercial viewing tower built right on the border of Gettysburg was taken down by the Park Service. It’s why, while no one objects to Japanese cultural centers, the idea of putting one up at Pearl Harbor would be offensive.

And why Pope John Paul II ordered the Carmelite nuns to leave the convent they had established at Auschwitz. He was in no way devaluing their heartfelt mission to pray for the souls of the dead. He was teaching them a lesson in respect: This is not your place; it belongs to others. However pure your voice, better to let silence reign. “

Now, I realize that it’s a lot more fun for liberals at The New York Times to use this issue to look down their noses at Sarah Palin and Middle America, than it is for them to actually, you know, look into this issue and do some real reporting on it. However, their inability to recognize real evil here when it is, literally, throwing rocks at their face, is shameful–and it’s actually quite racist. Why? Because they are sacrificing these Muslim women (and gay Muslim men) on the alter of multiculturalism just so that they can pat themselves on the backs about how “tolerant” they are.

[By the way, The New York Times couldn't even bother to report on a recent would be stoning in Iran that we here at NewsReal covered for days. David Swindle, our managing editor, even put up a petition in order to stop the woman from being stoned to death. Full disclosure--I signed the petition.]

I mean, suppose some small town in Middle America decided to try to pass laws allowing for the stoning of adulterous women or the hanging of gay men? I guarantee you that The New York Times would be up in arms over it–and rightfully so (especially Nicholas Kristof who fancies himself as a spokesmen for women’s rights). However, now an Imam–who would take money from countries who participate in this kind of evil, who praised Sharia Law and the Iranian Revolution, who says that the US has more blood on its hands than Al-Qaeda, and who won’t condemn Hamas–wants to build a mosque at Ground Zero, and they are attacking his critics as “anti-American”?! Please! The New York Times would never turn a blind eye like this to the plight of Western women, but they are totally ignoring the plight Middle Eastern women, just so they–initially–could shout, “I’m more multicultural than thou are!”. And now, so they don’t have to admit a mistake.

So for refusing to do any honest reporting with regard to Imam Rauf, and then for calling the critics of the Ground Zero mosque “anti-American raaaaacits!!”, The New York Times ought to be ashamed of itself.

Put them in the Cone of Shame!

Click Here to Watch “Cone of Shame” Excerpt From UP

This diary was originally published on NewsReal and The Minority Report.

Bans against smoking Winstons and Salems in Winston-Salem, N.C. restaurants; snail darters’ right to life as they kill jobs; and Kelo-like takings of habitable property deemed a “blight” on municipal tax revenue coffers found DeVine Law zealously advocating expansive private property rights.

Yet, somehow the following Ground Zero Mosque (GZM) construction made by most Republicans (Charles Krauthammer’s version below) sounded like fingernails on gamecock’s blackboard:

No one disputes the right to build; the whole debate is about the propriety, the decency of doing so.

We assume that our most respected conservative sage would also add President Barack Hussein Obama’s “out” concerning compliance with local law and ordinances, given Krauthammer’s seemingly contradictory argument made only a few days earlier, with which we agree:

America is a free country where you can build whatever you want — but not anywhere. That’s why we have zoning laws. No liquor store near a school, no strip malls where they offend local sensibilities, and, if your house doesn’t meet community architectural codes, you cannot build at all.

These restrictions are for reasons of aesthetics. Others are for more profound reasons of common decency and respect for the sacred. No commercial tower over Gettysburg, no convent at Auschwitz — and no mosque at Ground Zero.

We’ll give Charles the benefit of the doubt given the absence of any reference to the right to build “at a particular location” in his first argument,  but many sincere conservatives have made moral and constitutional arguments (property rights, religion and equal protection among other bases) against now denying Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf from developing the Park51 Islamic cultural center and mosque (GZM).

After all, declarers of independence that also wrote the U.S. Constitution considered private property rights so essential to “the pursuit of happiness” that the term “private property” was Thomas Jefferson’s initial companion with life and liberty.

Therefore, given that the Lower Manhattan real estate owners’ parcel is snail darter-free; mosques are not Wal-Marts; Islam is a religion; and the five-times-a-day, sweet-to-ObamaEars Muslim call to prayer reverberates smoke-free, then, ipso facto, they, of course, have the right to build Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s (pictured) preferred place of worship near the graves of his 2700+ victims and yet-to-be-scheduled “OJ” trial.

The assumptions made about the extent and scope of property and religious rights as opposed to the rights of the consent of the governed in their cities and states made by sincere conservatives in favor of Rauf’s “right” are strong and deserve serious consideration.

DeVine law thinks the flaws in the expansive property rights argument are part of a mistake many conservatives make when they seek (or rather don’t seek) to translate the Bill of Rights divorced from the context in which the Constitution was ratified by the States.

Constitutional federalism on the state and local level

The signers of the Declaration of Independence and their ancestors had enjoyed life, liberty and private property rights-driven happiness pursuits for over a century before their King’s decrees and a distant Parliament intolerably usurped the consent of the governed.

The quartering of British troops and the raising of taxes without representation led to a massacre in Boston and eventually a shot heard round the world.

That shot fired at Lexington was not aimed at the local zoning board

Those tired of being a King’s subjects wrote Articles of Confederation, and, later, what has proved the world’s most enduring governing document to prevent a federal government from acting as royalty. The U.S. Constitution sought to preserve the religious and property rights they had enjoyed in their states and was not a suicide pact granting minorities of any kind the right to be their kings in their cities, towns and states.

States retained their broad and expansive police powers to protect the lives, safety, morals and integrity of their communities.

No man is an island; no man ever was an island; and the Bill of Rights wasn’t written to erect individual man as an island. Men live in communities, and the exercise of their rights take place there. This fact remains even with Fourteenth Amendments and incorporation doctrines.

The right of self-government

If private property rights were plenary and unfettered, there would be no zoning boards. Rather, there would be anarchy.

Let us revisit and re-phrase the supposed certitudes with which we began this discussion. I contend that

New York City, of course, has the right allow Muslims that consider the United States to have been an “accessory to the crime” of 911 and who refuse to denounce Hamas as a terrorist group to build a mosque on top of the bones of the victims of that 2001 crime.

No one has the right to use their particular property for any particular purpose at any particular location.

All citizens are entitled to “equal protection” of the laws; free exercise of religion; and just compensation when government takes their property.

Free exercise of religion is not simply the right to “worship”

President Obama’s initial support of the building of the GZM extolled the virtues of America’s freedom of “religion”, rather than the virtues of the “freedom of worship” that he and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been enunciating at home and abroad over the past two years.

Part of the “reach out” to a Muslim world supposedly traumatized by former President George W. Bush’s liberation of over tens of millions of Muslims from the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, has been to soft-pedal the Liberty Project in favor of tolerance for Sharia which allows only the right to think about Jesus as Lord in one’s head, i.e. worship. No Baptist churches are being erected near Mecca.

Moreover, whenever liberals like Obama, and Supreme Court justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan seek to ban bibles, prayer, crosses and nativity scenes from public property, it is useful to reduce the free exercise of religion to unspoken thoughts exercising solely within skulls. But if we want foot baths in airports or mosques as replacements for Twin Towers, then please discern James Madison ’s original intent.

The fact is that the free exercise of religion encompasses much more than mere worship and does include the right of an organized religion to own property and practice their religion thereon as well as certain practices in the public square. But the right to freely exercise one’s religion does not entitle one to wear a burka to first grade or do peyote in one’s church.

Clearly, the First Amendment does not compel Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the NYC Zoning Authorities to grab their ankles when imams demand they bend over.

Private property rights, equal protection and Fifth Amendment “takings”

Yours truly recently lost a crusade against second-hand smoke Nazis in North Carolina. We loathe D.C. Big Brothers that kill jobs supposedly protecting fragile Mother Earth and those creatures that crawl upon it from cow farts and my Certs-enhanced breath.

But, DeVine Law never claimed that property rights demanded the unfettered right to build anything and do anything, so long as one held a fee simple title to a parcel of anywhere on the Fruited Plain.

However, we do admit that we have argued for a very expansive reading of the “just compensation” clause, e.g. lost profits from ordinances banning smoking in bars and numerous other regulations that prohibit the “highest and best use” of one’s property.

Moreover, with respect to equal protection, I came up one vote short in my home state’s supreme court from requiring cities to settle all sewage back-up claims or none!

Post-conservative epiphany, I am glad I lost that case, but I still approach the issue with humility. However, the fact is that too broad a definition of takings of private property, absent requiring a transfer of title, would make “ordered liberty” impossible. The Bill of Rights were not passed to create disorder.

How I would defend a sane New York City zoning board against this mosque or any mosque close to Ground Zero

The Constitution does not require one to check their common sense at the door when considering unique circumstances attendant to building permit requests.

Common sense reveals that not all religions are the same and that equal protection of the laws does not dictate equal application to unequal entities, whether they be liquor stores, strip clubs, Baptist bingo parlors or mosques.

Even the Drive-By Media understands this, apparently, given their singular mission of late to convince Americans that their President is a Christian, even if NASA’s new frontier is the space between Morocco and Indonesia, rather than Outer Space, but I digress.

The police power of the state is empowered to consider that a mosque near Ground Zero, divorced from the views of the owners, would be a threat to public safety and order and that a Greek Orthodox Church would not pose.

There is no question that a zoning board can consider the backgrounds of particular property owners when passing on a building permit and the uses to which a building will be used.

I don’t think that current precedent would require that Imam Rauf be compensated for a reversal of the prior zoning decision, although I certainly think they should be reimbursed any costs incurred in reliance on the prior decision that would only have been incurred for the purpose of operating a mosque at that location, i.e. religious fixtures.

Lilburn, Georgia managed to stop mosque construction while our Christian President wasn’t looking, after all. Jefferson and the founders sought to maximize happiness pursuits via the gatherings of the like-minded in communities.

But those are just the gritty details that would have to be dealt with by a non-leftist, non-cowardly zoning board sans a warped view of tolerance.

NYC has the right to surrender to Osama bin laden, but Osama’s acolytes have no right to desecrate sacred ground and those NY officials that assert that Muslims have such a right, while immediately adding that they oppose the desecration, are the aiders and abettors of the enemies of Liberty that seek to turn more American soil into sacred burial grounds in Fort Hood, Detroit and Times Square.

Weakness invited aggression, and I fear the core of the Big Apple has turned rotten since September 11, 2001.

Mike DeVine

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Charlotte Observer, The Minority Report and Examiner.com archives

www.devinelawvista.com

We heard it all through the run up to the election, and we’ve been hearing it ever since. I guess we should’ve seen it coming…the one term that “The Won” keeps repeating… the one term that will define his presidency…“This is all George Bush’s fault!!”

In fairness, though, there are other terms coming from the teleprompters (”Let me be clear” and “This is my top priority”) but we all know what we will remember.

Cross-posted:  TobyToons, Redstate