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by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny

President Obama is watching his approval ratings hit their lowest point of his presidency. Concern has caused President Obama's Chief of Staff to approach John Podesta to accept the position of White House Counselor. Looks like damage control is preparing to into high gear.

Barbara Walters, the soon to retire co-host of morning program The View, confirmed what many suspected all along. That the left, or at least many of them, viewed Barrack Husein Obama as the second Messiah.



Of course the right has opposed nearly everything Obama has put forth, ObamaCare, or the ACA (affordable care act, if you can call it that)has crawn almost non stop fire from conservatives since 2009. Now, even some in his own party are beginning to have concern over the cracks in the President's veneer.

2014 could well be shaping up as the year republicans increase strength in the House and gain a majority in the Senate. Should they succeed in this the prospects for a republican presidential candidate winning the White House in 2016 is certainly enhanced. That is if conservatives and the republican party are smart enough to find and nominate a candidate with broad national appeal and an agenda most Americans can live with.

Via: Memeorandum

By Findalis of Monkey in the Middle




Two of the most tragic Islamic attacks on Christians, killing several women and children, took place in the month of October, one in Syria, another in Egypt.

On October 21 in Syria, U.S.-supported Islamist rebels invaded and occupied the ancient Christian settlement of Sadad for over a week, until ousted by the Syrian army. What took place that week was "the largest massacre of Christians in Syria," in the words of Orthodox Archbishop Alnemeh. Among other things, 45 Christians—including women and children—were killed, several were tortured to death; mass graves were discovered; all of Sadad's 14 churches, some ancient, were ransacked and destroyed; the bodies of six people from one family, ranging from ages 16 to 90, were found at the bottom of a well (an increasingly common fate for "subhuman" Christians).

The jihadis also made a graphic video (with English subtitles) of those whom they massacred, while shouting Islam's victory-cry, "Allahu Akbar!" ["Allah is Greater!," meaning "than anything"]. Another video, made after Sadad was liberated, shows more graphic atrocities.

The day before rebels invaded Sadad, on Sunday, October 20, the Church of the Virgin Mary in Warraq, near Cairo, Egypt, was attacked during a wedding ceremony. The attack left four dead and nearly two dozen wounded. According to a report issued by a forensic team, two of those murdered were young girls, each named Mary:

12-year-old Mary Nabil Fahmy, who was shot five times in the chest, and 8-year-old Mary Ashraf Masih ("Masih" meaning "Christ"), who was shot in the back.

The security forces charged with protecting the church were seen leaving their posts immediately before the massacre began, as happens frequently in Egypt and other Islamic nations. In the words of Asia News, "Eye-witnesses of the al-Warraq attack confirm that despite numerous distress calls, police and ambulances only arrived on the scene two hours after the shooting."
These massacres in Syria and Egypt received scant attention and even less condemnation from Western media and governments. Instead, people such as Mohamed Elibiary, an Obama administration Homeland Security adviser, condemned Copts who raise awareness of anti-Christian violence in Egypt as promoting "Islamophobic" bigotry.

Although Christians are habitually killed in Muslim countries, as this series attests, the U.S. government rarely condemns the practice or even acknowledges it. When five Muslims were killed in western Burma, however, the U.S. issued a formal condemnation, according to Voice of America, "urging authorities to do more to address the long-standing sectarian tension there."
The rest of October's roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country in alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity:


Bangladesh: "A local government official in central Bangladesh has halted the construction of a church, forced Christians to worship at a mosque and threatened them with eviction from their village unless they renounce their faith," said Morning Star News. "The Tangail Evangelical Holiness Church in Bilbathuagani village… was created Sept. 8 by a group of about 25 Christians who had been meeting secretly for three years. However, local council chairman Rafiqul Islam Faruk joined around 200 demonstrators Sept. 13 to protest against the start of the building of the church. The following day, the Christians were summoned to his office. More than 1,000 Muslims waited outside, following an announcement at all local mosques to gather at the chairman's office." There, they were ordered to embrace Islam or suffer the consequences. Said one of the Christians: "Their threats chilled me to the bone. That is why I pretended to accept Islam, but faith in Christ is the wellspring of my life." Another said: "The chairman is clipping the wings of our faith. I do not know how long we can grin and bear it. We want religious freedom. We want to practice our religion freely." Since Sept. 14, under the chairman's orders, eight Christians agreed to return to Islam. Apparently, the chairman and his associates had already beaten some of these Christians three years ago for accepting Christianity.
Iran: Mariam Naqqash, a female convert to Christianity, was sentenced to four years in prison by a court in Tehran. The Christian convert was found guilty of "endangering national security by spreading religious propaganda in the country," and allegedly being a spy for Britain and Israel. According to Adnkronos News, "renouncing the Muslim faith is punishable [in Iran] with the death penalty. Over 300 Iranian converts to Christianity have been arrested over the past two years, according to opposition websites."
Kazakhstan: After Bakhytzhan Kashkumbayev, a 67-year-old pastor, was released from five months' detention, based on charges his family and others insist are spurious. After being reunited with his family, he was arrested again within minutes, now accused of "propaganda of terrorism or extremism, or public calls to commit an act of terrorism or extremism, as well as the distribution of material of the content indicated." His son, Askar, told Forum 18 News Service, "These new accusations are complete rubbish. They're trying to turn my father into a terrorist." Grace Church in Astana, where Kashkumbayev served, has, according to the report, long been subject to state harassment, including accusations of being involved in espionage, fraud, money laundering, distributing extremist texts and using hallucinogenic communion drinks.
Kenya: Charles Matole, pastor of the Redeemed Gospel Church, was found shot dead while still sitting with a Bible on his lap:

"We found him with blood oozing from the head," said a choir member. The pastor had been receiving threatening phone text messages. Similarly, Pastor Ebrahim Kidata of the East African Pentecostal Churches was found murdered, strangled to death, in a patch of bushes.

Pakistan:

• After a Muslim man slaughtered a Christian—in broad daylight and in front of police—accusing him of being "an infidel who blasphemed against Muhammad" (see September report), a group of armed men broke into the dead man's family home, threatening to kill its members if they did not withdraw their police complaint against the murderer, and convert to Islam. Fr. Arshad Gill, a priest in Karachi, told Asia News "about this 'sad story' in which the victim is 'an innocent man' and his family is told to convert to Islam or die. For him, the case epitomizes the situation of Pakistan's minorities, forced to live 'in conditions of profound insecurity' in which events such as this one tend to exacerbate the situation…. Found in Article 295, B and C of the Pakistan Penal Code, the [blasphemy] 'law' punishes with death or life in prison anyone who desecrates the Qur'an or defames the name of the Prophet Muhammad." Those few political activists who have tried to repeal the law—such as Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, a Muslim, and Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian—have been murdered.
  
• Three other Pakistani Christians face a possible death sentence on what lawyer Sardar Mushtaq Gill says are "trumped up charges" of blasphemy. One of the Christians, Asif Pervaiz, is accused of sending phone text messages with "abusive language against Muslims, Islam, Prophet Mohammed and the Koran." Two other Christians, Pastor Adnan and Mushtaq Masih, were also arrested for allegedly writing "derogatory remarks" about Islam. Gill also said, "Days back we received some heart breaking information that there is one group who forced Christians to accept Islam at gun point."
  
• Another Christian man accused of blasphemy, 26-year-old Adnan Masih, trained as a pastor at a United Pentecostal seminary, is being hunted by police. In addition, the banned Islamic extremist group, Jamaat ud Dawa, in Lahore, issued a fatwa, or Islamic decree, calling for his death because he sought to correct misconceptions about Christianity in a Muslim book by noting biblical verses that refuted Islamic characterizations of Christianity. A source said that the hunted man had no idea that "pointing out false references in a book would land him in such big trouble." In the words of a representative of Jamaat ud Dawa: "The police better arrest the blasphemer and hand him over to us on Saturday [Oct. 19]. We will not be responsible for any law-and-order situation in the city if the police fails to keep its assurance. How dare someone use derogatory language against our beloved prophet … Don't they know that the Koran orders us to slit the throat of whoever is disrespectful to Allah's beloved prophet."
  
• Rana Tanveer, a chief reporter for The Express Tribune, received a one-page letter in Urdu threatening him to stop covering the plight of minorities. He was further accused of being an "apostate" for allegedly sympathizing with Christians and Ahmadis, instead of with their Sunni Muslim oppressors. He was also threatened with death, "from where you cannot even imagine." Tanveer, a Muslim, insists that all his reports are objective and based on facts.
  

Egypt: After Muslims in al-Minya district accused a young man of having an illicit relationship with a Muslim woman, violence erupted against the village's Christians (see September report). The father of the Christian man insists that there was no relationship between his son and the Muslim woman, whose family, in his words, "actually had their daughter undergo a gynecological exam, which proved the woman is 'untouched' [a virgin]." Instead, according to the father and many Copts in the village, "the whole story was fabricated by Muslim hard-liners from neighboring village to cause sectarian strife." According to a separate Arabic report, "criminal groups and gangs managed to acquire guns and weapons and, as usual, have attacked and abused the Christians … [and] forced Copts to pay large amounts of money as tax [jizya] in order not to steal and/or plunder their lands." The report also points out that no one does anything to oppose these gangs:

"they simply kill Christians and their families as happened in the village of Shameiya when two Copts refused to pay the tax: the gang killed them and this was repeated in many other villages belonging to the governorate of Asyut. It is becoming so normal now to watch as these crimes against Christians occur day by day and nothing is done."

Indonesia: Still insisting that Susan Jasmine Zulkifli, a Christian woman appointed governor of the sub-district of Lenteng Agung, in West Java, be removed solely because of her faith (see September report), Muslim protesters stepped up their threats, including carrying a coffin in a protest march of some 600 Muslims—a clear death threat —and waving flags symbolic of death. The Christian woman had been promoted in June by the Governor of Jakarta, who said in response: "I make my choices based on merits, not looking at religion."
Iran: After being arrested in a house church December 2012 and charged with consuming alcohol in violation of the Islamic theocracy's laws, four Christians were sentenced to 80 lashes for drinking communion wine. "The sentences handed down to these members of the Church of Iran effectively criminalize the Christian sacrament of sharing in the Lord's Supper and constitute an unacceptable infringement on the right to practice faith freely and peaceably," a human rights activist said.
Iraq: The nation's Christians, more than half of whom have fled since the U.S.-led invasion a decade ago, are now also being targeted in and fleeing from northern Iraq, which until recently was considered a relatively safe region for Christians fleeing violence in the south. Recently, for example, a suicide bomb went off outside the home of Christian politician Emad Youhanna in Rafigayn, part of the Kirkuk province, injuring 19 people, including three of his children. Several more bomb attacks have also taken place in the northern city of Erbil, for which al-Qaeda claimed responsibility. According to Christian News, "In early September, Christians in the village of Deshtakh complained that they were facing harassment from local police. A group of Christian young people said that policemen told them that they 'should not be in Iraq because it is Muslim territory.' Violence in the south of the country is also escalating. Church leaders in Baghdad say that there are attacks on Christians every two or three days."
Lebanon: Muslims in the historically Christian nation are appropriating Christian land. According to Agenzia Fides: "An urgent reminder to curb the misuse of land belonging to Christians in order to build housing for the Muslims was launched on Monday, October 14 from Talal al- Doueihy, leader of the Movement 'Lebanese Land, our Land'…. Across the Country there are outbreaks of clashes due to problem regarding land. Last week, in the Christian village of Alma (district of Zghorta) residents had complained that the Muslims of the area of al-Fuar had begun to build houses without permission. Already at the end of August, the same Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Rai had called Christians to limit the sale of their property to avoid jeopardizing the demographic-confessional balance."
Pakistan: After the bombs in the church of All Saints in Peshawar, where nearly 90 people, including many women and children, died, Agenzia Fides reported that, "the situation remains tense in the Pakistani society: not only tragedy but also horror. The Christians said they were 'horrified' by the rumors that link the bombs in Peshawar to the vast problem of organ trafficking: this is what some members of NGOs in civil society in Pakistan told Fides. Some of the 'jackals,' presumably local paramedics, seem to have taken advantage of the high number of deaths and injuries in order to steal the bodies of victims and exploit them for the illegal organ trade. 'If this were true, it would mean that there are criminals who are taking advantage of the suffering of Christian victims in a truly blasphemous and sacrilegious manner,' notes Fr. Mario Rodrigues, a priest of Karachi." Meanwhile, some of the Christian survivors who mourned the deaths of loved ones too openly, were attacked, beaten, and threatened with death. Finally, in a separate story, a Christian, Harrison Masih, working in a store, who used to debate religion with a Muslim customer, Maulvi Khalad, got into an argument when Khalad tried to get him to convert to Islam, "telling him that he would enter paradise that way." But, as Harrison related, because he refused to convert and apparently did not want want any trouble, "I quit my job at the medical store but Khalid, and three other men, came to my house and threatened me and my family."


While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, the persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is on its way to reaching pandemic proportions. "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month. It serves two purposes:

1. To document that which the mainstream media often seems to fail to report.
2. To suggest that such persecution is not "random" but systematic.

These accounts span different ethnicities, languages, and locations.

The Guardian reports in an angry exchange with Barack Obama, Angela Merkel has compared the snooping practices of the US with those of the Stasi, the ubiquitous and all-powerful secret police of the communist dictatorship in East Germany, where she grew up.

The German chancellor also told the US president that America's National Security Agency cannot be trusted because of the volume of material it had allowed to leak to the whistleblower Edward Snowden, according to the New York Times.

More here

NBC News reports a video that appears to capture a special education teacher in New Jersey cursing and yelling at a student has gone viral, prompting outrage among parents and former students.

The video shows the teacher at Fair Lawn High School yelling at a male student: "You're my g------ student, you get that? I'm your teacher, don't ever tell me what to do. You get it now? Now sit down." 

The video was apparently recorded on a student's cell phone and was disseminated among classmates until a parent got her hands on it. That mother, whose own son was once in the teacher's special education class, said she was so outraged she posted the video on YouTube.

"The child is non-responsive, non-combative," said the mother, who wanted to remain anonymous. "There's absolutely no reason for him to have berated him in that manner. Zero." 

More here

Parents of several teenagers filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Waukegan and two Waukegan police detectives for abusing and physical assaulting a 13-year-old boy.

Is A Guaranteed Minimum Income Next?
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
**********    
About a year and a half go, I wrote of my concern that the Obama Administration would soon seek a guaranteed minimum income for every American.  As we have watched the the unemployment benefits extended and extended and extended again and again, one must wonder if, in the end, that isn't exactly where we are headed.  My concern has not slacked one iota. 
    
Below is the article, shortened a bit.  I hope you find it informative and enlightening.   ...   JDL
**************************************
If the Obama Administration and his fellow Socialist/Marxist/Progressives (who camouflage themselves as democrats) in the US government aren't sent packing in November, I fully expect the next step in securing a socialist state in America is a guaranteed annual (minimum) income for every American.

Think about it. It is one of the few steps remaining that would solidify the hold government has on every man, woman, and child in America.

We know from the records that the welfare rolls have increased exponentially under Obama. Recently, changes were made by Presidential Executive Order to redefine "work" allowing even more applicants for welfare to be added to the welfare rolls. Why? Could it be the Obama Administration is deliberately attempting to "crash" the US welfare system? If so -- why?

I contend -- that is exactly what is happening.

If I an correct, then we are actually seeing the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" at work. We are observing the foundation, the groundwork -- if you will -- for establishing a guaranteed annual (minimum) income for American citizens. It is very, very, worrisome. But -- it is only the latest move by our socialist leaders to break America so they can re-mold her in the image of their choosing, which is, unarguably a socialist/Marxist state.
America is in a death spiral, dear reader. If the American electorate doesn't shake itself out of this stupor in which it is currently wallowing and come out swinging like the people we like to think we are, we are going to lose our liberty, our individual freedom, and our country.

What we are talking about here is "a government-ensured guarantee that all citizens unconditionally receive an income sufficient to meet their basic needs." SOURCE: http://www.usbig.net/index.php

Look around you. Consider the extremely high percentage of Americans already on what we call "Welfare" and consider, too, that nearly half of all Americans currently receive some form of government monetary assistance every month and then -- ask yourself what will happen to America's economy if Americans are guaranteed an annual income whether they work and contribute to our society or not.

Let's look a bit closer: What is a BIG? It is a Basic Income Guarantee. "The basic income guarantee (BIG) is a government insured guarantee that no citizen's income will fall below some minimal level for any reason. All citizens would receive a BIG without means test or work requirement. BIG is an efficient and effective solution to poverty that preserves individual autonomy and work incentives while simplifying government social policy. Some researchers estimate that a small BIG, sufficient to cut the poverty rate in half could be financed without an increase in taxes by redirecting funds from spending programs and tax deductions aimed at maintaining incomes." SOURCE: http://www.usbig.net/index.php

Here's more: "The Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) is a government ensured guarantee that no one's income will fall below the level necessary to meet their most basic needs for any reason. As Bertrand Russell put it in 1918, "A certain small income, sufficient for necessities, should be secured for all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful. On this basis we may build further." Thus, with BIG no one is destitute but everyone has the positive incentive to work. BIG is an efficient, effective, and equitable solution to poverty that promotes individual freedom and leaves the beneficial aspects of a market economy in place." SOURCE: http://www.usbig.net/whatisbig.phphttp://www.usbig.net/whatisbig.php

OK. So, how would we pay for it? Those who advocate the BIG say (above): " ... could be financed without an increase in taxes by redirecting funds from spending programs and tax deductions aimed at maintaining incomes."

HUH?

That's strange because just a bit lower on the page we find this: "The most commonly cited source of revenue for BIG is the income tax. Most proposals combine a basic income guarantee with a flat tax on income. Charles Clark estimates that a flat income tax rate of less than 40% would be enough to finance all current government spending and a BIG large enough to eliminate poverty." SOURCE: http://www.usbig.net/whatisbig.php

I have to wonder if "less than 40%" means 39.99%?

It's coming. How can I be so sure? Because the next attempt at a BIG for the US will be only the latest iteration. The movement for a guaranteed income has been around for a long time. A quick check for advocates of a guaranteed income at Wikipedia brought some surprises. For Instance: American revolutionary Thomas Paine advocated a basic income guarantee to all US citizens as compensation for "loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property" (Agrarian Justice, 1795).

French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte echoed Paine's sentiments and commented that 'man is entitled by birthright to a share of the Earth's produce sufficient to fill the needs of his existence' (Herold, 1955).

In 1962, economist Milton Friedman proposed a Negative Income Tax coupled with a flat tax in support of a guaranteed minimum income.

In 1963, Robert Theobald published the book Free Men and Free Markets, in which he advocated a guaranteed minimum income (the origin of the modern version of the phrase).

In 1966 the Cloward–Piven strategy advocated "overloading" the US welfare system to force its collapse in the hopes that it would be replaced by "a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty".

In his final book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967) Martin Luther King Jr. wrote: "I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective — the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income."
—from the chapter titled "Where We Are Going".

In 1968, James Tobin, Paul Samuelson, John Kenneth Galbraith and another 1,200 economists signed a document calling for the US Congress to introduce in that year a system of income guarantees and supplements.

In 1973, Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote The Politics of a Guaranteed Income in which he advocated the Guaranteed Minimum Income and discussed Richard Nixon's GAI proposal.

We encourage you to read the article at Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income

There are references to other advocates of a national guaranteed income in the article at Wikipedia, but I think you get the idea.

Oh, and while you are on the Wikipedia page, scroll down and check out the list of suggested means of funding for a national guaranteed income. But -- be sure you are sitting down before you do.

A guaranteed income for all Americans is the worst idea for America since, well, Obamacare!

Item number two in the The Black Panther Party: Platform and Program includes the following statement: "We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income." SOURCE: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6445/

As I mentioned above -- I have to wonder if the massive increase in the number of Americans on Welfare under the Obama Administration is in keeping with the Cloward–Piven strategy which suggests overloading the US welfare system forcing it to collapse and setting the stage for a guaranteed income for all Americans. You can read more on the Cloward-Piven strategy at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward–Piven_strategy

I cannot even begin to tell you how deeply, deeply, opposed to the entire idea of a guaranteed annual income for all Americans I am. The American republic would be crushed and wiped out by internal rot!

J. D. Longstreet

LA Times reports a gunman opened fire at a Reno hospital Tuesday afternoon, killing at least one person and critically wounding two others before apparently taking his own life, state emergency officials said.Reno Deputy Police Chief Tom Robinson told reporters the gunman apparently
shot himself.

The incident took place on the third floor of a medical building at Renown Regional Medical Center, Robinson said. He estimated that about 100 people were inside at the time.

"The building is secure and safe,"  he said.

The shooting was first reported at 2:05 p.m., Robinson said, and officers responded within three to five minutes and searched room by room. Authorities say the gunman is believed to have killed himself about 3 p.m.

Robinson had no preliminary details to release about the identity of the shooter or his victims, nor about a possible motive or the type of weapon used.

In a statement on its website, Renown Health, which operates the hospital, said the shooting happened at "a professional office building located on the northeast corner of the Renown Regional Medical Center campus."

One person was rushed to surgery, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported.

Daranda Cone of Reno told the Gazette-Journal she was at the hospital when the shooting happened.

"I saw this woman with blood all over her being rushed past me" to the emergency room, Cone told the newspaper.

Lesley Guerrero, 17, was at the hospital to visit her grandfather in the intensive-care unit and said she was outside when the hospital’s intercom announced a “code black.” From the top of a parking garage, as she watched SWAT team members huddle and enter the medical building where the shooting took place, she said she saw a “flustered” woman pull up in a car.

“She was looking down at the scene and talking on her phone … and I guess that was her building that the shooting was happening in, and she was very concerned about her employees,” Guerrero said. The woman rushed back inside the hospital, and when Guerrero came inside too, she passed three doctors huddled together, one of whom was crying.

“I wondered who got hurt, and it made me feel very concerned,” Guerrero said.

Sharon Spangler, a spokeswoman for the city of Reno, said the shooting occurred at the Center for Advanced Medicine, which is located on the medical center campus but is not affiliated with the hospital.

"They’re leased offices," she said. "They’re not part of the hospital."

Reno-area resident John Reid told the Gazette-Journal that he hurried to the hospital after his wife, Carlotta, who works in urology at the facility, called him crying after hearing shots fired.

"She was in pure panic," he told the newspaper.

More here