The Moral High Ground

HT: Red State

Ben Carson at the National Prayer Breakfast

Dr. Ben Carson gave a great speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. Ben is director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins-- he is highly respected in our profession, and is a genunely humble and good man. He is a devout Christian, and an active public intellectual.

He has much to say on many topics, including political correctness, lawyers (he doesn't like them), Obamacare and death panels (Obama was sitting next to him), the flat tax, and several very funny jokes (I like the one about the talking birds).

Carson has been telling truth to power for a long time. He has even stood up against Darwinian claptrap.

The Wall Street Journal followed his Prayer Breakfast speech with an editorial titled Ben Carson for President.

That would be a prayer answered.

For that special moment... it starts with a smile... a touch...

Jay Leno gives us a new commercial, based on Steve Kroft's fawning 60 Minutes interview of Obama and Hillary.

1.6 billion bullets?

WTF?

DHS Purchases 21.6 Million More Rounds of Ammunition

Federal agency has now acquired enough bullets to wage 30 year war

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
February 7, 2013

The Department of Homeland Security is set to purchase a further 21.6 million rounds of ammunition to add to the 1.6 billion bullets it has already obtained over the course of the last 10 months alone, figures which have stoked concerns that the federal agency is preparing for civil unrest.

A solicitation posted yesterday on the Fed Bid website details how the bullets are required for the DHS Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, New Mexico.

The solicitation asks for 10 million pistol cartridge .40 caliber 165 Grain, jacketed Hollow point bullets (100 quantities of 100,000 rounds) and 10 million 9mm 115 grain jacketed hollow point bullets (100 quantities of 100,000 rounds).

The document also lists a requirement for 1.6 million pistol cartridge 9mm ball bullets (40 quantities of 40,000 rounds).

An approximation of how many rounds of ammunition the DHS has now secured over the last 10 months stands at around 1.625 billion. In March 2012, ATK announced that they had agreed to provide the DHS with a maximum of 450 million bullets over four years, a story that prompted questions about why the feds were buying ammunition in such large quantities. In September last year, the federal agency purchased a further 200 million bullets.

To put that in perspective, during the height of active battle operations in Iraq, US soldiers used 5.5 million rounds of ammunition a month. Extrapolating the figures, the DHS has purchased enough bullets over the last 10 months to wage a full scale war for almost 30 years.

You don't have to be a paranoid black-helicopter survivalist type to wonder....

Don Sensing has some insights and suggests some explanations for the DHS' sudden purchase of enough bullets to shoot every American-- man, woman and child-- five times:


On Jan. 2, DHS awarded a contract to

...Evian Group Inc., an organization that was formed just five days before the announcement of the solicitation [in December].  

As James Smith documents, Evian Group seems to be little more than a front organization and doesn’t appear to have any real business assets, a genuine physical address, a website, or even a phone number.

So not only is the DHS stockpiling decades of war's worth of ammunition - which means literally centuries of DHS usage - it's doing so through front companies that come into being to collect the contract checks and presumably disappear once the checks have been written. The real questions here are who owns or controls Evian Group and what is his/their connection to the Democrat party? 

Again the question, Why is DHS buying all this ammo? Here are the answers I propose in order of my preference of accuracy: 

1. To transfer enormous sums of money to politically-connected or -useful individuals. In other words, the massive purchases are just old fashioned, money laundering graft and corruption. It sure would be useful to know how much Evian was paid for the ammo, because my guess is that Evian's controllers are buying the ammo from manufacturers at discount, then marking it up at least 40 percent to sell it to DHS. 

What ultimately happens to that 40 percent markup? It goes two places: the bank accounts of Evian's controllers get half and the other half is funneled through shell-corps, bogus non-profits and established foundations, finally to the Democrat National Committee and Democrat campaigns and causes. 

2. To reduce the supply of ammunition available to ordinary Americans. 

3. To shoot right-wing domestic "terrorists," although honestly the purchases so far exceed what might be remotely be needed for that even if these presumed terrorists ever, you know, actually started terrorizing, that I can't imagine this is much related to the reason for the purchases. 

No, this is looting the public treasury, pure and simple, to keep the Democrat party in power.

Sounds like a hybrid of an aggregation of massive lethal force by a domestic surveillance federal agency and run-of-the-mill Chicago-Democrat-gangster money-laundering.

Do you think that there could still be an innocent explanation for the DHS ammo spree? A commentor on Rantburg has the last word:

What's "Evian" spelled backwards?

"I thank God... that abortion was there to save me...'

Toure on the abortion of his child:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

He wouldn't be the success he is, if it weren't for the abortion of his child 15 years ago.

*sigh*

That his butchered son or daughter would now be in 9th grade, getting ready to learn to drive, going on dates, the pride of his/her parents, with his/her own dreams and joys, seems not to bother Toure.

Toure's personal success is what matters to him. Whatever the cost to his own child.

The abortion movement is changing tack. It is abandoning its traditional junk science that a human fetus isn't human. It's more explicit now, no longer afraid or ashamed to admit:

'It's about me. If I have to kill my own kid to get what I want, so what?'

A more honest glimpse, at least, into a moral cesspool.

Pope Benedict to resign

Wow.

Pope Benedict has announced that he will resign the papacy due to deteriorating health, effective February 28, 2013. There will be a conclave to elect his successor shortly thereafter.

The last time a pope resigned was 1415.

Text of the Pope's statement:

Dear Brothers, 

I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is. 

Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer. 

From the Vatican, 10 February 2013 

BENEDICTUS PP XVI

Pope Benedict XIV is a manifestly holy and good man, who has served God and His Church with distinction all of his life.  We have been blessed by his papacy.

Please pray for the Holy Spirit's guidance in the election of a new Shepherd for our Church. 

A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Litigious...

Former gay scoutmaster James Dale on growing up gay in scouting:

I was trying to fit in, looking for a niche or a crowd I could be part of. 

So I tried soccer, band, karate — all the activities that little boys growing up in my middle-class New Jersey suburb were supposed to enjoy. But I spent most of my time on the sidelines, never really feeling like I belonged.Until I was 8 years old, and I discovered Cub Scout Pack 242.

For the first time in my life, I felt I was a valued part of a group. I could be an insecure and fearful kid, but Scouting offered positive reinforcement, a direction, shared goals. My fellow Cub Scouts didn’t judge me because I couldn’t hit a home run. We were taught to appreciate each other’s strengths because each of us was a unique and necessary part of a larger whole. 

Scouting even brought me closer to my father. His demanding commute to Manhattan and weekends in the Army Reserve often kept us apart, but now, more than 30 years later, I still remember whittling down a seven-inch block of wood into a sporty sedan for the Pine­wood Derby with him. In our garage, surrounded by the pungent scent of sawdust and spray paint, we found common ground in Scouting. 

I went from Tiger to Wolf to Bear to Webelos, and at age 10 I crossed the bridge into Boy Scouts. Year by year, with every skill award and merit badge, I held my head a bit higher and became more accepting of myself, developing a sense of value and self-worth. During this time I started to think I might be gay, but it was a nonissue in the Scouting environment. I sensed no polarization, no culture war. In the Scouts I found countless peers and volunteers who helped me establish my convictions and find my voice. 

I would need those convictions and that voice on Aug. 10, 1990, just before my junior year at Rutgers, when I received a letter from my local council leader, James Kay. “The grounds for this membership revocation are the standards for leadership established by the Boy Scouts of America,” the letter read, “which specifically forbid membership to homosexuals.” 

It was a punch in the gut. Scouting was about overarching principles — kindness, respect, community — that could be upheld regardless of sexual orientation. How could this be?

Yea. How could the BSA possibly know that Dale was gay?...

At this point in my life I was openly gay and unashamed of it. I was co-president of Rutgers’s Lesbian/Gay Alliance and an assistant Scoutmaster in Troop 73 of Matawan, N.J. — and saw no contradiction between the two parts of my life. A local paper had published an article about me, and that is how my sexuality had become a matter of public record.

Oh. He was president of his college LGBT alliance and announced the fact that he was flouting BSA policy in the press.

Then he sued the BSA for the same policy he implicitly endorsed by signing up to be a scoutmaster, hoping obviously for a big payday at the expense of the kids:

I challenged the BSA policy in the New Jersey Supreme Court and won a unanimous victory. “The human price of this bigotry has been enormous,” wrote Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz. “At a most fundamental level, adherence to the principle of equality demands that our legal system protect the victims of invidious discrimination.” In a concurring opinion, Justice Alan B. Handler emphasized that being gay does not take away from “one’s ability to participate in and contribute responsibly and positively to society.”

Dale could practically taste the money...

When the BSA appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, I continued the fight — and ultimately lost in a 5-4 decision on June 28, 2000.

So much for early retirement. Those scouts are so selfish...

The majority ruled that it was within the BSA’s First Amendment rights to exclude gay members if it thought our presence would undermine its mission. In other words, the nation’s highest court ruled that the Scouts could legally enshrine bigotry into the Scout Oath and Law.

The court ruled that private organizations can legally restrict membership to people who share their values. The First Amendment protects freedom of association. 

The ruling contradicted all I’d learned in my years of Scouting. As a Scout, I couldn’t accept it. So I’m still fighting...

Maybe the big payday will still come...

... the Boy Scouts of America is choosing to become increasingly irrelevant. With each passing day, the Scouts will continue to lose members, sponsors and funding because people are disassociating themselves from an organization that tells a boy he is immoral, unworthy or unacceptable simply because his is gay...

It all comes at an unacceptable human cost; this kind of bias is the reason for high rates of depression, substance abuse and suicide among gay youth. It’s a policy that will harm some of the young people that the Boy Scouts was created to help.

Yea. The high disease and death rates among homosexuals have nothing to do with massive promiscuity in service to a sexual perversion in the midst a deadly epidemic and the use of dangerous drugs to heighten sexual experiences.

Gays are such helpless victims. It's all the fault of people who don't engage in gay sex.

*sigh*

                                                         ***

Here's some suggestions for Mr. Dale:

1) Start your own organization-- "the Gay Boy Scouts-- GBS".  Parents can send their boys on GBS camping trips with their gay scoutmasters-- "Camping equality"... Ranks are Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, Rear Admiral... Merit badges in T-Ball, Tent-Sharing, and Tea-Bagging... "A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Discreet, Submissive..." It'll be a big hit with families. 

2) In the interest of reciprocity, Mr. Dale, as former co-president of the Rutgers Gay and Lesbian Alliance, should take the Gay Alliance to court for not having enough conservative Christians who disapprove of homosexual conduct as members of the Alliance. Heck, if opponents of the values of the Boy Scouts should be leaders of the Scouts, why shouldn't opponents of the homosexual lifestyle should be leaders of gay organizations? Why shouldn't a conservative Christian anti-sodomy activist be "co-president" of the gay alliance? The reciprocity seems obvious.

If Boy Scouts should be forced by law to admit even to leadership positions people who do not share their values, why should gay organizations not be similarly forced?

Gay organizations aren't a bunch of bigots, are they?

Actually, Mr. Dale will never have to worry about being forced to accept people who disagree with him in membership or leadership positions in his gay organization. 

Fortunately, the Supreme Court decision that Dale lost protects his right to form private organizations that reflect his personal views-- the right to freedom of association-- without coercion by some litigious intolerant hypocritical scumbag looking for a big payday and his five minutes of fame.