It should not need to be said, but – no, not all American blacks think that George Zimmerman should have been found guilty of killing Trayvon Martin.

Our interest is always in what a person thinks and says, not in his or her race or color. But President Obama (we think we must be having a bad dream every time we write those two words!), Attorney General Eric Holder, their sycophants in the media, and the Left in general have made George Zimmerman’s trial for second-degree murder (or failing that, manslaughter), and his acquittal, a race issue. And the media are presenting the story as though the man’s acquittal – on solid grounds, in a case that should never have brought to court anyway – has been taken as an outrageous miscarriage of justice by Black America as a solid whole (as if there were or could be such a thing).

But here are the opinions (some slightly shortened by us) of several black conservatives, members of the Project 21* black leadership network, who dissent from that opinion:

Horace Cooper – co-chairman of Project 21, is a former law professor and former congressional leadership staff member:

While I’m thrilled with this outcome, it should never have come to this. This case should never have been brought forward. The grand jury should never have been bypassed and Judge Nelson should never have allowed this case to get this far. There’s a reason the investigating officer refused to support an arrest, there’s a reason the state’s attorney refused to prosecute and there’s a reason the grand jury was bypassed. There was no substantial evidence corroborating the state’s case and a whole heck of evidence supporting Mr. Zimmerman. The rush to arrest and indict Zimmerman merely to appease the media or race-based interest groups not only jeopardized Mr. Zimmerman’s rights and liberty, but the precedent suggests that all of our rights could be infringed.

Darryn “Dutch” Martin –  a member of Project 21 and a former member of the American diplomatic corps:

… It needs to be understood that the case against George Zimmerman for the death of Trayvon Martin was not supposed to be about race. It was always about self-defense. Zimmerman’s defense team proved this and the jury concurred. Justice has been served. …

Lisa Fritsch – a member of Project 21, tea party activist, author and talk radio host:

Despite a not guilty verdict, we must remember that George Zimmerman is not truly free. This trial will forever remain in his mind for his remaining days. Our hope should be that this trial and verdict will unite the Florida community and this country and be a healing testimony to what happens when we think the worst of one another first. In this case, it felt as if our very country were on trial for racial prejudice. The not guilty verdict should make us reflect on what it means to give the benefit of the doubt before judging harshly and deciding one’s actions are racially motivated. The final question for every community is how we can protect our youth from a system of violence and a lifestyle that nearly guarantees they will find trouble. Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin’s family and more urban Americans will hopefully use this case and verdict as an opportunity to correct that system.

Hughey Newsome – a Project 21 member, financial expert and the Washington representative for the Move-On-Up.Org black political organization:

Everything about the verdict can be wrapped up by considering the post-verdict comments of Zimmerman attorney Mark O’Mara. While many may feel that O’Mara’s comment about charges not being filed against Zimmerman if Zimmerman were black may seem insensitive … his subsequent comments about the need for a civil rights discussion in regards to African-American males are timely despite his feeling it is irrelevant to this case. Those saying the value placed on an African-American male is diminished in today’s society must now ask themselves, if this is believed to be true, what is causing this phenomenon? So many in the media and entertainment industries seem to profit off perpetuating the image of the African-American male as violent and sexual animals, but this is then ignored in order to complain about overt racism that is mostly marginalized in today’s society. This gets us no closer to solving the problem at hand.

Emery McClendon  – a Project 21 member and tea party activist:

We must stop looking at issues from a racial context and stand together as one America …  To use a familiar phrase these days, let’s not stay ‘stuck on stupid’ and move on to heal our land. We have so much to be thankful for. For too long, people such as the NAACP’s Ben Jealous and Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have spoke out in hate and ignorance and found placement in the media. It’s time to stop the madness. We must turn the tide. If we put as much time into restoring our Constitution as we did into the Zimmerman trial, America would be a better place for all of us.”

*From the same source:

Project 21 was formed in 1992 when the riots following the verdict in the Rodney King case revealed a need to highlight the diversity of opinion within the black community. For over 20 years, the volunteer members of the Project 21 black leadership network have provided conservative and free-market perspectives that, until that time, were largely unknown or ignored by the establishment media.

This video is the shorter version of an anti-jihad film titled The Third Jihad, made by a loyal American who is himself a Muslim, Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser.

The Commissioner of the New York Police Department, Ray Kelly, appears in it. It was shown to the officers of the NYPD.

Watch it, and see if you think anything in it is untrue. See if you think its content should not be widely known, and known to police officers in a city where thousands have been killed, maimed, widowed and orphaned by Muslim terrorists.

Its showing to the New York police so annoyed Muslims who support terrorism, and their ignorant or stupid or wicked allies, that in coalition as the Shoulder-to-Shoulder Campaign they worked to get the New York City Council to pass bills “stopping the abuses of the NYPD”. The New York City Council obliged. It is heavily leftist, remember: out of 51 members, 46 are Democrats.

What these bills actually do is hamper the ability of the NYPD to fight crime effectively and weaken it as a counter-terrorist force.

But the Mayor of New York – yes, that same Mayor Bloomberg whom we have derided for wanting to treat the citizens as children (for instance by forbidding them to buy sodas in a certain large cup size) – has declared that he will veto the bills.

For this we praise him. The bad news is that his veto may not suffice to quash them.

For details of this lamentable story, we quote from an article by Ryan Mauro at Front Page:

The Shoulder-to-Shoulder Campaign, an interfaith coalition allied with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), is praising the passage of two bills by the New York City Council aimed at stopping the alleged abuses of the NYPD. Mayor Bloomberg says he will veto the bills, even though they passed with enough support to override [the veto].

The passed bills, the End Discriminatory Profiling Bill and NYPD Oversight Bill, outraged Mayor Bloomberg and NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

The latter bill requires the overseeing of the NYPD by an independent Inspector-General.

The former opens the door for the NYPD to be sued in state court for policies that disproportionately affect certain ages, genders, sexual orientations or housing statuses.

Mayor Bloomberg considers the bills to be a matter of “life and death” vows to “not give up for one minute.”

“The bill would allow virtually everyone in New York City to sue the Police Department and individual police officers over the entire range of law enforcement functions they perform,” [Police Commissioner] Kelly explained.

He said the result will be skyrocketing liability costs, the unnecessary use of resources and an overall decrease in effectiveness.

When asked about the so-called problem of NYPD racial profiling, Bloomberg dismissively said, “Nobody racially profiles.”

He made perhaps the most politically-incorrect statement of his career in defense of the NYPD:

They just keep saying, ‘Oh it’s a disproportionate percentage of a particular ethnic group.’ That may be, but it’s not a disproportionate percentage of those who witnesses and victims describe as committing the murder. In that case, incidentally, I think we disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little. … The numbers clearly show that the stops are generally proportionate with suspect’s descriptions.

Well said, Mr Mayor!

The bills were aggressively supported by the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), joined by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU has often allied itself with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood network that CAIR and ISNA belong to.

CAIR’s chapter in New York is among its more radical ones.

Are some branches of this terrorist-supporting organization less “radical” than others? Are there some who do not like jihad or the method of terrorism? Who do not collect funds to send to the Middle East to aid active terrorists?

Former CAIR-NY director Cyrus McGoldrick has sent out tweets with anti-law enforcement rhetoric and support for Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and the destruction of Israel.

CAIR-NY board president Zead Ramadan refused to condemn Hamas in December 2011 and has portrayed American Muslims as a brutally-repressed minority on Iranian state TV. Another board member, Lamis Deek, has praised Hamas, supports the elimination of Israel and claims that the NYPD has a secret alliance with Israel to target Muslims.

And the New York City Council believes him? Apparently, yes.

Deek also supported the Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Egypt as a blow to American “imperialism.”

The Shoulder-to-Shoulder Campaign, an interfaith political coalition that includes ISNA as a member, celebrated the bills’ passage. ISNA is so proud of its work in putting together the coalition that it highlighted it as a crowning achievement when it met with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan in May.

What ignorant or stupid or wicked organizations have joined in this conspiracy?

Among the Campaign’s members are these:

American Baptist Churches USA

The Episcopal Church

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

The Presbyterian Church (USA)

The United Church of Christ

No surprises there. But also:

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs

The Jewish Theological Seminary of America

You may recognize the members of these last two organizations in any crowd. They will be the people going about without noses, which they’ve cut off to spite their faces.

Muslims are already treating Britain as their own territory, encountering no effective resistance from a native population enfeebled by “politically correct” leftist dogma.

This is from Gates of Vienna, by Beth Baron:

Yasser al-Habib, the Shia “hate Sheik of the Home Counties”, has set up a power base in a quaint and pretty Buckinghamshire village named Fulmer …

In an empty, barn-like building previously owned by the Plymouth Brethren (a Christian Evangelist movement) and now the Al Muhassin Mosque, the Sheikh has established Fadak TV, a satellite channel that broadcasts his hate-fuelled and divisive messages to his followers around the world.

Sheikh al-Habib has a chequered past. He was imprisoned in Kuwait in 2003 for verbally attacking Sunni leaders and advocating extreme views which strongly criticized the Sunni sect of Islam … He has been in Britain since 2004 after his Kuwaiti citizenship was revoked. …

The Sheikh has no immediate plans to make any structural or cosmetic changes to the building, but he has stated that he may apply to “Islamify” it at a future date. His ambitions, however, do not stop there  … he [encourages] believers to make the effort to …  help transform [Fulmer] into a “true Islamic village”.  … Efforts are being made to establish an Islamic Shia school and seminary of traditional Islamic learning in the future. …

Where all this will leave the present community of 500, their church, the Black Horse Pub, the tiny primary school and the life of the village — which has frequently won the award for “Best Kept Village”, and holds regular events such as the annual village fete with pub BBQ and a Christmas party, as well as boasting its own cricket team — [is] unclear. [But it appears] from what “his Eminence”  has said the indigenous inhabitants with their long history, culture and traditions (dating back to 1198) are … an impediment to his plans, and like a conqueror of old he is ready to sweep them away and impose an entirely new and alien identity on the village.

Al-Habib has made no secret of his plans; his public declarations of his intentions should have set alarm bells ringing. However, Pauline Vahey, Chairman of the Parish Council, has unreservedly welcomed the newcomers, their mosque, the hate Sheikh and his contentious and potentially dangerous satellite TV channel into her sleepy and vulnerable village. …

I hope that Pauline Vahey and her colleagues on the Parish Council will be held personally responsible for their foolish and suicidal capitulation in the name of political correctness, and especially for their lack of due diligence. From the get-go the Islamic newcomers will demand small accommodations. Such accommodations will automatically be acquiesced to by the Council in the name of ‘diversity’ and ‘community cohesion’. As their numbers grow, polite requests for small accommodations will turn into vocal and aggressive demands for special privileges which will steamroller over the wishes of the original inhabitants and will change forever the nature, culture and landscape of these few square miles of precious traditional England.

This insidious process of invasion, an Islamic land-grab, is no longer confined to English towns and cities. Village by village, street by street, the UK is being systematically colonized, and it is only a matter of time before all the dots join up. It is no exaggeration to say that at the current rate of Islamic demographic growth coupled with uncontrolled immigration, within 50 years or perhaps less we will have little or no country left to call our own. …

The following comments … from Ms Vahey are contradictory, and the people of Fulmer deserve better from their leader:

They are a sect of Shia Islam who encourage and preach peace amongst all Islamic groups. To that end, during the week there will be six members on the premises daily, from which they hope to broadcast on two satellite channels in Arabic and French. … They have every right to be there and every right to worship in the mosque. But we have all sorts of people who are showing concern. They are not concerned that they are worshipping here, but that what they are doing appears to have managed to upset all sorts of other Muslims. What we are seeking is to avoid any inter-sectarian disputes affecting Fulmer, however that might manifest itself.  …

“I just don’t understand why they have decided to come here,” said Jess Harasimow, a 24-year-old barman in the village pub. “Fulmer is in the middle of nowhere and it does not have a big Muslim community. In fact, all there is in Fulmer is the pub, a little infants school, a church and the village hall. I just don’t know why they haven’t gone somewhere where there is a greater population of Muslims … ”

But that is just the point, Jess. This is their modus operandi. They target an area … that manifestly has no need for a mosque. They purchase or lease a building, convert it into a mosque or Islamic centre (old churches or places of worship are particularly attractive and harder for locals to defend) and create a bridgehead, This is followed by the purchase of local properties, assisted by instantly available sharia mortgages (the fifth column of Sharia finance is much loved by our bankrupt and treacherous government) and the process is then repeated over and over again with military precision until the last local family has moved out.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that if resistance is encountered, intimidation, bullying, threats of violence and bribes are successful tactics commonly used to rid an area of the last stubborn Kafir. …

There are concerns amongst some local residents about the … controversial broadcasts by [the mosque’s] satellite TV station. It is understood that Dominic Grieve, the Local MP and Attorney General, has been contacted [in complaint about them], and there have been informal talks with Thames Valley Police. …

In the local town of Stoke Poges, opposition to the mosque has resulted in petitions being circulated … The opposition by the residents there appears to be generated not by the mosque itself but by the contentious teachings of its leader.

Why the heck don’t they find out what the mosque religion is all about? They would find it rich with contentious teachings.

If Sunni v Shia violence is visited upon Fulmer, and from what we have already seen in London there is no reason to assume that it will not, then great suffering and unimaginable chaos will be inflicted on the inhabitants of this well-ordered village. These unfortunate souls appear to be facing a “double whammy”: the possible loss of their village to the expansionist “hate Sheikh” and his Shia sect, and …  inter-sectarian violence such as we have recently seen in Syria and other war-torn parts of the world. The economic and psychological fallout for homeowners, families, children and the elderly would be enormous. If all this comes to pass I hope the residents will remember the words of their leader Pauline Vahey, her dhimmitude and her willful ignorance. It is safe to say that the fallout would not be confined to Fulmer; the wider area would be unable to resist the tensions. Indeed the violence could spread to areas where there are large Muslim populations, in other words, across much of the UK especially London and the major cities.

All this inevitably leads me to believe that affluence and privilege do not automatically go hand in hand with common sense, courage or a healthy interest in current affairs and factual history. Even rarer is a sense of self-preservation and patriotism.

The poisonous tentacles of the cultural Marxists via the educational system, the mainstream media and the Common Purpose shock troops in local government appear to have reached into places where you would least expect to find them, and where well-heeled but clueless residents have the most to lose.

With this in mind I fear it will be left to the rest of us to show courage and unflinching resolve. Village communities must follow suit, unite and educate themselves about the realities of Islamic expansionist ambitions. They must be prepared to fight applications for new mosques and Islamic centres, and push back against this invasion without fearing censure from the left-leaning minority.

In other words, to bravely stand our ground and defend our nation again in her new hour of peril. This must be done if we wish to pass our country and culture on to those who come after us and whose future is currently in the most extreme jeopardy.

But it may be already too late.

Out of quite a pile of  biopsies of the Egyptian mess, we choose this one to bring to the attention of our reliably skeptical and well-informed readers. We don’t know if it’s the best, or even if it’s entirely right; but some of it fits with what we do know (eg the poverty of Egypt), we share quite a few of the author’s opinions, and we are amused by some of the writing.

Spengler writes in the Asia Times that Egypt is a banana republic without the bananas:

The vicious crosswind ripping through Egyptian politics comes from the great Sunni-Shi’ite civil war now enveloping the Muslim world from the Hindu Kush to the Mediterranean.

It took just two days for the interim government installed last week by Egypt’s military to announce that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States would provide emergency financing for the bankrupt Egyptian state. Egypt may not yet have a prime minister, but it does not really need a prime minister. It has a finance minister, though, and it badly needs a finance minister, especially one with a Rolodex in Riyadh. …

Finance Minister Fayyad Abdel Moneim … spoke of contacts with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Kuwait for urgent aid … Defense Minister Abdel Fatah al-Sisi phoned Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz and UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nuhayyan yesterday on the latest developments in Egypt. King Abdullah was the first Arab and foreign leader to congratulate interim president Adly Mansour after his swearing-in ceremony.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s central bank governor, Hisham Ramez, was on a plane to Abu Dhabi July 7  “to drum up badly need financial support”, the Financial Times reported.  The Saudis and the UAE had pledged, but not provided, US$8 billion in loans to Egypt, because the Saudi monarchy hates and fears the Muslim Brotherhood as its would-be grave-digger. With the brothers out of power, things might be different. …

Egypt might now get its $8billion, or even more; but for how long will those oil-rich Arab states be willing to keep Egypt fed? There is no immediate or even distant prospect of Egypt’s economy improving.

Media accounts ignored the big picture, and focused instead on the irrelevant figure of Mohamed al-Baradei, the Nobel Peace Prize winner whose appointment as prime minister in the interim government was first announced and then withdrawn on Saturday.

It doesn’t matter who sits in the Presidential Palace if the country runs out of bread. Tiny Qatar had already expended a third of its foreign exchange reserves during the past year in loans to Egypt, which may explain why the eccentric emir was replaced in late June by his son. Only Saudi Arabia with its $630 billion of cash reserves has the wherewithal to bridge Egypt’s $20 billion a year cash gap. With the country’s energy supplies nearly exhausted and just two months’ supply of imported wheat on hand, the victor in Cairo will be the Saudi party. …

The Saudis have another reason to get involved in Egypt, and that is the situation in Syria. Saudi Arabia’s intervention in the Syrian civil war, now guided by Prince Bandar, the new chief of Saudi Intelligence, has a double problem. The KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] wants to prevent Iran from turning Syria into a satrapy and fire base, but fears that the Sunni jihadists to whom it is sending anti-aircraft missiles eventually might turn against the [Saudi] monarchy. The same sort of blowback afflicted the kingdom after the 1980s Afghan war, in the person of Osama bin Laden. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been fighting for influence among Syria’s Sunni rebels … Cutting off the Muslim Brotherhood at the knees in Egypt will help the KSA limit potential blowback in Syria.

There wasn’t before, there is not now, and there will not be in the future such a thing as democracy in Egypt.

The now-humiliated Muslim Brotherhood is a Nazi-inspired totalitarian party carrying a crescent in place of a swastika. If Mohamed Morsi had remained in power, he would have turned Egypt into a North Korea on the Nile, a starvation state in which the ruling party rewards the quiescent with a few more calories.

The head of Egypt’s armed forces, Field Marshal Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi, is not a democrat, but a dedicated Islamist. …

The question is not whether Islamism, but whose. Some Saudi commentators claim al-Sisi as their Islamist. ..

[But] none of this matters. The will of a people that cannot feed itself has little weight. Egypt is a banana republic without the bananas.

Whether Egypt slides into chaos or regains temporary stability under the military depends on what happens in the royal palace at Riyadh, not in Tahrir Square. It appears that the Saudis have embraced the military-backed government, whoever it turns out to include.

It is conceivable that the Saudis vetoed the ascension of al-Baradei, hilariously described as a “liberal” in the major media. Al-Baradei is a slippery and unprincipled operator who did great damage to Western interests.

As head of the International Atomic Energy Agency until 2009, the Egyptian diplomat repeatedly intervened to distort his own inspectors’ reports about the progress of Iran’s nuclear program. In effect, he acted as an Iranian agent of influence.

Obvious Peace Prize material, Mr al-Baradei.

The Saudis have more to fear from Iran than anyone else. Iran … is trying to subvert the Saudi regime through the Shi’ite minority in Eastern Province. If Riyadh did not blackball his [el-Baradei’s] nomination as prime minister, it should have.

There isn’t going to be a war with Israel, as some commentators have offered. Israel is at worst a bystander and at best a de facto ally of the Saudis. The Saudi Wahabists hate Israel, to be sure, and would be happy if the Jewish State and all its inhabitants vanished tomorrow. But Israel presents no threat at all to Riyadh, while Iran represents an existential threat.

The Saudis, we know from WikiLeaks …

Have you noticed how much useful information WikiLeaks has given the world? How often a WikiLeak is quoted in news reports and opinion columns?

 …  begged the United States to attack Iran, or to let Israel do so. The Egyptian military has no interest in losing another war with the Jewish state. It may not have enough diesel fuel to drive a division of tanks to the border.

The Saudi regime, to be sure, sponsors any number of extremist malefactors through its network of Wahabist mosques and madrassas. But the present Saudi intervention in Egypt … is far more consistent with American strategic interests than the sentimental meanderings of the Barack Obama administration, or the fetishism of parliamentary form that afflicts the Republican establishment. The Saudi regime is an abomination by American standards, but the monarchy is a rational actor. …

The United States has less influence in the region than at any time since World War II, due to gross incompetence of the Obama administration as well as the Republican establishment. The Obama administration as well as Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham courted the Muslim Brotherhood as a prospective vehicle for Muslim democracy, ignoring the catastrophic failure of the Egyptian economy as well as the totalitarian character of the Brotherhood.

We think there are ample indications that Obama likes the Muslim Brotherhood for precisely what it is. Its advance into positions of influence in the US government under the Obama administration seems to us one of the strongest signs that he positively favors it.

Americans instinctively ask about any problem overseas, “Who are the good guys?” When told that there are no good guys, they go to see a different movie.

There are no good guys in Egypt, except perhaps for the hapless democracy activists who draw on no social constituency and wield no power, and the endangered Coptic Christian minority. There are only forces that coincide with American interests for reasons of their own. It is a gauge of American foreign policy incompetence that the medieval Saudi monarchy is a better guardian of American interests in Egypt for the time being than the United States itself.

This is from the Heritage Foundation’s Morning Bell:

Last week, the Obama Administration attempted to spin its announcement of a one-year delay in Obamacare’s employer mandate as an effort to implement the law “in a careful, thoughtful manner.” Don’t be fooled. Even Democrats have admitted the law has turned into a massive “train wreck,” with delays, glitches, and problems aplenty. Here are a dozen more Obamacare implementation failures.

1. The CLASS Act: ABANDONED, THEN REPEALED

One Democrat famously called this new long-term care entitlement “a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of” — and so it proved. In the fall of 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) admitted CLASS could not be implemented in a fiscally sound manner — and Congress eventually repealed the program outright.

2. Exchanges: MISSED DEADLINES

Most states resisted Obamacare’s call to create insurance exchanges, choosing to let Washington create a federally run exchange instead. However, a Government Accountability Office report released last month noted that “critical” activities to create a federal exchange have not been completed, and the missed deadlines “suggest a potential for challenges going forward.”

3. HHS mandate: DELAYED; UNDER LEGAL CHALLENGE

Last year, the Administration announced a partial delay for Obamacare’s anti-conscience mandate. However, many employers have filed legal actions against the mandate, which forces them to fund products they find morally objectionable or pay massive fines.

4. Small business plan choice: DELAYED

The Administration announced in April that workers will not be able to choose plans from different health insurers in the small business exchanges next year—a delay that liberal blogger Joe Klein called “a really bad sign” of “Obamacare incompetence.”

5. Child-only plans: UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

A drafting error in Obamacare has actually led to less access to care for children with pre-existing conditions. A 2011 report found that in 17 states, insurers are no longer selling child-only health insurance plans, because they fear that individuals will apply for coverage only after being diagnosed with a costly illness.

6. Basic health plan: DELAYED

This government-run plan for states, created as part of Obamacare, has also been delayed, prompting one Democrat to criticize the Administration for failing to “live up” to the law and implement it as written.

7. High-risk pools: UNDERPERFORMING; FUNDING LOW

This program for individuals with pre-existing conditions faced higher costs and lower enrollment than advertised. Though it was originally projected to cover up to 700,000individuals, only about 110,000 have enrolled — yet the Administration had to halt new enrollment and take other radical measures to prevent the $5 billion program from running out of money.

8. Early retiree reinsurance: BROKE

The $5 billion in funding for this program was intended to last until 2014 — but the program’s money ran out in 2011, two years ahead of schedule.

9. Waivers: UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

After the law passed, HHS discovered that some of its new mandates would raise costs so much that employers would drop coverage rather than face skyrocketing premiums. Instead, the Administration announced a series of temporary waivers — and more than half the recipients of those waivers were members of union health insurance plans.

10. Co-ops: DEFUNDED

Congress blocked additional funding to this Obamacare program in January, and with good reason: In one case, a new health insurance co-op was called “fatally flawed” by Vermont’s state insurance commissioner.

11. “Employee free choice”: REPEALED

This provision, which would have allowed certain workers to use contributions from their employers to buy exchange health plans, was repealed in April 2011, as businesses considered it too complex and unworkable.

12. Medicaid expansion: REJECTED BY MANY STATES

Last year, the Supreme Court made Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion optional for states,ruling that Obamacare as written engaged in “economic dragooning” that puts “a gun to the head of states.” Many states are resisting Obamacare’s call to expand Medicaid, knowing that expansion will saddle them with additional, unsustainable costs.

As these examples demonstrate, it’s not just the employer mandate that’s flawed — it’s the entire law. Recognizing these myriad, massive failures, Congress should hold the line and refuse to spend a single dime on Obamacare implementation.

When we first read about this, we doubted it. Some of the sources were unreliable.

But there are now many reports of Russian troops invited on to US soil. Some claim that the Department of Defense has confirmed their (rather less sensational) stories.

See the New American report here, for instance.

Soon after Independence Day two years ago, in a post titled What Americans should be taught about America, July 15, 2011, we wrote:

American children must be taught the values America traditionally stands for, and why they are the highest and the best. They must be taught that the United States of America was founded as a realization of the idea of liberty. They must be taught that only in freedom are individuals able to achieve the best they are capable of. They must be taught that the conditions necessary for a good life – prosperity, physical and mental well-being, the pursuit of individual aims – exist reliably only in a free society. They must be taught that only the rule of law, not rule by a person or group of potentates, assures liberty. Generations of American children have not been taught any of this. It is no exaggeration to say that for decades now the schools and academies have been teaching Americans to be ashamed of themselves. So millions of Americans believe that they are justly hated by other nations, and their country should change to become more like other countries.

And we quoted this, by Walter Williams:

The ignorance about our country is staggering. According to one survey, only 28 percent of students could identify the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. Only 26 percent of students knew that the first 10 amendments to the Constitution are called the Bill of Rights. Fewer than one-quarter of students knew that George Washington was the first president of the United States. … Ignorance and possibly contempt for American values, civics and history might help explain how someone like Barack Obama could become president of the United States. At no other time in our history could a person with longtime associations with people who hate our country become president. Obama spent 20 years attending the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s hate-filled sermons, which preached that “white folks’ greed runs a world in need,” called our country the “US of KKK-A” and asked [his] God to “damn America”.  Obama’s other America-hating associates include Weather Underground Pentagon bomber William Ayers and Ayers’ wife, Bernardine Dohrn.

We – and others – make the same complaint this year.

This is from an article by Arnold Ahlert at Front Page:

The Fourth of July is over, and despite most of America taking great joy in celebrating our independence and freedom, many members of the American Left are glad that what they consider to be an unseemly spasm of over-hyped jingoism is finally over. For these oh-so-enlightened and morally superior souls, a racist and irredeemably imperialist America is something to be mourned, not celebrated. Independence Day is thus a time for commemorating their hatred of the country and waving it for all to see.

The late leftist historian Howard Zinn’s work was given a platform by The Progressive magazine in 2010, when they trotted out his 2006 screed, “Put Away the Flags”.  Zinn wrote, “Is not nationalism – that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder – one of the great evils of our time …?”

Progressive editor Matthew Rothschild wrote an equally obnoxious “me too” piece that same year, “Why I Don’t Celebrate July 4.” “You can call me unpatriotic if you’d like, but really I’m anti-patriotic,” he whines. He continues:

I’ve been studying fascism lately, and there is one inescapable fact about it: Nationalism is the egg that hatches fascism. And patriotism is but the father of nationalism. Patriotism is not something to play with. It’s highly toxic. When ingested, it corrodes the rational faculties. … We’ve got to get over patriotism, and we’ve got to cure the American superiority complex.

That American superiority complex, better known as American exceptionalism, has made this nation a beacon of liberty throughout the world. It is America’s patriots, many of whom have sacrificed their lives, who have preserved that liberty. That would be the same liberty that allows terminally ungrateful people like the late Zinn and Rothschild to spew their noxious nonsense without fear of imprisonment, or the kind of “reeducation” that occurs in genuinely fascistic societies. …

Many American leftists are a joyless bunch, terminally uncomfortable with anything resembling gratitude or balance. … The Fourth of July will forever be anathema to them. For that, they are to be pitied – and then ignored.

There’s a kind of America-hater who believes that America is no better and probably worse than most or even all of the others and should be humble, and at the same time believes that America (albeit in a blue beret) should be the policeman, doctor, nurse, savior and sugar-daddy to most or even all of them.

Of course only unintelligent persons could be of this self-contradictory opinion, and they should be – well no, not pitied, but yes – ignored.

When, however, one of them is nominated to be the US ambassador to the UN, she is no longer ignorable. She will be in a position to do much harm. 

Samantha Power is of that opinion and has been so nominated by President Obama.

Frank Gaffney writes at the Center for Security Policy:

Should her nomination be confirmed, a clue to her likely approach in her new role at the UN can be found in the following quote from an article called “Full Force”, which appeared in the March 2003 issue of the New Republic. In the article, Power wrote:

Foreign policy is an explicitly amoral enterprise. . . . Embedding U.S. power in an international system and demonstrating humility would be painful, unnatural steps for any empire, never mind the most potent empire in the history of mankind. But more pain now will mean far less pain later.

Her view of the US as an “empire” is in itself disturbing and offensive. Her opinion that foreign policy is “amoral” and that “humility” is an appropriate quality for a world leader to project, shows her comprehensive ignorance of the dynamics of international diplomacy, and ignores the cultural differences between people that define effective cross cultural communication. Her lack of sensitivity to these issues alone makes her a poor candidate for the position.

The term “humanitarian interventionism”, as applied by Power, reveals a deep naiveté about the way the world really works. Embedded in the concept is a strong tendency to oversimplify the complexities involved in halting historically ingrained ethnic and religious conflicts. Included among the most serious of these issues is the apparent willingness to minimize or completely overlook the challenges of ending the conflict, and the unique requirements of post-conflict reconstruction in each inherently different situation. It disregards the real and perceived roadblocks imposed by international politics, public opinion, and local culture.

When President Obama led the United States into a coalition of forces against Libya, the person behind that decision was understood to be Samantha Power. The decision was strongly influenced by her doctrine of “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) that purported to guide the American government on how to prevent genocide. The concept is being promoted to create a new international model based on “moral” criteria, that can be employed in situations where the safety of civilians is at risk.

Yet, on the very first night of the coalition’s enforcement of a “no-fly zone” over Libya, US forces rained 1,100 missiles down on Tripoli. It brought death and destruction to an unprecedented level for a “humanitarian” effort, in a nation in which the US had no strategic interest. …

It was Power’s concept of R2P and not any concern for our national security that influenced the decision. In other words, it was an experiment in “humanitarian interventionism” and not national concerns for America’s welfare.

It should be noted that this intervention was in response to Libyan leader Muammar Ghadaffi’s threat of revenge against dissidents. Although there was certainly fighting on the ground in Benghazi and other places, there was no wholesale genocide taking place in Libya at the time the decision to engage was taken. …

It led to the overthrow of Ghadaffi (less of a threat to the rest of the world since he had given up trying to make Libya a nuclear power), followed by anarchy in Libya, and so to the atrocity of Benghazi, when US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were murdered.

In April 2002, Samantha suggested [in an interview with Henry Kissinger] that “external intervention” may be necessary to foster Middle Eastern peace. …

[She said] her advice to the President would be to “alienate” the American Jewish community, and indeed all Americans who support the state of Israel … because Israeli leaders are fully capable of “destroying the lives of their own people.” She would also advise the President to pour billions of dollars of American taxpayers’ money into “the new state of Palestine” and to stage what would amount to an American invasion of Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The implications of her off-the-cuff remarks suggest that she believes 1) that either side was capable of genocide, 2) that there was a clear moral equivalence between the two leaders, 3) that US support for a Palestinian state should include massive US funding for a defense force, at the expense of funds now going to Israel for its own defense, and 4) that Israel was incapable of handling its own affairs vis à vis the Palestinians, and that the only solution, therefore, was international [but she implies American]intervention in the affairs of a sovereign state. … Altogether, Power’s statement was rambling, incoherent, and ignorant. That she should compare Israel’s well-ordered democratic state to the tribal chaos that existed in Rwanda during the time of the massacre is shocking. It demonstrated either a total lack of knowledge about Israel, or a total disregard for the truth, driven by an interventionist agenda that is willing to sacrifice truth for a perceived principle. (In either case, it should give the Senate serious pause as they consider her appointment.)

… because she is ignorant, sentimental, unintelligent – and hysterical:

 Humbly proffering her apologies to 40 “Jewish leaders” convened to give her a hearing –

[Power] suddenly became deeply emotional and struggled to complete her presentation as she expressed how deeply such accusations had affected her. Tears streamed down her cheeks and I think it fair to say that there was no one in the room who wasn’t deeply moved by this incredible display of pain and emotion.”

And the gallant or gullible “Jewish leaders” forgave her!

Feeling sorry for people – including herself – seems to substitute for thinking in her case.

The UN is her palace on the hill. Representing the United States among its swirling mists of lies is likely to be the pinnacle of her ambition. No doubt she sees the UN as an embryo world government, as Obama does.

Which prompts us to quote from another of our posts, titled World government – the ultimate nightmare, August 2, 2009:

Barack Obama declared himself, in Berlin, to be a “citizen of the world”. It was not a mere rhetorical flourish. He has a globalist agenda under which the US will enter into a series of treaties that would subject America to foreign rule over its wealth (redistributing it world-wide), its trade, its laws, its use of energy, and even its defense.

The United Nations, that ghastly powerhouse of corruption, hypocrisy, and injustice, is envisaged as the nascent institution of world government.

Liberal left opinion tends to be against the nation state. It is the opinion of approximately half the voters in the Western world. Half the people of the free West apparently want to destroy their nations, and are literally doing so. They may explain their hatred of the nation state by reference to “colonialism”, as if in many cases colonies were not more prosperous, just, and free than the independent tyrannies they have become. Or they may say that the wars and massacres in the last century resulted from “nationalism” so the nation must go; but their thinking would not be right, because the wars and massacres were the work of dictators, not democratic states of which the strongest opposed and defeated the aggressors.

Whatever their explanations, they have launched a movement for the suicide of Western nations.

All over the Western world men and women in national and international assemblies, ministries, academies, councils and committees devote themselves to the business of putting an end to their national identities. Patriotism to them is utterly absurd. Any manifestation of pride in their nation’s history, culture, traditions, institutions, even law, embarrasses if it doesn’t outrage them. In all the countries of Europe, and now under Obama’s leadership in the United States, they work towards their goal.

The very idea of the nation state they consider to be an anachronism; a nasty thing of the past much to be regretted. The more powerful and glorious the past, the more regretful they are. Filled with remorse for what their forefathers achieved, they will apologize to any foreigner who’ll listen to them. However hard their independence as a nation was won, their system of government developed, their individual freedom wrested from the fist of tyranny, they count it all worth nothing. Obama, whose ignorance of history should but doesn’t embarrass him, routinely apologizes for America to appalling little despotisms, and to countries who have survived as comparatively free nations only because America saved them from conquest by tyrannical powers.

The rest of the article is a paean of praise to the (free) nation-state, and a eulogy to patriotism.

In the first half of this video, Guy Rodgers, of Act for America, talks to Erick Stakelbeck about the Organization of Islamic Co-operation’s campaign to silence criticism of Islam .

In the second half, the excellent Diana West briefly describes how America has become the socialist country it now is. 

Now, on the lighter side, this is from CP world:

The Catholic Church’s top exorcist, who claims to have sent 160,000 demons back to hell, says he wants Pope Francis to allow all priests to start performing the ritual to deal with a rising demand for exorcisms from the faithful.

Father Gabriele Amorth, 88, who also heads the International Association of Exorcists, [said] that he will ask Pope Francis to allow all priests the right to do exorcisms without the church’s approval. According to the report, priests currently need special approval from their bishop to perform the rite and it is rarely granted.

“I will ask the pope to give all priests the power to carry out exorcisms, and to ensure priests are properly trained for these starting with the seminary. There’s a huge demand for them,” said Father Amorth.

He explained that he was inspired to make the request after watching Pope Francis perform what he insists was an exorcism on a man “possessed by four demons” in St. Peter’s Square.

“The pope is also the Bishop of Rome, and like any bishop he is also an exorcist,” Amorth reportedly told La Repubblica newspaper. “It was a real exorcism. If the Vatican has denied this, it shows that they understand nothing.”

“There was now, more than ever, a need for exorcists to combat people possessed by ‘sorcerers’ and ‘Satanists’,” he noted …

An 84-page update of exorcism rites compiled in 1614 and drawn up in 1998 stipulates how Catholic priests trained as exorcists should operate. According to the guidelines established by the church, they have to follow a ritual known as “De exorcismis et supplicationibus quibusdam,” or “Of exorcisms and certain supplications.”

Amorth explained that Pope Francis’s exorcism on May 19 helped to balance the growing atheism in the world where people don’t believe in the Devil anymore.

“We live in an age in which God has been forgotten. And wherever God is not present, the Devil rules,” said Amorth. …

Amorth is also an outspoken critic of … Harry Potter books … “People think it is an innocuous book for children but it’s about magic and that leads to evil. In Harry Potter the Devil is at work in a cunning and crafty way, he is using his extraordinary powers of magic and evil.”

Do they really believe this stuff?

Here is a video of the Pope “exorcising evil spirits” – the incident Amorth was referring to:

And Newsmax reports the not-quite-an-exorcism by the new Pope. The poor man in the story, who believes he is “possessed by demons”, really is suffering. If the report is to be believed, medical science has not been able to help him – but nor has superstition. Though Pope Francis did get him out of his wheelchair.

A 43-year-old Mexican father of two, who claims to be possessed by demons — and whom Pope Francis prayed over earlier this month in what some witnesses likened to a public exorcism — insists that he still has demons inside him.

Identified only as Angel V., the man told Spanish-language newspaper El Mundo that he had undergone some 30 exorcisms by 10 exorcists, including the renowned Roman exorcist Rev. Gabriel Amorth, who all tried unsuccessfully to free him from his affliction. …

“I still have the demons inside me, they have not gone away,” the man said, noting that he felt much better after the Pope prayed over him. El Mundo reported that the man is able to walk. He was in a wheelchair when he met Pope Francis on May 19 at the conclusion of Mass on Pentecost Sunday.

Pope Francis laid his hands on the wheelchair-bound man in St Peter’s Square. The man’s expressions and the fact that he was known to be possessed made it appear to be an exorcism, although the Vatican denied the assertion, saying the Pope “did not intend to perform any exorcism” but simply prayed “for a suffering person who had been brought before him.” …

Angel V., who is married and lives in the state of Michoacán, claims to have been possessed by demons since 1999.

The Rev. Juan Rivas, a well-known Mexican priest, who accompanied Angel V. to Rome and was with him when he met the Pope, confirmed … that Angel V. had been subjected to 30 exorcisms but “the demons that live in him do not want to leave him.” Rivas, a popular figure in Mexico and a member of the Legionaries of Christ, recalled how Angel kissed the pontiff’s ring and immediately fell into a trance.

“The Pope then laid his hands on his head and at that moment a terrible sound was heard (from him), like the roar of a lion,” Rivas said. “All those who were there heard it perfectly well. The Pope for sure heard it [but] he continued with his prayer, as if he had faced similar situations before.”  …

Angel V. recalled the first time the demons entered him in 1999 when he was on a bus in Mexico. He felt “an energy” had entered the bus. “I did not see it with my eyes, but I perceived it,” he recalled. “I noted that it came close to me, and then stopped in front of me. Then, suddenly, I noted that something like a stake pierced my chest and, little by little, I had the sensation that it was opening my ribs.” It felt like a heart attack, he added, and he thought he would die.

From then on, he said, his health started deteriorating: he vomited whatever he ate; he felt pains in his whole body, as if he was full of needles; he began to have difficulty in walking and breathing. “I could not [easily go to] sleep, and when I managed to sleep I had terrible nightmares connected with the evil one,” he asserted. He began to fall into trances in which he blasphemed, and spoke in unknown languages.

Medical doctors gave him thorough examinations but “could not get to the cause of my problems,” he said. Priests gave him Extreme Unction (a sacrament administered to the sick) four times, but this only “relieved” but did not remove his problem. The Catholic said he prays to God which helps him.

Knowing that he is possessed, he said is a source of “much fear,” but he also feels “very dirty at the thought that there was an evildoer within me.” His family reacted with incredulity, while some of his siblings were skeptical and thought he was psychologically unbalanced, he said.

For the past few years, Angel has sought out exorcists, including a leading Spanish priest, the Rev. Jose Antonio Fortea, who carried out exorcisms on him, and Amorth in Rome, but none could cast out his demons. …

One night he had a dream about Pope Francis, and when he woke up from the dream he turned on the TV and saw the Pope celebrating Mass exactly as he had seen in his dream “and then the idea came into my head that I should go to Rome.”

At that time he was reading a book by Amorth, “The Last Exorcist,” which included details of how both Benedict XVI and John Paul II carried out exorcisms on people brought to them. Angel V. asked Rivas, whom he has known for two years, to accompany him to the Vatican.

Amorth believes Angel is without doubt possessed, and that it is a possession “with a message.” “Not only is he possessed, but the devil who lives in him finds himself obliged by God to transmit a message,” he said.

What message?

“Angel … has been chosen by the Lord to give a message to the Mexican clergy and to tell the bishops that they have to do an act of reparation for the law on abortion that was approved in Mexico City in 2007, which was an insult to the Virgin. … Until they do this, Angel will not be liberated.”

So it’s “the Lord” who’s doing this to him. And the remedy is out of Angel’s hands, and the hands of any exorcist. Only the government of Mexico can save him. (Unless “the Lord” relents, or “the Virgin” comes to terms with contemporary practices.)

What next for him to try? The government of Mexico is unlikely to repeal the law on abortion just for his sake, even if the bishops do “an act of reparation”.

But he urgently needs relief.

We would suggest hashish if it were not illegal.

What in the world – other than disease and death – causes as much human suffering as RELIGION?

Here is a Catholic priest, Francois Murad, being beheaded by Muslim savages in Syria: