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U.S. Soldiers-Defending your right to hate them publicly
Another hat-tip to Orbusmax.Com for being on top of, well, everything ’round these parts, including this abomination:

Fort Lewis officials are alerting soldiers and their families to avoid the Tacoma Mall between noon and 5:30 p.m. March 15 because of a planned anti-war protest at the commercial center of Pierce County.

Mall officials are preparing accordingly.

Local protest groups have announced their intention to “shutdown” the Tacoma Mall, specifically the military recruiting station in the commerical tower located on the north side of the property. The building does not fall under mall management.

Calls for protest claim the groups want to “make it impossible for business as usual to continue as the Iraq War approaches its fifth year.”

“We are aware of their intentions to protest,” the mall’s Marketing Director Sarah Bonds said. “We do not allow potests [sic] on our property.”

The mall plans to notify protesters of that policy when they arrive and take other measures as needed, she said, noting that the mall will be meeting with police and security officers to develop detailed plans to handle the protest in the coming days.

Military officials warn that protesters plan on distributing anti-war and anti-military literature as well as confront local recruiters or interact with soldiers, family members and civilians who appear to be military affiliated.

Recent protests against the war at the Port of Olympia have been marked by increased levels of violence, the military alert reports.

(emphasis mine)

Gotta love those anti-war protesters: obnoxious, rude, and sometimes violent. Has anyone ever noticed the irony of the fact that while many war protesters say they’re against violence they use it themselves (remember the Port of Olympia protests?).

I’m all for free speech. Yes, these people have a right to picket and say whatever they want, but at the Tacoma Mall…on a Saturday? They’re just going to make more people than usual hate them. They’ll get mowed over by irritated teenagers who just want to spend their allowances on some Hot Topic paraphernalia and Cinnabons, and a couple may even end up with a leftover Cinnabon or two plastered on their faces.

All funniness aside, locally-stationed troops and their families shouldn’t have to fear going to the Mall on a Saturday afternoon because of protesters. Ideally, military men and women should be able to walk past the picketers with no harm done. They might even get a little shout of thanks: “HEY! THANKS FOR PROTECTING OUR FREEDOM TO HATE YOU PUBLICLY! YOU ROCK!”

Unfortunately, however, if these protesters are anything like the ones from the Port of Olympia shenanigans (I’ll bet you they’re one and the same), then these soldiers have reason to fear for their safety. And you know what? Anti-war protesters like these will tell you ’til they’re blue in the face that they’re not against the troops–they’re just against the war! Well, here’s a newsflash for you: when you violently, obnoxiously, and unintelligently protest and block military recruiting centers, you are sending a message of hatred toward current and prospective military.

But hey…it’s your right, I guess.

-Cydney

Cross-posted on The Celebrity.

By Wesley Pruden (Contact) | Tuesday, May 12, 2009

ANALYSIS/OPINION

Disconnecting the training wheels is a scary prospect for every apprentice biker, even with Daddy standing close by. We can sympathize with Barack Obama’s fright as his moment approaches. It’s not easy suddenly being on your own, paying the price of falling with your own skinned knees and bruised elbows.

Nevertheless, the dreadful moment approacheth. Anticipating D-Day, Peter Orszag, the president’s budget director, said Monday that the scarier than expected economic news – the deficit out of control, tax receipts down and costs of bailouts and “stimulus” plans up – is all the fault of George W. Bush: “It’s an economic crisis President Obama inherited.”

But Mr. Obama has already been president for more than a hundred days, and passing the hundred-day mark, irrelevant milestone as it may be, was cited as dead-solid proof that the president is the messiah he told everyone he was. Reality, however, has begun to cast a shadow over the White House, still as faint as the bright golden haze on the meadow but visible enough. “Blaming George” still makes a tingle run up the legs of all the hymn-singing true believers, but outside the embrace of the cult, that tingle is beginning to sting instead. This is Mr. Obama’s government now.

The White House on Monday said the new estimate of the budget deficit would nearly reach $2 trillion – that’s trillion, with a “t” – and that’s nearly 13 percent of the entire gross domestic product. Pretty gross any way you spin it, and the president’s men (and women) are spinning it as best they can. Alas, the country’s predicament, if not yet the president’s, is probably worse than it looks.

The projected budget deficit is four times larger than the deficit record set last year. We can blame that one on George, but George, big spender that he was, turns out to have been a tightwad. Maybe this is the “change” Mr. Obama promised. Yes, he did.

The administration insisted Monday that by the end of this year the gross domestic product will be growing at a rate of 3.5 percent, which would be good news so good that it’s likely to be too good to be true, and it’s certainly more optimistic than any private economic forecast anyone has seen beyond the White House fence.

The White House flogged this news in a statement studded with more weasel words than usual: “Although the economic downturn so far in 2009 has been more severe than the administration expected when the forecast was finalized, if the financial system begins to function more normally, there is every reason to expect a somewhat stronger recovery, given the depth of the current recession.” Translation: “Don’t blame us, nothing is ever the fault of the messiah, maybe everything will get a little better if it actually does get better. We hope. But don’t count on it.”

What shines through the spinning, bright and bold, is that Mr. Obama no longer believes in the pie in the sky he promised. He has obviously learned a few things in his first hundred days. “Wow! So that’s where babies come from.” But he still can’t give up his teleprompter, his training wheels and good ol’ George. Good ol’ George is the president’s teddy bear. He can’t go to sleep without Teddy. George is his imaginary person, too, on whom he can blame everything. He feels very close to imaginary George.

George the imaginary person threatens everything Mr. Obama has in store for us – higher taxes (whether disguised as “user fees” or “investments”), Al Gore’s vast scheme to combat global warming whether the globe is warming or not, and a health-care plan guaranteed to eventually assure every American access to medical care equal to the quality health care now available in France, Canada, Britain and maybe even Lower Volta.

The good news, such as it is, is that the remaking of America in a way that a Chicago street “activist” of a generation ago hardly dared dream of may be of such potent poison that the body politic will reject it, as a healthy human body might reject a massive dose of arsenic (perhaps administered by someone in old lace). Several of the president’s Democratic allies in Congress are already balking at his scheme to extract killer taxes, such as curbing deductions for mortgage interest, gifts to churches and charities, and state and local taxes.

Soaking the rich, so-called, is OK, but marinating the rich may not be helpful. More than skinned knees and bruised elbows are in prospect as Barack Obama finally discovers that ready or not, he’s the president now.

• Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times.

And his Democratic allies in Congress are threatening to set conditions that must be met before that money is handed out.

Obama sent to Congress on Thursday details of his proposed $664 billion Pentagon spending plan for the budget year starting in October. It includes $534 billion for base defense programs and $130 billion for overseas operations, including the wars he’s ramping down in Iraq and ramping up in Afghanistan.

The budget aims to cover what the Defense Department needs “to fight the wars we are in today and the scenarios we are most likely to face in the years ahead, while at the same time providing a hedge against other risks and contingencies,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a statement released in Washington as he traveled in Afghanistan.

The $130 billion for overseas missions included $65 billion for Afghanistan and $61 billion for Iraq — the first time spending for the seven-year-old Afghan campaign has surpassed the one in Iraq.

“This request is where you’re going to first see the swing of not only dollars or resources but … capability from the Iraqi theater into the Afghanistan theater,” Navy Vice Adm. Steve Stanley, director of force structure for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference.

A Pentagon summary of the budget request said the war spending proposal “is intended to fund all currently known requirements for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the entire fiscal year.”

But it hedged by also saying the plan is the “administration’s best estimate of needs at this time.”

Although officials hope not to have to go back to Congress for more, “the administration reserves the right to seek additional funds in the event that there are significant changes in the security situation” or in the number of troops needed in either of the wars, it said.

Under pressure from Congress to develop ways to measure progress in Afghanistan, officials have said the administration is readying benchmarks to gauge security, governance and economic development there. The effort comes as lawmakers warn that Congress may try to condition budget approval for the Afghanistan war on whether improvements are being made on a number of fronts.

Lawmakers frustrated with the Bush administration adopted their own set of measures to judge progress in the Iraq war, leading some to suggest that they would do the same for Afghanistan unless the Obama administration acts promptly to set its own.

The benchmarks are expected to measure levels of violence, improvements in the Afghan security forces, counternarcotics efforts, agricultural programs, economic development and services for the Afghan people.

By Chuck Norris

To commemorate President Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office, U.S. News & World Report documented what it considers to be the “10 Most Important Obama Faith Moments.”

Without defining what “most important” and “faith moment” mean, the magazine clearly showed the thesis and thrust of the article with this sentence: “Barack Obama has embraced faith in a more visible way than any other president in recent memory.”

Given that statement, the top 10 list must contain rock-solid faith-stimulating actions by Obama, right? You decide. Here is the list and my thoughts on each item:

“1. Rick Warren’s Inauguration Day Invocation.” I’ll grant Obama and U.S. News & World Report that this was a significant “faith moment,” though maybe (as I discussed in a previous column) it wasn’t significant for all the right reasons.

“2. Granting First TV Interview to Arabic Language Network.” I would call this more of a “diplomatic moment” than a “faith moment” despite the fact that the majority of the Arab world is Muslim.

“3. Reversing Mexico City Policy on Family Planning Providers Abroad.” Since when is subsidizing other nations with federal funds to provide more abortions a “faith moment”?

“4. Opening Rallies With Prayer.” To describe six simple invocations as “a big step further in embracing religion” in comparison with George W. Bush’s practice of starting Cabinet meetings with prayer and encouraging Bible study groups at the White House reveals the author’s clear political bent.

“5. Launching White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.” Could the advances of this “faith moment” suffer a horrendous reversal when Obama’s administration finally deals with its postponement of the issue of whether to demand these federally funded groups hire leaders from outside their faith traditions?

“6. Convening a Faith Advisory Council.” While this council has external appeal, it represents little more than another bureaucratic piece of red tape and another way the long arm of government is weaving into the fabrics of our religious practices.

“7. Joe Biden’s Receiving Ashes on Ash Wednesday.” With all respect to Biden, to think that the vice president’s participation in Lenten church services should be classified as a faith moment of Barack Obama’s borders on comical.

“8. Lifting Restrictions on Federally-Funded Embryonic Stem Cell Research.” Like No. 3 — on expanding international abortions — to include the lifting of restrictions for federally funded embryonic stem cell research in this list is ludicrous.

“9. Announcing Plans to Give Notre Dame’s Commencement Address.” I would agree with this if Obama had said he would speak at the baccalaureate Mass, but he’s giving the commencement address.

“10. Speaking to Muslim World From Turkey.” This should be the No. 1 non-faith, or secular, moment of Obama’s first 100 days, for he skirted our religious makeup and heritage.

If my math is correct regarding this U.S. News & World Report article, the preceding “10 Most Important Obama Faith Moments” include two instances in which Obama encouraged Muslim relations and Islam around the world, two cases in which he increased the number of terminations of human lives, one nonreligious speaking engagement he committed to making at a university, two acts of his that promoted community development, six events of his that included invocations, and one instance in which religious soot was seen on the forehead of the vice president.

Makes me wonder what U.S. News & World Report means by “most important” and “faith moment.” “Most important” for whom? U.S. News & World Report? The left? And what does “faith moment” mean? “Religious moment”? “Secular moment”? “Muslim moment”?

It’s strange how or why the magazine left out of its list that Obama proposed to limit tax deductions for charitable contributions. And what about Obama’s request for Georgetown University to cover a monogram symbolizing Jesus’ name when he gave an economic speech there?

I can think of a title that suits the majority of entries in this article much better: “10 Most Important Obama Faith Mashings.” (I wonder whether U.S. News & World Report or any other major news magazine would run that article or my op-ed?)

Regardless of where one lands on Obama’s religious actions, there’s a real faith moment coming up this week, and we need it more than ever. It’s the 58th annual National Day of Prayer, Thursday, May 7, with events in your neighborhood. It could be one of your and America’s most important faith moments this year.