Sarah Palin Responds to the Left's 'Blood Libel'

Iran Arrests Dozens of Christians Considered a Threat to the Islamic State

Christians attend a Christmas mass at the St. Grigor Armenian Catholic church on Dec. 25, 2010, in Tehran, Iran. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Iran has arrested about 70 Christians since Christmas in a crackdown that demonstrates the limits of religious tolerance by Islamic leaders who often boast they provide room for other faiths.

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Tucson Underscores the Need to Control the Mentally Ill, Not Guns

Disbarred Attorney and Christophobic Hate Blogger Lindsay Taylor Thompson

In the three and a half years that this blog has been publishing, we have had only two persistent critics - one is a hack and the detritus of the liberal McClatchy Newspapers, now working for the South Carolina Policy Council on a blog with half of our traffic; the other was an attorney who was found to be so lacking in honesty and professional ethics that the State of Washington disbarred him.  And when we revealed the latter's sordid past, he admitted to a history of mental instability.  Over the course of several years, each of these two bloggers has been very supportive of the other.

We pay about as much attention to the political commentary of these two as we do to the political philosophy of the Unabomber, Lyndon LaRouche, and the Son of Sam.   Nevertheless, within hours of the tragic events in Tucson this past weekend, Lindsay Taylor Thompson, the disbarred lawyer, gay activist, and Christophobic hate blogger, was mimicking the mainstream media by suggesting that right-wing rhetoric had spawned the tragic events and  that Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint and even yours truly are "ennablers," with blood on our hands.

The mentally unstable, disbarred attorney, like the mainstream media he echoes, have completely overlooked the fact that the shooter is a pot smoking, heavy metal listening, practitioner of the occult, who attended a school affiliated with Obama pal and communist, Bill Ayers.  Hardly a Young Americans for Freedom type!

But what is really audacious about these rantings, and so typical of even sane liberals, is the hypocrisy.  For example, on June 1, 2010, Thompson posted the following about yours truly:

One can only wonder what his last thoughts would be if someone ran him to ground in his parish at confession (surely, as an aside, those sessions must be truly marvelous exercises in magical realism) or taking communion for the astonishing- and popular- spew of hate and bigotry his blog presents daily, and pumped a few lead rounds into him.

Inflammatory? Hate speech? An indicator of a mentally disturbed psychopath?

We think so!

Yet when we called that post to the attention of the Greenville County Sheriff, the South Carolina Attorney General and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), we were informed that threats on the Internet don't count.  One can only be prosecuted if one delivers a threat in writing, to one's home.  Accordingly, we have taken precautions, and we recommend that all conservatives do so, because so many of these deadly psychopaths, contrary to what the media would have you believe, are of the Left.

This left-wing propaganda we have seen since Saturday is itself sheer hypocrisy.  If you accuse someone you disagree with of being guilty of inciting murder, that demonizing accusation itself is no less "hate speech" that might encourage unstable leftists (like the Tucson shooter) to act out actual violence.

If one is defined by one's enemies, as well as one's friends,  we are proud of both.  But the Jared Loughners of the world usually announce themselves long before shots ring out.  The events of this past weekend underscore not only the importance of citizens being armed for their own protection, but the need to ensure that the public is protected and that the mentally disturbed get help they need and are prevented from harming themselves and others.

Rep. Steve King Says Witnesses Are Ready to Testify in Congress About Alleged Fraud in Federal Compensation Payments to Black Farmers

Rep. Steve King (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

Rep. Steve King (R.-Iowa), who serves on both the House Agriculture Committee and the House Judiciary Committee, says he has personally talked to two potential witnesses in recent months who are ready to come forward and speak to a congressional committee—if one decides to actually investigate the matter--about alleged fraud in discrimination-compensation payments that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has made to black farmers. 

One of these would-be witnesses is a black farmer who was a litigant in the initial class action suit that black farmers brought against the USDA in the 1990s. The other is a current long-time employee of the USDA itself.

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Gabrielle Giffords Shooting: Frightening, Twisted Shrine in Arizona Killer Jared Lee Loughner's Yard

From New York Daily News
By Matthew Lysiak

A sinister shrine reveals a chilling occult dimension in the mind of the deranged gunman accused of shooting a member of Congress and 19 others.

Hidden within a camouflage tent behind Jared Lee Loughner's home sits an alarming altar with a skull sitting atop a pot filled with shriveled oranges.

A row of ceremonial candles and a bag of potting soil lay nearby, photos reveal.

Experts on Sunday said the elements are featured in the ceremonies of a number of occult groups.

Investigators have focused on Loughner's online anti-government ramblings as the chief motivation for the shooting Saturday of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).

Tent containing shrine in Loughner's backyard.

The discovery of the shrine raises the possibility that Loughner, 22, may have been driven by other forces. Students and faculty at Pima Community College, which he attended until his suspension last summer, said Loughner was clearly at odds with the world.

"He was one of the last kids tocome in, and he sat down and almost immediately started laughing to himself in a way that was just kind of creepy," a classmate, Alex Kotonias, 20, told USA Today.

"As soon as the teacher started going over the syllabus, he had this outburst out of nowhere, didn't even raise his hand, and started asking the teacher some sort of weird questions about whether he believed in mind control."

Adjunct Prof. Ben McGahee, 28, worried about violence. "I remember going home and thinking to myself, 'Is he going to bring a weapon to class?'" he told USA Today.

Lynda Sorenson, 52, who was in McGahee's basic algebra class with Loughner, expressed similar fears in emails to friends, The Washington Post reports.

On June 14, she wrote: "We have a mentally unstable person in the class that scares the living crap out of me. He is one of those whose picture you see on the news, after he has come into class with an automatic weapon. Everyone interviewed would say, 'Yeah, he was in my math class and he was really weird.' I sit by the door with my purse handy."

In September, college officials sent campus police officers to Loughner's home, where he lives with his parents, with a letter informing him he could not return without a mental health professional's written assurance that hispresence at college would "notpresent a danger to himself or others."

"It was obvious to everyone that Jared wasn't a normal guy,"said neighbor Anthony Woods, 19.

Loughner worked as a volunteer at the Pima Animal Care Center, where he walked dogs and cleaned cages. "He loved animals and was a good worker," said another volunteer.

Loughner had once tried to join the military but was deemed unsuitable, officials said.

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

"Now it came to pass, when all the people were baptized, that Jesus also being baptized and praying, heaven was opened; And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape, as a dove upon him; and a voice came from heaven: 'Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.'"

Luke 3:21-22

Taverner Choir and Players - 'Domini Fili Unigenite' - Vivaldi

Sermon of Reverend Franklyn M. McAfee, D.D.

Pastor Emeritus

St. John the Beloved Catholic Church

McLean, Virginia

January 13, 2008

 

From the Pastor - 'A Living Force for All Mankind'

A Weekly Column by Father George Rutler

"The Baptism of Jesus" by Leonardo da Vinci

Jesus did not need to be baptized, yet he did so to occasion another “epiphany” announcing his divinity. St. Gregory Nazianzen said: “Jesus rises from the waters; the world rises with him. The heavens, like Paradise with its flaming sword, closed by Adam for himself and his descendants, are rent.”

In an age cynical about heroes, it is important to remember that there really are heroes, and the greatest heroes are those who have been faithful to their baptism. One example is Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart (1880 – 1963).  He was born of an influential Catholic family in Belgium. His Irish mother died when he was six, and his father, an international attorney, took him to Cairo where he learned Arabic. From there the young Adrian went to the Birmingham Oratory School founded by Blessed John Henry Newman. He later left Oxford University to become a soldier in the British Army and fought in the Boer War and both World Wars. He lost an eye and a hand and was shot up with shrapnel, which was removed only late in life. This did not stop him from being a first-class game hunter in Hungary, Bavaria, Austria, and Bohemia, and a fox hunter and polo player.

This flower of the Edwardian Age was admired by Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek and challenged Mao Tse-tung to his face. During World War I, while serving in the Somaliland Camel Corps, Carton de Wiart was wounded in a foray against the “Mad Mullah” Mohammed bin Abdullah Hassan and was shot many times in the battles of the Somme, Passchendaele and Cambrai. His wife was a Polish countess and taught him her language. He was sent to Poland with the British Military Mission and got to know Charles de Gaulle. There he engaged in a shootout with the Bolsheviks, befriended the pianist and premier, Paderewski, and the future Pope Pius XI, then nuncio to Poland, whom he encouraged to remain when Warsaw was under attack.  After an air crash, General de Wiart was a prisoner in Lithuania.

In World War II he fought in Norway. En route to defend Yugoslavia against a Nazi invasion, his plane was shot down in Libya, and he became a prisoner of Mussolini in Italy. Released, he was sent on a mission to China by way of India, fought in Burma, and consulted General MacArthur in Tokyo.

In his autobiography, de Wiart neglected to mention his various decorations and knighthoods, including the Victoria Cross. But he remembered that he had been baptized. He was the kind of hero St. Gregory spoke of: “Today let us do honour to Christ’s baptism . . . He wants you to become a living force for all mankind, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven.”

Fr. George W. Rutler is the pastor of the Church of our Saviour in New York City. His latest book, Coincidentally: Unserious Reflections on Trivial Connections, is available from Crossroads Publishing.