Has a second front opened in the war for freedom?

Pres. Obama's attempt to use Obamacare to crush religious freedom is provoking a backlash even in San Francisco where Christians organized a massive rally on Friday against Obamacare's mandates (click to enlarge):

(Photo courtesy of Larry from SF)

(Photo courtesy of Larry from SF)

Up until now, the TEA party, a secular group, has been the central force defending freedom against Obama's governmental power grabs. If this rally is an indication, religious groups may form a second front in this war for freedom.

Since Christianity values charity, many Christians have supported Democrats and their government welfare state. Obama has demonstrated however the danger in this ill-conceived alliance. The massive power of a Federal welfare state is a threat to religion and religious values. It is not just the outrage of the government requiring Catholics to pay for abortifacients and the possibility that this may force the nationwide network of Catholic charity hospitals to close. Obama's stated goal of giving old people aspirins instead of medical care is also a clear violation of Christian conscience:

(Photo courtesy of Larry from SF)

This rally took place at Noon on Friday at the Federal Building in San Francisco. Although some media reported the crowd size at 500, Larry from SF estimates the attendance at 1,000. This rally was part of a nationally organized Stand Up for Religious Freedom protests.

One of the groups represented at the rally was Couples for Christ, a Catholic organization, with a newly discovered mission to oppose Obama:

(Photo courtesy of Larry from SF)

Some in the crowd had a good time:

(Photo courtesy of Larry from SF)

[Update: these two have been identified as infiltrators]
There was a large religious contingent at the last San Francisco TEA party protest against Obama in San Francisco (story and photos). This rally takes that opposition to a new and higher level. One can hope that this represents an awakening on the part of Churches to the idea that their survival depends not just on changing the language of one mandate among many in the Obamacare regulations but recognizing what the founding fathers understood: our government should not have had to power to make such mandates in the first place.

Thanks to Larry for an advance peak at his photos. Expect more commentary on this rally with photos to appear soon at Larry's blog: Fund47. [Update: Larry's post is here.]

WELCOME to readers from GatewayPundit, Frugal Café, and Extreme Conservatives.

Updating the Declaration's list of grievances

The US revolution was inspired by England's abuse of power and the US Declaration of Independence contains a list of such grievances. How do they compare with the abuses of power by the current Federal government and by Pres. Obama's administration in particular?

Original: "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."

Update: Considering Obamacare and new punitive "environmental" regulations, the original text holds today.

Original: "For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:"

Update: "For unnecessarily delaying approval Colombia, Panama, and Korea Free Trade Agreements."

Original: "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury."

Update: "For depriving us in many cases of the benefit of trial or even judicial review of governmental confiscations of land." [Think Sackett v. EPA]

Original: "For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments."

Update: Think Obamacare and the Obama administration's various attacks on religion (such as on religious employment and requiring churches to pay for abortions) and no change to the original text is needed.

Original: "For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever."

Update: "For arbitrarily declaring the US Senate in recess so that he could appoint unpopular administrators to positions of unprecedented power."

Original: "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions."

Update: "He has provided aid and comfort to domestic insurrectionist ["Occupy Wall Street"] and endeavoured to provide arms to foreign drug cartels who are known for merciless slaughter of Americans and foreigners alike."

It's a paradox, guns-sales edition

The Daily Caller is shocked: "Gun crime continues to decrease, despite increase in gun sales." Any NRA member could have told the reporter that it is not "despite" but "because." But, that is not a concept that a liberal can easily wrap his mind around.

PREVIOUSLY on the paradoxes that vex liberal minds:
•Paradox: student test scores improve despite school funding decrease
•It's a paradox: Congress unpopular "despite record"
•"Ironically," conservatives and their children are happier
•It's a paradox!: Crime down when criminals are in jail.
•Paradox: crime is down (again)
•Paradox: few fraudulent voters if voters are required to have IDs

Liberals and their sexual fetishes II

Sean Hannity interviewed (video) well known liberal attorney Gloria Allred:

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: "Did they touch your body parts?"

GLORIA ALLRED: "Yeah, they did and it was a first time anybody touched them in a long time and frankly, I liked it."

That does lead to an interesting question. Does sexual frustration lead to liberal political views? Loneliness and sexual frustration do seem to be a factor in terrorism.

RELATED: How much of a thrill did the TSA give Gloria? ABC News reports that the TSA will put their hands inside your underwear:

An ABC News employee said she was subject to a "demeaning" search at Newark Liberty International Airport Sunday morning.

"The woman who checked me reached her hands inside my underwear and felt her way around," she said. "It was basically worse than going to the gynecologist. It was embarrassing. It was demeaning. It was inappropriate."

PREVIOUSLY on media liberals and their sexual imagination:
•Mother Jones' sexual fantasy of Sarah Palin
•Wash. Post: Obama and his "chiseled pectorals"
•SF Chronicle: Obama's "handsomeness"
•Salon imagines Sarah Palin as a dominatrix
•Obama is one of "25 fittest"
•ABC News: Obama's "white dress-shirt clinging to his body"

Justice Breyer looking to overturn the First Amendment

George Stephanopoulos reports on his conversation with Justice Breyer (pictured):

Last week we saw a Florida Pastor – with 30 members in his church – threaten to burn Korans which lead to riots and killings in Afghanistan. We also saw Democrats and Republicans alike assume that Pastor Jones had a Constitutional right to burn those Korans. But Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told me on "GMA" that he's not prepared to conclude that -- in the internet age -- the First Amendment condones Koran burning.

“Holmes said it doesn’t mean you can shout 'fire' in a crowded theater,” Breyer told me. “Well, what is it? Why? Because people will be trampled to death. And what is the crowded theater today? What is the being trampled to death?”

In other words, under Breyer's proposal, Americans would lose the right of free speech if the government says that there are extremists somewhere who might respond violently. both governments and extremists would find that very convenient.

Hat tip: Dr. Sanity.

PREVIOUSLY on the issues of dissent and free speech:
•Obama administration: free speech does not include the right to criticize Obamacare
•Obama sells out free speech
•Physicians' group to sue Obama administration over suppression of dissent
•Canada's liberals oppose free speech
•Free speech and its enemies
•University upset at free speech
•The Right of Free Speech, Selectively Applied
•Tolerating free speech, IV
•Tolerating free speech, III
•More on tolerating free speech
•Those who cannot tolerate free speech

What happens at a Tea Party Meeting?

They talk about the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and how it relates to what Pres. Obama is doing now. Here, in two parts, is a short (17 min.) video presentation by Leonard Stone given at a meeting of MyLiberty, the official Tea Party Patriot group of San Mateo County, California. The lecture explores the grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence, how those grievances influenced the writing of the Constitution, and how it relates to what Pres. Obama is doing now.

The first part of the video discusses the first two of the grievances in the Declaration, what motivated them, and how they are relevant today:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

The differences between then and now are obvious. Obama is not the king of England, for example. However, the similarities, such as are playing out in Louisiana and Arizona, are also, as Mr. Stone makes plain, striking.

The second half of the lecture addresses the next four grievances:

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

The Founding Fathers experienced what it was like to live under an oppressive government and they clearly designed the US Constitution in response to those governmental abuses. This is why the Progressive Movement found the Constitution to be an obstacle and why we need to continue to defend the Constitution against today's progressives.

PREVIOUSLY on America's Founding Fathers and their relevance to today:
•From Rousseau to Al Gore: the rise of the declinists
•Hamilton vs. Jefferson on the French Revolution
•Disaster and conspiracy theorists: from Alexander Hamilton to today
•Fatherless children and their support for centralized government: from Hamilton to Obama
•Hamilton vs. Jefferson on monarchs
•Fear and delusion among liberals: from Alexander Hamilton to Rosie O'Donnell

China sentences American for industrial spying

China has tortured and sentenced to 8 years in prison a naturalized American citizen because he gather information on China's oil industry even though, according to the defense, most countries consider the same information to be public. The AP reports:

An American geologist held by Chinese state security agents who stubbed lit cigarettes on his arms was sentenced to eight years in prison Monday for gathering data on China's oil industry — a case that highlights the government's use of vague secrets laws to restrict business information. . . . .

Xue's sentence punctuates a case that has dragged on for more than two-and-a-half years and is likely to alarm foreign businesses unsure when normal business activities elsewhere might conflict with China's vague state security laws.

Chinese officials have wide authority to classify information as state secrets. Draft regulations released by the government in April said business secrets of major state companies qualify as state secrets. . . . .

Like IHS, many multinationals have come to rely on people like Xue to run their China operations. Another China-born foreign national, Australian Stern Hu who worked for the global mining firm Rio Tinto, was sentenced in March to 10 years for bribery and infringing trade secrets that dealt with iron ore sales to Chinese companies. . . . .

During Xue's closed-door trial, which ran over three dates last July and in December, the court document said he defended himself, arguing that the information he gathered "is data that the oil sector in countries around the world make public."

David Rowley, Xue's thesis adviser at University of Chicago and a geologist, said that the location and seismic and other data of oil wells is commonly available and could not compromise Chinese security since the government controls access.

In the communist tradition, courts do not exist to protect the rights of individuals. They exist to enforce the whims of the communist political leaders. The American left, with its talk of a "living constitution" that bends to their will, wants America's courts to more like Chinese ones.

PREVIOUSLY on the rule of law:
•Kagan: politics trumps law
•Justice Scalia explains the rule of law
•Obama administration overturns rule of law on immigration
•The end of the rule of law
•Obama and the rule of law
•The AP mis-understands the rule of law

Is internet access "a fundamental right"?

Freedom of speech is regarded as an inalienable natural right. Is there also a right to hear the speeches of others? The world seems to think so, as the BBC reports:

Almost four in five people around the world believe that access to the internet is a fundamental right, a poll for the BBC World Service suggests.

The survey - of more than 27,000 adults across 26 countries - found strong support for net access on both sides of the digital divide.

Countries such as Finland and Estonia have already ruled that access is a human right for their citizens.

International bodies such as the UN are also pushing for universal net access. [Emph. original]

Hat tip: The Clue Meter

When I read the poll, I wondered how many thought "a fundamental right" meant that every person should be given, free of charge, computer equipment for their personal use. As that requires others to provide work and services for free, that would be a strange kind of "fundamental right." However, the same poll (PDF) reported that 53% believe that "the internet should never be regulated by any level of government anywhere." That would be inconsistent with interpreting it as a right to free-government-paid-for internet-access and more consistent with a "right to hear others speak."

MEANWHILE, Ryan Singel (hat tip: Instapundit) writes about the various forces lobbying for the US and other governments to regulate and monitor internet use.

Bush era and gay rights

B. Daniel Blatt, of GayPatriot, reports:

I’ve been reviewing statistics on corporate policies toward gay employees and have been impressed to discover how quickly these private enterprises have responded to the increasing acceptance of homosexuality in American society. And the pace at which they offered benefits to same-sex domestic partners of employees did not slacken during the supposed dark days of the George W. Bush Era.

Indeed, the bellyaching of the gay left notwithstanding, the Bush Era was a Golden one for Gay Americans, thanks in large part to the greatness of the federal structure our framers designed–and to the freedom inherent in the American “experiment."

Holder defends civilian trials for war criminals

Although Attorney General Holder has admitted that the "9/11 attacks were ... an act of war," he has still chosen to prosecute the terrorists in civilian court as if they were mere criminals. He has presented a defense of sorts of this decision. Holder claims for example:

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will have no more of a platform to spew his hateful ideology in federal court than he would have in military commissions

Andrew C. McCarthy, whose experience includes the prosecution of the Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman among others for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, explains otherwise:

That's ridiculous. KSM was ready to plead guilty and be executed eleven months ago. Whatever soapbox he was going to have, he'd largely already had, and while we'd have had to let him speak before sentence was imposed, that would have been the end of it. Now, he's going to get a full-blown trial — after combing through the discovery for a couple of years and after putting the Bush administration under the spotlight.

The idea that President Obama is happy to have Al Qaeda terrorists and their sleazy lawyers spending years doing discovery on what we know about Al Qaeda is deeply disturbing.

Mr. McCarthy also takes on seven other points made by Holder. Read the whole thing.

MORE REACTIONS:
"I believe this decision is dangerous. I believe it's misguided. I believe it is unnecessary" —Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
"We're making bad history here. The big problem I have is that you're criminalizing the war. ... I think you've made a fundamental mistake here." —Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

MORE: John Hinderaker's analysis of the insanity of fighting a war by civilian court standards is here.

More than half of US HUMINT on al-Queda came from detainee interrogations

Through FOIA, Judicial Watch has obtained more CIA reports confirming the importance of interrogations:

Notably, the June 1, 2005 report concludes that "Detainee reporting accounts for more than half of all HUMINT reporting on al-Qa'ida since the program began..." ....   All three reports conclude: "One of the gains to detaining the additional terrorists has been the thwarting of a number of al-Qa'ida operations in the United States and overseas."

It is no wonder that Pres. Obama did not want us to see these reports.

This new information is consistent with an even more astonishing statement that Vice President Cheney made during an interview on ABC News regarding the success of waterboarding of senior al Qaeda terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM):

“There was a period of time there, three or four years ago, when about half of everything we knew about al Qaeda came from that one source [KSM]. So, it's been a remarkably successful effort. I think the results speak for themselves.”

Pres. Obama is still promising to close the military prison in Guantanamo Bay:

"We are going to close Guantanamo. We are serious about this."

Everyone working for bin Laden must be breathing a sigh of relief.

Metallica proud of its music's message to Gitmo terrorists

While other bands are currently in the news opposing Gitmo, remember that Metallica's lead vocalist had a different take on the meaning of the use of their music at Gitmo. From Revolver Magazine:

Metallica frontman James Hetfield recently told German-language TV network 3sat that part of him was proud the U.S. military chose the band’s music to torture prisoners at U.S. detention centers in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay. “It’s strong; it’s music that’s powerful,” Hetfield says. “It represents something that they don’t like—maybe freedom, aggression… I don’t know… Freedom of speech."

It seems that the White House will have to expand its enemies list.

One reason for the 2nd Amendment

The sign reads:

My next door neighbor
wants to BAN all guns!

Their house is
NOT ARMED!

Out of respect for their opinions
I promise NOT to use MY GUNS
to PROTECT THEM

Because there is no law that liberals can pass that would prevent criminals from getting guns, gun control laws are all about assuring criminals that they can commit crimes against innocent civilians without fear.

Hat tip: Gunslinger's Journal

Political Scoundrels, II

Victor Davis Hanson reports that, back in 2002, Eric Holder supported enhanced interrogation:

Here's what Eric Holder-set to examine whether or not to depose, indict, whatever Bush's legal advisors, told CNN in January 2002 about Guantanamo inmates:

"It seems to me you can think of these people as combatants and we are in the middle of a war. And it seems to me that you could probably say, looking at precedent, that you are going to detain these people until war is over, if that is ultimately what we wanted to do." Later in 2002 Holder elaborated, "One of the things we clearly want to do with these prisoners is to have an ability to interrogate them and find out what their future plans might be, where other cells are located. Under the Geneva Convention, you are really limited in the amount of information that you can elicit from people...[They] are not, in fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention. They are not prisoners of war...

Now as US Attorney General, he is/was considering prosecuting/sanctioning those who did what he recommended.

Hat tip: Vocal Minority.

PREVIOUSLY on the topic of political scoundrels:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer flip flop on torture
NASA doctor says Speaker Pelosi suffers from hysterical amnesia

PREVIOUSLY on the general attitude of "that was then, this is now":
Broadcasters discover a duty to broadcast presidential speeches.
Al Gore blasted Bush for ignoring Saddam's connections to terrorism
Before advocating surrender, Senators Biden and Hagel advocated a 10-year Iraq campaign.

Gitmo torture tactics revealed

The attorney for Gitmo inmate Salim Hamdah wants Hamdah's statements to interrogators excluded from his trial because of the "coercive tactics" used there by the US. As the Washington Post reports:

Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden who is accused in a terrorism conspiracy, told a military court that during questioning in 2002, a female interrogator "came close to me, she came very close, with her whole body towards me. I couldn't do anything. I was afraid of the soldiers."

"Did she touch your thigh?" asked Hamdan's attorney Charles Swift.

"Yes. . . . I said to her, 'What do you want?' " Hamdan said at a pretrial hearing. "She said, 'I want you to answer all of my questions.' "

"Did you answer all of her questions after that?" Swift asked. Hamdan said he did.

Hamdan's attorneys are seeking to persuade a judge to throw out incriminating statements he allegedly made to interrogators at the U.S. military prison here, arguing that they were obtained through coercive tactics.

Hat tip: BotW.

Web censorship debate in Iran

The Iranian parliament has voted make a priority of passing a bill to apply the death penalties to bloggers who harm "mental security in society" by promoting, for example, "corruption" or "apostasy." AFP reports:

Iran's parliament is set to debate a draft bill which could see the death penalty used for those deemed to promote corruption, prostitution and apostasy on the Internet, reports said on Wednesday.

MPs on Wednesday voted to discuss as a priority the draft bill which seeks to "toughen punishment for harming mental security in society," the ISNA news agency said.

One the Iranian parliament's biggest admirers is Bill Clinton. As he explained (link also has the audio) to Charlie Rose in 2005:

[Iran is] the only country in the world that has now had six elections since the first election of President Khatami. [It is] the only one with elections, including the United States, including Israel, including you name it, where the liberals, or the progressives, have won two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote in six elections: two for President; two for the parliament, the Majlis; two for the mayoralities.

In every single election, the guys I identify with got two-thirds to 70% of the vote. There is no other country in the world I can say that about, certainly not my own.

Of course, the Democrats would not try to promote a similar bill to censor US media. The death penalty is too extreme, and they wouldn't say the bill was about "mental security." They might call it instead "the fairness doctrine."

The Swedish nanny state

The schools in Sweden have decided that they have the authority to decide who gets invitations to an 8-year boy's birthday party. As reported by the BBC:

An eight-year-old boy has sparked an unlikely outcry in Sweden after failing to invite two of his classmates to his birthday party.

The boy's school says he has violated the children's rights and has complained to the Swedish Parliament. ....

The boy's father has lodged a complaint with the parliamentary ombudsman. ....

The boy handed out his birthday invitations during class-time and when the teacher spotted that two children had not received one the invitations were confiscated. ....

A verdict on the matter is likely to be reached in September, in time for the next school year.

It is a good thing that the Swedish Parliament has nothing more important to do.

Hat tip: Blue Crab Blvd .

Money talks and Democrats listen

Last week, the House approved compromise legislation shielding telecommunications companies from civil lawsuits regarding their cooperation with the government terror surveillance under FISA. The legislation passed because 94 Democrats who voted against the March 14 version changed in favor on June 20. Maplight.org calculated how much these votes cost:

Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint gave PAC contributions averaging:

$8,359 to each Democrat who changed their position to support immunity for Telcos (94 Dems)

$4,987 to each Democrat who remained opposed to immunity for Telcos (116 Dems)

Maplight provided no information on how much Republican votes cost.

CBSnews, the (UK) Inquirer, and Media General News Service all have stories based on the Maplight press release.

The ACLU is anti-civil liberties

In their Supreme-Court-year-end press release, the ACLU expresses its disappointment that the court stood firm that the right to bear arms is an individual civil liberty (right to self defense) rather than, as the ACLU would prefer, a right reserved for the government.

Another essential for people supposedly living in a democracy is fair and honest elections. The Supreme Court upheld this right in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board. The ACLU, on the losing side of the case, wanted to make vote fraud easier by allowing anyone to vote without any form of identification.

Hat tip: BotW.

Remembering the "torture" debate

During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, two congressmen got into a debate, as the AP reported yesterday:

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher on Wednesday dismissed the idea that taunting terrorism suspects with women's panties is a form of torture.

In a debate about detainee treatment at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the California Republican cited panties eight times, arguing that making suspected terrorists wear women's underwear on their heads isn't demeaning and degrading enough to be called torture.

He is referring to the claims made by Democrats and the MSM after Abu Graib that "panties on the head" incident that happened one night constituted "torture." Pressed on this issue, the Democrat retreated to the position that they were really talking about waterboarding:

An exasperated Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., reminded Rohrabacher that interrogators were also seen physically abusing detainees.

"This isn't about panties on the head," Delahunt said. "This is about physical pressure, waterboarding and other techniques that apparently were utilized at Guantanamo."

When not so pressed on the subject, Democrats have expoused very broad definitions of torture as Sen Durbin famously did when he claimed that malfunctioning air conditioning constituted torture the same as the Nazis or the Soviets would have used. Sen. Durbin said (full text from the congressional record is here as PDF.):

When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [at Guantanamo Bay]--I almost hesitate to put them in the [Congressional] Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

Many Americans pay good money to fly to a Carribean island and sleep in tents. Despite the lack of air conditioning, they consider it 'vacation' rather than 'torture.' Does Sen. Durbin really think that our playing rap music to prisoners is equivalent to the worst that Dr. Mengele did? Like Rep. Delahunt, Sen. Durbin also retreated, at least a little, as the Washington Post reported:

On Friday, Durbin retreated from comments he made on the Senate floor Tuesday but stopped short of an apology. "I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood," he said in a statement.

There is something extraordinarily irresponsible about making claims that help the enemy propagandists but then, when pressed, admitting that you hadn't thought it through carefully.