Deception at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

The implosion of an entire presidency has historically occurred not because of the substance of a scandal itself but because of the lies to coverit up.  Unfortunately, President Obama’s promise to make his administration the most transparent in history was his first lie and his second term is certain to be plagued not only by the mistakes the administration has made, but also by the attempt to cover them up.

The cumulative effect of discovering lie upon lie is sure to dog this presidency for the duration of its term.  Here is a short list of the building blocks that reveal the true heart of this administration:

The Obama administration is harassing conservative non-profit organizations.  In February 2012, several conservative groups complained on FoxNews that they were being targeted by the IRS.  This sparked letters and complaints from various senators and representatives to the IRS.  In response, in March 2012, IRS Commissioner Douglas Schulman told Congress that the IRS was not targeting groups based on their political views.

Later on May 10, 2013, Lois Lerner, who heads the tax-exempt department for the IRS, admitted that the IRS did in fact inappropriately target 501(c)(4) organizations for additional review that included the names “tea party” and/or “patriot” in their applications during the 2012 Presidential Election.  She issued a swift apology blaming low-level staffers in Cincinnati not motivated by politics.

Unfortunately, soon after Lerner’s apology, the Associated Press uncovered a report that contradicts Schulman and Lerner and shows that senior IRS officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011.

This is a massive abuse of governmental authority under this administration.

The Obama administration lied to the public about the attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.    On September 11, 2012, just before the presidential election, the US Consulate was attacked and four Americans, including the US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, were murdered.

Instead of telling the obvious truth, UN Ambassador Susan Rice lied and told the world that the attacks were a spontaneous reaction to the release of a YouTube video and not a planned attack by terrorists.

The world knew differently and now the truth is being heaped on the head of the Obama administration like hot coals.  As reported by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard, we now know that the CIA report was altered twelve times to shade the truth of the attack removing references to the Ansar al Sharia Brigade responsible for the attack, or terrorism. Recall Obama’s campaign slogan for his 2012 re-election bid:  “General Motors is Alive; Bin Laden is Dead.”  Admitting that terrorism was still on the move did not fit into the re-election campaign narrative and so the administration, the president included, lied for months after the attack.  The truth is still not in them.

On Capitol Hill May 8, 2013, Gregory Hicks, Deputy Ambassador to Libya, testified on Benghazi and said, “my jaw dropped. I was embarrassed” when Obama appointee and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice lied on national television that the attack was the result of a spontaneous rally protesting a YouTube video. Hicks and his staff knew otherwise, reported the Detroit News.

Despite the unraveling of the truth, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the target of the US administration and the maker of the YouTube video “Innocence of Muslims,” is still in jail today under the pretext that he violated his probation for bank fraud.

The cover-up continues.  Stevens died; Rice lied.

Finally, Operation Fast and Furious is not going away.  In this gun trafficking scandal, it is now undeniable that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (“ATF”), under the supervision of the Department of Justice, intentionally allowed the sale of U.S. manufactured semiautomatic weapons to straw buyers for the Mexican cartel and then refused to confiscate the weapons in order to trace them to the hands of the Mexican cartel ringleaders.  This is commonly referred to as “walking guns.”

The scandal broke on December 14, 2010 when US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered by the Mexican cartel.  The cartel left behind two semiautomatic weapons that were later traced to the guns sold 11 months earlier under Operation “Fast and Furious” in Arizona.

The ATF initially denied that it had such a policy of selling firearms. After more than a year of not providing sufficient answers on Operation “Fast and Furious,” Holder provided small details of the program after being forced by subpoenas and a Contempt of Congress charge. 

Holder ultimately testified that, “the use of this misguided tactic [walking guns] is inexcusable, and it must never happen again."   A spokesman for the ATF also said, the "ATF did not exercise proper oversight, planning or judgment in executing this case. We at ATF have accepted responsibility and have taken appropriate and decisive action to insure that these errors in oversight and judgment never occur again." Criminal charges are likely to follow for those involved in this program.

On June 20, 2012, President Obama granted Attorney General Eric Holder’s request to assert executive privilege in regard to the request for documents pertaining to Operation “Fast and Furious” in order to prevent further responses to subpoenas from the Congress. Asserting this privilege implies the president’s direct involvement and awareness of the operation. 

What is clear is that someone is hiding something from the American people and this is the president’s model of providing the most transparent presidency in U.S. history.

Now the president, along with our military, has made bold moves all Americans can be proud of.  The president and the Navy Seals captured and killed Osama bin Laden and they miraculously rescued Jessica Buchanan, an aid worker, from the clutches of bandits in the middle of the desert in Somalia.  This is the kind of triumph of spirit and heart we can all be proud of.  The deception that we find from the IRS, the State Department and the Department of Justice erodes the celebration of the American spirit.

The apparent cover-ups in these federal departments can topple this presidency.  So I simply ask that our president and his administration leaders simply tell the truth.  Americans are far more forgiving if they are not first lied to.

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Success in Crisis

By Marc Little, The Prodigal Republican
Featured on Ask Dr. Nicole

America is populated with over 300,000,000 people. One out of every six of these Americans lives in poverty. According to the Food Research and Action Center, nearly 48 million of them are on food stamps and have joined the ranks of the 7.7% unemployed in the nation, says the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

I wonder what success means for us now as a nation and whether or not Americans still hope for success in their future in this post-recession economic climate.

To many of us, success is equivalent to the amount of money we have. You’re not likely feeling successful if you cannot pay the bills. But the fundamentals of success do not start with money.
Understanding success is a complicated matter in the context of pop culture. Success has become a reflection of what we see in the media and not what we are taught at home. Society is missing the main ingredients needed to foster a healthy perspective on life and success. One ingredient is marriage.

For example, in the 1960’s, 7% of white children were born to unwed mothers. Today that number is 38%. In the black community today, more than 69% of children are born to unwed mothers; the number is 44% for Hispanic children, according to an article by Robert Rector for The Heritage Foundation. We have become a nation that does not value marriage as we once did and there may be a direct correlation to achieving success.

Men are wired to be providers and mothers are typically the nurturers. Together, they teach a model of success to their children and the results manifest in school, marriage, relationships, on the job and even bank accounts.

“When compared to similar children raised by two married biological parents, children raised in single-parent homes are more likely to fail in school, abuse drugs or alcohol, commit crimes, become pregnant as teens, and suffer from emotional and behavioral problems. Such children are also more likely to end up on welfare or in jails when they become adults,” Rector writes.

With more and more children being born to unwed mothers, the model for teaching success is broken. This is clear by the images that our popular culture projects. Today, the successful celebrities devalue women and call them(selves) nicknames that begin with a “B” or an “H”. The successful must have the Phantom Rolls Royce, the Rolex, the private jet, all while popping bottles of champagne in the club. These images are consumed by blacks and whites alike and are unrealistic for most. In fact, the FCC should start labeling these ads, videos, and lyrics with, “Don’t try this at home. This activity can be harmful to your mental condition.” C. Delores Tucker, a civil rights activist, spent her life standing against the devolution caused by the pop culture.

But reality settles in. Brad Plumer, blogger for the Washington Post says 46.4% of Americans don’t even make enough income to be required to pay federal income taxes. Success for them is a daily effort.

We will always have the “haves” and the “have-nots.” But the gap between the wealthy and the poor is growing. The median household net worth for whites was $110,729 in 2010, versus $4,995 for blacks, which is 22 to 1; the difference is similarly with Hispanics, who had a median household net worth of $7,424. The ratio between white and Hispanic wealth expanded to 15 to 1, reports CNN Money. The American Dream seems to be getting away from more and more Americans, generation after generation.

This is what happens when the model of parenting all too often is missing one-half of itself, notwithstanding the federal government’s ever expanding effort to subsidize American life and whose welfare policies fail to encourage marriage.

Black and Hispanic two-parent households are disproportionate to whites; the gap of success for whites over the other groups may be directly tied to marriage.

While there is no guarantee for anyone to succeed, the best starter kit is in the home with a mother and a father no matter the race.  When we begin to value marriage and fight to keep our families together, we will all begin to see success in our future again.

The Infanticide President

(Warning. The views expressed in this blog may be dangerous to your spiritual health if you believe God supports abortion.)

Listening and watching President Obama has been like watching a bad low-budget film.  Whether on religious freedom, gay marriage, or abortion, the president is consistently secular-although he professes Christianity; it has been painful to see the president accelerate the deterioration of the American family by these policies he promotes. 

The president repeats time and time again that he is fighting for a woman’s right to choose; Pro Choice activists, like the president, use this phrase to make what they really mean sound better.  Be not mistaken,  “a woman’s right to choose” is a code phrase for the unfettered right to murder unborn children, removing any restrictions on killing babies and allowing teens of any age to use the Plan B abortion pill without a prescription or parental consent.  Liberals have gotten away with defining what is morally reprehensible (e.g. murder) as a medical justice issue for women.

The president is duplicitous in his phraseology and his liberal agenda to promote the murder of the unborn is without shame.  For the first time in U.S. history on April 26, 2013, our sitting president gave the keynote address to the Planned Parenthood National Conference.  For those of you who may be asleep, Planned Parenthood is responsible for nearly one-third of the abortions performed in the United States each year and receives approximately $500 million per year from the American taxpayer to subsidize their den of horrors.

In his keynote address, the president waged war against anyone who would stand in the way of “a woman’s right to choose” and vowed to stand with the organization all the way.  While giving his unqualified endorsement for the organization, he spoke against reasonable restrictions to abortion, including state laws requiring parental involvement for minors and informed consent for adults.  He referred to these restrictions as “absurd” but curiously failed to acknowledge the atrocities occurring in abortion clinics across the country.  The Kermit Gosnell murder trial currently unfolding in Pennsylvania screamed for some explanation for the president’s unqualified support for abortion when women are dying and crying babies born alive are murdered. The president made no mention of it in his keynote address.

So let’s put the president’s remarks and Planned Parenthood in context.  The Planned Parenthood mission is the contemporary example of a demonic agenda to destroy communities and black families in particular for profit.  It has nothing to do with a woman’s right to choose and all to do with an ideology that devalues life in general and devalues black life specifically.

First, in 2001, 2002, and 2003, the president prevented the passage of the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act when he was a state senator in Illinois.  As chair of the Health and Human Services Committee, Obama refused to allow the measure to make it to the floor for a vote.  That legislation would have protected an infant born alive after a failed abortion.  So the president’s keynote address to Planned Parenthood is consistent with his liberal ideology that fails to give legal status to a baby whether in the womb or born alive on the abortionist’s table. 

President Obama stands shoulder-to-shoulder with racists that have systematically devalued black life.  With its roots in the Eugenics Movement, the American Eugenics Society began right after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect. The goal of white elites was to shrink the black population by controlling the birth rate.  Forced sterilization and other drastic measures were used on blacks.  The white elites feared that the freed slaves would now become an economic burden after their freedom and thereby increasing their taxes; they feared intermarriage, increases in crime and in the prison population.  Eugenics was their answer.

With Hitler’s use of eugenics to exterminate the Jews, the term “eugenics” became unpopular and “negative eugenics” followed.  The idea was now to create an environment that would convince blacks to limit the number of their children and in effect commit “race suicide.”  This movement was carried out by racist Margaret Sanger who in 1942 renamed the American Birth Control League to Planned Parenthood. 

“We are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all,”[1] Sanger said in 1922.

Now, blacks make up 13% of the population but black women (ages 15-44) are responsible for having 40.2% of all abortions in the United States.[2]  The abortion rate among black women is five times that of white women in the United States, according to the Guttmacher Institute.   It is no coincidence that Planned Parenthood clinics are predominantly located in black and low income communities. 

If it were about a woman’s right to choose, pregnancy crisis clinics that offer a variety of healthcare services for women would receive commensurate federal and state funding.  The truth is, if a pregnancy crisis clinic refuses to do abortions or refuses to refer out for abortions, federal and state funding is not available in most states.  Planned Parenthood lobbies against such funding for these clinics because they provide non-abortive alternatives.  Most pregnancy crisis clinics must survive on private funding alone. 

Planned Parenthood is in the abortion business and is subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer.  55 million babies have been aborted since Roe v. Wade in 1973; 16 million of those were black babies.  It’s about making money on the backs of the poor.  Take it from a former Planned Parenthood clinic director, Abby Johnson.

“Abortion was a product Planned Parenthood was selling, not an unfortunate necessity that they fought to decrease,” said Johnson who is now a Pro-Life advocate. 

The president along with his abortion advocates are not really warring against Pro-Life advocates as the president claims.  On the contrary,  the Bible says that the fruit of the womb is a reward from God. (Psalms 127:3). It also says God hates the hands that shed innocent blood. (Proverbs 6:16-19). 

Mr. President, we people of faith wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (Ephesians 6:12).   You, Mr. President, your hands and the hands of your comrades in the struggle for the so-called “woman’s right to choose,” wrestle against God.  I pray you see abortion through God’s eyes.  Amen.

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[1] /              League, American Life.  Racists and Eugenicists Statements by Margaret Sanger, The Founder of Planned Parenthood. n.d. blackquillandink.com/wp-content/…/01/margaret-sanger-quotes.pdf.

[2] /              Center for Disease Control, “Abortion Surveillance: United States 2008.” Center for Disease Control and Prevention/MMWR.

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Lost Fatherhood

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Assistant Labor Secretary for President Lyndon B. Johnson wrote a report titled The Negro Family: The Case for National Action in March 1965. In summary, the Moynihan Report said that the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro family. He called for the nation to focus on the nuclear black family-the family structure-understanding that the black nuclear family could not survive being led by black women in a patriarchal society.

In 1965, 7% of white children were born to unwed mothers and 25% of blacks were born to unwed mothers. In 1991, 68% of black children were born to unwed mothers. By 2011, that number was 72% compared to 38% for whites. The number is 44% for Hispanic children. A direct correlation of this decline in the black family can be made to government aid and the New Deal beginning in 1940. These programs intended for dependent children later added adults such as the unemployed and unmarried mothers of enrolled children. No need for dad as provider.

I am careful not to oversimplify the condition of the black family. It is a complex discussion. However, lost fatherhood is on display throughout our society. I want to highlight one instance in particular that saddened me. Lost fatherhood was recently on display on Fix My Life, hosted by Iyanla Vanzant on the Own Network. Vanzant interviewed music icon DMX.

DMX is one of the most successful rappers in recent history; notwithstanding his success, he is a troubled soul. He admitted to sexual addiction, has multiple children by multiple women, and is a struggling drug addict. He isn't light on attitude either. He is exactly what you don't want your daughter to marry. But his own condition is the by-product of not having a father. These symptoms are then passed down to the next generation. Failure to lead breeds failure. DMX cried out for help; Vanzant fell short.

As a part of the “fixing” process, Vanzant interviewed DMX’s estranged son, Xavier. Xavier abhors his father’s womanizing and wants him clean and sober. Their relationship has been broken and they had not spoken in years.

Vanzant brought the two men together. I could feel the tension in the air but I was hopeful. I was

optimistic. Father and son were in the same room about to connect. To his credit, DMX bared his soul and with tears in his eyes said, son, I love you, I did the best I could to be a good father to you. But when I was growing up, I didn't know one person who had a father-not one. I did the best I could. This was a profound statement and a profound glimpse of the effects of lost fatherhood. DMX didn’t have a model anywhere on how to be a father. This is still the state of the black community today with 72% of homes led by unmarried women.

After DMX gave this amazing truth, Vanzant missed the magical moment to encourage unconditional love from son to father. Instead, she encouraged Xavier to tell DMX what he wanted which completely ignored the sensitivity of the moment. Xavier said, dad, I need you to be clean and sober if we’re going to have a relationship.

DMX rightly and soberly replied, “Love, son, is without condition.” I've loved you unconditionally all your life, he said. You can't put conditions on me. “Love is unconditional.”  DMX stood up, hugged his son and said, “I guess I'll see you at my funeral” and left.

As if that was not enough, Vanzant then bowed down twice to Xavier praising him for "becoming a man" in that moment. Yes, she did. Truly an unbelievable display of incompetence in my opinion.

First, Vanzant had previously explained to Xavier unconditional love. She rightly compared DMX's drug problem to someone with cancer. It’s a disease, she said. Would you hold cancer against someone?   Xavier said, no.  Then why would you hold your father's drug addiction against him? She replied. A light bulb went on in Xavier’s head. It was a sobering moment for him, it seemed.

She then allowed Xavier to do just that. He held his father’s addiction against him. Vanzant’s failure to reinforce the lesson she taught Xavier earlier was a lost moment for both father and son. DMX was right; Xavier and Vanzant were wrong.

Second, DMX's honesty about his own shortcomings, his lack of a father figure, and his apology for doing the best he could, was a moment for healing for father and son completely ruined either by incompetence, need for ratings, or poor editing. Vanzant did not seize the moment to unite father and son on the pure platform of love.

Fatherhood, particularly in the black community, is a critical issue best left to those who have something to contribute. While I experienced great sadness for this lost opportunity to connect father and son, I applaud DMX even with all his grave challenges. He was man enough to recognize the root of his problem with his son; Vanzant could not.

 

Simply put, we must value marriage; if not marriage, then value active engagement in the lives of your children. The role of father and mother are critical to the survival of the black community.

Oh Colin (The Remix)

I recently posted the blog titled Oh Colin! I took issue with General Colin Powell's critical comments about the GOP. I said at that time as I say again now, leadership leads from within and not from without. I affirm my critique of Powell today and encourage the GOP to have more dialogue with him and others like him because promoting conservative values is the only hope for the future of America.

I began the Oh Colin! blog by stating the obvious. General Powell is a true American, a soldier, a patriot, among other things. His accomplishments make him among the elite and unique people in the world today. I spoke with him directly just the other day and felt compelled to share my take away with you.

Irrespective of my disappointment in Powell's support of President Obama as a Republican, his clear of a conservative bent on certain issues, and his open criticism of the GOP, I encountered his humanity which left quite an impression on me.

It began with a photo op that turned into an honest but brief discussion about the GOP. Gen. Powell was speaking for the Los Angeles Urban League 40th Whitney M.Young, Jr. Award dinner.

During our chat, Powell displayed a real heart for the GOP and his desire that it manage the factors that challenge its future. The Tea Party influence, lack of effective outreach, and the old guard as a few examples of Party conflict. (I happen to believe the Tea Party is part of the solution and not the problem.)

Most interesting was his keynote address. After setting us at ease with his self-effacing opening remarks, (he's a real pro at public speaking), his passion to educate youth was apparent. He laid out five points for a better tomorrow.

Powell transcends politics now. He's a statesman with a message for tomorrow. The GOP should pay attention to Powell's persona and his ability to traffic in and out of diverse circles. In a room full of blacks, no one cared that Powell self-identifies as a Republican notwithstanding his support for the president. (His endorsement of President Obama in 2008 and 2012 likely helps that along.) They were glad to honor his service and receive his message of hope, family, discipline, and hard work. His keynote was apolitical. These are the kinds of messages and messengers that can reach the youth, blacks and Latinos-the groups the GOP must attract in order to win elections and save this country from the harmful effects of liberalism.

Powell restored my faith in who he is and what he represents. I don't have to agree with his liberal bent to respect his achievements and his message both of which are more than admirable. If the GOP could learn to lead by "doing their message" in the heart of our communities instead of just preaching the message, it would go a long way to relating to those it needs to survive.

The key to GOP resurgence is equipping and deploying relatable messengers, promoting uncompromising conservative policies that directly respond to the needs of all Americans while specifically addressing the disenfranchised, and caring for those underserved communities not for an election-cycle but for a generation-shoulder to shoulder and brick by brick. Let’s get to work.


View Colin Powell’s speech here. 

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Liberal Lovers

We are a nation in crisis when we cannot trust the Main Stream Media (MSM) to report the news.  It is an historical fact that there has been an unholy alliance between the media, the Democrats and the Ku Klux Klan as they held the Jim Crow South mindset together to oppress blacks at every turn. 

This alliance succeeded at finishing the diabolical work of slavery; the trio ripped the guts out of an entire group of people. The Klan has been less of an obvious factor in contemporary American politics today but the MSM and the Democrats have become synonymous with each other.  They are one.  Notwithstanding the biased support for Democrat political candidates like President Obama, the MSM delivered itself another credibility blow when it failed to cover the Pennsylvania trial against abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell. 

The politics of abortion aside, the allegations against this doctor should be national news.  If the death of one little girl named Caylee Anthony, or the presumed death of Natalee Holloway in Aruba, or the murder trial of Jodi Arias can garner round-the-clock national news, certainly the allegations of beheading and killing at least seven born-alive infants from failed abortions by Gosnell, severed limbs in jars and a child screaming after it was delivered alive during an abortion procedure by him is news worthy.  I hear crickets from the media galley.

The MSM’s reserved rows in the courtroom have been vacant since the trial began on March 18, 2013.  But for the USA Today article on April 13, 2013 by one lone real journalist on the Left, only a small number of Americans would know about this trial today.  Thank you Kirsten Powers.

Read article here:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/04/10/philadelphia-abortion-clinic-horror-column/2072577/

If there is any good news here, it’s that it is only a matter of time before those dead babies have justice against Gosnell whose employees have confessed to their gruesome participation which will surely land Gosnell behind bars for life. (Side Note. Gosnell, who is black, treated his white patients with care while being inattentive to his non-white patients.  It’s the way of the world, he told his employees.)

Now for the politics of the matter.  When we as Americans allow MSM bias to dictate what we know or don’t know about political and social issues, we have very little hope for liberty.  Recall the Benghazi disaster. Because of the lack of media coverage most Americans thought Benghazi was a man’s name and not the city in Libya where our U.S. Consulate was attacked resulting in the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three servicemen.  The media refused to cover this terrorist attack simply because it occurred just before the 2012 Presidential Election.  They were later forced to cover it through Senate hearings and the like.

Here is the point. Late termination abortions were being performed by Gosnell after 23 weeks and testimony shows some of these babies were born alive.  These are the very types of infants President Obama failed to protect while a state senator in Illinois.[1] These are gruesome procedures and the MSM’s liberal bias doesn’t want that exposed. There is no conceivable way that the liberal ideological chord that runs between the MSM and the Democrat Party is not at play in suppressing this kind of news and otherwise.  This unholy alliance runs counter to American principles that say, “Tell us and let us decide.” The MSM has become weak and sycophantic.  A weak media is a threat to America herself whether on the Right or on the Left.  Remember Hitler and the Nazi Party.

The Nazi Party in 1933, through its Propaganda Ministry controlled the content of news and editorial pages through directives distributed in daily conferences in Berlin and transmitted via the Party propaganda offices to regional or local papers. Detailed guidelines stated what stories could or could not be reported and how to report the news. Journalists or editors who failed to follow these instructions could be fired or, if believed to be acting with intent to harm Germany, sent to a concentration camp. Rather than suppressing news, the Nazi propaganda apparatus instead sought to tightly control its flow and interpretation and to deny access to alternative sources of news.[2]

America is on the slippery slope to being controlled by a single liberal ideology much like Germany was in 1933.  If we Americans let that happen in the face of world history, we only have ourselves to blame.  Demand better.

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[1] /              Obama and Infanticide. http://www.factcheck.org/2008/08/obama-and-infanticide/ 

[2] /              Holocaust Encyclopedia, The Press in the Third Reich, http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007655