09/8/15

NoisyRoom Article Recap – 09/05-08/15

Noisy Room

09/8/15

Our Weasel Of The Week Nominees! – 09/08/15

The Watcher’s Council

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/89/256833910_dc5e794df2.jpg

It’s time once again for the Watcher’s Council’s ‘Weasel Of The Week’ nominations, where we pick our choices to compete for the award of the famed Golden Weasel to a public figure who particularly deserves to be slimed and mocked for his or her dastardly deeds during the week. Every Tuesday morning, tune in for the Weasel of the Week nominations!

Here are this weeks’ nominees…


DNC Head, Congresswoman And Dumb Blonde Poster Girl Debbie Wassermann Schultz!

The Noisy Room: I nominate Debbie Wasserman Schultz this week for backing the horrendous Iranian nuclear deal and weeping while she did it. Those that vote for the Iran deal are not only traitors to the American people, they are traitors to Israel. Shame on them. They will go down in history as enabling those who would slaughter other Jews. These liberal Jews vote for anything and everything that undermines America and for the literal destruction of Israel. How dare Wasserman Schultz call herself Jewish. She announced today that she would become the 16th Jewish Democrat to support Obama’s Iranian nuclear deal, which gives the Islamic terrorist nation every thing they could dream of and arms them to the teeth. She says she did this for national security. Whose, Debbie? Certainly not America’s and definitely not Israel’s. I think someone made her an offer she couldn’t refuse… one that was worth selling out her brothers and sisters. I hate to break it to her, but selling your soul damns you.

I’m not surprised over this. Disgusted and sickened, but not surprised. That ‘imperfect deal’ she keeps referring to guarantees war and death, possibly for millions. What’s worse is she knows it. No wonder Debbie couldn’t tell the difference between a Democrat and a socialist. There is none. In this case, think National Socialist. That’s right… Nazis. Even while she says this murderous pact is for national security, out of the other side of her mouth she says Democrats put politics before that same national security. Talk about a self-loathing Jew. Israel should turn their back on her. I would wager not even 27% support this monstrosity. Only the elitist Marxists do.


The Officials at Poland’s Auschwitz Memorial

Puma By Design: I nominate the officials at the Auschwitz Memorial as Weasel of the Week.

Because of the extreme heat this summer in Poland, officials at the Auschwitz Memorial installed misting showers at the museum’s entrance but failed to recognize the fact that “The Nazis used gas chambers disguised as showers to kill millions of prisoners during WWII.”

As a result, Jewish visitors, many old enough to remember the horrors of the holocaust were distressed by the presence of the misting showers and the insensitivity of the museum’s caretakers.

How on earth did museum officials not see this coming? Did they care?

Compounding the offense is what I consider a not so sympathetic statement from a representative of the Auschwitz Memorial (excerpt below):

…Among visitors there are many people who come from countries where such high temperatures as we have this summer in Poland do not occur. Something had to be done, as we have noticed cases of faints among people and other dangerous situations. Therefore we had to do everything we could to minimise the risks connected with the heat and high temperatures. The safety and health of visitors are our priority during the period of extreme heat. Cooling air have been really helpful to visitors in this difficult situation.

And one more thing. It is really hard for us to comment on some suggested historical references since the mist sprinkles do not look like showers and the fake showers installed by Germans inside some of the gas chambers were not used to deliver gas into them. Zyklon B was dropped inside the gas chambers in a completely different way – through holes in the ceiling or airtight drops in walls….

Translation: It is all about profits and those offended (Jews) will have to deal with it. Besides when the weather gets cooler, the museum will remove the showers but in the meantime, again, deal with it.

Shame on those running the Auschwitz Memorial. How could they?


The Always Disgusting Senator From Nevada, Harry Reid

JoshuaPundit: The 34 Democrat senators who decided pleasing Barack Obama by supporting his Iran appeasement is more important than America’s national security are all despicable in their own way. Ironically, most of them, like Delaware’s Chris Coons were on record as saying they would oppose a bad deal – and then announcing their support by saying that Obama and Kerry’s Iran deal is flawed and imperfect, but they support it anyway…even though every condition they said would constitute a good deal has been tossed aside.

Such men and women are unworthy of being called Americans, let alone holding office. Their allegiance is to something else.

And now we get to Minority Leader Harry Reid, who having whipped  the votes not only to block the Senate from opposing the Iran atrocity in the face of a certain Obama veto but possibly to filibuster it and keep it from  being voted on at all takes a moment to shove the Senate Republicans’ collective noses in it, with a cynical offer of a deal of his own.

Reid’s offer? He’ll allow the Iran deal to come to a vote in the Senate – provided GOP Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agrees to increase the number of votes needed to pass the measure! Sixty votes instead of a majority, just to stop this president from having to use a veto to shove this through. The Senate voted 98-1 to pass the Corker-Menendez bill outlining how the Senate will proceed on this matter…and now, Reid wants to change them and up the ante.Rest assured, if Harry Reid wasn’t fairly sure he could collect enough votes to block passage at the higher threshold, he wouldn’t be making this offer.

This, from the same man you used the nuclear option to quash senate rules on filibusters and get Barack Obama’s radical appointees confirmed.

This is Weaselness ne plus ultra, from a man whose corrupt nature is a byword for perfidy.

UPDATE: Yes, Reid knew he had the 41 votes all along.

Well, there it is. What a despicable group of  Weasels… ANY OF THEM COULD WIN! Check back Thursday to see which Weasel walks off with the statuette of shame!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum.

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted onFriday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere and you won’t want to miss it… or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that, y’know?

09/8/15

“Welcoming” Industry Resorts to Robo-Calls: Outside Agenda Makes the Case for Local Control of Refugee Resettlement

By: Merrill McCarthy

Imagine the surprise of some Chaldean families to learn a new mosque was being planned for a small parcel of land in the middle of their very residential neighborhood. Even though preliminary planning had been in the works for over a year, the adjacent residents were only notified at the last minute when the zoning variance hurdle needed to be cleared.

The news came at the end of July when people are away on summer vacations, so it may have been a little difficult to get people together to deal with the shocking news. As they wrapped their minds about what a mosque would mean, they were mostly stunned that it was such an inappropriate location. They worried about parking and noise problems and had concerns about the neighborhood fire station and whether clogged streets might impede response times for emergency calls. They thought the size of the land parcel was just too small to support the building and parking area. The mosque was designed to be taller than any other building around and would surely dominate the neighborhood. The residents worried about their quality of life and how this would impact property values.

On September 2, 2015, robo-calls were delivered to the phones of 18,000 Sterling Heights residents by Tarek M.  Baydoun, a Dearborn, Michigan real estate attorney and Muslim activist. It is his voice on the call proclaiming that “some Muslims moved to America in search of personal and religious freedom, exactly what the Founding Fathers had in mind.” So, why would he want to deny the current landowners the right to their peaceful enjoyment of their property in an area that is zoned residential and could only entertain the idea of a mosque with a variance in current zoning law.

Why would Baydoun be involved in the local situation of another suburban Detroit city that is not even in the same county as his home in Dearborn? Why would the stakes be raised with an intrusive computerized phone call strategy when the process was already moving forward through the city council and planning board in Sterling Heights? What did he hope to accomplish with his activism?

He is no stranger to robo-calls. In fact, an article written by Debbie Schlussel on October 13, 2010 outlined his phone call strategy against Republican Nevada US Senate candidate Sharon Angle in her bid to defeat Harry Reid. Baydoun made 250,000 calls to Nevada residents. What was his interest in that race? Was he a paid activist then? Is he a paid activist now? And who is picking up the tab? Local neighborhood residents in Sterling Heights have speculated that there may be outside forces, possibly international interests pushing for the mosque to be built in this location.

Historically, the Muslim Arab immigrants have moved to Dearborn, Michigan, a western suburb of Detroit while Chaldeans and other Christian Arabs have settled more in the northeastern suburbs. The proposed Sterling Heights mosque is right in the middle of an established residential Chaldean neighborhood. It is probably not the best location because of cramped space for the footprint of the building and required parking. In fact, there are several other better locations suggested as alternatives by the Chaldeans who are not welcoming the new mosque in their neighborhood.  But, so far, the mosque builders are set on this spot. Again, WHY?

Is this the proxy battle for what is going on in the Middle East where Christians are being persecuted, tortured and beheaded? The Muslims are impacted as well because all the instability in the region is leading to difficult situations for everyone and both Christians and Muslims are seeking refugee status. Many of the people in Dearborn are foreign born with the largest Muslim population in the country and more than half of the population of Sterling Heights is foreign born in a city of more than 130,000. Not all the Sterling Heights immigration is from the Middle East and it is very much a melting pot. Up till now, assimilation by Christian refugees has been the norm.

Are the Muslims staking a claim in Sterling Heights to exert their influence? Is there some reason they think a fourth mosque is going to be needed? Are more Muslims headed for Sterling Heights? Are the rumors true that the U.S. will be inviting 65,000 Syrian refugees above and beyond the immigration quotas in the Refugee Resettlement program? Mr. Baydoun’s actions with robo-calling appear to indicate raised stakes.  That’s why national media outlets are watching local situations like this.

The issues here revolve around local control and involvement by those who will be most impacted. It should not have been a last minute surprise to learn that a new mosque was coming to the neighborhood. And it should not come as a surprise that we are bringing in Syrians or other refugees. The welcome mat is usually never as welcoming for “drop ins” as it is for “invited guests” and our policies should bear that in mind as we grapple with some of these difficult issues.

Citizens that support the call for local control over refugee resettlement are populating an interactive map with their signatures on the Center for Security Policy’s national petition

No Refugee Resettlement without Local OK

09/8/15

Anti-Christian Bigotry on the Bench and in the Media

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

The federal judge who threw Christian clerk Kim Davis in jail previously “oversaw a legal settlement that included anti-harassment sessions” for students in Boyd County, Kentucky, The New York Times reports. In fact, the judge, David Bunning, had denied free speech rights to those students.

The so-called “anti-harassment sessions” in the Boyd County case were actually designed to instruct students “to withhold Christian viewpoints about homosexual behavior,” the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), the legal group representing the students, reported.

Bunning’s ruling against the students, a direct ban on free speech, was overturned on appeal.

The Times admitted this fact only later in the story, noting that Bunning’s ruling forcing students into the “anti-harassment sessions” was “overruled by an appellate court.”

The fact that he “was overruled by an appellate case” demonstrates how wrong his ruling was.

It is this out-of-control judge who is at the center of the Kim Davis case. Ironically, the media are reporting that Bunning is a Christian. If so, he has no fundamental understanding of how Christians helped create this nation, and are entitled to the rights and liberties guaranteed to them under the Constitution.

The Times’ handling of this case reflects how the actions of Davis have also been distorted by most of the media. The Times said Bunning sent Davis to jail for “refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses.” In fact, she had simply exercised her religious rights and liberties in refusing to sign the gay marriage licenses.

Her attorneys at Liberty Counsel noted, “Davis only asked that the Kentucky marriage license forms be changed so her name would not appear on them.” This simple request was deemed to be “contempt” and she was thrown in jail.

What we see in the case of Judge Bunning, under pressure from the gay lobby, is a pattern of discrimination against Christians, a pattern we also see in the coverage of the cases in which he has ruled. The media have refused to respect the rights of free speech and freedom of religion that Americans are supposed to have under the Constitution.

A rally in support of county clerk Kim Davis has been announced for Tuesday, September 8, at the Carter County Detention Center in Grayson, Kentucky at 3:00 p.m. The address is 13 Crossbar Road, Grayson, Kentucky.

Heather Clark of the Christian News Network first noted that Bunning, appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush, had, in the Boyd County case, “ordered Kentucky students to be re-educated about homosexuality despite their objections.”

In the case, she noted, a number of students objected to being forced to watch a video that asserted that it is wrong to oppose homosexuality and that a person’s sexuality cannot be changed. Clark reported, “They discovered that they could not opt-out of the training without being penalized, and contacted the legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) for assistance.”

That began the process of filing suit, and eventually the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Bunning’s ruling in October 2007.

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has sided with Davis, saying she not only has the right to object on religious grounds to signing gay marriage licenses, but that the Supreme Court did not in any sense make gay marriage the “law of the land.”

Numerous experts have pointed out that, under the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme Court cannot make law. The Supreme Court’s “power to offer opinion does not equal the power to make law,” notes the Tenth Amendment Center. Generally speaking, experts say, the Supreme Court can overturn laws and executive actions but it cannot enforce its rulings. The power to make law is given to the representatives of the people in the national and state legislatures.

Huckabee says Davis, a county official elected as a Democrat, should be immediately released from federal custody. “Exercising religious liberty should never be a crime in America,” he says. “This is a direct attack on our God-given, constitutional rights.”

Huckabee said, “Kim is asking the perfect question: ‘Under what law am I authorized to issue homosexual couples a marriage license?’ The Supreme Court cannot and did not make a law. They only made a ruling on a law. Congress makes the laws. Because Congress has made no law allowing for same sex marriage, Kim does not have the Constitutional authority to issue a marriage license to homosexual couples.”

Kentucky passed Amendment 1 in 2004, prohibiting recognition of same-sex marriages. It passed by a 75-25 percent margin.

Another Republican presidential candidate, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, called the order issued by Bunning to use federal marshals to arrest and jail Davis “judicial lawlessness [which] crossed into judicial tyranny.” He explained that “the government arrested a Christian woman for living according to her faith. This is wrong. This is not America.”

He added, “I stand with Kim Davis. Unequivocally. I stand with every American that the Obama administration is trying to force to choose between honoring his or her faith or complying with a lawless court opinion.”

Cruz went on, “In dissent, Chief Justice Roberts rightly observed that the Court’s marriage opinion has nothing to do with the Constitution. Justice Scalia observed that the Court’s opinion was so contrary to law that state and local officials would choose to defy it.”

Indeed, as AIM reported, Scalia had called the Supreme Court decision in the same-sex marriage case a judicial “Putsch,” an attempt to overthrow our form of government. Scalia said the court was a “threat to American democracy.”

In the face of this emerging judicial dictatorship, Kentucky clerk Kim Davis exercised her religious rights and liberties, only to be sent to prison.

Her attorney, Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, reports, “Despite being held as a prisoner for her religious beliefs, her conscience remains unshackled. Liberty Counsel will challenge Judge Bunning’s contempt order and her unlawful confinement. Kim is resolute in her decision to challenge the issuance of any marriage certificate bearing her name without her authority.”

As the coverage by The New York Times indicates, however, Judge Bunning is being greeted with fawning attention in the Davis case because he had muzzled Christians previously for standing up for their faith. The coverage demonstrates that there is a pattern of anti-Christian activity on the federal bench and in the media.

09/8/15

Forum: Kim Davis And Gay Marriage Licenses: Civil Disobedience Or Bigot?

The Watcher’s Council

Kim Davis

Every week on Monday morning, the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum with short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture or daily living. This week’s question: Kim Davis And Gay Marriage Licenses: Civil Disobedience Or Bigot?

Rhymes With Right: Simply put, this is not an either/or question.

One can be a bigot or a racist and still engage in civil disobedience – one can be a despicable human being and still protest against injustice. One can even be wrong about the justice or propriety of a law or policy and still properly engage in civil disobedience by violating that law and accepting one’s punishment as a way of seeking to garner support for a change to that which you believe to be unjust.

And that is the key thing that Kim Davis and her supporters are missing here. Crying “civil disobedience” is not a talisman that shields you from punishment or a “get out of jail free” card. As exemplars of civil disobedience like Thoreau, Gandhi and King show us, civil disobedience requires submission to the rule of law as a means of shocking the consciences of others in order to spur change.

But in Kim Davis’s case, there is another angle that should be considered. Davis is not acting as a private person here; rather, she is acting in her official capacity to deny the citizenry that which the law and the Constitution require she give them in that capacity — a legal document granting legal recognition to their marriage. One can strongly argue against the holding in Obergefell (and i do) and still recognize the danger to liberty and the rule of law that her actions represent.

Of particular concern to me is Davis’s abuse of the First Amendment to justify her malfeasance in office and defiance of a court order. She claims the right to not only refuse to issue marriage licenses herself, but to also forbid every employee of her office from issuing them. That has the effect of officially establishing her religion as the official religion of Rowan County. And while one might be tempted to cut her slack because of the relative ease with which couple could work around her decree and the troubling nature of the Obergefell decision which created this situation, one has to look at other situations. Would we accept the declaration of a county prosecutor that there will be no prosecutions of spousal rape because she believes that allowing her office to move forward with such cases would violate the Biblical principle that wives must submit to their husbands? Of course not — the very notion is offensive to anyone with a sense of moral decency, no matter how broadly we interpret the First Amendment’s religious liberty guarantee.

So let me be quite clear on this matter — regardless of the sincerity of her faith (a matter that has no bearing here) Kim Davis belongs in jail until such time as she either agrees to a) issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples, b) stand aside and allow her subordinates to do so for her, or c) resigns or is removed from her position and county clerk. If this spurs a change in the national attitude towards gay marriage and results in a reversal of Obergefell, perhaps her short-lived effort to make her faith the established religion of Rowan County will have had some positive impact. Until that time, let her failed claim of privilege serve as a reminder that the rule of law requires we abide by a court order until it expires or is overturned on appeal, even if we believe it is wrong and in violation of our rights.

The Glittering Eye: It’s a thorny issue. On the one hand, since Obergefell v. Hodges homosexual marriage is the law of the land and there’s some merit to the idea that if a public employee can’t perform his or her job she or he should resign.

On the other hand that flies in the face of the last 70 years of labor law. Employers have an obligation to make reasonable accommodations for the religious obligations of their employees. Kentucky, specifically, has a RFRA law that extends that not only to public employees but to elected officials. I would also argue that demanding that public officials who cannot comply with some of the obligations of their job for religious reasons resign violates the “No Religious Test” clause of the U. S. constitution.

IMO the judge in this case erred in throwing the county clerk into jail. There were plenty of other remedies available. He could have ordered a recall election and then fined the county if she were retained and failed to comply. He could have thrown it back to the Kentucky legislature to place the onus on them to change the laws requiring the county clerk’s signature on all marriage licenses issued by their counties.

We’re now engaged in a great experiment. After a half century of relentless propaganda, a slim majority of Americans and one half plus one of the justices of the Supreme Court believe that a just and decent society demands the legality of homosexual civil marriage. To date we’ve seen campaigns to force people to comply with court orders that until very recently would have been considered immoral by the overwhelming preponderance of the people. Such is not the stuff of which persuasion is made. It’s also contrary to the promotion of liberal values in a large, diverse country in which reasonable accommodations should be made for the religious beliefs of all members, not just members with whom you happen to agree.

JoshuaPundit: My original feeling when I first heard about this was that as a public servant, Ms. Davis had a duty to perform that which the taxpayers had elected her to do.

After thinking it through, it’s very obvious that she could and should have been offered a reasonable accommodation for her religious beliefs and would have had the full might of the Obama Justice department behind her if she wasn’t a Christian and this wasn’t about homosexual marriage.

The Obama ‘Justice’ Department actually sued an Illinois school district because a Muslim school teacher’s request for three weeks leave in the middle of the school year to attend the Haj in Mecca (something that takes at most a week) in violation of her contract was denied. And they won, in spite of the fact that the Haj can be taken any time in a Muslim’s life…such as after retirement, or when sufficient sick days have been accrued.

I myself have received what are called reasonable religious accommodations under existing law. I once accepted a job at a financial corporation and was told several days into it that ‘Saturdays are mandatory.’

Once I explained that Saturday wasn’t an option for me and had they informed me beforehand I would not have taken the job, they were forced to make an exception in my case, albeit with quite a bit of rancor,nasty cracks and ill will that never dissipated for the short period of time I remained there. There’s no reason Kim Davis couldn’t have gotten the same kind of accommodation (especially since she worked in government) instead of being thrown in jail, but they simply wanted to make an example of her.

Only prog Fascists are free to ignore the law in Obama’s America. We’re in for an interesting 14 months.

Well, there you have it.

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere and you won’t want to miss it.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that, y’know?