2014-2016 Crucial Years for the Left and Mega-Bankers

Recently, I noted that worldwide Marxism expert Trevor Loudon stated that the next two years are key ones in which either the Left is topped or we will have a far greater problem on our hands than we do now.

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/10/trevor-loudon-speaks-in-new-jersey.html

Now, ol' Robert Reich is making the same case, but to his people - the ones who are willingly supporting their own enslavement. He takes advantage of the fact that Congress has been unable to do much of anything except to block some of the moves by the American Left, and uses that to blame them for doing nothing. Among other things, he makes it clear that the US needs to change to minimum wage (so that young people will never have a first job) and enact immigration laws that are far more destructive than are the current ones (to ensure that the electorate is permanently changed in their favor).

http://www.infowars.com/socialist-economist-predicts-soros-and-crew-will-fleece-the-rich-in-2014/


Meanwhile, the Left in the Fifth Republic is continuing in their march towards consolidating their power:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/12/30/france-gets-green-light-to-implement-insanely-high-tax-on-superwealthy-but-heres-the-real-problem/

And, to top it all off, the IMF wants the what will amount to a worldwide (read - affecting citizens mostly in Western nations) seizure of saved money in banks accounts. This, like the vicious theft of the same committed in Cyprus, will be euphemistically referred to as a one-time tax and will be used to satisfy the mega-bankers of the world:

IMF Proposes Piratical Cyprus-Like Taxation To Fund National Debts

http://www.infowars.com/imf-wants-a-71-percent-tax-rate/

http://www.sovereignman.com/trends/the-imf-wants-you-to-pay-71-income-tax-13285/

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304355104579232480552517224

"Between ObamaCare, Iran and last quarter's uptick in U.S. economic growth, taxpayers these days may be distracted from several dangers to come. But households from the United States to Europe and Japan may soon face fiscal shocks worse than any market crash. The White House and New York Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio aren't the only ones calling for higher taxes (especially on the wealthy), as voices from the International Monetary Fund to billionaire investor Bill Gross increasingly make the case too.

In his November investment commentary for bond giant Pimco, Mr. Gross asks the "Scrooge McDucks of the world" to accept higher personal income taxes and to stop expecting capital to be taxed at lower rates than labor. As for the IMF, its latest Fiscal Monitor report argues that taxing the wealthy offers "significant revenue potential at relatively low efficiency costs." The context for this argument is the IMF's expectation that in advanced economies the ratio of public debt to gross domestic product will reach a historic peak of 110% next year, 35 percentage points above its 2007 level........

What the IMF calls "revenue-maximizing top income tax rates" may be a good indication of how much further those rates could rise: As the IMF calculates, the average revenue-maximizing rate for the main Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development countries is around 60%, way above existing levels.

For the U.S., it is 56% to 71%—far more than the current 45% paid in federal, state and local taxes by those in the top tax bracket. The IMF singles out the U.S. as the country where raising top rates toward 70% (where they were before the Reagan tax cuts) would yield the most revenue—around 1.25% of GDP. And with a chilling candor, the IMF admits that its revenue-maximizing approach takes no account of the well-being of top earners (or their businesses).................

Of course these measures won't return the world's top economies to sustainable levels of debt. That could be achieved only through significant economic growth (the good way) or, as the IMF puts it, "by repudiating public debt or inflating it away" (the bad way). In October the IMF floated a bold idea that didn't get the attention it deserved: lowering sovereign debt levels through a one-off tax on private wealth.

As applied to the euro zone, the IMF claims that a 10% levy on households' positive net worth would bring public debt levels back to pre-financial crisis levels. Such a tax sounds crazy, but recall what happened in euro-zone country Cyprus this year: Holders of bank accounts larger than 100,000 euros had to incur losses of up to 100% on their savings above that threshold, in order to "bail-in" the bankrupt Mediterranean state. Japanese households, sitting on one of the world's largest pools of savings, have particular reason to worry about their assets: At 240% of GDP, their country's public debt ratio is more than twice that of Cyprus* when it defaulted.

From New York to London, Paris and beyond, powerful economic players are deciding that with an ever-deteriorating global fiscal outlook, conventional levels and methods of taxation will no longer suffice. That makes weapons of mass wealth destruction—such as the IMF's one-off capital levy, Cyprus's bank deposit confiscation, or outright sovereign defaults—likelier by the day."

In the early 1990's when we were basking in the warn glow of a post-USSR and supposedly post -Socialist world, I would have bet every dollar that I would ever earn that we would never see anything like this such a short amount of time. Today, I would bet the same, including all that I have earned previously, that we will indeed be facing exactly what I once believed would-never happen.

We are but inches away from a new worldwide Socialism.

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/02/obama-and-cronies-eye-seizing-401ks-etc.html

*http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/03/cyprus-stealing-citizens-money-in-bank.html

*http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/04/follow-up-of-account-theft-in-cyprus.html

NYT Plays 1984 Ministry of Truth With Bengahzi

The New York Times has long been a medium of the Left for the slow indoctrination of the US into the dark world of Socialism. It was that newspaper in which reports of the the horrors of the Khmer Rouge (Red Khmer/Cambodians) most inconspicuously absent. During the entire period of the slaughter that followed  "Year Zero", only three short references to the goings-on in the agriculturalist paradise  were to be included - and these were neatly tucked away in the back pages.

Recently, however, the Times has  taken to dropping any pretense of making any attempt to appear neutral. They, considering the state of the US electorate, understandably feel that the time is ripe for stepping up the pace to provide that extra nudge to Americans in order to encourage them to support their own enslavement:

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/11/nyt-obama-misspoke-about-keeping-health.html

In George Orwell's 1984, The main character Winston Smith is employed in a low-level position in the Ministry of Truth (Newspeak - Minitruth). One of his duties is to retrieve an edit from the newspaper archives reports that need to be changed to have them reflect, despite what was originally said or predicted, that which actually occurred later. If my memory serves me correctly, in one instance in the book, Smith has to edit a prediction of a successful agricultural harvest to have the government official  making a less-rosy prediction as the harvest did not turn out the way he thought it would.

With the record now showing that the minister made an accurate prediction, everything is now fine.

"Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past." - 1984

The immediate aftermath of the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi is known to all. Obama, Clinton and their stooges ran about teelingus that the attack developed pell-mell out of a protest about a movie critical of Mohammed. Hillary went to far to assure us that they would get the people who were responsible for this, which meant they who had made the movie, not committed the attack. 

They stuck with this story for several days, only changing their tune when they could no longer prop it up. They then switched gears, stating that Obama claimed from the beginning that the attack was a coordinated act of terrorists. The protective cloak around Obama was so thorough that even the moderator of the (second?) Obama/Romney debate went so far as to falsely claim that Obama did state from the beginning that it was a terror attack, giving Obama a helping hand and taking the momentum from Romney during that portion of the debate.   

Yesterday, the Times, apparently having conducted Warren Commission-style investigation of their own, has brought us back full circle. The Minitruth consensus is now the the original lie - that the reason for the attack was anger over a less than flattering depiction of Mohammed and that neither Al-Qaeda nor any other organized terror group had anything to do with the attack.

http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/benghazi/#/?chapt=0

".....The violence, though, also had spontaneous elements. Anger at the video motivated the initial attack. Dozens of people joined in, some of them provoked by the video and others responding to fast-spreading false rumors that guards inside the American compound had shot Libyan protesters. Looters and arsonists, without any sign of a plan, were the ones who ravaged the compound after the initial attack, according to more than a dozen Libyan witnesses as well as many American officials who have viewed the footage from security cameras......"

Others are not happy with this Orwellian revision of history:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/12/29/completely-false-sources-on-ground-in-benghazi-challenge-nyt-report/

".......But a New York Times report published over the weekend has angered sources who were on the ground that night. Those sources, who continue to face threats of losing their jobs, sharply challenged the Times’ findings that there was no involvement from Al Qaeda or any other international terror group and that an anti-Islam film played a role in inciting the initial wave of attacks.

“It was a coordinated attack. It is completely false to say anything else. … It is completely a lie,” one witness to the attack told Fox News.
The controversial Times report has stirred a community that normally remains out of sight and wrestles with how to reveal the truth, without revealing classified information.

Fox News has learned that the attack on the consulate started with fighters assembling to conduct an assault.

"Guys were coming into the compound, moving left, moving right…and using IMT (individual movement techniques). … That’s not a spontaneous attack,” one special operator said.

"One guy was shooting, one guy was running. There are guys watching the gates. … The bosses on the ground were pointing, commanding and coordinating -- that is a direct action planned attack."

The community of operators in Libya that night and since includes the CIA, FBI, U.S. military, U.S. State Department and contractors working for the United States in a number of capacities. According to multiple sources on the ground that night, all the intelligence personnel in Benghazi before the attack and there now understand Al Qaeda is a significant threat in Libya.

Recent reports also suggest that Libyan militia leader Ahmad Abu Khattallah is the mastermind of the attack and had no real connections to Al Qaeda or terrorist organizations.

Multiple sources, though, challenged that claim. They insist that while Khattallah was found responsible for the actions at the actual consulate and was essentially the ground force commander that night, he is also clearly tied to Ansar al-Sharia and to the broader terrorist network.

“There is direct evidence linking him before the attack and after the attack to terrorist groups. An opportunity came, and Khattallah conducted an assault on the consulate. To say that it wasn’t tied to Al Qaeda is completely false. There is literal evidence in many forms and shapes, directly linking him,” one source said......."

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/12/29/gop-rep-darrell-issa-challenges-ny-times-benghazi-claims-no-evidence-of-reaction-to-a-video-this-was-a-planned-attack/

"Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, challenged some of the claims stemming from a controversial New York Times investigative piece on the Benghazi attacks, primarily those that insisted an anti-Islamic video provoked hostilities there in September 2012.

Acknowledging that the Times did some good work on the article, Issa nevertheless insisted that “interviewing people in Benghazi after the fact, after the world has been told about this video, is really not real time,” Issa said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.

“So we have seen no evidence that the video was widely seen in Benghazi, a very isolated area, or that is was a leading cause.”...........

............ “The fact is people from this administration, career professionals, have said under oath there was no evidence of any kind of a reaction to a video and, in fact, this was a planned attack that came quickly,” Issa added.

“That’s the evidence we have by people who work for the U.S. government and were under oath.”..........."

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/12/29/house-intelligence-chair-new-york-times-benghazi-report-is-just-not-accurate/

"The head of the House Intelligence Committee who has contended the 2012 terror attack in Benghazi was led by Al Qaeda said Sunday that an extensive report published by the New York Times contradicting that claim is “just not accurate.”

“What did they get wrong?” host Chris Wallace asked Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) on “Fox News Sunday.”

“That al-Qaeda was not involved in this,” Rogers replied. “There was some level of pre-planning, we know that. There was aspiration to conduct an attack by Al Qaeda and their affiliates in Libya, we know that.”

“…would directly contradict what the New York Times definitively says was an exhaustive investigation.”


“The individuals on the ground talked about a planned tactical movement on the compound — even this is the compound before they went to the annex,” he continued. “All of that would directly contradict what the New York Times definitively says was an exhaustive investigation.”

Rogers, who as chair of the House Intelligence Committee receives regular classified briefings and has access to raw intelligence, said his committee has done an “exhaustive investigation” into the events surrounding the Benghazi attack which conflicts with the Times’ findings.

“It tells me they didn’t talk to the people on the ground who were doing the fighting and shooting and the intelligence gathering,” he told Wallace. “When you put that volume of information, I think it proves that story is just not accurate.”
“It tells me they didn’t talk to the people on the ground who were doing the fighting and shooting…”...........

At the time [Shortly after the attack], Rogers was also adamant that an anti-Islam video did not trigger the attack.

“Not a video, that whole part was debunked time and time again,” he said, “which just leads to questions of why the administration hung with that narrative for so long when all the folks who participated on the ground saw something different.”......"

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/12/29/i-read-this-report-i-was-really-incredulous-ex-cia-analyst-rips-nyt-benghazi-report/

"A former analyst for the CIA skewered the New York Times’ bombshell report on Benghazi Saturday, contending that it was a “politicized article” aimed at harming the GOP.

“I thought it was a politicized article,” Fred Fleitz told Fox News. “It tries to say that Anwar al-Sharia — that the Republican attempts to tie that to terrorism is a stretch, when even CNN says they’re at least sympathetic to Al Qaeda.”

Fleitz, who worked as a senior analyst at the CIA for nearly two decades before serving in the State Department, added that he thought the article was simply “an effort to revive this discredited theory that the anti-Islam video was behind” the deadly attacks.

“I read this report and I was really incredulous,” he said. “It seems to be an effort to revive this discredited theory that the anti-Islam video was behind it. But when you read behind the article closely, there’s various statements where the author seems to downplay the links to terrorist groups.”

“It seems to be an effort to revive this discredited theory that the anti-Islam video was behind it.”............"

The Left is waging a campaign against us, and the sooner that we admit this to ourselves, the better. 

End of USSR Followed by Dearth of Good Music

It's a common refrain - "Music was better in my day".

"Why do you need new bands? Everyone knows rock attained perfection in 1974. It's a scientific fact" - Homer Simpson

In the case of post 80's music, however, I think that there is more to it. I can look back to all of the decades from the 40's through the 80's and find numerous examples of good music and accompanying lyrics.

Like languages, architecture, and other forms of artwork, music can give us an idea of the mindset and feeling of the people who lived through their respective periods. The music of the Big Band era of the 1940's, for example, can easily make one feel the virtual confident euphoria of a United States that, by her convenient geographic position, powerful industrial and agricultural bases, and Anglo-American culture that could be turned towards destroying fascist tyranny. I think that the feeling of the still-confident but more exploratory, concerned about a possible war with the USSR , and ready to break-out with newfound freedoms such as privately-owned automobiles 1950's could best be represented  by songs such as Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire, and those by Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and Jerry Lee Lewis.

The 1980's was a decade in which music of solid quality came in all forms. Punk, Rock, Heavy Metal, New Wave, New Romantic, and all other variations and styles were available for the taking. Being one of them, I found that high school-age listeners of that era were rarely fixed on any one type of music in that period. Even Metal-Heads or other rockers would often be happy to hear 'Come on Eileen", 99 Luftballons", "Too Shy", Der Kommissar', or other songs - that in no way belonged to their favorite genres, on the radio. 

Americans eagerly listened to the music of bands from free Europe, and it's safe to assume that the feeling was mutual.

The advent of MTV in the United States provided an entirely new venue for new releases, and the portable cassette player (Sony Walkman) made listening to one's favorite a breeze.

By the 1990's when I was in my early 20's and still open to new music, I began to notice that few good songs were on the radio. MTV had already begun its descent into a forum for hedonism and acting as a mouthpiece for Democratic Party candidates. Grunge was the new style, joined by mind-numbing songs such as "My Prerogative" and "Ice, Ice Baby"*.

*[12/29/13 I should add that the only good part of Ice Ice Baby  was the music that was taken straight from David Bowie's Under Pressure]

It was years later when I came upon a possible correlation, and it hit me when I was reflecting on the end of the Punic Wars that were fought between Rome and her longtime enemy, Carthage.

Roman historians, looking back (as always) to see where things went wrong with a people known for patriotic, austere, and admittedly severe lifestyles, saw numerous occurrences that they (understandably) felt contributed to the decline of  morality, work ethic, and the new lack of willingness to serve in the legions.

The massive importation of slave labor created the latifundias, that in time forced the smallholder out of the farming business and into the city where he added to the number of people demanding welfare in the form of panem et circenses.  The reforms began by Marius, that were to eliminate the landowning requirement to for military service (very much like the crewmen of the earlier Athenian fleets) led to the shifting of loyalties from the Republic to the commanders of the landless soldiery. The constant flow of funds extorted from the newly-conquered provinces made elections of magistrates an issue almost purely of the amount of money on hand to buy votes.

There was also one more key factor that these historians noted:

The elimination of a powerful enemy state, one that had not only competed with Rome to become the supreme power in the region, but also came fairly close to forcing the Senate to come to humiliating terms (during the Second Punic War), removed from play the one factor that goes a long way to holding a people together and discourages them from abandoning their faith, love of country, and morality. 

The destruction of the last remnants of military power of  Carthage loosed the people from any fears of being ruled by a foreign power. Rome would have her problems in Spain, North Africa, and the regions north and east of Italy, but aside from the relatively brief invasions of the Cimbri and the Teutones (Gauls- not Germans as we know the word), Romans and other Italics (along with Greek cities in Italy and Sicily) no longer had any appreciable fear of an enemy marching to the Gates of Rome. They felt free to drop their strict lifestyle and enjoy themselves. They also became enervated and wanted lives free of hard work and long military campaigns. 

The 1980's was the last decade in which Western Europeans and Americans had to worry about a possible war with the Soviet Union. During that period we felt a certain connection with our elder cousins who lived in or close enough to the Fulda Gap to know that their way of life was a fragile one and could be blown to pieces in short order. This was particularly illustrated by the music of that era; 99 Luftballons is a classic case in point. The music of the 80's was marketed and listened to on both sides of the Atlantic. It also, like all art of a culture that has yet not reached its end, was full of life, stirred the soul as well as the mind, and made people feel even while knowing that our nations faced  threats far greater than terrorism.  

We also still naively believed that Communism was only a foreign threat.

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-berlin-wall-fell-but-marxism-as.html

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/11/follow-up-on-berlin-wall-post.html

My opinion (that term is rare on this blog) is that the marked decline in the quality of music, along with the even-more rapid decline in morality, work ethic, appreciation for one's nation and culture in the West, can be traced to the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. It is no accident that the worst forms of "art" in the US, such as "piss Christs" and "elephant dung Mary's",  came about after the dissolution of the USSR. College students, having no fear of any possible invasions of their countries, no longer felt the need to ignore their Leftist professors, who blandly assured them that Marxism just hasn't been "done right yet". It was time to abandon any emotional attachments to obsolete notions such as patriotism and morality grounded in religious beliefs. 

We began to act like the the people in the times of Noah or Lot, and we thumbed out noses at the possible consequences for our acts and omissions. We have long told ourselves that, aside from acts of terrorism, we have nothing to fear. 

I will leave the reader to go over the list of some of the best songs from the 80's and think about whether the period from 1990 until today has produced anything near the quality (and sheer amount) of songs that we were blessed to have in the 1980's. The list is mostly taken (with a few subtractions and additions by me) from the link below. It does not contain all of the songs which I feel were the best, but I did bold the ones that I think were liked by the widest range of young listeners. 

http://www.antimusic.com/news/06/oct/27.shtml
AC/DC, 'You Shook Me All Night Long'
After the Fire, 'Der Kommissar'
a-ha, 'Take on Me'
Air Supply, 'All Out of Love'
Air Supply, 'Making Love Out of Nothing at All'
Animotion, 'Obsession'
Asia, 'Heat of the Moment'
Asia, 'Don't Cry"'
Baltimora, 'Tarzan Boy'
Bananarama, 'Venus'
Beastie Boys, 'Fight for Your Right'
Belinda Carlisle, 'Circle in the Sand'
Belinda Carlisle, 'Heaven Is a Place on Earth'
Berlin, 'Take My Breath Away'
Big Country, 'In a Big Country'
Billy Idol, 'Dancing with Myself'
Billy Idol, 'Rebel Yell'
Billy Joel, 'It's Still Rock & Roll to Me'
Billy Joel, 'Uptown Girl'
Billy Joel, 'Pressure"
Billy Ocean, 'Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run)'
Billy Squier, 'The Stroke'
Blondie, 'Call Me'
Blondie, 'The Tide Is High'
Bonnie Tyler, 'Holding Out for a Hero'
Bonnie Tyler, 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'
Bryan Adams, 'Heaven'
Bryan Adams, 'Run to You'
Bryan Adams, 'Summer of '69'
Chaka Khan, 'I Feel for You'
Cheap Trick, 'I Want You to Want Me'
Cher, 'If I Could Turn Back Time'
Chicago, 'Stay the Night'
Chicago, 'Will You Still Love Me?'
Chicago 'You're the Inspiration'
Corey Hart, 'Sunglasses at Night'
Culture Club, 'Do You Really Want to Hurt Me'
Culture Club, 'Karma Chameleon'
Cutting Crew, '(I Just) Died in Your Arms [Extended Remix]'
Cyndi Lauper, 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun'
'Cyndi Lauper, 'Time After Time'

David Bowie, 'Let's Dance'
David Bowie, 'Modern Love'
David Bowie and Queen, 'Under Pressure'
DeBarge, 'Rhythm of the Night'
Debbie Gibson, 'Only in My Dreams'
Def Leppard, 'Bringin' on the Heartbreak"''
Def Leppard, 'Photograph'
Def Leppard "Rock of Ages"Def Leppard, 'Rock of Ages'
Deniece Williams, 'Let's Hear It for the Boy'
Devo, 'Whip It'
Dexys Midnight Runners, 'Come on Eileen'
Dire Straits, 'Money for Nothing'
Dire Straits, 'Walk of Life'
Don Henley, 'All She Wants to Do Is Dance'
Don Henley, 'Dirty Laundry'
Don Henley, 'The Boys of Summer'
Donna Summer, 'She Works Hard for the Money'
Duran Duran, 'Hungry Like the Wolf'
Duran Duran, 'Rio'
Duran Duran, 'The Reflex'
Duran Duran, 'Wild Boys'
Eddie Money, 'Take Me Home Tonight/Be My Baby'
Eddy Grant, 'Electric Avenue'
Elton John, 'I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues'
Elton John, 'I'm Still Standing'
Eric Carmen, 'Hungry Eyes'
Escape Club, 'Wild, Wild West'
Europe, 'The Final Countdown'
Eurythmics, 'Here Comes the Rain Again'
Eurythmics, 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)'
Falco, 'Rock Me Amadeus'
Foreigner, 'I Want to Know What Love Is'
Foreigner, 'Juke Box Hero'
Foreigner, 'That Was Yesterday'
Foreigner, 'Urgent'
Foreigner, 'Waiting for a Girl Like You'
Frankie Goes to Hollywood, 'Relax'

Genesis, 'Invisible Touch'
Genesis, 'Land of Confusion'
Genesis, 'That's All'
Genesis, 'Tonight, Tonight, Tonight'
Glenn Frey, 'You Belong To The City'
Golden Earring, 'Twilight Zone'
Guns N' Roses, 'Paradise City'
Guns N' Roses, 'Sweet Child O' Mine'
Guns N' Roses, 'Welcome to the Jungle'
Hall & Oates, 'Kiss on My List'
Heart, 'All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You'
Heart, 'These Dreams'
Heart, 'What About Love?'
INXS, 'Devil Inside'
Irene Cara, 'Flashdance...What a Feeling'
J. Geils Band, 'Centerfold'
Jackson Browne, 'Somebody's Baby'
Janet Jackson, 'Miss You Much'
Janet Jackson, 'What Have You Done for Me Lately'
Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, 'I Hate Myself for Loving You'
Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, 'I Love Rock N' Roll'
John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band, 'On the Dark Side'
John Mellencamp, 'Jack and Diane'
John Parr, 'St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)'
John Waite, 'Missing You'
Johnny Hates Jazz, 'Shattered Dreams'
Jose Feliciano 'Feliz Navidad" 
Journey, 'Don't Stop Believin''
Journey, 'Faithfully'
Journey, 'Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)'
Juice Newton, 'Angel Of The Morning'
Kajagoogoo, 'Too Shy'
Katrina & the Waves, 'Walking on Sunshine'
Kenny Loggins, 'Danger Zone'
Kenny Loggins, 'Footloose'
Kenny Loggins, 'I'm Free (Heaven Helps The Man)'
Kim Carnes, 'Bette Davis Eyes'
Kim Wilde, 'You Keep Me Hangin' On'
Kool & the Gang, 'Celebration'
Laura Branigan, 'Gloria'
Lionel Richie, 'All Night Long'
Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, 'Lost in Emotion'
Lita Ford, 'Close My Eyes Forever'
Los Lobos, 'La Bamba'
Madness, 'Our House'
Madonna, 'Borderline'
Madonna, 'Crazy for You'
Madonna, 'Dress You Up'
Madonna, 'Into the Groove'
Madonna, 'La Isla Bonita'
Madonna, 'Like a Virgin'
Madonna, 'Lucky Star'
Madonna, 'Material Girl'
Madonna, 'Papa Don't Preach'
Madonna, 'True Blue'
Madonna, 'Who's That Girl'
Martika, 'Toy Soldiers'
Men at Work, 'Down Under'
Men at Work, 'Who Can It Be Now?'
Men Without Hats, 'The Safety Dance'
Michael Jackson, 'Beat It'
Michael Jackson, 'Billie Jean'
Michael Jackson, 'P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)'
Michael Jackson, 'Thriller'
Michael Sembello, 'Maniac'
Midnight Oil, 'Beds Are Burning'
Mike + the Mechanics, 'All I Need Is a Miracle'
Mr. Mister, 'Broken Wings'
Mr. Mister, 'Kyrie'
Murray Head, 'One Night in Bangkok'
Naked Eyes, 'Always Something There to Remind Me'
Naked Eyes, 'Promises, Promises'
Nena, '99 Luftballons'
Night Ranger, 'Sister Christian'
Olivia Newton-John, 'Physical'
Pat Benatar, 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot'
Pat Benatar, 'Love Is a Battlefield'
Patty Smyth "The Warrior"
Paul McCartney, 'Say Say Say'
Paul Young, 'Everytime You Go Away'
Paula Abdul, 'Forever Your Girl'
Pet Shop Boys, 'It's a Sin'
Pet Shop Boys, 'West End Girls'
Pete Townshend, 'Let My Love Open the Door'
Peter Schilling, 'Major Tom (Coming Home)'
Phil Collins, 'Against All Odds'
Phil Collins, 'Easy Lover'
Phil Collins, 'One More Night'
Phil Collins, 'Sussudio'
Phil Collins, 'You Can't Hurry Love'
Power Station, 'Some Like It Hot'
Prince, 'Little Red Corvette'
Prince & the Revolution, 'I Would Die 4 U'
Prince & the Revolution, 'Let's Go Crazy'
Prince & the Revolution, 'When Doves Cry"
Queen, 'Another One Bites the Dust'
Quiet Riot, 'Cum on Feel the Noize"
Ray Parker, Jr, 'Ghostbusters'
Real Life, 'Send Me an Angel'
REO Speedwagon, 'Keep on Loving You'
Rick James, 'Super Freak'
Rick Springfield, 'Jessie's Girl'
Rockwell, 'Somebody's Watching Me'
Rod Stewart, 'Some Guys Have All the Luck'
Roxette, 'Listen to Your Heart'
Run-D.M.C., 'Walk This Way' (feat. Steven Tyler and Joe Perry)
Rush "Subdivisions" 
Rush "Tom Sawyer"
Rush 'Red Barchetta"
Scandal, 'The Warrior'
Scorpions, 'No One Like You'
Scorpions, 'Rock You Like a Hurricane'
Shannon, 'Let the Music Play'
Simple Minds, 'Don't You (Forget About Me)'
Skid Row, '18 and Life'
Sly Fox, 'Let's Go All the Way'
Soft Cell, 'Tainted Love'
Spandau Ballet 'True'
Stacey Q, 'Two of Hearts'
Starship, 'Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now'
Steve Miller Band, 'Abracadabra'
Stevie Nicks, 'Stand Back'
Stevie Wonder, 'Part-Time Lover'
Styx, 'Mr. Roboto'
Styx, 'Too Much Time on My Hands'
Survivor, 'Eye Of The Tiger'
Survivor, 'High on You'
Talk Talk, 'It's My Life'
Talking Heads, 'Burning Down the House'
Tears for Fears, 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World'
Tears for Fears, 'Shout'
The Alan Parsons Project, 'Eye in the Sky'
The B-52's, 'Love Shack'
The Bangles, 'Manic Monday'
The Bangles, 'Walk Like an Egyptian'
The Beach Boys, 'Kokomo'
The Cars, 'Magic'
The Cars, 'Shake It Up'
The Cars, 'You Might Think'
The Clash, 'Rock the Casbah'
The Clash, 'Should I Stay Or Should I Go'
The Dream Academy, 'Life in a Northern Town"
The Fixx, 'One Thing Leads to Another'
The Fixx, 'Saved by Zero'
The Go-Go's, 'Our Lips Are Sealed'
The Go-Go's, 'Vacation'
The Go-Go's, 'We Got the Beat'
The Human League, 'Don't You Want Me'
The Knack, 'My Sharona'
The Moody Blues 'Your Wildest Dreams'
The Motels, 'Only the Lonely'
Pointer Sisters, 'I'm So Excited'
The Police, 'Don't Stand So Close to Me'
The Police, 'Every Breath You Take'
The Police, 'King of Pain'
The Police, 'Wrapped Around Your Finger'
The Romantics, 'Talking in Your Sleep'
Spandau Ballet "True"
Thompson Twins, 'Doctor! Doctor!'
Thompson Twins, 'Hold Me Now'
'Til Tuesday, 'Voices Carry'
Tina Turner, 'Better Be Good to Me'
Tommy Tutone, '867-5309/Jenny'
Toni Basil, 'Mickey'
Toto, 'Africa'
Toto, 'Rosanna'
Tubes, 'She's A Beauty'

Twisted Sister, 'We're Not Gonna Take It'

U2, 'Sunday Bloody Sunday'
U2, 'Where the Streets Have No Name'
USA for Africa, 'We Are the World'
Van Halen, 'Jump'
Van Halen, 'Panama'
Wang Chung, 'Everybody Have Fun Tonight'
Wham!, 'Careless Whisper'
Whitesnake, 'Here I Go Again'
Yes, 'Owner of a Lonely Heart'
ZZ Top, 'Sharp Dressed Man'

Fast and Furious Whistleblower - FBI Cooperated with Cartels Responsible for Brian Terry's Murder

The Fast and Furious gun-running scheme was one of the earliest crimes of the Obama administration (earlier posts at bottom). Ostensibly created with the purpose of stopping the trafficking of firearms into the hands of Mexican cartels, it actually facilitated that which it was purported to prevent. Desirous of making the case that the US needed to enact more restrictive firearm laws, members of cartels were allowed not only to come into possession of firearms that had been purchased in the US, they were also also not prevented from keeping them, nor were they arrested.

The idea was insidious yet simple - do traces only of weapons that clearly had been manufactured in the US ( Mexican cartels have many more weapons from other nations than from the US but tracing these would not make us look bad), triumphantly proclaim that the results show that the cartels would  have far fewer weapons if the US banned most firearms, and take that case to the mob (the sheep-like people of the US) to justify new gun bans.

http://www.nrapublications.org/index.php/12629/standing-guard-24/

".......That proof is in an email boasting of gun traces held secret from Mexican authorities—part of the U.S. Justice Department’s criminal conspiracy to run guns from U.S. retailers to Mexico.

“Some of these weapons bought by these clowns in Arizona have been directly traced to murders of elected officials in Mexico by the cartels, so Katie-bar-the-door when we unveil this baby.”

["Katie-bar-the-door" was written to mock the possible reactions of pro-gun organizations and individuals to the news that the US government now had good reasons to push through new gun laws]

"Those are the words of Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke in an April 2010 email to a colleague boasting about the propaganda value of his “Operation Fast and Furious” and predicting its huge public impact.

The “clowns,” in fact, were sanctioned criminals reportedly funded with federal money to break federal firearm and smuggling laws ostensibly under Burke’s supervision. In that “gun-walking” operation, Obama administration operatives encouraged, bankrolled and oversaw repeated felonies at gun stores and at border crossings with criminals smuggling at least 1,700 firearms into Mexican drug-fueled criminal commerce.

Knowledge of the scheme was withheld not only from Mexican authorities, but from U.S. law enforcement officials assigned to Mexico. So the claim that the operation was designed to “interdict” illegal guns is breathtakingly false—all to create new U.S. gun control......"

One of those weapons was later used to murder US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December of 2010. 
In our era, where one's own career and financial security rules our decision-making processes, a whistelblower such as former ATF agent John Dodson only comes along but rarely. It was he who first went public with reports on the operation and the part that it played in the murder of a good cop.

Now Dodson has come forward with details about the operation that are even more chilling:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/12/27/atf-agent-sends-shockwaves-across-internet-with-explosive-allegations-about-fast-and-furious-and-brian-terrys-death/

"John Dodson, the federal agent who blew the lid off the Justice Department’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking scandal, claims the FBI had ties to the men who killed U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in 2010 near Nogales, Ariz. In fact, Dodson says the Mexican bandits who gunned down Terry were working for FBI operatives and had been sent to the border to do a “drug rip-off” using intelligence gathered by the DEA.

Dodson, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said he doesn’t think the FBI was part of the rip-off crew, but the agency was “directing the rip crew.” The explosive claims were made in an interview with The Arizona Republic this week and are already creating some waves across the Internet.

The allegations are also found in Dodson’s recently released book, “The Unarmed Truth,” which chronicles his role as a whistleblower during Operation Fast and Furious. The Obama administration unsuccessfully tried to block the publication of his book...........

After the Terry slaying and an attempted cover-up within the Justice Department, Dodson provided evidence and testimony to Congress. His revelations, later verified by an Office of the Inspector General’s report, ignited a national scandal over Fast and Furious that resulted in a congressional contempt citation against Attorney General Eric Holder and the replacement of top ATF and Justice Department officials.

In his book, Dodson uses cautious language to characterize his account of circumstances surrounding Terry’s death, saying the information is based on firsthand knowledge, personal opinion and press reports. He asserts that the DEA had information about, and may have orchestrated, a large drug shipment through Peck Canyon that December night. He alleges that DEA agents shared that intelligence with FBI counterparts, who advised criminal informants from another cartel that the load would be “theirs for the taking.”

Dodson laid out a strategy in which federal law enforcement agencies, like the FBI, allow criminal activity in order to increase the clout of FBI informants embedded within cartel organizations.

“If they can get these guys (informants) in a position so they’re closer to the Tier 1 or Tier 2 guy (in the cartel), they’ll do it. They want to make these guys (operatives) rock stars,” he said.........
“Essentially, the United States government is involved in cartel-building,” Dodson said.)...........

“(They) were given carte blanche to continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs into Chicago and the rest of the United States and were also protected by the United States government from arrest and prosecution in return for providing information against rival cartels which helped Mexican and United States authorities capture or kill thousands of rival cartel members,” the defense motion in the case reads......"

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2011/10/fast-and-furious-lapierre-speaks-out.html

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/06/justice-department-not-to-prosecute.html

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/10/obama-holder-dealt-legal-blow-on-fast.html

Car Bomb in Iraq Kills 24 as Worshipers Leave Christmas Celebration

This is nothing new in the Middle and Near East. Although the press has occasionally reported on attacks in Nigeria by Boko Haram, the regions in which some of the world's oldest Christian communities have been for the most part ignored by a compliant and Islam-friendly western media.

While we in the US are content with destroying our faith by apathy, spending our Christmas season attacking religious institutions for doing their jobs*(at bottom) or otherwise reveling in our safe society that we no longer deserve, Christians who have kept the faith are persecuted the most.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/12/christmas-in-iraq-islamic-jihadists-murder-at-least-24-people-with-bomb-attacks-in-christian-areas.html


".....Christmas bomb attacks kill 34 in Baghdad's Christian areas," from the Reuters, December 25 (thanks to Filip):

At least 34 people were killed in bomb attacks in Christian areas of Baghdad on Wednesday, some by a car bomb that exploded near a church after a Christmas service, police and medics said.

The car bomb killed at least 24 people, most of them Christian, when worshippers were leaving the church in the Doura district of southern Baghdad, police sources said................

The minority Christian community has been a target of attacks by al Qaeda militants in the past, including a 2010 attack on a church that killed dozens of people.

Two bombs also went off in a crowded market in a separate, mostly Christian area in Doura, killing another ten people, police and medics said.

At least 52 people were wounded in the attacks....."

This has been going on for some time:

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2011/12/more-violence-against-christian-in-iraq.html

http://www.christiansofiraq.com/hearingaboutattacks-againstchristiansof-iraqandegypt.html

http://www.aina.org/ (various articles on attacks on Christians) 

As Christians refugees from Syria are not Muslims and thus never considered to be an oppressed people, applications for visas have reportedly been denied:

http://www.aina.org/news/20131226203645.htm

"Christian Syrian refugees have found temporary shelter in Jordan, but their immigration requests have been rejected by Western countries.........

One Syrian refugee said, "Everyone sold whatever they owned in Syria in order to get here, so that we could apply for visas at an embassy. We were all surprised to be rejected on the basis that there was no reason for us to go to Europe. Their reasons were all false - nothing correct in them."

Another man said that western countries "were supposed to support us, and they were supposed to facilitate our immigration process as Christians, and I'm very sad that they haven't."

About 70 Syrian families, who fled the violence and civil war of their homeland, are staying in halls and extra rooms of an Assyrian church in the capital Amman. Though the families are receiving food, aid and money from the church, they say the living conditions are difficult and they do not have enough heat to keep warm. Christmas Day lacked the traditional happiness and joy one usually finds during the Holiday season "I can't feel happy about Christmas while our country is bleeding," one refugee said....."

*http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/12/pope-francis-removes-conservative.html

The following excerpt is in the second part of the post on the above link.

".........The institution of marriage has been  made to mean virtually nothing. So successful has been the war on our youth in this regard that even students of a Catholic school have taken to reducing Christ to the polar opposite of the teacher who directed the woman caught in adultery to "Go and sin no more":

http://abcnews.go.com/US/alumni-parents-fight-gay-administrators-catholic-school-job/story?id=21305512

"Alumni, students and parents from a Seattle Catholic school are fighting to have a revered vice principal reinstated, after school officials discovered his marriage to another man.

Supporters of Mark Zmuda vowed to pull funds from Eastside Catholic High School, after the school sent out a letter announcing he had resigned and calling his marriage a violation of his contract, which requires a strict adherence to a Catholic code.

"Shame on you!" wrote a passionate alumnus on the Eastside Catholic High School Alumni Facebook page in response to the school's letter.

"Not only is this type of homophobic behavior completely antiquated, it sets a horrible example for all students present and past of tolerance and acceptance," Jessica Lesser from the class of 1994 wrote. "Our own pope has a very different message for our Church: 'If someone is gay and seeks the Lord with good will, who am I to judge?' - Pope Francis."

Florence Colburn, whose son -- who she called "politically astute" -- instigated the school-wide rally protesting Zmuda's dismissal, has retracted contributions to the school and says her daughter, a sophomore, is questioning whether she wants to enroll there next year.

"We have been at the school for seven years, and by far [Mark] is the best administrator that I've ever seen there," Colburn told ABC News. "As a mentor, and a coach, and a colleague, and a human being, there's not a better person. I think that's why uproar was so fast and furious. There's nothing anyone can reproach this man."........"

The actions of these individuals who have abandoned their adherence to Catholic teaching and thought are sickening. Note the (again Orwellian) use of "Shame on you" in protest of a move to remove someone who was clearly substantially devoid enough of shame to "marry" another of the same gender. If an individual in engaging  in a lifestyle that includes homosexual acts, he, like an adulterer, can stop. When, however, that person takes the massive step of turning his practices into a publicly recognized "marriage", he has determined to continue on that path for a long time.

Catholics in Western nation, and particularly in the US, have dropped their faith - plain and simple. They have no problem with their children having sex out side of marriage, procuring abortions for those inconvenient pregnancies, and the routine use of artificial contraception. Having temporal blessings a-plenty, they cheefully ignore the parts of Christianity that do not suit their plans to enjoy life.

-and they call shame upon they who do protect the teachings and dignity of the Church.

While this is going on, the man who sits in The Chair of Peter assures us that all of this is really no big deal and implies that the only things that we need to do for God is to just keep giving away that for which we have labored:...."

Pope Francis Suggests Mary Had Blasphemy in her Mind

The raison d'être of this blog, as the heading makes clear, is to expose the threats to Western Civilization.

Pope Francis holds the highest office in one of the crucial factors that contribute to the unique civilization that has as its roots the history, traditions, and beliefs from ancient Greece and Rome, Northern Europe, and Christianity, and elements of Judaism - particularly political ones, that were not filtered through Christian thought.

I have noted in previous posts that Mainline Protestant Churches have far more in common with the Catholic Church than they do with Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christianity. The latter, with their drastic changes to the place of baptism in the life of the believer, their quite modern insistence in the "once saved. always saved", doctrine of salvation, and their utter lack of appreciation for either anything that predates - or is not directly related to, the Christianity of their own definitions puts them in a category that in its own way stands in contrast with Western Culture almost as much as do Marxism, Atheism, Islam, and the movements to restore European culture without the key element of the Church.

What must be remembered, however, is that there are many key operators withing the Catholic Church herself who not only also stand outside of Western Culture but also seek to cut the ties between the Church and the culture of the West - the one that protected and contributed to the formation of the Church in so many ways for almost two thousand years.

Not content with this, Pope Francis is apparently seeking to tear the church from - not only Western Culture, but also Christianity itself.

Theologians and other Christian writers have sought to explain the incredible range of thoughts that must have run through the mind of the Mother of God. The maid of Nazareth, by her freely-given agreement became a type of second Eve. She lived the rest of her life shortly after the birth of Christ recalling the words of the righteous man Simeon  "....Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against  (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed......" Luke @:33-24, and later grieved as she suffered that which even Abraham was ultimately spared with his son Isaac.

Our Lady was certainty experiencing unimaginable grief, but as the first true believer in the mission of her Son, she would have at least still have had faith, just as the grieving Patriarch had when he obeyed God's command to sacrifice his son born of the promise - and even in the moments leading up to the point when he would bind Isaac".....God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son....." Genesis 22:8.

No doubt she remembered her reply to Gabriel from three decades before - ".....let it be to me according to your word." Luke 1:38.

Pope Francis will have none of that simple faith nonsense - he postulates that Mary was thinking quite different thoughts - and falsely brings in the late John Paul II as a co-conspirator in his crime:

http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2013/12/20/pope:_silence_guards_ones_relationship_with_god/en1-757349

“.....The Gospel does not tell us anything: if she spoke a word or not… She was silent, but in her heart, how many things told the Lord! ‘You, that day, this and the other that we read, you had told me that he would be great, you had told me that you would have given him the throne of David, his forefather, that he would have reigned forever and now I see him there!’ Our Lady was human! And perhaps she even had the desire to say: ‘Lies! I was deceived!’ John Paul II would say this, speaking about Our Lady in that moment.  [read below for correction of Francis' slander of Pope John Paul II]. But she, with her silence, hid the mystery that she did not understand and with this silence allowed for this mystery to grow and blossom in hope.......”

-Earlier in Pope Francis' rule I would have been willing to suggest that he misspoke. As I have noted in my previous posts on his statements (links included in yesterday's post), however, no one makes that many mistakes, especially of such magnitude.

This was no mistake - Pope Francis is no friend of Christianity.

http://eponymousflower.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/lies-i-was-cheated-pope-francis-daring.html


 "The daring [To refer to this is as daring is frighteningly generous]  interpretation that Pope Francis gives to Mary's silence, gives rise spontaneously to two questions.The first question that imposes itself is: In what document or speech is Pope John Paul II to have put such words of the Virgin Mother of God in her mouth?

Some searching and consultation of a colleague proved successful. The passage refers to the Encyclical Redemptoris Mater of the Polish pope about the Blessed Virgin Mary in the life of the Pilgrim Church. But what Pope Francis says his predecessor John Paul II may have said, does not correspond to what John Paul II said. The difference in content and language is astounding. Here are the words of John Paul II in the original:

John Paul II said something else

'This blessing reaches its full meaning when Mary stands beneath the Cross of her Son (cf. Jn. 19:25). The Council says that this happened "not without a divine plan": by "suffering deeply with her only-begotten Son and joining herself with her maternal spirit to his sacrifice, lovingly consenting to the immolation of the victim to whom she had given birth," in this way Mary "faithfully preserved her union with her Son even to the Cross."38 It is a union through faith- the same faith with which she had received the angel's revelation at the Annunciation. At that moment she had also heard the words: "He will be great...and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end" (Lk. 1:32-33).

And now, standing at the foot of the Cross, Mary is the witness, humanly speaking, of the complete negation of these words. On that wood of the Cross her Son hangs in agony as one condemned. "He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows...he was despised, and we esteemed him not": as one destroyed (cf. Is. 53:3- 5). How great, how heroic then is the obedience of faith shown by Mary in the face of God's "unsearchable judgments"! How completely she "abandons herself to God" without reserve, offering the full assent of the intellect and the will"39 to him whose "ways are inscrutable" (cf. Rom. 11:33)! And how powerful too is the action of grace in her soul, how all-pervading is the influence of the Holy Spirit and of his light and power!

Through this faith Mary is perfectly united with Christ in his self- emptying. For "Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men": precisely on Golgotha "humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross" (cf. Phil. 2:5-8). At the foot of the Cross Mary shares through faith in the shocking mystery of this self- emptying. This is perhaps the deepest "kenosis" of faith in human history. Through faith the Mother shares in the death of her Son, in his redeeming death; but in contrast with the faith of the disciples who fled, hers was far more enlightened. On Golgotha, Jesus through the Cross definitively confirmed that he was the "sign of contradiction" foretold by Simeon. At the same time, there were also fulfilled on Golgotha the words which Simeon had addressed to Mary: "and a sword will pierce through your own soul also.'

[ Redemptoris Mater, 18]"

- The portrayal of the Mother of God given by Pope Francis reminds me of a non-Christian version of a Christian story written by an individual who wants to portray a person of faith in the worst light possible. 

Pope Francis Removes Conservative Cardinal From Key Committee

I will allow that we of course are not privy to the whole story behinds this move and that the Liberal media are giving their all to portray Pope Francis to be the pontiff of their dreams, but the pieces of the puzzle do appear to be coming together and the picture in indeed a bleak one.

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/world/europe/pope-replaces-conservative-us-cardinal-on-influential-vatican-committee.html?hpw&rref=world&_r=2&

ROME — Pope Francis moved on Monday against a conservative American cardinal who has been an outspoken critic of abortion and same-sex marriage, by replacing him on a powerful Vatican committee with another American who is less identified with the culture wars within the Roman Catholic Church.

The pope’s decision to remove Cardinal Raymond L. Burke from the Congregation for Bishops was taken by church experts to be a signal that Francis is willing to disrupt the Vatican establishment in order to be more inclusive.

Even so, many saw the move less as an effort to change doctrine on specific social issues than an attempt to bring a stylistic and pastoral consistency to the church’s leadership.

“He is saying that you don’t need to be a conservative to become a bishop,” said Alberto Melloni, the director of the John XXIII Foundation for Religious Studies in Bologna, Italy, a liberal Catholic research institute. “He wants good bishops, regardless of how conservative or liberal they are.” [Note the Orwellian word-play]

Cardinal Burke, who came to the Vatican in 2008 after serving as archbishop of St. Louis, is a favorite of many conservative Catholics in the United States for his upholding of church rites and traditions favored by Pope Benedict XVI. Cardinal Burke’s preference for the long train of billowing red silk known as cappa magna, and other such vestments, has, however, made him seem out of step with Francis, who has made it clear through example that he prefers more humble attire.

Last week, Cardinal Burke also seemed to create more substantive daylight between himself and the pope, giving an interview in which he raised concerns about comments by Francis that the church should reduce the focus on abortion and same-sex marriage.

“One gets the impression, or it’s interpreted this way in the media, that he thinks we’re talking too much about abortion, too much about the integrity of marriage as between one man and one woman,” Cardinal Burke said of the pope in an interview with EWTN, a Catholic broadcaster. “But we can never talk enough about that.”..............

Cardinal Burke still serves as the prefect of the Vatican’s highest canonical court, but analysts say his removal from the Congregation for Bishops will sharply reduce his influence, especially over personnel changes in American churches.
“The Congregation for Bishops is the most important congregation in the Vatican,” said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a Jesuit priest and the author of “Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church.”

“It decides who are going to be the bishops all over the world,” he added. “This is what has the most direct impact on the life of the local church.”

To replace Cardinal Burke, Francis chose Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, an ideological moderate[Read - he will allow the left to run wild, both against and within Church] with a deep knowledge of the Vatican but also with pastoral experience. Father Reese noted that Cardinal Burke had been a leader of American bishops arguing that Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should be barred from receiving communion, while Cardinal Wuerl had taken an opposite tack.

“That certainly is in line with the pope, who has said that communion is not a reward for being good,” Father Reese said. “It is a sacrament of healing to help people.” [More Orwellian word-play. The Eucharist is to be received by those who are not in a state of mortal sin; supporting murders of the unborn in order to protect your job is not an excuse.]...........

Asked whether all of the pope’s changes mattered if Cardinal Burke still had such influence in appointing bishops, Cardinal Wuerl smiled.

“Don’t we have to give this pope time?” he said. 

[What Wuerl is trying to say is that things are going great for his types.]

The Catholic Church is facing far greater threats in Western nations than she has seen in many centuries. 

The institution of marriage has been  made to mean virtually nothing. So successful has been the war on our youth in this regard that even students of a Catholic school have taken to reducing Christ to the polar opposite of the teacher who directed the woman caught in adultery to "Go and sin no more":

http://abcnews.go.com/US/alumni-parents-fight-gay-administrators-catholic-school-job/story?id=21305512

"Alumni, students and parents from a Seattle Catholic school are fighting to have a revered vice principal reinstated, after school officials discovered his marriage to another man.

Supporters of Mark Zmuda vowed to pull funds from Eastside Catholic High School, after the school sent out a letter announcing he had resigned and calling his marriage a violation of his contract, which requires a strict adherence to a Catholic code.

"Shame on you!" wrote a passionate alumnus on the Eastside Catholic High School Alumni Facebook page in response to the school's letter.

"Not only is this type of homophobic behavior completely antiquated, it sets a horrible example for all students present and past of tolerance and acceptance," Jessica Lesser from the class of 1994 wrote. "Our own pope has a very different message for our Church: 'If someone is gay and seeks the Lord with good will, who am I to judge?' - Pope Francis."

Florence Colburn, whose son -- who she called "politically astute" -- instigated the school-wide rally protesting Zmuda's dismissal, has retracted contributions to the school and says her daughter, a sophomore, is questioning whether she wants to enroll there next year.

"We have been at the school for seven years, and by far [Mark] is the best administrator that I've ever seen there," Colburn told ABC News. "As a mentor, and a coach, and a colleague, and a human being, there's not a better person. I think that's why uproar was so fast and furious. There's nothing anyone can reproach this man."........"

The actions of these individuals who have abandoned their adherence to Catholic teaching and thought are sickening. Note the (again Orwellian) use of "Shame on you" in protest of a move to remove someone who was clearly substantially devoid enough of shame to "marry" another of the same gender. If an individual in engaging  in a lifestyle that includes homosexual acts, he, like an adulterer, can stop. When, however, that person takes the massive step of turning his practices into a publicly recognized "marriage", he has determined to continue on that path for a long time.

Catholics in Western nation, and particularly in the US, have dropped their faith - plain and simple. They have no problem with their children having sex out side of marriage, procuring abortions for those inconvenient pregnancies, and the routine use of artificial contraception. Having temporal blessings a-plenty, they cheefully ignore the parts of Christianity that do not suit their plans to enjoy life.

-and they call shame upon they who do protect the teachings and dignity of the Church.

While this is going on, the man who sits in The Chair of Peter assures us that all of this is really no big deal and implies that the only things that we need to do for God is to just keep giving away that for which we have labored:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/12/22/pope-urges-anti-austerity-protesters-during-weekly-blessing-to-seek-dialogue/

".......The pope read aloud one of their banners: "The poor cannot wait." He urged everyone from charities to Italian authorities "to do everything possible so that every family can have a house" this holiday season......"

For the record, I have yet to read one concrete statement from Pope Francis about turning away from sin and towards the Gospel. The only time that the man mentions the Gospel is when he talks about material help for others. I could live with very little, but that will not work for my children who need some financial support as I chose to raise them in a nation in which you will likely be a dead-broke adult if you do not obtain an education after high school. 

People will leave the Church and either become irreligious, or they will, sadly, join Evangelical or Fundamentalist church bodies if the Pope does not take a stand for the teachings that he has the obligation to protect.

-Previous posts on Pope Francis and his dealings:

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/09/pope-francis-bringing-church-western.html

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/10/pope-francis-papal-train-wreck.html

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/10/pope-francis-iconoclast.html

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/12/pope-francis-some-marxists-are-good.html

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/10/pope-francis-follow-up.html

Draconian Ohio Homeschooling Bill Withdrawn

The Left detests homeschooling as it denies them the main thing that all Leftists need - control. Many parents who are weary of what kids are being told in public schools and are rightfully concerned that "sight word" reading programs virtually guarantee a functional illiterate adult, have been moving towards teaching their children in a home environment.

In Ohio, a Senate bill was proposed that would give the Left and their allies the edge that they needed to make homeschooling subject to a litany of investigations and require approval by social services. It was reported today that the bill was withdrawn (first link below), but the very fact that it was introduced in the first place is a frightening portent for the future.

The ostensible justification for this bill was the horrific beatings and eventual murder of a young boy at the hands of his mother's boyfriend, who took her child out of public school after teachers had already reported that they believed that the boy was the victim of abuse.

So, a case in which either social services, the cops, or both, failed to save a kid is used as a reason to employ the coercive power of the state to make the decision to home-school subject to the purely arbitrary whims of social workers.

The child's murder had nothing at all to do with homeschooling, but the Left has never let the facts get in the way of their plans to enslave the People.

http://watchdog.org/121788/ohio-homeschooling-withdrawn/

http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/oh/201312170.asp

"Worst-Ever Homeschool Law Proposed in Ohio


With the introduction of Senate Bill 248 on December 3, 2013, by Senator Capri Cafaro, Ohio has suddenly become a frontline in the battle over homeschooling freedom.

SB 248 is breathtakingly onerous in its scope. It requires all parents who homeschool to undergo a social services investigation which would ultimately determine if homeschooling would be permitted. Social workers would have to interview parents and children separately, conduct background checks and determine whether homeschooling is recommended or not. If it is not recommended, parents would have to submit to an “intervention” before further consideration of their request to homeschool.

SB 248 was offered by sponsors as a way to respond to the death of 14-year-old Teddy Foltz-Tedesco in January 2013. News reports indicate that Teddy had been abused for years by his mother’s boyfriend, Zaryl Bush. After teachers reported abuse to authorities, Teddy’s mother withdrew him from public school, allegedly to homeschool him. Reports tell a sad story of a broken home where neighbors, friends, family, police, teachers and others knew Teddy was suffering ongoing abuse. Finally, Bush beat Teddy so severely that he later died of his injuries. Both Bush and Teddy’s mother are now in prison. A news report can be found online...........

In recent years HSLDA has observed numerous attempts to severely restrict homeschooling in state legislatures around the country. In response to a growing number of academic critics, Michael Farris wrote “Tolerance and Liberty: Answering the Academic Left’s Challenge to Homeschooling Freedom.” Published in the Peabody Journal of Education and available online, Farris articulates why laws like SB 248 are unnecessary and un-American. His response to these critics who have proposed radical constraints on homeschooling freedom puts this latest attempt in the proper context.

Teddy Foltz-Tedesco was killed because those responsible for protecting him did not step in as the law or common sense would have dictated. Why? Although news reports indicate that abuse had been reported for years prior to Teddy’s death, it does not appear that any serious intervention was made by government authorities charged with investigating such allegations. Why was not enough done to protect Teddy from known abuse?

Even if, as SB 248 would require, his mother had sought social service’s approval to homeschool and was denied, he still would have been at home subject to abuse after school. Regardless of where he went to school, Teddy was left by authorities in a home where they knew abuse was occurring.

Clearly, SB 248 would not have saved Teddy..........


Rather than target tens of thousands of decent Ohioans who homeschool, policymakers like Cafaro should try to discover what prevented police and social workers who knew what was going on from taking action and faithfully enforcing Ohio’s already adequate child protection laws. This bill is misguided and a step in the wrong direction........."

Methodist Pastor Defrocked for Officiating Gay "Marriage"

In a sort of follow-up to the post concerning the sacking of Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson, we have a Methodist (now-ex) minister who decided that the Methodist Church had no authority to refrain from approving gay marriages. Typical of the new radicals, who will not leave organizations that actually support core teachings but rather will stay to destroy the edifice from within, he performed a marriage ceremony for his son. He then promptly refused to recognize his defrocking that followed and stated that he will not leave the position that he no longer has.

Again, this is how the Left and their allies have worked for the last few decades. In the past, if one hated the teachings of abortion, they would simply leave the church. Saul Alinky's followers, however, have realized that that can do far more damage by remaining in place and tearing the place apart by actions and words that are often more contrary to (for example) church teaching than what would be done or said by a secular person. The damage is all the more effective as the individual has the advantage of being able to pretend that he is a true member of his respective organization.

I even see this with radical feminists who, desperately wanting priestesses to function as types of bridegrooms for the Church, (which is the bride of Christ), will make no attempt to leave the Catholic Church but continue to attend mass while they take very opportunity that they can to display their anger for the refusal of the Church do do something that it cannot do (ordain women). Do they leave to join the Episcopalian Church, which has for some time had priestesses in a fatherly (and that of a  husband) role? Of course not. Episcopalian Church services are very similar to the Catholic mass, and many actual church buildings of theirs are far better example of church architecture than the horrid and nonspiritual butcheries that we see in many modern Catholic Churches today, but in the catholic church they stay, all the while insisting that things be done their way.

Frank Schaefer is one of many radical and semi-radials that we see today. In his case, he may also have fallen victim to an extreme case of selfishness. It is entirely possible that he may have supported the Christian position on marriage - which by its very nature cannot be between two people of the same gender, until his own son announced that he was gay and wanted to be married. No advice on how to live a Christian life while have homosexual desires is given; the parents just switch gears and become active supporters of the radical gay agenda. He now appears to be attempting to start a battle in the courts and force the Methodist church to initiate legal action to make him leave.

Hubris.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/12/19/christian-pastor-defrocked-after-officiating-gay-sons-wedding/

"NORRISTOWN, Pa. (TheBlaze/AP) — A pastor from central Pennsylvania was defrocked by United Methodist church officials on Thursday after officiating his son’s gay wedding — an action that ran counter to the denomination’s central beliefs.

As TheBlaze previously reported, Rev. Frank Schaefer of Lebanon, Pa., had already been suspended when he met with church officials to determine whether he would continue as a pastor.

Schaefer had presided over his son’s wedding in 2007 in Massachusetts, where gay marriage is legal. While Methodist regulations allow for gays and lesbians to join, homosexuality itself is seen as being “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

The pastor had been told to resign from the clergy by Thursday if he could not follow the denomination’s Book of Discipline.

But Schaefer, unwilling to stand down, has said the book discriminates against gay people and vowed this week that he would not voluntarily surrender his credentials.

In the end, though, the decision was out of his hands, as spokesman John Coleman said that officials decided to defrock him. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the meeting with church officials only lasted 15 minutes.

There was no indication that a different resolution would be met, as earlier this week, Schaefer publicly said he would defy the religious order to surrender his credentials for performing the same-sex wedding.

“I am actively committing to having those discriminatory laws changed and banished from our Book of Discipline,” Schaefer said. “That’s the only way I can reconcile being a United Methodist at this point.”

Jurors who convicted Schaefer in a church trial last month — which resulted in a 30-day suspension — said he should use the time off to decide whether he could follow church doctrine. If he couldn’t do so, he was told to step down.

Schaefer gave his answer publicly Monday during a news conference at Arch Street United Methodist Church in Philadelphia, surrounded by dozens of sympathetic ministers and laity.

“I cannot voluntarily surrender my credentials because I am a voice now for many — for tens of thousands — of LGBT members in our church,” he said then.

Making his stance clear, he added, “I cannot uphold those discriminatory laws and the language in the Untied Methodist Church’s Book of Discipline that is hurtful and harmful to our homosexual brothers and sisters in the church.”

Rep. Trey Gowdy on Vote to Sue Executive Branch for Disregarding Laws

I have become a big fan of South Carolina Representative Trey Gowdy*, and he does not disappointed me in the video that is embedded in both links below.

Obama has made it a regular practice to engage in what amounts to legislative action by executive orders and other decrees despite what US law specifies. He also has on numerous occasions done the same thing when Congress did not pass a bill that he wanted on his desk in order to sign it into law.

Obama's Fascist-like modus operandi is to do the following:

-Ignore otherwise choose to refrain from enforcing US law when he does not like it, (Immigration laws, Defense of Marriage Act, etc)

-Use Executive Orders to function in place of proposed legislation that was not created via the constitutional- mandated means for doing so. ("If Congress won't act, I will".)

-Enact changes of laws to suit his desires at the moment (delay or change provisions of Obamacare employer mandate, etc.)

The story behind the video interview is that members of Congress do not have standing to sue the executive branch, but Congress as a body may well have standing if a majority vote is held to challenge what effectively amounts to arbitrary executive nullifications of US Law.

The concept makes sense one one appreciates the fact that, if Obama is illegally ignoring US Law, then Congress has no option (other than an impeachment) but to take him to court.

I prefer to read text and and generally avoid videos but this one is short and well worth the time:

http://freepatriot.org/2013/12/18/watch-house-legislation-sue-obamas-executive-branch-abuse-power/

http://video.foxnews.com/v/2951632445001/40-million-target-credit-cards-compromised/?playlist_id=2114913880001


*http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/10/rep-trey-gowdy-hammers-park-service.html

*http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/08/rep-trey-gowdy-benghazi-survivors-given.html

*http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/04/rep-trey-gowdy-takes-on-obama.html