I often think about the nation's worst tradgedy. My Wife and I visited the World Trade Center site last December. We felt a weird feeling that this was hallowed ground. I felt the same when we visited the grave sites of Normandy. I will never forget, as long as I live, exactly what I was doing when the planes hit the towers. I had just arrived at my office in Baltimore and I walked back in the warehouse to inquire about something. The radio was loud and the news broke in at quarter of 9 and said that a plane crashed into the first tower. My first thought was, what is a small plane doing that close to the skyscrapers? Then, the announcer came on with his voice trembling, saying that a second plane has hit the second tower. We all looked at each other in disbelief, I screamed out, terrorists! My co-workers and I were in disbelief. Not in the United States. How could this happen. The country was mesmorized by this horrific event. I remember feeling sad and at the same time, extremely mad. There weren't almost 3,000 people killed that day. They were murdered! Murdered by cowardly terrorists in the name of Islam. Jihad (meaning: struggle) or (Holy War) or Jihadists interpret the Quran as voilence to obtain victory over the infidels (non-believers). Some say Jihad is for the defense of the Islamic state. I know many Muslims and this is not what Mohammed had in mind. They are good hearted people who love this country. Of course, there is a small percentage that gives the religion of Islam a bad name. Getting back to the WTC, Americans and many other nationalities were the victims of this cold-blooded, premeditated murder. There were so many heroes that day who didn't know they were heroes. How many people do you know that would run into a burning building, when everyone else is running out? The police, firefighters and first responders did, and many never came out. I wish the terrorists who perpetrated this unimaginable crime who have come back to life, so we could kill them again. Tomorrow is going to be very hard on a lot of families, friends and anyone with a heart. It was a dark spot on America's way of life. Thank God for President George W. Bush. He had what it took to bring the country out of the doldrums. Yes, he started 2 wars, however, he took the fight to the terrorists. He wouldn't allow this type of behavior on American shores again. I want the media to show graphic pictures of what happened on that day, not because I'm a sadist, but to show complacent Americans what could happen in this country if we are to laxed to the threats from terrorists.
We were incredibly lucky the underwear bomber and the Time Square bomber were incompetent. It could have been tragic. Citizens seem to be more concerned with who they offend than the overall safety of the U.S. population. I am not a proponent of political correctness (Duh!). I believe you should say what you think. Period. If I offend you, don't listen or walk away. The 1st Amendment guarantees you freedom of speech. Utilize it to your liking. This moron Pastor in Gainesville, Fl. who is threatening to burn the Qurans. I don't agree with what he wants to do, but, he has the right to. Today, in the news, the Christians in the Gaza Strip were being threatened, muslims were burning bibles and American flags in the streets. I don't like it, however, it is their perogative. You see how one sided this whole debate is. The Muslims have a cow (no pun intended) over the Quran burnings, yet, they burn bibles anytime they want. The point is, I don't care how much we apease the Muslims, they will still hate us. Obama and his adminstration reminds me of Neville Chamberlain dealing with Adolf Hitler right before the start of WWII. Chamberlain returned to England with a signed piece of paper which was worthless. Germany invaded Poland and Chamberlain was soon replaced by Winston Churchill. Do you think we can get rid of Obama and swear in somebody like Churchill? But I digressed. Obama is a pacifist who doesn't understand the magnitude of the threat. I believe he still thinks that his Obama aura will tame the aggressions of the terrorists. You know if there was an attack on America, somehow, Obama would find a way to blame Bush and Cheney. I hope tomorrow, the tube is flooded with footage of WTC tradgedy, so people rekindle the intensity of what we are facing as a free nation. To the victims' families and friends and citizens of the United States, WE WILL NEVER FORGET!
Have you forgotten:
Ceremonies, Protests to Mark 9/11 Anniversary
by Jonathon M. Seidl
September 10, 2010 at 11:56am
NEW YORK (AP) — In the past, the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks was marked by somber reflection and a call to unity, devoid of politics. No more.
This year’s commemoration of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Shanksville, Pa., promises to be the most political and contentious ever, because of a proposed Islamic center and mosque near ground zero, and a Florida pastor’s plan to burn the Quran — and the debate those issues have engendered over religious freedom.
As in other years, official ceremonies are planned at the three locations the terrorists struck. President Barack Obama will attend a commemoration at the Pentagon, while Vice President Joe Biden will attend the ceremony at ground zero. First lady Michelle Obama and former first lady Laura Bush will travel to Shanksville to observe the anniversary there.
Vice President Joe Biden will attend the largest of the three — the New York ceremony at a park near ground zero, where 2,752 people were killed when Muslim extremists flew planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The ceremony there will pause four times: twice to mark the times each plane hit the towers, and twice to observe the times the towers fell. Houses of worship in the city have been asked to toll their bells at 8:46 a.m., when the first plane struck the north tower.
But this time, along with the formal ceremonies, activists for and against the proposed Islamic center are planning their own events to capture the emotion of the day for political purposes.
Terry Jones, the pastor of a small, independent church in Gainesville, Fla., shot to international notoriety by threatening to mark 9/11 by burning copies of the Quran — a plan he canceled under pressure from the White House but now says he’s reconsidering.
In Afghanistan, at least 11 people were injured Friday in scattered protests over Jones’ plan. Only a few thousand people attended those rallies and no large-scale demonstrations were reported elsewhere. In Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, cleric Rusli Hasbi told 1,000 worshippers at Friday prayers that whether or not he burns the Quran, Jones had already “hurt the heart of the Muslim world.”
Also on Saturday, former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was expected to observe the anniversary in Alaska with Fox News TV host Glenn Beck. The two conservative celebrities hosted a Tea Party rally last month at the Lincoln Memorial.
Nowhere do emotions run higher than in New York, where the proposed Islamic center just two blocks ground zero has inflamed the planned commemoration.
Activists are organizing a pair of dueling rallies — one against the planned Islamic center, one supporting it — to follow New York’s official ceremony at a park southeast of the trade center site.
The anti-mosque rally has bitterly divided family members of those who died in the attacks, with some planning to attend the rally and speak, while others denounce it as unnecessary and wrong.
Sally Regenhard, who lost her firefighter son, Christian Regenhard, in the attacks, said she would attend the city ceremony in the morning where the names of the dead are read aloud, as she has done each year since the attacks. Then, she planned to head over to the anti-mosque rally.
“The purpose is to speak out and express our feelings that this mosque, the location of it, is a grievous offense to the sensitivity of 9/11 families,” Regenhard said. “There’s nothing political about people who want to speak out against something they think is so wrong, so hurtful and so devastating.”
But Donna Marsh O’Connor, whose pregnant daughter, Vanessa, was killed in the attacks, supports the mosque. She said she strongly opposes the planned rally and the political motivations behind it.
"It‘s more of the same hate mongering and fear mongering that’s been going on for years,” O’Connor said. “People have a right to free speech. But if they’re talking about sensitivities to 9/11 families, why are they rallying and doing events on a day we should spend thinking about those we lost?
The rally is being hosted by Pamela Geller, a conservative blogger who has actively opposed the planned Islamic center since the project’s inception.
John Bolton, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, was expected to send a videotaped message of support to the rally, as was conservative journalist Andrew Breitbart. Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician who advocates banning the Quran and taxing Muslim women who wear head scarves, planned to address the crowd in person, as well as a handful of Republican congressional candidates who have made opposition to the mosque a centerpiece of their campaigns.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Geller said the rally would be “respectful” and was not intended to provoke violence or other inappropriate behavior on what has typically been a somber, mournful anniversary.
It’s a rally of remembrance for tens of thousands who lost loved ones that day,” Geller said. “It’s not a political event, it’s a human rights event.”
New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters this week his department was prepared for the rally and had already deployed additional security at the mosque site two blocks north of ground zero since it’s been the target of protests already.
But, Kelly said, police weren’t anticipating major problems.
“We have no reason to anticipate violence at these demonstrations. … There is no indication, no intelligence that would indicate violence occurring,” Kelly said.
Boneheads weekly:
Bashing Bush and Boehner Won’t Work
Obamanomics is the real problem.
Under pressure from a barrage of bad midterm-election polls, President Obama has gone on the campaign trail to blame Pres. George W. Bush for all our economic problems, and to bash House Republican leader John Boehner as nothing more than a Bush retread.
Friday’s dreary news conference, Obama acknowledged that economic progress is “painfully slow,” and that voters may blame him for the economy. Yet he nonetheless continued to finger Bush “for policies that cut taxes, especially for millionaires and billionaires, cut regulations for corporations and for special interests, and left everyone else pretty much fending for themselves.”
“Millionaires and billionaires” has become Obama’s favorite phrase as he calls for tax hikes on the wealthy and renews his attacks on Bush. In Cleveland last week, Obama actually blamed the Bush tax cuts for the financial meltdown and severe recession. Now that’s a reach. A big reach.
While Mr. Bush made plenty of economic mistakes, his 2003 reductions of marginal tax rates led to more than 8 million new jobs in the next four and a half years. Under Bush, the unemployment rate dropped to 4.6 percent.
And almost all economists agree that the 2007-08 financial meltdown was a housing-bubble and credit event. It had nothing at all to do with cutting taxes.
Regarding John Boehner, Obama slammed the GOP leader eight times in Cleveland. He claimed “no new policies from Mr. Boehner,” saying the Republican leader’s philosophy “led to this mess in the first place: cut more taxes for millionaires and cut more rules for corporations.”
Well, none of this is going to work come November 2.
Take a good look at the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll. It is very revealing on these points.
Voters were asked, if Republicans win control of Congress, will they return to the economic policies of George W. Bush, or will they have different ideas to deal with the economy? The response: 58 percent said different ideas, 35 percent said the policies of George W. Bush. Voters were then asked, if Democrats maintain control of Congress, will they continue with the economic policies of Barack Obama, or will they have different ideas on the economy? The response: 62 percent said the policies of Obama, 32 percent said different ideas.
The poll also found that 56 percent of voters disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy while 39 percent approve; that 71 percent disapprove of the job Congress is doing; and that 62 percent think it better that different parties control Congress and the White House. Overall, on the generic congressional vote, likely voters favor Republicans over Democrats 49 to 40 percent.
Clearly, Obama is barking up the wrong tree with his assaults on Bush and Boehner.
Pathetic Funnies:
Quote du jour:
The single best augury is to fight for one's country.
Homer (800 BC - 700 BC), The Iliad
Writings of Our Founding Fathers
Federalist Papers
Federalist No. 59
Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members
From the New York Packet.
Friday, February 22, 1788.
Author: Alexander Hamilton
To the People of the State of New York:
THE natural order of the subject leads us to consider, in this place, that provision of the Constitution which authorizes the national legislature to regulate, in the last resort, the election of its own members. It is in these words: "The TIMES, PLACES, and MANNER of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may, at any time, by law, make or alter SUCH REGULATIONS, except as to the PLACES of choosing senators." [1] This provision has not only been declaimed against by those who condemn the Constitution in the gross, but it has been censured by those who have objected with less latitude and greater moderation; and, in one instance it has been thought exceptionable by a gentleman who has declared himself the advocate of every other part of the system. I am greatly mistaken, notwithstanding, if there be any article in the whole plan more completely defensible than this. Its propriety rests upon the evidence of this plain proposition, that EVERY GOVERNMENT OUGHT TO CONTAIN IN ITSELF THE MEANS OF ITS OWN PRESERVATION. Every just reasoner will, at first sight, approve an adherence to this rule, in the work of the convention; and will disapprove every deviation from it which may not appear to have been dictated by the necessity of incorporating into the work some particular ingredient, with which a rigid conformity to the rule was incompatible. Even in this case, though he may acquiesce in the necessity, yet he will not cease to regard and to regret a departure from so fundamental a principle, as a portion of imperfection in the system which may prove the seed of future weakness, and perhaps anarchy. It will not be alleged, that an election law could have been framed and inserted in the Constitution, which would have been always applicable to every probable change in the situation of the country; and it will therefore not be denied, that a discretionary power over elections ought to exist somewhere. It will, I presume, be as readily conceded, that there were only three ways in which this power could have been reasonably modified and disposed: that it must either have been lodged wholly in the national legislature, or wholly in the State legislatures, or primarily in the latter and ultimately in the former. The last mode has, with reason, been preferred by the convention. They have submitted the regulation of elections for the federal government, in the first instance, to the local administrations; which, in ordinary cases, and when no improper views prevail, may be both more convenient and more satisfactory; but they have reserved to the national authority a right to interpose, whenever extraordinary circumstances might render that interposition necessary to its safety. Nothing can be more evident, than that an exclusive power of regulating elections for the national government, in the hands of the State legislatures, would leave the existence of the Union entirely at their mercy. They could at any moment annihilate it, by neglecting to provide for the choice of persons to administer its affairs. It is to little purpose to say, that a neglect or omission of this kind would not be likely to take place. The constitutional possibility of the thing, without an equivalent for the risk, is an unanswerable objection. Nor has any satisfactory reason been yet assigned for incurring that risk. The extravagant surmises of a distempered jealousy can never be dignified with that character. If we are in a humor to presume abuses of power, it is as fair to presume them on the part of the State governments as on the part of the general government. And as it is more consonant to the rules of a just theory, to trust the Union with the care of its own existence, than to transfer that care to any other hands, if abuses of power are to be hazarded on the one side or on the other, it is more rational to hazard them where the power would naturally be placed, than where it would unnaturally be placed. Suppose an article had been introduced into the Constitution, empowering the United States to regulate the elections for the particular States, would any man have hesitated to condemn it, both as an unwarrantable transposition of power, and as a premeditated engine for the destruction of the State governments? The violation of principle, in this case, would have required no comment; and, to an unbiased observer, it will not be less apparent in the project of subjecting the existence of the national government, in a similar respect, to the pleasure of the State governments. An impartial view of the matter cannot fail to result in a conviction, that each, as far as possible, ought to depend on itself for its own preservation. As an objection to this position, it may be remarked that the constitution of the national Senate would involve, in its full extent, the danger which it is suggested might flow from an exclusive power in the State legislatures to regulate the federal elections. It may be alleged, that by declining the appointment of Senators, they might at any time give a fatal blow to the Union; and from this it may be inferred, that as its existence would be thus rendered dependent upon them in so essential a point, there can be no objection to intrusting them with it in the particular case under consideration. The interest of each State, it may be added, to maintain its representation in the national councils, would be a complete security against an abuse of the trust. This argument, though specious, will not, upon examination, be found solid. It is certainly true that the State legislatures, by forbearing the appointment of senators, may destroy the national government. But it will not follow that, because they have a power to do this in one instance, they ought to have it in every other. There are cases in which the pernicious tendency of such a power may be far more decisive, without any motive equally cogent with that which must have regulated the conduct of the convention in respect to the formation of the Senate, to recommend their admission into the system. So far as that construction may expose the Union to the possibility of injury from the State legislatures, it is an evil; but it is an evil which could not have been avoided without excluding the States, in their political capacities, wholly from a place in the organization of the national government. If this had been done, it would doubtless have been interpreted into an entire dereliction of the federal principle; and would certainly have deprived the State governments of that absolute safeguard which they will enjoy under this provision. But however wise it may have been to have submitted in this instance to an inconvenience, for the attainment of a necessary advantage or a greater good, no inference can be drawn from thence to favor an accumulation of the evil, where no necessity urges, nor any greater good invites. It may be easily discerned also that the national government would run a much greater risk from a power in the State legislatures over the elections of its House of Representatives, than from their power of appointing the members of its Senate. The senators are to be chosen for the period of six years; there is to be a rotation, by which the seats of a third part of them are to be vacated and replenished every two years; and no State is to be entitled to more than two senators; a quorum of the body is to consist of sixteen members. The joint result of these circumstances would be, that a temporary combination of a few States to intermit the appointment of senators, could neither annul the existence nor impair the activity of the body; and it is not from a general and permanent combination of the States that we can have any thing to fear. The first might proceed from sinister designs in the leading members of a few of the State legislatures; the last would suppose a fixed and rooted disaffection in the great body of the people, which will either never exist at all, or will, in all probability, proceed from an experience of the inaptitude of the general government to the advancement of their happiness in which event no good citizen could desire its continuance. But with regard to the federal House of Representatives, there is intended to be a general election of members once in two years. If the State legislatures were to be invested with an exclusive power of regulating these elections, every period of making them would be a delicate crisis in the national situation, which might issue in a dissolution of the Union, if the leaders of a few of the most important States should have entered into a previous conspiracy to prevent an election. I shall not deny, that there is a degree of weight in the observation, that the interests of each State, to be represented in the federal councils, will be a security against the abuse of a power over its elections in the hands of the State legislatures. But the security will not be considered as complete, by those who attend to the force of an obvious distinction between the interest of the people in the public felicity, and the interest of their local rulers in the power and consequence of their offices. The people of America may be warmly attached to the government of the Union, at times when the particular rulers of particular States, stimulated by the natural rivalship of power, and by the hopes of personal aggrandizement, and supported by a strong faction in each of those States, may be in a very opposite temper. This diversity of sentiment between a majority of the people, and the individuals who have the greatest credit in their councils, is exemplified in some of the States at the present moment, on the present question. The scheme of separate confederacies, which will always multiply the chances of ambition, will be a never failing bait to all such influential characters in the State administrations as are capable of preferring their own emolument and advancement to the public weal. With so effectual a weapon in their hands as the exclusive power of regulating elections for the national government, a combination of a few such men, in a few of the most considerable States, where the temptation will always be the strongest, might accomplish the destruction of the Union, by seizing the opportunity of some casual dissatisfaction among the people (and which perhaps they may themselves have excited), to discontinue the choice of members for the federal House of Representatives. It ought never to be forgotten, that a firm union of this country, under an efficient government, will probably be an increasing object of jealousy to more than one nation of Europe; and that enterprises to subvert it will sometimes originate in the intrigues of foreign powers, and will seldom fail to be patronized and abetted by some of them. Its preservation, therefore ought in no case that can be avoided, to be committed to the guardianship of any but those whose situation will uniformly beget an immediate interest in the faithful and vigilant performance of the trust.
PUBLIUS.
References:
http://www.hotair.com/
http://www.wnd.com/
http://www.weeklystandard.com/
http://www.americanthinker.com/
http://www.theblaze.com/
http://www.americanspectator.com/
http://www.newsbusters.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.quotationspage.com/
Larry Kudlow
Jonathan Seidl
A.B. Franco
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