Maggie’s Notebook Banned in Afghanistan – American Censorship?

SSG Christopher Kiernan

Maggie’s Notebook Banned in Afghanistan: MSGT Tom O’Rourke – Military Poor – Misleading Leadership: In Honor of SSG Chris Kiernan

Yesterday I was notified that this blog, Maggie’s Notebook, is banned in Afghanistan on the computers soldiers use for “recreation.” As anyone reading here knows, I am an unwaivering supporter of our Troops. I have been very critical of Military leadership, from the perspective of a citizen sitting out here in the ether. I have been critical of Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta for baldly telling Congress he and the President will deploy U.S. Troops when they choose to do so, without Congressional oversight. I have criticized the Military handling of Nidal Hassan, the Ft. Hood shooter, and I, along with many others, am dismayed at our leader’s refusals to acknowledge Islamic jihad. I have told Sgt. Gary Stein’s story, and the stories of other Military, who say they will refuse to follow an unconstitutional order from the White House. I have recently advocated for bringing the troops home, because they are not allowed to fight a war, and I have been overtly suspicious of Afghan security forces. For this, I assume, I have been banned.

Today I found a timely op-ed written by MSgt Tom O’Rourke (ret) The Integrity of the Soldier vs. the Duplicity of our Leaders. He talks specifically about Arlen Specter’s duplicity, his litany of dishonest political moves, and his 60th vote that put ObamaCare on the President’s desk for a signature. He speaks of the integrity of the Troops in the face of poor and misleading leadership. The banning of Maggie’s Notebook and the theme of the op-ed seem to go hand-in-hand.

I decided against asking the Military Advisor in Afghanistan who notified me of the banning, to take a screen shot of the no-access notice. That’s what bloggers do when we find China or Russia has banned our blogs. This time, I feel it will put him at risk to ask anything of him. His information said I was banned on SPAWAR (Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command). He was unable to access my homepage. I did not know him before he contacted me. I had not visited his blog……READ MORE

Let’s support this site and get her back to the troops in Afghanistan!

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Let’s get it right!

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A 6th Bomb Threat within two weeks today at Pitt!

University of Pittsburgh

University of Pittsburgh offers $10,000 reward
after bomb threats

Friday, March 30, 2012
By Sadie Gurman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The University of Pittsburgh is offering a reward of as much as $10,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone responsible for six bomb threats on the campus in a little more than two weeks.

The latest was today. A bomb threat prompted an evacuation of the Cathedral of Learning this morning.

The university’s emergency notification system informed students of the threat about 10:15 a.m, warning them to leave the 42-story building.

That was the same warning they received on Wednesday evening, when university officials were notified of a threat scrawled in a woman’s restroom.

Earlier that morning, Pitt’s Chevron Science Center was cleared after a threat was discovered there.

Previous threats to the Cathedral of Learning were written in a men’s bathroom, prompting the university to remove the stall doors in some of the restrooms and bolster security in the building.

Officials said after the third bomb threat last week that they had identified a “person of interest” in the crimes but would not elaborate. The FBI is assisting in the investigation.

The false alarms have brought both fear and annoyance, disrupting classes and drawing police. Each incident drives hundreds of students and faculty from the building, which closes for hours while police check it for explosives.

A university spokesman said officials have pledged to prosecute anyone responsible to the “fullest extent of the law.”

The university publicized the reward today via its emergency notification system.

Pitt said it could split the reward among multiple sources of information.

Officers in a news release urged “any witness who was in the areas on the dates and at the times of the threats and observed these threats being made or with information about who made these threats” to call campus police at 412-624-2121.

Bomb Scares In Pittsburgh, Again!

Read more:

21st Century Crusades, or Barbery Coast Pirates … Today’s Global Battleground

The 21st Century Crusades continue to gain ground around the world

The Global War on Religion

“In a presidential primary campaign season in which GOP candidates have loudly trumpeted the spurious charge that President Obama is waging a “war on religion,” a recent report indicates what real religious persecution looks like around the world — and the news is not good.

“According to the 2012 annual report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom — an independent, bipartisan U.S. federal government commission — in the past year “an ongoing crisis of equal breadth and scope frequently went unnoticed,” given the predominance of world economic woes.

“Across the global landscape, the pivotal human right of religious freedom was under escalating attack,” the report states. “To an alarming extent, freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief was being curtailed, often threatening the safety and survival of innocent persons, including members of religious minorities.”



Left to right, Mohamed El-Katatni, former secretary general of the FJP and current Speaker of Parliament, Mohamed Mursi current head of the FJP and Essam El-Erian, MP and FJP co-founder (Photo: FJP website)
Muslim Brotherhood = Freedom and Justice Party (FJP)

“In some nations the government is directly persecuting religious groups, the report states. “In Egypt, an epicenter of the Arab Spring, hope turned to dismay.” Human rights conditions, particularly abuses of religious freedom, worsened under military rule. “Law enforcement and the courts fostered a climate of impunity in the face of repeated attacks against Coptic Christians and their churches.”

“In China, government persecution of Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims was at the worst level in decades. Burma, which calls itself Myanmar, has one of the worst human rights records on the planet: “Religious groups, particularly ethnic minority Christians and Muslims and Buddhist monks suspected of engaging in anti-government activity, faced intrusive monitoring, arrest, mistreatment, destruction or desecration of property, severe restrictions on worship…and targeted violence,” according to the report.

“In Iran, the government continued to attack the Bah’ai minority, as well as Zoroastrians, Sufi Muslims, and Christians. “Members of these groups were harassed, arrested, and imprisoned, including Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, a Christian convert who was put on trial for his life.” The theocracy in Iran fomented hatred against Jews through various means, including denying the Holocaust.

“The report notes that other countries, by failing “to prevent or punish violence against vulnerable religious minorities provided a grim portrait of how states can create or fuel a culture of impunity, encouraging private citizens or groups to threaten, intimidate or even murder others.”

“In Nigeria, for instance, the government has for years failed to stem or punish Muslim-Christian violence. Violence in the last year claimed 800 lives, displacing 65,000 people and leading to the destruction of both churches in mosques.

“Pakistan, according to the report, both tolerates religious discrimination and engages in it. Through anti-blasphemy laws and laws persecuting the Ahmadi Muslim sect, Pakistan “continues to both engage in and tolerate systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of freedom of religion or belief.” ………… READ MORE

The war that was skillfully handled by America’s third President – Thomas Jefferson, has returned to haunt not only the USA, but the nations of the world. The many conflicts and struggles globally involve Islam’s edict to rule the world. They may be a minority of Muslims that pursue Jihad, but because they are taught hatred from the cradle and self-sacrifice is the highest virtue, especially if one takes out a few infidels in the process, AND because it is apparently beyond our comprehension that these people value life so little in comparison to their beliefs. It is beyond logic. It is beyond reason. So we blink our eyes as radical Islam sweeps into and across our nation in the name of tolerance! Tolerance!



So … why is Islam finding so much favor in the USA and European nations in spite of the violence and hate they, themselves spew? Are Christians and Jews so naive as to think what? Live and let live? Not going to happen … because the Koran commands them to take over the world, in so many words. Why are schools open to the teaching of Muslim principles but completely censor Christianity or Bible study. Even Valedictorians are strongly discouraged from using their address as an outlet for their faith. Everyone has to endure the increased intrusions at local airports, except Muslim women in religious dress. And why are Marines in Afghanistan ordered to take down a cross marking a Chapel entrance, but they are permitted to fly a rainbow flag, in support of the administrations open-door policy? It all just seems waaaaaaaaaaaay out of balance to me, and certainly not “EQUAL RIGHTS.”

Sarkozy: Toulouse shootings caused 9/11-like trauma; 19 Islamist suspects arrested

French police commandos arrested 19 people and seized weapons in Friday morning swoops on people suspected of radical Islamist activity, in several cities including Toulouse, scene of the killings of four Jews and three soldiers this month.
President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is waging an uphill battle for re-election in an April-May vote, said more such raids would follow…. MORE HERE

Ayaan Hirsi Ali:The Global War on Christians in the Muslim World
Actually its a War that has never ended.

From one end of the muslim world to the other, Christians are being murdered for their faith.

We hear so often about Muslims as victims of abuse in the West and combatants in the Arab Spring’s fight against tyranny. But, in fact, a wholly different kind of war is underway—an unrecognized battle costing thousands of lives. Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm.

The portrayal of Muslims as victims or heroes is at best partially accurate. In recent years the violent oppression of Christian minorities has become the norm in Muslim-majority nations stretching from West Africa and the Middle East to South Asia and Oceania. In some countries it is governments and their agents that have burned churches and imprisoned parishioners. In others, rebel groups and vigilantes have taken matters into their own hands, murdering Christians and driving them from regions where their roots go back centuries.

The media’s reticence on the subject no doubt has several sources. One may be fear of provoking additional violence. Another is most likely the influence of lobbying groups such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation—a kind of United Nations of Islam centered in Saudi Arabia—and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Over the past decade, these and similar groups have been remarkably successful in persuading leading public figures and journalists in the West to think of each and every example of perceived anti-Muslim discrimination as an expression of a systematic and sinister derangement called “Islamophobia”—a term that is meant to elicit the same moral disapproval as xenophobia or homophobia.

But a fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends leads to the conclusion that the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations from one end of the globe to the other. The conspiracy of silence surrounding this violent expression of religious intolerance has to stop. Nothing less than the fate of Christianity—and ultimately of all religious minorities—in the Islamic world is at stake…. READ MORE

ADDITIONAL READING:

The Star-Strangled Banner

Judge in NY tells hearing on lawsuit that 1st Amendment is not at heart of anti-terror law

Dangerous narratives

America is losing wealth far faster than any other nation on earth is.

America is losing wealth far faster than any other nation on earth is.

America is losing wealth far faster than any other nation on earth is. In fact, since the mid-1970s there has been a transfer of wealth of almost 8 trillion dollars from the United States to the rest of the world. Sadly, most Americans have no idea what is happening. Most Americans of them are completely unaware that America is being transformed from a wealthy nation into a poor nation at breathtaking speed. Most Americans just assume that America will always have the largest economy on earth and will always be the wealthiest nation on the globe. Unfortunately, just because something was true in the past does not mean that it will be true in the future.

Right now, the United States is bleeding wealth at a pace that is almost unimaginable. Every single month, tens of billions of dollars of wealth is permanently transferred from the American people to the rest of the world. That means that the overall economic pie is shrinking. While the rich and the poor are busy fighting over the distribution of wealth in this country, the size of the pie that they are dividing up is continually getting smaller. America is poorer than it was last month, and next month it will be even poorer. If this continues, it will result in a complete and total economic nightmare.

Let’s break this down to a real simple example. Imagine that you are playing a game with a whole bunch of people, and you have been chosen to play the role of the United States. So you go stand on a giant map of the United States and you are given much more money than anyone else in the game. However, with each turn 50 billion dollars is taken out of your pile of money and is given to the other players.

What is going to happen eventually?

Yes, that is right – you are going to run out of money at some point.

In order to continue playing you will need to borrow more money from the other players or you will need to print up some more money.

Does that sound familiar?

In January, the U.S. trade deficit with the rest of the world hit 52.6 billion dollars.

That means that we bought 52.6 billion dollars more stuff from the rest of the world than they bought from us.

That 52.6 billion dollars is gone and it is not coming back. Next month another 50 billion dollars will leave the country.

Are you starting to get the picture? ………….. CONTINUE READING HERE

What will happen during the upcoming Presidential election? FReep This Poll!

Poll ^ | March 29, 2012 | FedsRStealingOurCountryFromUs
Posted on Thu Mar 29 2012 15:06:14 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) by FedsRStealingOurCountryFromUs

OWS has been ‘set in place’ in advance of the November election. Is this by design? Leading up to the election, ‘Sandra Fluke’ and ‘Trayvon Martin’ are SUPER-HYPED by the media to enlist sympathy for, and to rally Obama’s base. Do you view the sensational nature of these events mere coincidences, or is the media seizing upon any event they believe will aid Obama’s re-election?

Elections in the United States have always been free, fair, without disruption (with the exception of Bush-Gore 2000) and we should expect no less. But are you uneasy about the upcoming election in light of recent events? Will America do the right thing and keep this election peaceful?

TAKE THE POLL

UPDATE: Bomb Scares Continue In Pittsburgh!

**UPDATE 4-9-2012 Experts Profile Pitt Bomb Threat Maker

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — What is the profile of the person or people who’ve been behind the bomb threats at Pitt?

Without a suspect in custody, everything experts think is merely speculation, but there are some common theories.

The inconvenience, the fear and the disgust of recent days is bad enough. But some expert theories are equally disturbing – especially if the perpetrator is watching all this up close.

First among the theories of a number of experts is that the threat maker is a male who enjoys the power of knowing that both law enforcement, the media and students have to be mobilized every time a threat is made…. MORE HERE

*UPDATE 4-6-2012: Bomb Scares Escalate, Could Cost Pitt Thousands

The ongoing bomb threats at the University of Pittsburgh are beginning to take a toll.

“We’ve had 17 bomb threats, and they have escalated,” said university spokesman Robert Hill.

Without going into specifics, Hill acknowledged that the cost of the bomb scares is also escalating.

“There is a cost,” Hill told KDKA Money Editor Jon Delano. “There’s the cost of the disruption itself — lost time in classes, lost time in research laboratories, lost time with our service mission. There is also the expense of the resources needed to search the facility.” ….. MORE HERE

[original post]
I live in a suburb of Pittsburgh, PA! Like many cities across our nation, Pittsburgh has its share of protesters, mostly visible in the same community where Pitt, and several other colleges and universities are located. I can’t help but believe that the closer we get to the Election, the more activity we may see from these groups, especially if President Obama’s numbers continue to slide, the more violence we will see around the nation. Increased violence will open the door for the WH to call out Martial law … just sayin. No harm in preparation, and absolutely no harm in prayer!

Knowing that the protester groups are made up primarily of students encouraged by liberal professors to “participate” in “changing” our government directed by paid SEIU employees, all of whom endorse the President, encourages me to continue on … to keep on talking to the people I meet about our nation and her issues. I do not want my children and grandchildren to ask me in 10 years what I did to help restore America’s love for freedom … I don’t want to say I did nothing! Most of the young people, if spoken to one on one, respond well to Truth! The people who are hard are the ones who have voted along union lines – usually Democratic – for 40 years. The only thing I can ask them is … do you really think president Obama represents your interests?

Third Bomb Threat Reported At Cathedral Of Learning – VIDEO – Pittsburgh News Story – WTAE Pittsburgh.

Updated: 6:29 p.m. Wednesday, March 28, 2012 | Posted: 10:22 a.m. Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Bomb threat at Cathedral of Learning building is 5th threat on Pitt’s campus in 2 weeks

PITTSBURGH — Two separate bomb threats were reported in buildings on the University of Pittsburgh‘s campus Wednesday.
Around 10 a.m. school officials sent an alert to students saying, “A bomb threat has been received for Chevron Bldg. Please evacuate building. If safe to do so, please tell others of this message.”

Authorities closed down surrounding roadways while investigators searched the building. The threat was lifted around 1 p.m. after authorities found nothing suspicious inside.



Oakland is home to several wonderful colleges and universities

Just before 6 p.m. another alert was sent to students and faculty saying, “A bomb threat has been received for the Cathedral of Learning. Please evacuate the building. If safe to do so please tell others of this message.”

Three other bomb threats were reported at the Cathedral of Learning on March 14, 19 and 22.

Authorities have said a person of interest has been identified in those cases. Police have not released the name of that person.

School officials said the recent threats have forced the university to change some of its security procedures.

Some of the changes include removing the doors in men’s restrooms. A security officer will now be guarding the restroom at all times and stop any students seen holding a marker.

Bomb threat empties Point Park University building

March 28, 2012 4:32 pm

By Liz Navratil / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A Point Park University building was briefly evacuated this afternoon after someone left a message about a bomb on a bathroom wall.

The Downtown university’s public safety officers were called shortly after 2 p.m. after someone found the note in a bathroom on the seventh floor of the West Penn Building near the corner of First Avenue and Wood Street, said school spokeswoman Mary Ellen Solomon.

Officers cleared the building as a precaution and Pittsburgh police were called to assist.

Lawrence Hall of Point Park Univ, just a few blocks from Pitt

Officers did not find any evidence of a bomb and students and faculty members re-entered the building at about 3:15 p.m. Ms. Solomon said the incident remains under investigation.

The West Penn Building houses the School of Business. Part of it is leased to the Kaplan Career Institute.

It was the second bomb threat to empty a university building in Pittsburgh today. A bomb threat pushed University of Pittsburgh officials to evacuate the Chevron Building in Oakland.

That was the fourth bomb threat targeting a Pitt building in the past two weeks.

The preceding three threats were made against the Cathedral of Learning (PITT).

The First Amendment: Religious Freedom, and Freedom to Speak, Print, Assemble, and Petition

Tags

American Conservative, American history, conservative-politics, freedom of religion, government, james-madison, life, politics, religion, Thomas Jefferson, US Constitution

We hear a good deal nowadays about “a wall of separation” between church and state in America. To some people’s surprise, this phrase cannot be found in either the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. Actually, the phrase occurs in a letter from Thomas Jefferson, as a candidate for office, to an assembly of Baptists in Connecticut.

The first clause of the First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This clause is followed by guarantees of freedom of speech, of publication, of assembly, and of petitioning. These various aspects of liberty were lumped together in the First Amendment for the sake of convenience; Congress had originally intended to assign “establishment of religion” to a separate amendment because the relationships between state and church are considerably different from the civil liberties of speech, publication, assembly, and petitioning.

The purpose of the “Establishment Clause” was two-fold: (1) to prohibit Congress from imposing a national religion upon the people; and (2) to prohibit Congress (and the Federal government generally) from interfering with existing church-state relations in the several States. Thus the “Establishment Clause” is linked directly to the “Free Exercise Clause.” It was designed to promote religious freedom by forbidding Congress to prefer one religious sect over other religious sects. It was also intended, however, to assure each State that its reserved powers included the power to decide for itself, under its own constitution or bill of rights, what kind of relationship it wanted with religious denominations in the State. Hence the importance of the word “respecting”: Congress shall make no law “respecting,” that is, touching or dealing with, the subject of religious establishment.

In effect, this “Establishment Clause” was a compromise between two eminent members of the first Congress—James Madison and Fisher Ames. Representative Ames, from Massachusetts, was a Federalist. In his own State, and also in Connecticut, there still was an established church—the Congregational Church. By 1787–1791, an “established church” was one which was formally recognized by a State government as the publicly preferred form of religion. Such a church was entitled to certain taxes, called tithes, that were collected from the public by the State. Earlier, several other of Britain’s colonies had recognized established churches, but those other establishments had vanished during the Revolution.

Now, if Congress had established a national church—and many countries, in the eighteenth century, had official national churches—probably it would have chosen to establish the Episcopal Church, related to the Church of England. For Episcopalians constituted the most numerous and influential Christian denomination in the United States. Had the Episcopal Church been so established nationally, the Congregational Church would have been disestablished in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Therefore, Fisher Ames and his Massachusetts constituents in 1789 were eager for a constitutional amendment that would not permit Congress to establish any national church or disestablish any State church.

The motive of James Madison for advocating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was somewhat different. Madison believed that for the Federal government to establish one church—the Episcopal Church, say—would vex the numerous Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Quaker, and other religious denominations. After all, it seemed hard enough to hold the United States together in those first months of the Constitution without stirring up religious controversies. So Madison, who was generally in favor of religious toleration, strongly advocated an Establishment Clause on the ground that it would avert disunity in the Republic.

In short, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was not intended as a declaration of governmental hostility toward religion, or even of governmental neutrality in the debate between believers and non-believers. It was simply a device for keeping religious passions out of American politics. The phrase “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” was meant to keep the Congress from ever meddling in the disputes among religious bodies or interfering with the mode of worship……..MORE HERE

There is No Greater Thing

Heroes Needed! Gutless Need Not Apply!

The brave, wandering knight sat atop his gallant steed drifting through the thick forest. He sought not a battle, nor the glory one imagines, but the quiet of a soft green clearing. He’d been riding for days, or maybe weeks. He was no longer certain, but the fighting was done, for now, and he sought a moment’s repose.

By an all but hidden stream he camped. He fed and watered his horse, then he walked an unmarked perimeter to stretch his legs, weary from long days in the saddle, and hunt for something worthy of his hunger. He lay down and slept, after munching on a few berries. In his sleep, he dreamed.

On the trail of an escaped villain, he easily followed the trail of blood. The villain was wounded, how badly, he could not tell. Miles he followed the broken branches and footprints into the forest, but no villain did he find. He did happen upon an old campfire, though, with the carcass of an animal still on the spit. Not warm, but not there long enough for the wild things to apprehend it.

Off to one side of the camp was a ditch several inches deep that ran wit a thick liquid he at first thought was blood. “That’s not blood.” he whispered aloud, relieved to discover the same. “Just thick, muddy water that’s been poured away from the camp. It seems our villain was not alone here. Perhaps this was a meeting place.”

Determined, he broke the string of his thought with purpose. He dare not imagine a pack of villainous lions prowling across the landscape unchecked. “All this time I was wrong!” He cried out tot he heavens in mourning for those, his companions, whose lives had been forfeit. He stood quietly and gazed into the forest. Perhaps, he had dumbly stumbled upon his destiny. Perhaps, he, too, would meet up with others to share his burden lest he be another in the broken string of heroes bringing villains to justice.

Farewell beloved fairy tales. It’s been great fun for a spell but reality beckons with urgent cry. “Heroes needed. Gutless need not apply!”

INSPIRATION MONDAY is the brainchild of BEKINDREWRITE, and every week puts forth quite workable prompts to inspire our creativity! Join us, won’t you?