Meet the American conservative

And we're worried about ISLAMIC fundamentalists?

More on the threat to our Constitution that's greater than any Islamic terrorist here.

(h/t: Sammy!)

Clark Comes Out for Hillary...

Non-event of the week? In a conference call aimed at bloggers, and dubbed a "major Endorsement," Hillary Clinton's people announced the "major" General Wesley Clark's endorsement of her campaign...ho hum...
OK, I guess that its a good endorsement and anyone would want to have Clark on their equipment belt, and good for her, but what about the state of the world? What does this military build-up mean?
Hillary is a machine, and people like the robotic Clark, even with is military cred, seem to be no-brainer additions to that tidal wave. What troubles me is that a guy with experience like Clark has, is not being more cautious at the hawkishness that seems to exude from every pore in her body.
Mom was over this morning and she was assuring me that all of this is just some kind of ruse that Hillary "has to" put forward in order to get into office. She is so sure that once in place, Hillary will become whatever it was that she was trying to project as first wife. I'm not getting the secret messages that Hill's people seem to be sending out, so maybe its just Mom being hopeful about someone who would bring Bill back into the White House.
I have been thinking lately about who Hillary really is, spurred on by
a podcast of Ring of Fire in which Mike Papantonio talks about her ties to religious fundamentalist groups.
I didn't realize how deeply she has been in with The Fellowship and for how long. If this is true, then we have alot to worry about with a Clinton candidacy.
According to Mother Jones:

throughout her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection. "A lot of evangelicals would see that as just cynical exploitation," says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers to decision makers in Washington. "I don't....there is a real good that is infected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open Bibles, and prayer."

Clinton's faith is grounded in the Methodist beliefs she grew up with in Park Ridge, Illinois, a conservative Chicago suburb where she was active in her church's altar guild, Sunday school, and youth group. It was there, in 1961, that she met the Reverend Don Jones, a 30-year-old youth pastor; Jones, a friend of Clinton's to this day, told us he knows "more about Hillary Clinton's faith than anybody outside her family."

Because Jones introduced Clinton and her teenage peers to the civil rights movement and modern poetry and art, Clinton biographers often cast him as a proto-'60s liberal who sowed seeds of radicalism throughout Park Ridge. Jones, though, describes his theology as neoorthodox, guided by the belief that social change should come about slowly and without radical action. It emerged, he says, as a third way, a reaction against both separatist fundamentalism and the New Deal's labor-based liberalism.

Which is worrisome to me, as is this part, which keeps coming up all over the place in one form or another:

During a Democratic candidate forum in June, hosted by the liberal evangelical group Sojourners, Hillary Clinton fielded a softball query about Bill's infidelity: How had her faith gotten her through the Lewinsky scandal?

After a glancing shot at Republican "pharisees," Clinton explained that, of course, her "very serious" grounding in faith had helped her weather the affair. But she had also relied on the "extended faith family" that came to her aid, "people whom I knew who were literally praying for me in prayer chains, who were prayer warriors for me."

Such references to spiritual warfare—prayer as battle against Satan, evil, and sin—might seem like heavy evangelical rhetoric for the senator from New York, but they went over well with the Sojourners audience, as did her call to "inject faith into policy."

When you get to the injecting faith into policy part, you've lost me. Its the secretive part of this that troubles me, and the knowledge that Hillary polls as one of the least religious of the field of candidates on either side. But in secret she is meeting in the basement of the caverns of power with the real agenda makers.
That is not what America is supposed to be about. Call me naive, but I'm not ready to just lay down yet in the face of what the settlers did to get here, kill the Indians, steal their land, and form this less than perfect union.
People like my Mom think that this is just a show to try to get to certain groups and that deep down Hillary is really very liberal and peaceful, but I don't buy it.

So, Clark thinks shes a good bet? Whatever....
The die may be cast already in this thing, but to me there is an awfully long time to go before the primary and alot can happen....and among those things, I hope, will be some sort of answer on this question and if she is still a working member of the Fellowship...I'm looking for answers....

Maybe we need to rethink this whole Israel thing

Is this what we're supporting with our blind support of Israel?

The other day I was waiting for a bus in downtown Jerusalem. I was in the bustling orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of Mea Sharim and the bus stop was extremely crowded.

When the Number 40 bus arrived, the most curious thing happened. Husbands left heavily pregnant wives or spouses struggling with prams and pushchairs to fend for themselves as they and all other male passengers got on at the front of the bus.

Women moved towards the rear door to get on at the back.

When on the bus, I tried to buck the system, moving my way towards the driver but was pushed back towards the other women.

These are what orthodox Jews call "modesty buses".

The separation system operates on 30 public bus routes across Israel.

The authorities here say the arrangement is voluntary, but in practice, as I found out, there is not much choice involved.

'Abuse and threats'

Naomi Regen is one of a group of women now taking the separation bus system to court. She is an orthodox Jew herself.

"I wasn't trying to start a revolution, all I wanted to do was get home," she tells me.

"I was in downtown Jerusalem and I saw a bus going straight to my neighbourhood and I got on and sat down, in a single seat behind the driver.

"It was a completely empty bus, and all of a sudden, some men started getting on, ultra-orthodox men. They told me I was not allowed to sit there, I had to go to the back of the bus."

Not only is the segregation system discriminatory, says Ms Regen, but it can also be dangerous, she says, for those like her who ignore it.

"I said to him look, if you bring me a code of Jewish law and show me where it's written that I have to sit at the back of the bus I'll move.

"And he tried to gain support from the rest of the passengers and I underwent a half-hour of pure hell - abuse, humiliation, threats, even physical intimidation."

[snip]

One man told me that if some people wanted segregation buses they should pay a private company to provide them.

Another told me that in a society that is democratic and where the buses are subsidised by the government, a minority's concerns should not override those of the majority.

But Shlomo Rosenstein disagrees. He is a city councillor in Jerusalem where a large proportion of Israel's segregation lines operate.

"This really is about positive discrimination, in women's favour. Our religion says there should be no public contact between men and women, this modesty barrier must not be broken."

So tell me how this differs from the Islamic treatment of women that the lunatics on the right who are of the Hebraic persuasion (*cough* Debbie Schlussel *cough*) rail against?

And does anyone else think that "modesty buses" sounds just a bit too much like "purity balls"?

(h/t: Cernig)