In The News

First up today is something possibly quite interesting, but at this point, no one knows exactly what it is. By the time you read this, it may be a complete 'non-event', or it could be an explosive news release. We shall see. For now, the claims are pretty sensational:

Glen Beck Will Break News That Will Take Down The Entire Power Structure Within 24 Hours

Will Glen Beck's Whistleblower Take Down America's 'Bipartisan Combine' Today?

I sure hope so. And I will be praying so.

That should be done (must be done?) for us to free ourselves from the phony-right vs. left paradigm controlled by the globalist mammon (money-power) complex.

Then we need, as Sarah Palin has said, “sudden and relentless reform,” a reform that I believe includes measures to prevent the controlling dynamic of predictable, thus planned and executed two-party conflict. That reform could begin with constitutionally implementing the run-off election system for federal and state offices.

And we need so much more, to bring us back to a nation of popular sovereigns, that preeminent position for each guarded by state and national sovereignty. And yes, that includes among so many reforms, regaining control of our own financial and monetary policies. What a (constitutional) concept. Ron Paul is right about that, though any global currency, even gold as a global currency, brings with it the seeds of a loss of national economic defense and instead, of mutually assured economic destruction (MAED).

But back to Beck… will we find out, this morning, Mr. Beck?

“It will take down the GOP. It will take down the Democrats. It will take down many members of Congress. It will take all of ‘em down – and outside of Congress. It will take all of ‘em down.”

UN Chief: Syria Spillover Threatens Golan Truce

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that spillover from Syria’s civil war threatens a 40-year-old cease-fire between Syria and Israel in the disputed Golan Heights and recommended bolstering the vulnerable UN peacekeeping force there by more than 300 troops.

Ban’s recommendation, made in a report to the Security Council on Wednesday, came even as the UN seeks replacements for Austrian peacekeepers who are withdrawing from the Golan Heights after fighting threatened their positions.

“The ongoing military activities in the area of separation continue to have the potential to escalate tensions between Israel and the Syrian Arab Republic and to jeopardize the ceasefire between the two countries,” Ban said.

PA Objects To Israel's Western Wall Construction Plans

The Palestinian Authority will not permit Israel to change the entrance to the Temple Mount in order to facilitate the building of an egalitarian prayer area near the Western Wall, PA Religious Affairs Minister Mahmoud El Habash told The Jerusalem Post in Ramallah Thursday morning.

Sharansky’s plan will allow for the construction of an additional section of the Western Wall Plaza at the southern end of the Kotel, equal in size and height as the northern prayer area, for egalitarian prayer and accessible as part of one unified Western Wall complex with a single entrance. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has told Sharansky to meet with National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror to deal with issues like how to handle moving the Mugrabi Bridge to the Temple Mount

He said he considers the Western Wall an Islamic holy site, al-Buraq.

"Any changes in Haram a-Sharif [Temple Mount] is unacceptable to the Palestinians and Arab side," Habash said in a meeting with Israeli journalists. "It's a change of our heritage site and I believe such changes may push all of us to new conflicts and problems."

Habash, who is a former Hamas member from the Gaza Strip but strongly backs two states for two peoples, said any change in the status quo regarding the Temple Mount must wait until a final status agreement between Israel and the PA

Housing Minister Confirms E. Jerusalem Building Freeze

Housing Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) on Thursday confirmed that no new apartments or houses had been built in Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem during 2013, saying it was a “very problematic” situation.

“The data speaks for itself,” the hawkish Ariel told Army Radio. “There is no building in East Jerusalem at the moment.” He added that questions on the issue should be directed to the Prime Minister’s Office.

A Monday report by Army Radio about the absence of construction projects in East Jerusalem since the beginning of this year prompted right-wing politicians to accuse the government of an unofficial construction freeze in the Jewish neighborhoods over the Green Line.

Netanyahu Calls For Peace Talks 'Without Delay'

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel sought a “historic compromise” with the Palestinians to end the conflict “once and for all” and was ready to enter negotiations “without preconditions [and] without delay.”

“I want peace. To achieve peace, we must negotiate peace. We want to see this American effort succeed,” Netanyahu said, after a meeting with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw. “Israel is ready for the resumption of direct negotiations for peace, without preconditions…” He said it was time to stop “squabbling” over preconditions. “I think it’s time to stop negotiating about the negotiations. I think we have to start peace talks immediately,” he added.

“My goal is to see a historic compromise that ends the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians once and for all,” Netanyahu continued. “This will entail a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state, with iron clad security arrangements for Israel — recognition, security, demilitarization…  I look forward to enter those negotiations without preconditions, without delay. I am ready for such a peace. I hope the Palestinians are ready too.”

Also see:

H1N1 Flu Cases Up Sharply In Venezuela

The number of H1N1 swine flu cases rose sharply in Venezuela during the last week of May, the health ministry said Wednesday, refusing to disclose whether any deaths have been linked to the outbreak.
Health Minister Isabel Iturria, explaining why deaths would not be reported, blamed "political or economic interests" for creating alarm over the outbreak.
The ministry said there were 414 new cases of H1N1 in the week from May 26 to June 1, pushing the total number of cases from 724 to 1,138.
The virus was detected for the first time in Venezuela in 2009.
The current outbreak has surpassed one in 2011 that resulted in 900 cases and eight deaths.
Venezuela has been fiercely polarized since Nicolas Maduro was declared the winner of a disputed election in April to replace his mentor, the late leftist leader Hugo Chavez. The centrist opposition has contested the results.

Europe Alarmed By U.S. Surveillance

Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding plans to raise the concerns with US Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday.

Last week a series of leaks by a former CIA worker led to claims the US had a vast surveillance network with much less oversight than previously thought.

US officials say the snooping programme known as Prism, revealed in last week's leaks, is authorised under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa).

It gives the US National Security Agency (NSA) the power to obtain emails and phone records relating to non-US nationals.

But details about the individuals targeted under the act remain secret, and there are concerns the NSA is overstepping its powers.

Willing Executioners

[This article is very timely and thought-provoking]

Here at American Thinker last week, my friend Herb Meyer wrote a piecethat's getting a lot of attention. He noted that as the Obama administration erupts into scandal, we look everywhere for a smoking gun leading back to the president. Don't bother, cautions Meyer. If you study history, you'll realize few such documents ever materialize. 

The example he cited has gotten much attention: "Very few people are aware of this, but there is no document -- not one -- linking Adolf Hitler to the Holocaust. Why not? Because Hitler didn't need to sign a document ordering the slaughter of six million Jews." All that Hitler needed to do, notes Meyer, was demonize his enemies and then hire thugs like Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Eichmann, and Josef Goebbels to do the rest. They knew what he wanted, and then they handled the details.

 I would like to pick up the analogy, because Meyer is indeed on to something that should worry us greatly, especially given the political psychology of American liberals.

A book came out in 1996 called Hitler's Willing Executioners, by Daniel Goldhagen. The book remains controversial with (rightly so) plenty of detractors. But Goldhagen's principal argument has merit -- namely, that Adolf Hitler himself never killed a single Jew; rather, it took countless thousands and millions of ordinary Germans to carry out -- to execute -- Hitler's plan. In this, Goldhagen was exactly right, and his observation ties back to Meyer's thesis and, more so, what I've long feared is happening with the American Left.

What Hitler and his minions did was thoroughly demonize their enemies, convincing the German masses that Jews and other despised groups were subhuman, untermenschen. A major factor in Hitler's political advancement was his amazing ability to fabricate an assortment of handy scapegoats for the nation's ills. He got away with blaming anyone but himself for whatever calamity or misfortune. As he did, his followers assented, nodding their heads and bleating like sheep.

What the American Left has done to its enemies is not entirely dissimilar, even while certainly not approaching the crass, deadly level of the Nazis. But whether it's Obama himself, or his campaign, or Media Matters or MoveOn.org or any number of left-wing groups and websites and publications and media outlets, the American Left has been merciless in thoroughly demonizing opponents. Liberals don't just politely disagree, or agree that people can disagree; no -- too often they caricature those who disagree as vile reprobates with no possible good intentions or reasoning for their positions. It's a very illiberal thing to do.

Take the Tea Party, for starters. Once they saw the Tea Party's effectiveness, especially after the 2010 midterm elections, liberals/"progressives" went on a rampage, smearing the wide swath of Tea Party members (whom they probably never met) as recalcitrant racists. It was a charge totally unfair and ludicrous. I know people in the Tea Party. I watched the group develop. They are absolutely not racists; they were driven completely by the fiscal madness of Obama and the Pelosi Democratic Congress in the first six months of Obama's presidency. But once liberals starting ramping up their crude caricature, with congressmen and NPR executives and respected left-wing journals of opinion like the New York Times leading the way, the liberal mob responded in kind. Tea Party members were labeled as the worst kind of "extremists."

The result was shocking to behold. Like wildfire, liberals/progressives everywhere were swept up, fuming with anger and fanning the flames. They mimicked the party line without any question whatsoever. They whipped themselves into an emotional frenzy, convinced with absolute righteousness that this insidious group of racists was trying to undermine the saintly, kindly Obama for no reason other than the color of his skin.

As conservatives, we saw from the outset that this was pure politics -- actually, pure political demagoguery. Conservative talk-shows played clips from select liberals (such as Chuck Schumer) admitting as much. We saw right through it. But liberals don't think that way. They aren't wired that way. They're incredibly emotional people who can be easily prodded by their party/ideological elite, especially with the spontaneity and instant communication of social media -- the new mother's milk of the liberal mob. They really are prone to fads and fashions and mass behavior in ways that conservatives plainly aren't. I've seen it again and again. Conservatives aren't perfect, and have their own quirks and vices, but they don't tend toward this kind of group thinking and collective action. For conservatives, the ability to think logically and independently, based upon beliefs and values deeper and timeless, and to not be seduced by what Pope Benedict XVI calls the "anonymous power" of the latest fads and fashions, is what makes them conservative to begin with.

And so, when word was out among the Left that the Tea Party was comprised of genuine evildoers, the wider liberal masses, whether at blogs and nonprofits and Facebook or working for the IRS not only responded; they retaliated. They acted naturally. They didn't need Obama to tell them what to do. Exactly as Herb Meyer says, there was never any need for a printed order from Obama.

When an Oregon couple, a baker and his wife, declined to make a wedding cake for two members of the same sex, the apostles of tolerance and diversity went screaming mad, attacking the couple with profanities and threatening lawsuits -- with no respect at all for the couples' freedom. "You stupid bible thumping, hypocritical [expletive]," wrote one loving liberal in an email. "I hope your kids get really, really, sick and you go out of business." Another champion of compassion added: "Here's hoping you go out of business, you bigot. Enjoy hell."

Organizations trying to stop gay marriage -- that is, trying to stop the redefinition of marriage, and believe that children need a mom and a dad -- are being derided as "hate groups."

A near-tragic example happened with the Family Research Council, which was labeled a "hate group." I know people at the Family Research Council. They are good-hearted, classic social conservatives. Their social positions aren't different from where the Democratic Party stood for over a century.

But once an organization of "civil rights" liberals labeled the Family Research Council a "hate group," the charge went viral, and then, one fateful day last August, an enraged homosexual activist headed for the group's offices with an arsenal of bullets and weapons poorly concealed in Chick-fil-A bags. He was stopped only by an alert security guard, who was shot and injured.

This left-wing gay activist, convinced that the Family Research Council was promulgating "hate," was prompted to an act of attempted mass murder.

This example should be widely known. It isn't. Why not? Because the mainstream media hasn't made it a national issue. If this had been a conservative shooter targeting a liberal organization, with a conservative president in the White House, all of conservatism would be held complicit, and the media would demand the president condemn the action. There would be a national media campaign against "conservative extremism."

Speaking of Chick-fil-A, it, too, has been a target of leftist rage: boycotts, protests, pickets, mayors of big cities trying to ban the restaurant and describing its product as "hate chicken." Why? Simply because the CEO is against gay marriage, which not long ago was the position of Bill and Hillary Clinton and the entire Democratic Party.

And then there's the hideous charge that Republicans who oppose mandatory taxpayer funding of abortion somehow thus favor a "war on women." Sandra Fluke has become a liberal heroine for that cultural/political obscenity.

Enough said. On and on it goes. I could give countless examples, some of them personal. We all can. Any conservative can.

In sum, these leftists are Obama's and (more widely) liberalism's willing executioners. They obviously aren't literally executing people -- although that was indeed the literal intent of the Family Research Council gunman -- but they are executing what they believe is a glorious plan for the fundamental transformation of America. They are willingly executing Obama's agenda and their agenda. Any opponents are isolated as enemies and maligned in the most demeaning way. 

Unfortunately, my warning will fall on deaf ears. Being driven by emotion to begin with, and then easily whipped into hysteria, liberals will reject my warning out of hand. After all, in their view, I'm defending the indefensible: vile racists and haters who are loathsome, have no dignity, and deserve to be ruined. On top of that, I'll be lucky if a hundred liberals even read this article and take it seriously.

In short, this country is in really bad shape. The America we knew is gone; it is over. This new breed of leftist is ascendant and angry, and changing the country and the culture in the process. The results are not pretty. Things are only going to get worse.