The Council Has Spoken!! Our Watcher’s Council Results 03.20.15

The Council Has Spoken! The votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

“”You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?” – Adolf Hitler

“I studied the Qu’ran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. As far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion more to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself” – Alexis de Tocqueville

“All this talk of people who burn the Koran and nothing about the people who reacted in such a stupid way. We are always blaming the victim and not holding them — not most Muslims, but at least a large part of Muslim culture that doesn’t condemn their people… There is one religion in the world that kills you when you disagree with them and they say ‘look, we are a religion of peace and if you disagree we’ll f**king cut your head off, and nobody calls them on it — there are very few people that will call them on it. It’s like if Dad is a violent drunk and beats his kids, you don’t blame the kid because he set Dad off. You blame Dad because he’s a violent drunk” - Bill Maher

This week’s winning essay, Joshuapundit’s The Chicken Or The Egg? looks at some elements of Islamic culture and asks: is it Islam that promotes the extreme violence and misogyny associated with Muslim societies? Or is that just [art of a tribal society that persists in spite of Islam? Here’s a slice:

Unless you’re in a coma, you’ve probably noticed that a great many of the violent and barbaric acts in our modern world can be attributed to followers of Islam.

In the Islamic world today, aside from homicide bombings, jihad and terrorism directed against dar harb ( the part of the world not ruled by Islam), honor killings, female genital circumcision and other forms of violence against women are commonplace, and homosexuals are routinely brutalized and murdered. Non-Muslims are treated as barely human in much of the Islamic world, if they’re allowed to exist at all. Warfare carried out by Muslims is done with modern tools of the trade provided by the despised infidels, but is a relic of the good ol’ primitive and tribal days. Hostages, beheadings and the deliberate killing of civilians are all fair game, and the language of jihad is essentially the same heady stuff used back in the 7th century against the infidel. And through it all, there remains the miasma of seething violent rage at things like the Danish cartoons that simply doesn’t exist in other religious groups.

The question nobody wants to ask keeps floating to the surface: Is Islam to blame? Or, to put it another way, are the perpetrators simply bad Muslims or are they actually good ones who are simply more in tune with Mohammed’s message than the majority? Does Islam itself promote violence? Or are the acts simply a product of primitive tribal society that persists in spite of Islam?

Actually, this is a trick question. I personally believe that Islam and the primitive tribal culture combined back in the day to sustain each other and can’t be separated by their very nature…even though some valiant attempts have been made in the past, and are being made today.

Let’s look at honor killings, for example. Probably the oldest recorded one is in Genesis 34, when Jacob’s daughter Dinah was seduced (or raped, depending on how you interpret the text) by a man from the town of Shechem (modern day Nablus). Afterwards, Jacob’s sons Simeon and Levi instigated the killing of the town’s men in revenge. But the Torah also tells us how Jacob denounced the killings and actually took the time to bad mouth his sons for the deed from his deathbed. Not only that, but you’ll notice a profound difference from the Islamic way of handling this – the onus of punishment fell on the male, not the female.

his isn’t the only honor killing mentioned in the Bible, but they were never condoned or part of Jewish law, just merely reported.

Islam, on the other hand, not only sanctions honor killings but is quite clear about its position in the matter. Killing or flogging an adulteress or a female that has relations with a non-Muslim male are part of sharia ( Qu’ran: 4:15, for example) – provided an Islamic court orders the punishment rather than an individual male family member going off on his own.

Even at that, Islamic courts today in the Muslim world frequently view male family members taking the law into their own hands fairly leniently. In Jordan, for example, many brutal honor killings have been punished by as little as a three month sentence under Jordanian Public Law 340. Moreover, in the context of Islamic society such murderers are often celebrated and held up as role models. Just as homicide bombers and terrorists who kill infidel civilians often are.

But what if a Muslim feels himself disrespected and lives in say, Britain or New Jersey? If no Islamic courts are available, is it permissible to take the law into one’s own hands? Probably. There’s not much in the way of Islamic rulings or commentary on that particular subject, but the near silence of most Muslim clergy in the West when it comes to denouncing honor killings speaks volumes…one of those little inconvenient truths Western apologists for multiculturalism and Islam constantly run up against when a number of Muslim clerics themselves insist that honor killing, female genital mutilation, and stoning of adulterers are mandated by Islam. And, as you’ve probably guessed by now , that’s one of the unspoken reasons behind the push among many Muslims in the West for sharia courts to handle those messy domestic problems that come up with uppity females from time to time.

Violent death penalties for women caught in adultery is fairly typical of a primitive society, but only Islam continues the practice into the present day. No Christian court has ever condemned a woman to death for adultery. And although the death penalty for adultery is found in the Book of Leviticus, there is no record of such a sentence ever carried out by any Jewish court. The same is true of homosexuality; while both Christianity and Judaism consider it ‘a sin and an abomination’ only Islam clearly mandates the death penalty for such activities and carries it out in our present day.

So why does Islamic society persist in these practices ?

Much more at the link.

In our non-Council category, the winner was Daniel Greenfield’s – Obama’s Treason Is The New Patriotism submitted by The Noisy Room. Daniel has some very hard hitting things to say about President Obama and a number of his questionable actions..and the tendency by the usual suspects to name anyone whom disagrees with the Regime a ‘traitor.’

Here are this week’s full results. GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD and Rhymes With Right were unable to vote this week, but were not subject to the usual 2/3 vote penalty for not voting:

Council Winners

• *First place with 2 1/3 votes! – Joshuapundit - The Chicken Or The Egg?
• Second place with 2 votes – Bookworm Room – Trevor Loudon tells enthralled Marin County audience that victory in 2016 requires uniting and inspiring conservative base
• Third place with 1 1/3 votes – VA Right! - Is the Location of Hillary Clinton’s Email Server 75 Broad St New York, NY 10004?
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – Nice Deb – President Bystander Blames Bush For ISIS – Even Though He Funded Them and They Metastasized On His Watch
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – Ask Marion – Beating The Odds
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – Don Surber – Prime Minister: “Australians are sick of being lectured to by the United Nations”
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – The Right Planet – The Silencers
• Fifth place with 2/3 votes – The Noisy Room – The Faustian Pact Between Obama And Iran
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 votes – The Glittering Eye - The History of ‘Advice and Consent’
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 votes – Rhymes With Right – But The Obama Administration Assured Us These Folks Were Poor People Who Just Needed Jobs!

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 3 votes! – Daniel Greenfield/FrontPage Mag – Obama’s Treason Is The New Patriotism submitted by The Noisy Room
• Second place with 2 1/3 votes – Michael Totten – Let Iraq Die: A Case for Partition submitted by Joshuapundit
• Third place with 2 votes – James Rosen/Playboy – Dick Cheney Interview: ‘Obama is The Worst President Of My Lifetime’ submitted by The Watcher
• Fourth place with 1 vote – Walter Russell Mead – The Way Forward on Iran submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes -Michael Douglas/LA Times – Michael Douglas finds Judaism and faces anti-Semitism submitted by Don Surber
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes -Richard Epstein/Hoover Institution - Race Baiting And Ferguson submitted by Nice Deb
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Veronique de Rugy/The Daily Beast – On Ex-Im Bank, the Democrats Are the Real Corporate Shills submitted by The Razor
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Victor Davis Hanson/PJ Media - A Tale of Four Droughts submitted by Bookworm Room

See you next week!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. and every  Tuesday morning, when we reveal the weeks’ nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y’know?

Our Weasel of the Week!! 03.19.15

Every Tuesday, the Council nominates some of the slimiest, most despicable characters in public life for some deed of evil, cowardice or corruption they’ve performed. Then we vote to single out one particular Weasel for special mention, to whom we award the statuette of shame, our special, 100% plastic Golden Weasel. This week’s nominees were all truly slime-worthy and disgusting,but in the end the unanimous winner was….the envelope please..

The Regime’s Own Komedy King, ‘Director Of National Intelligence’ James Clapper!!

JoshuaPundit: Yes, good ol’ Jim Clapper, Obama’s ‘intelligence’ specialist, who referred to the Muslim Brotherhood as ‘a secular organization’ without even cracking a smile when testifying before congress. Yes, the laugh was in in his delivery – pompous, all knowing and put upon that he should even be questioned on such things by such mere peasants.

Since then, Jim Clapper has been good for a lot of laughs as he reliably shills for Obama’s failed foreign policy.

His latest caper? In his 2015 Worldwide Threat Assessment for congress he totally delisted Iran as a state supporter of terrorism and Iran’s proxy Hezbollah as a terrorist group. And why not? They’re our allies now, President Obama says so, and so does James Clapper. So it must be true.

Yeah, they seem like a friendly bunch, don’t they? What’s wrong with them having nukes?

Hey, Jim Clapper, just like his boss in the Oval Office doesn’t see anything wrong with it? Why should we? And Hezbollah? Sure, before 9/11 they held the record for the terrorist group murdering the most Americans,but that was then and this is now.

Y’know, Clapper and a number of his buddies throughout out the Obama Administration like Robert Malley, Dalia Megahead, Huma Abedin, Mohamed Elibiary, Rashad Hussain, Salam al-Marayati and a number of others remind me a lot of how commies,their sympathizers and Soviet spies like Owen Lattimore, Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, Harry Hopkins, Nathan Gregory Silvermaster and lots of others infiltrated the Roosevelt and Truman administrations. Most of them weren’t high profile..they functioned behind the scenes as trusted behind the scenes advisers, apparatchniks and bureaucrats at various choke points where they could see and hear a lot and/or had the ear of people whom directly affected policy. They were the ultimate weasels of the Cold War, and between them they gave Stalin the atomic bomb, convinced Roosevelt to trust Stalin when he said he’d pull the Red Army out of Europe after the war, and duped Truman into allowing the Soviets to keep eastern Europe enslaved and bring the USSR into the UN.

I have a feeling that when the history of these times is written, some of the names I mentioned, perhaps even Mr. Clapper’s might just be mentioned as he ultimate weasels of their own time.So I think it’s only appropriate and fitting that Mr. Clapper receive this well earned Golden weasel…both for the weaselly deeds he’s already done and the one’s he’ll undoubtedly do in the future. Step up to the stage, James Clapper, and here’s your weasel!

Oh, the red stuff on the sides? Well, we had that done especially for you, kind of a symbolic tribute. Looks almost like blood, doesn’t it?

Well, there it is!

Check back next Tuesday to see who next week’s nominees for Weasel of the Week are!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum, and remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y’know?

The Council Has Spoken!! Our Watcher’s Council Results 02.27.15

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

“Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung. “ -Sir Walter Scott

Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory. – General George S. Patton

“I was only the servant of my country and had I, at any moment, failed to express her unflinching resolve to fight and conquer, I should at once have been rightly cast aside. - Sir Winston Churchill

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” - 1 Samuel 16:7

This week’s winning essay,Joshuapundit’s Is President Obama A Christian? Does He Love America? was my reaction to the question raised by former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the media meltdown that followed. Here’s a slice:

Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani created a press-fueled tempest in a teapot when he raised those issues at a private dinner. As you know, only Democrats and Leftists are entitled to  private conversations and secrecy even the Mafia would envy. And of course, to the freedom to express their opinions  no matter how bat sh*t crazy they are. Rudy Giuliani obviously doesn’t qualify for that kind of protection.

Of course the press leaped on this. The current administration and its minions are free to refer to ‘right wing Tea Partiers’ as  terrorists and to deride a serving US General commanding a combat operation as ‘General Betray Us’ in the New York Times,  but again, the rule for Democrats and the Left is that you may never question  their patriotism under any circumstances, no matter what they say or do.

Having pretty much struck out trying to smear GOP front runner Governor Scott Walker for not undergoing four years or more of Leftist indoctrination at someplace like Harvard, Yale, Columbia or Princeton, the Obama media decided to grab at another straw and make a point of asking Governor Walker if he thought this president was a Christian.

His quite sensible reply was that he didn’t know, and as Byron York pointed out, a fair amount of Americans don’t know either. I suppose it all depends on whether you consider Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church with its radical politics and its  anti-Semitic and racialist overtones ‘Christian.’  Or whether you’re confused about a president who defends Islam and Islamists at every turn while dissing Christianity and standing by and doing nothing while Christians are being  ethnically cleansed from the Middle East by those peaceful Islamists.

But at any rate, the only way to know for sure would be to look inside this president’s head and heart, and Walker was astute in simply saying he wasn’t going to attempt that.

Now, does this president love America? Again, like the question about Christianity, it all depends on what your definition of loving America is.

In his memoir about his time as Secretary of Defense in the Bush and Obama Administrations, Robert Gates chronicled his struggle to contain his rage as former Democrat Senators and 2008 presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden chuckled to Gates about how their efforts during the second Bush administration to sabotage America’s war effort in Iraq and the Surge in particular while our troops were under fire were ‘hah hah,just politics, ho ho.’ As Gates related, these efforts along with their calculated attempts to insult and emasculate its commander General Petraeus literally cost American lives.

Now again, some people are going to say ‘what difference does it make?’ Others would be outraged at this and a lot of other things that have happened in this administration.

So you see, it all depends on your point of view.

But walk with me a minute.

Let’s say,just for giggles, we elected a president who actually didn’t love the country, but whose agenda could more accurately be described in one word – payback.

How would such a president behave?

Much more at the link.

In our non-Council category, the winner was the one and only Mark Steyn  with Oh Beautiful For Specious Guys submitted by The Noisy Room.

Steyn exercises his usual mastery at getting to the heart of the matter, in this case the Obama Administration’s craven response to violent, radical Islamism uhhh, ‘violent extremism’ that dares not speak its name. A must read.

Here are this week’s full results. Only the Right Planet was unable to vote this week, but was not subject to the usual 2/3 vote penalty for not voting:

Council Winners

• *First place with 3 votes! – Joshuapundit - Is President Obama A Christian? Does He Love America?
• Second place with 2 1/3 votes – Bookworm Room – Hey, Sweden! How’s that open immigration and PC-multiculturalism working out in your faux-socialist land?
• Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes  – Nice Deb  – Al Sisi and Haftar Fight ISIS in Libya With No Help From US – While Obama Meets With Muslim Brotherhood
• Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes  – The Right Planet – Doomed To Repeat…
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – China’s Attack Strategy: Swarm Baby, Swarm
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Noisy Room – The Russian Bear Moves In Next Door
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – VA Right! - Is Obama a Christian or a Muslim? What Do His Deeds Say?
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote  – Rhymes With Right – Is Obama A Christian
• Fifth place with 1/3 votes –Ask Marion – Texas Is Leading the Way to Stop President Obama’s Illegal Amnesty

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 3 votes! – Mark Steyn –Oh Beautiful For Specious Guys submitted by The Noisy Room
• Second place with 2 1/3 votes  – Jonah Goldberg – Progressives’ Peculiar Sense of Patriotism submitted by Joshuapundit
• Third place with 1 2/3 votes – Warrior Lodge  – A French Soldier’s View of US Soldiers in Afghanistan submitted by The Right Planet
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes -Sultan Knish – We Can Kill Our Way to Victory submitted by The Independent Sentinel
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes - Bobby Ghoush/Defense One  – Why Arab Ground Troops Won’t Defeat ISIS submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes - The People’s Cube – Quran-Quran: glam band puts a face to the Muslim Invasion submitted by The Razor
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Roll Call – McConnell Throws in Towel on DHS Fight, but Reid Is Waiting for Boehner to Cave (Updated submitted by VA Right!
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Gay Patriot – Liberals Really Are Less Patriotic than Conservatives submitted by Rhymes with Right
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote -DC Clothesline  – Jobs for Jihadists’ Applications Flood State Department submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Mister Chambers – Onward To Defeat submitted by The Watcher

See you next week!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. and every  Tuesday morning, when we reveal the weeks’ nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y’know?

The Council Has Spoken!! Our Watcher’s Council Results 02.27.15

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

“Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung. “ -Sir Walter Scott

Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory. – General George S. Patton

“I was only the servant of my country and had I, at any moment, failed to express her unflinching resolve to fight and conquer, I should at once have been rightly cast aside. - Sir Winston Churchill

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” - 1 Samuel 16:7

This week’s winning essay,Joshuapundit’s Is President Obama A Christian? Does He Love America? was my reaction to the question raised by former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the media meltdown that followed. Here’s a slice:

Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani created a press-fueled tempest in a teapot when he raised those issues at a private dinner. As you know, only Democrats and Leftists are entitled to  private conversations and secrecy even the Mafia would envy. And of course, to the freedom to express their opinions  no matter how bat sh*t crazy they are. Rudy Giuliani obviously doesn’t qualify for that kind of protection.

Of course the press leaped on this. The current administration and its minions are free to refer to ‘right wing Tea Partiers’ as  terrorists and to deride a serving US General commanding a combat operation as ‘General Betray Us’ in the New York Times,  but again, the rule for Democrats and the Left is that you may never question  their patriotism under any circumstances, no matter what they say or do.

Having pretty much struck out trying to smear GOP front runner Governor Scott Walker for not undergoing four years or more of Leftist indoctrination at someplace like Harvard, Yale, Columbia or Princeton, the Obama media decided to grab at another straw and make a point of asking Governor Walker if he thought this president was a Christian.

His quite sensible reply was that he didn’t know, and as Byron York pointed out, a fair amount of Americans don’t know either. I suppose it all depends on whether you consider Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church with its radical politics and its  anti-Semitic and racialist overtones ‘Christian.’  Or whether you’re confused about a president who defends Islam and Islamists at every turn while dissing Christianity and standing by and doing nothing while Christians are being  ethnically cleansed from the Middle East by those peaceful Islamists.

But at any rate, the only way to know for sure would be to look inside this president’s head and heart, and Walker was astute in simply saying he wasn’t going to attempt that.

Now, does this president love America? Again, like the question about Christianity, it all depends on what your definition of loving America is.

In his memoir about his time as Secretary of Defense in the Bush and Obama Administrations, Robert Gates chronicled his struggle to contain his rage as former Democrat Senators and 2008 presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden chuckled to Gates about how their efforts during the second Bush administration to sabotage America’s war effort in Iraq and the Surge in particular while our troops were under fire were ‘hah hah,just politics, ho ho.’ As Gates related, these efforts along with their calculated attempts to insult and emasculate its commander General Petraeus literally cost American lives.

Now again, some people are going to say ‘what difference does it make?’ Others would be outraged at this and a lot of other things that have happened in this administration.

So you see, it all depends on your point of view.

But walk with me a minute.

Let’s say,just for giggles, we elected a president who actually didn’t love the country, but whose agenda could more accurately be described in one word – payback.

How would such a president behave?

Much more at the link.

In our non-Council category, the winner was the one and only Mark Steyn  with Oh Beautiful For Specious Guys submitted by The Noisy Room.

Steyn exercises his usual mastery at getting to the heart of the matter, in this case the Obama Administration’s craven response to violent, radical Islamism uhhh, ‘violent extremism’ that dares not speak its name. A must read.

Here are this week’s full results. Only the Right Planet was unable to vote this week, but was not subject to the usual 2/3 vote penalty for not voting:

Council Winners

• *First place with 3 votes! – Joshuapundit - Is President Obama A Christian? Does He Love America?
• Second place with 2 1/3 votes – Bookworm Room – Hey, Sweden! How’s that open immigration and PC-multiculturalism working out in your faux-socialist land?
• Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes  – Nice Deb  – Al Sisi and Haftar Fight ISIS in Libya With No Help From US – While Obama Meets With Muslim Brotherhood
• Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes  – The Right Planet – Doomed To Repeat…
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – China’s Attack Strategy: Swarm Baby, Swarm
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Noisy Room – The Russian Bear Moves In Next Door
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – VA Right! - Is Obama a Christian or a Muslim? What Do His Deeds Say?
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote  – Rhymes With Right – Is Obama A Christian
• Fifth place with 1/3 votes –Ask Marion – Texas Is Leading the Way to Stop President Obama’s Illegal Amnesty

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 3 votes! – Mark Steyn –Oh Beautiful For Specious Guys submitted by The Noisy Room
• Second place with 2 1/3 votes  – Jonah Goldberg – Progressives’ Peculiar Sense of Patriotism submitted by Joshuapundit
• Third place with 1 2/3 votes – Warrior Lodge  – A French Soldier’s View of US Soldiers in Afghanistan submitted by The Right Planet
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes -Sultan Knish – We Can Kill Our Way to Victory submitted by The Independent Sentinel
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes - Bobby Ghoush/Defense One  – Why Arab Ground Troops Won’t Defeat ISIS submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes - The People’s Cube – Quran-Quran: glam band puts a face to the Muslim Invasion submitted by The Razor
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Roll Call – McConnell Throws in Towel on DHS Fight, but Reid Is Waiting for Boehner to Cave (Updated submitted by VA Right!
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Gay Patriot – Liberals Really Are Less Patriotic than Conservatives submitted by Rhymes with Right
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote -DC Clothesline  – Jobs for Jihadists’ Applications Flood State Department submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Mister Chambers – Onward To Defeat submitted by The Watcher

See you next week!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. and every  Tuesday morning, when we reveal the weeks’ nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y’know?

Our Weasel Of The Week!! - 2.26.15

It’s time to present this week’s statuette of shame, The Golden Weasel, to our Weasel Of The Week!!

Every Tuesday, the Council nominates some of the slimiest, most despicable characters in public life for some deed of evil, cowardice or corruption they’ve performed. Then we vote to single out one particular Weasel for special mention, to whom we award the statuette of shame, our special, 100% plastic Golden Weasel. This week’s nominees were all truly slime-worthy and disgusting, but in the end the overwhelming winner was….the envelope please..

State Department Spokeshole,Jihadi Employment Specialist and Chikken Fried Crap Thrower Marie Harsh!

The Independent Sentinel: For me, Marie Harf has a slight edge over Eric Holder who doesn’t know why we have to call radical Islam by its name. She thinks the solution to ISIS is jobs!

During an interview with Chris Matthews on MSNBC, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said: “We can’t kill our way out of this war…whether it’s more opportunities for jobs… what makes these 17-year old kids pick up an AK-47 instead of trying to start a business.”

We’re still killing them but they need job opportunities, she assured Chris Matthews.

Since they don’t know what this “kind of ideology this is” in the White House, this solution isn’t unexpected.

Maybe we can open up an ISIS employment agency at the White House or we could give ISIS jobs as border agents.

Yes, it’s Marie Harf who took the honors this week. Straight outta college and into the Obama Campaign, she’s been a particularly loyal soldat, she has, and last week’s set to proved it.

There she was, saying that we couldn’t kill or way to victory, that all IS needs are job opportunities, and that all the Islamist terrorist outfits in the world are somehow absolved by Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Army in Uganda, a supposed ‘Christian’ terrorist outfit. Why,she even wrote her college thesis on the awful way all those wack job Right Wingers and Evangelicals support Israel and how bad it is for U.S.foreign policy.

In other words, mirroring exactly what Barack Hussein Obama believes.

“Hey, I’ve got a Masters, I wear glasses and I’m smarter than all of you dammit ! That’s why I’m Deputy State Department deputy spokeswoman!”

Ah, but all that being down for the struggle  just wasn’t enough.

When her supervisor, State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki moves to the White House (appropriately on April Fool’s Day) to serve as the next White House Communications Director, you’d think Marie Harf would get her reward for all that sucking up ( or whatever direction it was) and get promoted to Psaki’s old job. Alas, it appears not. Sigh. It’s one thing to lie and dissemble as part of your daily duties, but to not even get a proper reward for it? How dare President Obama deny us all that material! I’m proud to present this Weasel to Ms.Harf, and I certainly hope it starts the ball rolling towards her well earned promotion.

No more war on women!

Well, there it is!

Check back next Tuesday to see who next week’s nominees for Weasel of the Week are!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum, and remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y’know?

Watcher’s Council Nominations – Snowed In Edition 01.28.15

Video: Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer - Baby Its Cold Outside

Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday morning.

Council News:

The Council In Action!

*Terresa Monroe-Hamilton of The Noisy Room was quoted from coast to coast on Christian radio for a post at Right Wing News For God and country’ recruiting poster was ordered removed by the US Army; ‘God’ is a problem in Obama’s military

*This week, Trevor Loudon, Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, The Political Commentator and The Pirate’s Cove earned honorable mention status with some great articles.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

To bring something to my attention, simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title and a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address (mandatory, but of course it won’t be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category. Then return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out on Wednesday morning

Simple, no?

It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

So, let’s see what we have for you this week….

Council Submissions

• The Noisy Room – The Shadow of Crisis Engulfs the United States
• Simply Jews – Charlie Hebdo murders and three paragons of hypocrisy
• Ask Marion – Saudi Arabia King Abdullah dies at age 90 as Yemeni President Resigns –
• Bookworm Room – “American Sniper” — a Rorschach test separating the wheat from the chaff
• Joshuapundit - Obama, Netanyahu And Congress: The Real Inside Story Raises Further Questions
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Shia Crescent
• The Right Planet – The Sudden Friends Of Charley Hebdo
• Rhymes With Right – How The GOP Base Views The GOP Field
• Nice Deb – Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer: Bowe Bergdahl Has Been Charged With Desertion
• The Razor – To My Wife’s Patients: Things She Can’t Say To You – But I Can
• The Glittering Eye  Declaring Victory
• VA Right! - Does RPV General Council Opinion Prevent Speaker Howell and Others from Running as Republicans?
• The Independent Sentinel – Medicare Won’t Pay Fees for Services Next Year

Honorable Mentions

• Trevor Loudon – Top Communist Admits How CPUSA Uses the Democrat Party
• Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion – Argentine Prosecutor Death in Iran Terror Case Gets Curiouser
• The Political Commentator – Epilogue: Bowe Bergdahl…Deserter! (Video)
• The Pirate’s Cove – Crazy Warmists Continue To Blame Blizzard On “Climate Change”

Non-Council Submissions

• Andrew McCarthy/NRO – What Bobby Jindal Gets about Islam — and Most People Still Don’t submitted by The Noisy Room,
• Howard Jacobson – Try ‘and’ instead of ‘but’ and you’ll find that America and Israel are not to blame for all the world’s atrocities submitted by Simply Jews
• Adriana Cohen/Boston Herald - Sarah Palin is the Perfect Foil to Take on Hillary Clinton submitted by Ask Marion
• David Daoud/The Tower- Replacement Theory: The Administration’s Crazy New Middle East Illusion submitted by Bookworm Room
• Ruben Diaz Jr – Why I Am Visiting Israel submitted by Joshuapundit
• Daily Beast – Spy General Unloads on Obama’s ISIS War Plan submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) – A Reply to Michael Moore and the Left on Military Snipers submitted by The Right Planet
• Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion – Finally Obtained: David Gregory Arrest Warrant Affidavit submitted by Rhymes with Right
• James Delingpole/Breitbart London - 2014 Was Not The ‘Hottest Year on Record’. So Why Did NASA Claim It Was? submitted by Nice Deb
• Jakub Grygiel/The American Interest  – Know Thy Enemy submitted by The Razor
• Sic Semper Tyrannis – Yemen (Arizona in 1870 Reborn) submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Pariot Update – Liberals are rewriting America’s History to Create an Ignorant Electorate
  submitted by VA Right!
• Dennis Prager/NRO – If Obama Gave the State of the Union without Telling a Lie submitted by The Watcher
• Bill Whittle/Truth Revolt – Terrorist Nation submitted by The Watcher
• Stephen Moore/Washington Times – Obama’s illusory economic recovery submitted by The Watcher

Enjoy! And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that!And don’t forget to tune in Friday for the results!

Forum: Will You Watch The Super Bowl? Why Or Why Not?

Every week on Monday morning , the Council and our invited guests weigh in at The Council Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week’s question:Will You Watch The Super Bowl? Why Or Why Not?

The Razor: I gave up watching the Super Bowl or any NFL game two years ago. At the time CTE or chronic traumatic encephalopathy was making the news, as was the NFL channeling their inner tobacco company to deny it just as the latter denied the cancer link to smoking. I was also getting sick of seeing players laid out in the field. I was eating at some sports themed restaurant one Sunday afternoon and there were three games on at the same time, each showing players injured on the field. I felt that it was only a matter of time before someone died, and that even though I loved the sport, I couldn’t stomach it anymore.

The business of the game had also pulled at my libertarian and populist instincts. Seeing taxpayer money funneled to billionaires to pay for their stadiums as they blackmailed their host cities appalled me, a situation that my hometown of St. Louis finds itself in yet again with the owner of the Los Angeles St. Louis Rams threatening to move the team back to LA if he doesn’t get a grand stadium his team can lose games in. St. Louis has one of the best baseball teams in that sport, and even its hockey team is worthy of celebrating, but it has never had a decent football team. For some reason the NFL owners have some kind of mind control over politicians to fund their pet projects, and St. Louis is no different. They seem willing to spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to keep a bad football team around.

So no I won’t watch the Super Bowl even if the New England Patriots aren’t a bunch of cheating weasels which I believe without a shadow of a doubt they are. Instead I’ll be streaming Downton Abbey or a Sons of Anarchy episode through my Roku as I gather my courage to cancel my DirecTV subscription and cut the cable once and for all. But in the meantime a pox on the Pats.

CheaterGate – Belichick vs Carroll (Getty Images)

Ask Marion :  No…NO…No…NO!!!!

My husband is a sports fanatic. He loves every sport and I’ve watched more games than I care to remember, so I really pick and choose the ones I will waste my time on these days! And this upcoming Super Bowl is not one!

I’m tired of hearing about soft and squishy balls!!

I don’t like the Patriots and I don’t like Pete Carroll!!

The Patriots have cheated before, so does anybody really believe that they didn’t this time around? Neither Tom Brady nor Bill Belichick have reasonable explanations for ‘DeflateGate’. Plus, Brady and his wife are arrogant and have severe potty mouths. None of which excites me.

Pete Carroll was definitely part of the problem that ultimately crippled the USC football program in 2010, bailed when everything hit the fan for the school and the program, deserting them for the Seahawks to line his own pockets. I can never understand why any USC fan would root for him or the Seahawks.

Perhaps the bigger question the media, who have been obsessed with the ‘deflated balls’ should be asking is: Which NFL Super Bowl XLIX (49) coach is a bigger cheater Bill Belichick or Pete Carroll?

Patriots Coach Bill Belichick:

SpyGate Scandal

In 2007, Bill Belichick was fined $500,000 and the New England Patriots had their 2008 first round draft pick taken away by the NFL after the Patriots had videotaped New York Jets defensive assistant coaches calling signals from the sidelines. Belichick admitted he had been taping other teams since 2000, and that he thought it was a legal practice because he did not use the tapes in the same game.

The Patriots have actually had a better overall record (75% wins verses 71%) after the taping controversy ended from 2008 to today than they did from 2000 to 2007. It’s highly questionable how much the team benefited from the tapes.

DeflateGate Football Scandal

After the Patriots beat (could be said clobbered) the Indianapolis Colts, 45-7, in the AFC Championship game for the 2014 season, 11 of the 12 footballs the Patriots used in the game were found to have less air pressure in them than required by NFL rules.

The footballs in question clearly played little in the outcome of the game, something the Colts players themselves have said, so it remains to be seen what sanctions will be imposed. But looking at the Patriot’s history the sanctions and penalties should be tough.

Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll:

USC NCAA Sanctions

On June 10, 2010, the NCAA imposed a two-year bowl ban, the elimination of 30 football scholarships and the forfeiture of many wins from the 2004 to 2006 seasons on the USC Trojans college football team due to the rules that USC broke over the time frame. Pete Carroll was USC head football coach during the time the rules were broken and he had victories removed from his college coaching record.

Some would say the sanctions were overdone considering the allegations primarily focused on Reggie Bush getting improper gifts like a house for his family to temporarily live in.

NFL Fines and Penalties for Illegal Practices

In August of 2014, the Seattle Seahawks and Pete Carroll were fined $300,000 by the NFL for holding contact practices during training camps when it was forbidden by the rules during the offseason. Carroll was found to be a repeat offender for the offense over many years and the Seahawks are being further penalized by not being allowed to hold a few practices in the upcoming 2015 mini-camp season. Seahawks players will still be paid for those now missing practices.

Drug Suspensions

Since 2010, when Pete Carroll left USC to take over the coaching job, at least eight Seattle Seahawks players have been suspended nine times by the NFL for drug violations. The Seahawks players suspended were LenDale White (played for Carroll at USC), Brandon Browner (twice), Leroy Hill, John Moffitt, Allen Barbre, Winston Guy, Bruce Irvin, and Walter Thurmond.

I would say it’s a toss-up which coach has been the bigger cheater. So no thank you… I will not be watching the upcoming CheaterGate Super Bowl.

GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD: I reckon I’ll watch the ads and the haff time entertainment yet sports on TV knocks me out faster than the Golf Channel or Canadian Parliament…

Laura Rambeau Lee, Right Reason: Being a diehard Pittsburgh Steelers fan, if they are not in the Super Bowl I don’t have much interest in the outcome. However, it is a big day and our extended families get together for lots of food and fun. The game will be on for the guys, while the girls will be catching up on family events. And of course, we will be watching the commercials and half-time show.

The Independent Sentinel : I’m going to watch it because it’s the game of the year. Ballgazi doesn’t affect it. I won’t stop watching baseball because Whitey Ford is in the Hall of Fame even though he cheated and threw a spitball.

The Glittering Eye:  I don’t plan to watch the SuperBowl next weekend. I rarely watch it–only when I’m out of town and the people I’m visiting are watching it.

I’m just not particularly interested in professional athletics and I’ve always found the half-time show lame.

The only reason to watch it would be the ads and if I were that interested I’d could catch those on YouTube.

Well, there you have it!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. and every  Tuesday morning, when we reveal the weeks’ nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y’know?

The Council Has Spoken!! Watcher’s Council Results 01.23.15

The Council Has Spoken! The votes have been cast and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

“I came from the United States of America to stand for freedom, with all free people, against the forces of oppression and darkness which you are representing. … You are fighting for the most radically intolerant and hateful ideology on the planet. … You are already subjugated! You are already their useful idiots. You are already their tools. “ – Robert Spencer, speaking to a Left wing audience in Europe, June 2, 2011.

“Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran…should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.” – CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad

The ideological descendants of the communist/progressive Left that spent its capital hoping the West would lose the Cold War to the Soviet Union are today’s leftist core. Based on their hatred for the United States, the Left has forged a symbiotic relationship with radical Islam, whose hatred for America equals theirs. Both make it clear that they consider Western civilization evil and unworthy of preservation. - Ben R. Furman, Former FBI Counterterrorism Chief

This week’s winning essay, The Noisy Room’s – An American Intifada – Communists and Radical Islamists Join Forces is a scintillating piece that concerns something only the most blind refuse to see, the alliance between the Red and the Green, between the radical Left and Islam. Here’s a slice:

Trevor Loudon wrote an article that each and every one of us should read and take note of: Intifada USA? American Radicals Build Ties to “Palestinian” Revolutionaries. I agree completely with Trevor when he says that 2015 could usher in chaos, unrest and violence as we have not seen in our lifetime. The Communists are now joining hands in America with the Radical Islamists, forming an American Intifada – an uprising, resistance, revolt. They are using racism as the building blocks and their hate for America as the glue to forward massive havoc and violence in our streets.

The riots in Ferguson and New York were just the warm up act for these thugs. They are looking to create what they think is an American Spring, which will push every radical and Communist ideal there is out there. It will scream racism, go after the police and alphabet agencies, cry social and environmental injustice, push demands for Islamic acceptance and Shariah law – and in the mix will be the ever-present Jew-hatred which is the kindling for their hatred. In this twisted case, the enemy of my enemy is my ally. For the short term anyway.

Taking the lead are primarily Black and Latino revolutionaries who claim to represent the movements for “black lives” and racial justice, who took a jaunt to Palestine to show solidarity against – you guessed it – Israel. Meet the Dream Defenders Palestine Delegation:

Representatives at the forefront of the movements for Black lives and racial justice took a historic trip to Palestine in early January to connect with activists living under Israeli occupation.

Black journalists, artists and organizers representing Ferguson, Black Lives Matter, Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100) and more have joined the Dream Defenders for a 10-day trip to the occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel.

The trip comes after a year of highly-publicized repression in Ferguson, the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as well as solidarity between these places.

Ahmad Abuznaid, Dream Defenders’ legal and policy director and a co-organizer of the delegation, said that the goal of the trip was to make connections.

“The goals were primarily to allow for the group members to experience and see first-hand the occupation, ethnic cleansing and brutality Israel has levied against Palestinians, but also to build real relationships with those on the ground leading the fight for liberation,” wrote Abuznaid.

“In the spirit of Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael and many others, we thought the connections between the African American leadership of the movement in the U.S. and those on the ground in Palestine needed to be reestablished and fortified.”

Abuznaid said the trip represented a chance to bring the power of Black organizing to Palestine.

“As a Palestinian who has learned a great deal about struggle, movement, militancy and liberation from African Americans in the U.S., I dreamt of the day where I could bring that power back to my people in Palestine. This trip is a part of that process.”

[…]

For Steven Pargett, communications director for Dream Defenders, visiting the Dheisheh Refugee Camp outside of Bethlehem made these connections clearer: “A camp doesn’t have to have a fence with barbed wire all around it in order to be a place where displaced people are struggling to survive.”

Pargett said that Black people in the United States are also displaced refugees.

“Our refugee camps are lower income communities and project buildings all around the country that many would not be living in had we not been taken into slavery generations ago. Rather than having the Israeli Defense occupation in our hoods, we have the occupation of police officers who often prove to have little regard for our lives, being that they are not from these communities,” Pargett wrote.

Hip-hop was a unifying force for the delegation, Pargett said, commenting that Palestinians have been inspired by hip-hop in the U.S. and use it as a tool to amplify their own voices.

St. Louis-based rapper and activist Tef Poe said his experience in the camps connecting through hip-hop was the best day of his life.

“A refugee camp with a bunch of people fighting for their lives and using hip hop to lift their spirits and spark the minds of the children and break down gender barriers between young girls and boys,” Tef posted to Facebook. “I spent a day with these ppl .. Most amazing day of my life. Thanks be to the Most, the struggle is beautiful.”

This trip is another chapter in the recent history of Black-Palestinian solidarity. In November, a group of 10 Palestinian student activists visited Ferguson and St. Louis, meeting with people organizing in the streets.

A month later, upon their return, the students hosted a series of events at their university in the West Bank to raise awareness with the Black struggle and stand in solidarity. Dream Defenders unanimously passed a resolution to support the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement in this interval.

[…]

Moving forward, delegates expressed a desire for Black and American action in support of Palestine.

“I believe the Black Lives Matter movement can benefit greatly by learning about struggles outside of the U.S., but particularly the Palestinian struggle,” said Patrisse Cullors. “I want this trip to be an example for how Black folks and Arab communities can be in better solidarity with one another.”

Cherrell Brown sees joint action as a way to global freedom.

“I want us to take back things we can do in the now, as Americans, to raise awareness and action around Palestinian liberation. I want us to reimagine what society could and will look like when we’ve dismantled this white-supremacist patriarchal and capitalist society. I want us to do it together. I want to bring back these conversations and stories in hopes that it will help add to this global struggle to get free.”

The full list of delegates includes five Dream Defenders (Phillip Agnew, Ciara Taylor, Steven Pargett, Sherika Shaw, Ahmad Abuznaid), Tef Poe and Tara Thompson (Ferguson/Hands Up United), journalist Marc Lamont Hill, Cherrell Brown and Carmen Perez (Justice League NYC), Charlene Carruthers (Black Youth Project), poet and artist Aja Monet, Patrisse Cullors (Black Lives Matter), and Maytha Alhassen, a USC PhD student. Catch up with the delegation and follow their last few days using #DDPalestine on Twitter and Instagram.

Gee, that’s a who’s who of racists, social justice agitators and Communists. Just look how chummy and united they have all become. I know you will be really, really shocked to learn that the Tides Foundation is funding this. And who is behind the Tides Foundation? Why, that old spider George Soros who hates Jews, America and freedom in general. You know, the guy who gave $33 million to the activists who took part in Ferguson and other venues of violence.

This is all part of a movement that has been gathering steam for a while now and it is thoroughly anti-Israel. Guess who is in the thick of it? Dr. Marc Lamont Hill of HuffPost Live, BET News and CNN. Watch it Marc, your antisemitism is showing and badly. Our comrade Hill also spouted revolutionary rhetoric to promote the Dream Defenders. Ferguson, Eric Garner and #BlackLivesMatter protests have become the calling card for the new face of the Occupy Movement. You are witnessing the rise of the Islamo-Communist Axis in America.

More at the link.

In our non-Council category, the winner was Victor Davis Hanson – Muslims And Islamists submitted by Joshuapundit. I’m a huge fan of VDH, even when I disagree with him. In this particular case, I think he is spot on, and all I’ll say is that what he wrote here deserves your utmost attention.

Here are this week’s full results:

Council Winners

• *First place with 3 1/3 votes! – The Noisy Room – An American Intifada – Communists and Radical Islamists Join Forces
• Second place with 2 2/3 votes – Joshuapundit - The ‘Selma’ Controversy And What It Says About Race In America
• Third place with 1 2/3 votes – Ask Marion – American Sniper… Hollywood and Sharpton
• Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Bookworm Room – Mt. Holyoke, The Vagina Monologues, and why “The Coming College Decline” is a good thing
• Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – The Razor – Consensual Incest Puts Progressives on Slippery Slope
• Fifth place with 1 vote –The Right Planet – The Marxist Dialectic – From Lenin to Obama
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Simply Jews – Deborah Maccoby to Jews of Europe: denounce Israel and live happily thereafter
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Nice Deb – The Obama Regime, CAIR, and the Doctrine of Taqiyya
• Seventh place with 1/3 vote – VA Right! - Hanover Photo-gate Deepens – New Photo Casts Doubt on Statement to Mechanicsville Local

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 2 votes! –Victor Davis Hanson – Muslims And Islamists submitted by Joshuapundit
• Second place *t* with 1 1/3 votes –Marine Le Pen –To Call This Threat By Its Name submitted by The Razor
• Second place *t* with 1 1/3 votes –Global Guerillas – Saudi Arabia Plunges into an Abyss submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Second place *t* with 1 1/3 votes –Jerome Corsi/WND - Admirals, generals, intel: Benghazi inquest compromised, ‘I think Gowdy has been warned away or threatened’ submitted by Ask Marion
• Second place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Sultan Knish – The Importance Of Blasphemy submitted by The Independent Sentinel
• Third place *t* with 1 vote – Michelle Malkin – Attack Of The Open-Borders Mau-Mau-ers submitted by The Noisy Room
• Third place *t* with 1 vote – Kevin D. Williamson/ NRO - The FOX News Obsession submitted by Nice Deb
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes - The Passing Parade – The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same submitted by Simply Jews
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes - American Thinker – Eric Cantor Lectures On How to Win Elections? submitted by VA Right!
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes - Tom Rogan/NRO – The New Islamic State: Boko Haram submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote - Mike McDaniel/The Truth About Guns-It Happened Before, It Will Happen Again submitted by Bookworm Room
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote - The New American – Obama and UN Created Terror State in Libya submitted by The Right Planet
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote - Volokh Conspiracy – Over 80 percent of Americans support “mandatory labels on foods containing DNA” submitted by Rhymes with Right
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote - Eli Lake – Why Obama Can’t Say ‘Radical Islam’ submitted by The Watcher
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote - The Other McCain – Rapists Rape and Rape Again submitted by The Watcher

See you next week!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. and every  Tuesday morning, when we reveal the weeks’ nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y’know?

Forum: What Is Your Opinion Of the New Proposed Internet Rules President Obama Wants The FCC To Impose?

Every week on Monday morning , the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week’s question: What Is Your Opinion Of the New Proposed Internet Rules President Obama Wants The FCC To Impose?

The Independent Sentinel : It’s the government getting its tentacles into one more thing.

It gives companies immunity when they share our data. We no longer have privacy protections from the government in the name of security. The government will freely share our information among government agencies.

The government claims the information-sharing system would not put privacy at risk as the information disclosed will principally concern the method of attack on computer data and systems, rather than its content.

Who trusts them?

Why do they need these rules when they can already do it? Is it just a way of bullying companies into doing it more readily? They have been resistant.

According to the Guardian, “it would criminalize the overseas sale of stolen US financial information like credit card and bank account numbers, would expand federal law enforcement authority to deter the sale of spyware used to stalk or commit ID theft, and would give courts the authority to shut down botnets engaged in distributed denial of service attacks and other criminal activity.”

Meanwhile, our government won’t allow illegal immigrants to be charged or held if they steal IDs.

There will be more consumer notifications pushed on companies who become aware of breaches but they already notify consumers. It’s more regulation and more expense that will be passed down to consumers.

The bill is vague and will be misinterpreted.

Laura Rambeau Lee, Right Reason: If we have learned anything with this administration, what they say and what we get are diametrically opposed. The Affordable Care Act has proven unaffordable for many. President Obama wants the FCC to reclassify the internet under Title II of the Telecommunications Act and extend that regulation to mobile broadband service as well. Net neutrality will not lead to a fairer, more open and free internet as the president promises. As Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz stated: “Net neutrality puts the government in charge of determining Internet pricing, terms of service, and what types of products and services can be delivered, leading to fewer choices, fewer opportunities, and higher prices for consumers.” I believe that about sums it up.

The internet has been working very well in a free market system. If we want to keep an affordable, free, and open internet, we must keep government out of it.

The Glittering Eye : I’m not sure how to answer the question. Perhaps the best way would be for me to state what I’m in favor of. First, a brief preface.

The Internet grew from developments by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for a computer network that could survive nuclear war. The Internet has succeeded because a) it was in the public domain, b) ICANN (the ultimate registrar of domain names) has been seen as apolitical and fair, c) it has largely been free of regulation and taxes, and d) the cost of entry was relatively low. Later that development was augmented by the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the University of Illinois’s computer science department.

Previous attempts at large scale computer networks whether public (in France) or private (by many companies) had failed. There is no reason to believe that any proprietary network would have succeeded.

I am unsympathetic to the complaints of the mega-service providers. In large part they enjoy the position of power they hold because of their government-granted monopolies. They have expended very little capital on research and development in their Internet service enterprises and have enjoyed substantial revenues with things as they are. That other companies, e.g. Google, Netflix, are making profits out of the Internet as it is is merely sour grapes on the part of the ISPs. If they demand more money from their investments on network infrastructure, minor relative to the revenues they’ve derived from them, they should meter bandwidth at the customer level and leave providers alone.

Consequently, I believe in network neutrality, that the Internet should be largely free of sales taxes, that it should remain predominantly uncensored, and that Time-Warner, Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, and so on should be regulated by the FCC. In particular I think that any business that has gained its present position as the result of government-granted monopoly should be kept out of the content business. I’m not sure where that puts me relative to the Obama Administration but that’s what I think.

JoshuaPundit: What government can regulate, it can control. And what it can control, it can tax. Ultimately, screwing yet more tax revenues out of the American people is a lot of what this is all about,and the fact that this president wants the FCC to impose these new proposed rules without congressional oversight while it has a  majority of his appointees who took their seats while he had a congressional majority tells me all I need to know.

The other major part of what this is about is censorship and control of content. This president is also not only hyper-partisan but a long time appeaser of Islamists, and he has already said that he is going to ‘fight the media ‘  and the nation’s journalism community when it is planning to publish anti-jihadi articles,using the lame excuse that he is suddenly concerned about the welfare of the same troops overseas whose lives he has endangered with ridiculous Rules of Engagement and his illegal wars. Rest assured that very selective censorship in a great many areas will be the order of the day if he gets his way.

Ask Marion: On Thursday 01.15.15 the White House said legislation was not necessary to settle the “net neutrality” rules issue because the Federal Communications Commission had the authority to write them. And President Obama’s rallying cry this past week has been… ‘Everyone deserves free Internet’. Beware of politicians bearing free gifts!!!

Quick Background:

What actually is at immediate stake here is what rules should govern how Internet service providers (ISPs) manage web traffic on their networks to ensure they treat all Internet content fairly. At the heart of the latest phase in the debate over the rules is what legal authority should guide those regulations.

Obama is urging the FCC to regulate ISPs more strictly under a section of communications law known as Title II, treating them more like public utilities. The broadband companies adamantly oppose this plan, saying the added regulatory burden would reduce investment and stifle innovation in their industry.

The Republican chairmen of the Senate and House commerce committees, John Thune and Fred Upton, have been working to strike a legislative deal with Democrats that would adopt some of the same net neutrality principles but without resorting to Title II.

Late on Wednesday, Thune released a list of the net neutrality principles he would pursue, which closely echoed Obama’s, such as bans on blocking or throttling of websites.

While some Republicans have also sought a delay in the FCC’s vote to establish new net neutrality rules, planned for February 26th, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has indicated no interest in a change or delay.

“Chairman Wheeler believes it is important to move forward as quickly as possible to protect consumers, innovation and competition online,” FCC spokeswoman Kim Hart said in a statement.

Evoking net-neutrality and expanding the scope and power the FCC has been on the Obama administrations’ radar since day one and now that they are in their final two years, the administration has entered their complete lawless phase. So controlling communication is high on their agenda. It is all about control and these changes are just the tip of the iceberg. Censorship; monitoring newsrooms; and taking control of every aspect of communication… newspapers, radio, TV, Internet, news outlets, textbooks, movies, even art, plus the services that support them have been on Obama’s list since 2009, when both minority groups and Democrats questioned net neutrality.

The Republicans in Congress are in favor of a net neutrality law as long as the federal government doesn’t handle it, so are trying to drum up support for a bill that would counter the FCC’s upcoming new rules. But after the Obama administration’s comments getting Democrats on board could be difficult.

The proposed bill attempts to offer a compromise between hard-line opponents of net neutrality and the larger changes preferred by President Obama and many progressive activists. It would modify the Communications Act of 1934, adding the basic elements of the FCC’s “open internet” plan. That includes the following major points:

The proposed bill attempts to offer a compromise between hard-line opponents of net neutrality and the larger changes preferred by President Obama and many progressive activists. It would modify the Communications Act of 1934, adding the basic elements of the FCC’s “open internet” plan. That includes the following major points:

No blocking of lawful services on a network
No prohibiting the use of non-harmful devices
No traffic throttling — except for “reasonable network management,” it would be illegal to slow or degrade any site or service
No paid prioritization
Transparency requirements for ISPs

Much of the language for this bill was lifted directly from the FCC’s 2010 Open Internet Order, which was thrown out in court last year?!? It includes less-than-ideal exceptions for network management and “specialized services” like VoIP, but it settles a major point of contention in Wheeler’s proposal by banning paid prioritization, which would have allowed ISPs to offer faster service for companies that paid more. In some ways, it’s exactly what net neutrality supporters have been asking for, although the advocacy group Public Knowledge has expressed concerns about how strong its protections would be in practice.

A crucial point is that the bill adds all of this to Title I of the Communications Act, classifying broadband as an “information service.” Title I services are regulated more lightly than Title II “common carriers” like telephone companies. The last FCC net neutrality framework plan was struck down because it came too close to making rules that only Title II allows:

“In terms of legislation, we don’t believe it’s necessary given that the FCC has the authorities that it needs under Title II,” said a White House official. “However, we always remain open to working with anyone who shares the president’s goal of fully preserving a free and open internet now and into the future.”

Of course in reality, preserving a free and open Internet is the opposite of the this administration’s goal and we all should have learned by know that anything regulated and run by the government makes it and us less free. In fact, in March of 2014 ICANN and the US government announced their intention to relinquish control of the Internet to the UN by 2015, so there is much more to this plan than just a few rule changes! Anything turned over to the United Nations brings us just us one step closer to globalization and the ruling elite’s goal of a New World Order which will definitely make us all less free.

Everyone deserves free Internet. Sounds good until you remember… you can’t have both freedom of speech and big government that controls the media… It is a choice!! And it not only won’t be free, it will more expensive for everyone. We (you) will all be paying for everyone’s Internet service plus the government bureaucracy that will run it.

Pay attention America, if government controls the media… TV, radio, the Internet… your free speech stops and the attempt to take over media and your information will be even easier and more blatant than it already is…

My feeling, like always, is less government involvement is always best!

Well, there you have it!

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