The Duplicity of "Hearings" and "Appointments" Under Obama

This is a video that is not filled with shock and demagoguery, just a straight-forward expose of the duplicity of judicial hearings under the Obama administration.

Satire and Humor in Defense of Truth

I love satire in defense of truth. It is not that I think Larry Elder has got it all right or that I endorse everything in his libertarian views, but he is saying something important in this little essay. Speech making is much easier than governing in a complex, fallen and corrupt world.

President Obama Apologizes to President Bush
by Larry Elder

President Barack H. Obama

The White House

Dear George,

The Gulf oil spill opened my eyes.

As with Hurricane Katrina, it happened suddenly. I barked out orders. I pounded my desk. But the oil kept flowing. Worse, the nation watched it all on television and said: "Why doesn't the President do something? Doesn't he care?" From then on, I fully understood both the expectations and the limitations of this job.

I ran on "hope and change." I said I would bring the sides together. The American people, I told Republicans who opposed my stimulus plan, have spoken. And "I won."

So without any of the bipartisan support you received for your tax cuts, my stimulus passed, and I confidently predicted it would prevent unemployment from reaching 8 percent. It climbed to 10.2 percent.

Without a single Republican vote, we passed "ObamaCare." But half of the states' attorneys general filed suit to stop it. And a year after its passage, most Americans want it repealed.

My party lost its House majority and its Senate supermajority. Voters wanted smaller government. Turns out voters wanted to retain the "Bush tax rates" -- even for the rich -- which I campaigned against. Again, the American people had spoken.

The morning starts, as you know, with an intelligence briefing. My goodness, does America have enemies -- hateful, violent, vicious enemies all over the world who are determined to destroy this nation! Our job is to prevent them from succeeding -- all of them, all of the time.

I labeled you a cowboy, promised humility and offered enemy countries an "outstretched hand" for their "unclenched fist." But calling the Global War on Terror an "overseas contingency operation" not only failed to deter the Islamofascists from wanting to kill us, it suggested a weakness that only strengthened their resolve.

Al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Hamas and the mullahs who run Iran, I learned, couldn't care less that I'm a person of color, born to a Muslim father from Kenya, and who lived in Indonesia. They hate us still.

Guantanamo Bay exists for a reason. It imprisons the worst of the worst. No other country will take these terrorists, and many former detainees have returned to the fight.

Gitmo is among many of your "Bush era" terror-fighting policies that I not only retained but, in some cases, even expanded. What once seemed reckless and wrongheaded, I now see as prudent attempts to strike that difficult balance between safety and freedom.

I came into this job eight years after September 11, 2001. I cannot imagine 3,000 Americans killed on my watch. I cannot imagine polls showing that 90 percent of us anticipated another attack within 12 months of the first, perhaps with chemical or biological weapons. I can imagine how you must have blamed yourself during those long, dark days, and spent every waking hour asking, "What can I do so this never happens again?"

This brings me to the Iraq War, a mission I once called "dumb."

Seventy-six percent of Americans, at the time, supported your decision. You obtained approval from Congress. By contrast, 47 percent support my actions in Libya, less support than for any military action taken in the last 40 years. Unlike you, I did not seek approval from Congress even though I once said the Constitution requires it.

Thanks to the Iraq War, Libya's Moammar Gadhafi surrendered his WMD. He poses no direct threat to America and cannot use these terrible weapons on his own people. Saddam Hussein, on the other hand, invaded his neighbors, used chemical weapons on his own people and shot at our planes patrolling the no-fly zones. All 16 of our intelligence agencies thought he possessed stockpiles of WMD, a prospect that threatened to make the 9/11 carnage look small.

I even opposed the "surge" in Iraq and predicted its failure. I now see this unpopular decision for what it was -- one of the most courageous decisions ever made by any of the 43 Americans who have sat behind this desk.

I vividly recall shaking my head during the speech you made to make the case for the "dumb" war. A disapproving New York Times wrote: "President Bush sketched an expansive vision. ... Mr. Bush talked about establishing a 'free and peaceful Iraq' that would serve as a 'dramatic and inspiring example' to the entire Arab and Muslim world ..."

Now I understand why, in 2008, you signed National Security Presidential Directive-58, Advancing the Freedom Agenda: "To protect America, we must defeat the ideology of hatred by spreading the hope of freedom. Over the past seven years, this is exactly what the administration has done."

It began with newly liberated Afghans and Iraqis who risked their lives by leaving their homes to vote for the first time. Your Freedom Agenda ignited the promising, historic "hope and change" we are now witnessing all throughout the Arab and Muslim world.

You were right. I was wrong. The nation -- and the world -- owes you a huge debt of gratitude.

Let's do lunch and then sneak in a round of golf. The "near beer" is on me.

With respect and appreciation,

Barack

• Larry Elder
• A “firebrand libertarian” according to Daily Variety, best-selling author, radio and TV talk show host, Larry Elder has a take-no-prisoners style, using such old-fashioned things as evidence and logic. ©Creators Syndicate

"Transparency" My Foot!

The longer any institution exists the more corrupt it generally becomes. This article from Michele Malkin from back in 2009 proves the point. Power corrupts. When government officials won't let watchdogs speak, something is smelly. This article has new relevance now that another independent watchdog group has looked at the Obama record with regard to Amtrak.

Who railroaded the Amtrak inspector general?
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate Copyright 2009

Watchdogs are an endangered species in the Age of Obama. The latest government ombudsman to get the muzzle: Amtrak inspector general Fred Weiderhold. The longtime veteran employee was abruptly “retired” last month –just as the government-subsidized rail service faces mounting complaints about its meddling in financial audits and probes.

Question the timing? Hell, yes.

On June 18, Weiderhold met with Amtrak officials to discuss the results of an independent report by the Washington, D.C. law firm, Willkie, Farr & Gallagher. The 94-page report has been made publicly available through the office of whistleblower advocate Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). It concluded that the “independence and effectiveness” of the Amtrak inspector general’s office “are being substantially impaired” by the agency’s Law Department. Amtrak bosses have effectively gagged their budgetary watchdogs from communicating with Congress without preapproval; required that all Amtrak documents be “pre-screened” (and in some cases redacted) before being turned over to the inspector general’s office; and taken control over the IG’s $5 million portion of federal stimulus dollars.

Moreover, the report revealed, Amtrak regularly retained outside law firms shielded from IG reach. In another case, Amtrak’s Law Department appeared to meddle in an inspector general investigation of an outside financial adviser suspected of inflating fees. The consultant ran to the Law Department when the IG demanded documents; the Law Department repudiated the IG’s instructions on complying with a subpoena.

These interventions (ongoing since 2007) have “systematically violated the letter and spirit of the Inspector General Act,” according to Sen. Grassley. IG staffers now fear retaliation – and with good reason. Their boss, Weiderhold, lost his job on the very day Amtrak received the Willkie, Farr & Gallagher report. It may be hot and humid in the rest of the Beltway, but every inspector general’s office is feeling an Arctic chill.

The transparent sacking comes just as Amtrak is awash in more than $1.3 billion of new federal stimulus funds. It comes on the heels of the unceremonious dismissal of Gerald Walpin, the AmeriCorps inspector general who dared to probe financial shenanigans by Obama cronies. (See “Obama’s AmeriCrooks and cronies scandal,” June 17, 2009.) And it comes on the heels of the stifling of veteran Environmental Protection Agency employee Alan Carlin, the researcher who dared to question the Obama administration’s conventional wisdom on global warming. (See “EPA’s game of global warming hide-and-seek,” June 26, 2009).

Question the timing? You betcha.

…Sen. Grassley has requested that Amtrak supply information on Weiderhold’s unexpected retirement, as well as internal and personal materials related to his departure and the report on Amtrak managers’ meddling. On the House side, Reps. Edolphus Towns (D.-N.Y.) and Darrell Issa (R.-Calif.) announced a probe Monday into Amtrak’s actions. They zeroed in on Amtrak’s choice of Lorraine Green to replace “retired” IG Weiderhold. (Click here for their letter to Amtrak Chairman of the Board of Directors Tom Carper.)

Who is Lorraine Green? She’s a former Amtrak human resources executive and faithful Democrat donor with no experience in the inspector general business. Her expertise? Managing “diversity initiatives” for the agency. Watchdog out. Lapdog in.

Can someone open a window? The fetid odor of Hope and Change is really starting to stink up the joint.

Christian Yoga? Square peg in a round hole.

Sometimes, in a desire to not make waves and find points of contact with the world so we can reach them, we embrace things that we haven't thought through. Perhaps Yoga is one of those "bridge" issues that Christians need to give more thought to. [Bold emphasis added]

The Subtle Body — Should Christians Practice Yoga?

When Christians practice yoga, they must either deny the reality of what yoga represents or fail to see the contradictions between their Christian commitments and their embrace of yoga. The contradictions are not few, nor are they peripheral.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Some questions we we ask today would simply baffle our ancestors. When Christians ask whether believers should practice yoga, they are asking a question that betrays the strangeness of our current cultural moment — a time in which yoga seems almost mainstream in America.

It was not always so. No one tells the story of yoga in America better than Stefanie Syman, whose recent book, The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America, is a masterpiece of cultural history. Syman, an engaging author who is also a fifteen-year devotee of yoga, tells this story well.

Her book actually opens with a scene from this year’s annual White House Easter Egg Roll. President Barack Obama made a few comments and then introduced First Lady Michelle Obama, who said: “Our goal today is just to have fun. We want to focus on activity, healthy eating. We’ve got yoga, we’ve got dancing, we’ve got storytelling, we’ve got Easter-egg decorating.”

Syman describes the yoga on the White House lawn as “sanitized, sanctioned, and family-friendly,” and she noted the rather amazing fact that a practice once seen as so exotic and even dangerous was now included as an activity sufficiently safe and mainstream for children.

In her words:

There certainly was no better proof that Americans had assimilated this spiritual discipline. We had turned a technique for God realization that had, at various points in time, enjoined its adherents to reduce their diet to rice, milk, and a few vegetables, fix their minds on a set of, to us, incomprehensible syllables, and self-administer daily enemas (without the benefit of equipment), to name just a few of its prerequisites, into an activity suitable for children. Though yoga has no coherent tradition in India, being preserved instead by thousands of gurus and hundreds of lineages, each of which makes a unique claim to authenticity, we had managed to turn it into a singular thing: a way to stay healthy and relaxed.

In her book, Syman tells the fascinating story of how yoga was transformed in the American mind from a foreign and “even heathen” practice into a cultural reality that is widely admired and practiced.

In telling this story, Syman documents the ties between yoga and groups or movements such as the Transcendentalists and New Thought — movements that sought to provide a spirituality that would be a clear alternative to biblical Christianity. She traces the influence of leading figures such as Swami Vivekananda and Swami Prabhavananda, along with Pierre Bernard and the now lesser-known Margaret Woodrow Wilson. Each of these figures played a role in the growing acceptance of yoga in America, but most were controversial at the time — some extremely so.

Syman describes yoga as a varied practice, but she makes clear that yoga cannot be fully extricated from its spiritual roots in Hinduism and Buddhism. She is also straightforward in explaining the role of sexual energy in virtually all forms of yoga and of ritualized sex in some yoga traditions. She also explains that yoga “is one of the first and most successful products of globalization, and it has augured a truly post-Christian, spiritually polyglot country.”

Reading The Subtle Body is an eye-opening and truly interesting experience. To a remarkable degree, the growing acceptance of yoga points to the retreat of biblical Christianity in the culture. Yoga begins and ends with an understanding of the body that is, to say the very least, at odds with the Christian understanding. Christians are not called to empty the mind or to see the human body as a means of connecting to and coming to know the divine. Believers are called to meditate upon the Word of God — an external Word that comes to us by divine revelation — not to meditate by means of incomprehensible syllables.

Nevertheless, a significant number of American Christians either experiment with yoga or become adherents of some yoga discipline. Most seem unaware that yoga cannot be neatly separated into physical and spiritual dimensions. The physical is the spiritual in yoga, and the exercises and disciplines of yoga are meant to connect with the divine.

Douglas R. Groothuis, Professor of Philosophy at Denver Seminary and a respected specialist on the New Age Movement, warns Christians that yoga is not merely about physical exercise or health. “All forms of yoga involve occult assumptions,” he warns, “even hatha yoga, which is often presented as a merely physical discipline.” While most adherents of yoga avoid the more exotic forms of ritualized sex that are associated with tantric yoga, virtually all forms of yoga involve an emphasis on channeling sexual energy throughout the body as a means of spiritual enlightenment.

Stefanie Syman documents how yoga was transformed in American culture from an exotic and heathen practice into a central component of our national cult of health. Of course, her story would end differently if Americans still had cultural access to the notion of “heathen.”

The nation of India is almost manically syncretistic, blending worldviews over and over again. But, in more recent times, America has developed its own obsession with syncretism, mixing elements of worldviews with little or no attention to what each mix means. Americans have turned yoga into an exercise ritual, a means of focusing attention, and an avenue to longer life and greater health. Many Americans attempt to deny or minimize the spiritual aspects of yoga — to the great consternation of many in India.

When Christians practice yoga, they must either deny the reality of what yoga represents or fail to see the contradictions between their Christian commitments and their embrace of yoga. The contradictions are not few, nor are they peripheral. The bare fact is that yoga is a spiritual discipline by which the adherent is trained to use the body as a vehicle for achieving consciousness of the divine. Christians are called to look to Christ for all that we need and to obey Christ through obeying his Word. We are not called to escape the consciousness of this world by achieving an elevated state of consciousness, but to follow Christ in the way of faithfulness.

There is nothing wrong with physical exercise, and yoga positions in themselves are not the main issue. But these positions are teaching postures with a spiritual purpose. Consider this — if you have to meditate intensely in order to achieve or to maintain a physical posture, it is no longer merely a physical posture.

The embrace of yoga is a symptom of our postmodern spiritual confusion, and, to our shame, this confusion reaches into the church. Stefanie Syman is telling us something important when she writes that yoga “has augured a truly post-Christian, spiritually polyglot country.” Christians who practice yoga are embracing, or at minimum flirting with, a spiritual practice that threatens to transform their own spiritual lives into a “post-Christian, spiritually polyglot” reality. Should any Christian willingly risk that?

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I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.

Stefanie Syman, The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2010).

Douglas R. Groothuis, Unmasking the New Age (InterVarsity Press, 1986).

The edition of Thinking in Public released today includes my interviews with Stefanie Syman and Doug Groothuis. You can find it athttp://www.albertmohler.com/category/podcast/ You can also subscribe at iTunes.