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Patient Number Two: Obama Fiddles While Ebola Spreads

By Selwyn Duke

No one as yet knows how the United States' second Ebola patient — the first believed to have contracted the disease on American soil — became infected. We know that the person, a female nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, picked up the disease from recently deceased Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, with whom she had extensive contact. We know she got sick despite wearing protective gear. We know that authorities say there was a breach of protocol, but can’t yet identify what it might have been. Of course, this means other healthcare workers could have contracted the illness in like fashion, but perhaps are not yet exhibiting symptoms.

That can take up to 21 days.

Meanwhile, Centers for Disease Control chief Dr. Tom Frieden said that it is “deeply concerning that this infection occurred.” Some would label this understatement, given how affected individuals can come into contact with numerous others before being isolated. As The Guardian’s Tom Dart wrote, referring to the Dallas nurse:

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Kremlin Takes Action After Exchange Student Adopted by U.S. Homosexual Couple

By Selwyn Duke

When you send your son overseas through an exchange program for cultural enrichment, you don’t expect him to be adopted by a homosexual couple and never return home. But that’s exactly what is happening in the case of one Russian boy who was visiting the U.S. — over the protests of his own mother. Reports the Daily Mail:

[T]he Russian government claims the boy was 'illegally' put up for adoption….

Russian diplomats had visited the boy, and found that the 17-year-old was 'seduced' by 'a pair of old homosexuals at church, former military men who had already adopted two American boys, and they offered to become his sponsor and even pay for his studies at Harvard University'.

 

It was at this point that the boy handed himself over to immigration authorities, seeking asylum.

… Russia's children's commissioner Pavel Astakhov said ...'The child hails from a decent family and is healthy so it's unclear what arguments those in the United States have been guided by.'

The student was scheduled to return to Russia in the spring, but now it appears he may not see his homeland again for a very, very long time. While his mother visited him in Michigan earlier this year in an attempt to bring him home, her efforts were in vain.

Read the rest here.

 

Iraq and the Bloody Price of Lies

By Selwyn Duke

Western civilization lied and people died.

It lied, that is, to itself.

I am referring to Iraq, but not to the hapless George W. Bush and the claim of WMDs’ existence, which wasn’t a lie at all. What is at issue here is more fundamental. It’s a lie that imbues Bushes, Clintons and Obamas, both the left and the right and most everyone in-between. It is the enlightened position of the modern man, a tenet of our times.    

It’s the idea that all peoples are basically the same.

Vladimir Putin Caesar and Our Great Geo-political Turning Point

By Selwyn Duke

We are witnessing, I believe, a turning point in geopolitical history, one future historians may analyze as we have the Roman Empire’s fall. Vladimir Putin is making a move — and it’s not just against Ukraine. It may not be just a move against Eastern Europe. It’s not even, perhaps, just a move against US world dominance.

There was a time when the USSR was the “evil empire, a godless Golgotha. But that was then. Now, in 2013-14, Putin has seen fit to say, in his December State of the Nation speech, “Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values. …Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in God and a belief in Satan. This is the path to degradation.”

Suing Americans under International Law — in American Courts

By Selwyn Duke

Imagine you go overseas and give a speech advocating a cause, only to come home and find you’re being sued for “crimes against humanity.” No, what you did wasn’t illegal under American law or under the laws of the nation in which you expressed your words.

You’re being sued under international law.

And here’s the kicker: Your case will be adjudicated by an American court.

Foreign law in a U.S. court?

Treasonous Obama Strikes Again

By Selwyn Duke

The world is laughing at us. It has come to light that the Obama administration has allowed hundreds of Chinese nationals — who are closely associated with the Chinese Liberation Army — to work in a sensitive area of NASA's Langley Research Center. What could possibly go wrong?

Here’s what: one of these nationals, Bo Jiang, was arrested on Monday at Dulles International Airport for apparently attempting to take sensitive information out of the US. Don’t give our security apparatus too much of a slap on the back for apprehending him, though, as Jiang had previously succeeded in leaving the country with a laptop containing sensitive information.

Barack Obama: Anatomy of an Ideologue

By Selwyn Duke

As with G.W. Bush before him, much time is spent arguing about Barack Obama’s character. Does he mean well and just not govern well, or is it something else? What can be missed during this debate, however, is that most damage is done in the name of doing good.

Consider, for instance, a Muslim parent teaching his child to engage in violent jihad. Like any parent, he almost surely wants his child healthy and successful. Like any wise parent, though, he also may believe that if he had to choose between his child being healthy and successful, and being good, he’d have to choose goodness. After all, what does it profit a man to gain the world but to lose his soul? Only, he defines “good” differently than you do.

Similarly, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a leader who expressed willingness to sacrifice half Iran’s population to wipe Israel off the map. Does this mean he doesn’t care if his nation is healthy and successful? More likely, he considers those priorities secondary to what is good, which he defines much, much differently than you do.

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Petulant, Perturbed Obama Just Can’t Help Himself

By Selwyn Duke

As with the vice-presidential debate and Joe Biden, Barack Obama’s attitude in Monday night’s debate spoke more clearly than anything he said. No, he didn’t laugh like Bozo the Clown, giggle like a schoolgirl, shake his head, and roll his eyes like Jokin’ Joe did. But he looked petulant, perturbed, and on edge (and was occasionally rude) throughout much of the night, despite three days of debate preparation at Camp David. It seems Barack Obama just can’t help himself.

Debating the Debate and Immoderate Moderation

By Selwyn Duke

Despite all the scrutiny placed on debate moderation, Candy Crowley nonetheless managed to stoop to the occasion Tuesday night at Hofstra University. Yet, although she gave it her best effort, the 2012 debate record is still Democrats and the media 0 for 3. Unfortunately, the truth has been a casualty as well.

“‘Tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool….” You know the rest. When Crowley “corrected” Mitt Romney after he rightly said that Barack Obama didn’t declare the Benghazi attack an “act of terror” in the Rose Garden on Sept. 12, she sounded like a mother defending her little son’s lie in deference to emotional attachment. And while she would have to admit her error post debate, she had a rationalization at the ready: Romney used the wrong word. Yes, that’s right up there with her son Barry’s copout that gas prices were far lower four years ago because the economy was collapsing. But the problem wasn’t the wrong word — it was the wrong moderator.

Even with Crowley’s thoroughly modern mea culpa, however, much of the damage was done. What about the viewers who didn’t watch the post-debate coverage and are only as informed as Crowley herself?  

The truth is that Crowley’s meddling was as inappropriate as was her presence itself. It was much as if Angelo Dundee had been the referee for the first Ali/Frazier fight and jumped on Smokin’ Joe’s back because Ali couldn’t hack it that night.

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The Link between the Contraception Issue and Islam

By Selwyn Duke

While I’m sure Barack Obama loves to stick it to traditional religious institutions any way he can, he certainly doesn’t want to stick it to himself in the process. This is why I’m fairly sure he and his advisors didn’t anticipate that his contraception mandate would result in a knock-down, drag-out fight with the most powerful religious institution in the world. I think they miscalculated, and the reason why brings me to a link between the contraception issue and Islam.

What is it? Simply this: The modern, secular-environment-weaned man is largely incapable of grasping the devoutly religious mindset.

This is especially true of the atheistic, as the relativistic man is incapable of grasping an absolutist mindset.

To the relativistic liberal, and please forgive the redundancy, situational values reign supreme; that is, until they’re deposed by the next week’s values. Everything is negotiable, and there is nothing worth dying for because there’s nothing larger than themselves, nothing more enduring than this life, nothing transcending taste. And a mentality that truly believes otherwise seems fantastical to them.

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