Sodomite supremacists suspend "Duck Dynasty” TV star

By Dana Ford, CNN |December 18, 2013
CNN) -- Phil Robertson, a star of A&E's "Duck Dynasty," has been suspended indefinitely after slamming gays in a magazine interview.

"We are extremely disappointed to have read Phil Robertson's comments in GQ, which are based on his own personal beliefs and are not reflected in the series Duck Dynasty," the network said in a statement Wednesday.

"His personal views in no way reflect those of A+E Networks, who have always been strong supporters and champions of the LGBT community. The network has placed Phil under hiatus from filming indefinitely."

In an interview in the January issue of GQ, Robertson says homosexuality is a sin and puts it in the same category as bestiality and promiscuity. "It seems like, to me, a vagina -- as a man -- would be more desirable than a man's anus. That's just me. I'm just thinking: There's more there! She's got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I'm saying? But hey, sin: It's not logical, my man. It's just not logical," he's quoted as saying.

Asked what, in his mind, is sinful, Robertson replied: "Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men."

He also made comments regarding race and growing up in Louisiana before the civil rights era. "I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I'm with the blacks, because we're white trash. We're going across the field. ... They're singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, 'I tell you what: These doggone white people' -- not a word!

"Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues," GQ quotes Robertson as saying.

"Duck Dynasty" follows a Louisiana bayou family that has "made a fortune on duck calls," as A&E  describes it.

Season 5 of is set to premiere January 15. According to A&E, its fourth season premiere in August drew nearly 12 million viewers to become the No. 1 nonfiction series telecast in cable history.

E-mail: aefeedback@aenetworks.comThe new inquisition is in full swing with Phil’s suspension. Some homosexuals, now that they are in power, are persecuting Christians for publicly upholding views held for thousands of years by our western civilization. Phil has no free speech rights if he wants to work on cable television. This is democracy? More like a revolutionary dictatorship. I stand with Phil 100%. A & E is no longer welcome in our home.*** Cultural Kerfuffle: Duck Dynasty star fired for quoting Scripture I see this as extremely, extremely revealing.  And just as troubling.The star of the A$E program “Duck Dynasty,” Phil Robertson, was fired for quoting 1 Corinthians in an interview in GQ Magazine.  That quote lays out some of the most fundamental tenets of Christian morality, beliefs that have been upheld for 2000 years.  More than that, those beliefs have shaped – until very recently – the culture in which we live.  But because Mr. Robertson condemned homosexual acts, he was fired from his job on A$E’s number one (and incredibly lucrative) program, and has been treated as one of history’s greatest monsters by the increasingly violently anti-Christian left.  First, the quote:Interviewer: "What, in your mind, is sinful?"Phil Robertson: “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”Before I even begin, let me state that I’ve never watched Duck Dynasty. I don’t even have TV.  I might have seen a clip or two here and there on the internet.  Frankly, I am unmoved by the program. It’s very cliched redneck shtick taken to the nth degree.  Alot of people seem to like it. Apparently, it has been very lucrative both for the Robertson family and for A$E.So it is very revealing that A$E was willing to threaten the existence of their number one program by firing its most popular star as a reaction to the above statement.  It is truly disturbing that in our culture today, you are more apt to lose your job for stating plain, 2000 year old Christian morality than you are for engaging in acts of wanton immorality.  It is also deliciously ironic to see the left just freaking out over someone they hate anyways – a white, wealthy, redneck Christian – quoting Scripture and calling homosexual behavior sinful, while they give a bigot like Alec Baldwin, caught on tape now numerous times using racial and anti-gay slurs, a total pass.  The selective outrage always comes down to what will advance the ball down the field more for the left.  Everything is politics to them.But what I found most interesting in this sad imbroglio, yet another harbinger of the coming violent persecution, was the reaction of celebrity priest Fr. Jonathan Morris on Twitter.  Fr. Morris, of course, frequently appears on Fox News.  Here is what he said:"DuckDynasty’s Phil Robertson was wrong in tone and facts, but I wonder if quoting Bible re: homosexual acts will now get you fired."Of course it will.  I don’t think we even have to question that.  And it’s not only highly visible stars on popular TV shows that get fired for making the culture uncomfortable, for reminding them of their sin.  It is also everyday employees at major corporations that get sacked, too.But I have to wonder, re: Fr. Morris’ comments, just what Robertson got factually wrong?  Fr. Morris tweet is, to me, too clever by half. He tried to both distance himself from what he conveys is a “wrong” comment to make, while at the same time playing to outraged Christians by questioning the firing.  I don’t see anything factually wrong in Robertson’s comment.  He’s obviously speaking from memory, using colloquialisms, but his overall recitation of 1 Cor 6:9-10 seems pretty spot on to me:"Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,  Nor the effeminate [a reference to male prostitutes used in pagan temples for certain religious acts], nor liers with men [a reference to those who engage in non-temple sodomy], nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God."This quote has always been taken as a denunciation of homosexual acts, and even the homosexual lifestyle or disordered orientation.  But it also denounces numerous other sins the left didn’t get all riled up about: fornication, idolatry, adultery, lying, thievery, drunkenness, etc.  Comparing Robertson’s quote with the actual quote from Douay-Reims, they seem to line up pretty good.  I think Robertson is also spot on that the “tolerance,” but really the celebration, of homosexuality is leading us towards legalization of even more bizarre and disgusting acts – bestiality...etc.So I have to ask Fr. Morris, rhetorically, what did Mr. Robertson get factually and “tonally” wrong?  Or was that just a clever way to distance yourself from the plain meaning of Scripture, the better to keep the cannon-fire of the left away from you?Were that we had a bit more of Mr. Robertson’s tone from our priests and prelates, and less of the self-serving parsing and equivocating.  Decades of such lack of clarity have left the faithful terminally confused as to what the Church believes.One final note: at an adult catechism class led by a priest I attended earlier this week, he spoke of the need of homosexuals for constant affirmation of their lifestyle.  They literally cannot stand the slightest contradiction or condemnation, as it cuts to the very core of the carefully spun web of lies and self-deceits that make up this profoundly disturbed lifestyle. I agree with this priest and Fr. Michael Rodriguez, that the homosexual agenda will be the vehicle of the persecution, and I think we see that being played out in miniature before our eyes.  While Mr. Robertson will be fine, he should be set for life, financially, many others who don’t have his resources or notoriety will be made to suffer in ways that really hurt.It is amazing to me how far this culture has fallen in 30 years.  30 years ago, homosexuality was still viewed as something that was extremely disordered, perverse, and dangerous.  Probably 80-90% of the population held this view.  But a concerted, unprecedented campaign of propaganda and normalization in the media the past 20 years has produced one of the most profound sea changes in public opinion on a matter of morality I have seen in my lifetime.  But the stage was set for this with the liberalizing of divorce laws and the legalization of contraception and abortion in the 60s and 70s, which served to destroy the institution of marriage.  All of these dread turns in the culture have been carefully orchestrated by the cultural left.  None of them happened accidentally, or by demand of the public will.  They were, instead, foisted upon a largely unwilling public, generally through judicial fiat. Subsequent decades of media propaganda have gradually ground down resistance, to the point where most people accept as “good,” or at least benignly inevitable, what would have shocked their parents and grandparents.And so the stage is set for an ugly, brutal, technologically advanced persecution. I pray shepherds like Fr. Morris will learn to speak up and defend the Faith with less equivocation at that time, because it is going to be sorely needed.

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Is the Talmud the direct descendant of the Old Testament?

Dear Mr. Hoffman

re: Luther the Antinomian? (see the comments section following our blog post on Martin Heidegger)

You mentioned that in England even the yeoman was sovereign. That did not prevent the Upper Classes from kidnabbing the poor and sending them to the colonies as slaves.

One Question: How do you reconcile the supremacism, mass murder, lack of love and unforgiveness of the Old Testament theology with the Prince of Peace? It seems to me that the Talmud is the direct descendant of the Old Testament.

Sincerely,

H.L., M.D.

________

Dear Dr. H. L.

In the political theory and theology of the Puritans (regarding the majority Protestants only), and among the category of clergymen known in Britain (mainly during and after the reign of Charles II), as "non conforming divines,"  the concept of the individual as having inalienable rights apart from the monarchy or any earthly government, was very strong indeed. A direct legacy of this philosophy can be found in our Declaration of Independence, not withstanding the fact that poor whites suffered demonization and criminalization in Britian, which led to their enslavement on land, and as I recently tried to demonstrate in an issue of Revisionist History newsletter, on sea.

As for the Old Testament, its warfare was directed not at gentiles generally, but against those tribes and nations that used magica sexualis to worship false gods. You will find the distinction in the Hebrew terms ger and nokri; i.e. benevolent aliens and enemy aliens.

The major difference between the Babylonian Talmud and the Old Testament is that the former is a manual of racial self-worship, whereas the latter repeatedly excoriates Israel and the Israelites for their faithlessness, pride and transgressions. Recall that in the Book of Hosea God equates Israel with a whore. Prophet Isaiah thundered imprecations against Israel to such an extent that the Talmud says Isaiah was killed and celebrates his murder. Hence, Isaiah is one of the prophets Jesus referenced as having been murdered by the Pharisaic spirit within Israel, and you will recall that Isaiah was one of the most eminent of the prophets before the coming of John the Baptist. In Judaism's Strange Gods I give citations from sacred rabbinic texts that degrade and defame not only Isaiah but Old Testament patriarchs such as Noah and even Moses himself. One of the most virulent hoaxes of history is the one put forth by Douglas Reed, and before him, the Nazi leadership, that rabbinic Judaism is an Old Testament religion. It is in fact the quintessential anti-Old Testament religion.

If you wish to see this fact thoroughly documented and know for certain the difference between the Old Testament and the Talmud of Babylon, you might consider studying The Talmud Tested: Comparing the Religion of Judaism with the Religion of Moses, by Professor Alexander McCaul.

And of course the bane of our existence, the Money Power, would not have one-tenth the power it has in the world today if Christian Israel harkened to both the Old Testament and New Testament proscriptions against the taking of interest on loans, as this writer has demonstrated in the book, Usury in Christendom: The Mortal Sin that Was and Now is Not. In order for the "Rothschild Judaism" that is the éminence grise of the financial system today, to operate, it had to nullify the Old Testament laws against usury; this nullification being as old as the child-molestation advocate and so-called "good Pharisee," Hillel, who first issued a "prozbul" nullifying the Deuteronomic ban on unjust loans.

For what it is worth, I have spent more than eighteen years of my life studying the Talmud of Babylon and cognate rabbinic texts, and the more I study the more I see what Nicholas Donin, Vincent Ferrer, Martin Luther, Johann Andreas Eisenmenger, Alexander McCaul and Fathers Prainitis and McNabb discerned.

The stubborn survival of the cockamamie dogma of the Nazis, Douglas Reed and many others concerning the Old Testament, cannot long endure among reasonable men and women when exposed to the light of truth. This dogma is, in the final analysis, a thinly veiled gnostic attack on Jesus Christ Himself who, without the Old Testament, becomes "The Christ" of the New Age.

Jesus and the Apostles of the New Testament favorably quoted the Old Testament literally hundreds of times. If it is a book of evil, then so too is Jesus Christ evil. Our Lord cannot be separated from the Word of God that preceded His Incarnation! People who execrate the Old Testament should be candid enough to admit this fact, so that we may proceed with this debate from an accurate understanding of where that execration ultimately leads.

Sincerely,
Michael Hoffman
www.revisionisthistory.org

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"Jews are not enemies of the Church" by Catholic Prof. John Lamont

Why the Jews Are Not the Enemies of the Church(Excerpts) from a March 6, 2014 essay by Homiletic and Pastoral Review (Catholic priests' journal)http://www.hprweb.com/2014/03/why-the-jews-are-not-the-enemies-of-the-church/With replies by Michael Hoffmanauthor of Judaism Discovered and Judaism's Strange GodsLamont's more egregious claims are in boldface, Hoffman's replies are in  blue:Lamont: The reason why Rabbinic Jews are not enemies of the Church can be put briefly. Such Jews do not seek to...prevent non-Jewish Christians from exercising their faith. They only refuse to become Christians themselves, which does not suffice to make them “enemies” of the Church....______________________________Hoffman: Notice his qualification: non-Jewish Christians are not prevented. Apparently he doesn't object to interdiction of "Jewish Christians."Moreover, Christian missionary evangelism to Judaic persons in the Israeli state is banned and the Talmud requires the destruction of the New Testament. Judaic groups across the spectrum from Right to Left oppose the Kingship of Christ in the United States and Europe and are principal forces in the dilution and emasculation of Christianity into a toothless simulacra and an adjunct of Zionism.In Ashkenazi Judaism Rabbi Moses Maimonides is the chief authority on halacha (law). Maimonides rules that where it is politic to do so and the Jews will not get the blame, then Christians are to be killed whenever possible. Maimonides states that Christianity constitutes idol worship (worship of Jesus of Nazareth as God). According to the Noahide laws of the Talmud, the penalty for idol worship is death.Orthodox Judaism is implacably opposed to true Christianity. Judaism’s hateful, ritual curse on Christians, which has echoed perpetually down the corridors of time since at least the days of Rabbi Gamaliel, continues in our time. The unrelenting hostility which Orthodox Judaism harbors for western civilization, which it ritually curses as malkhut zadon can be discovered in the Birkat Ha’Minim synagogue invocation as documented in Revisionist History newsletter no. 70, "The Rabbinic Curse on Christians."
Lamont: St. Paul’s statement in 1 Thess 2:14-16: “For you, brothers, have become imitators of the churches of God that are in Judea in Christ Jesus. For you suffer the same things from your compatriots as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and persecuted us; they do not please God, and are opposed to everyone, trying to prevent us from speaking to the Gentiles that they may be saved, thus constantly filling up the measure of their sins. But the wrath of God has finally begun to come upon them.” Ennemond argues that since this passage describes the Jews as adversaries of all men, it follows that they are adversaries of the Church.
...These passages cannot, however, be understood as applying to all Jews. The term “adversary,” that is used by St. Paul, is applied to the Jews who sought to prevent the first Christians from preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles. It is this attempt to prevent the preaching of the Gospel that constitutes the Jews as “enemies” of all men in St. Paul’s eyes since they are trying to prevent the message of salvation from reaching the rest of the human race. Since Rabbinic Jews make no effort to prevent the preaching of the Gospel to Gentiles, and the founders of Rabbinic Judaism lived some time after the death of Christ, these condemnations cannot be applied to them.
Hoffman: notice that St. Paul does not limit himself solely to the charge of preventing Christians from preaching the Gospel. He also states that the Jews "killed both the Lord Jesus, and the prophets.” Dr. Lamont repeats his nonsense about rabbinic Jews making no effort to prevent the preaching of the Gospel. I have video footage of Christian missionaries harassed and their headquarters burned in the Israeli state.I suggest that Lamont travel to Tel Aviv, stand on a street corner there with a large crucifix in his hand, preach the true Gospel, declare Jesus the true Messiah of the Jews, and see what happens. 
Lamont: This is why there are very few references to Christ and Christianity in the Talmud, and those references that exist are brief and inaccurate. They are scurrilous and abusive, but they make no reference to Christ’s claims to divinity or messianic statusHoffman: Here the author displays abysmal ignorance. The Talmud says Christ worshipped a brick and led all of Israel astray; does the Messiah do that? It also states that he lusted after a serving girl, that he was conceived when His whorish Mother Mary was menstruating during an adulterous tryst.  The Talmud also states that Our Lord is in hell boiling in hot excrement. It states that Jesus got what he deserved when He was killed._________________________________The claim that Rabbinic Jews work to deny the doctrine of the divinity of Christ is, therefore, misleading. They deny it themselves, and seek to prevent Jews from accepting it...________________________________Hoffman: Of course on this basis alone this makes them enemies of Christ and His Church. Denying that Jesus Christ is the Messiah and the Son of God is the New Testament's definition of an Antichrist. Preventing millions of Jewish souls from receiving Christ is Satanic._________________________________Additional falsehoods peddled by John Lamont: As for the claim that it is a new religion, the first point to be made is that much of the Talmud is not really religious in character at all, but is essentially a code of civil law that covers such things as inheritances, commercial transactions, and criminal law. This code is justified by the claim that it was all received by Moses from God on Mount Sinai. However, it is really a legal code devised by rabbis to provide a basis for the Jewish community after the destruction of the Jewish state. It is a good legal code by the standards of the 2nd to 5th centuries, when it was devised. For example, it differs from the Roman law, which was codified over the same period, in that it allows no role to torture in juridical processes—a form of investigation that Roman law made compulsory. As a legal code, the Talmud is largely a new development; but, it is not an intrinsically religious development. In religious matters, as noted above, the Talmud is an attempt to preserve the beliefs and practices of the scribes and Pharisees (this statement is true and it constitutes  an indictment of the Talmud - Hoffman) of the latter part of the Second Temple era (the era from 530 B.C. to 70 A.D., when the second Jewish Temple was in existence). It contains some inaccuracies and expansions of these beliefs and practices, but not enough to constitute Rabbinic Judaism as a new religionIt should be mentioned that Kabbalah is popular among Rabbinic Jews, which is a form of Gnosticism, which is not compatible with monotheism. It can thus rightly be described as a new religion that differs from the belief of Jews prior to the time of Christ. It is, however, a medieval development that is not part of Rabbinic Judaism as such. Readers may wish to consult Dr. Lamont's article in its entirety rather than Hoffman's excerpts alone:http://www.hprweb.com/2014/03/why-the-jews-are-not-the-enemies-of-the-church/_____________________________________Furthermore, in Revisionist History Newsletter no. 70 Hoffman offers the latest documentation of the heretofore largely unknown extent of the Judaic-Islamic alliance in the early Middle Ages, and the fact that Orthodox Judaism does not regard Islam as negatively as it does the religion of Jesus Christ.

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Necons Pushing Hard for Obama to Attack Syria

[Michael Hoffman's Afterword and comments from readers follow this column]WITH SYRIA, DIPLOMACY NEEDS FORCENew York Times Opinion Pages | OP-ED CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — THE conventional wisdom about Syria is that nothing can be done. It is said that military action would be either perverse — bringing the jihadists in the opposition to power — or futile, failing to tip the balance against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Using force, it is argued, would also jeopardize other strategic objectives, like securing a lasting nuclear deal with Syria’s supporter Iran.

The trouble is that the conventional wisdom may be fatalism parading as realism and resignation masquerading as prudence.

Any realist needs to face two facts. First, absent the credible application of force against the Syrian regime, a negotiated transition leading to Mr. Assad’s departure is not going to happen. Despite the efforts of the United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, the peace talks in Geneva between the Syrian government and the opposition coalition have become a waste of time. The opposition forces have been weakened by military defeats, and Mr. Assad’s strategic advantage gives him no incentive to concede anything.

Second, if Mr. Assad is allowed to prevail in this conflict, he will reimpose his tyranny, and his forces will surely exterminate the remaining Sunni insurgents who make up most of the opposition. Obliterating his enemies, however, will not bring lasting peace. It will only further inflame hatreds. Sooner or later blood will flow again.

Though nominally committed to Mr. Assad’s overthrow, the United States, in doing so little to bring it about, is becoming complicit in his survival. Is there a realistic alternative?

Arming the rebels is not the answer. Providing weapons, as nations like Saudi Arabia and Qatar have done with their fundamentalist proxies in Syria, appears to have only increased civilian suffering without shifting the conflict in favor of the insurgents.

Neither is the solution to create humanitarian corridors or safe zones to protect civilians. Doing so will not succeed unless Western governments commit ground forces, and that won’t happen.

The only remaining option is to use force to deny Mr. Assad air superiority. Planes, drones and cyber operations could prevent his forces from using barrel bombs, cluster munitions and phosphorus weapons on civilian targets. An air campaign should not be used to provide support for rebel groups whose goals the West does not share. The aim would be to relieve the unrelenting pressure on the civilian population and force Mr. Assad to return to Geneva to negotiate a cease-fire.

Last year, the threat of force persuaded Mr. Assad to get rid of his chemical weapons. Applying force now could deny him the chance to bomb his way to victory. Mr. Assad can endure only if he crushes the insurgents. If he is denied victory, his eventual departure into exile becomes a matter of time.

A cease-fire in Syria would likely unleash a chaotic struggle for power, but it is better than slaughter. Syria is bound to look like Libya. International peacekeepers will be needed to prevent revenge killing by the opposition and former Assad allies alike.

The conventional wisdom holds that there are no “good guys” in the opposition, no one we actually want to win. There weren’t many good guys among the Balkan politicians in the late 1990s, either, but by working with them as a special presidential envoy, Richard C. Holbrooke did help bring a stop to the killing. If force were applied to leverage diplomacy in Syria, as the United States did in Bosnia, the dying could stop, refugees could return and negotiations could eventually lead either to partition or to a constitutional transition.

Given the near certainty that Russia would veto any United Nations Security Council authorization of air power, and that the United States Congress, if asked to authorize force, would likely turn President Obama down, stopping the war in Syria will stretch domestic and international legality. But if legality is not stretched, the killing will go on indefinitely.

Every piece of this proposal — using air power, forcing a cease-fire, putting in international peacekeepers — would be a test of presidential nerve and resolve. Military action risks confrontation with the Russians and is unpopular with a recession-weary public in the United States.

Above all, using force would make the president “own” the Syrian tragedy. So far he has tried to pretend he doesn’t have to. The fact is he owns it already. American inaction has strengthened Russia, Hezbollah and Iran. It has turned Syria into the next front in the war with Islamic extremism. And it has put in jeopardy the stability of Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey and risks leaving a failed state next door to Israel.

If the president already owns the deadly consequences of inaction, it is only prudent now to back diplomacy with force so that the consequences do not become deadlier still.

(End quote from the New York Times)

Michael Ignatieff is a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/opinion/with-syria-diplomacy-needs-force.html?hp&rref=opinion

Nothing from Prof. Ignatieff about “our ally” Saudi Arabia backing Al Qaeda in Syria. Nothing about the threat of extinction of Alawaite and Christian minority communities in the event of a Sunni-Salafist-Saudi overthrow of Assad.

All we get is a simplistic Iran/Hezbollah/Russia axis of evil. We’ve seen this mythology before. It leads to military quagmires that we cannot afford and that earn us even more hostility from the warring parties. US taxpayers may want to encourage Middle Eastern nations to fight their own wars while the US works for peace and justice through foreign diplomacy, and providing food and medical care.

Recent history teaches that American meddling in Muslim civil wars busts our domestic budget and only fuels the bloodbath. The elite would-be shapers of American opinion repeatedly ignore this fundamental truth. Americans are exhausted by foreign wars and the messianic, neocon ideology that promotes them while oblivious to the lessons of the past decade.

Bloodthirsty necons like Ignatieff are basically outlaws and anarchists, opposed to the rule of law even as they pose as the voice of reason. This Harvard elitist writes, "...stopping the war in Syria will stretch domestic and international legality. But if legality is not stretched, the killing will go on indefinitely."

This is pure end-justifies-the-means anarchy, founded on a fallacy: that US military intervention will stop the bloodbath. Tell that to the people of Iraq.

Both the Israelis and the Saudis would like to see Uncle "Sap" pay the butcher's bill for taking the Sunni militants' side in an ongoing civil war in distant Syria. Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fox News would love to spend your tax dollars, and expend your children's blood, in Syria. The majority of Americans are adamantly opposed, but we are plutocracy, not a democracy.

NY TIMES READERS' COMMENTS REVEAL BACKLASH AGAINST MORE NEOCON FOREIGN WARSThe following comments published by the New York Times on its website are representative of the majority of comments we read as of today at 3:15 pm Eastern Standard Time.
FRANK BRODHEAD: Mr. Ignatieff, like many commentators based at elite institutions and "think tanks," was given a platform by The Times and the mainstream media to advocate for using force in the run-up to the Iraq war in 2002-03. Now he is back again, treated seriously by The Times as someone who has something useful to say about the problems in Syria. In the eyes of the mainstream media, Ignatieff suffers no penalty by having been so dramatically wrong the last time around. (And now he's a "professor of practice," whatever that is.) Rather than recycle this intellectual and ethical failure, The Times would do its readers a favor by giving a platform to those voices who saw through the pro-war rhetoric of the Bush/Cheney administration, and opposed the Iraq war. There are plenty of them out there, with lots to say.
________________________

MARK THOMASON: The author (Ignatieff) was a big supporter of the Iraq War. He has admitted that and apologized in an article published August 5, 2007, in the Washington Post. He said in that it was important to learn from mistakes.

Here, he's doing it again. He didn't learn.

He writes, "The only remaining option is to use force."

That is because he sees it as the problem of the US. Why is it our problem? It is our fault because we don't stop it."Though nominally committed to Mr. Assad’s overthrow, the United States, in doing so little to bring it about, is becoming complicit in his survival."

What made us responsible to stop things in Syria? Why not worse places? Why Syria? That is the underlying neocon fallacy, that we have an obligation to fix wherever they have pointed to, just because not fixing it is our fault.

Furthermore, like the ultimate neocon error, he says we should do this illegally, because that is the only way we could do it. "stopping the war in Syria will stretch domestic and international legality. But if legality is not stretched, the killing will go on indefinitely."

So we must commit crimes because in Syria both sides will go on killing. How about other places? No, just Syria.

When read closely, this just does not make sense. It is nonsense.
________________________

EVERYMAN:

Oh dear, are you at it again? Remember this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/05/magazine/05EMPIRE.html

Followed by this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/magazine/05iraq-t.html

Leading to this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/world/americas/04canada.html

Americans don't want any more Middle East wars, and neither do Canadians. You advocate "force"? How about you go fight?

_________________________

PINTOKS: Do tell, how many members of the Ignatieff family does the author offer up for this "prudent" use of force, or does the author prefer, as in Iraq and Afghanistan to again leave that to the little people? Ignatieff in the last decade just can't find a Mideast conflict he's not willing to send your family and friends off to die in.
________________________

WOODSBELDAU: ...There are 150,000 Russian nationals in Syria plus a major naval base. The issue of what Mr. Assad does may have more to do with Russia's perception of its strategic interests, than with President Assad's desires for his country. In the early stages of the Arab Spring Mr. Assad offered negotiations, a new constitution and elections. Then violence started. Was the violence caused by the Assad government's desire to punish the people for demonstrating or was it the result of provocateurs that had no interest in the welfare of the Syrian people, but were provoking the government to act with brutal force that evoked a counterforce and led to civil war? Now that negotiations appear to be getting underway and the parties have been signaled that they must seriously start talking, it would be a terribly counterproductive act for the US to unilaterally use force.
__________________________

HOWARD: Oh, here we go again. Michael Ignatieff, that great humanitarian, paragon of clarity of thought, mouthpiece for George Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq, who was so very sure that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that he would sell them to international terrorists. He now advocates a US attack on Syria. Mr. Ignatieff, please go and check with the myriad of dead Iraqis before you push for another war. Or better yet, go back to Canada. It eludes me how people like you imagine that foreigners sowing death can bring peace to Syria's long suffering people. It also leaves me speechless that the N.Y. Times would give you op ed space to publish such nonsense.

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Zionist paper asks, “is the Pope Catholic?"

New pope’s favorite work of art is reputed to be Chagall's Talmudic mockery of Christ Michael Hoffman’s Afterword follows this report:_______________________________
Understanding Pope Francis's Surprising Affinity For Jewish ArtWorld's Top Catholic Worships Marc ChagallGallery 395A is tucked away in a corner on the third floor of the Art Institute of Chicago’s modern wing...which contains...Marc Chagall’s “White Crucifixion” (1938)...the Chagall painting has been making international news. In interviews with Francesca Ambrogetti and Sergio Rubin for the 2010 biography El Jesuita, Pope Francis identified “White Crucifixion,” which depicts a Jewish Jesus, wearing a tallit instead of a loincloth, as his favorite work of art. “He likes us, he really does,” Tweeted Miriam Shaviv, a columnist for Britain’s Jewish Chronicle, about the pope.But there’s more to the painting than “owning” Jesus as a Jew. Surrounding Jesus, we see a synagogue, a Torah scroll and a shtetl burning, as armed men march carrying red flags. And in the bottom-right corner, the Wandering Jew, donning a blue cap and a green coat, lugs a sack as he trudges past the smoking Torah.That the chief executive of the Catholic Church has an affinity for a painting that was created by a Russian-Jewish artist and also includes the symbol of the eternal wanderer, who was punished for abusing Jesus and became the pretext for centuries of anti-Semitism, is drawing a range of reactions."...“I know nothing of the pope’s taste, so I have no idea why he likes that painting,” said Matthew Baigell, who is professor emeritus of art history at Rutgers University and has published extensively on Jewish artists.Marc Michael Epstein, professor of religion at Vassar College, in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., sees things differently. The notion of a Jewish Jesus and its reference to Jews and other marginalized groups is very appealing post-Vatican II, he said....Chicago’s (Jesuit) Loyola University Museum of Art is exhibiting some of Chagall’s work in “Graven Images: Marc Chagall’s Bible Illustrations” through June 16.... Jonathan Canning, senior curator at the Loyola museum...declined to comment specifically on the pope’s aesthetic preferences...Canning says that Chagall was clearly introducing a new interpretation of the crucifixion..."Tedious, strait-jacketed thinking is the signifier in this report (“He likes us, he really does,” Tweeted Miriam Shaviv, a columnist for Britain’s Jewish Chronicle, about the pope.)Actually Miriam, if the 2010 biography of the pope is accurate, he doesn't like you, or the Judaic people collectively. The assumption that because someone, in this case Pope Francis, is a shill for the Pharisees, he is thereby "pro-Jewish," is platitudinous rubbish.Artist Marc Chagall depicts Christ being crucified while dressed in the garb of a Pharisee. What would the world think of the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem if he admired a painting of a "Jew" being "gassed in Auschwitz" wearing the uniform of a Nazi?Chagall, in his delirium, portrays the victim of the Pharisees dressed as a Pharisee. Chagall's depiction is a familiar Talmudic trope. It constitutes a disfigurement of Jesus Christ, who stated (in Matthew 23:5-7), that the long tassels (tzitzit) extending from the bottom of the prayer shawl (tallit), were a fixture of prideful display by the Pharisees. In "White Crucifixion" Chagall depicts Jesus garbed in this very attire, with long fringes hanging from the bottom of the garment clearly visible.If this is a favorite painting of Pope Francis —  Rome's "Peter Romanus” — then he has some explaining to do. For now it appears he is pandering to political correctness of the most virulent type, in order to be seen as hip, kosher and in tune with the world. Someone needs to remind His Holiness that the man on the Cross was none of those things.Hoffman is the author of Judaism’s Strange Gods.

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