Two weeks ago, one of the major networks interviewed 15 Occupy Wall Street People. Among many questions they ask, “who was Hitler?” Thirteen of the 15 didn’t have a clue. Most of these were either college graduates or presently attending college or university. This example is but one of many that might be used to express a concern about our American educational system that graduates students who have no knowledge of a man who changed history and was responsible for millions of deaths and untold tragedy. With this educational incompetence of historical proportions, let me introduce you to a very special lady.

Kitty Werthmann grew up in Austria under the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler.  She has seen firsthand the devastating effects when people elect and put unchecked power into the hands of a few. Her story has eerie similarities between the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany and America today.  

Kitty Werthmann, 83, of Pierre, SD is president of the South Dakota Eagle Forum. She lobbies the state legislature on family issues.  She has lived in the United States since 1950 and has been a U.S. citizen since 1962.

“After America , There is No Place to Go”

Generally I’m a person who looks at the future with great anticipation, however there are times when I look about and then have a nostalgic moment and find myself agreeing with an old retired minister from Tennessee. Would you agree?

THE OLD PATHS

I Liked the old paths, when
Moms were at home.

Dads were at work.
Brothers went into the army.
And sisters got married BEFORE having children!

Crime did not pay;
Hard work did;
And people knew the difference.

Moms could cook;
Dads would work;
Children would behave.

Husbands were loving;
Wives were supportive;
And children were polite.

Women wore the jewelry;
And Men wore the pants. (so they thought)
God was always first in the house.

Women looked like ladies;
Men looked like gentlemen;
And children looked decent;
And knew what happened when you broke the rules.

People loved the truth,
And hated a lie,
Deals were made with a handshake.

They came to church to get IN,
Not to get OUT!

Hymns sounded Godly;
Sermons sounded helpful;
Rejoicing sounded normal,
And crying sounded sincere.

Cursing was wicked;
Drugs were for illness.

The flag was honored;
America was beautiful;
And God was welcome!

We read the Bible in public;
Prayed in school daily;
And preached from house to house.

To be called an American was worth dying for;
To be called an American was worth living for;
To be called a traitor was a shame!

There may be a few things we would change, but
I still like the old paths the best!

Faith Group to IRS: Don’t tread on us!
John Kerry case reveals loophole for feds to quash political speech

Posted: October 22, 2011
11:00 pm Eastern
By Drew Zahn © 2011 WND

A religious group is charging the Internal Revenue Service with using a legal loophole to first tax nonprofits’ free speech, then run away with impunity when challenged in court.

The nonprofit Catholic Answers tasted this tactic firsthand in 2008, when its president, Karl Keating, posted a discussion on the organization’s website arguing that, according to church rules, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., should not be allowed to receive communion in the Catholic Church because of his support for legalized abortion.

The IRS then levied an excise tax on Catholic Answers for engaging in alleged “political speech” against then-presidential primary candidate Kerry, a tax Catholic Answers paid.

But when challenged in court, the IRS simply refunded the tax, while refusing to change its ruling that Catholic Answers’ speech was taxable political intervention in an election. Lower courts then ruled Catholic Answers had no course of action against the IRS.

But Catholic Answers, together with the James Madison Center for Free Speech, are now asking the Supreme Court to step in, claiming this “tax-and-run” strategy allows the IRS to arbitrarily tax churches, charities and religious activists into silence, or dodge the consequences if the nonprofits fight back.

“Not only did the federal courts in this case misapply Supreme Court law, they have allowed the IRS to engage in trickery by penalizing nonprofits who exercise their right to speak, only to return the money at the last possible second,” explained James Bopp Jr., general counsel for the James Madison Center and co-chairman of the Election Law Subcommittee of the Federalist Society. “So long as the IRS is allowed to do this, nonprofits like Catholic Answers will be deterred from speaking about individuals who are political candidates in any context for fear they’ll be investigated and taxed. Nothing prevents the IRS from doing this again. And these groups now have no judicial remedy.”

The IRS initially conducted an extensive investigation and concluded that, since nonprofits should not engage in political speech, Catholic Answers should be penalized for making a “political expenditure” during an election.

But Catholic Answers argued its speech was not about the election of a candidate but about a theological issue surrounding a public official.

When challenged, the IRS returned the money on the grounds that Catholic Answers didn’t intentionally try to engage in political speech, but the federal agency refused to change its decision.

Catholic Answers, in turn, asked the federal courts to review that decision, knowing that without a change in the IRS’s position on its speech, it couldn’t make comments on figures like Kerry again without risking another investigation and tax penalty.

Yet both the California federal district court and the federal appeals court held that because Catholic Answers got its money back, the issue was resolved, and there was nothing for the courts to do.

“This allows the IRS to harass and penalize nonprofits who discuss public officials who are also running for office while leaving those nonprofits without any recourse,” the James Madison Center said in a statement. “The IRS can simply return the money at the last minute and never be sued for taxing protected speech that shouldn’t be taxed in the first place.”

A copy of the petition to the Supreme Court can be seen on the James Madison Center website.

Christian College Gives Pro-Riots Leftist Piven a Forum, Then Cancels Conservative Speaker

by Human Events 1018/2011

Nothing has changed on America’s campuses. Frances Fox Piven.  You’ve probably heard that name before.  She’s the aging leftist “academic” who called for Greek-style “strikes and riots” here in America.  She’s advocated overloading the state and federal welfare programs to accelerate the fall of capitalism.  She’s a proud admirer of Karl Marx and an honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America … and that’s all before lunchtime.

Naturally, she’s also a college professor in New York City.  So to maintain “solidarity” with her underworked and overpaid professoriate brethren, Piven also hits the college speaking circuit.

Just last week, Piven was a guest speaker at Messiah College, as part of the school’s American Democracy Lecture series.  As one would expect, she used the occasion to prove her leftist bona fides by calling the Tea Party racist, compared the Occupy Wall Street temper tantrum to the Civil Rights Movement, reaffirmed her dreams of seeing mass rioting in the United States, and even went as far as to say that “riots are what poor people do when they get together.”

Great way to boost the image of those you claim to champion, Frances:  Liken them to barbarians!

But here’s where the story gets good.

There was supposed to be a conservative speaker tonight at the school to counter Piven’s intemperate views.  The talk, “Why I Love Rich People (And You Should Too),” was the type of counterbalance needed after giving Piven two uninterrupted hours with the small Pennsylvania college’s student body.  That’s what the College Republicans thought anyway.

But a strange thing happened from when Piven’s lecture concluded to when the conservative was supposed to take stage:  Professors at Messiah pressured the College Republicans chapter to rescind the invitation two days before the event was supposed to transpire.  Why?  Because the conservative speaker was deemed too controversial.

We kid you not.

The main culprit was history Prof. James LaGrand, who advises the College Republicans. He twisted their arms to retract the invite, claiming that the speaker’s recent comments were “problematic.”  On the surface it may seem odd that a self-professed Christian school would be hostile to the presentation of conservative ideas, but that’s nothing unusual for Messiah.  Students and alum tell us that teachers there preach “social justice” (read: socialism) as though it were gospel, which is why when the president of the College Republicans told us on Saturday evening that LaGrand wanted their forum canceled, we believed him.

We have a keen interest in this “person” who was allegedly “problematic.”  He’s our editor, Jason Mattera.  LaGrand found the “evidence” he needed to advance his nasty crusade after he read student news clippings of one of Mattera’s recent speeches at Kalamazoo College, in which the hysterical campus liberals did what they do best: Accused a conservative of hating blacks, Latinos, gays, and whoever else is the aggrieved group of the week on the Left.

Exposing Obama’s failed policies that hurt all Americans, but minorities the hardest is raaaaaaaaaaaacist.  (Did we put enough As in?)

The Kalamazoo libs also got their tighty-whities in a knot after Mattera told one guy during the Q&A portion to stop acting like a teenage girl hitting puberty.  Mattera’s from Brooklyn, so his style isn’t for those with fragile emotions.  Regardless, we’re talking about a college campus here, not a gathering of middle-school children who are restless for chocolate milk and dodgeball.  In any event, you should’ve seen the Kalamazoo protester in person.  He was an adult male dressed up as a zombie, nearly bawling his eyes out over the assertion that he mindlessly voted for Dear Leader.

In reality, Prof. LaGrand has never heard any of Mattera’s speeches.  This self-appointed judge of “proper tone” based his decision on a couple of student newspaper articles packed with spelling errors (Conservative author and speaker “ingnites” heated debate and students “potested” Mattera, for instance).  The fact that LaGrand would take those stories at face value makes us wonder about his own critical thinking skills, let alone those of the students he’s responsible for educating.  When asked by HUMAN EVENTS whether he had ever heard Mattera’s talk at Kalamazoo for himself, LaGrand answered:  “Whatever I could find online.”

What a scrapper, that LaGrand!  Can’t fool him.  The problem is that there is no recording of Mattera’s prepared remarks on the Internet.  Zero.  Zilch.  Nada.  Unless LaGrand is omniscient.  If so, we seem to be dealing with a messianic complex.

To recap:  Messiah College allows one of the most radical people on the planet to speak, a person who calls for armed revolution and the destruction of capitalism, but a conservative’s invitation is retracted because the speech police didn’t appreciate Mattera’s “tone” at another school.

Messiah’s spinelessness aside, school bureaucrats flat-out lied to their students and the community.  When angry e-mails protesting Piven’s planned appearance came pouring in, Peter Kerry Powers, dean of Messiah’s humanities school, deflected criticism by telling the local paper that Piven’s talk “surely will be balanced” by… Jason Mattera.

Ha, suckers.

Of course, Messiah can invite and disinvite whomever it wants.  But that’s not the issue.  Here we have another example from the world of academia in which conservative speakers are very unwelcome, while leftist ones are heralded as models of tolerance and diversity, even if they’re calling for the overthrow of the U.S. government.  That’s acceptable.  Indeed it’s encouraged.

But tell some pimply kid on campus dressed in a Halloween outfit who’s still waiting for Barack Obama to hand-deliver him strawberry-scented welfare checks that he needs to man-up?  That brings out the ire of left-wingers for sure.

Parents who are thinking of sending their kids to Messiah College, take notice.

Alumni who repeatedly get letters and phone calls from Messiah’s fund-raising department, you too.  The students there are being programmed to be politically correct drones.

Should the College Republicans have capitulated to Prof. LaGrand’s demands?  No, of course not.  But let them view this as a “teachable moment.”  You can’t appease liberals.  You must confront them.

When the video comes up before you can decide, you may be turned off by the words, “Pretty compelling video about commies trying to take over America.” If you are like me, you are likely to say, “just a minute, we fought and won that battle when the Berlin Wall came down. If you believe that then you of all people need to view this seven minute video.

It is often said on blogs today, “This is a video that all Americans should see.” Unfortunately, even those that see it will not believe it. No country has been in the crosshairs like America, and no country has fallen so quickly to the Naked Communist Goals from 1958, taken over by the Marxist left here in America. You won’t like what you see in this video, but you will find it impossible to refute the events of the past 50 years.

Sadly, for those of my generation, this is all too easy to believe since we have lived through the changes. But I suspect that we will be portrayed as wearers of tin foil hats. See the Open Thread – Grinding America down.

Patrick Buchanan’s just released book, “Suicide of a Superpower,” would be insiteful reading on this and related subjects. He ask and then answers the questios, “Will Ameria Survive to 2025?”

EXTREMISTS ON PARADE
Major demonstration directed by leftist shadow organization

Posted: October 16, 2011
5:01 pm Eastern
By Aaron Klein © 2011 WND 

A public relations firm closely partnered with the George Soros-funded Tides Foundation represented last week’s anti-Wall Street march past millionaires’ homes in New York, WND has learned.

Fenton Communications has been behind the public relations strategy of a who’s who of far-left causes, organizations and activists, from Soros himself to Health Care for America Now to crafting strategies for MoveOn.org and a litany of anti-war groups.

Fenton, which works closely with Tides, first made its name representing communist dictatorships in the 1980s.

Fenton’s founder is tied to President Obama and to a slew of Saul Alinsky-style community organizing groups directly involved in recent U.S. street protests, including in Wisconsin and New York.

Fenton’s fingerprints on promoting and organizing the march bring further evidence suggesting the anti-Wall Street movement is a well-planned campaign and not the spontaneous uprising its leaders claim.

Here’s the rundown on Obama’s ties to “communists, socialists and other anti-American extremists” – all in “The Manchurian President.”

Already, questions have been raised by the news media about Adbusters, the magazine that is reported to have come up with the Occupy Wall Street idea after Arab Spring protests toppled governments in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. The media has been probing Adbusters’ source of funding – the Tides Foundation.

Tides acts like a massive clearinghouse of donations to a slew of liberal groups. Critics have alleged the center acts to obscure the ultimate sources of donations by collecting significant sums of money from a few large donors and then funneling the money to thousands of liberal causes.

Soros’ Open Society Institute is a prominent Tides Center donor, giving the group $3.5 million between 2007 and 2009 alone.

Last week’s Occupy Wall Street march past millionaires’ homes was first announced in a press release entitled, “Community Groups and Progressive Organizations Join Together to Plan ‘Millionaires March’ with Occupy Wall Street Protesters.”

The release detailed how a group calling itself 99 New York was joining the Occupy Wall Street movement as a partner. The 99 organization is purportedly a coalition of unions and community organizations, such as UnitedNY, Strong Economy for All Coalition, NY Communities for Change, and the Working Families Party.

It was the 99 New York group, which claims to represent the will of 99 percent of the U.S. population, that led last week’s Occupy Wall Street march down the streets of New York.

The press release was sent to reporters and was also posted in various Occupy Wall Street affiliated websites, including StrongForAll.org.

The release listed contact information for 99 New York’s spokesmen: Doug Forand of Red Horse Strategies, a firm that has represented scores of Democrat politicians; and Doug Gordon, senior vice president of Fenton Communications.

Gordon’s Fenton email was provided on the release. Prior to joining Fenton, Gordon worked for years on Capitol Hill and in Democratic politics. He spent seven years as the top aide to Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich.

Soros, Fenton, Tides

Fenton Communications was founded in 1982 by David Fenton, an activist who served as a photographer for Bill Ayers’ domestic Weather Underground terror group.

Fenton Communications works in conjunction with the Soros-funded Tides Center that funded Adbusters, which was reported to have started the concept of Occupy Wall Street.

Fenton used the Tides Center to set up Environmental Media Services in 1994. Tides reportedly originally ran EMS’ daily operations.

David Fenton serves on the board of numerous Tides-funded groups, while his firm represents more than 30 Tides Center grantees, as well as Soros himself and the billionaire’s Open Society Institute. Fenton helped to craft Moveon.org’s attacks on Gen. David Petraeus.

An example of the close public relations relationship between Fenton and Tides is the Social Venture Network, which was established and operates as a project of the Tides Foundation, while its strategy is represented by Fenton. SVN’s board has included Tides’ founder Drummond Pike as well as Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink.

Another group, September Eleventh Families For Peaceful Tomorrows, is an antiwar organization founded by individuals who lost loved ones in 9-11 terrorist attacks. The group’s campaign was coordinated by Fenton while the group was funded by Tides.

Also represented by Fenton is the Win Without War group, which was funded by Soros and Tides.

WND found more than 30 recent examples of Tides grantees whose strategy was coordinated by Fenton.

Fenton, Obama, Ayers ties

While David Fenton first photographed Ayers in the 1960s, he later served alongside both Ayers and Obama on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago nonprofit which channeled money to a slew of progressive groups, including the Tides Center and the Alinsky-style Midwest Academy training outfit. Obama served as a paid director on the Woods Fund board from 1999 to 2002.

WND recently reported Midwest’s founder, Heather Booth, has been training unions on how to use the economic crisis.

Citizen Action of Wisconsin, an arm of Booth’s Midwest Academy, is part of the Moving Wisconsin Forward movement, one of the main organizers of the major Wisconsin protests in February, as WND first reported.

Fenton’s managing director, Ira Arlook, also served as director of Booth’s Citizens Action.

With research by Brenda J. Elliott