You really need to read the entire article to appreciate this. It covers rulings in England regarding the very definition of who is Jewish, to countries in Europe where kosher slaughter is banned. 
Today it is contraception and the morning-after pill. Tomorrow it will be kosher slaughter, or matrilineal descent, or circumcision, or other matters of existential importance to Jewish observance. If the Obama administration gets away with forcing Catholic institutions to step across lines of life and death in the name of “health,” the federal government will have a precedent to legislate Judaism out of existence — as several other countries have already tried to do. (more…)

 An Illinois lawmaker wants gun owners to shell out extra taxes in order to finance a new grant program for trauma centers, a move firearms advocacy groups say amounts to a “sin tax” on law-abiding hunters and target shooters.

State Rep. Kelly Cassidy, in a bill introduced earlier this month, proposed a 2 percent surtax on ammunition. The proceeds would go toward a “high-crime trauma center grant fund,” which would then send the tax money to trauma centers in “high-crime areas.”

The idea is to begin to offset the high cost of gun violence. Mark Walsh, campaign director for the Illinois Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, told FoxNews.com that cost often ends up being shouldered by these urban trauma centers.  (more…)

Some U.S. servicemen are up in arms after a large cross was removed from outside a chapel on a military base in northern Afghanistan. The base, called Camp Marmal, is German and hosts NATO forces. The chapel in question is an interfaith house of worship that is overseen by the U.S. Army.

Soldiers say that they felt comfort as a result of having the cross visible from the outside of the chapel. In an e-mail to Politico, one serviceman said, “Sometimes the Church and the ability to openly express religious views ultimately gets people through the deployments over here.”

According to this particular soldier, when he asked a chaplain what had happened to the cross, he was told that it needed to be taken down. The faith leader, however, didn’t share any additional information on the matter.

“We are here away from our families, and the chapel is the one place that feels like home,” added another service member. “With the cross on the outside, it is a constant reminder for all of us that Jesus is here for us.” Story at The Blaze.

(more…)

From Bloomberg. The U.S. and Israel are publicly disagreeing over timing for a potential attack on Iran’s disputed nuclear facilities, as that nation’s leader said it won’t back down.

The U.S. and Israel have a “significant analytic difference” over estimates of how close Iran is to shielding its nuclear program from attack, Aaron David Miller, a former Mideast peace negotiator in the Clinton administration, said today.

“There’s a growing concern — more than a concern — that the Israelis, in order to protect themselves, might launch a strike without approval, warning or even foreknowledge,” he said in an interview.

The differing views were underscored by public comments this week by senior Israeli and U.S. defense officials.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said yesterday that Israel must consider conducting “an operation” before Iran reaches an “immunity zone,” referring to Iran’s goal of protecting its uranium enrichment and other nuclear operations by moving them to deep underground facilities such as one at Fordo, near the holy city of Qom. (more…)

Avram sent us this link to an excellent article by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

From one end of the muslim world to the other, Christians are being murdered for their faith.

From Instapundit, via Avram

Tax Foundation: Income Inequality Is Lower Now Than It Was Under Clinton

Tax Foundation, Reversal of the Trend: Income Inequality Now Lower Than It Was Under Clinton:

The most recent published studies on income inequality use 2006 or 2007 as their end point, without fully correcting for the business cycle. … It is deeply misleading to talk about income inequality without properly taking into account the business cycle.  Since the peak of the business cycle in 2007, personal incomes have collapsed to a degree not seen since the Great Depression.  The most dramatic collapse has been in high incomes, as the most recent IRS data shows. For example, since 2007 the number of millionaires has dropped 40%, while income reported by millionaires has dropped in half. …

Figure 1 illustrates how the Great Recession has dramatically reduced measures of income inequality.  It shows the share of income attributable to the top 1% of income earners from 1980 to 2009.  The top 1% income share peaked in 2007 at 22.8% and declined precipitously to 16.9% by 2009.  This is about where it was in 1996-1997. …

Read more here.

Big John Smith comes  with one heck of an endorsement, Treepers. From Ann Barnhardt:

Now for the Hot Tip for the conservative blogging community. I found a potential star. In Nashville I was provided with a security escort by the name of John Smith, but everyone calls him “Big John” Smith, and rightfully so at 6’4″ and an athletic 290 pounds. Big John Smith is a 22 year veteran Sheriff’s Deputy in Nashville who specializes in warrant service – in other words, going out every day and hunting down criminals. I had the opportunity to spend a considerable amount of time visiting with Deputy Smith being that he was charged with my personal security, and it turns out that he is following his conscience and RUNNING FOR CONGRESS in Tennessee’s 5th congressional district. As I sat listening to a man who knows EXACTLY what the situation is both on the ground and in the halls of government, and to a man who has read history and could no longer sit by and do nothing, I thought to myself, “This is EXACTLY the kind of person who needs to repopulate Washington D.C.” No more lawyers. No more perfumed cocktail party princesses (and those are the men). No, we need citizen servants like John Smith. In order to be a statesman, a man needs profound depth of character. This is precisely why there are no statesmen anymore – because politicians today are all psychopaths devoid of character and integrity.

(more…)

• Georgia proceedings (Part 1) By Craig Andresen on January 26, 2012 at 9:25 am

  Given the testimony from today’s court case in Georgia, Obama has a lot of explaining to do. His attorney, Jablonski, was a NO SHOW as of course, was Obama.

  The following is a nutshell account of the proceedings.

  Promptly at 9am EST, all attorneys involved in the Obama Georgia eligibility case were called to the Judge’s chambers. This was indeed a very interesting beginning to this long awaited and important case.

  The case revolved around the Natural Born clause of the constitution and whether or not Obama qualifies under it to serve. More to the point, if found ineligible, Obama’s name would not appear on the 2012 ballot in Georgia. (more…)