Obama’s purple shirted SEIU cronies are his favorite people. They’re his most frequent visitors, after all, and they stand ready and willing to do whatever Comrade Obama asks of them. If you want to know what direction this country is headed in, just look at the shenanigans the Service Employees International Union thugs are pulling.

For example, Obama is supposedly all about volunteering. He wants young people to be willing to devote their lives to service. He likes that idea so much, that he even floated the idea of instituting a Hitler youth brigade, and for all I know, is still keen on the idea. But Obama and his SEIU pals are only fans of volunteer service performed by young people if they toe the Obama line. Boy Scouts, for example, are far too traditional and they cling to such old, antiquated, conservative values — and therefore, they must be destroyed.

Starting with a seventeen-year-old boy who was doing volunteer work to try to earn his Eagle Scout badge.

In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park.

Little did the do-gooder know that his altruistic act would put him in the cross hairs of the city’s largest municipal union.

Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing Anderson to clear a 1,000-foot walking and biking path at Kimmets Lock Park.

“We’ll be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails,” Balzano told the council.

Balzano said Saturday he isn’t targeting Boy Scouts. But given the city’s decision in July to lay off 39 SEIU members, Balzano said “there’s to be no volunteers.” No one except union members may pick up a hoe or shovel, plant a flower or clear a walking path.

“We would hope that the well-intentioned efforts of an Eagle Scout candidate would not be challenged by the union,” said Mayor Ed Pawlowski in an e-mail Friday. “This young man is performing a great service to the community. His efforts should be recognized as such.”

Balzano said Saturday the union is still looking into the matter and might cut the city a break.

“We are probably going to let this one go,” Balzano said .

The possible entanglement of a local Boy Scout in a union dispute underscores the frustration and anger SEIU members feel after being the lone city union to suffer layoffs in the ongoing financial crisis. It may also serve as a preview of future labor battles as the city tries to outsource some necessary jobs as a result of the layoffs.

Anderson, a junior and varsity soccer player at Southern Lehigh High School, is a member of Boy Scout Troop 301 of Center Valley.

He got the idea for the trail while taking hikes along the partially complete, 165-mile Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor. He noticed there were a few missing connections to the trail in Kimmets Lock Park, which is on the Lehigh River near Dauphin Street. He already has logged 250 hours trying to carve out a walking and biking trail along the river.

“I decided to do my part in completing this part of the trail. In that way, others could enjoy walking along the river, without having to walk on the busy road,” Anderson said in an e-mail Friday.

Selfless service? Apparently, this poses some kind of imaginary threat to SEIU workers. And if Balzano isn’t targeting the Boy Scouts, then what is he targeting? People who just do things for the sake of others without asking anything in return? This is typical of liberals to attack the Boy Scouts and a teenage boy trying to do a good thing. And what comes next? Will SEIU members be the only people allowed to mow our lawns? Paint our walls? And then of course, if we do it ourselves rather than letting Obama’s crony pals do it, will Balzano threaten to come after us, too?

Balzano said that he would let this one go — because of the holiday spirit. It’s more likely that he let it go because of all the bad PR he’s getting. It’s sad, though, when you think about it. What would’ve happened if he hadn’t been threatened by bad press filled with the holiday spirit? We all know the answer — he happily would have persecuted a seventeen-year-old kid who was just trying to do a good thing, and Obama would just look the other way. And if we don’t stand up to their thuggery, then our capital could remain looking like this.

Hat Tips: Moonbattery and Michelle Malkin

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary or follow her on Twitter!

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A 17-year-old Eagle Scout in upstate New York has been barred from stepping foot on school grounds for 20 days — for keeping a 2-inch pocketknife locked in a survival kit in his car.

Matthew Whalen, a senior at Lansingburgh Senior High School, says he follows the Boy Scout motto and is always prepared, stocking his car with a sleeping bag, water, a ready-to-eat meal — and the knife, which was given to him by his grandfather, a police chief in a nearby town.

But Lansingburgh High has a zero-tolerance policy, and when school officials discovered that Whalen kept his knife locked in his car, he says, they suspended him for five days — and then tacked on an additional 15 after a hearing.

Nothing sums up the mind frame of the totalitarian moonbats that run our schools like the phrase “zero tolerance.”

This pointless exercise in petty tyranny could jeopardize Whalen’s dream of attending West Point.

On a tip from Frank W. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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Out of Georgia comes a heart warmer about the Boy Scouts for a change. Instead of radical gays attacking this noble organization, instead of extremist left-wing politicians trying to make a name for themselves by attacking one of America’s finest youth organizations, we have a story that makes you smile. And you can bet it won’t make national news.

Rodrigo and Rosa Cano moved to the United States in 1980. A decade or so later Rosa gave birth to David who the proud parents enrolled in a local Boy Scouts troop when he reached his tenth year. They hoped that young David could further help them assimilate in their new home as young David brought home his Scouting experiences.

Young David set a goal for himself as a Scout: to win every merit badge and every Eagle Palm award that the Boy Scouts offered. And, finally at age 17, David became only the third Boy Scout ever to win all 121 Boy Scout merit badges. Cano earned all 20 Eagle Palms, as well.

“I did it for the experience,” said Cano, a member of Boy Scout Troop 1776 in east Cobb. “With every merit badge, there’s a purpose. You’ll learn something new with every single badge. Some are life skills and others are hobbies that will be with you for the rest of your life.”

According to Marietta Daily Journal, Cano had to fulfill the requirements for all 121 merit badges as well as the 1,674 additional requirements to win the 20 Eagle Palms. An Eagle Palm is awarded for every five merit badges earned.

This exceptional young man is not only a focused Eagle Scout, either. He is heavily engaged in his school, too.

Cano is a junior at Blessed Trinity Catholic High School in Roswell. He has been a member of the school’s football and soccer teams, school band, Model United Nations and is a National Honor Society member. Someday, he hopes to become a surgeon.

“I’ve really enjoyed the Scouting program,” Cano said. “I’ve picked up a lot of friends and really had the time of my life being in this organization.”

Cano’s proud parents seem to be the sort of immigrant that every natural born American should appreciate.

“It did help us to bridge between being Hispanics into the American society in a way that Scouts offers minority boys – whether black, Chinese or Hispanic – the American culture,” Rodrigo Cano said. “This is something that is very near and dear to many American families.”

What a great story all around. An exceptional boy coming to manhood through the Boy Scouts and an immigrant family proud of their son, patriotic for their new country, and seriously engaged in their community.

Sadly, this wonderful story won’t see the light of day on the national scene even though it should.

Congratulations to David Cano and his family. And another great success story had by the Boy Scouts, one of the best youth organizations in the country.

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The ACLU, in all of their hypocritical glory, went after the Boy Scouts (still) in San Diego. The ACLU contends that the government leasing facilities to the ACLU is tantamount to the government endorsing religion. That’s a bunch of hooey. Actually it’s a bunch of another substance but on this site we don’t use profanity but it rhymes with spit. Now the Boy Scouts are going to be defended by Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. The situation is devolving, and the ACLU is throwing a spit fit about the government siding with the Boy Scouts. Score one for the government coming to their senses. The Scouts aren’t a “religious” organization, as evidenced by the fact of Muslim Boy and Girl Scout troops.

But that doesn’t matter to the ACLU, whose hypocrisy will be thrown in your face momentarily. But first this bit;

Jordan Budd, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego & Imperial Counties, said he was disappointed the federal government sided with the scouts.

“It’s distressing that the civil rights division of the Department of Justice is defending the right of a discriminatory organization to receive a public subsidy,” he said.

Pay attention to that last bit. It becomes very important in a moment.

In a stunning move of chutzpah proving perhaps the ACLU’s position in First Place for Hypocrites of the Year the very same ACLU suing the Scouts and the city of San Diego is also suing the City of San Diego for CHARGING RELIGIOUS GROUPS to use meeting rooms. The whole crux of their argument rests on this:

The ACLU argued that fees cannot be based on what the groups renting city rooms are saying or doing, but rather on conditions such as cleanup costs.

I love the smell of Hypocrisy in the morning.

The whole dust up about room fees started when a manufacturing group started a petition drive to enact term limits.

It was sparked by the Escondido Mobile/Manufactured Homeowners Positive Action Committee, which had been using community rooms for free until it started a petition drive to impose term limits on members of the City Council.

I say the city is in the right here. The rules were in place stating political and religious groups must pay. When the “Positive Action Committee” started pushing a political petition they became a de facto political action committee, subject to the rules in place. I’d wager some of the people the “positive action committee” were aiming to get out of office are also some of the same folks the ACLU would like to see out of office. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if there was some behind the scenes collusion between members of the “positive action committee” and the local ACLU branch. I also wouldn’t be surprised to find out that a person in one group is married/living with a person in the other groups. Of course that is speculation on my part. Instead of speculation we’ll call it Accountability journalism, like the AP, that way the ACLU can be held accountable to me.

The hypocrisy of the ACLU on this stance is so thick and so smelly it’s as if a super tanker full of hypocrisy ran aground and spilled its load.

But that’s what we have come to expect from the ACLU. If they can take a stance against common sense, decency or the government they will do so without blinking and without regard as to whether the current stance they are taking goes against a stance they have had in the past. When you get right down to brass tacks it shows the thunderous heights to which the ACLU will go in pursuit of their anti-American agenda.

The fact that so many people are still members of this group is also telling. It shows they are either completely oblivious, i.e. ignorant of the facts (which is forgivable IF they are willing to learn) or they are stupid to a point of being a danger to themselves and others or they really do hate America and all she stands for and they willingly go along aiding our internal enemies. I pray it’s the first choice. I really don’t believe it’s the second choice and I am terrified the third choice is closer to the truth.

Either way (and at risk of getting sued by the ACLU) God Save Us All.

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At the Eagle Forum session, lawyers discussed the need for a stronger focus on activist judges and the role the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) plays in breaking down traditional American society through lawsuits.

Schlafly, who has been an ardent anti-pornography activist, began the session in celebration of the Supreme Court’s first anti-porn decision since the 1960s, which said individuals can receive criminal penalties for promoting child pornography.

“The disappointing thing is that the government thinks that whatever some judge says is the law of the land,” said Schlafly. “It’s unfortunate that people think that judges are the royalty of our era.”

Steve Aden of the Alliance Defense Fund kicked off the morning with criticism of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which he classified as creating a “whole new class of thought crimes.”

“This bill would outlaw hateful thoughts against the ACLU’s preferred class of victims”, said Aden, adding that the ACLU is only a “leading advocate for moral lawlessness.”

In recent years, the ACLU has litigated to uphold the rights of minors to receive abortions without parental consent and fought for legalizing prostitution and the “right” to distribute obscene material without penalty. Aden charged that if the ACLU had its way, “America’s cities and towns would become red light districts.”

Sarah Seitz, legal director for the Liberty Center for Law and Policy at the Liberty University School of Law, expanded on some of the ACLU’s recent and outrageous cases, including the Veterans’ Memorials, Boy Scouts, Public Seals, and Other Public Expressions of Religion Protection Act of 2007. That Act amends U.S. statutes in a way that fails to protect constitutional expression of religion by state and local officials and allows people to seek damages and attorney’s fees. Seitz said, the bill essentially mandates that “someone can claim they are merely offended by sight of cross or allege a religious infraction based on an offense.”

In Relands, California, there is a pending ACLU case regarding the placement of a small cross on the city logo. In another case, a plaintiff is seeking $325,000 in a racial profiling suit and a high school junior sued his school for $32,500 after he was scolded for refusing to stand during the Pledge of Allegience.

She said the ACLU is able to intimidate groups into doing what they want because of the fear of the high cost of litigation that the ACLU can bring. In these civil rights or discrimination cases, a fee shifting statute exists where the losing party must pay the winning party’s fees. Many of the towns and organizations ACLU targets are relatively small. They cannot fund millions of dollars in litigation, or risk the potential losses. ACLU, which is funded by huge liberal donations (even from some companies who fear it) has no fear of losing, especially in cases brought in liberal courts.

The fee shifting statute gives majorly unbalanced favor toward the ACLU and without solid, constitutionalist judges in place, they will continue winning cases that encourage the breakdown of traditional values and constitutional rights.

Read it all. Hat tip to Lobo.

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The Boy Scouts of America’s Philadelphia chapter has sued the City of Philadelphia in federal court to block the city’s May 31 deadline for the scouts to open membership to gays and atheists, or vacate their historic 1928 headquarters off Logan Square. The civil rights lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Center City, contends that the city’s ultimatum violates the scouts’ rights under the U.S. and Pennsylvania Constitutions.

“The City has imposed an unconstitutional condition upon Cradle of Liberty’s receipt of a benefit that Cradle of Liberty has enjoyed for nearly eight decades, and that many other organizations that limit members or services to members of a particular group continue to enjoy without punishment or the threat of punishment,” the scouts’ lawsuit reads.

City Solicitor Shelley R. Smith said the city would respond to the federal lawsuit and would likely file an eviction motion next week.

In the meantime, Smith added, the beginning of litigation would preserve the status quo pending a court ruling. Until that ruling occurs, Smith said, the scouts will be able to continue using the headquarters building.

The suit asks the court to permanently block city officials from attempting to evict the Scouts from their building, which sits on a half-acre of city land at 22d and Winter Streets.

The Cradle of Liberty Council’s predicament is one that has faced local scouting councils nationwide since a 2000 U.S. Supreme Court case the scouts won.

The national organization appealed the ruling in a suit filed by an openly gay New Jersey scout barred from serving as a troop leader.

Scouts must swear an oath “to God and my country” and to “obey the Scout Law” that includes keeping oneself “physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”

So, why doesn’t the city just give the building back to the Boy Scouts instead of make this into a big stink?

Some backstory via Gordon of Six Meat Buffet from the comments:

There is quite a bit of backstory going to the 1930’s. The original deal was that the Boy Scouts would construct the building but it would belong to the City. Philadelphia, in turn would lease it back to the Boy Scouts in perpetuity.

Then, like all good things, the Liberals entered the scene and crapped all over it.

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The Statesman.com has published a list of Excerpts from his book. Here are some of my favorites:

“Only they know, but isn’t it odd that the ACLU, which champions First Amendment rights, wants them applied selectively? It seems some of the most intolerant acts occur in the name of tolerance; a paradox that seems to describe much of the ACLU’s political agenda.”

“The ACLU’s focus is almost exclusively on efforts to curb Christianity.”

“The ACLU is nothing if not tenacious in its determination to have atheism (represented by approximately 5 percent of the population) prevail in the public square and to force the Boy Scouts to accept gay activists as scoutmasters and assistant scoutmasters.”

“It’s as if the mere mention of a Creator is too powerful an idea for their own Godless ideology to withstand. Perhaps that’s because there is a grain of truth to the idea that, indeed, all of Creation does speak to the existence of God.”

“The ACLU’s purpose—protecting individual liberties—is a prime example of a virtuous cause becoming subverted by an extreme interpretation.”

I am glad to see that more prominent political people come out strongly against the ACLU. I can think of no more vile, corrupt, and dangerous organization in America, with the possible exception of Planned Parenthood.

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Old article, but worth a read…..

The founder of the American Civil Liberties Union was a card-carrying communist whose goal was to undermine the Judeo-Christian foundations of America, according to author David Kupelian.

The ACLU is “engaged in trying to eliminate every vestige of Judeo-Christian expression in public places in America,” Kupelian explained in his landmark book, The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom, according to a review by Agape press. “It’s frightening — and they are using our tax dollars to do this. They use the laws of the land to get American taxpayers to spend their hard-earned money, actually financing their own destruction.”

The ultimate goal of the ACLU is to see an America “with little or no public vestige left of religious faith and the traditional family,” (except for Islam -ed.) according to the Alliance Defense Fund’s Alan Sears and Craig Osten, who wrote the book, The ACLU vs. America.

The goals of the ACLU were clear from the group’s founding, as indicated by the writings of its founder, Roger Baldwin: “I am for socialism, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the state itself as an instrument of violence and compulsion. I seek social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class… Communism is the goal.”

LifeSite

ZIP

Crossposted via Weasel Zippers….

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The Philadelphia Boy Scouts could find themselves booted from their historic dowtown headquarters Monday unless a dispute with City Hall over the group’s anti-gay policies is resolved.

The Cradle of Liberty Council—Philadelphia’s Boy Scout chapter—has been housed in an historic building in downtown Philly for almost 80 years, paying almost nothing for the prime piece of proprety under the terms of a 100-year sweetheart lease it inked with the city in 1928. But that lease is set to expire, and city officials say the taxpayer’s shouldn’t be footing the Scouts rent bill because of it’s national policy banning openly gay members and leaders. The Scouts must either pony up the fair market rent for the space—about $200,000 a year—or find a new home.

“If they want to accept the national policies of the Boy Scout organization they have to be able to pay for it,” said Philadelphia City Councilman Jack Kelly.

According to a letter the Boy Scouts received from City Solicitor Rome Diaz, the Boy Scouts have until Dec. 3 to sign a new lease and start paying for the use of the property, or the city will find a new tennant and the scouts will be evicted.

Diaz, who is openly gay, refused FOX News’ request for an interview.

Cradle of Liberty Council member John Braxton, a retired judge and former Eagle Scout, said the Scouts can’t afford the steep rent increase. He said the Scouts’ policy on gays is “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

“I have known persons who have been gay within our scouting program,” Braxton said. “We never ran them out. They’re Eagle scouts, they’re achievers, and what they do in their personal sexual life is not an issue within their scouting life,” he said.

Wonder whats next for the militant homosexual agenda? Maybe kicking our troops off the military bases? Oh well, the Boy Scouts continue to stand by their principles.

Why is the government charging this based on their exclusion of gays as discrimination and not girls? Perhaps they should start their own organization. The gay scouts. If they excluded straights I guarantee no one would complain.

Hat tip: Gateway Pundit

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A more important reason that anyone calling themselves a conservative should drop their support for Rudy is that he isn’t a conservative. Even if he was able to beat Hillary, there wouldn’t be much difference once he got to the oval office. It is a weak argument to prop your support on the notion of his electability. One would have to compromise so many conservative principles to support him that I really don’t think it would be worth it in the end. Unless you really think our country has moved so far left that the only hope is to elect the most liberal Republican candidate on the field because he might be slightly less liberal than Hillary then you should pick a more principled candidate to back. Any of them are more conservative than Rudy.

Are people losing hope in conservative principles? Because it is about more than just beating Hillary. Its about beating back liberalism. The only thing that can do that is conservative values and principles being incorporated. That isn’t gonna happen if Rudy Giuliani gets elected.

Thankfully there are others that are thinking the same way.

Rudy Panic set in for many Republicans this week, with conservative leaders both nationally and in Iowa concluding they need to settle on a single champion to prevent Rudolph W. Giuliani from winning the GOP presidential nomination.

They fear that victory by the socially liberal former New York mayor could permanently shatter the largely successful coalition of social, religious, economic and national defense conservatives that, more often than not, has worked electoral magic for Republican candidates at all levels.

“The main driving force behind all of that is a belief that Rudy Giuliani is positioned to win the nomination and a belief that, and I describe it this way, the four most central planks in our Republican platform would be sacrificed in the process: life, marriage, guns, border security,” said Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican. He said the calls and e-mails in Iowa grew “utterly intense in the last week” as Republicans urged one another to settle on an anti-Rudy candidate.

Rudy is not our guy. He is on the opposite side of almost every issue conservatives hold sacred. A Giuliani nomination would undermine the GOP.

But King said that if Republicans at their national convention move to amend the party platform to fall more in line with Giuliani’s positions, “then that changes the principles we’re founded upon and that’s a very big decision,” King said. “I think Republicans, when they think it through, are not going to go for that.”

A lot of this panic is being fueled by the sudden rise in success for candidate Mike Huckabee. Huckabee’s rise in popularity is hurting Romney’s chance of knocking Rudy out of the top spot in the polls. Hopefully anyone supporting Rudy on the false premise that he is the only candidate that can beat Hillary will wake up and come back to core principles of conservatism. Thats really the only thing that can win in the end.

Rudy: Anti-gun, pro-public funding for abortion, weak as they come on the immigration issue, and for the gay agenda. What was the difference between him and Hillary?

More people on the same page:

It’s no secret that Iowa Christian Alliance president Steve Scheffler isn’t a Rudy fan. But tonight, within spitting distance of Giuliani’s rival GOP candidate Romney, Scheffler explicitly urged Iowa Christians to oppose Giuliani in the race for the nomination. “If our party nominates this guy,” he told a crowd at a Dubuque gathering of the ICA, “we will see a bloodbath at the polls like we’ve never seen before.”

Scheffler went on to slam Giuliani’s position on same-sex marriage, life issues and gun rights. “Rudy Giuliani cannot be elected,” he said, citing the ex-mayor’s differences with social conservatives. “We cannot afford to nominate somebody who’s out of touch with the base.”

The scandal isn’t going away anytime soon either.

Others: Hot Air

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