George Orwell observed that “we have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”

Seraphic Secret will now restate the obvious:

1. George Zimmerman was lynched in advance by race hustlers Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Barack Obama and the usual cast of vulgar, opportunistic, chronically self-righteous progressives.

2. The mainstream media, which is to say the ministers of progressive propaganda who act as enablers for the race baiters, are, once again—remember the verbal lynching of the Duke Lacrosse team?—guilty of journalistic terrorism.

3. The New York Times labeled George Zimmerman a “white Hispanic.” This was the first time such a Nuremberg-like racial designation was ever used by the newspaper of record. Obviously, a naked attempt to turn a murky incident into a racial crime starring an evil caucasian—with a Jewish last name—deliberately murdering an innocent black man.

4. No matter the evidence, no matter how severe George Zimmerman’s punishment, if any, the race hustlers will bark injustice, incite and inflame, and quite possibly American cities will burn.

5. Buy a gun. Learn how to defend yourself, your home and family, because when the mobs run riot the police are less than useless. Trust me, Seraphic Secret has been there, close to the center of the L.A. Rodney King riots of 20 years ago.

A medical report compiled by the family physician of accused Trayvon Martin murderer George Zimmerman and obtained exclusively by ABC News found that Zimmerman was diagnosed with a “closed fracture” of his nose, a pair of black eyes, two lacerations to the back of his head and a minor back injury the day after he fatally shot Martin during an alleged altercation.

Zimmerman faces a second degree murder charge for the Feb. 26 shooting that left the unarmed 17-year-old high school junior dead. Zimmerman has claimed self defense in what he described as a life and death struggle that Martin initiated by accosting him, punching him in the face, then repeatedly bashing his head into the pavement. . . .

The morning after the shooting, on Feb. 27, Zimmerman sought treatment at the offices of a general physician at a family practice near Sanford, Fla. The doctor notes Zimmerman sought an appointment to get legal clearance to return to work.

The record shows that Zimmerman also suffered bruising in the upper lip and cheek and lower back pain. The two lacerations on the back of his head, one of them nearly an inch long, the other about a quarter-inch long, were first revealed in photos obtained exclusively by ABC News last month. . . .

In addition to his physical injuries, Zimmerman complained of stress and “occasional nausea when thinking about the violence.” But he was not diagnosed with a concussion. The doctor noted that it was “imperative” that Zimmerman “be seen with [sic] his psychologist for evaluation.”. . .

A neighbor told ABC News that the day after the shooting he saw Zimmerman as he spoke to officers outside his home. He too recalled seeing black eyes and significant swelling — as well as a bandage over his nose.

Moments after the shooting Zimmerman told eyewitnesses he shot Martin in self defense. He later told officers his head was being pounded into the pavement and that he feared for his life, but that it was only when Martin seemed to reach for the gun wedges in his waistband that Zimmerman drew his weapon and fired directly into Martin’s chest — killing him.

The medical notes may bolster Zimmerman’s claim that he acted in self-defense because he was being attacked. However, the prosecution contends that Zimmerman instigated the confrontation after profiling the teen, who was walking home after buying skittles and ice tea. They prosecution says Martin was breaking no laws and was not disturbing anyone as he walked back to his father’s girlfriend’s home.

Source: ABC News

“Okay wives, say clitoridectomy!”

Regarding gay marriage, really a redefinition of marriage: the ideological lines in American religious communities are pretty much what you would expect. Orthodox Jews are overwhelmingly opposed, Conservative (not a political designation) and Reform Jews are mostly in favor. Seraphic Secret is not as familiar with the multiple and varied Christian communities but we assume the same dividing lines exist with the more liberal churches in favor and the more traditional churches opposed.

But we have not heard much from the usually outspoken American Muslim community. One would assume that pious Muslims would be quite vocal in their opposition for traditional Islam has a clear stance against homosexuality.

But this is not the case. In fact, I’ve seen several articles that set forth two lines of argument in favor of gay marriage:

1. Muslims should support gay marriage because the impulse against gay marriage is the same bigotry that forms Islamophobia.

2. Those who oppose gay marriage are members of the right wing, who are, by nature, Islamophobes. Thus Muslims should support American progressives.

Never mind that the only genuine Islamophobia that exists in the world is between Sunni and Shia, who regularly slaughter one another with a medieval blood lust. In America, Islamophobia is a political fantasy used by Muslims to designate themselves victims, thereby gaining social and political advantages. In  fact, FBI statistics shows that crimes against Jews far outweigh crimes against Muslims.

The truth about Muslim silence and or support for gay marriage is quite simple: Once marriage between one man and one woman is nullified and same-sex marriage enters the legal lexicon, then sharia will find its way into America via polygamy.

If government sanctions marriage between same sex partners arguing that it’s a civil right then it will be impossible to legally hold that one man cannot marry two or three or eight women, a tradition which has legal and social precedent thousands of years old and which is still a norm in the Muslim world.

Traditionally, Islam has spread through wars of conquest. Convert or die. But in a postmodern era, in the sophisticated western world, Islam has craftily adapted to the cult of multiculturalism. The sword and beheadings are still the weapon of choice in the Middle East, but in America and Europe Islam extends its death grip through a wily combination of transnational terrorism, (never designated as Islamic terrorism by the chattering classes) intimidation—draw a cartoon of Mohammed and you die—plus an endless litany of grievances to thought crimes that do not exist.

And now the low-hanging fruit of gay marriage is within grasp. Sanctioning gay marriage will be the gateway drug for Islamic polygamy and from there it’s an open road to sharia in America which is slavery for the rest of us and the death of our democratic values.

Gay marriage sounds nice and tolerant, totally warm and fuzzy hugs, but this is first-stage thinking. This is where tolerance turns into cultural suicide. With any radical social change—and same sex marriage is as radical as it gets—responsible citizens must ask themselves: what will be the consequences of this change? What are the next stages for society?

Ironic Footnote: one of the first edicts of a sharia compliant America will be torture and death to homosexuals. Because that’s how sharia rolls.

A public hanging of homosexuals in Iran, a sharia dominated state.

The Islamic Society of North America  has deep ties to the Obama administration. Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s most trusted confidant, was the keynote speaker at their 2009 convention. And Ingrid Mattson, the group’s former president, was invited by Obama to deliver a prayer at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2009.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism reports:

A major American Islamist organization close to the Obama administration will host Tunisian Islamist Rachid Ghannouchi at its national conference in late August. The invitation is one of the Islamic Society of North America’s (ISNA) most visible engagements with Islamist politics taking charge in the Middle East.

Despite ISNA’s insistence that Ghannouchi is “an advocate of religious tolerance and freedom, women’s rights, [and] non-violent leadership,” the chief of Tunisia’s Ennahda party has an extremist record.

Ghannouchi was denied a visa to the United States in the 1990s and much of this decade for a series of violently anti-American comments. He was only admitted into the country last year for a whirlwind tour, which included the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and several think tanks, after his party won power in Tunisian elections.

Since then, the Ennahda party won a plurality in Tunisian parliamentary elections, and Ghannouchi has hosted a visit by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and advocated for the repatriation of Tunisian al-Qaida members from prisons overseas.

He has also voiced support for Palestinian terrorism and the political legitimization of Hamas. The Arab Spring “will achieve positive results on the path to the Palestinian cause and threaten the extinction of Israel,” he said in a May 2011 interview with the Al Arab Qatari website. “The liberation of Palestine from Israeli occupation represents the biggest challenge facing the Umma [Muslim nation] and the Umma cannot have existence in light of the Israeli occupation.”

In 2009 he stirred up controversy with calls to “strike terror” into the hearts of Israelis with Qassam rockets. In June 2001, he appeared in an al-Jazeerah panel discussion in which he blessed the mothers of Palestinian suicide bombers:

“I would like to send my blessings to the mothers of those youth, those men who succeeded in creating a new balance of power…I bless the mothers who planted in the blessed land of Palestine the amazing seeds of these youths, who taught the international system and the Israel [sic] arrogance, supported by the US, an important lesson. The Palestinian woman, mother of the Shahids (martyrs), is a martyr herself, and she has created a new model of woman.”

To read Daniel E. Rogell’s full story, click here.

Ask the man in the street to list President Obama’s historic firsts and the answer will probably be limited to Obama as America’s first black president.

But Doug Ross has compiled a list of even more impressive firsts for Obama, an historic catalog which could only be accomplished by a combination of ruthless cynicism, fanatic leftistism, and contempt for the American Constitution.

• First president to preside over a cut to the credit rating of the United States Government.

• First president to violate the War Powers Act.

• First president to orchestrate the sale of murder weapons to Mexican drug cartels.

• First president to issue an unlawful “recess-appointment” while the U.S. Senate remained in session (against the advice of his own Justice Department).

• First president to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

• First president to intentionally disable credit card security measures in order to allow over-the-limit donations, foreign contributions and other illegal fundraising measures.

• First president to defy a federal judge’s court order to cease implementing the Health Care Reform Law.

• First president to halt deportations of illegal aliens and grant them work permits, a form of stealth amnesty roughly equivalent to The Dream Act, which could not pass Congress.

• First president to sign a law requiring all americans to purchase a product from a third party.

• First president to spend a trillion dollars on shovel-ready jobs — and later admit there was no such thing as shovel-ready jobs.

For the complete list, click here.

H/T Daniel Greenfield

Yours truly near Brooklyn's Prospect Park with my very first Kodak Brownie. I think there were twelve exposures per roll, hence I was very careful with my shot selection. When the roll was finished I took it to the local drug store and had to wait two excruciating weeks for the prints, half of which were out of focus.

Los Angeles is built for the automobile. But I make it my business to walk around, exploring unexpected corners of my neighborhood. Behind the wheel of a car the world whooshes past in a blur. But on foot I have the opportunity to focus on the deliciously ordinary. All photos were taken with my iPhone.

I rarely take nature shots. But at the tail end of one of my early morning walks the sunrise looked like a Technicolor shot, totally unreal.

On Pico Boulevard there are scores of stores owned by hardworking Persian immigrants. The art featured in their window displays are classic examples of Postmodern-Bizarro-Jewish-Baroque-Elvis. Someday I'm going to purchase one of these puppies and shock the heck out of Karen.

Exiting the Santa Monica Freeway I drove past a “gentleman's club” tucked away near the freeway underpass. I saw this ad out of the corner of my eye and couldn't quite believe it. I guess it's an indication of a truly terrible economy when exotic dancers are offering freebies. I parked a few blocks away, doubled back on foot and snapped this photo. A really HUGE bouncer approached and demanded to know what I was doing. I said, taking a picture. He said: “Adios, amigo.” I made like Roadrunner.

Walking back to my car I chanced upon this wonderful wall of layered colors and textures.

Further down the street I stepped into the courtyard of an antique shop and asked the proprieter about these 6 foot wooden statues. He said: “Urban tribal art.” I went, “Huh?” He said, “I gotta call 'em something. What do ya think?” I said: “Interesting, in a hideous kind of way.” He laughed and said he'd give me a good deal on all three. I said, “Pass.”

Last week Karen and I attended a dessert reception for Ambassador John Bolton in Beverly Hills, sponsored by the Republican Jewish Coalition. While Bolton was speaking I looked down and got chills up my spine because when Karen and I were children, students in Yeshiva Flatbush, Karen used to hook her leg exactly as she's doing in this photo.

Karen and I wish all our friends and relatives a lovely and inspirational Shabbat.

Hard at work, John Lee Mahin, one of Hollywood's greatest screenwriters.

From where do we draw wisdom?

First and foremost, Seraphic Secret relies on Torah, on the lessons of 3,000 years of Jewish history and the common sense advice of my wife Karen.

And then there are the movies, a moral landscape of immeasurable power where searing images and razor-sharp dialogue deliver lessons in human character that, for better or worse, shape modern man’s consciousness.

I know it seems ludicrous if not downright blasphemous noting Torah and movies as primary influences but the mind of yours truly, a screenwriter and movie-lover, is a stage of raging intellectual conflicts.

Here are several prime slices of dialogue that elegantly and economically reveal secret corners of our hearts and minds.

Greta Garbo and Marc MacDermott in “The Temptress,” 1926.

Screenplay by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez and Dorothy Farnum.

All we need to know about the Garbo character in five words.

Jean Harlow and Wallace Ford, “Beast of the City” (1932). Story by W.R. Burnett, dialogue and continuity by John Lee Mahin. Uncredited work by Ben Hecht.

Jean Harlow as Daisy: [Seductively] It’s a funny thing. You drink beer to make you cool, and it just makes yuh hot.

Richard Widmark and Jean Peters, “Pickup on South Street” (1953) written and directed by Sam Fuller, real name Rabinovitch.

“You look for oil, sometimes you hit a gusher.”

Richard Widmark’s apt metaphor for kissing Jean Peters.

Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer, “Out of the Past” (1947) screenplay by Daniel Mainwaring with uncredited revisions by Frank Fenton and James M. Cain, from his novel “Build My Gallows High.”

Jane Greer as Kathie: Oh Jeff, you ought to have killed me for what I did a moment ago.
Robert Mitchum as Jeff: There’s time.

This lovely piece of dialoge affirms the doomed relationship of a less than heroic noir chump and the dazzling femme fatale.

Happy Lag BaOmer.

Khirbet Qeiyafa stone ark (Photo: Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

King David is the most fully documented character in the Torah. His narrative is epic, filled with the kind of detail—heroic and unsavory—that makes David such a compelling character. We identify with his yearning for a relationship with G-d, his courage in battle, we see aspects of ourselves in his tragic weakness as a man, a husband and father. David is, above all, profoundly human.

As a screenwriter, I consider the David story the greatest narrative never properly filmed. Saul’s daughter, and David’s (sometime) wife Michal is worthy of her own movie.

The bible critics who label themselves minimalists have made it their mission to attack the story of King David as a fabrication. They claim that no such man ever lived. The biblical narrative, they further assert, is probably based on some minor tribal chieftan who, for religious and nationalist motives, has been elevated to kinghood.

Of course, the 1933 Tel Dan “House of David” inscription provided archeological proof of David’s rule and the ongoing excavations in the City of David in Jerusalem provides further evidence, but the minimilists—true believers—dismiss the discoveries and continue their jihad of denial.

Now, another exciting archeological discovery in Israel provides even more physical evidence of David’s kingdom.

Prof. Yosef Garfinkel, the Yigal Yadin Professor of Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, announced the discovery of objects that for the first time shed light on how a cult was organized in Judah at the time of King David. During recent archaeological excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, a fortified city in Judah adjacent to the Valley of Elah, Garfinkel and colleagues uncovered rich assemblages of pottery, stone and metal tools, and many art and cult objects. These include three large rooms that served as cultic shrines, which in their architecture and finds correspond to the biblical description of a cult at the time of King David.

Snip!

The absence of cultic images of humans or animals in the three shrines provides evidence that the inhabitants of the place practiced a different cult than that of the Canaanites or the Philistines, observing a ban on graven images.

This discovery is extraordinary as it is the first time that shrines from the time of early biblical kings were uncovered. Because these shrines pre-date the construction of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem by 30 to 40 years, they provide the first physical evidence of a cult in the time of King David, with significant implications for the fields of archaeology, history, biblical and religion studies.

Full story at the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Bob and Nancy Strait, murdered in a home invasion by Tyrone Woodfork.

On March 25, 2012 Seraphic Secret reported on the horrific rape and murder of Nancy Strait and the simultaneous assault on her husband Bob of Tulsa Oklahoma by Tyrone Woodfork.

After lingering for weeks in the hospital, Bob Strait died on Friday.

The national liberal media did not and has not bothered reporting this story. Instead, they are fixated on lynching George Zimmerman.

In addition, Attorney General Eric Holder piously invoked Martin in a speech to the NAACP, making Martin a martyr to the cause of civil rights, just like, y’know, Rev. Martin Luther King.

One has to ask: Why does Trayvon Martin get all the sympathetic media attention whereas Bob and Nancy Strait are flushed down the memory hole?

Why does President Obama publicly state that Trayvon Martin looks like his son if he had one, whereas Nancy and Bob Strait are not worthy of  an Obama comment  such as: “Bob and Nancy Strait look like the mother and grandparents who raised and nurtured me.”

The answers are all too obvious. The national press is a bastion of liberal thought and liberals are, at the core, racists.

Why do I make this charge?

Because liberals do not hold blacks to the same standards as whites. This is an antebellum paternalism that has, over the past decades, destroyed the cohesion of the black family and replaced it with the corrosive entitlements and welfare payments of a nanny state.

As for Obama, well, our post-racial president is still a community agitator, a race hustler like Al and Jesse, only clad in custom made 5K Brooks Brothers suits.

The race hustlers fixate on anomalies like the Trayvon Martin case instead of confronting the one incontrovertible fact that spells doom for the American black community: 74% of black children are born to unwed mothers.

Meanwhile: Nancy Strait, 85, was beaten and raped to death. Her husband of 64 years, Bob Strait, 90, a WW II paratrooper from the 101st Airborne Division who took part in D Day and awarded the Bronze Star, is also dead, murdered by a thug who looks like the son Obama crowed about never having, and no one in the media seems to notice or care.

Let’s review: Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger, Rashid Khalidi, Derrick Bell, Merrill A. McPeak, Khalid al-Mansour, Al Sharpton.

Obama gravitates towards Jew-haters and Israel bashers. And the radical leftist ideology he represents attracts Jew-haters and Israel bashers.

Thus, it’s no surprise that one of his bundlers is another in a long line of Obama associates who marinate in delusional Jewish conspiracies.

From the Washingtom Free Beacon:

Team Obama includes a self-identified “Muslim Palestinian-American” campaign fundraiser who has a history of blasting Israel in highly charged letters and newspaper articles about the Middle East conflict.

Hala Hijazi, a Jordanian native and current San Francisco city employee, has personally secured between $100,000 to $200,000 for Obama’s reelection effort, according to Federal Election Committee filings.

She also has gone on record accusing Israel of war crimes while castigating America for providing the Jewish state critical military aid—a long-term investment that has bolstered U.S. security interests.

Hijazi, who has cultivated pristine left-wingcredentials during her government career, is another name on an ever lengtheninglist of Obama-affiliated donors and bundlers who are either entangled in legal woes or hail from controversial backgrounds.

A prominent Hillary Clinton supporter who has long been entrenched in San Francisco’s left-wing political machine, Hijazi appears to be tapping a list of high profile West Coast liberals in an attempt to replenish the president’s campaign coffers.

Her public writings on Israel—an issue that has plagued Obama since the start of his presidency—reveal a longstanding and deep-seated hostility towards the Jewish state.

Read the full story here.

Look, if the OBL kill-mission failed does anyone seriously think that the mainstream media would have held Obama accountable?

Of course not. Just as they covered up his disgusting 20-plus year association with Jew-hater Jeremiah Wright—and when revealed there was only one soft-ball question from the MSM—they would, instead, savage one of their favorite liberal targets: a rogue U.S. military.

Gutsy call? Look, I’m all for killing terrorists and terrorist leaders. But we no longer take prisoners to interrogate and extract high value intel. That’s because Obama thinks its mean to imprison genocidal Islamists in Gitmo. Thus, it’s drone warfare which is Hollywood cool but profoundly limiting.  And while Obama is deleting individual jihadists he’s losing the Arab Muslim Middle East to a poisonous brew of Salafists and Muslim Brotherhood, while funding the jihadists of the Palestinian Authority.

Anyhoo.

Obama was taking no chances with the OBL assassination.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey told Sean Hannity… that the Obama Administration drafted a memo to protect the president from blame if the mission to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden would have failed. That way Obama could blame the general [Admiral William H. McRaven] instead of taking the blame himself. Mukasey wrote about it this week in The Wall Street Journal.

“That was a highly lawyered memo (designed to protect the president politically)… I think there’s going to be more that’s going to be tumbling out about that escapade but so far that memo is enough.“

Lincoln took responsibility in August 1862 for failures that had been attributed to General George McClellan—eventually sacked for incompetence—and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Lincoln told a crowd that McClellan was not at fault for seeking more than Stanton could give, and “I stand here, as justice requires me to do, to take upon myself what has been charged upon the Secretary of War.”

Dwight Eisenhower is famous for having penned a statement to be issued in anticipation of the failure of the Normandy invasion that reads in relevant part: “My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”

A week later, when the success of the invasion was apparent, Eisenhower saluted the Allied Expeditionary Forces: “One week ago this morning there was established through your coordinated efforts our first foothold in northwestern Europe. High as was my preinvasion confidence in your courage, skill and effectiveness . . . your accomplishments . . . have exceeded my brightest hopes.

Eisenhower did mention himself at the end: “I truly congratulate you upon a brilliantly successful beginning. . . . Liberty loving people everywhere would today like to join me in saying to you, ‘I am proud of you.’”