ConservativeChristianRepublican-Report - 20090413

Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable



"Daily Motivations"

When you let the love of a child transform your heart, you are renewed. -- Judy Ford



"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)

Thank God it's Friday! We will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection (Rom. 6:5). Make this Friday not only "good," but truly life-changing.

"The Lord directs the steps of the Godly. He delights in every detail of their lives." (Psalm 37:23)



"The Patriot Post"

"I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home." -- George Washington

This Week's 'Braying Jackass' Award
"The administration clearly believes it does have the authority to use some of the remaining TARP funds for the automobile industry. .... I don't know technically where that authority would be. But my own view is that if it is perceived they don't have that authority and it is perceived by the Congress they need to have that authority, the Congress would probably be willing to give that authority." -- House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) exhibiting quite a backbone


Chicago Politics

"Don't think we're not keeping score, brother." -- Barack Obama

"That's what President Barack Obama said to Rep. Peter DeFazio in a closed-door meeting of the House Democratic Caucus last week, according to the Associated Press. A few weeks ago, Mr. DeFazio voted against the administration's stimulus bill. The comment from Mr. Obama was a presidential rebuke and part of a new, hard-nosed push by the White House to pressure Congress to adopt the president's budget. He has mobilized outside groups and enlisted forces still in place from the Obama campaign." -- Karl Rove


A Tale of Three Headlines

"Clinton offers olive branch to Taliban" --Reuters

"Taliban Chief Vows 'Amazing' Attack on D.C. 'Soon'" --KFMB talk radio, San Diego, CA

"U.S. peace offer in Afghanistan is a 'lunatic idea' says Taliban" --UK Daily Mail



"ADF"

Media’s mantra ignores reality: The people have rejected same sex “marriage” 100% of the time
The Center for Arizona Policy Blog has this post that concludes:

While the daily news might portray same-sex “marriage” as being inevitable in our country, this is not the case . . .

If you don’t remember anything from this blog post, remember these two important statistics:

0% of states that have legalized same-sex “marriage” have done so by the vote of the people. Neither Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, nor Vermont have redefined marriage by the vote of the people.

100% of the states (30 states total) that have asked their voters to define marriage in their state constitution have defined marriage as between only one man and one woman because the voters – not the judges or legislators – made that decision.

It should also be noted that even in Vermont where the legislature voted to redefine marriage, the courts laid the foundation for that redefinition and the people have never had an opportunity to weigh in directly on the issue.



"Rick Santorum"

What Messages Are We Sending?

President Obama’s speech on nuclear disarmament fell on the same day that North Korea attempted to launch a purportedly satellite-laden rocket into space. Sunday’s launch came despite international warnings urging the contrary. Although the United Nations will no doubt clamp on yet more resolutions in response, President Obama’s statement that “Rules must be binding....Violations must be punished. Words must mean something,” indicates a desire to strengthen the tired cycle of resolution-violation-resolution. I must say, however, “hope” for this end only takes us so far. North Korea has done little to indicate any subordination of national interests to the stipulations of international law.

As I discussed in the last Gathering Storm, what to do about North Korea is just one of many foreign policy questions facing President Obama. Islamic extremism remains a critical challenge lurking ever in the background. But the longevity of its presence in our policy debates does not seem to have negated its ongoing ability to confound and flummox Western leaders. President Obama is trying one approach. While in Turkey this week, he gave a speech to the Grand National Assembly in which he said that the United States “is not and never will be at war with Islam.” “In fact,” he later stated, “our partnership with the Muslim world is critical in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject.”

While the importance of the President’s overture to Turkey (a key ally in Iraq and a helpful mediator in the multilateral negotiations in the Middle East) should not be downplayed, we must also recognize the failure of his statement to consider the very real ideological differences separating the U.S. from many Arab-Muslim societies, most of which are rooted in distinct conceptions of God. National Review’s Andrew McCarthy discusses this reality in an excellent piece entitled “Beyond Terrorism,” in which he warns that “in rationalizing that the only real problem is terrorism, our government promotes the project behind the violence by embracing Muslim leaders, no matter how radical they are, as long as they are not currently in the act of terrorizing.”

As others have articulated more eloquently than I, if there is any hope toward overcoming the challenge of radical Islam, we cannot turn a blind eye to the religious motivations behind it. But, if the President’s speech in Turkey is any indication of what is to come, we may well be on our way to doing just that.



"The Web"

President Obama: "We are not a Christian Nation".

http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/video/obama_to_turkey_we_are_not_a_christian_nation/



Thoughts { 1 }

http://www3.telus.net:80/public/a7a55952/thoughts.htm



Bachmann: 'Cap-and-Trade' Huge Tax for Americans - One of our "Brightest Conservatives" of today!

Watch Rep. Michele Bachmann discuss Obama’s huge cap-and-trade tax - Go Here Now
By: Jim Meyers

http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/bachman_cap_and_trade/2009/04/05/199950.html?utm_medium=RSS&s=al&promo_code=7D96-1

Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann tells Newsmax that the Obama administration’s “cap-and-trade” plan should be called the “China and India Stimulus Plan” because it would result in American jobs being shipped overseas.

Rep. Bachmann also said the plan — which seeks to reduce pollution by setting limits on carbon emissions and requiring businesses to pay to surpass them — would constitute an “energy tax” and be devastating to all Americans.

Newsmax TV’s Ashley Martella noted that Rep. Bachmann has criticized President Obama’s $3.5 trillion budget, and asked what most concerns her about the spending plan.

“The number one thing I’m worried about is the debt load for our generation as well as for the subsequent generation,” said Bachmann, a member of the House Financial Services Committee.

“Within five years, President Obama’s budget will double the national debt,” she said. “Within 10 years it will triple the national debt. These are astounding figures — so astounding that President Obama’s budget director, Peter Orszag, himself has said this is not a sustainable budget.

“And we all know President Obama’s former commerce secretary [nominee], Senator Judd Gregg, also said this budget will bankrupt our country. That’s very concerning.”

Martella noted that by some estimates cap-and-trade will add more than $3,000 a year to every American’s bill for gasoline and energy.

“At a minimum it will add that much, Bachmann responded.

“In Minnesota, for instance, we’re probably looking at a doubling of our monthly energy bill, whether it’s natural gas or electricity. In Minnesota that’s a huge deal, as it is in most states, because in October we don’t have a choice — you have to turn your furnace on and that furnace will stay on usually through the month of April. If people see a doubling in their monthly energy bill, this will be devastating.

“It’s not just that — it’s also reducing the American standard of living,” she said. “I was in a meeting that talked about the potential for job loss in our country. Businessmen are savvy and they’re preemptive and they’re looking at what President Obama wants to do with this new tax on energy. Because that’s what this is, a tax on the right to use and consume energy — as if energy didn’t cost enough already.

“And what we’re very concerned about is that businesses are already looking at plans to locate new business expansion overseas. This will cause tremendous what they call leakage. It’s essentially jobs fleeing the United States for other countries.

“As a matter of fact, you might as well call this the ‘China and India Stimulus Plan’ because China and India have said, we’re not going to have any part of a cap-and-trade system. We’re not going to do it. So that means American jobs will leave and go overseas.”

Martella asked if the cap-and-trade plan can be stopped.

“Sure it can be stopped, if the American people rise up and say not me, no how,” Bachmann declared.

“Senator Harry Reid has said he believes by the end of August we’ll see the cap-and-trade bill go through. That gives the American people a little time…

“We want to make sure they understand what’s at stake for them, because there are very real implications — not just for businessmen, not just for a few Americans, but for 100 percent of Americans.

“All Americans will be impacted by this new tax on energy, and we need to be prepared.”



CBC: Congressional boot-lickers

http://michellemalkin.com:80/2009/04/10/cbc-congressional-boot-lickers/

By Michelle Malkin • April 10, 2009 06:03 AM

My Good Friday column this week spotlights the religious oppression in Cuba that the Congressional Black Caucus tools of Fidel Castro choose not to see. If ignorance is bliss, the CBC members who went on tour with the tyrant are the most ecstatically happy people on the planet.

And just a reminder that I’m on a partial Easter break from the blog. Doug Powers and several Tea Party guest bloggers will be holding the fort down the next few days. Enjoy!

CBC: Congressional Boot-Lickers for Castro
by Michelle Malkin

Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009

Congressional Black Caucus Democrats went to Cuba to see what they wanted to see. Not since New York Times reporter Walter Duranty traipsed around Stalin’s Russia, filing cheery travelogues whitewashing Communist-engineered famine, has America witnessed such disgraceful propaganda tourism.

Led around by the nose by the Castro brothers, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver declared “if there is repression in Cuba we didn’t see it.” Somehow, the gulags and slums got left off the itinerary. Go figure. The CBC members saw, instead, a land of milk and honey. Fresh air and freedom. Shiny, happy people cared for by a kindly, benevolent leader. As Comrade Fidel himself put it in his official statement on the visit: “Persons who move on the streets in an active and almost always happy manner do not match with the stereotyped images that most of the times are portrayed about Cuba abroad.”

Rep. Cleaver swallowed the Kastro Kool-Aid in one big gulp: “We’ve been led to believe that the Cuban people are not free, and they are repressed by a vicious dictator, and I saw nothing to match what we’ve been told.” Cleaver unabashedly basked in the cult of Castro’s personality: “He’s one of the most amazing human beings I’ve ever met.”

Lord, what tools these lawmakers be.

Accompanying Cleaver were radical left-wing House Democrats Barbara Lee, Laura Richardson, Bobby Rush, Marcia Fudge, Mel Watt, and Mike Honda. Rep. Rush was enraptured by the tyrant’s “keen sense of humor, his sense of history and his basic human qualities.” Lee fawned over the Castros like your neighborhood ‘tweens giggle over the Jonas Brothers. The aging dictator Fidel “looked directly into our eyes,” she delighted. Where was he supposed to look? Into their ears? He “was very engaging and very energetic,” she confided.

Yes, ask the dozens of independent journalists and dissidents jailed over the last six years: Fidel’s a veritable fuzzball.

It’s too bad Castro’s American boot-lickers jetted back home (why is it these fervent admirers of the Communist regime always buy themselves return tickets?) before Easter. They might have run in to someone with seeing eyes who could have reminded them of the religious oppression that the kindly Castros oversee. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reported last year that “[r]eligious belief and practice remain under tight governmental control in Cuba…Both registered and unregistered religious groups continue to suffer official interference, harassment, and repression. Political prisoners and human rights and pro-democracy activists continue to be denied the right to worship.” The panel compiled reports of religious leaders “being attacked, beaten, or detained for opposing government actions.”

The Cuban Communist Party requires religious groups to register to obtain official recognition. They must inform the regime “where they will conduct their activities” and obtain official permission to travel. The distribution of Bibles is controlled by the government. Processions and worship services outside tightly-regulated religious buildings are not allowed without permission of the local ruling official of the Communist Party. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is expressly forbidden from proselytizing. Religious schools are banned.

Two years ago, the U.S. international religious freedom panel reported, a Pentecostal preacher and his family were evicted from their home and their church demolished. A month after that, police raided the Santa Teresita Catholic Church in Santiago de Cuba, beat several persons gathered for Mass who participated in a political protest earlier that day, and detained 18 worshipers.

Every Sunday in Havana, a brave group of jailed dissidents’ wives walk to a government-approved Mass at an old Catholic cathedral to pray for their husbands’ freedom. They are known as the Ladies in White. The group has been harassed and bullied by Castro’s henchmen at Easter time for demanding regime change. Their church is named for Saint Rita, the patroness of lost causes. The hopeless sycophants of the Congressional Black Caucus, willfully blind to Castro’s systemic brutality, could certainly use the saint’s intercession.



It's Your Country Too, Mr. President
By Charles Krauthammer

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/04/its_your_country_too_mr_presid.html

April 10, 2009

WASHINGTON -- In his major foreign policy address in Prague committing the United States to a world without nuclear weapons, President Obama took note of North Korea's missile launch just hours earlier and then grandiloquently proclaimed:

"Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something. The world must stand together to prevent the spread of these weapons. Now is the time for a strong international response."

A more fatuous presidential call to arms is hard to conceive. What "strong international response" did Obama muster to North Korea's brazen defiance of a Chapter 7 --"binding," as it were -- U.N. resolution prohibiting such a launch?

The obligatory emergency Security Council session produced nothing. No sanctions. No resolution. Not even a statement. China and Russia professed to find no violation whatsoever. They would not even permit a U.N. statement that dared express "concern," let alone condemnation.

Having thus bravely rallied the international community and summoned the U.N. -- a fiction and a farce, respectively -- what was Obama's further response? The very next day, his defense secretary announced drastic cuts in missile defense, including halting further deployment of Alaska-based interceptors designed precisely to shoot down North Korean ICBMs. Such is the "realism" Obama promised to restore to U.S. foreign policy.

He certainly has a vision. Rather than relying on America's unique technological edge in missile defenses to provide a measure of nuclear safety, Obama will instead boldly deploy the force of example. How? By committing his country to disarmament gestures -- such as, he promised his cheering acolytes in Prague, ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Really, now. How does U.S. ratification of that treaty -- which America has, in any case, voluntarily abided by for 17 years -- cause North Korea to cease and desist, and cause Iran to turn nukes into plowshares?

Obama's other great enthusiasm is renewing disarmament talks with Russia. Good grief. Of all the useless sideshows. Cut each of our arsenals in half and both countries could still, in Churchill's immortal phrase, "make the rubble bounce."

There's little harm in engaging in talks about redundant nukes because there is nothing of consequence at stake. But Obama seems not even to understand that these talks are a gift to the Russians for whom a return to anachronistic Reagan-era START talks is a return to the glory of U.S.-Soviet summitry.

I'm not against gift-giving in international relations. But it would be nice to see some reciprocity. Obama was in a giving mood throughout Europe. While Gordon Brown was trying to make his American DVDs work and the queen was rocking to her new iPod, the rest of Europe was enjoying a more fulsome Obama gift.

Our president came bearing a basketful of mea culpas. With varying degrees of directness or obliqueness, Obama indicted his own people for arrogance, for dismissiveness and derisiveness, for genocide, for torture, for Hiroshima, for Guantanamo and for insufficient respect for the Muslim world.

And what did he get for this obsessive denigration of his own country? He wanted more NATO combat troops in Afghanistan to match the surge of 17,000 Americans. He was rudely rebuffed.

He wanted more stimulus spending from Europe. He got nothing.

From Russia, he got no help on Iran. From China, he got the blocking of any action on North Korea.

And what did he get for Guantanamo? France, pop. 64 million, will take one prisoner. One! (Sadly, he'll have to leave his swim buddy behind.) The Austrians said they would take none. As Interior Minister Maria Fekter explained with impeccable Germanic logic, if they're not dangerous, why not just keep them in America?

When Austria is mocking you, you're having a bad week. Yet who can blame Frau Fekter, considering the disdain Obama showed his own country while on foreign soil, acting the philosopher-king who hovers above the fray mediating between his renegade homeland and an otherwise warm and welcoming world?

After all, it was Obama, not some envious anti-American leader, who noted with satisfaction that a new financial order is being created today by 20 countries, rather than by "just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy." And then added: "But that's not the world we live in, and it shouldn't be the world that we live in."

It is passing strange for a world leader to celebrate his own country's decline. A few more such overseas tours, and Obama will have a lot more decline to celebrate.



"The e-mail Bag"

The Priest's Retirement Dinner
A priest was being honored at his retirement dinner after 25 years in the parish. A leading local politician and member of the congregation was chosen to make the presentation and to give a little speech at the dinner.

However, the politician was delayed, so the priest decided to say his own few words while they waited.

"I got my first impression of the parish from the first confession I heard here. I thought I had been assigned to a terrible place. The very first person who entered my confessional told me he had stolen a television set and, when questioned by the police, was able to lie his way out of it. He had stolen money from his parents, embezzled from his employer, had an affair with his boss's wife, taken illegal drugs, and gave VD to his sister. I was appalled."

The shocked crowd murmered their disapproval of the miscreant among them.

"But," the old priest continued, "as the days went on I learned that my people were not all like that and I had, indeed, come to a fine parish full of good and loving people."

Just as the priest finished his talk, the politician arrived full of apologies at being late. He immediately began to make the presentation and gave his talk:

"I'll never forget the first day our parish priest arrived," he told the crowd, still at sharp attention after the priest's words. "In fact, I had the honor of being the first person to go to him for confession...."

The Moral: Never, ever be late when you're on the program.



The Dying Priest

The old priest lay dying in the hospital. For years he had faithfully served the people of the nation's capital. He motioned for his nurse to come near.

"Yes, Father?" said the nurse. "I would really like to see Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi before I die", whispered the priest. "I'll see what I can do, Father" replied the nurse.

The nurse sent the request to them and waited for a response. Soon the word arrived. Harry and Nancy would be delighted to visit the priest. As they went to the hospital, Harry commented to Nancy "I don't know why the old priest wants to see us, but it will certainly help our images." Nancy couldn't help but agree.

When they arrived at the priest's room, the priest took Nancy's hand in his right hand and Harry's hand in his left. There was silence and a look of serenity on the old priest's face.

Finally Nancy spoke. "Father, of all the people you could have chosen, why did you choose us to be with you as you near the end?"

The old priest slowly replied, "I have always tried to pattern my life after my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

The old priest continued...

"He died between two lying thieves. I would like to do the same."