Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable
"Daily Motivations"
You never know when a moment and a few sincere words can have an impact on a life. -- Zig Ziglar
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
"Forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us." (Matthew 6:12)
Peter asked Jesus how many times he had to forgive someone. Peter thought that forgiving seven times was pretty good. "No!" Jesus answered, "seventy times seven!" Then Jesus gave an illustration showing how God views our responsibility to forgive.
A king became aware that one of his servants owed him a significant amount, so he ordered the servant brought before him and demanded the servant pay every penny. The servant could not pay so the king ordered the man and his family sold into slavery to pay the debt. The servant fell before the king and pleaded for mercy. The king felt pity and forgave him the tremendous debt.
The servant found a fellow servant who owed him and demanded payment. The friend begged for mercy, but the servant would not forgive him and had him thrown into prison.
When the king heard about it, he was angry! He called in the servant and demanded to know why he had acted so unforgiving toward his friend when he had been forgiven so much. Then the king commanded the servant be thrown into prison until he had paid every penny.
God gave His only Son to die in our place. That is mercy beyond comprehension. How, then, can we ever refuse to give mercy to others when we have received so much mercy ourselves. To the degree that we show mercy to the poor, the wretched, and the guilty, we are like God.
"The Patriot Post"
"A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired." -- Alexander Hamilton
"The economic freedom which is the prerequisite of any other freedom cannot be the freedom from economic care, which the socialists promise us and which can be obtained only by relieving the individual at the same time of the necessity and of the power of choice; it must be the freedom of our economic activity which, with the right of choice, inevitably also carries the risk and the responsibility of that right." -- economist Friedrich August Hayek (1899-1992)
"Secularism is a euphemism for a set of beliefs that are the antithesis of faith. Boiled down to its basic elements, secularism is man's subordination of morality to his own earthly judgments, scientific and otherwise. ...[T]he secularist catechism holds that truth is subjective, relative or contextual; because it demands that rationality can solve moral and ontological questions about man's nature, that discrimination is the greatest of all evils and that patriotism is the only social disease that isn't sexually-transmitted. ... Obama's thesis ... is that our moral code can exist in the absence of a religious foundation. ....[S]ecularism -- and its cousin, multiculturalism -- are the primary causes of the weakening of western society at a most dangerous time in history. The weakness results ... because secularism turns the bedrock of western society -- the moral code derived from Judeo-Christian faith -- into sand. By divorcing our societies from faith, we render every man's morality equal to every other's, and thus make them all valueless. When President Obama says we are a nation bound by ideals and values, he postulates an impossibility: where do those secular ideals and values come from if -- as liberal dogma requires -- every man makes up his own?" -- Human Events editor Jed Babbin
"When Barack Obama speaks at an American university, he does not provide a different perspective. He preaches to the liberal choir.. And I am afraid that most of today's Catholic universities are no exception. ... Contrary to providing diversity of opinion, by inviting Barack Obama, [Notre Dame University president] Father Jenkins really just played to his audience. True leadership would have been to invite a speaker who would inspire this young audience to take seriously the values of their Catholic tradition. ... Where can a parent send their son or daughter to get educated and not be indoctrinated with liberal boilerplate? Catholic universities were supposed to serve this purpose. But it's clear that they, too, have been swept into the liberal tsunami that has engulfed America. Ironically, Father Jenkins states in his letter that Notre Dame's invitation to Obama is 'not a political statement or an endorsement of policy.' He then expresses admiration for the president's views on 'expanding health care, alleviating poverty, and building peace through diplomacy.' Does Father Jenkins not even understand what a 'political statement' is? Unfortunately, Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama has only contributed to the moral ambiguity tearing at our nation's fabric." -- columnist Star Parker
"We are a nation that has a government -- not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our government has no power except that granted to it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed." -- Ronald Reagan
"Simple Truths"
Great Quotes From Great Leaders
http://www.greatquotesmovie.com/
"The Web"
Judicial Watch: ACORN Used in 2010 Census
Just another case as to how the Obama administration may be politically corrupt. Many in ACORN are being accused, legally and otherwise, of fraudulent voter registrations all over America. One (1) illegal voter registration and/or one illegal vote in any election is one step of destroying our free electoral system. Each and everyone whom is accused of electoral corruption in our electoral system must be investigated, prosecuted, and sentenced, if found guilty, in the states and/or federal judicial system. - oyh
Thursday, May 28, 2009 2:32 PM
By: Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the U.S. Census Bureau detailing the substantial involvement of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in the 2010 Census. Included among the 126 pages of documents, obtained by Judicial Watch under threat of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, is ACORN's original Census partnership application. The document describes 18 different areas of responsibility requested by the community organization, which is under investigation in multiple states for illegal activity during the 2008 election, including voter registration fraud.
The documents also list the types of organizations ineligible for partnering with the U.S. Census. They include: "...Hate groups, Law enforcement, anti-immigrant groups, any groups that might make people fearful of participating in the Census..." The release of these Obama Commerce Department documents comes in the wake of an Obama Department of Homeland Security report released in April linking opposition to illegal immigration to "rightwing extremist radicalization."
In its official statement responding to the ACORN controversy, the Obama Commerce Department downplayed ACORN's participation in the Census, and labeled "baseless" the notion that ACORN would be involved in any Census count. However, the Census Bureau offered ACORN the opportunity to "recruit Census workers" who would participate in the count. Moreover, as an "executive level" partner, ACORN has the ability to "organize and/or serve as a member on a Complete Count Committee," which, according to Census documents, helps "develop and implement locally based outreach and recruitment campaigns."
According to its application ACORN also signed up to: "Encourage employees and constituents to complete and mail their questionnaire; identify job candidates and/or distribute and display recruiting materials; appoint a liaison to work with the Census Bureau; provide space for Be Counted sites and/or Questionnaire Assistance Centers; sponsor community events to promote participation in the 2010 Census," among 18 requested areas of responsibility. The documents also show the decision to add ACORN as a partner occurred in February, long after the January 15th Census partnership application deadline. (One Census official had bet "it was under Bush.")
Among other conclusions from the documents:
The Census Bureau requested that ACORN "help us highlight [ACORN's] innovation and hard work and share best practices so other organizations can learn from your experiences."
Members of the Census Bureau and Department of Commerce staff assigned to organize the 2010 Census were unaware of when the decision to involve ACORN was made, how the Census Bureau choose and defined partners, or whether partners received payment.
The Census Bureau did not conduct background checks on the 3.7 million people hired to conduct the 2000 Census, unless a preliminary name check provided a match. Overall, 8% of the applicants, or over 300,000 people, were considered risks for hire.
According to the U.S. Census documents, among other things, census data is used to allocate $300 billion in federal funds. Census data also "determines how many seats each state will have in the House of Representatives as well as the redistricting of state legislatures, county and city councils, and voting districts."
"Given its history of illegal activity and fraud, ACORN should be nowhere near the 2010 Census," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "And shame on the Obama Commerce Department for continuing to demonize conservatives by lumping together law enforcement and anti-immigration groups with 'hate groups.' This discriminatory policy raises First Amendment concerns. Indeed, these documents provide further evidence that the Obama administration is politicizing the 2010 Census."
Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Census on March 23, 2009. After the Obama Commerce Department stonewalled, Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit on May 14, 2009. The documents were released to Judicial Watch on May 15, 2009.
President of the American Hospital Association says the White House misstated deal
TAGS: Barack Obama, White House, Health Care
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22559.html
The president of the American Hospital Association said Thursday that a deal with the White House to cut the growth in health care spending has been “spun way away from the original intent.”
President Barack Obama described the agreement this week with six major health care organizations as a “watershed event,” hailing what the White House said was their promise to reduce spending by 1.5 percentage points annually for a decade, which he said could save as much as $2 trillion over that span.
But in a conference call Thursday, President Richard Umbdenstock told 230 member organizations that the agreement had been misrepresented. The groups, he said, had agreed to gradually ramp up to the 1.5 percentage-point target over 10 years — not to reduce spending by that much in each of the 10 years.
“There has been a tremendous amount of confusion and frankly a lot of political spin,” Umbdenstock said on the call. “And I want to assure you that the American Hospital Association is at the table and a responsible part of this, but that we’ve been very clear on what we have committed to.”
The conference call was first reported Thursday by Modern Healthcare and confirmed by an AHA spokesman.
Umbdenstock said AHA joined the process late and did so as a way to maintain involvement in the health care talks while also avoiding the appearance that it did not support reform.
A White House aide said there was always an understanding among these groups that they would trim the growth rate by 1.5 percent annually to save $2 trillion. Umbdenstock spoke with White House Health Director Nancy-Ann DeParle Thursday, said the aide, who added that all the groups remain "enthusiastic" about the project.
The comments from Umbdenstock cap a week in which some in the Washington health care world struggled to make sense of the surprise White House announcement Monday. The group of six organizations with a major stake in health care — the Service Employees International Union, the American Medical Association, America’s Health Insurance Plan, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association, the American Hospital Association and Advanced Medical Technology Association — had been working in secret for several weeks on a savings plan.
But they learned late last week that the White House wanted to go public with the coalition. One health care insider said: “It came together more quickly than it should have." A health care lobbyist said the participants weren’t prepared to go live with the news over the weekend, when the news of a deal, including the $2 trillion savings claim, was announced by White House officials to reporters. The fact sheet they distributed at the time offered general categories from which the savings would come but few specifics on how they would be achieved.
“This was all a general commitment to be part of bending the cost curve and nobody had specifics and all of sudden right before the weekend hit they said, ‘Get us a list of their specifics,’” the lobbyist said. “What really did come last minute at the end of the week was the White House looking for specific things that these people think would reduce costs.”
But when the day came to announce the offer, representatives from all six organizations were lined up next to the president as he announced the deal.
Obama's Faith-Based Adviser Urges Challenge to ‘Heteronormative' Fatherhood
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer
(CNSNews.com) - A controversial member of President Barack Obama’s faith-based council said that part of the administration’s role in promoting responsible fatherhood should include moving beyond America’s “heteronormative view of fatherhood.”
Harry Knox, appointed last month to the 25-member President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, has drawn fire for inflammatory comments about the Catholic Church and Pope Benedict XVI.
Knox talked about fatherhood and other issues the council would work on in a May 11 PBS interview, which aired two days before a May 13 letter – signed by nearly two dozen prominent Catholics, including House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) – was sent to the White House asking Obama to remove Knox from the council.
The letter was also signed by L. Brent Bozell III, president of the Media Research Center, the parent organization of CNSNews.com.
“Responsible fatherhood offers us an immense opportunity to speak to a real need in the country,” said Knox, director of the faith and religion program at the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual rights group, during the PBS interview broadcast on its Religion & Ethics Newsweekly show.
“It’ll be challenging to do that for instance in ways that are not dismissive of the tremendous gifts of single mothers; not to sort of hold a heteronormative view of fatherhood up as the only model,” said Knox.
The White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships is responsible for distributing federal money to religious non-profit and charitable organizations.
“For instance, 25 percent of gay male couples in the country are raising children – their own and other people’s,” Knox, a member of the United Church of Christ and the Interdenominational Conference of Liberation Congregations and Ministries, told PBS.
“So the challenge will be for all of us getting to know what fatherhood means for us, and how to talk about it in a way that is as inclusive as possible and empowering as possible,” he said.
He added that mentoring programs for homosexual fathers should be reviewed by the council.
“One of the things I am suggesting on the council is that they look at mentoring processes that gay dads have developed to help each other be good fathers around the country,” Knox said.
On March 17, two weeks before his appointment to the advisory council, Knox published a statement on the Human Rights Campaign Web site in reaction to the pope’s statement on condoms and AIDS in Africa, saying, “The Pope’s statement that condoms don’t help control the spread of HIV, but rather condoms increase infection rates, is hurting people in the name of Jesus.”
In response to a bishop’s instruction that a lesbian couple in Wyoming could not receive communion at the Catholic Mass, Knox, in an April 6, 2007 statement on the HRC’s Web site wrote: “In this holy Lenten season, it is immoral and insulting to Jesus to use the body and blood of Christ the reconciler as a weapon to silence free speech and demean the love of a committed, legally married couple.”
On April 6, 2009, in an interview with CNSNews.com, Knox stood by his comments from the previous month in the San Francisco-based Bay Area Reporter when he said the pope is a discredited leader.
“The Pope needs to start telling the truth about condom use,” Knox said. “We are eager to help him do that. Until he is willing to do that and able, he’s doing a great deal more harm than good – not just in Africa but around the world. It is endangering people’s lives.”
The day the letter from the 22 Catholics was released, Knox told Newsmax he was not anti-Catholic.
"I love the Catholic Church and love my Catholic sisters and brothers very much,” he said. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for the Roman Catholic Church and for all the good that it does. I do think that we have a real disagreement about the role of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, both in the role of the church and in the role of public service."
“If Harry Knox truly loved the Catholic Church, the first thing he’d do is formally and publicly apologize to the Holy Father for his anti-Catholic bigotry,” Bozell said.
An Open Letter To Senator Richard G. Lugar (R-IN)
By: Chuck Sproull
Senator Lugar,
PLEASE REVERSE YOUR DECISION TO NOMINATE PRO-ABORTIONIST DAWN JOHNSON TO OFFICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL, SHE WILL ONLY MAKE LEGAL MATTERS IN AMERICA WORSE.
"PRO-CHOICE" IS A MYTH. It is the result of a popular "non-sequitur" (Latin for "the conclusion does not follow the premise"). Women who believe they have a "right" to do what they want to with their own bodies, think they can have an unwanted baby aborted. This conclusion is wrong for the following reasons:
A woman may pass hundreds of seeds through her periods, until she gets married to a man. As soon as her husband fertilizes one of her seeds, this is the moment when a new life begins, that will within 9 months lead to the birth of a child. And that seed is no longer part of her own body which she can choose to kill, but this living seed is now the newest part of God's Creation, and He begins to form that child's physical and spiritual being (body, soul and conscience). God gave us freedom of choice, but He commanded us to "Choose life, that thou and thy children may live" (Deut 30:19).
The baby is not part of the woman's body, it is only within the body, protected during it's 9-month development until ready for birth. Therefore, neither she nor an abortionist has any legitimate "right" to harm the baby in any way. At the moment of conception, when the woman's seed is fertilized by a male sperm, the resulting embryo and the fetus, is very sacred, vulnerable, and needs protection. It is a baby boy or girl who belongs jointly to (a) the man who begot it, to (b) the woman who conceived it, and (c) it especially belongs to God who created the entire birth and life process for His divine purpose. In fact, during its in-womb residence, the baby owns the mother - in the sense that it's needs control the mother's physiology. Anything that kills the fruit of conception, regardless of the stage of birth (pre- or partial birth), is murder; it is a sin against our Creator's purpose. Loving parents can care for any child that is born, regardless of it's condition or life span.
The one and only "right" (God-given, responsible freedom) the pregnant woman has, is to care for the baby for about 9 months and give it a successful birth into the world. Then, along with help from the husband, they both have the "right" to raise it to be a responsible, normal boy or girl who will grow up, and marry, and bear and raise the next generation of responsible, normal children. What is the opposite of a "right"? A "wrong."
Wanted babies are the fruit of normal marriage. What would you think of a farmer or gardener, who sows good fruit, vegetable, flower and tree seeds into the soil just for the fun of it; but after the seeds began to germinate and sprout partially above the ground, would consider them unwanted, and mutilate them and kill them with a plough or herbicide, just so that he wouldn't have to be responsible for caring for the plants until they produce their intended fruits? A fool.
So, likewise, why are man and woman allowed to engage in sex just for their own temporary selfish pleasure? The only reason God created sexuality in men and women is to consummate normal marriage and bring forth wanted children. They do not have a "right" to commit the sins of fornication and adultery, nor any or the more perverse forms of sex (like incest, sodomy or homosexuality). Any category of sexual relationship that does not produce children, is a sin against the purpose of God. Also, population control, a good Global Community concern, can be accomplished by teaching responsible and self-disciplined sex in marriage.
Have a wonderful, free American day, be militant in a good-natured way.
Very Respectfully,
Chuck Sproull, Springville IN
THE WRONG FUNERAL
God doesn't make mistakes. He puts us where we are to be.
They say there are no mistakes, for everything there is a purpose. Makes you think. Enjoy! We'll never know where our paths will take us!
***AN ABSOLUTE MUST READ** TRUST ME
This is really beautiful... God is not sleeping.
Consumed by my loss, I didn't notice the hardness of the pew where I sat. I was at the funeral of my dearest friend - my mother. She finally had lost her long battle with cancer. The hurt was so intense; I found it hard to breathe at times. Always supportive, Mother clapped loudest at my school plays, held box of tissues while listening to my first heartbreak, comforted me at my father's death, encouraged me in college, and prayed for me my entire life.
When mother's illness was diagnosed, my sister had a new baby and my brother had
recently married his childhood sweetheart, so it fell on me, the 27-year-old middle child without entanglements, to take care of her. I counted it an honor. 'What now, Lord?' I asked sitting in church.
My life stretched out before me as an empty abyss. My brother sat stoically with his face toward the cross while clutching his wife's hand. My sister sat slumped against her husband's shoulder, his arms around her as she cradled their child. All so deeply grieving, no one noticed I sat alone.
My place had been with our mother, preparing her meals, helping her walk, taking her
to the doctor, seeing to her medication, reading the Bible together. Now she was with the Lord. My work was finished, and I was alone.
I heard a door open and slam shut at the back of the church.
Quick footsteps hurried along the carpeted floor...
An exasperated young man looked around briefly and then sat next to me. He folded
his hands and placed them on his lap. His eyes were brimming with tears. He began to sniffle. 'I'm late,' he explained, though no explanation was necessary.
After several eulogies, he leaned over and commented, 'Why do they keep calling Mary
by the name of ' Margaret?''
'Because, that was her name, Margaret. Never Mary, no one called her 'Mary,'' I whispered.
I wondered why this person couldn't have sat on the other side of the church. He interrupted my grieving with his tears and fidgeting. Who was this stranger anyway?
'No, that isn't correct,' he insisted, as several people glanced over at us whispering, 'Her name is Mary, Mary Peters.' 'That isn't who this is.'
'Isn't this the Lutheran church?' 'No, the Lutheran church is across the street.'
'Oh.' 'I believe you're at the wrong funeral, Sir.'
The solemnest of the occasion mixed with the realization of the man's mistake bubbled up inside me and came out as laughter. I cupped my hands over my face, hoping it would be interpreted as sobs. The creaking pew gave me away.. Sharp looks from other mourners only made the situation seem more hilarious.
I peeked at the bewildered, misguided man seated beside me. He was laughing, too, as he glanced around, deciding it was too late for an uneventful exit.. I imagined Mother laughing.
At the final 'Amen,' we darted out a door and into the parking lot. 'I do believe we'll be the talk of the town,' he smiled. He said his name was Rick and since he had missed his aunt's funeral, asked me out for a cup of coffee.
That afternoon began a lifelong journey for me with this man who attended the wrong
funeral, but was in the right place. A year after our meeting, we were married at a country church where he was the assistant pastor. This time we both arrived at the same church, right on time...
In my time of sorrow, God gave me laughter. In place of loneliness, God gave me love.
This past June, we celebrated our twenty-second wedding anniversary. Whenever anyone asks us how we met, Rick tells them, 'Her mother and my Aunt Mary introduced us, and it's truly a match made in heaven.'
Jesus said, If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you before my Father.
Not ashamed? Pass this on. Only if you mean it. Yes, I do Love God. He is my source of existence and Savior. He keeps me functioning each and everyday. Without Him, I would be nothing. Without him, I am nothing, but with Him I can do all things, through Christ that strengthens me. (Phil. 4:13)
If you Love God, and are not ashamed of all the marvelous things he has done for you, send this on to others.
REMEMBER, God doesn't make mistakes. He puts us where we are to be.
Mosquito Spray....Worth a try ...Listerine
Snopes say it is false. Others say it does work. We report! You decide! - oyh
http://perknews.blogspot.com/2009/05/mosquito-sprayworth-try-listerine_16.html
Wasaga Beach, ON
Has anyone heard of this ... it sounds interesting... if it works.. Just received this helpful information from a friend in the mosquito –saturated state of Georgia. . .
This is for all you happy campers and back yard BBQ people, have a great summer free of the little pests !!!
Mosquito Spray....Worth a try
I was at a deck party awhile back, and the bugs were having a ball biting everyone. A man at the party sprayed the lawn and deck floor with Listerine, and the little demons disappeared. The next year I filled a 4-ounce spray bottle and used it around my seat whenever I saw mosquitoes. And voila! That worked as well. It worked at a picnic where we sprayed the area around the food table, the children's swing area, and the standing water nearby. During the summer, I don't leave home without it......Pass it on.
OUR FRIEND'S COMMENTS: I tried this on my deck and around all of my doors. It works -in fact, it killed them instantly. I bought my bottle from the Superstore and it cost me $1.89. It really doesn't take much, and it is a big bottle, too; so it is not as expensive to use as the can of Bug-spray you buy that doesn't last 30 minutes. So, try this, please. It will last a couple of days. Don't spray directly on a wood door (like your front door), but spray around the frame. Spray around the window frames, and even inside the dog house.
"The e-mail Bag"
Conversations in bathroom stalls
Traveling down the interstate and needing to use the restroom, I stop at a rest area and head to the restroom.
I was barely sitting down when I heard a voice from the other stall saying: "Hi, how are you?"
I'm not the type to start a conversation in the restroom and I don't know what got into me, but I answered, somewhat embarrassed, "Doin' just fine!"
And the other person says: "So what are you up to?"
What kind of question is that? At that point, I'm thinking this is too bizarre so I say: "Uhhh, I'm like you, just traveling!"
At this point I am just trying to get out as fast as I can when I hear another question. "Can I come over?"
Ok, this question is just too weird for me but I figured I could just be polite and end the conversation. I tell them."No..I'm a little busy right now!!!"
Then I hear the person say nervously... "Listen, I'll have to call you back. There's an idiot in the other stall who keeps answering all my questions."
FROZEN CRABS
A man boarded an airplane in New Orleans with a box of frozen crabs and asked a blonde stewardess to take care of them for him. She took the box and promised to put it in the crew's refrigerator.
He advised her that he was holding her personally responsible for them staying frozen, mentioned in a very haughty manner that he was a lawyer, and proceeded to rant at her about what would happen if she let them thaw out.
Needless to say, she was annoyed by his behavior.
Shortly before landing in New York, she used the intercom to announce to the entire cabin, "Would the gentleman who gave me the crabs in New Orleans please raise his hand?"
Not one hand went up ... so she took them home and had a feast.
Two lessons here:
1. Lawyers aren't as smart as they think they are.
2. Blondes aren't as dumb as most folks think.
BREAKING NEWS!!
To save the economy in 2009, the Obama government will start deporting all of the weird old people in order to lower Social Security and Medicare costs.
I started crying when I thought of you.
Run, my friend, RUN !!!!
Well....what can I say....someone sent it to me, and I'm not going alone!!!!
Friday, May 29, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Replace UAW President Gettlefinger, Save GM, Chrysler
President Obama, members on Capitol Hill, and Obama’s administration government appointees are to bail out GM using American taxpayers’ money. If President Obama has the legal authority to remove GM CEO Rick Wagoner, surely President Obama has the authority to remove UAW President Ron Gettelfinger.
Obama’s decision to replace GM’s Wagoner was to solve all problems in saving GM. Not so! UAW leaders and members failed to genuinely negotiate with GM, and President Obama’s administration refuses to demand UAW’s required reasonable negotiations.
President Obama should replace UAW President Ron Gettelfinger to save GM and Chrysler. With that decision, President Obama’s legal counsel could go into US Bankruptcy Court, require the UAW employees total labor cost be reduced by 33% to 50%, from some $150,000 annually to some $75,000 to $100,000 annually. This still substantial proposed income would leave the UAW labor force with a somewhat comfortable living income with benefits. GM and Chrysler can than endure as an integral part of American manufacturing. To survive, GM and Chrysler must be competitive in the marketplace. UAW members must reduce annual labor cost and benefits for GM and Chrysler, as well as for American and worldwide consumers. This “change” will immediately mushroom an additional 1 million jobs for our future generations. Americans need jobs now.
American taxpayers must not own 70% of GM, Chrysler, or any other industry in a free American economy. Government ownership and management in any free economy, transforms a generous economy into pure Socialism. Any open, free economy appoints, elect, and/or chooses its’ management. There is no capacity for appointed government bureaucrats to operate GM, Chrysler, or any other industry in a free American economy. Our manufacturing economy must be restored, but not with taxpayers’ manufacturing labor cost of $150,000 annually, which exceeds the equivalent of University Professors.
Obama’s decision to replace GM’s Wagoner was to solve all problems in saving GM. Not so! UAW leaders and members failed to genuinely negotiate with GM, and President Obama’s administration refuses to demand UAW’s required reasonable negotiations.
President Obama should replace UAW President Ron Gettelfinger to save GM and Chrysler. With that decision, President Obama’s legal counsel could go into US Bankruptcy Court, require the UAW employees total labor cost be reduced by 33% to 50%, from some $150,000 annually to some $75,000 to $100,000 annually. This still substantial proposed income would leave the UAW labor force with a somewhat comfortable living income with benefits. GM and Chrysler can than endure as an integral part of American manufacturing. To survive, GM and Chrysler must be competitive in the marketplace. UAW members must reduce annual labor cost and benefits for GM and Chrysler, as well as for American and worldwide consumers. This “change” will immediately mushroom an additional 1 million jobs for our future generations. Americans need jobs now.
American taxpayers must not own 70% of GM, Chrysler, or any other industry in a free American economy. Government ownership and management in any free economy, transforms a generous economy into pure Socialism. Any open, free economy appoints, elect, and/or chooses its’ management. There is no capacity for appointed government bureaucrats to operate GM, Chrysler, or any other industry in a free American economy. Our manufacturing economy must be restored, but not with taxpayers’ manufacturing labor cost of $150,000 annually, which exceeds the equivalent of University Professors.
ConservativeChristianRepublican-Report - 20090528
Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable
"Daily Motivations"
"Marcia's right! You have to be able to identify what you really love and what you really want before you can get it". -- Oprah Winfrey
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
Present Pomp & Puffery! The children of Ammon made war against Israel (Judg. 11:4). When we think how we were treated in the past, it's easy to have a get even attitude in the present!
"He delights in every detail of their lives." (Psalm 37:23)
"The Patriot Post"
"The freedom and happiness of man...[are] the sole objects of all legitimate government." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1810
Make your problems disappear!
Men, if you think you have problems,
just remember....
... somewhere in the world there's a
Mr. Nancy Pelosi!
"Heritage Foundation"
A Troubling Decision, a Troubling Speech, and a Troubling Nomination
Posted May 27th, 2009 at 10.08am in Rule of Law.
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/05/27/a-troubling-decision-a-troubling-speech-and-a-troubling-nomination/
Imagine if you can a situation in which a white federal judge approved the clear and obvious discrimination engaged in by a small Southern town in denying black firefighters promotion by throwing out the results of a civil service examination. Only black firefighters did well enough on the racially-neutral exam to merit promotion, but the city decided to scrap the exam and not promote the successful test takers because none of them were white.
This same white federal judge also gave a speech at a prominent Southern university in which he said: “I would hope that a wise Caucasian man with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a black male who hasn’t lived that life.” In the same speech, the judge opines that white males engage in judging differently than black males “[w]hether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences.”
Does anyone doubt that if a president nominated that same federal judge to be on the U.S. Supreme Court, that his nomination would be still-born and that the president would be quickly (and rightly so) embarrassed into withdrawing the nomination?
Of course, that has not happened – or has it? Because if you simply change the races and ethnic groups being discussed, that is exactly what President Obama has done. In fact, Judge Sonia Sotomayor claimed in a speech at Berkley in 2001 that “wise” Latina women would make better decisions than white men and that those differences may be based on inherent genetic differences, something so outrageous that I still have a hard time believing that she could have said such a thing.
And in a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, Ricci v. New Haven, Judge Sotomayor approved the outright dismissal without trial of the discrimination claims of 19 white firefighters (one of whom suffers from dyslexia) and one Hispanic firefighter against the City of New Haven, Connecticut. There is no question that the city threw out the results of promotional exams because they were unsatisfied with the race of the successful exam takers – because no blacks (and seemingly not “enough” Hispanics) had scored well enough to be promoted. Judge Sotomayor also engaged in procedural trickery to try to bury the case and avoid Supreme Court review. The district court opinion was unpublished, so Sotomayor and her two fellow judges at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s opinion in a summary one paragraph order. Only after the 3-judge panel learned that the opinion would not be reviewed by the full Second Circuit did the panel withdraw that order and publish an opinion that incorporated the entire district court opinion as the operative law of the Second Circuit – using procedural shenanigans to make her views approving racial preferences the law of the entire Circuit.
Should discriminatory views of ethnicity be accepted if the individual with such a view is Hispanic? Should discriminatory treatment be accepted if it is aimed at whites (and Hispanics)? Not in our culture and our society, and certainly not in our legal system where we believe in the rule of law and the equal treatment of all individuals under the law. Judge Sotomayor’s views on race as expressed in her public speaking and her actions in the Ricci case are extremely troubling. They make it imperative that the Senate fulfill its full duty under the “Advice and Consent” clause of the Constitution to carefully and thoroughly examine Judge Sotomayor’s principles, character, and temperament before deciding whether she is qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.
"The Web"
Regarding Sotomayor's chances to avoid a filibuster of her nomination, Senator Orrin Hatch told Politico, “I'll tell you one thing, I'm not very happy about judges who will substitute their own policy preferences for what the law really is; who think that they can run the country from the bench when they actually have a limited role. And that role is to interpret the laws made by those who have to stand for reelection."
Despite Hatch's misgivings, Democratic Senators Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York sent a personal letter to President Barack Obama asking him to appoint a Latino to fill the next vacancy on the United States Supreme Court Back in April.
“It’s long overdue that a Latino sit on the United States Supreme Court. Sonia Sotomayor and Ken Salazar are two candidates who would make outstanding justices. They have top-notch legal minds, years of experience, moderate approaches to the law, and would make history by being the first Latino on the court,” Senator Schumer said.
"We are fortunate in New York State to have jurists of the caliber and intellect that Judge Sotomayor has exhibited during a lifelong career of service to the bench. As an accomplished jurists, as a woman, and as a Latina she would bring to the United States Supreme Court a much needed voice. We must be committed to diversity on our nation’s highest bench. These candidates will restore the balance that we so desperately need on the Court,” Senator Gillibrand said.
The Video CNN Doesnot Want You To See.
http://www.conservativenc.com/index.php/home/The-video-CNN-doesnt-want-you-to-see-.....html
What Thomas Jefferson learned from the Muslim book of jihad
By Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
http://www.usvetdsp.com/jan07/jeff_quran.htm
Democrat Keith Ellison is now officially the first Muslim United States congressman. True to his pledge, he placed his hand on the Quran, the Muslim book of jihad and pledged his allegiance to the United States during his ceremonial swearing-in.
Capitol Hill staff said Ellison's swearing-in photo opportunity drew more media than they had ever seen in the history of the U.S. House. Ellison represents the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota.
The Quran Ellison used was no ordinary book. It once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and one of America's founding fathers. Ellison borrowed it from the Rare Book Section of the Library of Congress. It was one of the 6,500 Jefferson books archived in the library.
Ellison, who was born in Detroit and converted to Islam while in college, said he chose to use Jefferson's Quran because it showed that "a visionary like Jefferson" believed that wisdom could be gleaned from many sources.
There is no doubt Ellison was right about Jefferson believing wisdom could be "gleaned" from the Muslim Quran. At the time Jefferson owned the book, he needed to know everything possible about Muslims because he was about to advocate war against the Islamic "Barbary" states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli.
Ellison's use of Jefferson's Quran as a prop illuminates a subject once well-known in the history of the United States, but, which today, is mostly forgotten - the Muslim pirate slavers who over many centuries enslaved millions of Africans and tens of thousands of Christian Europeans and Americans in the Islamic "Barbary" states.
Over the course of 10 centuries, Muslim pirates cruised the African and Mediterranean coastline, pillaging villages and seizing slaves.
The taking of slaves in pre-dawn raids on unsuspecting coastal villages had a high casualty rate. It was typical of Muslim raiders to kill off as many of the "non-Muslim" older men and women as possible so the preferred "booty" of only young women and children could be collected.
Young non-Muslim women were targeted because of their value as concubines in Islamic markets. Islamic law provides for the sexual interests of Muslim men by allowing them to take as many as four wives at one time and to have as many concubines as their fortunes allow.
Boys, as young as 9 or 10 years old, were often mutilated to create eunuchs who would bring higher prices in the slave markets of the Middle East. Muslim slave traders created "eunuch stations" along major African slave routes so the necessary surgery could be performed. It was estimated that only a small number of the boys subjected to the mutilation survived after the surgery.
When American colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American merchant ships lost Royal Navy protection. With no American Navy for protection, American ships were attacked and their Christian crews enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the "Dey of Algiers"--an Islamist warlord ruling Algeria.
Because American commerce in the Mediterranean was being destroyed by the pirates, the Continental Congress agreed in 1784 to negotiate treaties with the four Barbary States. Congress appointed a special commission consisting of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, to oversee the negotiations.
Lacking the ability to protect its merchant ships in the Mediterranean, the new America government tried to appease the Muslim slavers by agreeing to pay tribute and ransoms in order to retrieve seized American ships and buy the freedom of enslaved sailors.
Adams argued in favor of paying tribute as the cheapest way to get American commerce in the Mediterranean moving again. Jefferson was opposed. He believed there would be no end to the demands for tribute and wanted matters settled "through the medium of war." He proposed a league of trading nations to force an end to Muslim piracy.
In 1786, Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and Adams, then the American ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the "Dey of Algiers" ambassador to Britain.
The Americans wanted to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress' vote to appease.
During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey's ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.
In a later meeting with the American Congress, the two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."
For the following 15 years, the American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800.
Not long after Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, he dispatched a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress.
Declaring that America was going to spend "millions for defense but not one cent for tribute," Jefferson pressed the issue by deploying American Marines and many of America's best warships to the Muslim Barbary Coast.
The USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake, USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid all saw action.
In 1805, American Marines marched across the desert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves.
During the Jefferson administration, the Muslim Barbary States, crumbling as a result of intense American naval bombardment and on shore raids by Marines, finally officially agreed to abandon slavery and piracy.
Jefferson's victory over the Muslims lives on today in the Marine Hymn, with the line, "From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli, We fight our country's battles in the air, on land and sea."
It wasn't until 1815 that the problem was fully settled by the total defeat of all the Muslim slave trading pirates.
Jefferson had been right. The "medium of war" was the only way to put and end to the Muslim problem. Mr. Ellison was right about Jefferson. He was a "visionary" wise enough to read and learn about the enemy from their own Muslim book of jihad.
Obama's Partisan Pentagon
by Rowan Scarborough
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31826
Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ sweeping gag order prohibiting senior military officers from discussing the 2010 defense budget is raising fears of politicizing the Pentagon.
Six Republican House members wrote to Gates on May 5, saying his requirement that generals, admirals and senior civilians sign a non-disclosure agreement seems so broad the signers may withhold candid testimony on Capitol Hill.
The letter comes amid a disclosure of another apparent politicization of the Pentagon. Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, (D-Mi), sent a letter to Gates on February 2 asking that the Defense Department Inspector General re-do a January report that cleared the Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon of any wrongdoing in providing briefings some 70 retired military TV analysts. Gates relayed the letter to the acting inspector general, and subsequently the IG report was withdrawn.
The gag-order letter, spearheaded by Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), reveals a far-reaching agreement that could affect future testimony, not just 2010 budget deliberations inside the Pentagon. Gates announced his 2010 decisions on April 6, scaling back some of former president George W. Bush's key defense policies.
The gag-order covers information "predecisional or otherwise, concerning the administration's deliberation of the nature and amounts of the president's budget for fiscal 2010, and any supplemental budget request submitted during the current fiscal year." Military sources saying it is the first time -- at least in recent memory -- they recall a defense secretary requiring the Joint Chiefs, service secretaries and senior political appointees to sign a no-talk pledge. Usually, such requirements are done orally via the secretary office, and often ignored.
To Forbes, a House Armed Services member, and five other congressmen, the limits, in effect, censor future testimony.
"Can I expect a candid answer from a senior military official when I ask them about the process used to establish priorities, either now or after the president's detailed budget is released to the public?" the six Republicans asked Gates. "Members of Congress deserve candid answers from senior military officers that are not suppressed or censored -- either directly, or implicitly via culture of regulations that muzzle their independent professional judgment."
Noting Congress' constitutional duty to fund the military, the letter adds, "I am concerned that these restrictions on the deliberation of these tradeoffs are reflected in the president's budget this year and future years severely and unnecessarily limits the Congress in these constitutional duties."
The gag-order has sent a chill through the Pentagon. Some bureaucrats who normally talk to reporters on background, not attribution, responded to questions in recent weeks by saying they had been ordered not to talk.
Gates imposed the order to prevent leaks to the press and Congress, as he, his staff and military leaders negotiated major changes in defense policy, such as: cutting missile defense ground-based interceptors; freezing the F-22 fighter buy at 187; drastically scaling back the Army's battlefield Future Combat System; and retiring 250 Air Force fighters in one year alone.
The Pentagon denies the non-disclosure edict has chilled, or politicized, the building.
"Now that the budget is out, they can talk about anything that's other than security classification or predecisional information," said Robert Hale, the Pentagon's top budget officer.
The term "predecisional" is what rankles some in Congress. At hearings, military witnesses may give short, or incomplete answers, for fear of disclosing a pending decisions and risking Gates' anger.
"Secretary Gates' intention was to prevent leaks so that he could do this holistic rollout that you saw him do on April 6," Vice Adm. Steve Stanley, a budget director for the Joint Chiefs, told reporters. "He really wanted to make sure that he had the ability to put the whole story out before it started getting picked apart because of a specific piece of information leaking."
A chilling effect inside the building?
The service chiefs were part of all these discussions, and none of them are shrinking violets," he said. "They were not intimidated at all."
Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman, told HUMAN EVENTS that the Gates’ goal was not to silence debate but to enhance it by stopping piecemeal information from becoming public, thus influencing the internal debate.
"This budget was gong to be one greater than the sum of its parts," he said. "It was important he be able to solicit input from all senior leaders .... their opinions, their unvarnished thoughts on this."
"He was able to bring forward a coherent budget that presented a presented a coherent strategy and that was what we were trying to achieve," he said.
The non-disclosure agreement reads in part, "I recognize that a significant factor in the successful and proper preparation and completion of the President's budget is the strict confidentiality that must be observed by all government participants in the planning, programming, and budgeting process, and that a failure to comply with these confidentiality requirements may compromise the administration's ability to formulate and submit its budget."
New York Times-Driven Do-Over of IG Report?
Then there is the case of Senate Armed Services Chairman Levin, a committed foe of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Levin pushed the Pentagon inspector general to investigate the Rumsfeld Pentagon practice of briefing some 70 retired military analysts who offer opinion/assessments on TV, radio and in print.
His request followed a Pulitzer Prize-winning series in the New York Times that accused the analysts of winning contracts and other improprieties through the contacts made as a result of the Pentagon outreach program.
Rumsfeld’s people denied the charge. One referred to the Times' stories as fiction. In January, the IG come out with a report that exonerated Rumsfeld's men and apparently the military analysts as well. It said it found no evidence that any analysts got contracts for any companies they represented. It also found the program complied with existing laws and regulations.
Levin, who as chairman will have a big say in naming the next IG, was unhappy.
In February, he went directly to Gates. He wrote a letter, first disclosed in The Washington Times, expressing displeasure at the findings. He urged Gates to have the IG office, now run by an acting director, review the report and open up a whole new area of inquiry: the analysts' personal finances.
"While the report finds insufficient evidence to determine that any contractor received a competitive advantage as a result of its ties to retired military analysts, the report fails to assess whether the retired military analysts themselves obtained financial benefits from contractors as a result of their favorable access to DoD information and officials," Levin wrote. "I would appreciate if you would task the inspector general to conduct an additional review and analysis to address these issues."
Gates complied, telling Levin in a March 3 letter, "I have forwarded your concerns to the acting inspector general and asked that he conduct the additional review and analysis that you requested."
Earlier this month, the IG took the extraordinary step of withdrawing the entire report, raising the question of whether Levin and Gates were exercising improper control of the Inspector General, established by law to be entirely independent of political manipulation.
The IG's own written standards contain this admonition:
"The Inspector General and OIG staff must be free both in fact and appearance from personal, external, and organizational impairments to independence.. External impairments to independence occur when the OIG staff is deterred from acting objectively and exercising professional skepticism by pressures, actual or perceived, from management and employees of the reviewed entity or oversight organizations."
"Presumably that includes sitting U.S. senators," an aide to former Secretary Rumsfeld told HUMAN EVENTS.
Taken separately, the gag order and the IG report do-over are troubling at least. Together, they may signal an unprecedented politicization of the Pentagon including the professional military leadership and the independent-by-law inspector general.
"The e-mail Bag"
Does Your Campground Have a BC?
http://llerrahmusic.com/viewcard.php?code=236079
Boy’s Lesson
A young boy went up to his father and asked him, 'Dad, what is the difference between 'potentially' and 'realistically'?'
The father thought for a moment, then answered, 'Go ask your mother if she would sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars.
Then ask your sister if she would sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars, and then ask your brother if he'd sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars.
Come back and tell me what you learn from that.'
So the boy went to his mother and asked, 'Would you sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars?'
The mother replied, 'Of course I would! We could really use that money to fix up the house and send you kids to a great University!'
The boy then went to his sister and asked, 'Would you sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars?'
The girl replied, 'Oh my Gawd! I LOVE Brad Pitt I would sleep with him in a heartbeat, are you nuts?'
The boy then went to his brother and asked, 'Would you sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars?'
'Of course,' the brother replied. 'Do you know what a million bucks would buy?'
The boy pondered the answers for a few days and then went back to his dad.
His father asked him, 'Did you find out the difference between 'potentially' and 'realistically'?' The boy replied,
'Yes, 'Potentially', you and I are sitting on three million dollars ...
But 'realistically', we're living with two hookers and a queer.'
In Life, you don't stop laughing because you grow old, You grow old because you stop laughing!!!
"Daily Motivations"
"Marcia's right! You have to be able to identify what you really love and what you really want before you can get it". -- Oprah Winfrey
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
Present Pomp & Puffery! The children of Ammon made war against Israel (Judg. 11:4). When we think how we were treated in the past, it's easy to have a get even attitude in the present!
"He delights in every detail of their lives." (Psalm 37:23)
"The Patriot Post"
"The freedom and happiness of man...[are] the sole objects of all legitimate government." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1810
Make your problems disappear!
Men, if you think you have problems,
just remember....
... somewhere in the world there's a
Mr. Nancy Pelosi!
"Heritage Foundation"
A Troubling Decision, a Troubling Speech, and a Troubling Nomination
Posted May 27th, 2009 at 10.08am in Rule of Law.
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/05/27/a-troubling-decision-a-troubling-speech-and-a-troubling-nomination/
Imagine if you can a situation in which a white federal judge approved the clear and obvious discrimination engaged in by a small Southern town in denying black firefighters promotion by throwing out the results of a civil service examination. Only black firefighters did well enough on the racially-neutral exam to merit promotion, but the city decided to scrap the exam and not promote the successful test takers because none of them were white.
This same white federal judge also gave a speech at a prominent Southern university in which he said: “I would hope that a wise Caucasian man with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a black male who hasn’t lived that life.” In the same speech, the judge opines that white males engage in judging differently than black males “[w]hether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences.”
Does anyone doubt that if a president nominated that same federal judge to be on the U.S. Supreme Court, that his nomination would be still-born and that the president would be quickly (and rightly so) embarrassed into withdrawing the nomination?
Of course, that has not happened – or has it? Because if you simply change the races and ethnic groups being discussed, that is exactly what President Obama has done. In fact, Judge Sonia Sotomayor claimed in a speech at Berkley in 2001 that “wise” Latina women would make better decisions than white men and that those differences may be based on inherent genetic differences, something so outrageous that I still have a hard time believing that she could have said such a thing.
And in a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, Ricci v. New Haven, Judge Sotomayor approved the outright dismissal without trial of the discrimination claims of 19 white firefighters (one of whom suffers from dyslexia) and one Hispanic firefighter against the City of New Haven, Connecticut. There is no question that the city threw out the results of promotional exams because they were unsatisfied with the race of the successful exam takers – because no blacks (and seemingly not “enough” Hispanics) had scored well enough to be promoted. Judge Sotomayor also engaged in procedural trickery to try to bury the case and avoid Supreme Court review. The district court opinion was unpublished, so Sotomayor and her two fellow judges at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s opinion in a summary one paragraph order. Only after the 3-judge panel learned that the opinion would not be reviewed by the full Second Circuit did the panel withdraw that order and publish an opinion that incorporated the entire district court opinion as the operative law of the Second Circuit – using procedural shenanigans to make her views approving racial preferences the law of the entire Circuit.
Should discriminatory views of ethnicity be accepted if the individual with such a view is Hispanic? Should discriminatory treatment be accepted if it is aimed at whites (and Hispanics)? Not in our culture and our society, and certainly not in our legal system where we believe in the rule of law and the equal treatment of all individuals under the law. Judge Sotomayor’s views on race as expressed in her public speaking and her actions in the Ricci case are extremely troubling. They make it imperative that the Senate fulfill its full duty under the “Advice and Consent” clause of the Constitution to carefully and thoroughly examine Judge Sotomayor’s principles, character, and temperament before deciding whether she is qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.
"The Web"
Regarding Sotomayor's chances to avoid a filibuster of her nomination, Senator Orrin Hatch told Politico, “I'll tell you one thing, I'm not very happy about judges who will substitute their own policy preferences for what the law really is; who think that they can run the country from the bench when they actually have a limited role. And that role is to interpret the laws made by those who have to stand for reelection."
Despite Hatch's misgivings, Democratic Senators Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York sent a personal letter to President Barack Obama asking him to appoint a Latino to fill the next vacancy on the United States Supreme Court Back in April.
“It’s long overdue that a Latino sit on the United States Supreme Court. Sonia Sotomayor and Ken Salazar are two candidates who would make outstanding justices. They have top-notch legal minds, years of experience, moderate approaches to the law, and would make history by being the first Latino on the court,” Senator Schumer said.
"We are fortunate in New York State to have jurists of the caliber and intellect that Judge Sotomayor has exhibited during a lifelong career of service to the bench. As an accomplished jurists, as a woman, and as a Latina she would bring to the United States Supreme Court a much needed voice. We must be committed to diversity on our nation’s highest bench. These candidates will restore the balance that we so desperately need on the Court,” Senator Gillibrand said.
The Video CNN Doesnot Want You To See.
http://www.conservativenc.com/index.php/home/The-video-CNN-doesnt-want-you-to-see-.....html
What Thomas Jefferson learned from the Muslim book of jihad
By Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
http://www.usvetdsp.com/jan07/jeff_quran.htm
Democrat Keith Ellison is now officially the first Muslim United States congressman. True to his pledge, he placed his hand on the Quran, the Muslim book of jihad and pledged his allegiance to the United States during his ceremonial swearing-in.
Capitol Hill staff said Ellison's swearing-in photo opportunity drew more media than they had ever seen in the history of the U.S. House. Ellison represents the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota.
The Quran Ellison used was no ordinary book. It once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and one of America's founding fathers. Ellison borrowed it from the Rare Book Section of the Library of Congress. It was one of the 6,500 Jefferson books archived in the library.
Ellison, who was born in Detroit and converted to Islam while in college, said he chose to use Jefferson's Quran because it showed that "a visionary like Jefferson" believed that wisdom could be gleaned from many sources.
There is no doubt Ellison was right about Jefferson believing wisdom could be "gleaned" from the Muslim Quran. At the time Jefferson owned the book, he needed to know everything possible about Muslims because he was about to advocate war against the Islamic "Barbary" states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli.
Ellison's use of Jefferson's Quran as a prop illuminates a subject once well-known in the history of the United States, but, which today, is mostly forgotten - the Muslim pirate slavers who over many centuries enslaved millions of Africans and tens of thousands of Christian Europeans and Americans in the Islamic "Barbary" states.
Over the course of 10 centuries, Muslim pirates cruised the African and Mediterranean coastline, pillaging villages and seizing slaves.
The taking of slaves in pre-dawn raids on unsuspecting coastal villages had a high casualty rate. It was typical of Muslim raiders to kill off as many of the "non-Muslim" older men and women as possible so the preferred "booty" of only young women and children could be collected.
Young non-Muslim women were targeted because of their value as concubines in Islamic markets. Islamic law provides for the sexual interests of Muslim men by allowing them to take as many as four wives at one time and to have as many concubines as their fortunes allow.
Boys, as young as 9 or 10 years old, were often mutilated to create eunuchs who would bring higher prices in the slave markets of the Middle East. Muslim slave traders created "eunuch stations" along major African slave routes so the necessary surgery could be performed. It was estimated that only a small number of the boys subjected to the mutilation survived after the surgery.
When American colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American merchant ships lost Royal Navy protection. With no American Navy for protection, American ships were attacked and their Christian crews enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the "Dey of Algiers"--an Islamist warlord ruling Algeria.
Because American commerce in the Mediterranean was being destroyed by the pirates, the Continental Congress agreed in 1784 to negotiate treaties with the four Barbary States. Congress appointed a special commission consisting of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, to oversee the negotiations.
Lacking the ability to protect its merchant ships in the Mediterranean, the new America government tried to appease the Muslim slavers by agreeing to pay tribute and ransoms in order to retrieve seized American ships and buy the freedom of enslaved sailors.
Adams argued in favor of paying tribute as the cheapest way to get American commerce in the Mediterranean moving again. Jefferson was opposed. He believed there would be no end to the demands for tribute and wanted matters settled "through the medium of war." He proposed a league of trading nations to force an end to Muslim piracy.
In 1786, Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and Adams, then the American ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the "Dey of Algiers" ambassador to Britain.
The Americans wanted to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress' vote to appease.
During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey's ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.
In a later meeting with the American Congress, the two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."
For the following 15 years, the American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800.
Not long after Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, he dispatched a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress.
Declaring that America was going to spend "millions for defense but not one cent for tribute," Jefferson pressed the issue by deploying American Marines and many of America's best warships to the Muslim Barbary Coast.
The USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake, USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid all saw action.
In 1805, American Marines marched across the desert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves.
During the Jefferson administration, the Muslim Barbary States, crumbling as a result of intense American naval bombardment and on shore raids by Marines, finally officially agreed to abandon slavery and piracy.
Jefferson's victory over the Muslims lives on today in the Marine Hymn, with the line, "From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli, We fight our country's battles in the air, on land and sea."
It wasn't until 1815 that the problem was fully settled by the total defeat of all the Muslim slave trading pirates.
Jefferson had been right. The "medium of war" was the only way to put and end to the Muslim problem. Mr. Ellison was right about Jefferson. He was a "visionary" wise enough to read and learn about the enemy from their own Muslim book of jihad.
Obama's Partisan Pentagon
by Rowan Scarborough
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31826
Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ sweeping gag order prohibiting senior military officers from discussing the 2010 defense budget is raising fears of politicizing the Pentagon.
Six Republican House members wrote to Gates on May 5, saying his requirement that generals, admirals and senior civilians sign a non-disclosure agreement seems so broad the signers may withhold candid testimony on Capitol Hill.
The letter comes amid a disclosure of another apparent politicization of the Pentagon. Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, (D-Mi), sent a letter to Gates on February 2 asking that the Defense Department Inspector General re-do a January report that cleared the Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon of any wrongdoing in providing briefings some 70 retired military TV analysts. Gates relayed the letter to the acting inspector general, and subsequently the IG report was withdrawn.
The gag-order letter, spearheaded by Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), reveals a far-reaching agreement that could affect future testimony, not just 2010 budget deliberations inside the Pentagon. Gates announced his 2010 decisions on April 6, scaling back some of former president George W. Bush's key defense policies.
The gag-order covers information "predecisional or otherwise, concerning the administration's deliberation of the nature and amounts of the president's budget for fiscal 2010, and any supplemental budget request submitted during the current fiscal year." Military sources saying it is the first time -- at least in recent memory -- they recall a defense secretary requiring the Joint Chiefs, service secretaries and senior political appointees to sign a no-talk pledge. Usually, such requirements are done orally via the secretary office, and often ignored.
To Forbes, a House Armed Services member, and five other congressmen, the limits, in effect, censor future testimony.
"Can I expect a candid answer from a senior military official when I ask them about the process used to establish priorities, either now or after the president's detailed budget is released to the public?" the six Republicans asked Gates. "Members of Congress deserve candid answers from senior military officers that are not suppressed or censored -- either directly, or implicitly via culture of regulations that muzzle their independent professional judgment."
Noting Congress' constitutional duty to fund the military, the letter adds, "I am concerned that these restrictions on the deliberation of these tradeoffs are reflected in the president's budget this year and future years severely and unnecessarily limits the Congress in these constitutional duties."
The gag-order has sent a chill through the Pentagon. Some bureaucrats who normally talk to reporters on background, not attribution, responded to questions in recent weeks by saying they had been ordered not to talk.
Gates imposed the order to prevent leaks to the press and Congress, as he, his staff and military leaders negotiated major changes in defense policy, such as: cutting missile defense ground-based interceptors; freezing the F-22 fighter buy at 187; drastically scaling back the Army's battlefield Future Combat System; and retiring 250 Air Force fighters in one year alone.
The Pentagon denies the non-disclosure edict has chilled, or politicized, the building.
"Now that the budget is out, they can talk about anything that's other than security classification or predecisional information," said Robert Hale, the Pentagon's top budget officer.
The term "predecisional" is what rankles some in Congress. At hearings, military witnesses may give short, or incomplete answers, for fear of disclosing a pending decisions and risking Gates' anger.
"Secretary Gates' intention was to prevent leaks so that he could do this holistic rollout that you saw him do on April 6," Vice Adm. Steve Stanley, a budget director for the Joint Chiefs, told reporters. "He really wanted to make sure that he had the ability to put the whole story out before it started getting picked apart because of a specific piece of information leaking."
A chilling effect inside the building?
The service chiefs were part of all these discussions, and none of them are shrinking violets," he said. "They were not intimidated at all."
Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman, told HUMAN EVENTS that the Gates’ goal was not to silence debate but to enhance it by stopping piecemeal information from becoming public, thus influencing the internal debate.
"This budget was gong to be one greater than the sum of its parts," he said. "It was important he be able to solicit input from all senior leaders .... their opinions, their unvarnished thoughts on this."
"He was able to bring forward a coherent budget that presented a presented a coherent strategy and that was what we were trying to achieve," he said.
The non-disclosure agreement reads in part, "I recognize that a significant factor in the successful and proper preparation and completion of the President's budget is the strict confidentiality that must be observed by all government participants in the planning, programming, and budgeting process, and that a failure to comply with these confidentiality requirements may compromise the administration's ability to formulate and submit its budget."
New York Times-Driven Do-Over of IG Report?
Then there is the case of Senate Armed Services Chairman Levin, a committed foe of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Levin pushed the Pentagon inspector general to investigate the Rumsfeld Pentagon practice of briefing some 70 retired military analysts who offer opinion/assessments on TV, radio and in print.
His request followed a Pulitzer Prize-winning series in the New York Times that accused the analysts of winning contracts and other improprieties through the contacts made as a result of the Pentagon outreach program.
Rumsfeld’s people denied the charge. One referred to the Times' stories as fiction. In January, the IG come out with a report that exonerated Rumsfeld's men and apparently the military analysts as well. It said it found no evidence that any analysts got contracts for any companies they represented. It also found the program complied with existing laws and regulations.
Levin, who as chairman will have a big say in naming the next IG, was unhappy.
In February, he went directly to Gates. He wrote a letter, first disclosed in The Washington Times, expressing displeasure at the findings. He urged Gates to have the IG office, now run by an acting director, review the report and open up a whole new area of inquiry: the analysts' personal finances.
"While the report finds insufficient evidence to determine that any contractor received a competitive advantage as a result of its ties to retired military analysts, the report fails to assess whether the retired military analysts themselves obtained financial benefits from contractors as a result of their favorable access to DoD information and officials," Levin wrote. "I would appreciate if you would task the inspector general to conduct an additional review and analysis to address these issues."
Gates complied, telling Levin in a March 3 letter, "I have forwarded your concerns to the acting inspector general and asked that he conduct the additional review and analysis that you requested."
Earlier this month, the IG took the extraordinary step of withdrawing the entire report, raising the question of whether Levin and Gates were exercising improper control of the Inspector General, established by law to be entirely independent of political manipulation.
The IG's own written standards contain this admonition:
"The Inspector General and OIG staff must be free both in fact and appearance from personal, external, and organizational impairments to independence.. External impairments to independence occur when the OIG staff is deterred from acting objectively and exercising professional skepticism by pressures, actual or perceived, from management and employees of the reviewed entity or oversight organizations."
"Presumably that includes sitting U.S. senators," an aide to former Secretary Rumsfeld told HUMAN EVENTS.
Taken separately, the gag order and the IG report do-over are troubling at least. Together, they may signal an unprecedented politicization of the Pentagon including the professional military leadership and the independent-by-law inspector general.
"The e-mail Bag"
Does Your Campground Have a BC?
http://llerrahmusic.com/viewcard.php?code=236079
Boy’s Lesson
A young boy went up to his father and asked him, 'Dad, what is the difference between 'potentially' and 'realistically'?'
The father thought for a moment, then answered, 'Go ask your mother if she would sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars.
Then ask your sister if she would sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars, and then ask your brother if he'd sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars.
Come back and tell me what you learn from that.'
So the boy went to his mother and asked, 'Would you sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars?'
The mother replied, 'Of course I would! We could really use that money to fix up the house and send you kids to a great University!'
The boy then went to his sister and asked, 'Would you sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars?'
The girl replied, 'Oh my Gawd! I LOVE Brad Pitt I would sleep with him in a heartbeat, are you nuts?'
The boy then went to his brother and asked, 'Would you sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars?'
'Of course,' the brother replied. 'Do you know what a million bucks would buy?'
The boy pondered the answers for a few days and then went back to his dad.
His father asked him, 'Did you find out the difference between 'potentially' and 'realistically'?' The boy replied,
'Yes, 'Potentially', you and I are sitting on three million dollars ...
But 'realistically', we're living with two hookers and a queer.'
In Life, you don't stop laughing because you grow old, You grow old because you stop laughing!!!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
ConservativeChristianRepublican-Report - 20090527
Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable
"Daily Motivations"
May you choose to see beyond life's storms, to uncover the blessings that the rain brings, and during all of life's twists and turns, may you always choose. -- Michelle Sedas
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
Set Your Compass in the Right Direction All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach (2 Tim. 3:16). The purpose of the Bible is to proclaim God's plan to save his children.
"No, I will not abandon you as orphans - I will come to you." (John 14:18)
"The Patriot Post"
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.." -- Thomas Paine
"At some point someone is going to file a suit in Federal court asking for clarity as to just where in the U.S. Constitution it is provided that the Executive Branch can buy a bankrupt car company." -- political analyst Rich Galen
"So far, the Obama administration has yet to lay out its magical thinking on how the homegrown auto makers are to become 'viable' when required to subordinate every auto attribute that consumers find desirable in favor of achieving a passenger-car average of 39 miles per gallon by 2016. Nonetheless the answer has quietly seeped out: Taxpayers will write $5,000 or $7,000 rebate checks to other taxpayers to bribe them to buy hybrids and plug-ins at a price that lets Detroit claim it's earning a 'profit' on its Obamamobiles." -- columnist Holman Jenkins Jr.
"The Obama administration is bent on becoming a major player in -- if not taking over entirely -- America's health-care, automobile and banking industries. Before that happens, it might be a good idea to look at the government's track record in running economic enterprises. It is terrible." -- author John Steele Gordon
"Does anybody really believe that adding 50 million people to the public health-care rolls will not cost the government more money? About $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion more? At least. So let's be serious when evaluating President Obama's goal of universal health care, and the idea that it's a cost-cutter. Can't happen. Won't happen. Costs are going to explode." --economist Larry Kudlow
"Just how much government debt does a president have to endorse before he's labeled 'irresponsible'"? -- columnist Robert Samuelson
"We live in an era in which conservatives have not effectively outlined the proper and limited role of government, and as a direct consequence of our failures, more and more of our citizens are turning to an ever-encroaching government in times of crisis. Yet to allow the balance of power in this nation to continue to shift further and further toward government and thus further and further from liberty is to surrender the very thing that makes America so historically unique." -- South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford
"ACU"
May 26, 2009
At 10:15 this morning President Barack Obama stepped up to the microphone to announce a nomination to the Supreme Court.
He nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor of New York. It should not be surprising that his pick has a background that suggests liberal tendencies. It is the President's right and obligation to nominate judges for the Supreme Court. However, it is the U.S. Senate's job to confirm those appointments. This is one of the U.S. Senate's most important duties.
Our U.S. Senators need to ask the tough questions and not rubber stamp Obama's nominee.
It is critical that as Senators privately and publicly question Judge Sotomayor that they ensure she doesn't bring too many ultra liberal, preconceived notions to the bench.
It is important that they get to the bottom of her views on race and gender, especially in light of what we have learned.
That is why ACU is launching a Petition to the Senate - especially targeting our conservative and moderate Senators. Does she support true equality - not focusing on gender and race - and the constitution? Does she support rights endowed by our creator, or not? Sign the ACU petition here.
The mass media is already noting that race and gender seemed to be part of the pick from the President. The WASHINGTON POST has written over the last couple of hours, "If confirmed, Sotomayor, 54, would be the first Supreme Court justice of Hispanic descent and only the third woman ever to sit on the panel."
The POST also reported, "Picking Sotomayor offers the president an opportunity to potentially shape the court in a way that his liberal constituency will like."
How could she shape the court for the liberals? There seems to be answers in statements she has made on her judicial philosophy.
The ASSOCIATED PRESS reported she said: "I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging," - in a speech in 2002. "But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage."
ACU is launching a Petition Efforts to the Senate - especially targeting our conservative and the moderate Senators. Does she really support true equality - not focusing on gender and race - and the constitution? Does she support rights endowed by our creator, or not? Sign the ACU petition here.
DETROIT FREE PRESS columnist Stephen Henderson said the pick was "Obama's missed opportunity."
Henderson wrote, "By all accounts, Federal Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's pick for the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice David Souter, will be every bit the reliable, liberal vote that Democrats want on the court." Stotomayor, he said, "...has a reputation for being pretty far left."
Henderson notes that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor often said that a wise old man and a wise old woman would generally decide cases the same way.
However, Henderson points out something very disturbing about Sotomayor. He reports that she said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
Really? Does Judge Sotomayor believe that white men - or maybe even white women - do not have the experience to reach good conclusions? Does it matter what their skin color or background is in making decisions?
He went on to say, "at worst, her comments can be interpreted as indulging the same bigotry she purports to abhor."
ACU is launching a Petition Efforts to the Senate - especially targeting our conservative and the moderate Senators. Does she really support true equality - not focusing on gender and race - and the constitution? Does she support rights endowed by our creator, or not? Sign the ACU petition here.
Sotomayor's previous decisions also highlight problems in this area.
In a case which has already been appealed to the current Supreme Court, Judge Sotomayor ruled with other judges against white firefighters who went to court after not receiving a promotion based on testing. They scored better on tests than others but their city didn't want to promote only firefighters who appeared white in skin color. She ruled in favor of keeping the racial quota system and denied the firefighter's claims of racial discrimination.
Judge Jose Cabranes, a Clinton appointee, attacked Judge Sotomayor's decision. In a dissent he wrote the case should have been explored more fully and that the firefighter's claims were "worthy" of "review" by the Supreme Court. He was joined in his dissent by 5 other judges.
ACU is launching a Petition Efforts to the Senate - especially targeting our conservative and the moderate Senators. Does she really support true equality - not focusing on gender and race - and the constitution? Does she support rights endowed by our creator, or not? Sign the ACU petition here.
As we have repeatedly stated, we need judges who uphold the Constitution not try to legislate from the bench. Many of the bad decisions that have come from our courts came as a result of judges who overturn laws, passed by elected representatives, with which they appear to personally disagree.
The DALLAS MORNING NEWS and others have noted Sotomayor said in 2005 at a Duke Law School conference, "the court of appeals is where policy is made." She added, "And I know this is on tape and I should never say that ..."
ACU is launching a Petition Efforts to the Senate - especially targeting our conservative and the moderate Senators. Does she really support true equality - not focusing on gender and race - and the constitution? Does she support rights endowed by our creator, or not? Sign the ACU petition here.
What does she believe her role should be on the Supreme Court? Is it about providing justice for American citizens or about her personal agenda?
We need to ask the Senate to do their job. They must ask the tough questions. They need to get the answers.
Help us send the message here.
The American people deserve the truth.
Sincerely,
Dennis Whitfield
P.S. Senators say they hear quite a bit from those on the left who are bolstered by a liberal media. Please help us correct the imbalance. Send a message now. Sign the ACU petition here.
"Find Law"
Charges Filed in Bronx Terror Plot
U.S. V. CROMITIE, ET AL.
(U.S. Dist. Ct., S.D. N.Y., May 21, 2009) - Four suspects face federal charges of plotting to: 1) blow up a synagogue in a Bronx, New York City neighborhood; 2) shoot down U.S. military aircraft with shoulder-held Stinger surface-to-air missiles; and 3) attack a Air National Guard base with an IED using C-4 plastic explosives. Read more... http://news.lp.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/uscromitie51909cmp.html
Related Resources
• FBI foils plot to bomb NYC temple; 4 men charged (AP) http://news.lp.findlaw.com/ap/other/1110/05-21-2009/20090521025009_03.html
Cal. High Court Upholds Same-Sex Marriage Ban, Existing Marriages Valid
STRAUSS, ET AL. V. HORTON, ET AL.
(Cal. Supreme Ct., May 26, 2009) - California's Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, the state's legislative ban against same-sex marriages, but also upheld previously formalized marriages between gay and lesbian couples before the ban took effect. Read more...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/glrts/cal-prop8-same-sex-marriage.html
"The Web"
Now That's God -- click here.
http://www.passionup.com:80/mp/blank/blank100.htm?e=imkld@yahoo.com&f=imkld@yahoo.com&cfp=1&h=7a49f7e8064d5e26&mp=1
For Coburn, no backing down on spending
Senator free to ruffle feathers as re-election's not a concern
By Kara Rowland (Contact) | Tuesday, May 26, 2009
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/26/no-backing-down-on-spending/
Despite being in the minority in a Senate that is more tilted to Democrats than at any time in the past three decades, Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, has gone head to head with Majority Leader Harry Reid - and won.
His secret: He doesn't care.
Mr. Coburn's nonchalance about his own political future has given him the freedom to be Capitol Hill's most outspoken fiscal hawk and guardian of the Constitution. Most recently, his persistence paid off as he was able to attach an amendment allowing licensed firearms in some federal parks to a consumer credit card bill last week.
"I don't go away. He's learned that," Mr. Coburn says of his frequent floor battles with Mr. Reid. "Since I don't care whether I get beat up or not, I'm really dangerous for him."
In a chamber dominated by career politicians, Mr. Coburn has not shied away from ruffling feathers in his obsessive pursuit of shrinking the government. He rails against government waste with equal vigor be the culprits Democrats, Republicans or both.
That's because, he warns, the next generation's standard of living hangs in the balance. "We are stealing your very future. It is going away as we speak."
Four years into his first Senate term, the 61-year-old obstetrician is a self-described citizen legislator who has pledged to serve no more than two terms. He similarly limited himself to three terms in the House, where he served from 1995 to 2001.
Mr. Coburn's stated reasons for public service are a far cry from the grandiose, boilerplate response one might expect from a member of Congress.
"I was disgusted and worried," he says flatly. "I think what we have is at risk, and it's actually much more at risk today than it ever has been."
As a member of the Republican Revolution's freshman class, he was frustrated by the House Republican leadership's failure to follow through on its Contract With America, later penning a book about the experience called "Breach of Trust."
Iranian Air Traffic Control
In addition to communicating with the local Air Traffic Control facility, all aircraft in the Persian Gulf AOR are required to give the Iranian Air Defense Radar (military) a ten minute 'heads up' if they will be transiting Iranian airspace.
This is a common procedure for commercial aircraft and involves giving them your call sign, transponder code, type aircraft, and points of origin and destination.
I just flew with a guy who overheard this conversation on the VHF Guard (emergency) frequency 121.5 MHz while flying from Europe to Dubai . It's too good not to pass along.
The conversation went like this...
Iranian Air Defense Radar: 'Unknown aircraft you are in Iranian airspace. Identify yourself.'
Aircraft: 'This is a United States aircraft. I am in Iraqi airspace.'
Air Defense Radar: 'You are in Iranian airspace. If you do not depart our airspace we will launch interceptor aircraft!'
Aircraft: 'This is a United States Marine Corps FA-18 fighter. Send 'em up, I'll wait!'
Air Defense Radar: (no response .... total silence)
Speaker Pelosi’s Controversial Marxist Connections
AIM Column | By Cliff Kincaid | May 24, 2009
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/speaker-pelosis-controversial-marxist-connections/
Pelosi tried desperately to avoid being open and honest about her charges against the CIA.
Like the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does not have to go through a background investigation in order to get a security clearance. This loophole in the law enables the president and members of Congress to automatically qualify for security clearances, even if they have controversial backgrounds and associations, by virtue of the fact that they get elected to high office in Washington, D.C.
In the case of Speaker Pelosi, who is second in the line of succession to the presidency after the vice president, there is increasing concern about whether she can be trusted with national security secrets. But the concern not only involves her unsubstantiated charges against the CIA over what officials told her about the treatment of terrorists, but her close personal relationship with pro-Castro Rep. Barbara Lee and the "progressive" Hallinan family of San Francisco, once under scrutiny by the California Senate Fact-finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities for their pro-Soviet propaganda efforts.
Pelosi used a Friday news conference to offer up other members of the House Democratic leadership as "human shields" to deflect questions from the press about the CIA controversy. They droned on about the liberal legislative agenda.
At the very end of the news conference, as Pelosi was trying to leave the podium and had already issued an edict that she didn't have anything more to say about the CIA matter, a reporter tried to ask a question about Rep. Steve King's intention to introduce a resolution asking the House to suspend Pelosi's security clearance until the controversy is resolved. The reporter asked, "And were you aware that Steve King is asking for your security clearance to be revoked?" But Pelosi walked away without commenting.
With the help of the mainstream media, Pelosi is obviously hoping that she can stonewall further inquiry. On Sunday's "Meet the Press," Washington Post liberal columnist Eugene Robinson, a follower of the Democratic Party line, declared that he wasn't sure that she was "in such terrible political danger" and that "People underestimate Nancy Pelosi sometimes as a politician."
Pelosi the politician is clearly depending on the press to stop asking questions.
However, since Pelosi and other elected officials don't have to go through background investigations, it is the job of the media to perform this function. In the case of Pelosi, it is long overdue.
San Francisco Democrat
Pelosi has represented the city of San Francisco, perhaps the most liberal in the nation, since 1987, and is a very close friend of Rep. Barbara Lee, who represents neighboring Oakland and Berkeley, California, and is the most vocal apologist for Communist Cuba in Congress today. Lee, head of the Congressional Black Caucus, recently led a delegation to Cuba to meet with the Castro brothers to discuss normalization of relations. But she paid no attention to political dissidents or political prisoners being held on the communist island.
Lee, who calls Pelosi "a magnificent woman" and "one of California's greatest representatives," began her career in the California state legislature as a secret member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, a spin-off from the Communist Party. As a member of the staff of Rep. Ron Dellums, Lee was shown to have been collaborating with communist officials on the island of Grenada, according to documents captured after the liberation of that island nation. These revelations have not hurt Lee's standing with Pelosi and other "progressives." Indeed, Lee also served as the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
But even more interesting than the Barbara Lee connection is Pelosi's long-time friendship and association with Vincent and Vivian Hallinan, one of the most radical left-wing families in San Francisco over the course of five decades.
Pelosi hailed them as "one of San Francisco's great Irish families" in a March 17, 1999, statement, after the passing of Vivian Hallinan. "Vivian was a pioneer, a mentor and a leader," Pelosi said. "Our community was blessed by her presence and will long remember her many significant contributions to improving society. I will miss my friend, Vivian."
Notice use of the term "mentor."
Pelosi called Vivian Hallinan, who openly held "socialist" views, a "pioneer" in "a wide range of progressive causes."
But these causes included support for communists in Central America during the 1980s, when Soviet- and Cuban-backed forces were subverting Central America through violence and terrorism and fighting for control of the region.
Indeed, Pelosi paid tribute to Vivian Hallinan by inserting into the Congressional Record an article saying that she had "opposed U.S. policy in Central America" under President Reagan, had "befriended Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua's [Communist] Sandinista leader," and had met with Cuban dictator Castro.
"She was a role model for many of us," Pelosi said. "If Vincent was the lion, Vivian was the lioness."
"My mother and Nancy were pretty close," acknowledges Conn Hallinan, one of their sons.
Official Scrutiny
The names of the Hallinans, including some of their sons, are included in the annual volumes of the California State Senate Fact-Finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities. The subcommittee was a well-regarded investigative body which examined not only communist activities in California but right-wing groups such as the John Birch Society and the Minutemen.
In the case of the Hallinans, there was a lot to examine. Vincent Hallinan, a lawyer who died in 1992, was a founding member of the San Francisco chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, officially designated a front of the Communist Party, and defended secret Communist Party member and labor leader Harry Bridges.
In addition, he was a self-described "roaring atheist" who specialized in attacks on the Catholic Church. In one case, according to the New York Times, he "sued the Roman Catholic Church for fraud, demanding that it prove the existence of heaven and hell."
Vincent Hallinan also ran for president on the ticket of the Progressive Party, "a creature of the Communist apparatus, and completely dominated by the Communist Party from start to finish," the subcommittee said.
A 1961 subcommittee report says that Vincent Hallinan traveled to the Soviet Union with his wife to vouch for the legitimacy of the communist show trial of Francis Gary Powers, the American U-2 pilot shot down over the Soviet Union. Powers' mission had been to document the Soviet missile build-up. It adds, "[Vincent] Hallinan's glowing accounts of the Soviet Union and favorable comments concerning the fairness accorded Powers at his trial were sold in great quantity by the Communist Book Stores both in San Francisco and in Los Angeles."
A 1953 edition of the report states that Vincent Hallinan was a participant in a meeting of the Committee to Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case, a "Communist front organization." The Rosenbergs were communists executed for committing atomic espionage against the United States on behalf of the Soviet Union.
A wealthy woman, Vivian Hallinan had contributed financially to one of Pelosi's campaigns. Her only other political contributions on the federal level, as recorded by the Federal Election Commission, went to Senator Barbara Boxer and Reps. Barbara Lee and Ronald V. Dellums.
The "Progressive Champion"
Despite her pro-communist record, Lee will be honored as a "progressive champion" at the June 2 "awards gala" sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future, perhaps the largest "progressive" group in the U.S. The gala, held in conjunction with a conference, is being chaired by the AFL-CIO, whose president, John Sweeney, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is also being honored; the Service Employees International Union; the National Education Association; and Hollywood producer Norman Lear, among others.
Fenton Communications, the public relations firm which represented George Soros during his attempt to buy the White House in 2004, is one of several groups and individuals on the Gala Awards host committee.
At the group's 2006 conference, Pelosi was a featured attraction, telling the assembled "progressives" that if Democrats took control of Congress and made her speaker that Democrats would "make the most corrupt, closed Congress in history the most open and honest Congress in history."
On Friday, however, Pelosi tried desperately to avoid being open and honest about her charges against the CIA.
Time to Drop the Matter
One reporter did note that after Pelosi charged that she had been misled by the CIA, Republican House Leader John Boehner had said that she needed to produce the evidence or apologize, and that CIA director Leon Panetta has said the CIA was not in the practice of misleading Congress.
Pelosi replied, "I have made the statement that I'm going to make on this. I don't have anything more to say about it. I stand by my comments. And what we are doing is staying on our course and not be distracted from it in this distractive mode. We're going forward in a bipartisan way for jobs, health care, and energy for our country. And on the subject that you asked, I've made the statement that I'm going to make. I won't have anything more to that about it."
Pressed for further explanation, she reiterated, "I won't have anything more to say about it."
The New York Times thought the performance was impressive, declaring that Pelosi had stuck to the "script" and had not succumbed to "the impatient media horde."
This is a signal to the rest of the press that they should drop the matter.
Notre Dame Holds First Alan Keyes Fundraiser
by Ann Coulter
How about for next year's graduation ceremony Notre Dame have an abortionist perform an abortion live on stage? They could have a partial-birth abortion for the advanced degrees.
According to liberals, the right to kill babies was enshrined by the Founding Fathers in our Constitution -- and other constitutional rights are celebrated in public.
The right to bear arms is honored in 21-gun salutes, turkey shoots, Civil War re-enactments, firearms demonstrations and, occasionally, at Phil Spector's house.
The right to petition the government for redress of grievances is celebrated at political rallies, tea parties, marches, protests and whenever Keith Olbermann has a fight with his cat.
The free exercise clause is observed in church services, missionary work, peyote-smoking Indian rituals, and for a few days after every time Bill Clinton gets caught having an extramarital affair.
So instead of inviting a constitutional lawyer to yammer on about this purported constitutional right, why not show it being practiced?
How about a 21-vacuum hose (D&C) salute? Maybe have the Notre Dame marching band form a giant skull-piercing fork? How about having the president throw out the ceremonial first fetus, like on opening day in baseball? I'm just brainstorming here, folks -- none of this is written in stone.
Being such a prestigious institution, Notre Dame could probably get famed partial-birth abortion practitioner George Tiller to do the demonstration at next year's graduation. Obama could help -- inasmuch as Tiller the abortionist is a close friend of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
This is a "constitutional right" like no other.
Even its supporters are embarrassed by the exercise of this right. They won't practice the right in public -- they won't even call abortion by its name, preferring to use a string of constantly changing euphemisms, such as "reproductive health" and "choice."
It would be as if gun owners refused to use the word "gun" and the NRA's motto were, "Let's all work together to keep hunting safe, legal and rare."
Liberals were awestruck by Obama's statesmanlike speech at Notre Dame, but whatever he says about abortion is frothy nonsense because we're not allowed to vote on abortion policy in America. If it's a "constitutional right," we can no more vote on abortion than we could vote on free speech.
With Roe v. Wade, abortion supporters ripped the issue out of the democratic process -- limb from limb, you might say -- and declared their desired outcome a "constitutional right." They have hysterically defended that lawless decision for the last quarter-century.
All of Obama's soothing words about joining hands and not demonizing one another are just blather as long as that legal monstrosity remains the law of the land.
Showing his open-mindedness, Obama asked, "How does each of us remain firm in our principles ... without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?" (What do I have to do to get you murderers and you non-murderers to shake hands and be friends?)
A good start would be letting us vote.
Liberals can be all sweet reason as long as their preference for abortion on demand is lyingly called a "constitutional right," immutable to the tiniest alteration by the voters.
In the minuscule areas where abortion policy can be affected, Obama has shown his passion for compromise by always taking the most extreme pro-abortion position.
On his third day in office, Obama overturned the "Mexico City Policy," which prohibited U.S. taxpayer money from being spent on overseas organizations that perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning.
Obama has filled his administration with Planned Parenthood veterans and friends of partial-birth abortionists.
As an Illinois state senator in 2002-2003, Obama repeatedly blocked and voted against the "Born Alive Act," which would have allowed doctors to give medical care to babies who somehow survived abortions and remained alive, wholly apart from their mothers.
Even the extremist National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League declined to take a position on the bill. The same bill in the U.S. Senate passed unanimously -- and that means that abortion-happy nutcake Barbara Boxer voted for it.
But Obama apparently thought it was important to affirm a woman's critical right to fourth-trimester abortions.
Here's my idea for how we can "live together as one human family," as Obama proposed at Notre Dame: Go ahead, demonize pro-lifers, Obama -- call us "right-wing ideologues." But just once, support one little policy that will save a single unborn child.
"The e-mail Bag"
Blonde Jokes
Two blonde girls were working for the city public works department. One would dig a hole and the other would follow behind her and fill the hole in. They worked up one side of the street, then down the other, then moved on to the next street, working furiously all day without rest, one girl digging a hole, the other girl filling it in again.
An onlooker was amazed at their hard work, but couldn't understand what they were doing. So he asked the hole digger, 'I'm impressed by the effort you two are putting in to your work, but I don't get it -- why do you dig a hole, only to have your partner follow behind and fill it up again?'
The hole digger wiped her brow and sighed, 'Well, I suppose it probably looks odd because we're normally a three-person team But today the girl who plants the trees called in sick.'
The Old Motor
The marriage of an 80 year old man and a 20 year old woman was the talk of the town.. After being married a year, the couple went to the hospital for the birth of their first child.
The attending nurse came out of the delivery room to congratulate the old gentleman and said, 'This is amazing. How do you do it at your age?'
The old man grinned and said, 'You got to keep the old motor running.'
The following year, the couple returned to the hospital for the birth of their second child. The same nurse was at ending the delivery and again went out to congratulate the old gentleman. She said, 'Sir, you are something else. How do you manage it?'
The old man grinned and said, 'You gotta keep the old motor running.'
A year later, the couple returned to the hospital for the birth of their third child. The same nurse was there for this birth also and, after the delivery, she once again approached the old gentleman, smiled, and said, 'Well, you surely are something else!
How do you do it?'
The old man replied, 'It's like I've told you before, you gotta keep the old motor running.'
The nurse, still smiling, patted him on the back and said: Well, I guess it's time to change the oil. This one's black.'
"Daily Motivations"
May you choose to see beyond life's storms, to uncover the blessings that the rain brings, and during all of life's twists and turns, may you always choose. -- Michelle Sedas
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
Set Your Compass in the Right Direction All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach (2 Tim. 3:16). The purpose of the Bible is to proclaim God's plan to save his children.
"No, I will not abandon you as orphans - I will come to you." (John 14:18)
"The Patriot Post"
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.." -- Thomas Paine
"At some point someone is going to file a suit in Federal court asking for clarity as to just where in the U.S. Constitution it is provided that the Executive Branch can buy a bankrupt car company." -- political analyst Rich Galen
"So far, the Obama administration has yet to lay out its magical thinking on how the homegrown auto makers are to become 'viable' when required to subordinate every auto attribute that consumers find desirable in favor of achieving a passenger-car average of 39 miles per gallon by 2016. Nonetheless the answer has quietly seeped out: Taxpayers will write $5,000 or $7,000 rebate checks to other taxpayers to bribe them to buy hybrids and plug-ins at a price that lets Detroit claim it's earning a 'profit' on its Obamamobiles." -- columnist Holman Jenkins Jr.
"The Obama administration is bent on becoming a major player in -- if not taking over entirely -- America's health-care, automobile and banking industries. Before that happens, it might be a good idea to look at the government's track record in running economic enterprises. It is terrible." -- author John Steele Gordon
"Does anybody really believe that adding 50 million people to the public health-care rolls will not cost the government more money? About $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion more? At least. So let's be serious when evaluating President Obama's goal of universal health care, and the idea that it's a cost-cutter. Can't happen. Won't happen. Costs are going to explode." --economist Larry Kudlow
"Just how much government debt does a president have to endorse before he's labeled 'irresponsible'"? -- columnist Robert Samuelson
"We live in an era in which conservatives have not effectively outlined the proper and limited role of government, and as a direct consequence of our failures, more and more of our citizens are turning to an ever-encroaching government in times of crisis. Yet to allow the balance of power in this nation to continue to shift further and further toward government and thus further and further from liberty is to surrender the very thing that makes America so historically unique." -- South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford
"ACU"
May 26, 2009
At 10:15 this morning President Barack Obama stepped up to the microphone to announce a nomination to the Supreme Court.
He nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor of New York. It should not be surprising that his pick has a background that suggests liberal tendencies. It is the President's right and obligation to nominate judges for the Supreme Court. However, it is the U.S. Senate's job to confirm those appointments. This is one of the U.S. Senate's most important duties.
Our U.S. Senators need to ask the tough questions and not rubber stamp Obama's nominee.
It is critical that as Senators privately and publicly question Judge Sotomayor that they ensure she doesn't bring too many ultra liberal, preconceived notions to the bench.
It is important that they get to the bottom of her views on race and gender, especially in light of what we have learned.
That is why ACU is launching a Petition to the Senate - especially targeting our conservative and moderate Senators. Does she support true equality - not focusing on gender and race - and the constitution? Does she support rights endowed by our creator, or not? Sign the ACU petition here.
The mass media is already noting that race and gender seemed to be part of the pick from the President. The WASHINGTON POST has written over the last couple of hours, "If confirmed, Sotomayor, 54, would be the first Supreme Court justice of Hispanic descent and only the third woman ever to sit on the panel."
The POST also reported, "Picking Sotomayor offers the president an opportunity to potentially shape the court in a way that his liberal constituency will like."
How could she shape the court for the liberals? There seems to be answers in statements she has made on her judicial philosophy.
The ASSOCIATED PRESS reported she said: "I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging," - in a speech in 2002. "But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage."
ACU is launching a Petition Efforts to the Senate - especially targeting our conservative and the moderate Senators. Does she really support true equality - not focusing on gender and race - and the constitution? Does she support rights endowed by our creator, or not? Sign the ACU petition here.
DETROIT FREE PRESS columnist Stephen Henderson said the pick was "Obama's missed opportunity."
Henderson wrote, "By all accounts, Federal Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's pick for the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice David Souter, will be every bit the reliable, liberal vote that Democrats want on the court." Stotomayor, he said, "...has a reputation for being pretty far left."
Henderson notes that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor often said that a wise old man and a wise old woman would generally decide cases the same way.
However, Henderson points out something very disturbing about Sotomayor. He reports that she said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
Really? Does Judge Sotomayor believe that white men - or maybe even white women - do not have the experience to reach good conclusions? Does it matter what their skin color or background is in making decisions?
He went on to say, "at worst, her comments can be interpreted as indulging the same bigotry she purports to abhor."
ACU is launching a Petition Efforts to the Senate - especially targeting our conservative and the moderate Senators. Does she really support true equality - not focusing on gender and race - and the constitution? Does she support rights endowed by our creator, or not? Sign the ACU petition here.
Sotomayor's previous decisions also highlight problems in this area.
In a case which has already been appealed to the current Supreme Court, Judge Sotomayor ruled with other judges against white firefighters who went to court after not receiving a promotion based on testing. They scored better on tests than others but their city didn't want to promote only firefighters who appeared white in skin color. She ruled in favor of keeping the racial quota system and denied the firefighter's claims of racial discrimination.
Judge Jose Cabranes, a Clinton appointee, attacked Judge Sotomayor's decision. In a dissent he wrote the case should have been explored more fully and that the firefighter's claims were "worthy" of "review" by the Supreme Court. He was joined in his dissent by 5 other judges.
ACU is launching a Petition Efforts to the Senate - especially targeting our conservative and the moderate Senators. Does she really support true equality - not focusing on gender and race - and the constitution? Does she support rights endowed by our creator, or not? Sign the ACU petition here.
As we have repeatedly stated, we need judges who uphold the Constitution not try to legislate from the bench. Many of the bad decisions that have come from our courts came as a result of judges who overturn laws, passed by elected representatives, with which they appear to personally disagree.
The DALLAS MORNING NEWS and others have noted Sotomayor said in 2005 at a Duke Law School conference, "the court of appeals is where policy is made." She added, "And I know this is on tape and I should never say that ..."
ACU is launching a Petition Efforts to the Senate - especially targeting our conservative and the moderate Senators. Does she really support true equality - not focusing on gender and race - and the constitution? Does she support rights endowed by our creator, or not? Sign the ACU petition here.
What does she believe her role should be on the Supreme Court? Is it about providing justice for American citizens or about her personal agenda?
We need to ask the Senate to do their job. They must ask the tough questions. They need to get the answers.
Help us send the message here.
The American people deserve the truth.
Sincerely,
Dennis Whitfield
P.S. Senators say they hear quite a bit from those on the left who are bolstered by a liberal media. Please help us correct the imbalance. Send a message now. Sign the ACU petition here.
"Find Law"
Charges Filed in Bronx Terror Plot
U.S. V. CROMITIE, ET AL.
(U.S. Dist. Ct., S.D. N.Y., May 21, 2009) - Four suspects face federal charges of plotting to: 1) blow up a synagogue in a Bronx, New York City neighborhood; 2) shoot down U.S. military aircraft with shoulder-held Stinger surface-to-air missiles; and 3) attack a Air National Guard base with an IED using C-4 plastic explosives. Read more... http://news.lp.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/uscromitie51909cmp.html
Related Resources
• FBI foils plot to bomb NYC temple; 4 men charged (AP) http://news.lp.findlaw.com/ap/other/1110/05-21-2009/20090521025009_03.html
Cal. High Court Upholds Same-Sex Marriage Ban, Existing Marriages Valid
STRAUSS, ET AL. V. HORTON, ET AL.
(Cal. Supreme Ct., May 26, 2009) - California's Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, the state's legislative ban against same-sex marriages, but also upheld previously formalized marriages between gay and lesbian couples before the ban took effect. Read more...
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/glrts/cal-prop8-same-sex-marriage.html
"The Web"
Now That's God -- click here.
http://www.passionup.com:80/mp/blank/blank100.htm?e=imkld@yahoo.com&f=imkld@yahoo.com&cfp=1&h=7a49f7e8064d5e26&mp=1
For Coburn, no backing down on spending
Senator free to ruffle feathers as re-election's not a concern
By Kara Rowland (Contact) | Tuesday, May 26, 2009
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/26/no-backing-down-on-spending/
Despite being in the minority in a Senate that is more tilted to Democrats than at any time in the past three decades, Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, has gone head to head with Majority Leader Harry Reid - and won.
His secret: He doesn't care.
Mr. Coburn's nonchalance about his own political future has given him the freedom to be Capitol Hill's most outspoken fiscal hawk and guardian of the Constitution. Most recently, his persistence paid off as he was able to attach an amendment allowing licensed firearms in some federal parks to a consumer credit card bill last week.
"I don't go away. He's learned that," Mr. Coburn says of his frequent floor battles with Mr. Reid. "Since I don't care whether I get beat up or not, I'm really dangerous for him."
In a chamber dominated by career politicians, Mr. Coburn has not shied away from ruffling feathers in his obsessive pursuit of shrinking the government. He rails against government waste with equal vigor be the culprits Democrats, Republicans or both.
That's because, he warns, the next generation's standard of living hangs in the balance. "We are stealing your very future. It is going away as we speak."
Four years into his first Senate term, the 61-year-old obstetrician is a self-described citizen legislator who has pledged to serve no more than two terms. He similarly limited himself to three terms in the House, where he served from 1995 to 2001.
Mr. Coburn's stated reasons for public service are a far cry from the grandiose, boilerplate response one might expect from a member of Congress.
"I was disgusted and worried," he says flatly. "I think what we have is at risk, and it's actually much more at risk today than it ever has been."
As a member of the Republican Revolution's freshman class, he was frustrated by the House Republican leadership's failure to follow through on its Contract With America, later penning a book about the experience called "Breach of Trust."
Iranian Air Traffic Control
In addition to communicating with the local Air Traffic Control facility, all aircraft in the Persian Gulf AOR are required to give the Iranian Air Defense Radar (military) a ten minute 'heads up' if they will be transiting Iranian airspace.
This is a common procedure for commercial aircraft and involves giving them your call sign, transponder code, type aircraft, and points of origin and destination.
I just flew with a guy who overheard this conversation on the VHF Guard (emergency) frequency 121.5 MHz while flying from Europe to Dubai . It's too good not to pass along.
The conversation went like this...
Iranian Air Defense Radar: 'Unknown aircraft you are in Iranian airspace. Identify yourself.'
Aircraft: 'This is a United States aircraft. I am in Iraqi airspace.'
Air Defense Radar: 'You are in Iranian airspace. If you do not depart our airspace we will launch interceptor aircraft!'
Aircraft: 'This is a United States Marine Corps FA-18 fighter. Send 'em up, I'll wait!'
Air Defense Radar: (no response .... total silence)
Speaker Pelosi’s Controversial Marxist Connections
AIM Column | By Cliff Kincaid | May 24, 2009
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/speaker-pelosis-controversial-marxist-connections/
Pelosi tried desperately to avoid being open and honest about her charges against the CIA.
Like the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does not have to go through a background investigation in order to get a security clearance. This loophole in the law enables the president and members of Congress to automatically qualify for security clearances, even if they have controversial backgrounds and associations, by virtue of the fact that they get elected to high office in Washington, D.C.
In the case of Speaker Pelosi, who is second in the line of succession to the presidency after the vice president, there is increasing concern about whether she can be trusted with national security secrets. But the concern not only involves her unsubstantiated charges against the CIA over what officials told her about the treatment of terrorists, but her close personal relationship with pro-Castro Rep. Barbara Lee and the "progressive" Hallinan family of San Francisco, once under scrutiny by the California Senate Fact-finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities for their pro-Soviet propaganda efforts.
Pelosi used a Friday news conference to offer up other members of the House Democratic leadership as "human shields" to deflect questions from the press about the CIA controversy. They droned on about the liberal legislative agenda.
At the very end of the news conference, as Pelosi was trying to leave the podium and had already issued an edict that she didn't have anything more to say about the CIA matter, a reporter tried to ask a question about Rep. Steve King's intention to introduce a resolution asking the House to suspend Pelosi's security clearance until the controversy is resolved. The reporter asked, "And were you aware that Steve King is asking for your security clearance to be revoked?" But Pelosi walked away without commenting.
With the help of the mainstream media, Pelosi is obviously hoping that she can stonewall further inquiry. On Sunday's "Meet the Press," Washington Post liberal columnist Eugene Robinson, a follower of the Democratic Party line, declared that he wasn't sure that she was "in such terrible political danger" and that "People underestimate Nancy Pelosi sometimes as a politician."
Pelosi the politician is clearly depending on the press to stop asking questions.
However, since Pelosi and other elected officials don't have to go through background investigations, it is the job of the media to perform this function. In the case of Pelosi, it is long overdue.
San Francisco Democrat
Pelosi has represented the city of San Francisco, perhaps the most liberal in the nation, since 1987, and is a very close friend of Rep. Barbara Lee, who represents neighboring Oakland and Berkeley, California, and is the most vocal apologist for Communist Cuba in Congress today. Lee, head of the Congressional Black Caucus, recently led a delegation to Cuba to meet with the Castro brothers to discuss normalization of relations. But she paid no attention to political dissidents or political prisoners being held on the communist island.
Lee, who calls Pelosi "a magnificent woman" and "one of California's greatest representatives," began her career in the California state legislature as a secret member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, a spin-off from the Communist Party. As a member of the staff of Rep. Ron Dellums, Lee was shown to have been collaborating with communist officials on the island of Grenada, according to documents captured after the liberation of that island nation. These revelations have not hurt Lee's standing with Pelosi and other "progressives." Indeed, Lee also served as the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
But even more interesting than the Barbara Lee connection is Pelosi's long-time friendship and association with Vincent and Vivian Hallinan, one of the most radical left-wing families in San Francisco over the course of five decades.
Pelosi hailed them as "one of San Francisco's great Irish families" in a March 17, 1999, statement, after the passing of Vivian Hallinan. "Vivian was a pioneer, a mentor and a leader," Pelosi said. "Our community was blessed by her presence and will long remember her many significant contributions to improving society. I will miss my friend, Vivian."
Notice use of the term "mentor."
Pelosi called Vivian Hallinan, who openly held "socialist" views, a "pioneer" in "a wide range of progressive causes."
But these causes included support for communists in Central America during the 1980s, when Soviet- and Cuban-backed forces were subverting Central America through violence and terrorism and fighting for control of the region.
Indeed, Pelosi paid tribute to Vivian Hallinan by inserting into the Congressional Record an article saying that she had "opposed U.S. policy in Central America" under President Reagan, had "befriended Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua's [Communist] Sandinista leader," and had met with Cuban dictator Castro.
"She was a role model for many of us," Pelosi said. "If Vincent was the lion, Vivian was the lioness."
"My mother and Nancy were pretty close," acknowledges Conn Hallinan, one of their sons.
Official Scrutiny
The names of the Hallinans, including some of their sons, are included in the annual volumes of the California State Senate Fact-Finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities. The subcommittee was a well-regarded investigative body which examined not only communist activities in California but right-wing groups such as the John Birch Society and the Minutemen.
In the case of the Hallinans, there was a lot to examine. Vincent Hallinan, a lawyer who died in 1992, was a founding member of the San Francisco chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, officially designated a front of the Communist Party, and defended secret Communist Party member and labor leader Harry Bridges.
In addition, he was a self-described "roaring atheist" who specialized in attacks on the Catholic Church. In one case, according to the New York Times, he "sued the Roman Catholic Church for fraud, demanding that it prove the existence of heaven and hell."
Vincent Hallinan also ran for president on the ticket of the Progressive Party, "a creature of the Communist apparatus, and completely dominated by the Communist Party from start to finish," the subcommittee said.
A 1961 subcommittee report says that Vincent Hallinan traveled to the Soviet Union with his wife to vouch for the legitimacy of the communist show trial of Francis Gary Powers, the American U-2 pilot shot down over the Soviet Union. Powers' mission had been to document the Soviet missile build-up. It adds, "[Vincent] Hallinan's glowing accounts of the Soviet Union and favorable comments concerning the fairness accorded Powers at his trial were sold in great quantity by the Communist Book Stores both in San Francisco and in Los Angeles."
A 1953 edition of the report states that Vincent Hallinan was a participant in a meeting of the Committee to Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case, a "Communist front organization." The Rosenbergs were communists executed for committing atomic espionage against the United States on behalf of the Soviet Union.
A wealthy woman, Vivian Hallinan had contributed financially to one of Pelosi's campaigns. Her only other political contributions on the federal level, as recorded by the Federal Election Commission, went to Senator Barbara Boxer and Reps. Barbara Lee and Ronald V. Dellums.
The "Progressive Champion"
Despite her pro-communist record, Lee will be honored as a "progressive champion" at the June 2 "awards gala" sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future, perhaps the largest "progressive" group in the U.S. The gala, held in conjunction with a conference, is being chaired by the AFL-CIO, whose president, John Sweeney, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is also being honored; the Service Employees International Union; the National Education Association; and Hollywood producer Norman Lear, among others.
Fenton Communications, the public relations firm which represented George Soros during his attempt to buy the White House in 2004, is one of several groups and individuals on the Gala Awards host committee.
At the group's 2006 conference, Pelosi was a featured attraction, telling the assembled "progressives" that if Democrats took control of Congress and made her speaker that Democrats would "make the most corrupt, closed Congress in history the most open and honest Congress in history."
On Friday, however, Pelosi tried desperately to avoid being open and honest about her charges against the CIA.
Time to Drop the Matter
One reporter did note that after Pelosi charged that she had been misled by the CIA, Republican House Leader John Boehner had said that she needed to produce the evidence or apologize, and that CIA director Leon Panetta has said the CIA was not in the practice of misleading Congress.
Pelosi replied, "I have made the statement that I'm going to make on this. I don't have anything more to say about it. I stand by my comments. And what we are doing is staying on our course and not be distracted from it in this distractive mode. We're going forward in a bipartisan way for jobs, health care, and energy for our country. And on the subject that you asked, I've made the statement that I'm going to make. I won't have anything more to that about it."
Pressed for further explanation, she reiterated, "I won't have anything more to say about it."
The New York Times thought the performance was impressive, declaring that Pelosi had stuck to the "script" and had not succumbed to "the impatient media horde."
This is a signal to the rest of the press that they should drop the matter.
Notre Dame Holds First Alan Keyes Fundraiser
by Ann Coulter
How about for next year's graduation ceremony Notre Dame have an abortionist perform an abortion live on stage? They could have a partial-birth abortion for the advanced degrees.
According to liberals, the right to kill babies was enshrined by the Founding Fathers in our Constitution -- and other constitutional rights are celebrated in public.
The right to bear arms is honored in 21-gun salutes, turkey shoots, Civil War re-enactments, firearms demonstrations and, occasionally, at Phil Spector's house.
The right to petition the government for redress of grievances is celebrated at political rallies, tea parties, marches, protests and whenever Keith Olbermann has a fight with his cat.
The free exercise clause is observed in church services, missionary work, peyote-smoking Indian rituals, and for a few days after every time Bill Clinton gets caught having an extramarital affair.
So instead of inviting a constitutional lawyer to yammer on about this purported constitutional right, why not show it being practiced?
How about a 21-vacuum hose (D&C) salute? Maybe have the Notre Dame marching band form a giant skull-piercing fork? How about having the president throw out the ceremonial first fetus, like on opening day in baseball? I'm just brainstorming here, folks -- none of this is written in stone.
Being such a prestigious institution, Notre Dame could probably get famed partial-birth abortion practitioner George Tiller to do the demonstration at next year's graduation. Obama could help -- inasmuch as Tiller the abortionist is a close friend of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
This is a "constitutional right" like no other.
Even its supporters are embarrassed by the exercise of this right. They won't practice the right in public -- they won't even call abortion by its name, preferring to use a string of constantly changing euphemisms, such as "reproductive health" and "choice."
It would be as if gun owners refused to use the word "gun" and the NRA's motto were, "Let's all work together to keep hunting safe, legal and rare."
Liberals were awestruck by Obama's statesmanlike speech at Notre Dame, but whatever he says about abortion is frothy nonsense because we're not allowed to vote on abortion policy in America. If it's a "constitutional right," we can no more vote on abortion than we could vote on free speech.
With Roe v. Wade, abortion supporters ripped the issue out of the democratic process -- limb from limb, you might say -- and declared their desired outcome a "constitutional right." They have hysterically defended that lawless decision for the last quarter-century.
All of Obama's soothing words about joining hands and not demonizing one another are just blather as long as that legal monstrosity remains the law of the land.
Showing his open-mindedness, Obama asked, "How does each of us remain firm in our principles ... without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?" (What do I have to do to get you murderers and you non-murderers to shake hands and be friends?)
A good start would be letting us vote.
Liberals can be all sweet reason as long as their preference for abortion on demand is lyingly called a "constitutional right," immutable to the tiniest alteration by the voters.
In the minuscule areas where abortion policy can be affected, Obama has shown his passion for compromise by always taking the most extreme pro-abortion position.
On his third day in office, Obama overturned the "Mexico City Policy," which prohibited U.S. taxpayer money from being spent on overseas organizations that perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning.
Obama has filled his administration with Planned Parenthood veterans and friends of partial-birth abortionists.
As an Illinois state senator in 2002-2003, Obama repeatedly blocked and voted against the "Born Alive Act," which would have allowed doctors to give medical care to babies who somehow survived abortions and remained alive, wholly apart from their mothers.
Even the extremist National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League declined to take a position on the bill. The same bill in the U.S. Senate passed unanimously -- and that means that abortion-happy nutcake Barbara Boxer voted for it.
But Obama apparently thought it was important to affirm a woman's critical right to fourth-trimester abortions.
Here's my idea for how we can "live together as one human family," as Obama proposed at Notre Dame: Go ahead, demonize pro-lifers, Obama -- call us "right-wing ideologues." But just once, support one little policy that will save a single unborn child.
"The e-mail Bag"
Blonde Jokes
Two blonde girls were working for the city public works department. One would dig a hole and the other would follow behind her and fill the hole in. They worked up one side of the street, then down the other, then moved on to the next street, working furiously all day without rest, one girl digging a hole, the other girl filling it in again.
An onlooker was amazed at their hard work, but couldn't understand what they were doing. So he asked the hole digger, 'I'm impressed by the effort you two are putting in to your work, but I don't get it -- why do you dig a hole, only to have your partner follow behind and fill it up again?'
The hole digger wiped her brow and sighed, 'Well, I suppose it probably looks odd because we're normally a three-person team But today the girl who plants the trees called in sick.'
The Old Motor
The marriage of an 80 year old man and a 20 year old woman was the talk of the town.. After being married a year, the couple went to the hospital for the birth of their first child.
The attending nurse came out of the delivery room to congratulate the old gentleman and said, 'This is amazing. How do you do it at your age?'
The old man grinned and said, 'You got to keep the old motor running.'
The following year, the couple returned to the hospital for the birth of their second child. The same nurse was at ending the delivery and again went out to congratulate the old gentleman. She said, 'Sir, you are something else. How do you manage it?'
The old man grinned and said, 'You gotta keep the old motor running.'
A year later, the couple returned to the hospital for the birth of their third child. The same nurse was there for this birth also and, after the delivery, she once again approached the old gentleman, smiled, and said, 'Well, you surely are something else!
How do you do it?'
The old man replied, 'It's like I've told you before, you gotta keep the old motor running.'
The nurse, still smiling, patted him on the back and said: Well, I guess it's time to change the oil. This one's black.'
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
ConservativeChristianRepublican-Report - 20090526
Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable
"Daily Motivations"
Real optimism is aware of problems but recognizes solutions; knows about difficulties but believes they can be overcome; sees the negatives, but accentuates the positives; is exposed to the worst but expects the best; has reason to complain, but chooses to smile. -- William Arthur Ward
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
The Urgency of the Hour The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few (Matt. 9:37). What is it going to take?
"May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love really is." (Ephesians 3:17-18)
"The Patriot Post"
"The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife." -- Thomas Jefferson
Pelosi Caught in Another Lie
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is in hot water over her claim that she was not briefed in 2002 on waterboarding being practiced. She amended her story slightly in a press conference Thursday, saying, "The only mention of waterboarding at that briefing was that it was not being employed," adding, "those briefing me in September 2002 gave me inaccurate and incomplete information." She admitted to knowing about waterboarding in practice in 2003.
Whether or not Pelosi knew of the practice in 2002, the evidence is clear that she was present for the briefing on the technique, and she said nothing until it was more politically convenient. Claiming that she was lied to four years after the interrogation tactics became public doesn't pass the sniff test. The uproar even led House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), no close friend of Pelosi's, to declare earlier this week, "What was said and when it was said, who said it, I think that is probably what ought to be on the record as well." After what we can only assume was a waterboarding session with the speaker that night, Hoyer "clarified" that he didn't mean Pelosi, but Republicans. As blogger Ed Morrissey notes, "[Pelosi] had better hope that more detailed briefing notes never get made public. Pelosi just dared the CIA to leak again, and I don't think they're likely to get intimidated by her at this point."
From the 'Non Compos Mentis' File
"So my statement is clear, and let me read it again. Let me read it again. I'm sorry. I have to find the page. I was informed that the Department of Justice opinions had concluded that the use of enhanced interrogations was legal. The only mention of waterboarding was that the briefing -- in the briefing was that it was not being employed. When -- when -- when my staff person -- I'm sorry, the page is out of order -- five months later, my staff person told me that there had been a briefing -- informing that there had been a briefing and that a letter had been sent. I was not briefed on what was in that briefing; I was just informed that the briefing had taken place. So -- so let's get this straight." -- Nancy Pelosi
This Week's 'Alpha Jackass' Award
"You don't need banks and bondholders to make cars." -- an unnamed administration official
"ADF"
ADF Alliance Alert
Last Updated: Thursday, May 21, 2009 10:31 AM PDT
ADF: Militant homosexual group faces federal suit, Bash Back! invaded MI church in Nov.
ALLIANCE DEFENSE FUND NEWS RELEASE
May 13, 2009 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT ADF MEDIA RELATIONS: (480) 444-0020 or www.telladf.org/pressroom
** IMAGES LINKED WITHIN TEXT BELOW **
ADF files suit against radical group that invaded Mich. church
Group that openly advocates ‘riots,’ ‘crime,’ ‘insurrection’ targeted church for its views
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed suit in federal court Wednesday against a radical anarchist group that openly advocates the use of riots and crime to further its views in favor of homosexual behavior. ADF attorneys filed the suit on behalf of Delta Township’s Mount Hope Church against the group “Bash Back!,” which invaded the church’s building during a worship service on Nov. 9 of last year.
“The use of violent threats and criminal behavior to make a political point should never be acceptable in America,” said ADF Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb. “Bash Back! revealed how dangerous the homosexual agenda is to our First Liberty, religious freedom. ADF filed this suit to stop Bash Back! and other activist groups from invading churches, disrupting worship, silencing pastors, and terrifying adults and children who attend religious services.”
The Bash Back! Web site, which features a banner photo of members http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/UserDocs/BashBackPhoto.jpg dressed in terrorist-like garb and wielding various objects as weapons, states on one page of the site http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/UserDocs/BashBackWebPage1.pdfthat the group’s activities include “Riots, Sex Work, Crime, Insurrection, you know the fun stuff we do.” The Lansing chapter of the group targeted Mount Hope Church because of the church’s well-known Christian views on marriage and homosexual behavior. Through another page of its Web site, http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/UserDocs/BashBackWebPage2.pdf the group covertly recruited participants for its plans on Nov. 9, seeking some who would be willing to maintain “a more ‘militant’-looking presence out side [sic] of the building.”
“I can tell you that we are targeting a well-known anti-queer, anti-choice radical right wing establishment,” the page said. “However, we cant [sic] give you really any detailed information due to the cop who’s [sic] ridiculous job it is to do surveillance over this blog…. ‘ONLY ONE DIRECTION! TRANS AND QUEER INSURRECTION!’ - Bash Back! Lansing”
On Nov. 9, members of the group dressed in militant garb staged a protest http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/UserDocs/BashBackMtHope.jpg outside the church during a worship service to distract security personnel, blocking access to the building and parking lot at various times. Other members of the group dressed in plain clothes then deceptively entered the building. At a coordinated time, they sprang up to disrupt the service, terrifying many attendees. The group shouted religious slurs, unfurled a sign, and threw fliers around the sanctuary while two women began kissing near the podium. The group pulled fire alarms as they ran out of the building. After the incident, the group bragged about its activities on its Web site http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/UserDocs/BashBackWebPage3.pdf and, on a separate page, explained its choice of Mount Hope: “This church is nothing short of a disease in the community, and in the minds of those who attend.”
Federal law imposes penalties upon anyone who “by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.”
Sample of images from Bash Back! (WARNING: Content may be considered highly offensive) http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/UserDocs/BashBackImages.pdf
Complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan in Mount Hope Church v. Bash Back! http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/UserDocs/MtHopeComplaint.pdf
ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/whatwedo/default.aspx to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.
http://www.telladf.org/
"The Web"
Chinese imports could bring GM political troubles
By TOM KRISHER
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090514/D985PEDO0.html
(AP) Clarifies that some models of the five brands are imported. Graphic shows GM imports
Full image http://apnews.myway.com/image/20090513/GM_IMPORTS_2.sff_GFX680_20090513173805.html?date=20090514&docid=D985PEDO0
DETROIT (AP) - As thousands of General Motors workers await word on more U.S. plant closures, reports that the company plans to import Chinese-made vehicles to the U.S. have created a political problem for the automaker and the White House.
The reports, which GM will neither confirm nor deny, could mean trouble because GM is supported by $15.4 billion in U.S. government loans, largely due to the Obama administration's desire to preserve the company's 90,000 U.S. jobs.
The United Auto Workers charged last week that the Detroit automaker intends to almost double over the next five years the number of vehicles it imports to the U.S. from Mexico, South Korea, China and Japan.
"GM should not be taking taxpayers' money simply to finance the outsourcing of jobs to other countries," Alan Reuther, the union's Washington lobbyist, wrote in a letter to U.S. lawmakers.
The carmaker, which was in danger of running out of cash early this year, faces a June 1 government deadline to cut costs and complete other restructuring measures or go into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It also has requested another $11.6 billion in government loans to make it through this year, and faces the prospect that the government will soon be its largest shareholder.
On Wednesday, Shanghai Securities News and other Chinese media reported that GM plans to begin exporting vehicles from China to the U.S. within two years, ramping up sales to more than 50,000 by 2014.
GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson in Detroit would not comment on the reports. The White House and Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
"GM is reviewing various options," GM's China office said in a written statement received Thursday. "We are not discussing details of our future portfolio, beyond what we have disclosed in auto shows and our viability plans."
But the report reiterated the company's emphasis on first meeting demand in the Chinese domestic market.
"GM's philosophy has always been to build where we sell, and we continue to believe that is the best strategy for long-term success, both from a product development and business planning standpoint," it said.
Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California at Berkley who specializes in labor issues, said increased overseas production and imports could prove politically tricky for GM.
"The reason is simple - production location is a corporate decision, but when it's on the taxpayer dime, there are different sensitivities, so the notion of billions for a rescue package and offshore production, I think, could be politically combustible," he said.
Shaiken said GM needs to lower costs, which is accomplished with cheaper overseas labor. But it must also address concerns of the U.S. government, which wants to preserve American jobs.
"GM is getting funding from U.S. taxpayers to help save the company," Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said. "Taxpayers deserve more than Chinese imports in return. Taxpayer funds should be used to build the next generation of fuel-efficient vehicles in the U.S., not abroad. This is about creating jobs and rebuilding our economy."
GM, though, says the percentage of cars made and sold in the U.S. will remain stable.
Company documents show that American-made cars will comprise 67 percent of all vehicles sold in the country this year. The number drops slightly to 66 percent in GM's 2014 projections. Imports will amount to 33 percent this year, rising to 34 percent by 2014.
The company says the import mix could change by 2014, with fewer vehicles produced in Canada and more produced in Mexico and other countries.
"The percentage sold in the U.S. will stay constant within a percent or two," Wilkinson said. "The number of vehicles built in the U.S. will increase as the market recovers."
He reiterated that the company's goal is to build vehicles in the regions where they are sold, in part to avoid getting stung by currency fluctuations. GM, he said, builds 90 percent of vehicles sold in the U.S. in North America, and that is not expected to change.
Of the 3 million vehicles GM sold in the U.S. last year, it imported the Chevrolet Aveo and Pontiac G3 subcompacts from South Korea, the Pontiac G8 muscle car from Australia and the Saturn Astra compact from Belgium. The Saturn Vue, Chevrolet HHR small sport utility vehicles and several pickup truck models were imported from Mexico. Full-size pickup trucks, several sedans and small SUVs and the Chevrolet Camaro were brought in from Canada.
Still, the UAW generally opposes importing vehicles into the U.S. According to its figures, the percentage of GM's U.S. sales from Mexico, South Korea, Japan and China will increase from 15.5 percent now to 23.5 percent in 2014.
Reuther wrote that GM's increased imports would be equal to the output of four U.S. assembly plants, "the same number that GM plans to close."
The union currently is negotiating with GM for government-demanded labor cost cuts, including 16 plant closures. At a leadership meeting in Cleveland Wednesday, leaders were told to expect a vote on concessions before the June 1 deadline.
GM millwright Ron Bear of Belleville, Mich., who attended the meeting, said the rank-and-file would be unhappy with any more imports.
"As far as importing cars, what is that going to do for our jobs? I guess that's the question," he said.
GM would be the first company to import cars from China although automakers have brought in components in the past to save on labor costs. Most Chinese automakers have been daunted by meeting U.S. safety standards. They also face the uphill battle of winning consumer confidence for unfamiliar brands.
According to Chinese media reports, the primary exports to the U.S. would be small cars similar to the Chevrolet Spark subcompact.
David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, says it makes good business sense for GM to import subcompacts from China because the U.S. market for them is uncertain, but there is strong demand in China.
With gas prices around $2 per gallon most Americans will keep driving bigger cars. U.S. sales would be too small to justify the expense of building and equipping an assembly plant, he said. At the same time, exports to the U.S. would allow GM to keep its Chinese plants running at maximum capacity, which is the formula to make money, he said.
"In the short term, you're going to locate your plants where the core of the market is for that product," he said.
Cole suggested that for Obama, returning the company to viability would outweigh the drawbacks of importing some cars.
"What's more important, some jobs in a particular factory somewhere or the overall success of the company?" Cole asked. "That is really far more important."
Could I Be Mistaken for Jesus?
A few years ago a group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago. They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night's dinner.
In their rush, with tickets and briefcases, one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table that held a display of apples. Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping or looking back, they all managed to reach the plane in time for their nearly missed boarding.
All but one. He paused, took a deep breath, got in touch with his feelings, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple stand had been overturned. He told his buddies to go on without him, waved goodbye, told one of them to call his wife when they arrived at their home destination and explain his taking a later flight. Then he returned to the terminal where the apples were all over the terminal floor. He was glad he did.
The 16-year-old girl was totally blind! She was softly crying, tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her, no one stopping and no one to care for her plight.
The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the applies, put them back on the table and helped organize her display. As he did this, he noticed that many of them had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket. When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl, "Here, please take this $40 for the damage we did.
Are you okay?" She nodded through her tears.
He continued on with, "I hope we didn't spoil your day too badly."
As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out to him, "Mister..." He paused and turned to look back into those blind eyes. She continued, "Are you Jesus?"
He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered. Then slowly he made his way to catch the later flight with that question burning and bouncing about in his soul: "Are you Jesus?"
Do people mistake you for Jesus? Isn't that what a Christian's goal should be? To be so much like Jesus that people cannot tell the difference as we live and interact with a world (shopping, working, reacting to others that are serving us) that is blind to His love, life and grace. If we claim to know Him, we should live, walk and act as He would. Knowing Him is more than simply quoting Scripture and going to church. It's actually living the Word as life unfolds day to day.
You are the apple of His eye even though we, too, have been bruised by a fall. He stopped what He was doing and picked you and me up on a hill called Calvary and paid in full for our damaged fruit. Let us live like we are worth the price He paid.
Fifty Years of Math 1957 - 2007 (in the USA )
Last week I purchased a burger at Burger King for $1.58. The counter girl took my $2 and I was digging for my change when I pulled 8 cents from my pocket and gave it to her. She stood there, holding the nickel and 3 pennies, while looking at the screen on her register. I sensed her discomfort and tried to tell her to just give me two quarters, but she hailed the manager for help. While he tried to explain the transaction to her, she stood there and cried.. Why do I tell you this? Because of the evolution in teaching math since the 1950s:
1. Teaching Math In 1950s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit ?
2. Teaching Math In 1960s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?
3. Teaching Math In 1970s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?
4. Teaching Math In 1980s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.
5. Teaching Math In 1990s
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers, and if you feel like crying, it's ok. )
6. Teaching Math In 2009
Un hachero vende una carretada de maderapara $100. El costo de la producciones es $80... Cuanto dinero ha hecho?
HEADLINES FROM THE YEAR: 2029
Ozone created by electric cars now killing millions in the seventh largest country in the world, Mexifornia, formerly known as California.
White minorities still trying to have English recognized as Mexifornia's third language.
Spotted Owl plague threatens northwestern United States crops and livestock.
Baby conceived naturally! Scientists stumped.
Couple petitions court to reinstate heterosexual marriage.
Iran still closed off; physicists estimate it will take at least 10 more years before radioactivity decreases to safe levels.
France pleads for global help after being taken over by Jamaica. No other country comes forward to help the beleaguered nation!
Castro finally dies at age 112; Cuban cigars can now be imported legally, but President Chelsea Clinton has banned all smoking.
George Z. Bush says he will run for President in 2036.
Postal Service raises price of first class stamp to $17.89 and reduces mail delivery to Wednesdays only.
85-year $75.8 billion study: Diet and exercise is the key to weight loss.
Average weight of Americans drops to 250 lbs.
Global cooling blamed for citrus crop failure for third consecutive year in Mexifornia and Floruba.
Japanese scientists have created a camera with such a fast shutter speed they now can photograph a woman with her mouth shut.
Abortion clinics now available in every High School in United States..
Senate still blocking drilling in ANWR even though gas is selling for 4532 Pesos per liter and gas stations are only open on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Massachusetts executes last remaining conservative.
Supreme Court rules punishment of criminals violates their civil rights.
Average height of NBA players is now nine feet, seven inches.
New federal law requires that all nail clippers, screwdrivers, fly swatters and rolled-up newspapers must be registered by January 2030.
IRS sets lowest tax rate at 75 percent.
Floruba voters still having trouble with voting machines.
Now, send this to whomever you want and as many as you want, then, guess what… NOTHING will happen. No miracles, no money, absolutely nothing, except you might make someone smile or very very scared.
I Love This Country!
It's The Government That Scares Me!
"The e-mail Bag"
HOW TO INSTALL A HOME SECURITY SYSTEM WHEN ON A BUDGET:
1. Go to a second-hand store and buy a pair of men's used size 14-16 work boots.
2. Place them on your front porch, along with several empty beer cans, a copy of Guns & Ammo magazine and several NRA magazines.
3. Put a few giant dog dishes next to the boots and magazines.
4. Leave a note on your door that reads: 'Hey Bubba, Big Jim, Duke and Slim, I went to the gun shop for more ammunition. Back in an hour. Don't mess with the pit bulls -- they attacked the mailman this morning and messed him up real bad. I don't think Killer took part in it but it was hard to tell from all the blood.'
P S - 'I locked all four of 'em in the house... Better wait outside.'
INSTALLATION COMPLETE!!!!
"Daily Motivations"
Real optimism is aware of problems but recognizes solutions; knows about difficulties but believes they can be overcome; sees the negatives, but accentuates the positives; is exposed to the worst but expects the best; has reason to complain, but chooses to smile. -- William Arthur Ward
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
The Urgency of the Hour The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few (Matt. 9:37). What is it going to take?
"May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love really is." (Ephesians 3:17-18)
"The Patriot Post"
"The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife." -- Thomas Jefferson
Pelosi Caught in Another Lie
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is in hot water over her claim that she was not briefed in 2002 on waterboarding being practiced. She amended her story slightly in a press conference Thursday, saying, "The only mention of waterboarding at that briefing was that it was not being employed," adding, "those briefing me in September 2002 gave me inaccurate and incomplete information." She admitted to knowing about waterboarding in practice in 2003.
Whether or not Pelosi knew of the practice in 2002, the evidence is clear that she was present for the briefing on the technique, and she said nothing until it was more politically convenient. Claiming that she was lied to four years after the interrogation tactics became public doesn't pass the sniff test. The uproar even led House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), no close friend of Pelosi's, to declare earlier this week, "What was said and when it was said, who said it, I think that is probably what ought to be on the record as well." After what we can only assume was a waterboarding session with the speaker that night, Hoyer "clarified" that he didn't mean Pelosi, but Republicans. As blogger Ed Morrissey notes, "[Pelosi] had better hope that more detailed briefing notes never get made public. Pelosi just dared the CIA to leak again, and I don't think they're likely to get intimidated by her at this point."
From the 'Non Compos Mentis' File
"So my statement is clear, and let me read it again. Let me read it again. I'm sorry. I have to find the page. I was informed that the Department of Justice opinions had concluded that the use of enhanced interrogations was legal. The only mention of waterboarding was that the briefing -- in the briefing was that it was not being employed. When -- when -- when my staff person -- I'm sorry, the page is out of order -- five months later, my staff person told me that there had been a briefing -- informing that there had been a briefing and that a letter had been sent. I was not briefed on what was in that briefing; I was just informed that the briefing had taken place. So -- so let's get this straight." -- Nancy Pelosi
This Week's 'Alpha Jackass' Award
"You don't need banks and bondholders to make cars." -- an unnamed administration official
"ADF"
ADF Alliance Alert
Last Updated: Thursday, May 21, 2009 10:31 AM PDT
ADF: Militant homosexual group faces federal suit, Bash Back! invaded MI church in Nov.
ALLIANCE DEFENSE FUND NEWS RELEASE
May 13, 2009 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT ADF MEDIA RELATIONS: (480) 444-0020 or www.telladf.org/pressroom
** IMAGES LINKED WITHIN TEXT BELOW **
ADF files suit against radical group that invaded Mich. church
Group that openly advocates ‘riots,’ ‘crime,’ ‘insurrection’ targeted church for its views
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed suit in federal court Wednesday against a radical anarchist group that openly advocates the use of riots and crime to further its views in favor of homosexual behavior. ADF attorneys filed the suit on behalf of Delta Township’s Mount Hope Church against the group “Bash Back!,” which invaded the church’s building during a worship service on Nov. 9 of last year.
“The use of violent threats and criminal behavior to make a political point should never be acceptable in America,” said ADF Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb. “Bash Back! revealed how dangerous the homosexual agenda is to our First Liberty, religious freedom. ADF filed this suit to stop Bash Back! and other activist groups from invading churches, disrupting worship, silencing pastors, and terrifying adults and children who attend religious services.”
The Bash Back! Web site, which features a banner photo of members http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/UserDocs/BashBackPhoto.jpg dressed in terrorist-like garb and wielding various objects as weapons, states on one page of the site http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/UserDocs/BashBackWebPage1.pdfthat the group’s activities include “Riots, Sex Work, Crime, Insurrection, you know the fun stuff we do.” The Lansing chapter of the group targeted Mount Hope Church because of the church’s well-known Christian views on marriage and homosexual behavior. Through another page of its Web site, http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/UserDocs/BashBackWebPage2.pdf the group covertly recruited participants for its plans on Nov. 9, seeking some who would be willing to maintain “a more ‘militant’-looking presence out side [sic] of the building.”
“I can tell you that we are targeting a well-known anti-queer, anti-choice radical right wing establishment,” the page said. “However, we cant [sic] give you really any detailed information due to the cop who’s [sic] ridiculous job it is to do surveillance over this blog…. ‘ONLY ONE DIRECTION! TRANS AND QUEER INSURRECTION!’ - Bash Back! Lansing”
On Nov. 9, members of the group dressed in militant garb staged a protest http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/UserDocs/BashBackMtHope.jpg outside the church during a worship service to distract security personnel, blocking access to the building and parking lot at various times. Other members of the group dressed in plain clothes then deceptively entered the building. At a coordinated time, they sprang up to disrupt the service, terrifying many attendees. The group shouted religious slurs, unfurled a sign, and threw fliers around the sanctuary while two women began kissing near the podium. The group pulled fire alarms as they ran out of the building. After the incident, the group bragged about its activities on its Web site http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/UserDocs/BashBackWebPage3.pdf and, on a separate page, explained its choice of Mount Hope: “This church is nothing short of a disease in the community, and in the minds of those who attend.”
Federal law imposes penalties upon anyone who “by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.”
Sample of images from Bash Back! (WARNING: Content may be considered highly offensive) http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/UserDocs/BashBackImages.pdf
Complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan in Mount Hope Church v. Bash Back! http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/UserDocs/MtHopeComplaint.pdf
ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/whatwedo/default.aspx to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.
http://www.telladf.org/
"The Web"
Chinese imports could bring GM political troubles
By TOM KRISHER
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090514/D985PEDO0.html
(AP) Clarifies that some models of the five brands are imported. Graphic shows GM imports
Full image http://apnews.myway.com/image/20090513/GM_IMPORTS_2.sff_GFX680_20090513173805.html?date=20090514&docid=D985PEDO0
DETROIT (AP) - As thousands of General Motors workers await word on more U.S. plant closures, reports that the company plans to import Chinese-made vehicles to the U.S. have created a political problem for the automaker and the White House.
The reports, which GM will neither confirm nor deny, could mean trouble because GM is supported by $15.4 billion in U.S. government loans, largely due to the Obama administration's desire to preserve the company's 90,000 U.S. jobs.
The United Auto Workers charged last week that the Detroit automaker intends to almost double over the next five years the number of vehicles it imports to the U.S. from Mexico, South Korea, China and Japan.
"GM should not be taking taxpayers' money simply to finance the outsourcing of jobs to other countries," Alan Reuther, the union's Washington lobbyist, wrote in a letter to U.S. lawmakers.
The carmaker, which was in danger of running out of cash early this year, faces a June 1 government deadline to cut costs and complete other restructuring measures or go into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It also has requested another $11.6 billion in government loans to make it through this year, and faces the prospect that the government will soon be its largest shareholder.
On Wednesday, Shanghai Securities News and other Chinese media reported that GM plans to begin exporting vehicles from China to the U.S. within two years, ramping up sales to more than 50,000 by 2014.
GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson in Detroit would not comment on the reports. The White House and Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
"GM is reviewing various options," GM's China office said in a written statement received Thursday. "We are not discussing details of our future portfolio, beyond what we have disclosed in auto shows and our viability plans."
But the report reiterated the company's emphasis on first meeting demand in the Chinese domestic market.
"GM's philosophy has always been to build where we sell, and we continue to believe that is the best strategy for long-term success, both from a product development and business planning standpoint," it said.
Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California at Berkley who specializes in labor issues, said increased overseas production and imports could prove politically tricky for GM.
"The reason is simple - production location is a corporate decision, but when it's on the taxpayer dime, there are different sensitivities, so the notion of billions for a rescue package and offshore production, I think, could be politically combustible," he said.
Shaiken said GM needs to lower costs, which is accomplished with cheaper overseas labor. But it must also address concerns of the U.S. government, which wants to preserve American jobs.
"GM is getting funding from U.S. taxpayers to help save the company," Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said. "Taxpayers deserve more than Chinese imports in return. Taxpayer funds should be used to build the next generation of fuel-efficient vehicles in the U.S., not abroad. This is about creating jobs and rebuilding our economy."
GM, though, says the percentage of cars made and sold in the U.S. will remain stable.
Company documents show that American-made cars will comprise 67 percent of all vehicles sold in the country this year. The number drops slightly to 66 percent in GM's 2014 projections. Imports will amount to 33 percent this year, rising to 34 percent by 2014.
The company says the import mix could change by 2014, with fewer vehicles produced in Canada and more produced in Mexico and other countries.
"The percentage sold in the U.S. will stay constant within a percent or two," Wilkinson said. "The number of vehicles built in the U.S. will increase as the market recovers."
He reiterated that the company's goal is to build vehicles in the regions where they are sold, in part to avoid getting stung by currency fluctuations. GM, he said, builds 90 percent of vehicles sold in the U.S. in North America, and that is not expected to change.
Of the 3 million vehicles GM sold in the U.S. last year, it imported the Chevrolet Aveo and Pontiac G3 subcompacts from South Korea, the Pontiac G8 muscle car from Australia and the Saturn Astra compact from Belgium. The Saturn Vue, Chevrolet HHR small sport utility vehicles and several pickup truck models were imported from Mexico. Full-size pickup trucks, several sedans and small SUVs and the Chevrolet Camaro were brought in from Canada.
Still, the UAW generally opposes importing vehicles into the U.S. According to its figures, the percentage of GM's U.S. sales from Mexico, South Korea, Japan and China will increase from 15.5 percent now to 23.5 percent in 2014.
Reuther wrote that GM's increased imports would be equal to the output of four U.S. assembly plants, "the same number that GM plans to close."
The union currently is negotiating with GM for government-demanded labor cost cuts, including 16 plant closures. At a leadership meeting in Cleveland Wednesday, leaders were told to expect a vote on concessions before the June 1 deadline.
GM millwright Ron Bear of Belleville, Mich., who attended the meeting, said the rank-and-file would be unhappy with any more imports.
"As far as importing cars, what is that going to do for our jobs? I guess that's the question," he said.
GM would be the first company to import cars from China although automakers have brought in components in the past to save on labor costs. Most Chinese automakers have been daunted by meeting U.S. safety standards. They also face the uphill battle of winning consumer confidence for unfamiliar brands.
According to Chinese media reports, the primary exports to the U.S. would be small cars similar to the Chevrolet Spark subcompact.
David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, says it makes good business sense for GM to import subcompacts from China because the U.S. market for them is uncertain, but there is strong demand in China.
With gas prices around $2 per gallon most Americans will keep driving bigger cars. U.S. sales would be too small to justify the expense of building and equipping an assembly plant, he said. At the same time, exports to the U.S. would allow GM to keep its Chinese plants running at maximum capacity, which is the formula to make money, he said.
"In the short term, you're going to locate your plants where the core of the market is for that product," he said.
Cole suggested that for Obama, returning the company to viability would outweigh the drawbacks of importing some cars.
"What's more important, some jobs in a particular factory somewhere or the overall success of the company?" Cole asked. "That is really far more important."
Could I Be Mistaken for Jesus?
A few years ago a group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago. They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night's dinner.
In their rush, with tickets and briefcases, one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table that held a display of apples. Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping or looking back, they all managed to reach the plane in time for their nearly missed boarding.
All but one. He paused, took a deep breath, got in touch with his feelings, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple stand had been overturned. He told his buddies to go on without him, waved goodbye, told one of them to call his wife when they arrived at their home destination and explain his taking a later flight. Then he returned to the terminal where the apples were all over the terminal floor. He was glad he did.
The 16-year-old girl was totally blind! She was softly crying, tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her, no one stopping and no one to care for her plight.
The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the applies, put them back on the table and helped organize her display. As he did this, he noticed that many of them had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket. When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl, "Here, please take this $40 for the damage we did.
Are you okay?" She nodded through her tears.
He continued on with, "I hope we didn't spoil your day too badly."
As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out to him, "Mister..." He paused and turned to look back into those blind eyes. She continued, "Are you Jesus?"
He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered. Then slowly he made his way to catch the later flight with that question burning and bouncing about in his soul: "Are you Jesus?"
Do people mistake you for Jesus? Isn't that what a Christian's goal should be? To be so much like Jesus that people cannot tell the difference as we live and interact with a world (shopping, working, reacting to others that are serving us) that is blind to His love, life and grace. If we claim to know Him, we should live, walk and act as He would. Knowing Him is more than simply quoting Scripture and going to church. It's actually living the Word as life unfolds day to day.
You are the apple of His eye even though we, too, have been bruised by a fall. He stopped what He was doing and picked you and me up on a hill called Calvary and paid in full for our damaged fruit. Let us live like we are worth the price He paid.
Fifty Years of Math 1957 - 2007 (in the USA )
Last week I purchased a burger at Burger King for $1.58. The counter girl took my $2 and I was digging for my change when I pulled 8 cents from my pocket and gave it to her. She stood there, holding the nickel and 3 pennies, while looking at the screen on her register. I sensed her discomfort and tried to tell her to just give me two quarters, but she hailed the manager for help. While he tried to explain the transaction to her, she stood there and cried.. Why do I tell you this? Because of the evolution in teaching math since the 1950s:
1. Teaching Math In 1950s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit ?
2. Teaching Math In 1960s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?
3. Teaching Math In 1970s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?
4. Teaching Math In 1980s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.
5. Teaching Math In 1990s
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers, and if you feel like crying, it's ok. )
6. Teaching Math In 2009
Un hachero vende una carretada de maderapara $100. El costo de la producciones es $80... Cuanto dinero ha hecho?
HEADLINES FROM THE YEAR: 2029
Ozone created by electric cars now killing millions in the seventh largest country in the world, Mexifornia, formerly known as California.
White minorities still trying to have English recognized as Mexifornia's third language.
Spotted Owl plague threatens northwestern United States crops and livestock.
Baby conceived naturally! Scientists stumped.
Couple petitions court to reinstate heterosexual marriage.
Iran still closed off; physicists estimate it will take at least 10 more years before radioactivity decreases to safe levels.
France pleads for global help after being taken over by Jamaica. No other country comes forward to help the beleaguered nation!
Castro finally dies at age 112; Cuban cigars can now be imported legally, but President Chelsea Clinton has banned all smoking.
George Z. Bush says he will run for President in 2036.
Postal Service raises price of first class stamp to $17.89 and reduces mail delivery to Wednesdays only.
85-year $75.8 billion study: Diet and exercise is the key to weight loss.
Average weight of Americans drops to 250 lbs.
Global cooling blamed for citrus crop failure for third consecutive year in Mexifornia and Floruba.
Japanese scientists have created a camera with such a fast shutter speed they now can photograph a woman with her mouth shut.
Abortion clinics now available in every High School in United States..
Senate still blocking drilling in ANWR even though gas is selling for 4532 Pesos per liter and gas stations are only open on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Massachusetts executes last remaining conservative.
Supreme Court rules punishment of criminals violates their civil rights.
Average height of NBA players is now nine feet, seven inches.
New federal law requires that all nail clippers, screwdrivers, fly swatters and rolled-up newspapers must be registered by January 2030.
IRS sets lowest tax rate at 75 percent.
Floruba voters still having trouble with voting machines.
Now, send this to whomever you want and as many as you want, then, guess what… NOTHING will happen. No miracles, no money, absolutely nothing, except you might make someone smile or very very scared.
I Love This Country!
It's The Government That Scares Me!
"The e-mail Bag"
HOW TO INSTALL A HOME SECURITY SYSTEM WHEN ON A BUDGET:
1. Go to a second-hand store and buy a pair of men's used size 14-16 work boots.
2. Place them on your front porch, along with several empty beer cans, a copy of Guns & Ammo magazine and several NRA magazines.
3. Put a few giant dog dishes next to the boots and magazines.
4. Leave a note on your door that reads: 'Hey Bubba, Big Jim, Duke and Slim, I went to the gun shop for more ammunition. Back in an hour. Don't mess with the pit bulls -- they attacked the mailman this morning and messed him up real bad. I don't think Killer took part in it but it was hard to tell from all the blood.'
P S - 'I locked all four of 'em in the house... Better wait outside.'
INSTALLATION COMPLETE!!!!
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