ConservativeChristianRepublican-Report - 20090707

Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable



"Daily Motivations"

I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character
of an honest man. -- George Washington



"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)

"May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." (2 Corinthians 13:14)

Some people make the mistake of depersonalizing the Holy Spirit. They think of Him as some kind of will or force within them, not a He but an It. They confuse Him with the vague generic idea of a conscience. They pick up false ideas from Eastern religions about some small "spark" of God within us. But the Bible is very clear that none of these are accurate descriptions of who the Holy Spirit is and how He relates to us.

God's Spirit is fully a person with all His own individual traits. He speaks, inspires, guides, convicts, comforts, and encourages. He can be lied to and grieved. All these traits are functions of personality. Jesus always referred to Him in that light. He used the personal pronouns He and Him, but never the impersonal pronoun it. When He spoke to His disciples in the upper room about the Holy Spirit, He used the Greek word paracletos meaning called to one's side. That name tells us that the Holy Spirit has the ability to give aid and to comfort or console.

God's Spirit is a unique member of the Trinity. As you come to learn more about His work in your life, you will be more aware of His presence and power. You will come to recognize His gentle voice, welcoming His comfort and basking in His encouragement. He will come to be like a perfect friend. You will have an awareness of His personality and presence everywhere you go.



"The Patriot Post"

"As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a few years farther into life; that eminence will present a prospect, which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight." -- Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776



RE: THE LEFT

"'Saved or created' has become the signature phrase for Barack Obama as he describes what his stimulus is doing for American jobs. His latest invocation came [last week], when the president declared that the stimulus had already saved or created at least 150,000 American jobs -- and announced he was ramping up some of the stimulus spending so he could 'save or create' an additional 600,000 jobs this summer. These numbers come in the context of an earlier Obama promise that his recovery plan will 'save or create three to four million jobs over the next two years.' ... In the months since Congress approved the stimulus, our economy has lost nearly 1..6 million jobs and unemployment has hit 9.4%. Invoke the magic words, however, and -- presto! -- you have the president claiming he has 'saved or created' 150,000 jobs. It all makes for a much nicer spin, and helps you forget this is the same team that only a few months ago promised us that passing the stimulus would prevent unemployment from rising over 8%. ... Now, something's wrong when the president invokes a formula that makes it impossible for him to be wrong and it goes largely unchallenged. It's true that almost any government spending will create some jobs and save others. But as Milton Friedman once pointed out, that doesn't tell you much: The government, after all, can create jobs by hiring people to dig holes and fill them in. If the 'saved or created' formula looks brilliant, it's only because Mr. Obama and his team are not being called on their claims." -- columnist William McGurn



POLITICAL FUTURES

"At issue is whether America will continue to have a largely free-market-oriented health-care system or a government-run system where politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., make the most fundamental decisions about how we enter life, how we leave it and how we are cared for when we are ill. If Obama prevails, people who have so little respect for human life and private property that they approve of tax-funded abortion and tax-funded killing of human embryos will be empowered to decide who gets what tax-funded medical care and when. Our health care will belong to the government just as surely as General Motors does. ... If Obama and congressional liberals have their way, two of the three elements of a fully socialized health care system will be locked into law before Thanksgiving. The government will own a health-insurance company, and the government will require you to buy health insurance. The only thing Obama and congressional liberals won't formally require -- this year -- is that you buy your government-mandated insurance from the government-owned company. ... Socialized medicine must be stopped this summer -- or not at all." -- columnist Terence Jeffrey



THE LAST WORD

"What do Obama and God have in common? Neither has a birth certificate. How do they differ? God does not think he's Obama. And there's another difference between God and Obama, and that is that liberals love Obama. We have some more differences for you here between President Obama and God. God asks for only 10 percent of your money. God gives you freedom to live your life as you choose. God's plan to save us is actually written down for people to read." -- radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh



"Sunlight Foundation"

It's time for action, friends.

We (finally) have a bill introduced in the House of Representatives that will require legislation to be made public 72 hours before it is considered by Congress. Now we need to make sure it passes.

Right now, Congress doesn't actually read the legislation they vote on, and just as bad, we don't have the time to make our voice heard before a new law affects our lives. The status quo is wholly unacceptable, and now we have a way to start changing it.

http://www.readthebill.org

By introducing House Resolution 554, the bipartisan sponsors Reps. Baird (D-WA) and Culberson (R-TX) have taken us one step closer toward greater transparency, and given us a chance to improve the dialogue between members of Congress and the people who elected them. But H.R. 554 has a long way to go before this straightforward fix becomes law.

For starters, it needs a lot more support in Congress. We've made it easy for you sign our petition and call your representative to ask him or her to co-sponsor the bill. It's simple and important. Our goal is to deliver 15,000 signatures of support for the bill before Congress recesses in August.

Take a moment to sign, call and share the petition with others. It's a small action we can each take to raise awareness of how mind-numbingly absurd it is that Congress doesn't read its legislation, and ultimately make Congress more accountable to us.

http://www.readthebill.org

This is beyond a small procedural change, friends. There are many reasons having 72 hours of public notice prior to Congress's consideration of a bill is important, and here are a couple examples we found:

Most citizens would have supported amending the economic stimulus bill to remove the provision allowing AIG executives to receive retroactive bonuses - if only they had known.
The average person probably would have preferred to let the judicial system work rather than have Congress give immunity from lawsuits to telecommunications companies that participated in a controversial wiretapping scheme.
Workers hoping to retire on their 401(k) investments might have liked to have some serious analysis of whether credit default swaps ought to be regulated. We know how that worked out. And, just about everyone benefits from mandating time to check for questionable and wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars.

In these cases (and many others), only a handful of congressional staffers and possibly a few well-connected lobbyists knew exactly what was in the bills that, in turn, cost taxpayers billions of dollars, protected industry giants and wreaked havoc on our economy.

No one else - not most members of Congress, the media, interest groups or the public - had time to read the bills, analyze the ramifications and fix the problems before Congress made their decisions. Time for that to change.

Thousands of you have already signed the petition, and we hope you'll now help us get new signatures and make the calls necessary to have
the kind of impact we need.

Time for Congress to Read their Bills.

Jake Brewer
Engagement Director, Sunlight Foundation



"ACRU"

Robert Knight: Hate Crimes Bill Would Federalize Criminal Law, Revive Double Jeopardy
This column originally appeared on Townhall.com on June 30, 2009.

http://www.theacru.org/acru/robert_knight_hate_crimes_bill_would_federalize_criminal_law_revive_double_jeopardy/

Among its many defects, the proposed federal hate crimes bill virtually ensures that some defendants will face double jeopardy, whatever the outcome of their cases. It all depends on the whims of the folks occupying the Attorney General’s office, who may want to score political points at a defendant’s expense.

The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act (S. 909) now before the Senate, establishes "thought crime," violates equal protection by making some victims more important than others, elevates "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to be equivalent to civil rights categories like race, and greatly expands the federal role in criminal law.

In short, it's a grab bag of ways to violate genuine constitutional rights while addressing a non-issue. There is no compelling evidence that bias-motivated crimes are not being handled properly and perpetrators punished.

One of the bill's more dangerous features is its boldly stated authorization for the feds to intervene in any case they determine has not met "the federal interest in eradicating bias-motivated violence." Under current law, the feds can narrowly invoke their authority in cases where a "hate crime" has prevented someone from engaging in federally protected activities such as voting. The new law opens wide the door for the feds to barge in.

Gail Heriot, a member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, was one of two (out of six) witnesses testifying against the bill on June 25 before the Senate Judiciary Committee. She laid out precisely how the law could be abused, and concluded:

No one can deny the horror of violent crimes inspired by hatred of any kind. This is something upon which all decent people can agree. But it is precisely in those situations–where all decent people agree on the need to 'do something'–that mistakes are made. Passage of the vaguely-worded prohibitions in S. 909 would be a giant step toward the federalization of all crime. Given the many civil liberties issues that would raise, including the routine potential of double jeopardy prosecutions, this is a step that members of the Senate should think twice before they take.
In addition, the bill's wording guarantees future interpretive mischief, Heriot notes:

Back in 1998, attorneys at the Department of Justice, eager to expand federal authority, drafted language for the bill that would create federal jurisdiction over many cases that can't honestly be regarded as hate crimes–at least not as that term is understood by most Americans. The fact is that, despite the misleading use of the words "hate crime," [the bill] does not actually require that the defendant be inspired by hatred in order to convict. It is sufficient if he acts 'because of' someone's actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. Consider:
*Rapists are seldom indifferent to the gender of their victims. They are always chosen 'because of' their gender.

*A thief might well steal only from the disabled because, in general, they are less able to defend themselves. Literally, they're chosen 'because of' their disability.

* Suppose a burglar is surprised when the husband and wife who reside in the home return earlier than expected. The burglar shoots the husband and kills him, but finding himself unable to shoot a woman, turns and runs. Again, literally, the husband was killed ‘because of’ his gender.


The House version of the bill passed in April. President Obama said he wants to sign it before the August recess.

This bill is a grave threat to America's legal heritage of judging actions rather than thoughts or beliefs, and it will politicize law enforcement. Beyond the unfairness of excluding some groups, such as the elderly, the homeless, veterans and children, the proposed law advances an underlying, ambitious agenda to punish individuals and groups that hold traditional values.

During the Supreme Court hearings on the Boy Scouts case (Boy Scouts of America vs. Dale, 2000), the Rev. Rob Schenck of the National Clergy Council was sitting next to the White House liaison on gay and lesbian issues. Thinking he was of like mind, she whispered to him: "We’re not going to win this case, but that’s okay. Once we get 'hate crime' laws on the books, we’re going to go after the Scouts and all the other bigots."

Why would she say that? Could it be that the bill will lay the foundation for suppressing groups with traditional values?

S. 909 adds "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to a list of specially protected classes such as race, ethnicity, sex and religion. Congress would thus create newly minted "civil rights" based on sexual vagaries. Like "sexual orientation," "gender identity" is fluid, and it includes transvestitism (cross-dressing) and transsexualism. It is notable that former homosexuals, or "ex-gays," perhaps the most victimized group based on "sexual orientation" perceptions, have not been mentioned as being covered by this bill. In the House, even an amendment to exclude "pedophilia" was defeated.

The law essentially criminalizes views or beliefs. Defendants' speech, writing, reading materials and organizational memberships would become key evidence to establish a "hate crime."

Some language was inserted to assuage free speech and liberty concerns, but American Civil Rights Union Senior Legal Analyst Ken Klukowski observes: "It's only a statement of the obvious, so it has no legal effect. No statute can abridge constitutionally-protected speech. If any speech is burdened, and the speaker files suit, then the process and the result is the same ... [This] is just there to help pass the bill by giving people a talking point to say 'this law does nothing to violate anyone's free speech rights.' It makes no difference in court whatsoever."

The tendency to equate conservative views with "extremism" was on display earlier this year when a revealing memo surfaced at the Department of Homeland Security and for which Secretary Janet Napolitano was forced to apologize. The memo, "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," listed as candidates for "violent radicalization" such Americans as returning veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, people who oppose illegal immigration and gun control, and those who warn of losing American sovereignty to globalism. This characterization of millions of Americans as security threats should give everyone pause about passing laws that redefine legal protection based on group status.

The bill also represents yet another abuse of the Constitution's Commerce Clause, using it to justify federal intervention upon the flimsiest tie-ins to interstate trade.

In 2007, America had more than 11 million incidents of violence or property crime, of which 7,624 incidents were classified as "hate crimes." Not exactly an epidemic of "hate" in a nation of more than 300 million.

The proposed law will politicize crime, leading to pressure on police and prosecutors to devote more of their limited resources to some victims over others. If you doubt this, consider the tsunami of media accompanying the Matthew Shepard case in Wyoming in 1998, while the murder of Kristen Lamb, an eight-year-old girl, a month before was virtually ignored.

Hate crime laws lay the groundwork for assaults on freedom of speech and freedom of religion. We can look to our northern neighbor for clues about what happens when such laws are enacted. In Saskatchewan, Canada, a newspaper publisher and a man who placed a newspaper ad faced jail and were fined $4,500 each, merely for running an ad containing references to several Bible verses regarding homosexuality. A college teacher who wrote a letter to the editor affirming traditional morality was suspended. And best-selling author Mark Steyn (America Alone), has faced charges in national and provincial tribunals for the supposed "hate crime" of reporting what Muslim leaders in Europe themselves say about changing demographics.

The Senate should think long and hard before saddling Americans with this kind of dangerous nonsense.



"II Chron. 7:14"

By Pat Grant

AFTER A DAY OF CONTEMPLATION AND SOUL SEARCHING, I HAVE DECIDED TO REACH OUT TO MY FRIENDS AND RELATIVES AND ASK YOU TO DO SOMETHING THAT HAS BEEN TROUBLING ME FOR A LONG TIME.

OUR NATION IS/HAS BEEN ON THE SLIPPERY SLOPE TO HELL FOR A LONG TIME. IF YOU LOOK AROUND YOU WILL FIND CORRUPTION, GREED, MORAL DECAY AND A STEADY MOVE AWAY FROM THE THINGS THAT MADE US GREAT. THE PRINCIPLES UPON WHICH THIS NATION WAS FOUNDED ARE NO LONGER OUR
BACKBONE. HOWEVER, WE CAN REVERSE THIS TREND.

IN GOD'S WORD HE STATES,"IF MY PEOPLE WHO ARE CALLED BY MY NAME WILL HUMBLE THEMSELVES, AND PRAY AND SEEK MY FACE, AND TURN FROM THEIR WICKED WAYS, THEN I WILL HEAR FROM HEAVEN, AND WILL FORGIVE THEIR SIN AND HEAL THEIR LAND."

I AM CONVINCED THAT WE MUST PRAY FOR OUR NATION AND ITS LEADERS AND ASK FOR FORGIVENESS. SO I ASK YOU TO JOIN ME IN THIS PLEA TO OUR LORD.

WOULD YOU PLEASE SEND THIS TO AT LEAST 25 PEOPLE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK, (SEND IT TO ALL OF THEM). ASK THEM TO PRAY EVERYDAY. 25 TO THE 5TH POWER IS 9,765,625 PEOPLE. IMAGINE IF EACH PERSON REACHES TEN OTHERS.

IF YOU DO AND THEY COMPLY, WE WILL LIFT UP MILLIONS OF PRAYERS A DAY TO OUR CREATOR. HE WILL HEAR US AND IN FAITH WILL ANSWER.

Let me just add a quote from Ronald Reagan - "If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under." I truly believe this is why the United States of America is in the shape we are in today. Most people have forgotten that we are ONE NATION UNDER GOD! Let us as Christians stand up and remind people of this. ~ Have a Blessed Day!



"The Web"

10 Roses For You

http://www.authorstream..com/presentation/vkaisthaaseem-77173-10-roses-vanshaj-amogh-entertainment-ppt-powerpoint/



Obama. the Radical Son

Rick Moran

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/07/obama_the_radical_son.html

A shocking article written by a young Barack Obama while he was at Columbia sheds some light on the president's real attitudes toward the United States and our system of "economic injustice."

Andy McCarthy of NRO's The Corner has the story that should have been front page news a year ago:

During the campaign, I wrote a piece called "Why Won't Obama Talk About Columbia? - The years he won't discuss may explain the Ayers tie he keeps lying about." So now, nearly six months into the Obama presidency, the mainstream media has finally done a bit of the candidate background reporting it declined to do during the campaign - other than in Wasilla - and whaddya know? The New York Times unearthed a 1983 article called, "Breaking the War Mentality," that Columbia student Barack Obama wrote for a campus newspaper. The article shows that Obama dreaded American "militarism" and its "military-industrial interests," while effusing enthusiasm for the dangerously delusional nuclear-freeze movement.

Moreover, while indicating a preference for the political wisdom of reggae singer Peter Tosh over Ronald Reagan or Scoop Jackson, Obama bewailed the "narrow focus" of anti-militarism activists, worrying that they were targeting the "symptoms" rather than the real "disease," namely, America's underlying economic and political injustice.

Some of the things Obama wrote in this March 10, 1983 article or so out of the mainstream of even today's far left Democratic party that it is clear we have a radical leftist on his way to Moscow to negotiate our nuclear arsenal while threatening to bypass the senate altogether in order to make it stick.

Here is the president of the United States as a student at Columbia:

Generally, the narrow focus of the [Nuclear] Freeze movement as well as academic discussions of first versus second strike capabilities, suit the military-industrial interests, as they continue adding to their billion dollar erector sets.  When Peter Tosh sings that "everybody's asking for peace, but nobody's asking for justice," one is forced to wonder whether disarmament or arms control issues, severed from economic and political issues, might be another instance of focusing on the symptoms of a problem instead of the disease itself.

And that "disease" is American "militarism" and "economic injustice." Here's our president writing what McCarthy aptly calls "leftist gobbldygook:"

Indeed, the most pervasive malady of the collegiate system specifically, and the American experience generally, is that elaborate patterns of knowledge and theory have been disembodied from individual choices and government policy. What the members of ARA and SAM try to do is infuse what they have learned about the current situation, bring the words of that formidable roster on the face of Butler Library, names like Thoreau, Jefferson, and Whitman, to bear on the twisted logic of which we are today a part. By adding their energy and effort in order to enhance the possibility of a decent world, they may help deprive us of a spectacular experience -that of war; But then, there are some things we shouldn't have to live through in order to want to avoid the experience.

Is it possible that Obama moderated his views over the years and is now just a good old fashioned Democrat rather than a far left radical loon who quotes a reggae singer to make his case against the military?

I will allow that as we get older, we are not quite as sure of ourselves as we were in our youth. But I think Obama's policies bear out the idea that he despises capitalism, is distrustful of our military, and still harbors extraordinarily naive views of how the world works and America's role in it.

Absolutely remarkable that this article is just emerging now. If anything proved that the press failed to do its traditional job of vetting candidates for the presidency it is the discovery of this article which no doubt will be suppressed to some extent. Not so much to protect Obama but to hide the fact that journalists failed to do their job before the election.



HOW TO CATCH WILD PIGS

There was a Chemistry professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the Prof noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country’s government and install a new communist government. In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question.

He asked, ‘ Do you know how to catch wild pigs?’ The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. ‘You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how To forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. while we continually lose our freedoms- just a little at a time.

One should always remember ‘There is no such thing as a free Lunch! Also, a politician will never provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.

I just don’t know how some people don’t get this..

Also, if you see that all of this wonderful government 'help' is a problem confronting the future of democracy in America, you might want to send this on to your friends. If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life then you will probably delete this email, but God help you when the gate slams shut!

Keep your eyes on the newly elected politicians who are about to slam the gate on America ..

"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have" -- Thomas Jefferson



Global Warming Overshadowed: Media Give Massive Cap-and-Trade Tax Second Billing

Suppression of science and narrow passage of climate change legislation take back seat to celebrity deaths and health care.

By Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2009/20090701131617.aspx

The news cycle has been dominated by celebrity deaths – Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and even TV pitchman Billy Mays – and President Barack Obama’s health care initiative. Obama has used the compliant media to keep the focus to health care, and they are neglecting a critical largest news event that could impact the lives of every man, woman and child for the foreseeable future.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a 1,200-page climate change bill known as the “American Clean Energy and Security Act” sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. and Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., by a narrow 219-212 vote on June 26.

Prospects for that piece of environmental legislation might have been hurt had journalists reported the scientific censorship taking place in the Obama administration. A veteran of the Environmental Protection Agency strongly questioned the theory of manmade global warming in a report that was then silenced by the administration. That’s exactly the opposite of how many journalists handled a similar controversy during the Bush administration.

The news blackout helped the new bill, which has been referred to as the “cap-and-tax bill” by opponents, who point out the massive tax increase that the American public will be burdened with as a result. So contentious is the bill that it inspired the likes of liberal bomb-thrower and columnist Paul Krugman to accuse those same opponents of treason in the op-ed pages of The New York Times.

But Krugman at least acknowledged the bill’s existence. Few others in the mainstream media have. Climate change has been a pet issue the past several years for the media, so their silence is strange.



A Double Standard: EPA Skeptic Suppressed – Ignored by All, but Fox News

Throughout the latter half of George W. Bush’s presidency, some in the media were quick to cry foul when accusations surfaced science was being silenced in the name of politics, especially in the case of NASA climate expert James Hansen.

But fast-forward to June 2009 and the early stages of the Barack Obama presidency. The cap-and-trade bill just passed the House and was on its way to the Senate when a 38-year EPA veteran, Senior Operations Research Analyst Alan Carlin, came forward and said his 98-page study that questioned the theory of anthropogenic global warming had been quashed by the administration.

Carlin appeared on the Fox News Channel’s June 30 “Fox & Friends” and told of how his report was dismissed by the EPA because his “comments do not help the legal policy or case.” Those revelations caused Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., to call for a congressional inquiry.

“He came out with the truth,” Inhofe said to Fox News on June 29. “They don’t want the truth at the EPA. We’re going to expose it."

Nonetheless, Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network have been virtually alone in covering the story – in sharp contrast to similar revelations from the opposite side of the issue during the Bush Administration. A scientist was allegedly censored because his findings went against the politics of the administration in power. That got top billing by some media outlets.

“The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming,” Andrew Revkin wrote for the front page of the January 29, 2006 issue of The New York Times. “The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.”

That article sparked coverage from other mainstream media outlets, eager to show there was an effort by the Bush administration to silence Hansen. CBS “60 Minutes” contributor and regular global warming alarmist Scott Pelley reported that Hansen faced trouble by appearing on his program.

“As a government scientist, James Hansen is taking a risk,” Pelley said on the March 19, 2006 “60 Minutes.” “He says there are things the White House doesn’t want you to hear, but he’s going to say them anyway. Hansen is arguably the world's leading researcher on global warming. He’s the head of NASA’s top institute studying the climate. But, as we first reported last spring, this eminent scientist says the Bush administration is restricting who he can talk to and editing what he can say. Politicians, he says, are rewriting the science. Well, there’ll be none of that tonight because James Hansen is telling what he knows on ‘60 Minutes.’”

Hansen parlayed the fame he gained from dozens of news interviews into a book called “Censoring Science: Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming.”



Political Realities Ignored: Narrow House Passage Means Likely End of the Road

When the Waxman-Markey bill passed in the House on June 26 by a mere seven-vote margin, even with harsh criticism from House Minority Leader John Boehner, it was celebrated as a win by some in the global warming alarmist movement. Steve Bouchard, campaign manager of former Vice President Al Gore chalked the vote up as a victory.

“Today, we have something to celebrate,” Bouchard wrote in an e-mail sent out immediately after the House vote on June 26. “For the first time in decades, we have taken bold action to help solve the climate crisis. I look forward to working with you in the days ahead.”

The coverage on the networks wasn’t as “celebratory,” although he bill was commonly hailed as “sweeping.”

“In Washington, the House last night narrowly passed a sweeping climate change bill,” “NBC Nightly News” weekend anchor Lester Holt said on his June 27 broadcast. “President Obama says it’s a bold and necessary step to fight global warming and encourage a new era of green energy. Critics, however, say the new cap and trade system to limit greenhouse gases will lead to higher energy costs.”

On the June 27 broadcast of ABC’s “World News,” David Muir said “Back in Washington tonight, President Obama is now urging the Senate to pass the most sweeping bill ever to address global warming. It was a squeaker in the House last night. And it might be an even tougher sale in the Senate.”

This was a significant understatement. Immediately following the House vote on June 26, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., issued his own statement.

“Today’s razor thin vote in the House spells doom in the Senate,” Inhofe said. “Despite a large Democratic majority in the House, and the fact that this is one of the President’s top priorities, the Democratic leadership was forced to do everything possible to get a bill passed. Their slim victory could come at a high price – this is the BTU tax all over again.”

And so far, Inhofe’s analogy about the BTU tax has proven valid. Keith Hennessey, a senior White House economic advisor to President George W. Bush, recently recounted the events that an unfolded around the 1993 BTU tax vote on his Web site. Hennessey explained the BTU tax bill narrowly passed in the House, but was dead on arrival in the Senate – and both houses of Congress were Democrat-controlled at the time.

Inhofe has consistently conveyed that message over the past few months as the Waxman-Markey bill has been debated – it won’t pass regardless of the Democrat’s best efforts.

It could be that the mainstream media understands this and has determined not to waste time on a story with a dead end. It’s otherwise difficult to believe that a major piece of legislation of this nature wouldn’t garner significant media coverage. According to The Heritage Foundation, gas and energy prices would spike, costing American families an additional $3,000 per year. Jobs would be lost and the prices of goods would jump – all in exchange for little impact on the environment.

However, as a June 29 Business & Media Institute analysis of USA Today pointed out, the death of pop singer Michael Jackson received massive coverage for three straight days. Waxman-Markey was nowhere to be found.



3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate—

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

Contact Information:
U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey
Office of Communication
119 National Center
Reston, VA 20192

Read FAQs about the Bakken Formation.

Listen to a podcast with the lead scientist on this topic.

Reston, VA - North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation.

A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of 151million barrels of oil.

Technically recoverable oil resources are those producible using currently available technology and industry practices. USGS is the only provider of publicly available estimates of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources.

New geologic models applied to the Bakken Formation, advances in drilling and production technologies, and recent oil discoveries have resulted in these substantially larger technically recoverable oil volumes. About 105 million barrels of oil were produced from the Bakken Formation by the end of 2007.

The USGS Bakken study was undertaken as part of a nationwide project assessing domestic petroleum basins using standardized methodology and protocol as required by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 2000.

The Bakken Formation estimate is larger than all other current USGS oil assessments of the lower 48 states and is the largest "continuous" oil accumulation ever assessed by the USGS. A "continuous" oil accumulation means that the oil resource is dispersed throughout a geologic formation rather than existing as discrete, localized occurrences. The next largest "continuous" oil accumulation in the U.S. is in the Austin Chalk of Texas and Louisiana, with an undiscovered estimate of 1.0 billions of barrels of technically recoverable oil.

"It is clear that the Bakken formation contains a significant amount of oil - the question is how much of that oil is recoverable using today's technology?" said Senator Byron Dorgan, of North Dakota. "To get an answer to this important question, I requested that the U.S. Geological Survey complete this study, which will provide an up-to-date estimate on the amount of technically recoverable oil resources in the Bakken Shale formation."

The USGS estimate of 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil has a mean value of 3.65 billion barrels. Scientists conducted detailed studies in stratigraphy and structural geology and the modeling of petroleum geochemistry. They also combined their findings with historical exploration and production analyses to determine the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil estimates.

USGS worked with the North Dakota Geological Survey, a number of petroleum industry companies and independents, universities and other experts to develop a geological understanding of the Bakken Formation. These groups provided critical information and feedback on geological and engineering concepts important to building the geologic and production models used in the assessment.

Five continuous assessment units (AU) were identified and assessed in the Bakken Formation of North Dakota and Montana - the Elm Coulee-Billings Nose AU, the Central Basin-Poplar Dome AU, the Nesson-Little Knife Structural AU, the Eastern Expulsion Threshold AU, and the Northwest Expulsion Threshold AU.

At the time of the assessment, a limited number of wells have produced oil from three of the assessments units in Central Basin-Poplar Dome, Eastern Expulsion Threshold, and Northwest Expulsion Threshold.
The Elm Coulee oil field in Montana, discovered in 2000, has produced about 65 million barrels of the 105 million barrels of oil recovered from the Bakken Formation.

Results of the assessment can be found at http://energy.usgs.gov.



Palin Attorney Warns Media on Defamation
Monday, July 6, 2009 2:17 PM

By: Rick Pedraza

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s attorney, Thomas Van Flein, issued a four-page warning to mainstream news organizations over the weekend that he will sue on behalf of his client if “defamatory material” relating to her or her family finds its way from Internet blogs to print.

In the statement released Saturday, Van Flein noted there will be severe consequences to those organizations that print stories accusing the governor of embezzling funds in the construction of a sports arena in Wasilla, Alaska. The FBI today released a statement saying Palin is not under investigation, Politico reports.

“We are not investigating her," FBI spokesman Eric Gonzalez said Sunday. "Normally we don't confirm or deny those kinds of allegations out there, but by not doing so it just casts her in a very bad light. There is just no truth to those rumors out there in the blogosphere."

Palin's personal spokeswoman, Meg Stapleton, sent the statement from Van Flein attacking "false and defamatory allegations that the 'real' reasons for Governor Palin's resignation stem from an alleged criminal investigation pertaining to the construction of the Wasilla Sports Complex,” the Anchorage Daily News reports.

Radio talk show host and blogger Shannyn Moore, who Van Flein called out personally for defaming Palin, followed that up by holding a press conference of her own in Anchorage yesterday to respond to Palin’s attorney’s claims.

Moore went on national television Friday, the day Palin said she would resign, and mentioned the rumor to MSNBC's David Shuster.

"There is a scandal rumor here that there is a criminal investigation into some activities and that's been rumored for about, I don't know, probably six weeks or two months," Moore told Shuster, noting Palin appeared nervous as she announced her resignation.

“I think she [Palin] was actually doing damage control for news that's coming up later," Moore said in explaining Palin’s abrupt resignation after serving just two-and-a-half years of a four-year term in office.

"I can say definitively I am aware of no criminal investigation whatsoever involving Sarah Palin. Zero," Van Flein said.

"The Palins used a combination of personal savings, equity from the sale of their private home, and conventional bank financing to build the house, like millions of American families," Van Flein wrote in reference to the Lake Lucille family home Palin’s husband Todd built as general contractor.

Van Fleini said Todd "is no stranger to construction. We will be exploring legal options this week to address such defamation."

In response to the defamation allegation, Moore said: "I haven't defamed the governor; I reported on speculation and rumor in Alaska. It's not my rumor; it's been out there for 10 months and the First Amendment protects me. Even if I didn't say it's 'rumors and speculation,' I'm still protected –– I would just lose credibility, which I'm not willing to do."

Moore called Palin "a coward and a bully" and said she only pointed out that rumors existed about Palin’s finances but never claimed them to be fact.

"What kind of politician attacks an ordinary American on the Fourth of July for speaking her mind?” Moore said. “What's wrong with her? The first amendment was designed to protect people like me from people like her. Our American revolution got rid of kings. And it got rid of queens, as well. Am I annoyed? You betcha. Shannyn Moore will not be muzzled.”



Sarah Palin story sparks Republican family feud

By JONATHAN MARTIN

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24392.html#ixzz0K9CNPxPH&D

A hard-hitting piece on Sarah Palin in the new Vanity Fair

has touched off a blistering exchange of insults among high-profile Republicans over last year’s GOP ticket – tearing open fresh wounds about leaks surrounding Palin and revealing for the first time some of the internal wars that paralyzed the campaign in its final days.

Rival factions close to the McCain campaign have been feuding since last fall over Palin, usually waging the battle in the shadows with anonymous quotes. Now, however, some of the most well-known names in Republican politics are going on-the-record with personal attacks and blame-casting.

William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard and at times an informal adviser to Sen. John McCain, touched off the latest back-and-forth Tuesday morning with a post on his magazine’s blog criticizing the Todd Purdum-authored Palin story and pointing a finger at Steve Schmidt, McCain’s campaign manager.

Kristol cited a passage in Purdum’s piece in which “some top aides” were said to worry about the Alaska governor’s “mental state” and the prospect that the Alaska governor may be suffering from post-partum depression following the birth of her son Trig. “In fact, one aide who raised this possibility in the course of trashing Palin’s mental state to others in the McCain-Palin campaign was Steve Schmidt,” Kristol wrote.

Asked about the accusation, Schmidt fired back in an e-mail: “I'm sure John McCain would be president today if only Bill Kristol had been in charge of the campaign.”

“After all, his management of [former Vice President] Dan Quayle’s public image as his chief of staff is still something that takes your breath away,” Schmidt continued. “His attack on me is categorically false.”

Asked directly in a telephone interview if he brought up the prospect of Palin suffering from post-partum depression, Schmidt said: “His allegation that I was defaming Palin by alleging post-partum depression at the campaign headquarters is categorically untrue. In fact, I think it rises to the level of a slander because it’s about the worst thing you can say about somebody who does what I do for a living.”

But Kristol’s charge was seconded by Randy Scheunemann, a longtime foreign policy adviser to McCain who is also close to the Standard editor and was thought to be a Palin ally within the campaign.

“Steve Schmidt has a congenital aversion to the truth,” Scheunemann said. “On two separate and distinct occasions, he speculated about about Governor Palin having post-partum depression, and on the second he threatened that if more negative publicity about the handling of Governor Palin emerged that he would leak his speculation [about post-partum depression] to the press. It was like meeting Tony Soprano.”

Schmidt said Scheunemann’s charges were “categorically untrue.”

“It is inappropriate for me to discuss personnel issues from the campaign,” Schmidt continued. “But suffice it to say Randy is saying these things not because they’re true but because he wants to damage my reputation because of consequences he faced for actions he took.”

Schmidt is alluding, without saying so directly, to the stories that emerged after the campaign that Scheunemann had been fired.

Scheunemann said Schmidt did try to fire him but added: “I’ve got a pay stub through November 15th.”

The questions about Scheunemann being terminated are central to the larger battle about who was trashing Palin, something that quickly came to the surface in the back and forth between Schmidt and Kristol on Tuesday.

The vitriol also suggests the degree to which Palin remains a Rorschach test not simply to Republicans nationally but within a tight circle of elite operatives and commentators, many of whom seem ready to carry their arguments in 2012. Was Palin a fresh talent whose debut was mishandled by self-serving campaign insiders, or an eccentric “diva” who had no business on the national stage? Going forward, does she offer a conservative and charismatic face for a demoralized and star-less party? Or is she a loose cannon who should be consigned to the tabloids where she can reside in perpetuity with other flash-in-the-pan sensations?

Schmidt, who has returned to his California-based political and public affairs consulting business, said that he “worked incredibly hard during the campaign to defend Sarah Palin and her family against a lot of attacks that I thought then and think today were very unfair.”

And he got in a dig at Kristol, who frequently offered unvarnished assessments of McCain’s campaign from his perch at the Standard, on Fox News, where he is a contributor, and in his then-New York Times column.

“Bill Kristol, going back to the time of the campaign, has taken a lot of cheap shots at the campaign without ever offering a plausible path to victory,” Schmidt said. “He’s in the business of ad hominem insults and criticism.”

Responding to Schmidt’s counterattack, Kristol directly fingered Schmidt: “It’s simply a fact that when the going got tough, Steve Schmidt trashed Sarah Palin, both within the campaign and (on background) to journalists. This was after Steve took credit for the Palin pick when, at first, he thought it made him look good. John McCain deserved better.”

At this, Schmidt unloaded in a lengthy telephone interview, suggesting that Kristol was carrying out a personal vendetta based out of anger over the attempt to fire Scheunemann in the final days of the campaign.

In doing so, Schmidt revealed what has been whispered about for months following the campaign: that he and another top aide had ordered a leak hunt in the campaign’s internal e-mail system.

“What this is about is a personal issue that happened late in the campaign relating to a close, personal friend of Bill Kristol and people at The Weekly Standard,” Schmidt said, refusing to use Scheunemann’s name.

“At the end of the campaign there were a series of leaks that were so damaging that it was consuming the 24-hour cable news cycle. Leaks to reporters where Sarah Palin was called all manner of names. [McCain senior adviser] Rick Davis and I jointly felt that was outrageous. So we made an attempt for the first time in the campaign to try to ID who was leaking information that was so damaging and demoralizing to a campaign that was in very difficult circumstances,” Schmidt said, noting that an IT professional executed a system-wide search by keyword.

“What was discovered was an e-mail from a very senior staff member to Bill Kristol that then entered into the news current and continued the negative in-fighting stories for an additional news cycles. I recommended tough medicine for that individual that was carried out,” Schmidt said, again referring to Scheunemann. “Bill Kristol might not have liked that decision, and he might be mad about what happened to his friend, but going all the way back he has been a part of this story and I’ve preserved his confidentiality in that until now. But his use of his public forums to take a personal fight and make character attacks is just simply dishonest and wrong.”

Scheunemann, confirming that his e-mail had been searched, accused Schmidt of “acting in a manner of Iranian secret police” in going to his account.

The foreign policy hand said what was discovered was a message from Kristol inquiring who was the source in the campaign of the “diva” leak, the now-famous complaint from a senior McCain campaign official to CNN’s Dana Bash that Palin was acting like a spoiled and selfish celebrity.

Schmidt suggested that Scheunemann had fingered Nicolle Wallace, a senior McCain adviser who helped work with Palin, to Kristol in the message.

“It led to a whole another round of speculation, including Fred Barnes the next night attacking Nicolle Wallace on the air,” Schmidt said, suggesting without saying directly that was why an effort was made to terminate Scheunemann. Barnes, another Weekly Standard editor and Fox News contributor, accused Wallace on Fox News in late October of being “a coward” for running up tens of thousands of dollars in high-end clothes for Palin and then letting the governor take the blame for the purchases. After Wallace denied she had purchased the clothes, Barnes apologized on the air the following night.

But Scheunemann said the clothes controversy was an entirely separate issue and one which he made no mention of in his e-mail to Kristol.

Asked directly if he accused Nicolle Wallace of being the source behind the “diva” leak in his message to Kristol, Scheunemann said: “My e-mail did not accuse Nicolle Wallace. It said something very disparaging about Nicolle but it did not accuse her of being the leak.”

A source familiar with the contents of the e-mail said that Scheunemann actually accused Nicolle Wallace’s husband, Mark Wallace, of being the source of the leak.

When Kristol questioned the likelihood of a male like Mark Wallace using such a gossipy term as diva, this source said, Scheunemann wrote back that Mark Wallace knows something about divas because he’s married to a diva.

Asked about the e-mail, Nicolle Wallace said: “I did not have any knowledge of this. This is all news to me.”

As for being called a “diva,” Wallace laughed for a few seconds.

“I don’t have anything to say on that,” she said.

Mark Wallace, taking the phone from his wife, also laughed about the diva accusation but wouldn’t respond when asked whether he had been the source of the “diva” leak. He explained that he had followed a "zero talk policy with the press" regarding the campaign and wanted to honor that.

But, after an early version of this story was posted on-line, he made an exception and offered a flat denial: "No, never. I don't think Sarah Palin is a diva."

The leak-hunting, Scheunemann said, began after POLITICO’s Ben Smith wrote a story in late October suggesting that Palin had ”gone rogue” and began ignoring the advice of her campaign handlers.

“So after that, they went nuclear with ‘diva’ the next day,” Scheunemann said, referring to the Palin-bashing done to CNN’s Bash the day after the POLITICO story. “But did anybody search Mark or Nicolle Wallace’s e-mails for leaks to Dana Bash?”

Schmidt said Kristol was driven by a personal vendetta over the attempted termination of his decades-long friend, Scheunemann.

“Nonsense,” Kristol replied. “My post today was (self-evidently) triggered by the Todd Purdum article that appeared today, which had Schmidt’s fingerprints all over it. I hadn’t thought about Schmidt in months, and will be happy now to return to more pressing issues, like the presidency of Barack Obama.”

As for the charges of being a sunshine soldier with regard to Palin, Schmidt said: “Nonsense. I’m a team player. That’s a reflection of [Kristol’s] values. He’s the Washington, D.C., talking head and glitterati. I live in Northern California and I really don’t give a s--- about that stuff.”

The nasty back-and-forth between the two well-known Republicans and re-litigating of internal backbiting underscores the degree to which the internecine and very personal battle over last fall’s ticket between those seen as Palin allies and Palin detractors still rages on nearly six months into President Obama’s term.

And it comes as Palin struggles to find her footing, at times appearing to want to take a strictly Alaska-first approach, but then re-emerging on the national stage – something chronicled in the nearly 10,000-word Vanity Fair article.

Loyalists to Palin, including Kristol, were outraged at Purdum’s piece, believing it to be another example of what they see as elite media contempt for the Wasilla native.

In his post, Kristol also criticized Purdum for writing that several Alaskans had told him during the reporting of the piece that they had checked the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” and found it fit their governor.

“Is there any real chance that ‘several’ Alaskans independently told Purdum that they had consulted the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders?” Kristol wrote. “I don’t believe it for a moment. I’ve (for better or worse) moved in pretty well-educated circles in my life, and I’ve gone decades without ‘several’ people telling me they had consulted the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.”

In response, Purdum, a Princeton graduate, wrote of his Harvard-degreed critic: “I'm not nearly as well-educated as Bill, but the great Irving Berlin taught me that ‘you don't have to go to a private school not to pick up a penny near a stubborn mule.’ In the age of Google, I'm confident that plenty of Alaskans know more about finding medical reference works – and all sorts of other knowledge – than Bill thinks they do.



Do you get the feeling Americans are not happy with the new administration?

Let's "hope" it (administration) will "change".........

http://forums.qrz.com/showthread.php?t=206637

ONE SIGN SAYS: "Limit politicians to two terms........ one in office, one in jail!!" LOL!

Right in Obama's back yard!! I'm more proud of the folks in the windy city, than I thought was ever possible! By the way, I didn't see the ABC CBS NBC CNN MSNBC covering this - did you? Wonder why...

Those who have visited Chicago will recognize the downtown area.

It was a great day!

We had some great signs there are lots of them hard to pick my favorite.

Limit politicians to two terms...................one in office, one in jail !!!!!



"The e-mail Bag"

MARRIAGE SEMINAR

While attending a Marriage Seminar dealing with communication, Tom and his wife Grace listened to the instructor, "It is essential that husbands and wives know each other's likes and dislikes."

He addressed the man, "Can you name your wife's favorite flower?"

Tom leaned over, touched his wife's arm gently and whispered, "It's Pillsbury, isn't it?



Cop Humor

These are actual comments made by 16 Police Officers. The comments were taken off actual police car videos around the country:

16. 'You know, stop lights don't come any redder than the one you just went through.'

15. 'Relax, the handcuffs are tight because they're new. They'll stretch after you wear them a while.'

14. 'If you take your hands off the car, I'll make your birth certificate a worthless document.'

13. 'If you run, you'll only go to jail tired.'

12. 'Can you run faster than 1200 feet per second? Because that's the speed of the bullet that'll be chasing you.'

11. 'You don't know how fast you were going? I guess that means I can write anything I want to on the ticket, huh?'

10. 'Yes, sir, you can talk to the shift supervisor, but I don't think it will help. Oh, did I mention that I'm the shift supervisor?'

9. 'Warning! You want a warning? O.K, I'm warning you not to do that again or I'll give you another ticket.'

8. 'The answer to this last question will determine whether you are drunk or not. Was Mickey Mouse a cat or a dog?'

7. 'Fair? You want me to be fair? Listen, fair is a place where you go to ride on rides, eat cotton candy and corn dogs and step in monkey poop.'

6. 'Yeah, we have a quota. Two more tickets and my wife gets a toaster oven.'

5. 'In God we trust, all others we run through NCIC.'

4. 'How big were those 'two beers' you say you had?'

3. 'No sir, we don't have quotas anymore.. We used to, but now we're allowed to write as many tickets as we can.'

2. 'I'm glad to hear that the Chief (of Police) is a personal friend of yours. So you know someone who can post your bail.'

AND THE WINNER IS....

1. 'You didn't think we give pretty women tickets? You're right, we don't. Sign here.'