ConservativeChristianRepublican-Report - 20100315

Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable

Promoting "God's Holy Values and American Freedoms"!



"Daily Motivations"

You can have anything you want in life if you just help enough other people get what they want. -- Zig Ziglar

"If you make it plain you like people, it's hard for them to resist liking you back." -- Lois McMaster Bujold

You can learn new things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you. -- Barbara Sher



"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)

It is actually best for you that I go away, because if I don't, the Counselor won't come. If I do go away, He will come because I will send Him to you. (John 16:7)

Jesus was fully God and fully human, Jesus lived among us and demonstrated through His life and teachings just how we are supposed to live. He was the Word of God made flesh. Then, on the cross where men crucified Him, He paid the penalty for our sins. He took on our punishment so that we might be spared to enjoy eternal life and an intimate relationship with Him. He rose from the dead as the "first fruit" of this new order, just as we, too, will rise again.

Then something incredible and marvelous happened. When Jesus returned to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father, He made a way to remain among us as long as we live on this earth. He released the Holy Spirit to come and live inside each one of His followers. In that way, we have the mind and the spirit of God within us.

That is why Jesus told His disciples that it was better for them that He leave this world. They had only enjoyed His presence among them physically. Now and for all time, He is among us in the deepest and most powerful way, living within us. We have Jesus' counsel, comfort, and friendship with us wherever we go, and no one can ever take it away. The Bible tells us this is a preview, a foretaste, of the wonderful fellowship that lies ahead of us when we join Him in eternity.

Your View of God Really Matters …

When did you first hear about the Holy Spirit? How has He made an impact on your life, or are you yet to discover Him and His power?



"The Patriot Post"

"Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force." --Thomas Jefferson



Government

Race isn't part of the Constitution's census prescription"Suppose you suggest to a congressman that given our budget crisis, we could save some money by dispensing with the 2010 census. I guarantee you that he'll say something along the lines that the Constitution mandates a decennial counting of the American people and he would be absolutely right. Article I, Section 2 of our Constitution reads: 'The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.' What purpose did the Constitution's framers have in mind ordering an enumeration or count of the American people every 10 years? The purpose of the headcount is to apportion the number of seats in the House of Representatives and derived from that, along with two senators from each state, the number of electors to the Electoral College. The Census Bureau tells us that this year, it will use a shorter questionnaire, consisting of only 10 questions. From what I see, only one of them serves the constitutional purpose of enumeration -- namely, 'How many people were living or staying at this house, apartment or mobile home on April 1, 2010?' The Census Bureau's shorter questionnaire claim is deceptive at best. The American Community Survey, long form, that used to be sent to 1 in 6 households during the decennial count, is now being sent to many people every year. Here's a brief sample of its questions, and I want someone to tell me which question serves the constitutional function of apportioning the number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives: Does this house, apartment, or mobile home have hot and cold running water, a flush toilet, a bathtub or shower, a sink with a faucet, a refrigerator, a stove? Last month, what was the cost of electricity for this house, apartment, or mobile home? How many times has this person been married? After each question, the Bureau of the Census provides a statement of how the answer meets a federal need. I would prefer that they provide a statement of how answers to the questions meet the constitutional need as expressed in Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. ... Americans need to stand up to Washington's intrusion into our private lives. ... Unless a census taker can show me a constitutional requirement, the only information I plan to give are the number and names of the people in my household." --economist Walter E. Williams



Liberty

"If eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, incessant distractions are the way that politicians take away our freedoms, in order to enhance their own power and longevity in office. ... Few distractions have had such a long and impressive political track record as getting people to resent and, if necessary, hate other people. The most politically effective totalitarian systems have gotten people to give up their own freedom in order to vent their resentment or hatred at other people.... We have not yet reached these levels of hostility, but those who are taking away our freedoms, bit by bit, on the installment plan, have been incessantly supplying us with people to resent. One of the most audacious attempts to take away our freedom to live our lives as we see fit has been the so-called 'health care reform' bills that were being rushed through Congress before either the public or the members of Congress themselves had a chance to discover all that was in it. For this, we were taught to resent doctors, insurance companies and even people with 'Cadillac health insurance plans,' who were to be singled out for special taxes. Meanwhile, our freedom to make our own medical decisions -- on which life and death can depend -- was to be quietly taken from us and transferred to our betters in Washington. .... The more they can get us all to resent those they designate, the more they can distract us from their increasing control of our own lives -- but only if we sell our freedom cheap." --economist Thomas Sowell



The Gipper

"Our current circumstances in the 21st century are not greatly different from those surrounding our Founders, who remarked on the long train of abuses and usurpations whose ultimate design seemed clearly to abrogate all the citizens' rights and render them subjects of an absolute despotism. The Founders' impending tyranny arose under an unjust king; ours derives from a centralizing and increasingly powerful national government that intrudes into ever-growing aspects of our lives, and prevents us from freely exercising our acts of self-government. We New Federalists therefore seek a return to our foundation on the principles of self-government. We seek a new birth of federalism because we seek a new birth of freedom, both for ourselves and for our posterity." --Ronald Reagan



Political Futures

"Are this year's 'tea parties' really tea parties? What could today's protesters have in common with the 'Indians' who dumped 90,000 pounds of tea in Boston harbor in 1773? Quite a bit, actually. What do today's tea partiers want? According to the Christian Science Monitor, the movement 'is about safeguarding individual liberty, cutting taxes, and ending bailouts for business while the American taxpayer gets burdened with more public debt. It is fueled by concern that the United States under Mr. Obama is becoming a European-style social democracy where individual initiative is sapped by the needs of the collective.' Broadly speaking, the tea parties reflect a growing anger in America that the government seems to be a closed circle, run by an elite in both parties. These elites, combined with a class of bureaucrats, lawyers, journalists and businessmen, use government power to serve their own ends, and not the public good. ... When the government is unresponsive to the views of the people, and, beyond that, when our administrative and judicial branches restrict the scope of the people's legislative rights, protest rises. President Obama, an heir to the Progressive tradition, wants to strengthen this unaccountable, administrative state. The response has been altogether fitting." --columnist Richard Samuelson



"Neal Boortz"

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it."

Frederic Bastiat

WONDERFUL INSIGHT

By Neal Boortz

http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/2010/03/wonderful-insight.html

What's the issue Americans really care about right now? In general, it's the economy. In particular, it's jobs. The Community Organizer understands this. During his State of the Union presidential pep rally he told us all that he was going to pivot to jobs "like a razor." But did he? Hardly. He moved right into his push for government healthcare again.

What is it about this guy? People want work. They want to support their families. They want to save their homes. They want to start planning for their own futures ... but first they want to find jobs. Government statistics show that our economy lost more jobs in the 2001 recession than in the current mess, yet we lag in jobs recovery by about eight million jobs over the 2001 recovery. With all of this going on all Obama can think about is his plan to initiate the seizure of 16% of our economy. Jobs be dammed ... the health care industry must fall under full and complete government control.

I think I understand this a bit better now. I read an absolutely brilliant piece on Forbes.com by Shikha Dalmia, a senior analyst at Reason Foundation.

"But the problem is that President Obama believes in his own messianism too deeply for that. His goal is not to remake his party as it could be but "remake this world as it should be." In his book Dreams From My Father Obama gives the distinct impression that his gifts are too great for the smallness of our political stage. He regrets not having been born during the civil rights era when the grandness of the cause would have measured up to the grandness of his ambition. He is in search of something big that will allow him to make his mark on the world as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King did. Hence, the defeat of ObamaCare would not just be par for the course in the rough-and-tumble world of politics for him. It would be sign of his ordinariness, his mortality, and that, to him, is unendurable."

As I said .. brilliant. FDR couldn't do it. Clinton couldn't do it. But, by God! Barack Obama can! He can be the man to finally accomplish the Democrat dream of decades - the Democrat nirvana of government-controlled health care! Me! Barack Obama! I did it!

Face it ... when the jobs do start coming back they will come back in the private sector. Serious analysts will understand the causative factor to be less government, not more. But when all Americans must look to government for their health care .. who will be the shining icon of that (dubious, at best) achievement? Barack Obama! You can see, now, why this is so important to him, can't you? It's about legacy, not your health care.



"The Web"

Bleaching Out Historical Religious Expression

by Gary DeMar,

http://www.americanvision.org/article/bleaching-out-historical-religious-expression/

“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s (Matt. 22:21). Secularists and strict separationists like to point to this verse to show that even Jesus opposed mixing religion and politics. We don’t live under Caesar, and even if we did, Caesar would be bound to follow God’s limitations on his civil office because God’s image is stamped on him. Jesus would have told Caesar, “Render unto God the things that are God’s.”

Many modern civil governments contend that they rule at no one’s discretion. Their legitimacy is self-imposed. It’s no wonder that secularists attack any suggestion that might lead to the truth civil government is under God’s sovereign rule and the freedoms of citizens are God-ordained and not a gift from the State. In a 1982 message, Francis Schaeffer made the following point:

We must understand something very thoroughly. If the state gives the rights, it can take them away—they're not inalienable. If the states give the rights, they can change them and manipulate them. But this was not the view of the founding fathers of this country. They believed, although not all of them were individual Christians, that there was a Creator and that this Creator gave the inalienable rights—this upon which our country was founded and which has given us the freedoms which we still have—even the freedoms which are being used now to destroy the freedoms.[1]

Here’s a recent example of what Schaeffer saw in 1982. “Bradley Johnson had banners hanging in his classroom at Westview High School in San Diego, Calif., for more than 17 years with phrases like ‘In God We Trust’ and ‘All Men Are Created Equal, They Are Endowed by Their Creator,’ only to have the principal order them torn down during the 2007 school year.” Another sign that had been hanging in his classroom for 25 years “contained the words ‘In God We Trust,’ ‘One Nation Under God,’ ‘God Bless America’ and ‘God Shed His Grace On Thee.’”[2] Each of these postings is part of America’s religious history. “In God We Trust” is our nation’s official motto and appears prominently in the House of Representatives. That Americans are “endowed by their Creator” is found in the Declaration of Independence. “One Nation under God” is from the Pledge of Allegiance. The phrase “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance on June 14, 1954 by a joint resolution of Congress. “God Bless America” is a patriotic song originally written by Irving Berlin in 1918 and revised by him in 1938 because of the rise of Adolf Hitler. Here are the words from the stanza that include the words “God Bless America”:

God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Through the night[3] with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home.

“God Shed His Grace on Thee” is a line from the patriotic song “America the Beautiful.” In all these examples, America’s religious heritage is evident. The principal of Westview High School did not see it this way. He considered their posting in a government school to be a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. . . .” United States District Court Judge Roger T. Benitez objected using historical, legal, and logical arguments, methods of inquiry that should be taught in all schools:

May a school district censor a high school teacher’s expression because it refers to Judeo-Christian views, while allowing other teachers to express views on a number of controversial subjects, including religion and anti-religion? On undisputed evidence, this court holds that it may not. . . . It is a matter of historical fact that our institutions and government actors have in past and present times given place to a supreme God. “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.”[4] As the Supreme Court has acknowledged, “[t]here is an unbroken history of official acknowledgment by all three branches of government of the role of religion in American life from at least 1789.”[5]

Fostering diversity, however, does not mean bleaching out historical religious expression or mainstream morality. By squelching only Johnson’s patriotic and religious classroom banners, while permitting other diverse religious and anti-religious classroom displays, the school district does a disservice to the students of Westview High School and the federal and state constitutions do not permit this one-sided censorship.[6]

It was this type of arbitrary edict based on a purging of the historical record that led a number of our nation’s Founders to insist on a national government with strict limitations.



Two Members of Congress Say That If Administration Offered Sestak Job to Drop Senate Race It Could Be a Crime

By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/62670

Rep. Joe Sestak (D.-Pa.) is challenging Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania's Democratic U.S. Senate primary. (AP Photo/George Widman)

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Two members of Congress said this week that someone in the White House may have committed a crime if they offered Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) an administration job in exchange for him not running in Pennsylvania’s Democratic senate primary against Sen. Arlen Specter, an allegation that Sestak said was true.

Meanwhile, despite several media inquiries over the last few weeks and the comgressmens’ statments, the White House continues to withhold comment on the matter.

Sestak’s opponent in the primary, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, both said this week that if Sestak’s claim is true, such a job offer could constitute a federal crime.

Specter specifically said it would constitute bribery, while Issa referenced three sections of the U.S. code on the matter.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has repeatedly declined to confirm or deny Sestak’s allegation. He did so again on Thursday, Mar. 11, even after the two members of Congress said criminal conduct could have been involved. However, the Philadelphia Inquirer previously reported that an unnamed White House source had denied Sestak’s claim.

This week, Sestak reaffirmed on MSNBC’s Morning Joe what he claimed in other TV interviews: That he was offered a job with the Obama administration if he would drop his challenge to Specter, a former Republican who switched parties in early 2009.

“Something happened last July before I got in the race and I never got asked about it, since someone asked me,” Sestak said. “You know what, I answered it honestly. I just said, ‘yes.’ I didn’t go beyond that. And actually, I don’t think I should.”

Also on MSNBC, Specter, former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, responded to the controversy in an interview with host Andrea Mitchell.

Sen. Arlen Specter, now a Democrat of Pennsylvania, appeared with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden (not shown) at the White House on Wednesday, April 29, 2009. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

“Horse trading like that shouldn’t go on,” said Specter. “But don’t presume that it went on, Andrea. There have been a number of commentators who have picked up on what Congressman Sestak has said and identified it as a bribe, punishable by jail."

“And that’s a pretty strong charge to make against the president’s administration, implying perhaps even the president himself,” Specter said. “So, I do think that someone who is going to make the charge ought to stand up and name names and name dates and back it up, and not just make the charge. He gets a lot of political mileage out of that pretty inexpensively, but at the expense of the administration and at the expense of the president. Making charges without backing it up is not the right way to do business.”

Mitchell then asked, “What you are telling me, that if Joe Sestak is correct, if he can prove that this was actually offered that, that is a bribe, and becomes a legal issue against whomever in the White House offered that?”

Specter said, “There is a specific federal statute, which makes it a bribe to make an offer for a public office. When I was district attorney, if somebody came and told me that, I would say, well, name names. Name dates. Name places. That’s a very serious charge. It’s a big black smear without specification. I’m telling you there is a federal crime, punishable by jail. Anybody who wants to say that ought to back it up.

Congressman Sestak has gotten a lot of political mileage out of that. It’s really an attack on the administration.”

CNSNews.com contacted Specter’s press office on Thursday to ask specifically to which statute he was referring but his office did not respond before this story was posted.

Meanwhile, Rep. Issa wrote a letter on Wednesday to White House Counsel Robert Bauer citing U.S. Code 18, Sections 211, 595, and 600 regarding the bribery of a public official. Section 595 says someone who “uses his official authority for the purpose of interfering with, or affecting, the nomination or the election of any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, Delegate of the District of Columbia or Resident Commissioner, shall be fined under the title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.”

"While the White House may think this is politics as usual, what is spectacularly unusual is when a candidate, a U.S. congressman no less, freely acknowledges such a proposal,” Issa wrote in the letter. “Almost always candidates keep quiet about such deals, and for good reason: They are against the law."

In the letter, Issa specifically asked for who on the White House staff communicated with Sestak about the 2010 race for the Senate; to identify what position, if any, was offered in exchange for the commitment to not run; “what if any investigation did your office undertake to determine whether the criminal activity described by Rep. Sestak occurred?”; and, “Do you expect to make a referral to the United States Department of Justice in this matter?”

Gibbs has declined to answer questions from reporters on the matter for the past two weeks.

Fox News reporter Major Garrett asked on Thursday, “One other thing, because last Tuesday you told us, ‘I don't have the update with me on Sestak.’ Two things have happened since then. Two things have happened.”

Gibbs jumped in, “I don't have any--”

Garrett said, “Darrell Issa sent a letter to the White House Counsel –”

Gibbs again interrupted, “I don't have anything additional on that.”

Garrett asked, “Are you ever going to have anything additional on that?”

Gibbs responded, “I don't have it today."



NYT's Curious Lack of Curiousity

Leo Rennert

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/03/nyts_curious_lack_of_curiousit.html

While Vice President Biden gave a major address about the peace process in Tel Aviv on March 11, the youth division of Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party dedicated a public square in the West Bank in honor of a Palestinian terrorist who carried out the deadliest attack in Israel's history.

In his address, Biden explained that he had come down hard on Israel and, at the request of President Obama, "condemned" the announcement of plans to build more homes for Jews in eastern Jerusalem because this was bound to break the "required trust for productive negotiations." Biden also promised to hold BOTH sides accountable when they do something to "inflame tensions" that threaten peace talks.

The ceremony eulogizing Dalal, Mughrabi, who led a Palestinian terror squad the killed 38 Israeli civilians, 13 of them children, in 1978, was covered by the New York Times in a dispatch from Jerusalem correspondent Isabel Kershner ("Palestinians Honor a Figure Reviled in Israel as a Terrorist" March 12, page A9).

But there is a rather curious omission in her article -- the failure of Biden to condemn the glorification by Abbas's political party of the perpetrator of the worst terrorist attack in Israel's history.

After all, Biden had just proclaimed that the Obama administration would hold BOTH sides accountable for any provocations that could jeopardize peace negotiations. And a few miles away, there was a commemorative ceremony glorifying the bloodiest Palestinian terrorist -- with a senior Fatah leader and a Palestinian Authority security official in attendance. And yet, the vice president failed the first test of his commitment to also hold the Palestinian side accountable for inflaming tensions while the U.S. is trying to kick-start negotiations. He said nothing about Abbas's persistent glorification of Palestinian terrorists, including the Mughrabi commemorative event, while he was still in Israel.

Shouldn't Kershner or someone on the Times' staff immediately have asked Biden's press staff why the veep held his tongue about an outrageously provocative act by Mahmoud Abbas's PA and Fatah party, especially when the vice president didn't hold his punches in excoriating Israel about more building projects in its capital?

Members of the White House press, including New York Times correspondents, usually are quick to fire questions when Israel is perceived as creating impediments to the peace process. Why the lack of similar jounalistic inquiry and curiosity when the Palestinian side inflames tensions at a critical moment when the administration is trying to pump new life into that peace process?

Kershner quotes Tawfiq Tirawi,a member of Abbas's Fatah Central Committee, as declaring that "we are all Dalal Mughrabi." If that's the real sentiment of the supposedly "moderate" Palestinians, doesn't Biden think that may prompt Israeli leaders to think again before making tough concessions to achieve a two-state solution under U.S. mediation? And shouldn't a reporter worth her salt have posed just such a question to the White House?

But instead of reporting the deafening silence of Biden at such a provocation, Kershner offers Abbas an alibi for the disgusting glorification of this arch-terrorist. The dedication of the public square in honor of Mughrabi, she writes, was low-key. The PA put off an "official ceremony" to avoid embrrassing Biden, as if the low-key clebration of Mughrabi was not sufficient to raise U.S. hackles.

When Israel is seen by the U.S. as getting out of line, the Times spares no ink in spotlighting Israeli impediments to peace negotiations. But when "moderate" Palestinians get out of line, the Times provides them with an alibi and fails to ask Biden and the White House the rather obvious question of why they're not as upset about the glorification of Mughrabi as they are about Israel building homes for Jews in eastern Jerusalem.



ACORN Cracked, Run Out of State Under RICO Act in Ohio

by Kyle Olson

http://biggovernment.com/kolson/2010/03/12/acorn-cracked-run-out-of-state-under-rico-act-in-ohio/

The wounded ACORN snake continues writhing. This time, the group has been barred from the entire state of Ohio, a swing state where the organization was very active in the last presidential election.

So active, in fact, it received an “Unsung Hero” award from the Communist Party USA for its “critical but generally unrecognized role of organized labor and grassroots voter registration efforts in winning Ohio for Barack Obama,” according to a document on ACORNcracked.com.

But now, ACORN has reached a settlement under the Ohio Corrupt Activities Act, similar to the federal RICO Act – the same law that’s used to prosecute mobsters and drug kingpins. Under the settlement, ACORN, along with Project Vote, agreed “to file a certificate permanently surrendering its business license in Ohio by June 1,” according to The Columbus Dispatch.

The next part of the settlement was critical: it bars ACORN from simply changing its name and moving back into the state. From the Dispatch:

The center’s lawyer, Maurice A. Thompson, said the settlement is mostly confidential but permanently bars ACORN from doing business in Ohio or reconstituting as another group and perpetuating its practices.

A 2008 press release from the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law said this:

Plaintiffs Jennifer Miller of Mason, Ohio and Kimberly Grant of Loveland, allege that ACORN’s actions deprived them of the right to participate in an honest and effective elections process. They allege fraudulent voter registrations submitted by ACORN dilute the votes of legally registered voters.

“The right to cast a vote that is not diluted by fraudulent votes is a fundamental individual right,” Buckeye Institute President David Hansen said.

“ACORN appears to be recklessly disregarding Ohio laws and adding thousands of fraudulent voters to the state’s roles in the process,” Maurice Thompson, Director of the Buckeye Institute’s 1851 Center for Constitutional Law said. “Such voter fraud erodes the value of legally cast votes,” he added.

The 1851 Center is no longer affiliated with the Buckeye Institute. A copy of the original court filing can be found here.

Despite the ruling, ACORN’s lawyer, Alfonse Gerhardstein, said that it didn’t mean much because it was inactive already “for reasons unrelated to this litigation.”

As ACORN reconstitutes itself in other states, watchdogs are tracking its every move and sounding the alarm so such activities don’t occur again.



NY Times Obsesses Over Texas 'Conservatives' Changing Curriculum, Ignores Far-Left Hispanic Group's Protest

By Clay Waters

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/clay-waters/2010/03/11/ny-times-obsesses-over-texas-conservatives-changing-curriculum-ignores-

New York Times reporter James McKinley Jr. was in Austin to cover a controversy over school curriculum in Texas, with conservatives on the state Board of Education trying to soften the liberal tone of the state's textbooks and include more records of conservative accomplishments. His Thursday story, "Texas Conservatives Seek Deeper Stamp on Texts," was positively sodden with "conservative" labels, yet he managed to ignore a radical leftist group featured in an accompanying photo.

The article included two photos accompanied by a caption (including the one above, by Jack Plunkett of Associated Press): "Diana Gomez, center, and Garrett Mize, right, and other University of Texas students rallied against conservatives at a State Board of Education meeting Wednesday in Austin, Tex. The board's chairman, Gail Lowe, left, is one of the conservatives."

Though McKinley was sufficiently attuned to get the names of Gomez and Mize, he didn't bother to identify the group they were involved with, even thought a close look at the sign Gomez was holding makes it obvious. In the bottom right corner was the phrase "MEChA." As in the "Chicano" nationalist movement MEChA, the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, translates as the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan.

"Atzlan" is the name given to a swath of Western states annexed from Mexico during the Mexican-American war that MEChA and other radical groups feel they have a legal claim on, a position that's even too far for another left-wing Latino advocacy group, The National Council of La Raza ("the race").

McKinley worked at least one "conservative" label into a majority of the article's 18 paragraphs. There were 13 "conservative" labels in all, not counting one in quoted material, two in the photo caption and the one in the headline. That's a lot of repetition for a story only 732 words long. A sample:

The board is expected to take a preliminary vote this week on a raft of changes to the state's social studies curriculum proposed by the seven conservative Republicans on the board. A final vote will come in May.

Conservatives argue that the proposed curriculum, written by a panel of teachers, emphasizes the accomplishments of liberal politicians -- like the New Deal and the Great Society -- and gives less importance to efforts by conservatives like President Ronald Reagan to limit the size of government.

"There is a bias," said Don McLeroy, a dentist from College Station who heads up the board's conservative faction. "I think the left has a real problem seeing their own bias."

The three-day meeting is the first time the board has met since voters in last week's Republican primaries voted to oust Dr. McLeroy and another conservative and threw the future makeup of the board up in the air. Two other members -- a conservative Republican and a moderate Democrat -- are not seeking re-election, and it is unclear what the balance of power will be after the general election. At present, the seven hard-core conservatives are often joined by one or more moderate members in votes on curriculum questions.

Dr. McLeroy still has 10 months to serve and he, along with rest of the religious conservatives on the board, have vowed to put their mark on the guidelines for social studies texts.

For instance, one guideline requires publishers to include a section on "the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract with America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association."

The Texas-based McKinley has a habit of loading his stories with labels identifying conservative Texas Republicans as "far right" "archconservatives."

—Clay Waters is the director of Times Watch, an MRC project tracking the New York Times.



"The e-mail Bag"

The Irony Of It All

http://www.oldhippie.com/forums/ice-house/9183-irony-all.html