Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable
Promoting "God's Holy Values and American Freedoms"!
"Daily Motivations"
"We must get good at one of two things: planting in the spring or begging in the fall." -- Jim Rohn
"One must never lose time in vainly regretting the past or in complaining against the changes which cause us discomfort, for change is the essence of life." -- Anatole France
"Prosperity is a way of living and thinking, and not just money or things. Poverty is a way of living and thinking, and not just a lack of money or things." -- Eric Butterworth
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
Christ has really set us free. (Galatians 5:1)
Our society has tried to cleanse itself from guilt by removing the Ten Commandments from our public schools, building and courts so that no one will be reminded of breaking them. Those who sin try to rationalize all kinds of behavior by blaming it on their background, circumstances, a parent or a spouse. Furthermore, society says, "It's not your fault."
Yet psychiatrists' couches are filled up with so many guilt-ridden people. Why? Because we are all born in bondage to sin and guilt, and only God can break those bonds. Only He can break the chains of bad habits and addictions.
Nick Smith, a 17-year-old who participated in a "Right From Wrong" campaign understood this principle. By attending the meetings, he prepared himself ahead of time to make godly decisions. While he was at an out-of-town track meet, he discovered several teammates glued to a less-than-wholesome movie. He had two choices: to follow the biblical guidelines he had learned or to go along with his friends.
Not only did Nick resist the temptation, he also influenced another young man to do the same. Together, they both walked away. If you turn your temptations over to God and trust in His power, He will help you step out of that pile of chains.
Paul writes in Romans 6:22, "Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life." In Jesus we can live freely and joyfully.
Your View of God Really Matters …
Have you been trying to fix yourself? Has it worked? Turn to God and saturate your mind and heart with His truth. Let Him change you from inside.
"The Patriot Post"
"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." --Thomas Jefferson
"When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen; and we shall most sincerely rejoice with you in the happy hour when the establishment of American Liberty, upon the most firm and solid foundations shall enable us to return to our Private Stations in the bosom of a free, peacefully and happy Country." --George Washington, address to the New York legislature, 1775
Editorial Exegesis
"Professional global warming alarmists better think about looking for new jobs. It looks like they're in for a long, cold winter -- and a frigid spring and summer as well. Those who've been spreading global-warming fears must be waking up each morning anxd asking themselves: What's going to happen today? A new revelation about the corruption of climate science has become almost a daily event. On Thursday, the U.K.'s Telegraph reported that India was pulling out of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and forming its own agency to study global warming. Why? Because the Indian government feels it can't depend on the IPCC's work. And why should it? The concerns about the IPCC's accuracy are justified. ... Compounding the headaches for warm-mongers is a probe being launched by the British Parliament into the Climate Research Unit e-mail scandal. The inquiry is intended 'to determine whether there is any evidence of the manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice and may therefore call into question any of the research outcomes.' This isn't terribly fresh news, having been announced on Jan. 22 by Parliament. But news that casts doubt on global warming tends to move slowly, if at all, in the U.S. media. If not for the foreign press, the inquiry would be virtually unknown in this country. That 2007 report helped the IPCC win a share of the Nobel Prize. But its work is looking less credible by the day. Can any of its claims be trusted? Its authors -- who merely compiled others' work and did no research of their own -- sure haven't inspired confidence in their work. In fact, their blunders are quickly pushing the global warming farce toward a grand collapse." --Investor's Business Daily
Upright
"The Left doesn't want to govern, it wants to rule.... The Left is not about principles. It is about itself. It is about power. Now that President Obama has been politically weakened, look for the mask to come back on. The words of sweet reason, the entreaties to 'make a deal,' and feigned affection will now make a surprise reappearance. When the Left cannot rule, it will try to govern. Until the next time." --columnist Richard Fernandez
"Republicans' objection to national health care could be more accurately portrayed as follows: Obama's plan to nationalize health care was a terrible idea because it would turn over one-sixth of the American economy to Washington bureaucrats, who would run the system as competently as the federal government runs everything else, from airport security to the post office to FEMA." --columnist Ann Coulter
"The fate of ObamaCare is starting to have something of the feel of a Greek tragedy. We are not superstitious, but [Rep. Jack] Murtha's death as the result of medical error at a government-run hospital is certainly an eerie coincidence." --Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto
"Today's tax system was shaped by sadists who were trying to be nice: Every wrinkle in the code was put there to benefit this or that interest. Since the 1986 tax simplification, the code has been recomplicated more than 14,000 times -- more than once a day." --columnist George Will
"Obama's budget points to a dismal future in which half of the country subsists on welfare while the other half receives a paycheck for processing welfare claims in the federal bureaucracy." --columnist Jeffrey Folks
"In the first post-primary Rasmussen survey in Illinois for the Senate seat briefly held by President Obama, the Republican Mark Kirk 'holds a modest 46% to 40% lead over Democrat Alexi Giannoulias.' How embarrassing, how debilitating, would it be if Democrats were to lose Obama's U.S. Senate seat?" --political analyst Rich Galen
"Americans rightly believe that we can build anything that needs building and fix anything that is broken. And, that we can do that by living out our nation's founding principles and values: constitutional government, respect for private property and life, a free market -- and the gumption of hard-working, inventive Americans." --columnist Tony Blankley
Insight
"We can't reduce taxes until we reduce government spending, and I have to point out that government does not tax to get the money it needs; government always needs the money it gets." --Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)
"[T]here is no more dangerous experiment than that of undertaking to be one thing before a man's face and another behind his back." --General Robert E. Lee (1807-1872)
Dezinformatsia
A label to embrace: "President Obama [is] on the offensive. He has challenged Republicans to a kind of political truth or dare, a meeting February 25 broadcast on TV to discuss health care reform so the country can decide whether Republicans want action or are just the 'Party of No'?" --ABC's Diane Sawyer (As if saying "No" to socialism is a bad thing...)
Pot and kettle? "A Palin campaign would certainly be different: Appearing before friendly crowds, using Facebook and Twitter to control the message, not answering tough questions." --NBC's Andrea Mitchell (Sounds strikingly similar to the Obama campaign.)
That must be it: "Is Barack Obama just too complex for voters to figure out?" --New York Times columnist Richard Stevenson
World's smallest violin: "Where are they going to go, the Left? Where, actually, are the Left going to go? They may be disaffected.." --former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor Tina Brown (How about communist China?)
It's called national security: "President Barack Obama does have a foreign policy. It's called war. Unfortunately, the president has not defined any real difference between his hawkish approach to international issues and that of his predecessor, former President George W. Bush. Where's the change we can believe in? Bush left a legacy of two wars, neither of which was ever fully explained or justified. Obama has merely picked up the sword that Bush left behind in Iraq and Afghanistan." --White House press corpse reporter Helen Thomas
"The Web"
ADF seeks to appeal conviction of NY Christian arrested while praying
N.Y. court exonerated three other Christians wrongly convicted of ‘disorderly conduct’ at 2007 ‘gay pride’ event
http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/3816
ALBANY, N.Y. — Alliance Defense Fund attorneys have submitted an application to appeal the state’s conviction of a Christian arrested while praying in an Elmira public park during a 2007 ‘gay pride’ event. The status of the appeal is now in the hands of state’s highest court, the New York Court of Appeals. Earlier this month, a New York county court dismissed the convictions of three other Christians arrested and charged after praying at the same event.
“Christians shouldn’t be punished for expressing their religious beliefs. It’s ridiculous to consider the act of peacefully exercising one’s faith in a public park to be ‘disorderly conduct,’” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Joel Oster. “The county court was correct in dismissing three of the convictions. They never should have happened. We are hopeful that the New York Court of Appeals will dismiss the fourth.”
On June 23, 2007, seven Christians, including Julian and Gloria Raven, entered Wisner Park in Elmira with their heads bowed to pray for the participants of the “gay pride” event. Materials advertising the event stated that it was open to the public and that all were invited.
The group made their way to an area in front of the stage and began to pray silently while lying prostrate in the grass. A police sergeant had earlier informed Julian Raven that he could not enter the public park, walk through the park, or talk to anyone in the park about his religion. After the group began to pray silently on their faces, all were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.
In 2008, the Elmira City Court found all four defendants guilty of disorderly conduct. Additionally, each was charged a $100 fine and ordered to pay court costs.
Attorney Laurence Behr of Buffalo is serving as local counsel in the case, People of the State of New York v. Raven.
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 to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.
Morning Bell: “The American Public Is Not Behind This Bill”
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/02/morning-bell-the-american-public-is-not-behind-this-bill/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
After more than a year of $862 billion dollar deficit stimulus bills, national-debt-doubling federal budgets, and government takeovers of the auto industry, it is difficult to remember that President Barack Obama actually ran as a moderate in many ways. On his way to a 53% – 46% win over Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), then-Sen. Obama promised to “cut taxes for 95% of workers and their families,” expand the Army by 65,000 and the Marines by 27,000, and enact “a net spending cut” for the federal government. Obama promised lower taxes, a strong defense and shrinking the size of government. No wonder independents in nine states that went for President George Bush in 2000 and 2004 switched their vote to Obama in 2008 (CO, FL, IN, IA, NV, NM, NC, OH and VA). But now those independents are beginning to reassess. Public Policy Polling (a liberal polling firm) notes that Obama now has a negative approval rating in every state that he flipped from the Bush column to his in 2008.
And now President Obama has lost one of his biggest and earliest supporters on his signature issue: health care. Yesterday, when pressed on CNBC if he would be in favor of scrapping the Senate health care bill, Warren Buffett responded: “I would be.” Specifically, Buffett believes that the Senate bill will not contain health care costs: “We have a health system that, in terms of cost, is really out of control, and if you take this line and you project what has been happening into the future, we will get less and less competitive. So, we need something else. Unfortunately, we came up with a bill that really doesn’t attack the cost situation that much and we have to have a fundamental change.” Buffett is correct on both fronts: 1) the President’s own Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has reported that the Senate health care bill would raise national health expenditures $234 billion by 2019; and 2) our current system is completely unable to control exploding health care costs.
So why is our current system completely unable to control costs? For the same reason most Americans over-eat at buffets: when you don’t have to pay for each plate of food, you usually eat more. In recent decades, the percentage of health care spending paid “out of pocket” by patients has fallen substantially, from 52% in 1965 to only 15% in 2005. Instead of patients paying for the care they receive, our system is built around a third-party payment system where the government and insurance companies are the ones who actually pay for individual medical expenses. When prices are determined through administrative procedures rather than market processes, both patients and producers are anesthetized from normal market incentives to reduce prices and spending. That is why our health care costs are rising so rapidly.
And every major pillar of Obamacare makes the third-party-payer problem worse: mandates that limit out-of-pocket spending by patients, mandates that extend the minimum benefits insurance must cover, a massive expansion of Medicaid, and lower limits on the tax deductibility of out-of-pocket spending. And the one measure that the left once pointed to as its key cost-reducing measure – the taxing of expensive health insurance plans – has been gutted and pushed back until 2018, when any honest observer knows it will never be implemented. Commenting on the state of health care reform, Buffet told CNBC yesterday:
If it was a choice today between plan A, which is what we’ve got, or plan B, what is in front of — the Senate bill, I would vote for the Senate bill. But I would much rather see a plan C that really attacks costs. And I think that’s what the American public wants to see. I mean, the American public is not behind this bill. And we need the American public behind the bill, because it’s going to have to do some tough things.
The current system is unsustainable. We do need heath care reform. But not reform that is opposed by the vast majority of the American people and makes the core problem of the current system worse. The President should follow Buffett’s advice, scrap the current bill and start over.
STEYN: Our own Greek tragedy
Mark Steyn
While President Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand new, even more unsustainable entitlement at the health care "summit," thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split screen - because they're part of the same story. It's just that Greece is a little further along in the plot: They're at the point where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. America is further upstream and can still pull for shore, but has decided instead that what it needs to do is catch up with the Greek canoe. Chapter One (the introduction of unsustainable entitlements) leads eventually to Chapter 20 (total societal collapse): The Greeks are at Chapter 17 or 18.
What's happening in the developed world today isn't so very hard to understand: The 20th century Bismarckian welfare state has run out of people to stick it to. In America, the feckless insatiable boobs in Washington, Sacramento, Albany and elsewhere are screwing over our kids and grandkids. In Europe, they've reached the next stage in social democratic evolution: There are no kids or grandkids to screw over. The United States has a fertility rate of around 2.1, or just over two kids per couple. Greece has a fertility rate of about 1.3: 10 grandparents have six kids have four grandkids - i.e., the family tree is upside down. Demographers call 1.3 "lowest-low" fertility - the point from which no society has ever recovered. And compared to Spain and Italy, Greece has the least worst fertility rate in Mediterranean Europe.
So you can't borrow against the future because, in the most basic sense, you don't have one. Greeks in the public sector retire at 58, which sounds great. But, when 10 grandparents have four grandchildren, who pays for you to spend the last third of your adult life loafing around?
By the way, you don't have to go to Greece to experience Greek-style retirement: The Athenian "public service" of California has been metaphorically face-down in the ouzo for a generation. Still, America as a whole is not yet Greece. A couple of years ago, when I wrote my book "America Alone," I put the Social Security debate in a bit of perspective: On 2005 figures, projected public pensions liabilities were expected to rise by 2040 to about 6.8 percent of GDP. In Greece, the figure was 25 percent. In other words, head for the hills, Armageddon, outta here, The End. Since then, the situation has worsened in both countries. And really the comparison is academic: Whereas America still has a choice, Greece isn't going to have a 2040 - not without a massive shot of Reality Juice.
Is that likely to happen? At such moments, I like to modify Gerald Ford. When seeking to ingratiate himself with conservative audiences, President Ford liked to say: "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have." Which is true enough. But there's an intermediate stage: A government big enough to give you everything you want isn't big enough to get you to give any of it back. That's the point Greece is at. Its socialist government has been forced into supporting a package of austerity measures. The Greek people's response is: Nuts to that. Public sector workers have succeeded in redefining time itself: Every year, they receive 14 monthly payments. You do the math. And for about seven months' work - for many of them the workday ends at 2:30 p.m. When they retire, they get 14 monthly pension payments. In other words: Economic reality is not my problem. I want my benefits. And, if it bankrupts the entire state a generation from now, who cares as long as they keep the checks coming until I croak?
We hard-hearted, small-government guys are often damned as selfish types who care nothing for the general welfare. But, as the Greek protests make plain, nothing makes an individual more selfish than the socially equitable communitarianism of big government. Once a chap's enjoying the fruits of government health care, government-paid vacation, government-funded early retirement, and all the rest, he couldn't give a hoot about the general societal interest. He's got his, and to hell with everyone else. People's sense of entitlement endures long after the entitlement has ceased to make sense.
The perfect spokesman for the entitlement mentality is the deputy prime minister of Greece. The European Union has concluded that the Greek government's austerity measures are insufficient and, as a condition of bailout, has demanded something more robust. Greece is no longer a sovereign state: It's General Motors, and the EU is Washington, and the Greek electorate is happy to play the part of the United Auto Workers - everything's on the table except anything that would actually make a difference. In practice, because Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland are also on the brink of the abyss, a "European" bailout will be paid for by Germany. So the aforementioned Greek deputy prime minister, Theodoros Pangalos, has denounced the conditions of the EU deal on the grounds that the Germans stole all the bullion from the Bank of Greece during the Second World War. Welfare always breeds contempt, in nations as much as inner-city housing projects. How dare you tell us how to live! Just give us your money and push off.
Unfortunately, Germany is no longer an economic powerhouse. As Angela Merkel pointed out a year ago, for Germany, an Obama-sized stimulus was out of the question simply because its foreign creditors know there are not enough young Germans around ever to repay it. Over 30 percent of German women are childless; among German university graduates, it's over 40 percent. And for the ever dwindling band of young Germans who make it out of the maternity ward, there's precious little reason to stick around. Why be the last handsome blond lederhosen-clad Aryan lad working the late shift at the beer garden in order to prop up singlehandedly entire retirement homes? And that's before the EU decides to add the Greeks to your burdens. Germans, who retire at 67, are now expected to sustain the unsustainable 14 monthly payments per year for Greeks who retire at 58.
Think of Greece as California: Every year an irresponsible and corrupt bureaucracy awards itself higher pay and better benefits paid for by an ever-shrinking wealth-generating class. And think of Germany as one of the less profligate, still just about functioning corners of America such as my own state of New Hampshire: Responsibility doesn't pay. You'll wind up bailing out anyway. The problem is there are never enough of "the rich" to fund the entitlement state, because in the end, it disincentivizes everything from wealth creation to self-reliance to the basic survival instinct, as represented by the fertility rate. In Greece, they've run out Greeks, so they'll stick it to the Germans, like French farmers do. In Germany, the Germans have only been able to afford to subsidize French farming because they stick their defense tab to the Americans. And in America President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are saying we need to paddle faster to catch up with the Greeks and Germans. What could go wrong?
Mark Steyn is the author of the New York Times best-seller "America Alone" (Regnery, 2006).
G.O.P. Aims for California, but Rifts Arise
Pablo Martinez Monsivias/Associated Press
Senator Barbara Boxer, a three-term Democrat, is expected to face a tough re-election fight.
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/us/politics/02senate.html?nl=us&emc=politicsemailema1
BURBANK, Calif. — If Republicans are to have a serious chance of capturing control of the Senate in November, they are going to have to win in traditionally Democratic states like California, where Senator Barbara Boxer, a three-term Democrat, is showing signs of vulnerability.
Multimedia - Interactive Map - 2010 Election Ratings
Assemblyman Charles S. DeVore, far left; Tom Campbell, a former congressman; and Carly Fiorina, a former Hewlett-Packard executive, are competing for the right to challenge Mrs. Boxer.
But before Republicans get a clear shot at Mrs. Boxer, they will have to overcome deep divisions within their own party — divides that reflect both the grass-roots energy surging through the conservative movement and the tensions between the party’s moderate and conservative wings.
There are certainly more vulnerable Democratic Senate seats in the country, but early polls in California suggest that Mrs. Boxer is facing what could be the toughest election of her career. Her difficulties in a state that has for 20 years proved reliably Democratic in national elections suggests how the pendulum has swung against Democrats in just a year. Her potential problems are a function more of this political climate than of any position or vote she has taken.
Still, for Republicans, this could end up being a repeat of a play they have seen before: a promising opportunity escaping them in a state where Democrats have the edge of 1.5 million more voters registered.
Three Republican candidates are in a lacerating battle for their party’s nomination: Carly Fiorina, the wealthy former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard; Tom Campbell, a former member of Congress who fits the moderate profile for the kind of Republican who has won statewide contests in the past; and Charles S. DeVore, a state assemblyman who is presenting himself as the Tea Party candidate.
It is hard to see how Republicans can win control of the Senate without toppling Mrs. Boxer. Democrats control the chamber 59 to 41; Republicans need 10 seats to take control, since in an evenly divided Senate, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. would cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of the Democrats. Eight Democratic seats are considered vulnerable, but Republicans must hold on to at least four of their own seats that appear vulnerable. Even if Republicans won all those highly contested races, they would still need two more victories, and at the moment California might be their best chance to expand the battlefield.
John J. Pitney Jr., a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College, said Mrs. Boxer’s previous easy victories in Senate races could be misleading, since they took place in what were more favorable political environments. “She may be more vulnerable than it seems at first,” Professor Pitney said.
Democrats fear that a Supreme Court decision allowing corporations to spend freely on political campaigns could encourage a flood of advertising against Mrs. Boxer.
She is clearly aware of the threat to her re-election and has moved forcefully to deal with it. She has already raised nearly $11 million.
“If you’re asking me if Republicans have a chance to beat me, I’m going to answer this way: I never take any election for granted,” Mrs. Boxer said in an interview. “It is a tough year. I am going to focus; I am going to work my heart out.”
Mr. Campbell is a self-described fiscal conservative who supports abortion rights and same-sex marriage. “He would have more appeal to moderate voters than any other Republican nominee — other than Arnold or Pete Wilson — has had here for the past 25 or 30 years,” said Bill Carrick, a longtime Democratic consultant in the state, referring to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mr. Wilson, the former California governor.
But the positions that might help Mr. Campbell in a general election are a burden in the Republican primary. And the hurdle is not only on social issues. When Mr. Campbell was finance director for Governor Schwarzenegger, he supported temporary tax increases to deal with the state’s worsening fiscal crisis, and Ms. Fiorina and Mr. DeVore have criticized him for that.
“Tom Campbell has a distinctly different point of view than I do,” Ms. Fiorina said. “He believes the way to close budget deficits is to raise taxes. I think that’s the wrong approach.”
Mr. Campbell has also come under attack from his rivals for his ties to a professor who aided Palestinian militants and for being, by their account, insufficiently supportive of Israel. Mr. Campbell has said that he was unaware of the professor’s activities and that he supports Israel.
Mr. Campbell suggested that Ms. Fiorina and Mr. DeVore may split the conservative vote in the June 8 primary, allowing him to slip through. He has also said some conservatives might overlook their differences with him in their hunger to oust Mrs. Boxer.
“She is particularly vulnerable to me,” Mr. Campbell said in an interview. “I’m pro-choice. It’s going to be the first time she’s ever had to run against a candidate with my profile. It’s a huge advantage for me.”
Ms. Fiorina was at one point viewed by Republicans as a formidable candidate because of her wealth (she has put $2.5 million into her campaign) and a compelling personal story: she rose from receptionist to chief executive and is also a breast cancer survivor.
But she has not had an easy transition from business executive to candidate. Ms. Fiorina suggested the other day that California file for bankruptcy; that is legally not possible. Her campaign produced a widely ridiculed Internet attack video portraying the mild-mannered Mr. Campbell as a wolf, with glowing red eyes, in sheep’s clothing. (The point was that he was not really a fiscal conservative.) Mr. DeVore has been unsparing in his attacks on her.
“She has some personal wealth — but she was fired from Hewett-Packard,” he said. “She only voted six times in her life. She has a condo in Georgetown at the Ritz-Carlton that is 13,000 square feet bigger than my house — and she confessed she got it with the golden parachute money she got when she was fired. These sort of flaws will be played up significantly by Boxer.”
Mr. DeVore may be the wild card in the race. He has won the backing of an influential conservative political action committee created by Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina. And his candidacy will offer a test of the strength of the Tea Party movement in this state. A poll taken in California in January found that 70 percent of Republicans had heard of the Tea Party movement, with 52 percent of them identifying with its ideas somewhat or “a lot.”
But Mr. DeVore, who is known as Chuck, is struggling to raise money, and remains barely known by most Californians. He said he hoped that as his profile rose, he would draw a wave of Tea Party contributions from across the country.
“This is eminently winnable for all three Republicans,” Mr. DeVore said of the Boxer race, “but I would argue, counterintuitively, that I am the most dangerous threat. Because I am the guy who is the toast of the Tea Partiers.”
Al's latest global-warming whopper
Alan Reynolds
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/al_latest_global_warming_whopper_TolFbG2ccT5XPtKtXoOx0L
Al Gore's defense of global-warming hysteria in Sunday's New York Times has many flaws, but I'll focus on just one whopper -- where the "Inconvenient Truth" man states the opposite of scientific fact.
Gore says, "The heavy snowfalls this month have been used as fodder for ridicule by those who argue that global warming is a myth, yet scientists have long pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere -- thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow in particular regions, including the Northeastern United States."
Gore: Still citing predictions that science has disproved.
It's an interesting theory, but where are the facts?
According to "State of the Climate" from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "Global precipitation in 2009 was near the 1961-1990 average." And there was certainly no pattern of increasing rain and snow on America's East Coast during the post-1976 years, when NOAA says the globe began to heat up.
So what was it, exactly, that Gore's nameless scientists "have long pointed out"? A 2008 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "Climate Change and Water," says climate models "project precipitation increases in high latitudes and part of the tropics." In other areas, the IPCC reports only "substantial uncertainty in precipitation forecasts."
In other words, the IPCC said that its models predicted some increases in rain or snow -- not observed them. And only in high latitudes or the tropics, which hardly describes New York or Washington, DC.
In fact, recent research actually contra dicts Gore's claims about "significantly more water moisture in the atmosphere."
In late January, Scientific American reported: "A mysterious drop in water vapor in the lower stratosphere might be slowing climate change," and noted that "an apparent increase in water vapor in this region in the 1980s and 1990s exacerbated global warming."
The new study came from a group of scientists, mainly from the NOAA lab in Boulder. The scientists found: "Stratospheric water-vapor concentrations decreased by about 10 percent after the year 2000 . . . This acted to slow the rate of increase in global surface temperature over 2000 to 2009 by about 25 percent."
Specifically, the study found that water vapor rising from the tropics has been re duced, because it has gotten cooler there (another inconvenient truth). A Wall Street Journal headline summed it up: "Slowdown in Warming Linked to Water Vapor."
Moisture in the lower stratosphere (about 8 miles above the earth's surface) has been going down, not up.
Aside from clouds, water vapor accounts for as much as two-thirds of the earth's greenhouse-gas effect. Water vapor traps heat from escaping the atmosphere -- but clouds have the opposite effect (called "albedo") by reflecting the sun's energy back into space. And snow on the ground from the IPCC's predicted precipitation in high latitudes would have the same cooling effect as clouds.
What the new research suggests is that changes in water vapor may well trump the ef fect of carbon dioxide (only a fraction of which is man-made) and methane (which has mysteriously slowed since about 1990).
This raises an intriguing question: Since the Environmental Protection Agency declared that it has the authority to regulation carbon emissions because of their presumed effect on the global climate, why hasn't the EPA also attempted to regulate mist and fog?
Alan Reynolds, a Cato Institute senior fellow, is author of "Income and Wealth."
President Obama eyes cut in U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal
BY Kenneth R. Bazinet
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/03/02/2010-03-02_prez_eyes_cut_in_nuke_arsenal.html
Miller/News
President Obama wants to cut the estimated 5,500 nuclear warheads the U.S. has stockpiled by about half, an official said.
WASHINGTON - President Obama is moving forward with plans to reduce the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, a senior administration official said Monday.
Obama wants to cut the estimated 5,500 nuclear warheads the U.S. has stockpiled by about half, the official said.
"It would set an example for nuclear countries and for countries that are considering going nuclear," the official explained.
Though the plan has been criticized by hawks, the White House is confident there will still be plenty of nukes left to meet any threats.
Obama met with Defense Secretary Robert Gates to map out the plans for trimming the stockpile.
"The e-mail Bag"
You Might Be A Redneck
http://www.countryhumor.com/redneck/mightbe.htm
Thank you Jeff Foxworthy!
You think "loading the dishwasher" means getting your wife drunk.
You ever cut your grass and found a car.
You own a home that is mobile and 5 cars that aren't.
You think the stock market has a fence around it.
Your stereo speakers used to belong to the Drive-in Theater.
Your boat has not left the drive-way in 15 years.
You own a homemade fur coat.
Chiggers are included on your list of top 5 hygiene concerns.
You burn your yard rather than mow it.
Your wife has ever said, "Come move this transmission so I can take a bath."
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
ConservativeChristianRepublican-Report - 20100302
Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable
Promoting "God's Holy Values and American Freedoms"!
"Daily Motivations"
"Pressure is a word that is misused in our vocabulary. When you start thinking of pressure, it's because you've started to think of failure." -- Tommy Lasorda
Whether it is an unexpected act of kindness, providing extraordinary customer service, or being sincerely interested in every word that someone says…great leaders usually have one thing in common: They consistently do more than is expected. -- Marcy Blochowiak
"The man who doesn't relax and hoot a few hoots voluntarily, now and then, is in great danger of hooting hoots and standing on his head for the edification of the pathologist and trained nurse, a little later on." -- Elbert Hubbard
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia.... (Acts 13:4 NIV)
When I was a new Christian, the Holy Spirit impressed me to visit the president of one of the largest oil companies in the world. I was very uncomfortable, but I felt I must be obedient to God's leadership. I was amazed when the tycoon immediately agreed to see me.
As I arrived at his office, he asked, "What can I do for you, young man?" I got right to the point and asked him about his relationship with Jesus Christ.
This powerful business leader sitting in front of me began to weep. He had received Christ as a young boy but had spent his entire adult life pursuing success. As he had gained the world, he felt that he had lost his soul. His wife, his children, particularly his Lord - he wanted them all back in his life. We wept together.
As I stood to leave, he told me that he had not been in a church for thirty years, and that he intended to change that pattern on the following Sunday. I left his office rejoicing that I had obeyed the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit often guides us through inner impressions or promptings. But there are many ways in which our sovereign God can reveal His will to us. However, we must walk by faith and not by sight. God is so faithful, and we need only be attentive and sensitive.
Your View of God Really Matters …
Ask God today to help you walk by faith and not by sight. Listen closely for His voice.
"The Patriot Post"
"No nation was ever ruined by trade, even seemingly the most disadvantageous." --Benjamin Franklin and George Whaley, Principles of Trade, 1774
"I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 1785
"Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections.. The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations." --George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
Re: The Left
"President Obama's State of the Union address was the greatest American rhetorical embrace of fascist trope since the days of Woodrow Wilson. I am not suggesting Obama is a Nazi; he isn't. I am not suggesting that he is a jackbooted thug; he isn't (even if we could be forgiven for mistaking Rahm Emanuel for one). President Obama is, however, a man who embodies all the personal characteristics of a fascist leader, right down to the arrogant chin-up head tilt he utilizes when waiting for applause. He sees democracy as a filthy process that can be cured only by the centralized power of bureaucrats. He sees his presidency as a Hegelian synthesis marking the end of political conflict. He sees himself as embodiment of the collective will. No president should speak in these terms -- not in a representative republic. Obama does it habitually." --columnist Ben Shapiro
Political Futures
"Barack Obama is probably the most union-friendly president since Lyndon Johnson. He has obviously been unable to stop the decline of private-sector unionism. But he is doing his best to increase the power -- and dues income -- of public-sector unions. One-third of last year's $787 billion stimulus package was aid to state and local governments -- an obvious attempt to bolster public-sector unions. And it was a successful one: While the private sector has lost 7 million jobs, the number of public-sector jobs has risen. The number of federal government jobs has been increasing by 10,000 a month, and the percentage of federal employees earning over $100,000 has jumped to 19 percent during the recession. Obama and his party are acting in collusion with unions that contributed something like $400,000,000 to Democrats in the 2008 campaign cycle. Public-sector unionism tends to be a self-perpetuating machine that extracts money from taxpayers and then puts it on a conveyor belt to the Democratic Party. But it may not turn out to be a perpetual-motion machine. Public-sector employees are still heavily outnumbered by those who depend on the private sector for their livelihoods. The next Congress may not be as willing as this one has been to bail out state governments dominated by public-sector unions. Voters may bridle at the higher taxes needed to pay for $100,000-plus pensions for public employees who retire in their 50s. ... Obama's Democrats have used the financial crisis to expand the public sector and the public-sector unions. But voters seem to be saying, 'Enough.'" --political analyst Michael Barone
For the Record
"[T]he Obama administration's new budget will propose to zero out funding for Nevada's Yucca Mountain nuclear repository -- in effect, killing it. Instead, the Energy Department has announced the formation of a 'blue ribbon' commission 'to provide recommendations for developing a safe, long-term solution to managing the nation's used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste.' ... And why are we forming yet another blue ribbon commission to study a matter that has already been studied to death? The commission is empowered to study 'all options' except the one that has already been chosen by the United States government. So much for the previous blue ribbon commission that had settled on the Yucca Mountain site. American taxpayers have already invested more than $13 billion over 30 years to build the facility and make it redundantly safe. ... There is nothing dishonorable about opposing nuclear energy -- though the greenies who claim that global warming is their chief worry have some explaining to do if they reject nuclear power -- but there is something dishonest about claiming to favor nuclear power while simultaneously short-circuiting the most viable solution to the problem of long-term waste storage." --columnist Mona Charen
The Last Word
"I can't recall the wheels coming off the bus of any expert-driven hysteria as fast or as completely as they are now coming off the global-warming scare. ... News of the manipulations, distortions and frauds perpetrated to advance and preserve the environmentalists' cause celebre are so numerous and coming so fast, it's hard to keep up. First, of course, there were the e-mails and computer files leaked from Britain's Climate Research Unit (CRU) -- one of a handful of climate-research centres around the world that are the pillars of the United Nations' claims about impending climate doom. ... Then a couple of weeks ago came the news that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN's climate-change arm, had based its most recent findings on Himalayan glacier melt on an old study that had never been peer-reviewed or even published and which was based entirely on the speculation (not research) of a single Indian scientist who now works at the environmental think-tank run by the head of the IPCC, economist Rajendra Pachauri. This by itself wouldn't be devastating, except that the scientist in charge of the glacier chapter of the IPCC's latest assessment report (AR4) admitted he had known the melt estimate was wrong but had included it anyway because 'we thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.' That's not climate science, it's environmental activism, pure and simple.... Another revelation of malfeasance this week was the discovery that the chapter on Amazon rainforests in the IPCC's AR4, the one that included the often-repeated claim that 40 per cent of the forest is under imminent threat from climate change, was written not by climate scientists but by an policy analyst who works for environmental groups and a freelance environmental author. ... In all, so far, at least 16 major claims made in AR4 (the report for which the IPCC won a Nobel Prize) have been shown to have originated with environmental groups rather than scientists.... Does all this prove global warming is a hoax? I believe it does. But at the least, it shows the science is far from settled." --Edmonton Journal columnist Lorne Gunter
"The Web"
Pray For Our Nation
http://www.greatdanepro.com/Pray%20For%20America/index.htm
What the Tea Party Movement Must Never Forget
http://www.americanvision.org/article/what-the-tea-party-movement-must-never-forget/
by Gary DeMar,
What is government? When this question is asked, most people respond by equating government solely to a centralized civil State. Even our language reflects the confusion: “Government? It’s in Washington,” or “The government will take care of its citizens through its many programs.” Both of these statements reflect a misunderstanding of the true nature of government. They portray the idea that the only governing institution is a political one. Historically, however, the term “government” was always qualified in some way, unlike our present-day definitions.
Our educational system reflects the same confusion. A generation ago, high school classes dealing with state government were given the title “Civics.” The emphasis was on the function of government in civil matters. This is no longer the case. Before World War I, textbooks dealing with national government were qualified with the title “Civil.” An example of this can be seen in a textbook used in 1903: Elements of Civil Government. According to its author, “The family... Is a form of government, established for the good of children themselves, and the first government that each of us must obey.”[1] The book continues by defining five areas of civil government: “the township or civil district, the village or the city, the county, the State, and the United States.” [2] The term “government” as the older educational definition indicates, is broader than the State. Textbook writers were aware that there were personal (self), family, church, school, and civil governments, each having a legitimate realm of authority. Civil government was seen as only one government among many.
To deny the validity of the many governments and the responsibilities that each has under God, would be to deny the authority that belongs to each of them in the realm of their activity. If we as individuals neglect our personal governing duties, then we can expect the state to assume the role of all other legitimate governments and claim to be the sole government, while labeling all others as counterfeits. Therefore, to see the state as the only governing institution “is destructive of liberty and of life.”[3]
The concept of the multiplicity of governments was as old as our country, because the principles were extracted from biblical principles. Noah Webster’s definition of government in his American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) reflects the biblical concept of the diversity of governmental authority. Webster defined government in this way: “Direction; regulation. ‘These precepts will serve for the government of our conduct.’ Control; restraint. ‘Men are apt to neglect the government of their temper and passions.’”
While Noah Webster defined government in terms of personal self-control, most modern definitions largely limit government to the realm of institutions, especially civil or statist governments. This is made evident by the fact that the definition for civil government is placed first in modern dictionaries. Nowhere are self- and family governments even listed. For example, Webster’s New World Dictionary (1972) defines government as “The exercise of authority over a state, district, organization, institution, etc.”
Noah Webster, in the older definition, even goes on to include family government as part of the complete definition before he deals with the government of an individual civil government at the state or national level. He defines family government as: “The exercise of authority by a parent or householder. ‘Children are often ruined by a neglect of government in parents.’” According to the Bible, it is the duty of parents to govern in the home: “And fathers, do not provoke your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). It is not the duty of a civil government to interfere with the affairs of the family. Too often, however, parents neglect their God-given duty to raise their children in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord.” When this happens, we can expect the State to take an increasingly dominant role in family affairs. Such a role is to the detriment of the family. The State on many occasions has even claimed ownership of children.
If generations continue to be indoctrinated with the modern definition of “government,” they will neglect their own personal, family, church, and local governing duties. They will believe that these responsibilities are outside their area of authority and jurisdiction. Each generation will become more dependent on the “benevolent” State for care and security. We are beginning to see such a trend. “Today, most Americans have lost their faith in Christ as Savior, and they expect civil government to be their savior. They have no desire for the responsibilities of self-government, and so they say to politicians, ‘Do thou rule over us.’ Instead of Jesus Christ as their good shepherd, they elect politicians to be their shepherds on a program of socialistic security for all.”[4]
Government begins with the individual and extends outward to include all institutions. Presently, however, most Americans are unaware of the varied nature of government. The civil sphere of government has assumed responsibility to be the government. It is sad that many Americans are thankful that Washington has relieved them from what they believe is the heavy burden of governing themselves, their families, churches, and schools. If the people of the United States do not once again establish self-, family, church, local, state, and national governments and limit them in power and authority, our nation is doomed.
Conde Pallen’s “utopian” novel Crucible Island depicts what happens when the God of the Bible is rejected and the State becomes God. Man looks for a substitute provider so “the individual should have no thought, desire, or object other than the public welfare, of which the State is the creator and the inviolable guardian. As soon as the child is capable of learning, he is taught the Socialist catechism, whose first questions run as follows”:
Q. By whom were you begotten?
A. By the sovereign State.
Q. Why were you begotten?
A. That I might know, love, and serve the Sovereign State always.
Q. What is the sovereign State?
A. The sovereign State is humanity in composite and perfect being.
Q. Why is the State supreme?
A. The State is supreme because it is my Creator and Conserver in which I am and move and have my being and without which I am nothing.
Q. What is the individual?
A. The individual is only a part of the whole, and made for the whole, and finds his complete and perfect expression in the sovereign State. Individuals are made for cooperation only, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth.[5]
The central focus of all realms of government is the regenerating work of Jesus Christ. Institutions and civil governments are made up of people who are governed by the condition of their hearts. If the heart is in rebellion against God, we can expect undisciplined and ungovernable people. If the heart has been made new in Christ, we can expect a people who will govern their lives according to the governing principles of Scripture. A. A. Hodge speaks of the essence of the new heart, regeneration, as consisting of “the implantation of a new governing principle of life—from the fact that it is a ‘new birth’ [John 3:3], a ‘new creation’ [2 Cor. 5:17], wrought by the mighty power of God in execution of his eternal purpose of salvation, and that it is as necessary for the most moral and amiable as for the morally abandoned.”[6]
North Carolina: Muslim 8th-grade teacher says it was a "hate crime" that students left a Bible on her desk
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/02/north-carolina-muslim-8th-grade-teacher-says-it-was-a-hate-crime-that-students-left-a-bible-on-her-d.html
Maybe the students were indeed taunting her by leaving the Bible and the card. Eighth graders can be like that, whatever the religion of the teacher may be. But when the teacher is Muslim, adolescent taunting becomes a "hate crime."
"Religious conflict leads to teacher's suspension," by T. Keung Hui for the Charlotte News and Observer, February 18 (thanks to Parsimonious):
APEX -- A Wake County middle-school teacher may be fired after she and her friends made caustic remarks on a Facebook page about her students, the South and Christianity.
Melissa Hussain, an eighth-grade science teacher at West Lake Middle School in southern Wake County, was suspended with pay Friday while investigators review her case, according to Greg Thomas, a Wake schools spokesman. The suspension came after some of Hussain's students and their parents objected to comments on her Facebook page, many revolving around her interaction with Christian students.
Hussain wrote on the social-networking site that it was a "hate crime" that students anonymously left a Bible on her desk, and she told how she "was able to shame her kids" over the incident. Her Facebook page included comments from friends about "ignorant southern rednecks," and one commenter suggested Hussain retaliate by bringing a Dale Earnhardt Jr. poster to class with a swastika drawn on the NASCAR driver's forehead.
"I don't defend what the kids were doing," said Murray Inman, a parent of one of Hussain's students. "I just couldn't imagine an educator, or a group of educators, engaging in this kind of dialogue about kids." [...]
In Hussain's case, the comments in question were on the public side of her Facebook page. She has since limited public access.
Parents of children in her class said they learned about the comments last month, leading them to complain to the school three weeks ago.
The picture of Jesus
Parents said the situation escalated after a student put a postcard of Jesus on Hussain's desk that the teacher threw in the trash. Parents also said Hussain sent to the office students who, during a lesson about evolution, asked about the role of God in creation.
On her Facebook page, Hussain wrote about students spreading rumors that she was a Jesus hater. She complained about her students wearing Jesus T-shirts and singing "Jesus Loves Me." She objected to students reading the Bible instead of doing her work.
But Annette Balint, whose daughter is in Hussain's class, said the students have the right to wear those shirts and sing "Jesus Loves Me," a long-time Sunday School staple. She said the students were reading the Bible during free time in class.
"She doesn't have to be a professing Christian to be in the classroom," Balint said. "But she can't go the other way and not allow God to be mentioned."
Hussain, a 2004 Florida State University graduate, has been a Wake teacher since 2006. Her religious affiliation isn't on her Facebook page.
Gee, what could it be?
'Merry Christmas'
The flash point for the comments came after the Bible was left on Hussain's desk in December. The Bible was accompanied by an anonymous card, which, according to Hussain, said "'Merry Christmas' with Christ underlined and bolded." She said there was no love shown in giving her the Bible.
"I can't believe the cruelty and ignorance of people sometimes," Hussain wrote on her Facebook page.
Hussain also said she wouldn't let the Bible incident "go unpunished."...
I wonder what form the punishment might have taken.
J.C. WATTS: The mother of all bailouts to come
http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/the-mother-of-all-bailouts-to-come-85760442.html
J.C. WATTS: The mother of all bailouts to come
J.C. WATTS
I'm all for bipartisan agreements that make sense. However, when I look at what is unfolding in Congress in the name of bipartisanship on banking reform, it makes me extremely nervous.
Here we go again.
Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn., are working on bipartisan legislation to revamp the regulatory structure of the financial services industry. The House passed Rep. Barney Frank's version Dec. 11. The bill from Frank, D-Mass., would create a controversial Consumer Financial Protection Agency and codify a permanent bailout authority for the federal government.
The big question for Americans who hate bailouts is whether the Senate will follow the House's lead and grant the Federal Reserve the statutory authority to bail out individuals, partnerships or corporations to the tune of $4 trillion.
On Page 506 of the House-passed bill, which is titled the "Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act" is the following language: The amounts made available under this subsection shall not exceed $4,000,000,000,000.
This so-called "reform" and "consumer protection" legislation authorizes a $4 trillion bailout fund for Wall Street. That is more money than President Obama's 2011 budget ($3.8 trillion), the gross domestic product of Germany ($3.7 trillion), and between five and six times the amount of the Troubled Assets Relief Program. A majority of House members actually voted for a bill containing $4 trillion in new bailout authority. You just can't make this stuff up. It is really in the bill.
David Reilly, a columnist for Bloomberg News, said the bill "authorizes Federal Reserve banks to provide as much as $4 trillion in emergency funding the next time Wall Street crashes. So much for 'no-more-bailouts' talk. That is more than twice what the Federal Reserve pumped into markets last year. The size of the fund makes the deal-making in the Senate's health care bill look minuscule."
Current law allows the Federal Reserve to open the lending window in "unusual and exigent circumstances." According to the Congressional Research Service, this authority had been used in the past to authorize entities created by the Federal Reserve's Bear Stearns merger and bailout of AIG. Nowhere near $4 trillion has been committed under existing authority.
An explicit authority would be created under the Frank approach to financial services reform to allow the Federal Reserve to make $4 trillion in commitments in unusual and exigent circumstances.
This provides the Federal Reserve with more authority to bail out failing industries without the need for getting the prior consent of Congress. The words "unusual" and "exigent" are vague and ambiguous enough to give the Federal Reserve sweeping new bailout authorities to dispense massive commitments to private and public entities.
Here's how it would work: The Fed would have to make a written determination that a "liquidity event exists that could destabilize the financial system" with a vote of two-thirds of the members of the Financial Oversight Council. The next step would be to secure the written consent of the secretary of the treasury as another condition to the commitment of monies, and the president would have to certify that an emergency exists. The Fed then would authorize a Federal Reserve bank to make a commitment in consideration for "notes, drafts, and bills of exchange" consistent with the order from the Fed, Treasury and the president. The House and Senate would be notified of the action by the Fed. There is a requirement that the secretary of the treasury believes that the funds will be paid back.
I remind you these are all the same entities who were asleep at the wheel in oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, allowing them to run amok.
There is a provision for a joint resolution of congressional disapproval, but the commencing of any resolution would not happen until after the commitment of funds had already been made. It is unlikely that members of Congress would be able to unravel any action.
The Senate has the power to run away from this new bailout authority or to embrace it when senators debate financial services reform legislation. The direction that Dodd and Corker take in negotiations on this important issue will have severe ramifications for government policy on the proper role of the Federal Reserve to prop up failing companies in times of crisis.
If this bill passes the Senate with bailout authority intact and gets one step closer to the president's desk, then voters will be mad at yet another abuse of the taxpayers' dollars. The idea of a small and limited government is inconsistent with the idea that the Federal Reserve should have $4 trillion more in bailout authority.
J.C. Watts (JCWatts01@jcwatts.com) is chairman of J.C. Watts Companies, a business consulting group. He is former chairman of the Republican Conference of the U.S. House, where he served as an Oklahoma representative from 1995 to 2002. He writes twice monthly for the Review-Journal.
ABC News to cut half its domestic correspondents, close bricks-and-mortar bureaus [Updated]
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/02/abc-news-to-cut-half-its-domestic-correspondents-shut-down-all-bureaus-except-washington.html
As part of the deep cuts announced this week at ABC News, the network plans to close all of its physical bureaus around the country except Washington and halve the number of its domestic correspondents.
ABC News President David Westin confirmed in an interview Friday that the network's ranks of bureau correspondents, which currently number several dozen, would be cut in half and be replaced with "digital" journalists who would be expected to shoot and edit their own stories.
“We will have as many total journalists as we do now,” he said.
Although the network will keep a minimal staff presence in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami and Boston, it will shut down its bricks-and-mortar bureaus there and ask its remaining employees to work from the local affiliates. The Washington bureau will remain open, but its size will be substantially reduced.
[Updated at 1:10 p.m.: Kate O'Brian, ABC's senior vice president of news, said that although the network eventually plans to shut down its physical bureaus in the long term, it is still examining all of its leases and is not going to immediately vacate all offices. The news division has not yet approached affiliates about housing network correspondents, but has found that model works in Denver and Detroit.]
The mood was grim in Los Angeles, the largest bureau outside of Washington. The 40-plus staffers were told this week that only a few producers would remain and only two correspondents would be assigned to cover the West, down from a total of six who work out of Dallas, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Many functions that had been done out of the bureau will be handled by a “logistics desk” in New York. Demoralized employees, who did not want to be quoted by name for fear of losing their jobs, said the severity of the cuts would make it nearly impossible to swarm major stories such as the perennial wildfires in Southern California.
Westin said the network would cope with the reduced manpower on breaking news stories by hiring freelance crews and making use of its expanded team of digital journalists, staffers who would be able to handle multiple tasks. Although a majority of stories will still be covered by traditional four-person crews, Westin said he expected a “plurality” of pieces would be done by people shooting and editing their own video. The digital journalists will be stationed in two-person teams around the country.
“I’m sure we will learn more as we go forward, but we have enough experience to be quite confident that we can not only maintain but in some cases enhance our editorial quality,” he said.
This week, the network began sending out letters offering voluntary buyouts to all nonunion employees, and is posting openings of the new digital journalism positions.
“This is a really big change,” Westin said. “Some people are going to embrace it and some people will believe it won’t work. I respect both those groups of people. It’s a question of who wants to work here in the way we’re going to change the place. ... I’m quite confident we will have enough people who are enthusiastic and up to the task.”
-- Matea Gold
Pelosi to Dems: Support health bill, even if it kills career
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/politics/pelosi_career_dems_support_health_rv5IyPk9kkDq3eM9vaiVJJ/0
WASHINGTON — The White House called for a "simple up-or-down" vote on health care legislation today as Speaker Nancy Pelosi appealed to House Democrats to get behind President Barack Obama's chief domestic priority even it if threatens their political careers.
In voicing support for a simple majority vote, White House health reform director Nancy-Ann DeParle signaled Obama's intention to push the Democratic-crafted bill under Senate rules that would overcome GOP stalling tactics.
Republicans unanimously oppose the Democratic proposals. Without GOP support, Obama's only chance of emerging with a policy and political victory is to bypass the bipartisanship he promoted during his televised seven-hour health care summit Thursday.
"We're not talking about changing any rules here," DeParle said. "All the president's talking about is: Do we need to address this problem and does it make sense to have a simple, up-or-down vote on whether or not we want to fix these problems?"
DeParle was optimistic that the president would have the votes to pass the massive bill. But none of legislation's advocates who spoke on Sunday indicated that those votes were in hand.
"I think we will get to that point where we will have the votes," predicted Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., a member of the Senate Democratic leadership. "I believe that we will pass health care reform this spring."
In a sober call to arms, Pelosi said lawmakers sometimes must enact policies that, even if unpopular at the moment, will help the public. "We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress," she said. "We're here to do the job for the American people."
Pelosi said it took courage for Congress to pass Social Security and Medicare, which eventually became highly popular, "and many of the same forces that were at work decades ago are at work again against this bill."
It's unclear whether Pelosi's remarks will embolden or chill dozens of moderate House Democrats who face withering criticisms of the health care proposal in visits with constituents and in national polls. Republican lawmakers unanimously oppose the health care proposals, and many GOP strategists believe voters will turn against Democrats in the November elections.
Pelosi, from San Francisco, is more liberal than scores of her Democratic colleagues. But she generally walks a careful line between urging them to back left-of-center policies and giving them a green light to buck party leaders to improve their re-election hopes.
Her comments seemed to acknowledge the widely held view that Democrats will lose House seats this fall — maybe a lot. They now control the chamber 255 to 178, with two vacancies. Pelosi stopped well short of suggesting Democrats could lose their majority, but she called on members of her party to make a bold move on health care with no prospects of GOP help.
"Time is up," she said. "We really have to go forth."
Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the second-ranking Republican leader in the House, made it clear Republicans see a Democrats-only bill as an election-year issue.
"If Speaker Pelosi rams through this bill, through the House ... they will lose their majority in Congress in November," he said.
The White House is redoubling efforts to remind voters that the Senate passed an Obama-backed health care bill in December with 60 votes. Every Republican voted against that bill. A Republican Senate victory in Massachusetts in January, however, left Democrats one vote shy of the number necessary to overcome GOP filibusters.
As a result, a new plan would call for the House to pass the Senate bill and send it to Obama. The Senate would then use budget reconciliation rules to make several changes demanded by House Democrats. Those rules prohibit filibusters.
Exactly what the legislation would look like remained a matter of negotiation within Democratic ranks. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, "is working with his caucus, the White House and the House leadership on strategy and next steps," Reid spokesman Jim Manley said Sunday.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky renewed his party's demand that Obama and the Democrats start over and write a bipartisan health care bill. He said that while the reconciliation process has been used to pass legislation in the past, it should not apply to health care legislation.
"There are a number of other Republicans who do not think something of this magnitude ought to be jammed down the throats of a public that doesn't want it through this kind of device," McConnell said.
Pelosi said that "in a matter of days" Democrats will have specific legislative language on health care to show to the public and to wavering lawmakers. She predicted voters will warm up to the bill once they understand its details.
"When we have a bill," she said, "you can bake the pie, you can sell the pie. But you have to have a pie to sell."
At that point, added House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, top Democrats will make their pitch to their members.
"Within the next couple of weeks we're going to have a specific proposal and start counting votes to see whether or not those proposals could pass," he said.
Pelosi appeared on ABC's "This Week" and CNN's "State of the Union." DeParle and Cantor were on NBC's "Meet the Press," Hoyer was on CBS' "Face the Nation," while Menendez appeared on "Fox News Sunday" and McConnell spoke on CNN
Obama has saved us!
Via E-mail from Chuck Sproull (not the author)
Obama has saved us!
That is right - I will say it: THANK GOD FOR BARAK OBAMA
WHY?
He destroyed the Clinton Political Machine - Driving a stake thru the heart of Hillary's Presidential aspirations - something no Republican was ever able to do. Remember when a Hillary Presidency scared the daylights out of you?!
He killed off the Kennedy Dynasty - No more Kennedys trolling Washington looking for booze and women wanting rides home. American women and Freedom are safer tonight!
He is destroying the Democratic Party before our eyes!
Dennis Moore had never lost a race - quit
Evan Bayh had never lost a race - quit
Byron Dorgan - had never lost a race - quit
Harry Reed - GONE
These are just a handful of the Democrats whose political careers Obama has destroyed! By the end of 2010 dozens more will follow!
In December of 2008 the Democrats were on the rise. In the last two election cycles they had picked up 14 senate seats and 52 house seats. The press was touting the death of the Conservative Movement and the Republican Party.
In one year Obama put a stop to all of this and will probably give the house, if not the senate back to the Republicans.
He has completely exposed liberals and progressives for what they are. Every Generation seems to need to relearn the lesson on why they should never actually put liberals in charge. He is bringing home the lesson very well!
Liberals tax, borrow and spend - check
Liberals won't bring themselves to protect America - check
Liberals want to take over the economy - check
Liberals think they know what is best for everyone - check
Liberals aren't happy till they are running YOUR life - check
He has brought more Americans back to conservatism than anyone since Reagan
In One year he rejuvenated the Conservative movement and brought out to the streets millions of Freedom Loving Americans
Name me one other time in your life that you saw your friends and neighbors this interested in taking back America !
In all honesty, one year ago I was more afraid than I had ever been in my life. Not of the economy but of the direction our country was going. I thought Americans had forgotten what this country was all about. My neighbors, friends, strangers proved to me that my lack of confidence in the Greatness and Wisdom of the American people was flat out wrong.
When the American People wake up, no smooth talking teleprompter reader can fool them!
Barak Obama woke up these Great Americans
Again I want to say: Thank you Barak Obama!
"The e-mail Bag"
How is this for Nostalgia?
by jungleloo
http://www.loomanchu.com/how-is-this-for-nostalgia
How is this for Nostalgia?
Good one!!
Remember when Ronald Reagan was president.
We also had Bob Hope and Johnny Cash...
Now we have Obama and no Hope and no Cash.
Promoting "God's Holy Values and American Freedoms"!
"Daily Motivations"
"Pressure is a word that is misused in our vocabulary. When you start thinking of pressure, it's because you've started to think of failure." -- Tommy Lasorda
Whether it is an unexpected act of kindness, providing extraordinary customer service, or being sincerely interested in every word that someone says…great leaders usually have one thing in common: They consistently do more than is expected. -- Marcy Blochowiak
"The man who doesn't relax and hoot a few hoots voluntarily, now and then, is in great danger of hooting hoots and standing on his head for the edification of the pathologist and trained nurse, a little later on." -- Elbert Hubbard
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia.... (Acts 13:4 NIV)
When I was a new Christian, the Holy Spirit impressed me to visit the president of one of the largest oil companies in the world. I was very uncomfortable, but I felt I must be obedient to God's leadership. I was amazed when the tycoon immediately agreed to see me.
As I arrived at his office, he asked, "What can I do for you, young man?" I got right to the point and asked him about his relationship with Jesus Christ.
This powerful business leader sitting in front of me began to weep. He had received Christ as a young boy but had spent his entire adult life pursuing success. As he had gained the world, he felt that he had lost his soul. His wife, his children, particularly his Lord - he wanted them all back in his life. We wept together.
As I stood to leave, he told me that he had not been in a church for thirty years, and that he intended to change that pattern on the following Sunday. I left his office rejoicing that I had obeyed the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit often guides us through inner impressions or promptings. But there are many ways in which our sovereign God can reveal His will to us. However, we must walk by faith and not by sight. God is so faithful, and we need only be attentive and sensitive.
Your View of God Really Matters …
Ask God today to help you walk by faith and not by sight. Listen closely for His voice.
"The Patriot Post"
"No nation was ever ruined by trade, even seemingly the most disadvantageous." --Benjamin Franklin and George Whaley, Principles of Trade, 1774
"I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 1785
"Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections.. The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations." --George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
Re: The Left
"President Obama's State of the Union address was the greatest American rhetorical embrace of fascist trope since the days of Woodrow Wilson. I am not suggesting Obama is a Nazi; he isn't. I am not suggesting that he is a jackbooted thug; he isn't (even if we could be forgiven for mistaking Rahm Emanuel for one). President Obama is, however, a man who embodies all the personal characteristics of a fascist leader, right down to the arrogant chin-up head tilt he utilizes when waiting for applause. He sees democracy as a filthy process that can be cured only by the centralized power of bureaucrats. He sees his presidency as a Hegelian synthesis marking the end of political conflict. He sees himself as embodiment of the collective will. No president should speak in these terms -- not in a representative republic. Obama does it habitually." --columnist Ben Shapiro
Political Futures
"Barack Obama is probably the most union-friendly president since Lyndon Johnson. He has obviously been unable to stop the decline of private-sector unionism. But he is doing his best to increase the power -- and dues income -- of public-sector unions. One-third of last year's $787 billion stimulus package was aid to state and local governments -- an obvious attempt to bolster public-sector unions. And it was a successful one: While the private sector has lost 7 million jobs, the number of public-sector jobs has risen. The number of federal government jobs has been increasing by 10,000 a month, and the percentage of federal employees earning over $100,000 has jumped to 19 percent during the recession. Obama and his party are acting in collusion with unions that contributed something like $400,000,000 to Democrats in the 2008 campaign cycle. Public-sector unionism tends to be a self-perpetuating machine that extracts money from taxpayers and then puts it on a conveyor belt to the Democratic Party. But it may not turn out to be a perpetual-motion machine. Public-sector employees are still heavily outnumbered by those who depend on the private sector for their livelihoods. The next Congress may not be as willing as this one has been to bail out state governments dominated by public-sector unions. Voters may bridle at the higher taxes needed to pay for $100,000-plus pensions for public employees who retire in their 50s. ... Obama's Democrats have used the financial crisis to expand the public sector and the public-sector unions. But voters seem to be saying, 'Enough.'" --political analyst Michael Barone
For the Record
"[T]he Obama administration's new budget will propose to zero out funding for Nevada's Yucca Mountain nuclear repository -- in effect, killing it. Instead, the Energy Department has announced the formation of a 'blue ribbon' commission 'to provide recommendations for developing a safe, long-term solution to managing the nation's used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste.' ... And why are we forming yet another blue ribbon commission to study a matter that has already been studied to death? The commission is empowered to study 'all options' except the one that has already been chosen by the United States government. So much for the previous blue ribbon commission that had settled on the Yucca Mountain site. American taxpayers have already invested more than $13 billion over 30 years to build the facility and make it redundantly safe. ... There is nothing dishonorable about opposing nuclear energy -- though the greenies who claim that global warming is their chief worry have some explaining to do if they reject nuclear power -- but there is something dishonest about claiming to favor nuclear power while simultaneously short-circuiting the most viable solution to the problem of long-term waste storage." --columnist Mona Charen
The Last Word
"I can't recall the wheels coming off the bus of any expert-driven hysteria as fast or as completely as they are now coming off the global-warming scare. ... News of the manipulations, distortions and frauds perpetrated to advance and preserve the environmentalists' cause celebre are so numerous and coming so fast, it's hard to keep up. First, of course, there were the e-mails and computer files leaked from Britain's Climate Research Unit (CRU) -- one of a handful of climate-research centres around the world that are the pillars of the United Nations' claims about impending climate doom. ... Then a couple of weeks ago came the news that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN's climate-change arm, had based its most recent findings on Himalayan glacier melt on an old study that had never been peer-reviewed or even published and which was based entirely on the speculation (not research) of a single Indian scientist who now works at the environmental think-tank run by the head of the IPCC, economist Rajendra Pachauri. This by itself wouldn't be devastating, except that the scientist in charge of the glacier chapter of the IPCC's latest assessment report (AR4) admitted he had known the melt estimate was wrong but had included it anyway because 'we thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.' That's not climate science, it's environmental activism, pure and simple.... Another revelation of malfeasance this week was the discovery that the chapter on Amazon rainforests in the IPCC's AR4, the one that included the often-repeated claim that 40 per cent of the forest is under imminent threat from climate change, was written not by climate scientists but by an policy analyst who works for environmental groups and a freelance environmental author. ... In all, so far, at least 16 major claims made in AR4 (the report for which the IPCC won a Nobel Prize) have been shown to have originated with environmental groups rather than scientists.... Does all this prove global warming is a hoax? I believe it does. But at the least, it shows the science is far from settled." --Edmonton Journal columnist Lorne Gunter
"The Web"
Pray For Our Nation
http://www.greatdanepro.com/Pray%20For%20America/index.htm
What the Tea Party Movement Must Never Forget
http://www.americanvision.org/article/what-the-tea-party-movement-must-never-forget/
by Gary DeMar,
What is government? When this question is asked, most people respond by equating government solely to a centralized civil State. Even our language reflects the confusion: “Government? It’s in Washington,” or “The government will take care of its citizens through its many programs.” Both of these statements reflect a misunderstanding of the true nature of government. They portray the idea that the only governing institution is a political one. Historically, however, the term “government” was always qualified in some way, unlike our present-day definitions.
Our educational system reflects the same confusion. A generation ago, high school classes dealing with state government were given the title “Civics.” The emphasis was on the function of government in civil matters. This is no longer the case. Before World War I, textbooks dealing with national government were qualified with the title “Civil.” An example of this can be seen in a textbook used in 1903: Elements of Civil Government. According to its author, “The family... Is a form of government, established for the good of children themselves, and the first government that each of us must obey.”[1] The book continues by defining five areas of civil government: “the township or civil district, the village or the city, the county, the State, and the United States.” [2] The term “government” as the older educational definition indicates, is broader than the State. Textbook writers were aware that there were personal (self), family, church, school, and civil governments, each having a legitimate realm of authority. Civil government was seen as only one government among many.
To deny the validity of the many governments and the responsibilities that each has under God, would be to deny the authority that belongs to each of them in the realm of their activity. If we as individuals neglect our personal governing duties, then we can expect the state to assume the role of all other legitimate governments and claim to be the sole government, while labeling all others as counterfeits. Therefore, to see the state as the only governing institution “is destructive of liberty and of life.”[3]
The concept of the multiplicity of governments was as old as our country, because the principles were extracted from biblical principles. Noah Webster’s definition of government in his American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) reflects the biblical concept of the diversity of governmental authority. Webster defined government in this way: “Direction; regulation. ‘These precepts will serve for the government of our conduct.’ Control; restraint. ‘Men are apt to neglect the government of their temper and passions.’”
While Noah Webster defined government in terms of personal self-control, most modern definitions largely limit government to the realm of institutions, especially civil or statist governments. This is made evident by the fact that the definition for civil government is placed first in modern dictionaries. Nowhere are self- and family governments even listed. For example, Webster’s New World Dictionary (1972) defines government as “The exercise of authority over a state, district, organization, institution, etc.”
Noah Webster, in the older definition, even goes on to include family government as part of the complete definition before he deals with the government of an individual civil government at the state or national level. He defines family government as: “The exercise of authority by a parent or householder. ‘Children are often ruined by a neglect of government in parents.’” According to the Bible, it is the duty of parents to govern in the home: “And fathers, do not provoke your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). It is not the duty of a civil government to interfere with the affairs of the family. Too often, however, parents neglect their God-given duty to raise their children in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord.” When this happens, we can expect the State to take an increasingly dominant role in family affairs. Such a role is to the detriment of the family. The State on many occasions has even claimed ownership of children.
If generations continue to be indoctrinated with the modern definition of “government,” they will neglect their own personal, family, church, and local governing duties. They will believe that these responsibilities are outside their area of authority and jurisdiction. Each generation will become more dependent on the “benevolent” State for care and security. We are beginning to see such a trend. “Today, most Americans have lost their faith in Christ as Savior, and they expect civil government to be their savior. They have no desire for the responsibilities of self-government, and so they say to politicians, ‘Do thou rule over us.’ Instead of Jesus Christ as their good shepherd, they elect politicians to be their shepherds on a program of socialistic security for all.”[4]
Government begins with the individual and extends outward to include all institutions. Presently, however, most Americans are unaware of the varied nature of government. The civil sphere of government has assumed responsibility to be the government. It is sad that many Americans are thankful that Washington has relieved them from what they believe is the heavy burden of governing themselves, their families, churches, and schools. If the people of the United States do not once again establish self-, family, church, local, state, and national governments and limit them in power and authority, our nation is doomed.
Conde Pallen’s “utopian” novel Crucible Island depicts what happens when the God of the Bible is rejected and the State becomes God. Man looks for a substitute provider so “the individual should have no thought, desire, or object other than the public welfare, of which the State is the creator and the inviolable guardian. As soon as the child is capable of learning, he is taught the Socialist catechism, whose first questions run as follows”:
Q. By whom were you begotten?
A. By the sovereign State.
Q. Why were you begotten?
A. That I might know, love, and serve the Sovereign State always.
Q. What is the sovereign State?
A. The sovereign State is humanity in composite and perfect being.
Q. Why is the State supreme?
A. The State is supreme because it is my Creator and Conserver in which I am and move and have my being and without which I am nothing.
Q. What is the individual?
A. The individual is only a part of the whole, and made for the whole, and finds his complete and perfect expression in the sovereign State. Individuals are made for cooperation only, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth.[5]
The central focus of all realms of government is the regenerating work of Jesus Christ. Institutions and civil governments are made up of people who are governed by the condition of their hearts. If the heart is in rebellion against God, we can expect undisciplined and ungovernable people. If the heart has been made new in Christ, we can expect a people who will govern their lives according to the governing principles of Scripture. A. A. Hodge speaks of the essence of the new heart, regeneration, as consisting of “the implantation of a new governing principle of life—from the fact that it is a ‘new birth’ [John 3:3], a ‘new creation’ [2 Cor. 5:17], wrought by the mighty power of God in execution of his eternal purpose of salvation, and that it is as necessary for the most moral and amiable as for the morally abandoned.”[6]
North Carolina: Muslim 8th-grade teacher says it was a "hate crime" that students left a Bible on her desk
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/02/north-carolina-muslim-8th-grade-teacher-says-it-was-a-hate-crime-that-students-left-a-bible-on-her-d.html
Maybe the students were indeed taunting her by leaving the Bible and the card. Eighth graders can be like that, whatever the religion of the teacher may be. But when the teacher is Muslim, adolescent taunting becomes a "hate crime."
"Religious conflict leads to teacher's suspension," by T. Keung Hui for the Charlotte News and Observer, February 18 (thanks to Parsimonious):
APEX -- A Wake County middle-school teacher may be fired after she and her friends made caustic remarks on a Facebook page about her students, the South and Christianity.
Melissa Hussain, an eighth-grade science teacher at West Lake Middle School in southern Wake County, was suspended with pay Friday while investigators review her case, according to Greg Thomas, a Wake schools spokesman. The suspension came after some of Hussain's students and their parents objected to comments on her Facebook page, many revolving around her interaction with Christian students.
Hussain wrote on the social-networking site that it was a "hate crime" that students anonymously left a Bible on her desk, and she told how she "was able to shame her kids" over the incident. Her Facebook page included comments from friends about "ignorant southern rednecks," and one commenter suggested Hussain retaliate by bringing a Dale Earnhardt Jr. poster to class with a swastika drawn on the NASCAR driver's forehead.
"I don't defend what the kids were doing," said Murray Inman, a parent of one of Hussain's students. "I just couldn't imagine an educator, or a group of educators, engaging in this kind of dialogue about kids." [...]
In Hussain's case, the comments in question were on the public side of her Facebook page. She has since limited public access.
Parents of children in her class said they learned about the comments last month, leading them to complain to the school three weeks ago.
The picture of Jesus
Parents said the situation escalated after a student put a postcard of Jesus on Hussain's desk that the teacher threw in the trash. Parents also said Hussain sent to the office students who, during a lesson about evolution, asked about the role of God in creation.
On her Facebook page, Hussain wrote about students spreading rumors that she was a Jesus hater. She complained about her students wearing Jesus T-shirts and singing "Jesus Loves Me." She objected to students reading the Bible instead of doing her work.
But Annette Balint, whose daughter is in Hussain's class, said the students have the right to wear those shirts and sing "Jesus Loves Me," a long-time Sunday School staple. She said the students were reading the Bible during free time in class.
"She doesn't have to be a professing Christian to be in the classroom," Balint said. "But she can't go the other way and not allow God to be mentioned."
Hussain, a 2004 Florida State University graduate, has been a Wake teacher since 2006. Her religious affiliation isn't on her Facebook page.
Gee, what could it be?
'Merry Christmas'
The flash point for the comments came after the Bible was left on Hussain's desk in December. The Bible was accompanied by an anonymous card, which, according to Hussain, said "'Merry Christmas' with Christ underlined and bolded." She said there was no love shown in giving her the Bible.
"I can't believe the cruelty and ignorance of people sometimes," Hussain wrote on her Facebook page.
Hussain also said she wouldn't let the Bible incident "go unpunished."...
I wonder what form the punishment might have taken.
J.C. WATTS: The mother of all bailouts to come
http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/the-mother-of-all-bailouts-to-come-85760442.html
J.C. WATTS: The mother of all bailouts to come
J.C. WATTS
I'm all for bipartisan agreements that make sense. However, when I look at what is unfolding in Congress in the name of bipartisanship on banking reform, it makes me extremely nervous.
Here we go again.
Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn., are working on bipartisan legislation to revamp the regulatory structure of the financial services industry. The House passed Rep. Barney Frank's version Dec. 11. The bill from Frank, D-Mass., would create a controversial Consumer Financial Protection Agency and codify a permanent bailout authority for the federal government.
The big question for Americans who hate bailouts is whether the Senate will follow the House's lead and grant the Federal Reserve the statutory authority to bail out individuals, partnerships or corporations to the tune of $4 trillion.
On Page 506 of the House-passed bill, which is titled the "Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act" is the following language: The amounts made available under this subsection shall not exceed $4,000,000,000,000.
This so-called "reform" and "consumer protection" legislation authorizes a $4 trillion bailout fund for Wall Street. That is more money than President Obama's 2011 budget ($3.8 trillion), the gross domestic product of Germany ($3.7 trillion), and between five and six times the amount of the Troubled Assets Relief Program. A majority of House members actually voted for a bill containing $4 trillion in new bailout authority. You just can't make this stuff up. It is really in the bill.
David Reilly, a columnist for Bloomberg News, said the bill "authorizes Federal Reserve banks to provide as much as $4 trillion in emergency funding the next time Wall Street crashes. So much for 'no-more-bailouts' talk. That is more than twice what the Federal Reserve pumped into markets last year. The size of the fund makes the deal-making in the Senate's health care bill look minuscule."
Current law allows the Federal Reserve to open the lending window in "unusual and exigent circumstances." According to the Congressional Research Service, this authority had been used in the past to authorize entities created by the Federal Reserve's Bear Stearns merger and bailout of AIG. Nowhere near $4 trillion has been committed under existing authority.
An explicit authority would be created under the Frank approach to financial services reform to allow the Federal Reserve to make $4 trillion in commitments in unusual and exigent circumstances.
This provides the Federal Reserve with more authority to bail out failing industries without the need for getting the prior consent of Congress. The words "unusual" and "exigent" are vague and ambiguous enough to give the Federal Reserve sweeping new bailout authorities to dispense massive commitments to private and public entities.
Here's how it would work: The Fed would have to make a written determination that a "liquidity event exists that could destabilize the financial system" with a vote of two-thirds of the members of the Financial Oversight Council. The next step would be to secure the written consent of the secretary of the treasury as another condition to the commitment of monies, and the president would have to certify that an emergency exists. The Fed then would authorize a Federal Reserve bank to make a commitment in consideration for "notes, drafts, and bills of exchange" consistent with the order from the Fed, Treasury and the president. The House and Senate would be notified of the action by the Fed. There is a requirement that the secretary of the treasury believes that the funds will be paid back.
I remind you these are all the same entities who were asleep at the wheel in oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, allowing them to run amok.
There is a provision for a joint resolution of congressional disapproval, but the commencing of any resolution would not happen until after the commitment of funds had already been made. It is unlikely that members of Congress would be able to unravel any action.
The Senate has the power to run away from this new bailout authority or to embrace it when senators debate financial services reform legislation. The direction that Dodd and Corker take in negotiations on this important issue will have severe ramifications for government policy on the proper role of the Federal Reserve to prop up failing companies in times of crisis.
If this bill passes the Senate with bailout authority intact and gets one step closer to the president's desk, then voters will be mad at yet another abuse of the taxpayers' dollars. The idea of a small and limited government is inconsistent with the idea that the Federal Reserve should have $4 trillion more in bailout authority.
J.C. Watts (JCWatts01@jcwatts.com) is chairman of J.C. Watts Companies, a business consulting group. He is former chairman of the Republican Conference of the U.S. House, where he served as an Oklahoma representative from 1995 to 2002. He writes twice monthly for the Review-Journal.
ABC News to cut half its domestic correspondents, close bricks-and-mortar bureaus [Updated]
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/02/abc-news-to-cut-half-its-domestic-correspondents-shut-down-all-bureaus-except-washington.html
As part of the deep cuts announced this week at ABC News, the network plans to close all of its physical bureaus around the country except Washington and halve the number of its domestic correspondents.
ABC News President David Westin confirmed in an interview Friday that the network's ranks of bureau correspondents, which currently number several dozen, would be cut in half and be replaced with "digital" journalists who would be expected to shoot and edit their own stories.
“We will have as many total journalists as we do now,” he said.
Although the network will keep a minimal staff presence in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami and Boston, it will shut down its bricks-and-mortar bureaus there and ask its remaining employees to work from the local affiliates. The Washington bureau will remain open, but its size will be substantially reduced.
[Updated at 1:10 p.m.: Kate O'Brian, ABC's senior vice president of news, said that although the network eventually plans to shut down its physical bureaus in the long term, it is still examining all of its leases and is not going to immediately vacate all offices. The news division has not yet approached affiliates about housing network correspondents, but has found that model works in Denver and Detroit.]
The mood was grim in Los Angeles, the largest bureau outside of Washington. The 40-plus staffers were told this week that only a few producers would remain and only two correspondents would be assigned to cover the West, down from a total of six who work out of Dallas, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Many functions that had been done out of the bureau will be handled by a “logistics desk” in New York. Demoralized employees, who did not want to be quoted by name for fear of losing their jobs, said the severity of the cuts would make it nearly impossible to swarm major stories such as the perennial wildfires in Southern California.
Westin said the network would cope with the reduced manpower on breaking news stories by hiring freelance crews and making use of its expanded team of digital journalists, staffers who would be able to handle multiple tasks. Although a majority of stories will still be covered by traditional four-person crews, Westin said he expected a “plurality” of pieces would be done by people shooting and editing their own video. The digital journalists will be stationed in two-person teams around the country.
“I’m sure we will learn more as we go forward, but we have enough experience to be quite confident that we can not only maintain but in some cases enhance our editorial quality,” he said.
This week, the network began sending out letters offering voluntary buyouts to all nonunion employees, and is posting openings of the new digital journalism positions.
“This is a really big change,” Westin said. “Some people are going to embrace it and some people will believe it won’t work. I respect both those groups of people. It’s a question of who wants to work here in the way we’re going to change the place. ... I’m quite confident we will have enough people who are enthusiastic and up to the task.”
-- Matea Gold
Pelosi to Dems: Support health bill, even if it kills career
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/politics/pelosi_career_dems_support_health_rv5IyPk9kkDq3eM9vaiVJJ/0
WASHINGTON — The White House called for a "simple up-or-down" vote on health care legislation today as Speaker Nancy Pelosi appealed to House Democrats to get behind President Barack Obama's chief domestic priority even it if threatens their political careers.
In voicing support for a simple majority vote, White House health reform director Nancy-Ann DeParle signaled Obama's intention to push the Democratic-crafted bill under Senate rules that would overcome GOP stalling tactics.
Republicans unanimously oppose the Democratic proposals. Without GOP support, Obama's only chance of emerging with a policy and political victory is to bypass the bipartisanship he promoted during his televised seven-hour health care summit Thursday.
"We're not talking about changing any rules here," DeParle said. "All the president's talking about is: Do we need to address this problem and does it make sense to have a simple, up-or-down vote on whether or not we want to fix these problems?"
DeParle was optimistic that the president would have the votes to pass the massive bill. But none of legislation's advocates who spoke on Sunday indicated that those votes were in hand.
"I think we will get to that point where we will have the votes," predicted Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., a member of the Senate Democratic leadership. "I believe that we will pass health care reform this spring."
In a sober call to arms, Pelosi said lawmakers sometimes must enact policies that, even if unpopular at the moment, will help the public. "We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress," she said. "We're here to do the job for the American people."
Pelosi said it took courage for Congress to pass Social Security and Medicare, which eventually became highly popular, "and many of the same forces that were at work decades ago are at work again against this bill."
It's unclear whether Pelosi's remarks will embolden or chill dozens of moderate House Democrats who face withering criticisms of the health care proposal in visits with constituents and in national polls. Republican lawmakers unanimously oppose the health care proposals, and many GOP strategists believe voters will turn against Democrats in the November elections.
Pelosi, from San Francisco, is more liberal than scores of her Democratic colleagues. But she generally walks a careful line between urging them to back left-of-center policies and giving them a green light to buck party leaders to improve their re-election hopes.
Her comments seemed to acknowledge the widely held view that Democrats will lose House seats this fall — maybe a lot. They now control the chamber 255 to 178, with two vacancies. Pelosi stopped well short of suggesting Democrats could lose their majority, but she called on members of her party to make a bold move on health care with no prospects of GOP help.
"Time is up," she said. "We really have to go forth."
Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the second-ranking Republican leader in the House, made it clear Republicans see a Democrats-only bill as an election-year issue.
"If Speaker Pelosi rams through this bill, through the House ... they will lose their majority in Congress in November," he said.
The White House is redoubling efforts to remind voters that the Senate passed an Obama-backed health care bill in December with 60 votes. Every Republican voted against that bill. A Republican Senate victory in Massachusetts in January, however, left Democrats one vote shy of the number necessary to overcome GOP filibusters.
As a result, a new plan would call for the House to pass the Senate bill and send it to Obama. The Senate would then use budget reconciliation rules to make several changes demanded by House Democrats. Those rules prohibit filibusters.
Exactly what the legislation would look like remained a matter of negotiation within Democratic ranks. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, "is working with his caucus, the White House and the House leadership on strategy and next steps," Reid spokesman Jim Manley said Sunday.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky renewed his party's demand that Obama and the Democrats start over and write a bipartisan health care bill. He said that while the reconciliation process has been used to pass legislation in the past, it should not apply to health care legislation.
"There are a number of other Republicans who do not think something of this magnitude ought to be jammed down the throats of a public that doesn't want it through this kind of device," McConnell said.
Pelosi said that "in a matter of days" Democrats will have specific legislative language on health care to show to the public and to wavering lawmakers. She predicted voters will warm up to the bill once they understand its details.
"When we have a bill," she said, "you can bake the pie, you can sell the pie. But you have to have a pie to sell."
At that point, added House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, top Democrats will make their pitch to their members.
"Within the next couple of weeks we're going to have a specific proposal and start counting votes to see whether or not those proposals could pass," he said.
Pelosi appeared on ABC's "This Week" and CNN's "State of the Union." DeParle and Cantor were on NBC's "Meet the Press," Hoyer was on CBS' "Face the Nation," while Menendez appeared on "Fox News Sunday" and McConnell spoke on CNN
Obama has saved us!
Via E-mail from Chuck Sproull (not the author)
Obama has saved us!
That is right - I will say it: THANK GOD FOR BARAK OBAMA
WHY?
He destroyed the Clinton Political Machine - Driving a stake thru the heart of Hillary's Presidential aspirations - something no Republican was ever able to do. Remember when a Hillary Presidency scared the daylights out of you?!
He killed off the Kennedy Dynasty - No more Kennedys trolling Washington looking for booze and women wanting rides home. American women and Freedom are safer tonight!
He is destroying the Democratic Party before our eyes!
Dennis Moore had never lost a race - quit
Evan Bayh had never lost a race - quit
Byron Dorgan - had never lost a race - quit
Harry Reed - GONE
These are just a handful of the Democrats whose political careers Obama has destroyed! By the end of 2010 dozens more will follow!
In December of 2008 the Democrats were on the rise. In the last two election cycles they had picked up 14 senate seats and 52 house seats. The press was touting the death of the Conservative Movement and the Republican Party.
In one year Obama put a stop to all of this and will probably give the house, if not the senate back to the Republicans.
He has completely exposed liberals and progressives for what they are. Every Generation seems to need to relearn the lesson on why they should never actually put liberals in charge. He is bringing home the lesson very well!
Liberals tax, borrow and spend - check
Liberals won't bring themselves to protect America - check
Liberals want to take over the economy - check
Liberals think they know what is best for everyone - check
Liberals aren't happy till they are running YOUR life - check
He has brought more Americans back to conservatism than anyone since Reagan
In One year he rejuvenated the Conservative movement and brought out to the streets millions of Freedom Loving Americans
Name me one other time in your life that you saw your friends and neighbors this interested in taking back America !
In all honesty, one year ago I was more afraid than I had ever been in my life. Not of the economy but of the direction our country was going. I thought Americans had forgotten what this country was all about. My neighbors, friends, strangers proved to me that my lack of confidence in the Greatness and Wisdom of the American people was flat out wrong.
When the American People wake up, no smooth talking teleprompter reader can fool them!
Barak Obama woke up these Great Americans
Again I want to say: Thank you Barak Obama!
"The e-mail Bag"
How is this for Nostalgia?
by jungleloo
http://www.loomanchu.com/how-is-this-for-nostalgia
How is this for Nostalgia?
Good one!!
Remember when Ronald Reagan was president.
We also had Bob Hope and Johnny Cash...
Now we have Obama and no Hope and no Cash.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Honduras, America, and Democracy; Is There An Approaching Analogy?
The government of Honduras remains a free democracy. As recently as one year ago, Honduras’ President Manuel Zelaya threatened that democracy by threatening to change their Constitution. On June 28, 2009, President Zelaya was ousted after defying a Supreme Court order to drop plans for a referendum to ask Hondurans if they wanted to change the Constitution. The resulting coup had the support of the Honduran Supreme Court, Congress, and the majority of its citizens who supported an open free Democratic government. Honduras’s Congress named Roberto Micheletti President, and he immediately declared a democracy for all Hondurans.
President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rejected the decision by Honduras’s Supreme Court, and their Congress of ousting President Zelaya. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/07/AR2009070702174.html
On election day, Nov. 29, 2009, Porfirio Lobo was elected new President-elect of Honduras overwhelmingly over the election of candidate and previously ousted President Zelaya. Newly elected President Lobo was sworn into office on Jan. 27, 2010. Democracy governs in Honduras!
Is there a parallel to the deposed President Zelaya of Honduras and a viable approaching analogy inside the
American taxpayers’ uneasiness of President Obama’s administration and Capitol Hill’s majority Democrats political activity? Could there be a revolution mounting from within America?
President Obama and Capitol Hill majority Democrats are ‘forcing’ a healthcare system down our throats and into our wallets. President Obama and Capitol Hill majority Democrats are restructuring the financial markets and other commercial trades. There are other government transformations in America as candidate Barack Obama promised, just prior to November, 2008 election day. Are President Obama’s plans and Capitol Hill majority Democrats destroying our American open and free economic markets? Are taxpayers pursuing circumstances where liberated Americans may choose to launch a revolution in demand of restructuring our Executive Branch of Government? Americans are now engaged as to what is happening inside our government. Americans are getting anxious as it appears the Democrat majority team members of President Obama, Sen. Reid, and Speaker Pelosi are not listening to the American taxpayers at all. The question remains is, Does this tri-team and their ensuing legislators even care about others’ viewpoints and/or their reasoning, so long as they themselves can win, at all cost?
President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rejected the decision by Honduras’s Supreme Court, and their Congress of ousting President Zelaya. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/07/AR2009070702174.html
On election day, Nov. 29, 2009, Porfirio Lobo was elected new President-elect of Honduras overwhelmingly over the election of candidate and previously ousted President Zelaya. Newly elected President Lobo was sworn into office on Jan. 27, 2010. Democracy governs in Honduras!
Is there a parallel to the deposed President Zelaya of Honduras and a viable approaching analogy inside the
American taxpayers’ uneasiness of President Obama’s administration and Capitol Hill’s majority Democrats political activity? Could there be a revolution mounting from within America?
President Obama and Capitol Hill majority Democrats are ‘forcing’ a healthcare system down our throats and into our wallets. President Obama and Capitol Hill majority Democrats are restructuring the financial markets and other commercial trades. There are other government transformations in America as candidate Barack Obama promised, just prior to November, 2008 election day. Are President Obama’s plans and Capitol Hill majority Democrats destroying our American open and free economic markets? Are taxpayers pursuing circumstances where liberated Americans may choose to launch a revolution in demand of restructuring our Executive Branch of Government? Americans are now engaged as to what is happening inside our government. Americans are getting anxious as it appears the Democrat majority team members of President Obama, Sen. Reid, and Speaker Pelosi are not listening to the American taxpayers at all. The question remains is, Does this tri-team and their ensuing legislators even care about others’ viewpoints and/or their reasoning, so long as they themselves can win, at all cost?
ConservativeChristianRepublican-Report - 20100301
Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable
Promoting "God's Holy Values and American Freedoms"!
"Daily Motivations"
"Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. Not only have I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets, but I have found that when I silently commune with people they give up their secrets also -- if you love them enough." -- George Washington
"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." -- Edward E. Cummings
I make a song as small or as narrow as possible rather than make it a big, broad, grand thing. By keeping it so narrow, emotion plays a great part. -- Bob Dylan
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
The joy of the LORD is your strength. (Nehemiah 8:10)
It was my great privilege to know Bishop Festus Kivengere, of Uganda. He tells the story of the 1973 execution of three men from his diocese during the bloody, tyrannical rule of dictator Idi Amin.
"February 10 began as a sad day for us... I had permission from the authorities to speak to the men before they died.... I was wondering what to say.
"We approached them from behind, and as they turned to look at us, what a sight! Their faces were all alight with an unmistakable glow and radiance. Before we could say anything, one of them burst out: 'Bishop, thank you for coming! I want to tell you. The day I was arrested, in my prison cell, I asked the Lord Jesus to come into my heart.... Heaven is now open, and there is nothing between me and my God! Please tell my wife and children that I am going to be with Jesus. '
"The other two men told similar stories, excitedly raising their hands, which rattled their handcuffs.
"I felt that what I needed to do was to talk to the soldiers, not to the condemned. So I translated what the men had said into a language the soldiers understood. The military men were standing there with guns cocked and bewilderment on their faces.
"The three faced the firing squad standing close together. They looked toward the people and began to wave, handcuffs and all. The people waved back. Then shots were fired, and the three were with Jesus.
Your View of God Really Matters …
Do you know the joy that God gives---especially in difficult times? Or do you only know the happiness that is dependent upon circumstances? Today, follow Jesus closely and experience the joy that only He can give.
"The Patriot Post"
"No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable." --Federalist No. 62
"I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 1785
Government
"Last month, Obama announced a new set of tax credits for so-called green companies. One window company was on the list: Serious Materials. This must be one very special company. But wait, it gets even more interesting. On my Fox Business Network show on 'crony capitalism', I displayed a picture of administration officials and so-called 'energy leaders' taken at the U.S. Department of Energy. Standing front and center was Cathy Zoi, who oversees $16.8 billion in stimulus funds, much of it for weatherization programs that benefit Serious. The interesting twist is that Zoi happens to be the wife of Robin Roy, who happens to be vice president of 'policy' at Serious Windows. Of all the window companies in America, maybe it's a coincidence that the one which gets presidential and vice presidential attention and a special tax credit is one whose company executives give thousands of dollars to the Obama campaign and where the policy officer spends nights at home with the Energy Department's weatherization boss. Or maybe not. ... On its website, Serious Materials says it did not get a taxpayer subsidy. But that's just playing with terms. What it got was a tax credit, an opportunity that its competitors did not get: to keep money it would have paid in taxes. Let's not be misled. Government is as manipulative with selective tax credits as it is with cash subsidies. It would be more efficient to cut taxes across the board. Why should there be favoritism? Because politicians like it. Big, complicated government gives them opportunities to do favors for their friends." --columnist John Stossel
The Gipper
"The American dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become." --Ronald Reagan
Opinion in Brief
"'I am not an ideologue,' President Obama insisted at his truly refreshing confab with the Republican caucus in Baltimore [recently]. When he heard some incredulous murmurs and chuckles from the audience in response to the idea that the most sincerely ideological president in a generation is no ideologue, he added a somewhat plaintive, 'I'm not.' The president's defensiveness isn't surprising. He holds his self-definition as a pragmatist dear, and not just because it polls well. It's clear from interviews that he is fond of the notion that he is above ideological squabbles and is a clear-eyed appraiser of facts and adjudicator of political disagreements. He's described himself as a 'pragmatist,' even a 'ruthless pragmatist,' countless times. The evidence offered that Obama is no ideologue rests almost entirely on two contentions: He has annoyed some members of his ideological base, and because he says so. ... Every president annoys his base. Are we therefore to believe that no president has ever been an ideologue? And how has Obama angered his base? Not by tacking to the center but by not going fast enough in pursuit of their shared goals. As for Obama's personal testimony, so what? Is this the one instance in American history when a politician's self-serving statements are to be taken at face value? ... Of course Obama is an ideologue. The important question is whether he is sufficiently self-aware to recognize the truth." --National Review editor Jonah Goldberg
"The Web"
Mandatory Sex Education for Ten-Year-Olds? Yours?
Albert Mohler - Author, Speaker, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
http://www.crosswalk.com/parenting/11626129/page0/
The International Planned Parenthood Federation [IPPF] has a plan for your child -- and for every young person on earth. The influential group is calling for compulsory comprehensive sexuality education for every child and young person ages 10 to 24 on the planet.
The report, recently released by the IPPF, gets right to the point: "Young people today have the right to be fully informed about sexuality and to have access to contraceptives and other services." That statement, offered by Bert Koenders, Minister for Development Cooperation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is indicative of the "rights speech" that pervades the document. Citing international agreements and documents, the IPPF calls for children and teenagers, along with young adults, to be recognized as having a basic right to engage in sexual activity in virtually any form.
"Stand and Deliver: Sex, Health, and Young People in the 21st Century," is a document that demands attention and deserves close scrutiny. Interestingly, the document estimates that the current population of young people in this age group now numbers more than 1.75 billion -- the largest cohort of young people in human history. Thus, it suggests that comprehensive sexuality education must be offered to this generation immediately, or the opportunity will be lost forever. The "youth bulge" or "demographic bonus" is, the IPPF says, "a one-time opportunity."
As the report states:
Sex and reproduction are central to our lives, this is a basic truth. Here is another: young people are sexual beings. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that sexuality education promotes individual well-being and the advancement of broader societal and public health goals. Comprehensive sexuality education is perhaps the single most important gift that parents can offer to their children -- and to adolescents everywhere -- as they approach the age at which they will begin to have sex.
That paragraph demands a careful analysis. No thoughtful person will deny that sex and reproduction are central to the human experience, nor that young people are sexual beings. But what this statement assumes, given the emphasis on "comprehensive sexuality education," is that being a sexual being means having sex. The IPPC is frighteningly clear about the kind of "broader societal and public health goals" to which this document refers. These include universal access to government-funded abortion, contraceptive services, and the full acceptance of homosexuality.
"Comprehensive sexuality education" is about far more than sex and reproduction. It includes education about contraception and the entire range of human sexual possibilities. It also includes advice on how sexual intercourse and other sexual acts can be made more pleasurable. In other words, sex advice for young people ages 10 to 24.
Note also that the IPPF suggests that comprehensive sexuality education "is perhaps the single most important gift that parents can offer to their children" -- a statement that says more about the authors of the document than the parents who may read it. But the statement does not just call for parents to offer comprehensive sexuality education to their own children, but "to adolescents everywhere."
Thus, the document later asserts that "comprehensive sexuality education must be mandatory in school" and also delivered to those who do not attend school.
"Stand and Deliver" also offers direct criticism of religious opposition to the IPPF agenda. "Culture, religion, and traditions are some of the biggest obstacles in implementing sexual and reproductive health programs for young people," it asserts. Further:
Young people's sexuality is still contentious for many religious institutions. Fundamentalist and other religious groups -- Catholic Church and madrasas (Islamic schools) for example -- have imposed tremendous barriers that prevent young people, particularly, from obtaining information and services related to sex and reproduction. Currently, many religious teachings deny the pleasurable and positive aspects of sex and limited guidelines for sexual education often focus on abstinence before marriage (though evidence shows this strategy has been ineffective in many settings). The reality is, young people are sexual beings and many of them are religious as well. There is a need for pragmatism, to address life as it is and not as it might be in an ideal world.
In other words, any religious teachings that restrict sex to marriage must be abandoned in favor of a more pragmatic approach that simply assumes that young people will be sexually active. Parents -- just deal with it.
So much is revealed in this document. The International Planned Parenthood Federation, like its American member association, is tied to the dark legacy of Margaret Sanger, the movement's founder. Sanger was a radical advocate for abortion and eugenics -- the movement to discourage or deny reproduction among population groups identified as "bad stock." The Planned Parenthood movement is also a major abortion provider, making millions of dollars each year through the abortion industry.
The ideology of sexual liberation pervades this document and the group that produced it. The idea that teaching children and teenagers to save sex for marriage is treated as outdated, repressive, and unrealistic. Instead, parents are told that they must become sexual and moral pragmatists, hoping that their young offspring will enjoy sex to the fullest, while avoiding pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease. In light of the fact that many, if not most parents refuse to follow this line, the IPPF calls for mandatory comprehensive sexuality education in the schools and wherever young people are to be found - including your children.
The International Planned Parenthood Federation does not have the institutional authority or power to make this happen unilaterally. Instead, it functions as a recognized non-governmental organization [NGO] that advises national and international governmental bodies. Do not discount that power and influence. International agreements and treaties increasingly threaten parental rights in this country and around the world.
Sexuality education is one of the most powerful tools in the arsenal of social revolution and transformation. Parents had better wake up fast and realize what is at stake. Is this the kind of sex education you want for your children? If not, we had better be ready to stand and deliver our own views on this subject, and counter the arguments found in Stand and Deliver.
Are you just a “monkey’s uncle”?
http://www.answersingenesis.org/e-mail/archive/answersweekly/2010/0227.html
Perhaps the most bitter pill to swallow for any Christian who attempts to “make peace” with Darwin is the presumed ape ancestry of man. Even many Christians who uncritically accept evolution as “God’s way of creating” try to somehow elevate the origin of man, or at least his soul, above that of the beasts.
God tells us that on the same day He made all animals that walk on the earth (the sixth day), He created man separately in His own image with the intent that man would have dominion over every other living thing on earth (Genesis 1:26–28). From this it is clear that there is no animal that is man’s equal, and certainly none his ancestor.
Thus, when God paraded the animals by Adam for him to name, He observed that “for Adam there was not found an help meet for him” (Genesis 2:20). Jesus confirmed this uniqueness of men and women when He declared that marriage is to be between a man and a woman because “from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female” (Mark 10:6). This leaves no room for prehumans or for billions of years of cosmic evolution prior to man’s appearance on the earth. Adam chose the very name “Eve” for his wife because he recognized that she would be “the mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20).
The apostle Paul stated clearly that man is not an animal: “All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds” (1 Corinthians 15:39).
It’s clear that the idea of ape-men does not fit with what the Bible says, but what about all the supposed “evidence” for human evolution? Continue reading http://www.answersingenesis.org/e-mail/archive/answersweekly/2010/0227.html on our website to see what the facts of the fossil record really tell us.
Air Force Retracted Invitation for Conservative Leader to Speak at Prayer Luncheon After He Criticized Obama's Position on 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'
By Pete Winn, Senior Writer/Editor
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=61957
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins (FRC photo)
(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Air Force admits that the chaplain's office at Andrews Air Force Base retracted an invitation to Family Research Council President Tony Perkins--a former Marine officer--to speak at a prayer luncheon held at the base on Thursday after the conservative leader criticized President Obama’s efforts to end “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell"--the military policy on homosexuality.
“The Chaplain’s Office retracted Mr. Perkins’ invitation after his recent public comments made many who planned to attend the event uncomfortable,” the Andrews base public affairs office said in a statement issued late Thursday.
“This was a local decision made by the Chaplain’s Office who wanted the luncheon to be inclusive for the entire base community," the statement said. "The Chaplain’s Office respects and defends Mr. Perkins right to express his opinions, and regrets any inconvenience to him. We thank and respect him for his prior military service.”
Perkins told CNSNews.com he was invited last October by the Chaplain’s Office to speak at the prayer luncheon, which focused this year on deployed personnel, families and prayer.
“The theme was back to basics – that is exactly what I was going to talk about, the basics – as Christ talks about the two greatest commandments, to love God and to love your neighbor,” he told CNSNews.com.
But Perkins said the comments that got him in trouble were published on the FRC Web site on Jan. 27, after President Obama delivered his State of the Union address.
Obama called on Congress to lift all restrictions on service in the military by open homosexuals, and Perkins admitted he had been very vocal in opposing Obama’s policy. Perkins said he took to the FRC Web site to oppose Obama’s policy proposal, and urged Congress to retain the current law which excludes homosexuals from openly serving in the military.
“Two days after the president’s State of the Union address, I received a letter from the chaplain rescinding the invitation, based upon statements that were on our Web site that were deemed to be ‘incompatible with men and women who serve in the military at the direction of the commander-in-chief,’” Perkins said.
A letter, dated Jan. 29, was sent from the chaplain's office at Andrews AFB.
“Dear Mr. Perkins: I wish to thank you for accepting our initial invitation to speak at our national prayer luncheon on Feb. 25,” it stated. “(H)owever, we must rescind the invitation due to statements posted on the Family Research Council Web site which are incompatible in our role as military members who serve our elected officials and our commander-in-chief.
“As a former Marine officer, I’m sure you understand the situation in which we find ourselves. As military members, we are sworn to support our commander-in-chief, and are forbidden to make or support statements which run counter to our roles in the armed forces.”
Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told CNSNews.com he is "terribly disappointed” with the decision to rescind the invitation to the conservative leader--a move he condemned as “tragic” and “political correctness.”
“It is absolutely political correctness, if in the name of inclusiveness we throw out someone who is a Christian or has a view that might be a little bit different than Mr. Obama’s, then we’ve dishonored the very service that fights to uphold and defend the Constitution,” Franks said from the U.S. Capitol.
“It’s especially heartbreaking to me, knowing that the rank-and-file of the United States military is far more in line with the views of Tony Perkins than they will ever be of the views of President Barack Obama,” Franks told CNSNews.com.
Perkins, a conservative leader who is also a minister and former military officer, said he had no intention of being political, had he been allowed to speak.
“I would have never used this venue as a political venue to even mention the president, unless it was to pray for him,” Perkins told CNSNews.com. “This was to focus on the spiritual needs of the men and women in uniform.”
Congressman Franks, meanwhile, indicated he plans to further raise the issue in Congress and took aim at the Air Force's notion of being "inclusive."
“We can be ‘inclusive’--we could bring Al Qaeda in there and that’s 'inclusive'--but to suggest somehow that someone like Tony Perkins shouldn’t be welcome on a military base because he has some views that are antithetical to some of Barack Obama’s views, is just outrageous," Franks said.
Perkins, meanwhile, said he’s unrepentant in opposing Obama’s pro-homosexual agenda.
“What he (the president) was essentially calling the military to do was to violate the law, without a change by Congress,” Perkins told CNSNews.com. “That change of policy would in fact affect national security and in fact affect the lives of men and women who serve in uniform. As a veteran of the Marine Corps, I know exactly the environment and what this could do to the men and women who serve. So it is very troubling.”
Dr. William Donahue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights in New York City condemned the action – and called for an investigation.
“The decision to silence Tony Perkins, an ordained minister and Marine veteran, represents political correctness at a dangerous level,” Donahue said. “There are legitimate reasons to accept and reject the current policy regarding gays in the military. No one, therefore, should be censored from speaking at any private or public forum -- much less a military instillation -- because of his or her views on this subject.”
Perkins, meanwhile, said the real issue isn’t that he was disinvited to an event – it’s about political correctness in the military on homosexuality.
“This is not about the chaplain, it’s not even about Andrews Air Force Base, it’s about the chilling effect that this policy would have upon Christians who operate from an understanding of what’s right and wrong according to Scripture,” Perkins told CNSNews.com.
Donahue agreed: “While the most immediate issue is the blacklisting of Perkins, the larger issue is the ‘chilling effect’ this decision will have on the free speech and religious liberty rights of all those who serve in the military, especially clergymen."
CNSNews.com has formally requested an interview with a representative from the chaplain’s office.
Fannie Taps Treasury for $15.3 Billion More After a 10th Loss
By Dawn Kopecki
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=alet_UTqF04M
(Bloomberg) -- Fannie Mae will seek $15.3 billion in U.S. aid, bringing the total owed under a government lifeline to $76.2 billion, after its 10th consecutive quarterly loss.
The mortgage-finance company posted a fourth-quarter net loss of $16.3 billion, or $2.87 a share, Washington-based Fannie Mae said in a filing yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Fannie Mae, which owns or guarantees about 28 percent of the $11.8 trillion U.S. home-loan market, has been hobbled by a three-year housing slump that wiped 28 percent from home values nationwide and led to record foreclosures. The company, which posted $120.5 billion in losses over the previous nine quarters, and rival Freddie Mac were seized by regulators in September 2008.
“Our financial results for 2009 reflected the continued adverse impact of the weak economy and housing market, which has resulted in record mortgage delinquencies and contributed to our recording significant credit-related expenses and net losses during each quarter of the year,” Fannie Mae said in the filing.
For the full year, Fannie Mae’s loss widened to $74.4 billion from $59.8 billion in 2008.
The company’s shares, which peaked at $87.81 in December 2000, closed at 99 cents yesterday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The Treasury owns 79.9 percent of the company’s outstanding common stock.
Avoiding Receiver
After the next government payout, Fannie Mae’s borrowings will carry an annual dividend cost of $7.6 billion, which the company said it will repay by borrowing more money from the Treasury. “This amount exceeds our reported annual net income for all but one of the last eight years, in most cases by a significant margin,” the company said.
The company said the ability to tap continuing cash infusions from the Treasury this year “is critical to keeping us solvent and avoiding the appointment of a receiver.”
The loss in the fourth quarter was driven in part by a $5 billion writedown on low-income housing tax credits that the Treasury Department barred the company from selling. Rival Freddie Mac took a $3.4 billion charge for the same reason.
Losses at Fannie Mae are likely to grow with rising unemployment and costs to implement President Barack Obama’s plans to reduce foreclosures, the company said.
Housing Slump
Fannie Mae and McLean, Virginia-based Freddie Mac survived last year on investments the government made in the companies. The Treasury on Christmas Eve removed a $200 billion aid limit on each company, extending unlimited backing through 2012.
The two companies own or guarantee more than $5 trillion in U.S. residential debt, and were responsible for as much as 75 percent of the new mortgages made last year.
A record 3 million U.S. homes will be repossessed by lenders this year as unemployment and depressed home values leave borrowers unable to sell or make their house payments, according to a RealtyTrac Inc. forecast last month. Last year there were 2.82 million foreclosures, the most since the Irvine, California-based company began compiling data in 2005.
Fannie Mae and smaller rival Freddie Mac were chartered by the government primarily to lower the cost of homeownership by buying mortgages from lenders, freeing up cash at banks to make more loans. The companies make money by financing mortgage-asset purchases with lower-cost debt and by charging fees to guarantee securities they create out of home loans from lenders.
Treasury Borrowings
Fannie Mae’s net worth, or the difference between assets and liabilities, was negative $15.3 billion as of Dec. 31, compared with negative $15 billion on Sept. 30 and negative $10.6 billion on June 30, according to company statements.
For the fourth quarter, Fannie Mae decreased reserves for future credit losses to $64.9 billion from $65.9 billion in the previous quarter.
The amount of nonperforming loans that Fannie Mae guarantees for other investors rose to $174.6 billion from $163.9 billion in the third quarter, according to the filing. Fannie Mae also owned $41.9 billion in non-performing loans as of Dec. 31, up from $34.2 billion in the third quarter.
The fair value of Fannie Mae’s assets was negative $98.8 billion last quarter, compared with negative $90.4 billion at the end of September.
Future of Companies
The Obama administration will wait until next year to seek legislation that addresses the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the House Budget Committee on Feb. 24.
“We are going to propose reforms to the Congress next year to try to make sure we bring about fundamental change in the housing market and get ourselves in a position where the government is playing a less risky, but more constructive role in supporting housing markets,” Geithner said. “That’s going to be a difficult set of reforms.”
The Treasury and the companies’ regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, blocked Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae from selling their low-income housing tax credits, which can only be recognized if the companies expect to be profitable.
The Treasury found that an agreement Fannie Mae had to sell about half of its credits would have cost taxpayers more than the company would gain from the deal, according to a November letter to that company.
Head of IMF Proposes New Reserve Currency
IMF's Strauss-Kahn suggests IMF may one day provide global reserve asset
By HARRY DUNPHY Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9958995
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, suggested Friday the organization might one day be called on to provide countries with a global reserve currency that would serve as an alternative to the U.S. dollar.
"That day has not yet come, but I think it is intellectually healthy to explore these kinds of ideas now," he said in a speech on the future mandate of the 186-nation Washington-based lending organization.
Strauss-Kahn said such an asset could be similar to but distinctly different from the IMF's special drawing rights, or SDRs, the accounting unit that countries use to hold funds within the IMF. It is based on a basket of major currencies.
He said having other alternatives to the dollar "would limit the extent to which the international monetary system as a whole depends on the policies and conditions of a single, albeit dominant, country."
Strauss-Kahn, a former finance minister of France, said that during the recent global financial crisis, the dollar "played its role as a safe haven" asset, and the current international monetary system demonstrated resilience.
"The challenge ahead is to find ways to limit the tension arising from the high demand for precautionary reserves on the one hand and the narrow supply of reserves on the other," he said.
Several countries, including China and Russia, have called for an alternative to the dollar as a reserve currency and have suggested using the IMF's internal accounting unit.
Strauss-Kahn said the IMF also needs to do a better job of tracing how risk percolates through the global economy.
"Here it will be essential to improve our ability to monitor several dozen large complex financial institutions that make up the `plumbing' through which global capital flows," he said, while leaving national regulators the job of monitoring the solvency of individual institutions.
NYT Whitewashes Union Details in Story About School Reform
By Mitchell Blatt
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mitchell-blatt/2010/02/26/nyt-whitewashes-union-details-story-about-school-reform
Teachers at a failing Rhode Island high school refused to work another 25 minutes a day in order to turnaround the school’s 48% graduation rate. So the school board fired them all.
The teachers at Central Falls High School already earn over $70,000 a year, compared to a median home income of $22,000 a year for area residents, but their union balked at offers of $30 an hour for extra work, demanding $90 an hour.
You would think that this information might be relevant for an article about the situation, but instead of reporting the facts behind the union’s negotiations, the New York Times whitewashed key details and selectively quoted people sympathetic to the union.
Of eight people quoted, five spoke against the reforms and two spoke in favor of it. Three of those quoted were teachers who espoused philosophies of entitlement like this:
“It makes you feel like all of your expertise, all that you know, any degree you might have, is worthless,” Ms. Evanoff said. “I’ve never been fired from anything, and to be fired, it’s devastating.”
The Times didn’t mention the results of the negotiations with the union at all, nor did it mention the teachers’ already high salaries.
Teachers at Central Falls are already paid between $70,000 and $78,000, well above the median teacher salary of $52,000. The median income of families served by the school is just $22,000.
The Times did mention Central Falls’ poverty, only in an effort to build support for the teachers:
But … some say they are losing one of the few constants in the state’s poorest city…
However, the Times picked a much lower number to represent poverty than is reflective of the school.
The Times reported that 41% of Central Falls children live in poverty, however, the Providence Journal reports that among actual students attending the school, 96% live in poverty.
While the New York Times doesn’t give much attention to the plans for reform and the union’s unwillingness to change, the Times does paint the teachers’ employment as fundamental:
While teachers and students at the close-knit school said they considered one another family, Dr. Gallo said the current model was not working.
“If it’s such a family, then how do you account for losing more than half your family each year?” Dr. Gallo said, referring to the dropout rate. “We are about to change the culture of Central Falls.”…
“They’re a transient community. It’s more than test grades,” said Kathy Casalino, a math teacher. “We give them a family. We show them how to live.”
Perhaps the teachers should be concerned more about grades, with half the students failing this year.
It appears that these government employees are experiencing what millions of ordinary non-unionized Americans are experiencing in this recession.
"The e-mail Bag"
The attached photo is of a billboard recently established on I-75 just south of Lake City . We gathered there today to celebrate its unveiling. The cost of 10 months rental of the billboard and doing the artwork was $6500. We feel that is a reasonable cost to reach out to 1,000,000 vehicles per month. To motivate their participation in the electoral process to get our country on a sound footing and VOTE OUT everyone that is in Washington .
http://www.conservativeunderground.com/forum505/showthread.php?t=25565
Promoting "God's Holy Values and American Freedoms"!
"Daily Motivations"
"Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. Not only have I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets, but I have found that when I silently commune with people they give up their secrets also -- if you love them enough." -- George Washington
"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." -- Edward E. Cummings
I make a song as small or as narrow as possible rather than make it a big, broad, grand thing. By keeping it so narrow, emotion plays a great part. -- Bob Dylan
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
The joy of the LORD is your strength. (Nehemiah 8:10)
It was my great privilege to know Bishop Festus Kivengere, of Uganda. He tells the story of the 1973 execution of three men from his diocese during the bloody, tyrannical rule of dictator Idi Amin.
"February 10 began as a sad day for us... I had permission from the authorities to speak to the men before they died.... I was wondering what to say.
"We approached them from behind, and as they turned to look at us, what a sight! Their faces were all alight with an unmistakable glow and radiance. Before we could say anything, one of them burst out: 'Bishop, thank you for coming! I want to tell you. The day I was arrested, in my prison cell, I asked the Lord Jesus to come into my heart.... Heaven is now open, and there is nothing between me and my God! Please tell my wife and children that I am going to be with Jesus. '
"The other two men told similar stories, excitedly raising their hands, which rattled their handcuffs.
"I felt that what I needed to do was to talk to the soldiers, not to the condemned. So I translated what the men had said into a language the soldiers understood. The military men were standing there with guns cocked and bewilderment on their faces.
"The three faced the firing squad standing close together. They looked toward the people and began to wave, handcuffs and all. The people waved back. Then shots were fired, and the three were with Jesus.
Your View of God Really Matters …
Do you know the joy that God gives---especially in difficult times? Or do you only know the happiness that is dependent upon circumstances? Today, follow Jesus closely and experience the joy that only He can give.
"The Patriot Post"
"No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable." --Federalist No. 62
"I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 1785
Government
"Last month, Obama announced a new set of tax credits for so-called green companies. One window company was on the list: Serious Materials. This must be one very special company. But wait, it gets even more interesting. On my Fox Business Network show on 'crony capitalism', I displayed a picture of administration officials and so-called 'energy leaders' taken at the U.S. Department of Energy. Standing front and center was Cathy Zoi, who oversees $16.8 billion in stimulus funds, much of it for weatherization programs that benefit Serious. The interesting twist is that Zoi happens to be the wife of Robin Roy, who happens to be vice president of 'policy' at Serious Windows. Of all the window companies in America, maybe it's a coincidence that the one which gets presidential and vice presidential attention and a special tax credit is one whose company executives give thousands of dollars to the Obama campaign and where the policy officer spends nights at home with the Energy Department's weatherization boss. Or maybe not. ... On its website, Serious Materials says it did not get a taxpayer subsidy. But that's just playing with terms. What it got was a tax credit, an opportunity that its competitors did not get: to keep money it would have paid in taxes. Let's not be misled. Government is as manipulative with selective tax credits as it is with cash subsidies. It would be more efficient to cut taxes across the board. Why should there be favoritism? Because politicians like it. Big, complicated government gives them opportunities to do favors for their friends." --columnist John Stossel
The Gipper
"The American dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become." --Ronald Reagan
Opinion in Brief
"'I am not an ideologue,' President Obama insisted at his truly refreshing confab with the Republican caucus in Baltimore [recently]. When he heard some incredulous murmurs and chuckles from the audience in response to the idea that the most sincerely ideological president in a generation is no ideologue, he added a somewhat plaintive, 'I'm not.' The president's defensiveness isn't surprising. He holds his self-definition as a pragmatist dear, and not just because it polls well. It's clear from interviews that he is fond of the notion that he is above ideological squabbles and is a clear-eyed appraiser of facts and adjudicator of political disagreements. He's described himself as a 'pragmatist,' even a 'ruthless pragmatist,' countless times. The evidence offered that Obama is no ideologue rests almost entirely on two contentions: He has annoyed some members of his ideological base, and because he says so. ... Every president annoys his base. Are we therefore to believe that no president has ever been an ideologue? And how has Obama angered his base? Not by tacking to the center but by not going fast enough in pursuit of their shared goals. As for Obama's personal testimony, so what? Is this the one instance in American history when a politician's self-serving statements are to be taken at face value? ... Of course Obama is an ideologue. The important question is whether he is sufficiently self-aware to recognize the truth." --National Review editor Jonah Goldberg
"The Web"
Mandatory Sex Education for Ten-Year-Olds? Yours?
Albert Mohler - Author, Speaker, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
http://www.crosswalk.com/parenting/11626129/page0/
The International Planned Parenthood Federation [IPPF] has a plan for your child -- and for every young person on earth. The influential group is calling for compulsory comprehensive sexuality education for every child and young person ages 10 to 24 on the planet.
The report, recently released by the IPPF, gets right to the point: "Young people today have the right to be fully informed about sexuality and to have access to contraceptives and other services." That statement, offered by Bert Koenders, Minister for Development Cooperation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is indicative of the "rights speech" that pervades the document. Citing international agreements and documents, the IPPF calls for children and teenagers, along with young adults, to be recognized as having a basic right to engage in sexual activity in virtually any form.
"Stand and Deliver: Sex, Health, and Young People in the 21st Century," is a document that demands attention and deserves close scrutiny. Interestingly, the document estimates that the current population of young people in this age group now numbers more than 1.75 billion -- the largest cohort of young people in human history. Thus, it suggests that comprehensive sexuality education must be offered to this generation immediately, or the opportunity will be lost forever. The "youth bulge" or "demographic bonus" is, the IPPF says, "a one-time opportunity."
As the report states:
Sex and reproduction are central to our lives, this is a basic truth. Here is another: young people are sexual beings. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that sexuality education promotes individual well-being and the advancement of broader societal and public health goals. Comprehensive sexuality education is perhaps the single most important gift that parents can offer to their children -- and to adolescents everywhere -- as they approach the age at which they will begin to have sex.
That paragraph demands a careful analysis. No thoughtful person will deny that sex and reproduction are central to the human experience, nor that young people are sexual beings. But what this statement assumes, given the emphasis on "comprehensive sexuality education," is that being a sexual being means having sex. The IPPC is frighteningly clear about the kind of "broader societal and public health goals" to which this document refers. These include universal access to government-funded abortion, contraceptive services, and the full acceptance of homosexuality.
"Comprehensive sexuality education" is about far more than sex and reproduction. It includes education about contraception and the entire range of human sexual possibilities. It also includes advice on how sexual intercourse and other sexual acts can be made more pleasurable. In other words, sex advice for young people ages 10 to 24.
Note also that the IPPF suggests that comprehensive sexuality education "is perhaps the single most important gift that parents can offer to their children" -- a statement that says more about the authors of the document than the parents who may read it. But the statement does not just call for parents to offer comprehensive sexuality education to their own children, but "to adolescents everywhere."
Thus, the document later asserts that "comprehensive sexuality education must be mandatory in school" and also delivered to those who do not attend school.
"Stand and Deliver" also offers direct criticism of religious opposition to the IPPF agenda. "Culture, religion, and traditions are some of the biggest obstacles in implementing sexual and reproductive health programs for young people," it asserts. Further:
Young people's sexuality is still contentious for many religious institutions. Fundamentalist and other religious groups -- Catholic Church and madrasas (Islamic schools) for example -- have imposed tremendous barriers that prevent young people, particularly, from obtaining information and services related to sex and reproduction. Currently, many religious teachings deny the pleasurable and positive aspects of sex and limited guidelines for sexual education often focus on abstinence before marriage (though evidence shows this strategy has been ineffective in many settings). The reality is, young people are sexual beings and many of them are religious as well. There is a need for pragmatism, to address life as it is and not as it might be in an ideal world.
In other words, any religious teachings that restrict sex to marriage must be abandoned in favor of a more pragmatic approach that simply assumes that young people will be sexually active. Parents -- just deal with it.
So much is revealed in this document. The International Planned Parenthood Federation, like its American member association, is tied to the dark legacy of Margaret Sanger, the movement's founder. Sanger was a radical advocate for abortion and eugenics -- the movement to discourage or deny reproduction among population groups identified as "bad stock." The Planned Parenthood movement is also a major abortion provider, making millions of dollars each year through the abortion industry.
The ideology of sexual liberation pervades this document and the group that produced it. The idea that teaching children and teenagers to save sex for marriage is treated as outdated, repressive, and unrealistic. Instead, parents are told that they must become sexual and moral pragmatists, hoping that their young offspring will enjoy sex to the fullest, while avoiding pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease. In light of the fact that many, if not most parents refuse to follow this line, the IPPF calls for mandatory comprehensive sexuality education in the schools and wherever young people are to be found - including your children.
The International Planned Parenthood Federation does not have the institutional authority or power to make this happen unilaterally. Instead, it functions as a recognized non-governmental organization [NGO] that advises national and international governmental bodies. Do not discount that power and influence. International agreements and treaties increasingly threaten parental rights in this country and around the world.
Sexuality education is one of the most powerful tools in the arsenal of social revolution and transformation. Parents had better wake up fast and realize what is at stake. Is this the kind of sex education you want for your children? If not, we had better be ready to stand and deliver our own views on this subject, and counter the arguments found in Stand and Deliver.
Are you just a “monkey’s uncle”?
http://www.answersingenesis.org/e-mail/archive/answersweekly/2010/0227.html
Perhaps the most bitter pill to swallow for any Christian who attempts to “make peace” with Darwin is the presumed ape ancestry of man. Even many Christians who uncritically accept evolution as “God’s way of creating” try to somehow elevate the origin of man, or at least his soul, above that of the beasts.
God tells us that on the same day He made all animals that walk on the earth (the sixth day), He created man separately in His own image with the intent that man would have dominion over every other living thing on earth (Genesis 1:26–28). From this it is clear that there is no animal that is man’s equal, and certainly none his ancestor.
Thus, when God paraded the animals by Adam for him to name, He observed that “for Adam there was not found an help meet for him” (Genesis 2:20). Jesus confirmed this uniqueness of men and women when He declared that marriage is to be between a man and a woman because “from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female” (Mark 10:6). This leaves no room for prehumans or for billions of years of cosmic evolution prior to man’s appearance on the earth. Adam chose the very name “Eve” for his wife because he recognized that she would be “the mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20).
The apostle Paul stated clearly that man is not an animal: “All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds” (1 Corinthians 15:39).
It’s clear that the idea of ape-men does not fit with what the Bible says, but what about all the supposed “evidence” for human evolution? Continue reading http://www.answersingenesis.org/e-mail/archive/answersweekly/2010/0227.html on our website to see what the facts of the fossil record really tell us.
Air Force Retracted Invitation for Conservative Leader to Speak at Prayer Luncheon After He Criticized Obama's Position on 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'
By Pete Winn, Senior Writer/Editor
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=61957
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins (FRC photo)
(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Air Force admits that the chaplain's office at Andrews Air Force Base retracted an invitation to Family Research Council President Tony Perkins--a former Marine officer--to speak at a prayer luncheon held at the base on Thursday after the conservative leader criticized President Obama’s efforts to end “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell"--the military policy on homosexuality.
“The Chaplain’s Office retracted Mr. Perkins’ invitation after his recent public comments made many who planned to attend the event uncomfortable,” the Andrews base public affairs office said in a statement issued late Thursday.
“This was a local decision made by the Chaplain’s Office who wanted the luncheon to be inclusive for the entire base community," the statement said. "The Chaplain’s Office respects and defends Mr. Perkins right to express his opinions, and regrets any inconvenience to him. We thank and respect him for his prior military service.”
Perkins told CNSNews.com he was invited last October by the Chaplain’s Office to speak at the prayer luncheon, which focused this year on deployed personnel, families and prayer.
“The theme was back to basics – that is exactly what I was going to talk about, the basics – as Christ talks about the two greatest commandments, to love God and to love your neighbor,” he told CNSNews.com.
But Perkins said the comments that got him in trouble were published on the FRC Web site on Jan. 27, after President Obama delivered his State of the Union address.
Obama called on Congress to lift all restrictions on service in the military by open homosexuals, and Perkins admitted he had been very vocal in opposing Obama’s policy. Perkins said he took to the FRC Web site to oppose Obama’s policy proposal, and urged Congress to retain the current law which excludes homosexuals from openly serving in the military.
“Two days after the president’s State of the Union address, I received a letter from the chaplain rescinding the invitation, based upon statements that were on our Web site that were deemed to be ‘incompatible with men and women who serve in the military at the direction of the commander-in-chief,’” Perkins said.
A letter, dated Jan. 29, was sent from the chaplain's office at Andrews AFB.
“Dear Mr. Perkins: I wish to thank you for accepting our initial invitation to speak at our national prayer luncheon on Feb. 25,” it stated. “(H)owever, we must rescind the invitation due to statements posted on the Family Research Council Web site which are incompatible in our role as military members who serve our elected officials and our commander-in-chief.
“As a former Marine officer, I’m sure you understand the situation in which we find ourselves. As military members, we are sworn to support our commander-in-chief, and are forbidden to make or support statements which run counter to our roles in the armed forces.”
Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told CNSNews.com he is "terribly disappointed” with the decision to rescind the invitation to the conservative leader--a move he condemned as “tragic” and “political correctness.”
“It is absolutely political correctness, if in the name of inclusiveness we throw out someone who is a Christian or has a view that might be a little bit different than Mr. Obama’s, then we’ve dishonored the very service that fights to uphold and defend the Constitution,” Franks said from the U.S. Capitol.
“It’s especially heartbreaking to me, knowing that the rank-and-file of the United States military is far more in line with the views of Tony Perkins than they will ever be of the views of President Barack Obama,” Franks told CNSNews.com.
Perkins, a conservative leader who is also a minister and former military officer, said he had no intention of being political, had he been allowed to speak.
“I would have never used this venue as a political venue to even mention the president, unless it was to pray for him,” Perkins told CNSNews.com. “This was to focus on the spiritual needs of the men and women in uniform.”
Congressman Franks, meanwhile, indicated he plans to further raise the issue in Congress and took aim at the Air Force's notion of being "inclusive."
“We can be ‘inclusive’--we could bring Al Qaeda in there and that’s 'inclusive'--but to suggest somehow that someone like Tony Perkins shouldn’t be welcome on a military base because he has some views that are antithetical to some of Barack Obama’s views, is just outrageous," Franks said.
Perkins, meanwhile, said he’s unrepentant in opposing Obama’s pro-homosexual agenda.
“What he (the president) was essentially calling the military to do was to violate the law, without a change by Congress,” Perkins told CNSNews.com. “That change of policy would in fact affect national security and in fact affect the lives of men and women who serve in uniform. As a veteran of the Marine Corps, I know exactly the environment and what this could do to the men and women who serve. So it is very troubling.”
Dr. William Donahue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights in New York City condemned the action – and called for an investigation.
“The decision to silence Tony Perkins, an ordained minister and Marine veteran, represents political correctness at a dangerous level,” Donahue said. “There are legitimate reasons to accept and reject the current policy regarding gays in the military. No one, therefore, should be censored from speaking at any private or public forum -- much less a military instillation -- because of his or her views on this subject.”
Perkins, meanwhile, said the real issue isn’t that he was disinvited to an event – it’s about political correctness in the military on homosexuality.
“This is not about the chaplain, it’s not even about Andrews Air Force Base, it’s about the chilling effect that this policy would have upon Christians who operate from an understanding of what’s right and wrong according to Scripture,” Perkins told CNSNews.com.
Donahue agreed: “While the most immediate issue is the blacklisting of Perkins, the larger issue is the ‘chilling effect’ this decision will have on the free speech and religious liberty rights of all those who serve in the military, especially clergymen."
CNSNews.com has formally requested an interview with a representative from the chaplain’s office.
Fannie Taps Treasury for $15.3 Billion More After a 10th Loss
By Dawn Kopecki
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=alet_UTqF04M
(Bloomberg) -- Fannie Mae will seek $15.3 billion in U.S. aid, bringing the total owed under a government lifeline to $76.2 billion, after its 10th consecutive quarterly loss.
The mortgage-finance company posted a fourth-quarter net loss of $16.3 billion, or $2.87 a share, Washington-based Fannie Mae said in a filing yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Fannie Mae, which owns or guarantees about 28 percent of the $11.8 trillion U.S. home-loan market, has been hobbled by a three-year housing slump that wiped 28 percent from home values nationwide and led to record foreclosures. The company, which posted $120.5 billion in losses over the previous nine quarters, and rival Freddie Mac were seized by regulators in September 2008.
“Our financial results for 2009 reflected the continued adverse impact of the weak economy and housing market, which has resulted in record mortgage delinquencies and contributed to our recording significant credit-related expenses and net losses during each quarter of the year,” Fannie Mae said in the filing.
For the full year, Fannie Mae’s loss widened to $74.4 billion from $59.8 billion in 2008.
The company’s shares, which peaked at $87.81 in December 2000, closed at 99 cents yesterday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The Treasury owns 79.9 percent of the company’s outstanding common stock.
Avoiding Receiver
After the next government payout, Fannie Mae’s borrowings will carry an annual dividend cost of $7.6 billion, which the company said it will repay by borrowing more money from the Treasury. “This amount exceeds our reported annual net income for all but one of the last eight years, in most cases by a significant margin,” the company said.
The company said the ability to tap continuing cash infusions from the Treasury this year “is critical to keeping us solvent and avoiding the appointment of a receiver.”
The loss in the fourth quarter was driven in part by a $5 billion writedown on low-income housing tax credits that the Treasury Department barred the company from selling. Rival Freddie Mac took a $3.4 billion charge for the same reason.
Losses at Fannie Mae are likely to grow with rising unemployment and costs to implement President Barack Obama’s plans to reduce foreclosures, the company said.
Housing Slump
Fannie Mae and McLean, Virginia-based Freddie Mac survived last year on investments the government made in the companies. The Treasury on Christmas Eve removed a $200 billion aid limit on each company, extending unlimited backing through 2012.
The two companies own or guarantee more than $5 trillion in U.S. residential debt, and were responsible for as much as 75 percent of the new mortgages made last year.
A record 3 million U.S. homes will be repossessed by lenders this year as unemployment and depressed home values leave borrowers unable to sell or make their house payments, according to a RealtyTrac Inc. forecast last month. Last year there were 2.82 million foreclosures, the most since the Irvine, California-based company began compiling data in 2005.
Fannie Mae and smaller rival Freddie Mac were chartered by the government primarily to lower the cost of homeownership by buying mortgages from lenders, freeing up cash at banks to make more loans. The companies make money by financing mortgage-asset purchases with lower-cost debt and by charging fees to guarantee securities they create out of home loans from lenders.
Treasury Borrowings
Fannie Mae’s net worth, or the difference between assets and liabilities, was negative $15.3 billion as of Dec. 31, compared with negative $15 billion on Sept. 30 and negative $10.6 billion on June 30, according to company statements.
For the fourth quarter, Fannie Mae decreased reserves for future credit losses to $64.9 billion from $65.9 billion in the previous quarter.
The amount of nonperforming loans that Fannie Mae guarantees for other investors rose to $174.6 billion from $163.9 billion in the third quarter, according to the filing. Fannie Mae also owned $41.9 billion in non-performing loans as of Dec. 31, up from $34.2 billion in the third quarter.
The fair value of Fannie Mae’s assets was negative $98.8 billion last quarter, compared with negative $90.4 billion at the end of September.
Future of Companies
The Obama administration will wait until next year to seek legislation that addresses the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the House Budget Committee on Feb. 24.
“We are going to propose reforms to the Congress next year to try to make sure we bring about fundamental change in the housing market and get ourselves in a position where the government is playing a less risky, but more constructive role in supporting housing markets,” Geithner said. “That’s going to be a difficult set of reforms.”
The Treasury and the companies’ regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, blocked Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae from selling their low-income housing tax credits, which can only be recognized if the companies expect to be profitable.
The Treasury found that an agreement Fannie Mae had to sell about half of its credits would have cost taxpayers more than the company would gain from the deal, according to a November letter to that company.
Head of IMF Proposes New Reserve Currency
IMF's Strauss-Kahn suggests IMF may one day provide global reserve asset
By HARRY DUNPHY Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9958995
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, suggested Friday the organization might one day be called on to provide countries with a global reserve currency that would serve as an alternative to the U.S. dollar.
"That day has not yet come, but I think it is intellectually healthy to explore these kinds of ideas now," he said in a speech on the future mandate of the 186-nation Washington-based lending organization.
Strauss-Kahn said such an asset could be similar to but distinctly different from the IMF's special drawing rights, or SDRs, the accounting unit that countries use to hold funds within the IMF. It is based on a basket of major currencies.
He said having other alternatives to the dollar "would limit the extent to which the international monetary system as a whole depends on the policies and conditions of a single, albeit dominant, country."
Strauss-Kahn, a former finance minister of France, said that during the recent global financial crisis, the dollar "played its role as a safe haven" asset, and the current international monetary system demonstrated resilience.
"The challenge ahead is to find ways to limit the tension arising from the high demand for precautionary reserves on the one hand and the narrow supply of reserves on the other," he said.
Several countries, including China and Russia, have called for an alternative to the dollar as a reserve currency and have suggested using the IMF's internal accounting unit.
Strauss-Kahn said the IMF also needs to do a better job of tracing how risk percolates through the global economy.
"Here it will be essential to improve our ability to monitor several dozen large complex financial institutions that make up the `plumbing' through which global capital flows," he said, while leaving national regulators the job of monitoring the solvency of individual institutions.
NYT Whitewashes Union Details in Story About School Reform
By Mitchell Blatt
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mitchell-blatt/2010/02/26/nyt-whitewashes-union-details-story-about-school-reform
Teachers at a failing Rhode Island high school refused to work another 25 minutes a day in order to turnaround the school’s 48% graduation rate. So the school board fired them all.
The teachers at Central Falls High School already earn over $70,000 a year, compared to a median home income of $22,000 a year for area residents, but their union balked at offers of $30 an hour for extra work, demanding $90 an hour.
You would think that this information might be relevant for an article about the situation, but instead of reporting the facts behind the union’s negotiations, the New York Times whitewashed key details and selectively quoted people sympathetic to the union.
Of eight people quoted, five spoke against the reforms and two spoke in favor of it. Three of those quoted were teachers who espoused philosophies of entitlement like this:
“It makes you feel like all of your expertise, all that you know, any degree you might have, is worthless,” Ms. Evanoff said. “I’ve never been fired from anything, and to be fired, it’s devastating.”
The Times didn’t mention the results of the negotiations with the union at all, nor did it mention the teachers’ already high salaries.
Teachers at Central Falls are already paid between $70,000 and $78,000, well above the median teacher salary of $52,000. The median income of families served by the school is just $22,000.
The Times did mention Central Falls’ poverty, only in an effort to build support for the teachers:
But … some say they are losing one of the few constants in the state’s poorest city…
However, the Times picked a much lower number to represent poverty than is reflective of the school.
The Times reported that 41% of Central Falls children live in poverty, however, the Providence Journal reports that among actual students attending the school, 96% live in poverty.
While the New York Times doesn’t give much attention to the plans for reform and the union’s unwillingness to change, the Times does paint the teachers’ employment as fundamental:
While teachers and students at the close-knit school said they considered one another family, Dr. Gallo said the current model was not working.
“If it’s such a family, then how do you account for losing more than half your family each year?” Dr. Gallo said, referring to the dropout rate. “We are about to change the culture of Central Falls.”…
“They’re a transient community. It’s more than test grades,” said Kathy Casalino, a math teacher. “We give them a family. We show them how to live.”
Perhaps the teachers should be concerned more about grades, with half the students failing this year.
It appears that these government employees are experiencing what millions of ordinary non-unionized Americans are experiencing in this recession.
"The e-mail Bag"
The attached photo is of a billboard recently established on I-75 just south of Lake City . We gathered there today to celebrate its unveiling. The cost of 10 months rental of the billboard and doing the artwork was $6500. We feel that is a reasonable cost to reach out to 1,000,000 vehicles per month. To motivate their participation in the electoral process to get our country on a sound footing and VOTE OUT everyone that is in Washington .
http://www.conservativeunderground.com/forum505/showthread.php?t=25565
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