Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable
"Daily Motivations"
It is only by doing things others have not that one can advance. -- George S. Patton
Simplify Your Objectives for Better Results
Ever find that your people aren’t in sync with your organization’s objectives and the results they’re intended to produce? It just might be that your team is confused about what those objectives are!
Maybe your goals are too complex, too illogical, or too difficult to comprehend and embrace. Or perhaps your people are confused by a dizzying array of organizational objectives. Ever hear of CADD – “Cor-porate Attention Deficit Disorder”? Here’s how it happens: One month, management’s focus is to increase revenue. The next month, the focus is on reducing costs. Then, the hiring process is the priority. And 30 days later management is focused again on cutting back. Which one do your people choose to be in sync with? How reasonable is it to expect them to move from one objective to another in a heartbeat?
Imagine what would happen if a synchronized swim team’s choreography was too complex … or if their routines were constantly being changed. What would likely result – great performances or chaos?
Here’s one you can take to the bank: If your goals are constantly changing, you can (and should) expect constant chaos. Some people in your organization will ignore the newest, hot-off-the-presses objective because experience has taught them that it will soon change, anyway. Why bother changing course when another “knee-jerk” change is probably just around the corner? Good question!
Certainly, in today’s fast-paced, global marketplace, change has become a way of life. And changing direction isn’t necessarily a bad thing – as long as a crystal-clear mission for the organization has been established and everyone understands how proposed changes will help them accomplish the mission. Without that understanding, what you have is change in a vacuum. And that typically leads to chaos and discontent.
So, do you best to keep your goals and objectives simple and as consistent as possible. And when you need to alter your course, help employees understand how those changes support, and are in sync with, your organization’s mission – the core of your business that NEVER changes.
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
"He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; He is my God, and I am trusting Him." (Psalm 91:2)
Looking back at historical events, we can see how God protected people in the past. When Napoleon's massive French army was preparing to attack Feldkirch, a little town on the Austrian border, the citizens didn't know what to do. When they spotted soldiers on the heights above the little town, a council of citizens was hastily summoned to decide whether the townspeople should try to defend themselves or display the white flag of surrender.
That fateful day happened to be Easter Sunday, so the townspeople gathered in the local church, as was their custom. The pastor rose and said, "Friends, we have been counting on our own strength, and apparently that has failed. As this is the day of our Lord's resurrection, let us just ring the bells, have our services as usual, and leave the matter in His hands. We know only our weaknesses, and the power of God to defend us."
The council accepted his plan, so they rang the church bells. The enemy, hearing the sudden peal, concluded that the Austrian army had arrived during the night to defend the town. Before the service ended, the enemy broke camp and left!
No matter what threatening circumstances are encountered by those of us who truly trust our Lord, our all-powerful God is always with us. He is fully capable of shielding us from harm, even when we are unaware of the danger.
"The Patriot Post"
"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse." -- James Madison, speech in the Virginia constitutional convention, December 2, 1829
"This Government, the offspring of your own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support." -- George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
"There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs elucidation than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.... In fact it is only reestablishing under another name and a more specious form, force as the measure of right...." -- James Madison, letter to James Monroe, October 5, 1786
"Simple Truths"
"When we have done our best, we can await the results in peace." -- Unknown
And Then Some...
"And then some... These three little words are the secret to success.
They are the difference between average people and top people in most companies.
The top people always do what is expected... and then some.
They are thoughtful of others; they are considerate and kind... and then some.
They meet their responsibilities fairly and squarely... and then some.
They are good friends and helpful neighbors... and then some.
They can be counted on in an emergency... and then some.
I am thankful for people like this, for they make the world a better place.
Their spirit of service is summed up in these three little words... And then some."
"The Web"
One Nation Under God
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=91753311300&h=bZIEF&u=YnnV-&ref=mf
"The Second Amendment applies only to limitations the federal government seeks to impose on this right." -- Opinion of the court, including Judge Sotomayor, Maloney v. Cuomo (2009)
Abortion Doctor Gunned Down at Kansas Church, Suspect in Custody
Sunday, May 31, 2009
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,523581,00.html
AP
Jan. 19, 2002: Dr. George Tiller speaks to a small group in a tent during a rally at Tiller's clinic in Wichita, Kan.
WICHITA, Kan. — Dr. George Tiller, who remained one of the nation's few providers of late-term abortions despite decades of protests and attacks, was shot and killed Sunday in a church where he was serving as an usher.
The gunman fled, but a 51-year-old suspect was arrested some 170 miles away in suburban Kansas City three hours after the shooting, Wichita Deputy Police Chief Tom Stolz said.
Long a focus of national anti-abortion groups, including a summer-long protest in 1991, Tiller was shot in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church, Stolz said. Tiller's attorney, Dan Monnat, said Tiller's wife, Jeanne, was in the choir at the time.
Johnson County sheriff's spokesman Tom Erickson said Scott Roeder was the man whose car was stopped on Interstate 35 on Sunday, about three hours after the shooting of George Tiller.
Earlier in the day, Wichita police said the suspect was a 51-year-old man from Merriam, Kan., but they refused to identify him by name.
Roeder has not been charged in the slaying, but he was expected to be taken to Wichita for questioning.
10 Questions For a Supreme Court Nominee
by Human Events
05/27/2009
1. Many legal experts say that the nominations process is a wholly political question and not a question that would ever come before the Supreme Court. Would you agree that a U.S. senator can vote for or against a nominee to the Supreme Court for any reason?
2. Nominees frequently come before the Senate Judiciary Committee and treat the committee questioning of a nominee as a test of how much the nominee knows about the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent. Would you agree that the nomination process should be more than the functional equivalent of a pass fail examination on constitutional law?
3. If a nominee refuses to answer the Senate’s questions about nominee’s philosophy, ideology, and record, then a U.S. senator has little basis to understand whether a nominee will be appropriate for a lifetime appointment to the bench. Do you agree that a senator should vote “nay” on any nominee who, outside of narrow legitimate legal ethics bases, refuses to answer questions about the nominee’s philosophy, ideology and record?
4. Some lawyers believe that the Constitution is a living document, which grows to recognize “new rights,” and others believe that the Constitution should be interpreted according to its plain words and original meaning. Do you believe that the Constitution is “living,” and if so, how should a judge determine what new rights to create, and what laws passed by the people must be cast aside?
5. If you believe that a case presents a close question where a substantial potential right is at stake, should a judge error on the side of recognizing the right, or allow the democratic process to decide the question, even if that means that the exercise of the disputed “right” is forbidden?
6. Do you believe that beyond the plain text of the Constitution, that there are “emanations” and “penumbras” which contain unwritten and previously unknown provisions that remove issues from democratic determination, and which therefore may be used to strike down popularly enacted state or federal laws?
7. Nominees come before this committee and cite case law without addressing the core of questions, so please don’t site any case law precedent when answering the following question, but merely cite the words of the Constitution and the writings of our Founding Fathers. Do you believe that the Second Amendment to the Constitution provides a citizen the right to keep and bear arms?
8. Some on the left believe that judges should look outside the borders of the United States for legal authority to decide cases, even though many countries do not have a Constitutional democracy and no other has the unique and robust individual liberty protections provided in the United States Constitution. Do you believe that judges should rely on international law to interpret the U.S. Constitution? And furthermore, should courts look to international standards in cases determining whether the death penalty is “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, as the Supreme Court has done in recent cases?
9. The President’s has argued that a judge should bring to bear his or her personal experience in judging cases. Do you agree that personal experiences should be a factor, and if so, how can a judge claim to be impartial if using the subjective and unique experiences of a judge as a factor in deciding cases involving the interpretation of the Constitution?
10. Anybody who has been through a job interview gets the inevitable question, why do you want this job? The American people are very skeptical of Washington, D.C., and the trust level between the American people and the federal government is low. I believe that the American people do not want a nominee to be on the court if that nominee has an agenda and if that nominee wants to impose some laundry list of liberal items on the American people -- like gay marriage. I think it is very important to know the motivation for a nominee and why a nominee wants to be on the highest court of the land, so let me simply ask you. Why do you want to be on the Supreme Court?
Sotomayor overturned 60% of the time by Supremes
Rick Moran
May 27, 2009
If senators vote on Sonia Sotomayor's track record, they might want to look at the 60% reversal rate when her decisions reach the Supreme Court.
Writing at The New Republic, Jeffrey Rosen offers a reason:
Her opinions, although competent, are viewed by former prosecutors as not especially clean or tight, and sometimes miss the forest for the trees. It's customary, for example, for Second Circuit judges to circulate their draft opinions to invite a robust exchange of views. Sotomayor, several former clerks complained, rankled her colleagues by sending long memos that didn't distinguish between substantive and trivial points, with petty editing suggestions--fixing typos and the like--rather than focusing on the core analytical issues.
Some former clerks and prosecutors expressed concerns about her command of technical legal details: In 2001, for example, a conservative colleague, Ralph Winter, included an unusual footnote in a case suggesting that an earlier opinion by Sotomayor might have inadvertently misstated the law in a way that misled litigants. The most controversial case in which Sotomayor participated is Ricci v. DeStefano, the explosive case involving affirmative action in the New Haven fire department, which is now being reviewed by the Supreme Court. A panel including Sotomayor ruled against the firefighters in a perfunctory unpublished opinion. This provoked Judge Cabranes, a fellow Clinton appointee, to object to the panel's opinion that contained "no reference whatsoever to the constitutional issues at the core of this case." (The extent of Sotomayor's involvement in the opinion itself is not publicly known.)
The Ricci case is likely to increase that percentage of reversals as most court watchers expect the Supreme Court to right the terrible wrong Sotomayor did the firefighters. The case is just one more indication that Sotomayor is not fit to sit on the court where many of her opinions have been tossed aside.
Stephen Dinan, writing in the Washington Times , thinks that the reversal rate may be a potent line of attack for the opposition:
With Judge Sonia Sotomayor already facing questions over her 60 percent reversal rate, the Supreme Court could dump another problem into her lap next month if, as many legal analysts predict, the court overturns one of her rulings upholding a race-based employment decision.
Three of the five majority opinions written by Judge Sotomayor for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and reviewed by the Supreme Court were reversed, providing a potent line of attack raised by opponents Tuesday after President Obama announced he will nominate the 54-year-old Hispanic woman to the high court.
"Her high reversal rate alone should be enough for us to pause and take a good look at her record. Frankly, it is the Senates duty to do so," said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America.
There is no chance Obama will withdraw her name (unless some personal trouble emerges) nor is it likely that she will be defeated on the floor of the senate.
But the American people should be shown just what our president thinks of the Supreme Court to nominate such a candidate to sit in judgment on our most vital cases involving our principles and rights.
Supervisor Asks Woman To Take Down American Flag
Reporting Carol Cavazos
MANSFIELD (CBS 11 News) ―
http://www.nojazzfest.com/chat/showthread.php?t=3802&page=2
Is it okay to show your patriotism at the office?
For one Arlington woman, the answer was "no" after she hung an American flag in her office just before the Memorial Day weekend.
Debbie McLucas is one of four hospital supervisors at Kindred Hospital in Mansfield. Last week, she hung a three-by-five foot American flag in the office she shares with the other supervisors.
When McLucas came to work Friday, her boss told her another supervisor had found her flag offensive. "I was just totally speechless. I was like, 'You're kidding me,'" McLucas said.
McLucas' husband and sons are former military men. Her daughter is currently serving in Iraq as a combat medic.
Stifling a cry, McLucas said, "I just wonder if all those young men and women over there are really doing this for nothing."
McLucas said the supervisor who complained has been in the United States for 14 years and is formerly from Africa. McLucas said the supervisor took down Debbie's flag herself.
"The flag and the pole had been placed on the floor," McLucas said. But McLucas also said hospital higher ups had told her some patients' families and visitors had also complained.
"I was told it wouldn't matter if it was only one person," she said. "It would have to come down."
McLucas said hospital bosses told her as far as patriotism was concerned, the flag flying outside the hospital building would have to suffice.
Kindred Hospital Corporate Headquarters are located in Kentucky. They have yet to make a final decision on the matter. They have not returned our phone calls for comment.
The Kindred Hospital Corporation was chosen as Fortune's most admired for 2009. McLucas hopes they'll back her patriotism.
"I find it very frightening because if I can't display my flag, what other freedoms will I lose before all is said and done," McLucas asked.
Directions Home
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DIRECTIONS TO OUR FATHER'S HOUSE.
Make a Right onto Believeth Blvd.
Keep straight and go through the Green Light, which is Jesus Christ.
There, you must turn onto the Bridge of Faith, which is over troubled water.
When you get off the bridge, make a Right turn and Keep Straight.
You are on the King's Highway - Heaven-bound.
Keep going for three miles:
One for the Father, One for the Son, and One for the Holy Spirit
Then exit off onto Grace Blvd.
From there, make a Right turn on Gospel Lane.
Keep Straight and then make another Right on Prayer Road.
As you go on your way,
Yield Not to the traffic on Temptation Ave.
Also, avoid SIN STREET because it is a DEAD END.
Pass up Envy Drive, and Hate Avenue.
Also, pass Hypocrisy Street, Gossiping Lane, and Backbiting Blvd.
However, you have to go down Long-suffering Lane, Persecution Blvd. and Trials and Tribulations Ave.
But that's all right, because VICTORY Street is straight ahead!
Prayer works...Group prayers work miracles...
Back on Uncle Sam's Plantation
by Star Parker
Six years ago I wrote a book called "Uncle Sam's Plantation." I wrote the book to tell my own story of what I saw living inside the welfare state and my own transformation out of it.
I said in that book that indeed there are two Americas. A poor America on socialism and a wealthy America on capitalism.
I talked about government programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS), Emergency Assistance to Needy Families with Children (EANF), Section 8 Housing, and Food Stamps.
A vast sea of perhaps well intentioned government programs, all initially set into motion in the 1960's, that were going to lift the nation's poor out of poverty.
A benevolent Uncle Sam welcomed mostly poor black Americans onto the government plantation. Those who accepted the invitation switched mindsets from "How do I take care of myself?" to "What do I have to do to stay on the plantation?"
Instead of solving economic problems, government welfare socialism created monstrous moral and spiritual problems. The kind of problems that are inevitable when individuals turn responsibility for their lives over to others.
The legacy of American socialism is our blighted inner cities, dysfunctional inner city schools, and broken black families.
Through God's grace, I found my way out. It was then that I understood what freedom meant and how great this country is.
I had the privilege of working on welfare reform in 1996, passed by a Republican congress and signed into law by a Democrat president. A few years after enactment, welfare roles were down fifty percent.
I thought we were on the road to moving socialism out of our poor black communities and replacing it with wealth producing American capitalism.
But, incredibly, we are going in the opposite direction.
Instead of poor America on socialism becoming more like rich American on capitalism, rich America on capitalism is becoming like poor America on socialism.
Uncle Sam has welcomed our banks onto the plantation and they have said, "Thank you, Suh."
Now, instead of thinking about what creative things need to be done to serve customers, they are thinking about what they have to tell Massah in order to get their cash.
There is some kind of irony that this is all happening under our first black president on the 200th anniversary of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln.
Worse, socialism seems to be the element of our new young president. And maybe even more troubling, our corporate executives seem happy to move onto the plantation.
In an op-ed on the opinion page of the Washington Post, Mr. Obama is clear that the goal of his trillion dollar spending plan is much more than short term economic stimulus.
"This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending-it's a strategy for America's long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care, and education."
Perhaps more incredibly, Obama seems to think that government taking over an economy is a new idea. Or that massive growth in government can take place "with unprecedented transparency and accountability."
Yes, sir, we heard it from Jimmy Carter when he created the Department of Energy, the Synfuels Corporation, and the Department of Education.
Or how about the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 -- The War on Poverty -- which President Johnson said "...does not merely expand old programs or improve what is already being done. It charts a new course. It strikes at the causes, not just the consequences of poverty."
Trillions of dollars later, black poverty is the same. But black families are not, with triple the incidence of single parent homes and out of wedlock births.
It's not complicated. Americans can accept Barack Obama's invitation to move onto the plantation. Or they can choose personal responsibility and freedom.
Does anyone really need to think about what the choice should be?
"The e-mail Bag"
Southern Grandma
Lawyers should never ask a Southern grandma a question if they aren't prepared for the answer.
In a trial, a Southern small-town prosecuting attorney called his first witness, a grand motherly, elderly woman to the stand. He approached her and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know me?"
She responded, "Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a young boy, and frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you never will amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you."
The lawyer was stunned! Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?"
She again replied, "Why, yes, I do. I've known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. He's lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can't build a normal relationship with anyone and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him."
The defense attorney almost died.
The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench, and in a very quiet voice, said, "If either of you asks her if she knows me, I'll throw your sorry asses in jail for contempt."
Red Neck Medical Dictionary
Artery....................The study of paintings
Bacteria..................Back door to cafeteria
Barium....................What doctors do when patients die
Benign....................What you be, after you be eight
Caesarean Section........ A neighborhood in Rome
Cat scan..................Searching for Kitty
Cauterize.................Made eye contact with her
Colic.....................A sheep dog
Coma......................A punctuation mark
Dilate....................To live long
Enema.....................Not a friend
Fester....................Quicker than someone else
Fibula....................A small lie
Impotent..................Distinguished, well known
Labor Pain................Getting hurt at work
Medical Staff.............A Doctor's cane
Morbid....................A higher offer
Nitrates..................Cheaper than day rates
Node......................I knew it
Outpatient................A person who has fainted
Pelvis................. ..Second cousin to Elvis
Post Operative............A letter carrier
Recovery Room.............Place to do upholstery
Rectum....................Nearly killed him
Secretion.................Hiding something
Seizure...................Roman emperor
Tablet....................A small table
Terminal Illness..........Getting sick at the airport
Tumor.....................One plus one more
Urine.....................Opposite of you're out
Monday, June 1, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
ConservativeChristianRepublican-Report - 20090529
Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable
"Daily Motivations"
You never know when a moment and a few sincere words can have an impact on a life. -- Zig Ziglar
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
"Forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us." (Matthew 6:12)
Peter asked Jesus how many times he had to forgive someone. Peter thought that forgiving seven times was pretty good. "No!" Jesus answered, "seventy times seven!" Then Jesus gave an illustration showing how God views our responsibility to forgive.
A king became aware that one of his servants owed him a significant amount, so he ordered the servant brought before him and demanded the servant pay every penny. The servant could not pay so the king ordered the man and his family sold into slavery to pay the debt. The servant fell before the king and pleaded for mercy. The king felt pity and forgave him the tremendous debt.
The servant found a fellow servant who owed him and demanded payment. The friend begged for mercy, but the servant would not forgive him and had him thrown into prison.
When the king heard about it, he was angry! He called in the servant and demanded to know why he had acted so unforgiving toward his friend when he had been forgiven so much. Then the king commanded the servant be thrown into prison until he had paid every penny.
God gave His only Son to die in our place. That is mercy beyond comprehension. How, then, can we ever refuse to give mercy to others when we have received so much mercy ourselves. To the degree that we show mercy to the poor, the wretched, and the guilty, we are like God.
"The Patriot Post"
"A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired." -- Alexander Hamilton
"The economic freedom which is the prerequisite of any other freedom cannot be the freedom from economic care, which the socialists promise us and which can be obtained only by relieving the individual at the same time of the necessity and of the power of choice; it must be the freedom of our economic activity which, with the right of choice, inevitably also carries the risk and the responsibility of that right." -- economist Friedrich August Hayek (1899-1992)
"Secularism is a euphemism for a set of beliefs that are the antithesis of faith. Boiled down to its basic elements, secularism is man's subordination of morality to his own earthly judgments, scientific and otherwise. ...[T]he secularist catechism holds that truth is subjective, relative or contextual; because it demands that rationality can solve moral and ontological questions about man's nature, that discrimination is the greatest of all evils and that patriotism is the only social disease that isn't sexually-transmitted. ... Obama's thesis ... is that our moral code can exist in the absence of a religious foundation. ....[S]ecularism -- and its cousin, multiculturalism -- are the primary causes of the weakening of western society at a most dangerous time in history. The weakness results ... because secularism turns the bedrock of western society -- the moral code derived from Judeo-Christian faith -- into sand. By divorcing our societies from faith, we render every man's morality equal to every other's, and thus make them all valueless. When President Obama says we are a nation bound by ideals and values, he postulates an impossibility: where do those secular ideals and values come from if -- as liberal dogma requires -- every man makes up his own?" -- Human Events editor Jed Babbin
"When Barack Obama speaks at an American university, he does not provide a different perspective. He preaches to the liberal choir.. And I am afraid that most of today's Catholic universities are no exception. ... Contrary to providing diversity of opinion, by inviting Barack Obama, [Notre Dame University president] Father Jenkins really just played to his audience. True leadership would have been to invite a speaker who would inspire this young audience to take seriously the values of their Catholic tradition. ... Where can a parent send their son or daughter to get educated and not be indoctrinated with liberal boilerplate? Catholic universities were supposed to serve this purpose. But it's clear that they, too, have been swept into the liberal tsunami that has engulfed America. Ironically, Father Jenkins states in his letter that Notre Dame's invitation to Obama is 'not a political statement or an endorsement of policy.' He then expresses admiration for the president's views on 'expanding health care, alleviating poverty, and building peace through diplomacy.' Does Father Jenkins not even understand what a 'political statement' is? Unfortunately, Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama has only contributed to the moral ambiguity tearing at our nation's fabric." -- columnist Star Parker
"We are a nation that has a government -- not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our government has no power except that granted to it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed." -- Ronald Reagan
"Simple Truths"
Great Quotes From Great Leaders
http://www.greatquotesmovie.com/
"The Web"
Judicial Watch: ACORN Used in 2010 Census
Just another case as to how the Obama administration may be politically corrupt. Many in ACORN are being accused, legally and otherwise, of fraudulent voter registrations all over America. One (1) illegal voter registration and/or one illegal vote in any election is one step of destroying our free electoral system. Each and everyone whom is accused of electoral corruption in our electoral system must be investigated, prosecuted, and sentenced, if found guilty, in the states and/or federal judicial system. - oyh
Thursday, May 28, 2009 2:32 PM
By: Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the U.S. Census Bureau detailing the substantial involvement of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in the 2010 Census. Included among the 126 pages of documents, obtained by Judicial Watch under threat of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, is ACORN's original Census partnership application. The document describes 18 different areas of responsibility requested by the community organization, which is under investigation in multiple states for illegal activity during the 2008 election, including voter registration fraud.
The documents also list the types of organizations ineligible for partnering with the U.S. Census. They include: "...Hate groups, Law enforcement, anti-immigrant groups, any groups that might make people fearful of participating in the Census..." The release of these Obama Commerce Department documents comes in the wake of an Obama Department of Homeland Security report released in April linking opposition to illegal immigration to "rightwing extremist radicalization."
In its official statement responding to the ACORN controversy, the Obama Commerce Department downplayed ACORN's participation in the Census, and labeled "baseless" the notion that ACORN would be involved in any Census count. However, the Census Bureau offered ACORN the opportunity to "recruit Census workers" who would participate in the count. Moreover, as an "executive level" partner, ACORN has the ability to "organize and/or serve as a member on a Complete Count Committee," which, according to Census documents, helps "develop and implement locally based outreach and recruitment campaigns."
According to its application ACORN also signed up to: "Encourage employees and constituents to complete and mail their questionnaire; identify job candidates and/or distribute and display recruiting materials; appoint a liaison to work with the Census Bureau; provide space for Be Counted sites and/or Questionnaire Assistance Centers; sponsor community events to promote participation in the 2010 Census," among 18 requested areas of responsibility. The documents also show the decision to add ACORN as a partner occurred in February, long after the January 15th Census partnership application deadline. (One Census official had bet "it was under Bush.")
Among other conclusions from the documents:
The Census Bureau requested that ACORN "help us highlight [ACORN's] innovation and hard work and share best practices so other organizations can learn from your experiences."
Members of the Census Bureau and Department of Commerce staff assigned to organize the 2010 Census were unaware of when the decision to involve ACORN was made, how the Census Bureau choose and defined partners, or whether partners received payment.
The Census Bureau did not conduct background checks on the 3.7 million people hired to conduct the 2000 Census, unless a preliminary name check provided a match. Overall, 8% of the applicants, or over 300,000 people, were considered risks for hire.
According to the U.S. Census documents, among other things, census data is used to allocate $300 billion in federal funds. Census data also "determines how many seats each state will have in the House of Representatives as well as the redistricting of state legislatures, county and city councils, and voting districts."
"Given its history of illegal activity and fraud, ACORN should be nowhere near the 2010 Census," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "And shame on the Obama Commerce Department for continuing to demonize conservatives by lumping together law enforcement and anti-immigration groups with 'hate groups.' This discriminatory policy raises First Amendment concerns. Indeed, these documents provide further evidence that the Obama administration is politicizing the 2010 Census."
Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Census on March 23, 2009. After the Obama Commerce Department stonewalled, Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit on May 14, 2009. The documents were released to Judicial Watch on May 15, 2009.
President of the American Hospital Association says the White House misstated deal
TAGS: Barack Obama, White House, Health Care
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22559.html
The president of the American Hospital Association said Thursday that a deal with the White House to cut the growth in health care spending has been “spun way away from the original intent.”
President Barack Obama described the agreement this week with six major health care organizations as a “watershed event,” hailing what the White House said was their promise to reduce spending by 1.5 percentage points annually for a decade, which he said could save as much as $2 trillion over that span.
But in a conference call Thursday, President Richard Umbdenstock told 230 member organizations that the agreement had been misrepresented. The groups, he said, had agreed to gradually ramp up to the 1.5 percentage-point target over 10 years — not to reduce spending by that much in each of the 10 years.
“There has been a tremendous amount of confusion and frankly a lot of political spin,” Umbdenstock said on the call. “And I want to assure you that the American Hospital Association is at the table and a responsible part of this, but that we’ve been very clear on what we have committed to.”
The conference call was first reported Thursday by Modern Healthcare and confirmed by an AHA spokesman.
Umbdenstock said AHA joined the process late and did so as a way to maintain involvement in the health care talks while also avoiding the appearance that it did not support reform.
A White House aide said there was always an understanding among these groups that they would trim the growth rate by 1.5 percent annually to save $2 trillion. Umbdenstock spoke with White House Health Director Nancy-Ann DeParle Thursday, said the aide, who added that all the groups remain "enthusiastic" about the project.
The comments from Umbdenstock cap a week in which some in the Washington health care world struggled to make sense of the surprise White House announcement Monday. The group of six organizations with a major stake in health care — the Service Employees International Union, the American Medical Association, America’s Health Insurance Plan, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association, the American Hospital Association and Advanced Medical Technology Association — had been working in secret for several weeks on a savings plan.
But they learned late last week that the White House wanted to go public with the coalition. One health care insider said: “It came together more quickly than it should have." A health care lobbyist said the participants weren’t prepared to go live with the news over the weekend, when the news of a deal, including the $2 trillion savings claim, was announced by White House officials to reporters. The fact sheet they distributed at the time offered general categories from which the savings would come but few specifics on how they would be achieved.
“This was all a general commitment to be part of bending the cost curve and nobody had specifics and all of sudden right before the weekend hit they said, ‘Get us a list of their specifics,’” the lobbyist said. “What really did come last minute at the end of the week was the White House looking for specific things that these people think would reduce costs.”
But when the day came to announce the offer, representatives from all six organizations were lined up next to the president as he announced the deal.
Obama's Faith-Based Adviser Urges Challenge to ‘Heteronormative' Fatherhood
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer
(CNSNews.com) - A controversial member of President Barack Obama’s faith-based council said that part of the administration’s role in promoting responsible fatherhood should include moving beyond America’s “heteronormative view of fatherhood.”
Harry Knox, appointed last month to the 25-member President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, has drawn fire for inflammatory comments about the Catholic Church and Pope Benedict XVI.
Knox talked about fatherhood and other issues the council would work on in a May 11 PBS interview, which aired two days before a May 13 letter – signed by nearly two dozen prominent Catholics, including House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) – was sent to the White House asking Obama to remove Knox from the council.
The letter was also signed by L. Brent Bozell III, president of the Media Research Center, the parent organization of CNSNews.com.
“Responsible fatherhood offers us an immense opportunity to speak to a real need in the country,” said Knox, director of the faith and religion program at the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual rights group, during the PBS interview broadcast on its Religion & Ethics Newsweekly show.
“It’ll be challenging to do that for instance in ways that are not dismissive of the tremendous gifts of single mothers; not to sort of hold a heteronormative view of fatherhood up as the only model,” said Knox.
The White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships is responsible for distributing federal money to religious non-profit and charitable organizations.
“For instance, 25 percent of gay male couples in the country are raising children – their own and other people’s,” Knox, a member of the United Church of Christ and the Interdenominational Conference of Liberation Congregations and Ministries, told PBS.
“So the challenge will be for all of us getting to know what fatherhood means for us, and how to talk about it in a way that is as inclusive as possible and empowering as possible,” he said.
He added that mentoring programs for homosexual fathers should be reviewed by the council.
“One of the things I am suggesting on the council is that they look at mentoring processes that gay dads have developed to help each other be good fathers around the country,” Knox said.
On March 17, two weeks before his appointment to the advisory council, Knox published a statement on the Human Rights Campaign Web site in reaction to the pope’s statement on condoms and AIDS in Africa, saying, “The Pope’s statement that condoms don’t help control the spread of HIV, but rather condoms increase infection rates, is hurting people in the name of Jesus.”
In response to a bishop’s instruction that a lesbian couple in Wyoming could not receive communion at the Catholic Mass, Knox, in an April 6, 2007 statement on the HRC’s Web site wrote: “In this holy Lenten season, it is immoral and insulting to Jesus to use the body and blood of Christ the reconciler as a weapon to silence free speech and demean the love of a committed, legally married couple.”
On April 6, 2009, in an interview with CNSNews.com, Knox stood by his comments from the previous month in the San Francisco-based Bay Area Reporter when he said the pope is a discredited leader.
“The Pope needs to start telling the truth about condom use,” Knox said. “We are eager to help him do that. Until he is willing to do that and able, he’s doing a great deal more harm than good – not just in Africa but around the world. It is endangering people’s lives.”
The day the letter from the 22 Catholics was released, Knox told Newsmax he was not anti-Catholic.
"I love the Catholic Church and love my Catholic sisters and brothers very much,” he said. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for the Roman Catholic Church and for all the good that it does. I do think that we have a real disagreement about the role of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, both in the role of the church and in the role of public service."
“If Harry Knox truly loved the Catholic Church, the first thing he’d do is formally and publicly apologize to the Holy Father for his anti-Catholic bigotry,” Bozell said.
An Open Letter To Senator Richard G. Lugar (R-IN)
By: Chuck Sproull
Senator Lugar,
PLEASE REVERSE YOUR DECISION TO NOMINATE PRO-ABORTIONIST DAWN JOHNSON TO OFFICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL, SHE WILL ONLY MAKE LEGAL MATTERS IN AMERICA WORSE.
"PRO-CHOICE" IS A MYTH. It is the result of a popular "non-sequitur" (Latin for "the conclusion does not follow the premise"). Women who believe they have a "right" to do what they want to with their own bodies, think they can have an unwanted baby aborted. This conclusion is wrong for the following reasons:
A woman may pass hundreds of seeds through her periods, until she gets married to a man. As soon as her husband fertilizes one of her seeds, this is the moment when a new life begins, that will within 9 months lead to the birth of a child. And that seed is no longer part of her own body which she can choose to kill, but this living seed is now the newest part of God's Creation, and He begins to form that child's physical and spiritual being (body, soul and conscience). God gave us freedom of choice, but He commanded us to "Choose life, that thou and thy children may live" (Deut 30:19).
The baby is not part of the woman's body, it is only within the body, protected during it's 9-month development until ready for birth. Therefore, neither she nor an abortionist has any legitimate "right" to harm the baby in any way. At the moment of conception, when the woman's seed is fertilized by a male sperm, the resulting embryo and the fetus, is very sacred, vulnerable, and needs protection. It is a baby boy or girl who belongs jointly to (a) the man who begot it, to (b) the woman who conceived it, and (c) it especially belongs to God who created the entire birth and life process for His divine purpose. In fact, during its in-womb residence, the baby owns the mother - in the sense that it's needs control the mother's physiology. Anything that kills the fruit of conception, regardless of the stage of birth (pre- or partial birth), is murder; it is a sin against our Creator's purpose. Loving parents can care for any child that is born, regardless of it's condition or life span.
The one and only "right" (God-given, responsible freedom) the pregnant woman has, is to care for the baby for about 9 months and give it a successful birth into the world. Then, along with help from the husband, they both have the "right" to raise it to be a responsible, normal boy or girl who will grow up, and marry, and bear and raise the next generation of responsible, normal children. What is the opposite of a "right"? A "wrong."
Wanted babies are the fruit of normal marriage. What would you think of a farmer or gardener, who sows good fruit, vegetable, flower and tree seeds into the soil just for the fun of it; but after the seeds began to germinate and sprout partially above the ground, would consider them unwanted, and mutilate them and kill them with a plough or herbicide, just so that he wouldn't have to be responsible for caring for the plants until they produce their intended fruits? A fool.
So, likewise, why are man and woman allowed to engage in sex just for their own temporary selfish pleasure? The only reason God created sexuality in men and women is to consummate normal marriage and bring forth wanted children. They do not have a "right" to commit the sins of fornication and adultery, nor any or the more perverse forms of sex (like incest, sodomy or homosexuality). Any category of sexual relationship that does not produce children, is a sin against the purpose of God. Also, population control, a good Global Community concern, can be accomplished by teaching responsible and self-disciplined sex in marriage.
Have a wonderful, free American day, be militant in a good-natured way.
Very Respectfully,
Chuck Sproull, Springville IN
THE WRONG FUNERAL
God doesn't make mistakes. He puts us where we are to be.
They say there are no mistakes, for everything there is a purpose. Makes you think. Enjoy! We'll never know where our paths will take us!
***AN ABSOLUTE MUST READ** TRUST ME
This is really beautiful... God is not sleeping.
Consumed by my loss, I didn't notice the hardness of the pew where I sat. I was at the funeral of my dearest friend - my mother. She finally had lost her long battle with cancer. The hurt was so intense; I found it hard to breathe at times. Always supportive, Mother clapped loudest at my school plays, held box of tissues while listening to my first heartbreak, comforted me at my father's death, encouraged me in college, and prayed for me my entire life.
When mother's illness was diagnosed, my sister had a new baby and my brother had
recently married his childhood sweetheart, so it fell on me, the 27-year-old middle child without entanglements, to take care of her. I counted it an honor. 'What now, Lord?' I asked sitting in church.
My life stretched out before me as an empty abyss. My brother sat stoically with his face toward the cross while clutching his wife's hand. My sister sat slumped against her husband's shoulder, his arms around her as she cradled their child. All so deeply grieving, no one noticed I sat alone.
My place had been with our mother, preparing her meals, helping her walk, taking her
to the doctor, seeing to her medication, reading the Bible together. Now she was with the Lord. My work was finished, and I was alone.
I heard a door open and slam shut at the back of the church.
Quick footsteps hurried along the carpeted floor...
An exasperated young man looked around briefly and then sat next to me. He folded
his hands and placed them on his lap. His eyes were brimming with tears. He began to sniffle. 'I'm late,' he explained, though no explanation was necessary.
After several eulogies, he leaned over and commented, 'Why do they keep calling Mary
by the name of ' Margaret?''
'Because, that was her name, Margaret. Never Mary, no one called her 'Mary,'' I whispered.
I wondered why this person couldn't have sat on the other side of the church. He interrupted my grieving with his tears and fidgeting. Who was this stranger anyway?
'No, that isn't correct,' he insisted, as several people glanced over at us whispering, 'Her name is Mary, Mary Peters.' 'That isn't who this is.'
'Isn't this the Lutheran church?' 'No, the Lutheran church is across the street.'
'Oh.' 'I believe you're at the wrong funeral, Sir.'
The solemnest of the occasion mixed with the realization of the man's mistake bubbled up inside me and came out as laughter. I cupped my hands over my face, hoping it would be interpreted as sobs. The creaking pew gave me away.. Sharp looks from other mourners only made the situation seem more hilarious.
I peeked at the bewildered, misguided man seated beside me. He was laughing, too, as he glanced around, deciding it was too late for an uneventful exit.. I imagined Mother laughing.
At the final 'Amen,' we darted out a door and into the parking lot. 'I do believe we'll be the talk of the town,' he smiled. He said his name was Rick and since he had missed his aunt's funeral, asked me out for a cup of coffee.
That afternoon began a lifelong journey for me with this man who attended the wrong
funeral, but was in the right place. A year after our meeting, we were married at a country church where he was the assistant pastor. This time we both arrived at the same church, right on time...
In my time of sorrow, God gave me laughter. In place of loneliness, God gave me love.
This past June, we celebrated our twenty-second wedding anniversary. Whenever anyone asks us how we met, Rick tells them, 'Her mother and my Aunt Mary introduced us, and it's truly a match made in heaven.'
Jesus said, If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you before my Father.
Not ashamed? Pass this on. Only if you mean it. Yes, I do Love God. He is my source of existence and Savior. He keeps me functioning each and everyday. Without Him, I would be nothing. Without him, I am nothing, but with Him I can do all things, through Christ that strengthens me. (Phil. 4:13)
If you Love God, and are not ashamed of all the marvelous things he has done for you, send this on to others.
REMEMBER, God doesn't make mistakes. He puts us where we are to be.
Mosquito Spray....Worth a try ...Listerine
Snopes say it is false. Others say it does work. We report! You decide! - oyh
http://perknews.blogspot.com/2009/05/mosquito-sprayworth-try-listerine_16.html
Wasaga Beach, ON
Has anyone heard of this ... it sounds interesting... if it works.. Just received this helpful information from a friend in the mosquito –saturated state of Georgia. . .
This is for all you happy campers and back yard BBQ people, have a great summer free of the little pests !!!
Mosquito Spray....Worth a try
I was at a deck party awhile back, and the bugs were having a ball biting everyone. A man at the party sprayed the lawn and deck floor with Listerine, and the little demons disappeared. The next year I filled a 4-ounce spray bottle and used it around my seat whenever I saw mosquitoes. And voila! That worked as well. It worked at a picnic where we sprayed the area around the food table, the children's swing area, and the standing water nearby. During the summer, I don't leave home without it......Pass it on.
OUR FRIEND'S COMMENTS: I tried this on my deck and around all of my doors. It works -in fact, it killed them instantly. I bought my bottle from the Superstore and it cost me $1.89. It really doesn't take much, and it is a big bottle, too; so it is not as expensive to use as the can of Bug-spray you buy that doesn't last 30 minutes. So, try this, please. It will last a couple of days. Don't spray directly on a wood door (like your front door), but spray around the frame. Spray around the window frames, and even inside the dog house.
"The e-mail Bag"
Conversations in bathroom stalls
Traveling down the interstate and needing to use the restroom, I stop at a rest area and head to the restroom.
I was barely sitting down when I heard a voice from the other stall saying: "Hi, how are you?"
I'm not the type to start a conversation in the restroom and I don't know what got into me, but I answered, somewhat embarrassed, "Doin' just fine!"
And the other person says: "So what are you up to?"
What kind of question is that? At that point, I'm thinking this is too bizarre so I say: "Uhhh, I'm like you, just traveling!"
At this point I am just trying to get out as fast as I can when I hear another question. "Can I come over?"
Ok, this question is just too weird for me but I figured I could just be polite and end the conversation. I tell them."No..I'm a little busy right now!!!"
Then I hear the person say nervously... "Listen, I'll have to call you back. There's an idiot in the other stall who keeps answering all my questions."
FROZEN CRABS
A man boarded an airplane in New Orleans with a box of frozen crabs and asked a blonde stewardess to take care of them for him. She took the box and promised to put it in the crew's refrigerator.
He advised her that he was holding her personally responsible for them staying frozen, mentioned in a very haughty manner that he was a lawyer, and proceeded to rant at her about what would happen if she let them thaw out.
Needless to say, she was annoyed by his behavior.
Shortly before landing in New York, she used the intercom to announce to the entire cabin, "Would the gentleman who gave me the crabs in New Orleans please raise his hand?"
Not one hand went up ... so she took them home and had a feast.
Two lessons here:
1. Lawyers aren't as smart as they think they are.
2. Blondes aren't as dumb as most folks think.
BREAKING NEWS!!
To save the economy in 2009, the Obama government will start deporting all of the weird old people in order to lower Social Security and Medicare costs.
I started crying when I thought of you.
Run, my friend, RUN !!!!
Well....what can I say....someone sent it to me, and I'm not going alone!!!!
"Daily Motivations"
You never know when a moment and a few sincere words can have an impact on a life. -- Zig Ziglar
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
"Forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us." (Matthew 6:12)
Peter asked Jesus how many times he had to forgive someone. Peter thought that forgiving seven times was pretty good. "No!" Jesus answered, "seventy times seven!" Then Jesus gave an illustration showing how God views our responsibility to forgive.
A king became aware that one of his servants owed him a significant amount, so he ordered the servant brought before him and demanded the servant pay every penny. The servant could not pay so the king ordered the man and his family sold into slavery to pay the debt. The servant fell before the king and pleaded for mercy. The king felt pity and forgave him the tremendous debt.
The servant found a fellow servant who owed him and demanded payment. The friend begged for mercy, but the servant would not forgive him and had him thrown into prison.
When the king heard about it, he was angry! He called in the servant and demanded to know why he had acted so unforgiving toward his friend when he had been forgiven so much. Then the king commanded the servant be thrown into prison until he had paid every penny.
God gave His only Son to die in our place. That is mercy beyond comprehension. How, then, can we ever refuse to give mercy to others when we have received so much mercy ourselves. To the degree that we show mercy to the poor, the wretched, and the guilty, we are like God.
"The Patriot Post"
"A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired." -- Alexander Hamilton
"The economic freedom which is the prerequisite of any other freedom cannot be the freedom from economic care, which the socialists promise us and which can be obtained only by relieving the individual at the same time of the necessity and of the power of choice; it must be the freedom of our economic activity which, with the right of choice, inevitably also carries the risk and the responsibility of that right." -- economist Friedrich August Hayek (1899-1992)
"Secularism is a euphemism for a set of beliefs that are the antithesis of faith. Boiled down to its basic elements, secularism is man's subordination of morality to his own earthly judgments, scientific and otherwise. ...[T]he secularist catechism holds that truth is subjective, relative or contextual; because it demands that rationality can solve moral and ontological questions about man's nature, that discrimination is the greatest of all evils and that patriotism is the only social disease that isn't sexually-transmitted. ... Obama's thesis ... is that our moral code can exist in the absence of a religious foundation. ....[S]ecularism -- and its cousin, multiculturalism -- are the primary causes of the weakening of western society at a most dangerous time in history. The weakness results ... because secularism turns the bedrock of western society -- the moral code derived from Judeo-Christian faith -- into sand. By divorcing our societies from faith, we render every man's morality equal to every other's, and thus make them all valueless. When President Obama says we are a nation bound by ideals and values, he postulates an impossibility: where do those secular ideals and values come from if -- as liberal dogma requires -- every man makes up his own?" -- Human Events editor Jed Babbin
"When Barack Obama speaks at an American university, he does not provide a different perspective. He preaches to the liberal choir.. And I am afraid that most of today's Catholic universities are no exception. ... Contrary to providing diversity of opinion, by inviting Barack Obama, [Notre Dame University president] Father Jenkins really just played to his audience. True leadership would have been to invite a speaker who would inspire this young audience to take seriously the values of their Catholic tradition. ... Where can a parent send their son or daughter to get educated and not be indoctrinated with liberal boilerplate? Catholic universities were supposed to serve this purpose. But it's clear that they, too, have been swept into the liberal tsunami that has engulfed America. Ironically, Father Jenkins states in his letter that Notre Dame's invitation to Obama is 'not a political statement or an endorsement of policy.' He then expresses admiration for the president's views on 'expanding health care, alleviating poverty, and building peace through diplomacy.' Does Father Jenkins not even understand what a 'political statement' is? Unfortunately, Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama has only contributed to the moral ambiguity tearing at our nation's fabric." -- columnist Star Parker
"We are a nation that has a government -- not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our government has no power except that granted to it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed." -- Ronald Reagan
"Simple Truths"
Great Quotes From Great Leaders
http://www.greatquotesmovie.com/
"The Web"
Judicial Watch: ACORN Used in 2010 Census
Just another case as to how the Obama administration may be politically corrupt. Many in ACORN are being accused, legally and otherwise, of fraudulent voter registrations all over America. One (1) illegal voter registration and/or one illegal vote in any election is one step of destroying our free electoral system. Each and everyone whom is accused of electoral corruption in our electoral system must be investigated, prosecuted, and sentenced, if found guilty, in the states and/or federal judicial system. - oyh
Thursday, May 28, 2009 2:32 PM
By: Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the U.S. Census Bureau detailing the substantial involvement of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in the 2010 Census. Included among the 126 pages of documents, obtained by Judicial Watch under threat of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, is ACORN's original Census partnership application. The document describes 18 different areas of responsibility requested by the community organization, which is under investigation in multiple states for illegal activity during the 2008 election, including voter registration fraud.
The documents also list the types of organizations ineligible for partnering with the U.S. Census. They include: "...Hate groups, Law enforcement, anti-immigrant groups, any groups that might make people fearful of participating in the Census..." The release of these Obama Commerce Department documents comes in the wake of an Obama Department of Homeland Security report released in April linking opposition to illegal immigration to "rightwing extremist radicalization."
In its official statement responding to the ACORN controversy, the Obama Commerce Department downplayed ACORN's participation in the Census, and labeled "baseless" the notion that ACORN would be involved in any Census count. However, the Census Bureau offered ACORN the opportunity to "recruit Census workers" who would participate in the count. Moreover, as an "executive level" partner, ACORN has the ability to "organize and/or serve as a member on a Complete Count Committee," which, according to Census documents, helps "develop and implement locally based outreach and recruitment campaigns."
According to its application ACORN also signed up to: "Encourage employees and constituents to complete and mail their questionnaire; identify job candidates and/or distribute and display recruiting materials; appoint a liaison to work with the Census Bureau; provide space for Be Counted sites and/or Questionnaire Assistance Centers; sponsor community events to promote participation in the 2010 Census," among 18 requested areas of responsibility. The documents also show the decision to add ACORN as a partner occurred in February, long after the January 15th Census partnership application deadline. (One Census official had bet "it was under Bush.")
Among other conclusions from the documents:
The Census Bureau requested that ACORN "help us highlight [ACORN's] innovation and hard work and share best practices so other organizations can learn from your experiences."
Members of the Census Bureau and Department of Commerce staff assigned to organize the 2010 Census were unaware of when the decision to involve ACORN was made, how the Census Bureau choose and defined partners, or whether partners received payment.
The Census Bureau did not conduct background checks on the 3.7 million people hired to conduct the 2000 Census, unless a preliminary name check provided a match. Overall, 8% of the applicants, or over 300,000 people, were considered risks for hire.
According to the U.S. Census documents, among other things, census data is used to allocate $300 billion in federal funds. Census data also "determines how many seats each state will have in the House of Representatives as well as the redistricting of state legislatures, county and city councils, and voting districts."
"Given its history of illegal activity and fraud, ACORN should be nowhere near the 2010 Census," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "And shame on the Obama Commerce Department for continuing to demonize conservatives by lumping together law enforcement and anti-immigration groups with 'hate groups.' This discriminatory policy raises First Amendment concerns. Indeed, these documents provide further evidence that the Obama administration is politicizing the 2010 Census."
Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Census on March 23, 2009. After the Obama Commerce Department stonewalled, Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit on May 14, 2009. The documents were released to Judicial Watch on May 15, 2009.
President of the American Hospital Association says the White House misstated deal
TAGS: Barack Obama, White House, Health Care
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22559.html
The president of the American Hospital Association said Thursday that a deal with the White House to cut the growth in health care spending has been “spun way away from the original intent.”
President Barack Obama described the agreement this week with six major health care organizations as a “watershed event,” hailing what the White House said was their promise to reduce spending by 1.5 percentage points annually for a decade, which he said could save as much as $2 trillion over that span.
But in a conference call Thursday, President Richard Umbdenstock told 230 member organizations that the agreement had been misrepresented. The groups, he said, had agreed to gradually ramp up to the 1.5 percentage-point target over 10 years — not to reduce spending by that much in each of the 10 years.
“There has been a tremendous amount of confusion and frankly a lot of political spin,” Umbdenstock said on the call. “And I want to assure you that the American Hospital Association is at the table and a responsible part of this, but that we’ve been very clear on what we have committed to.”
The conference call was first reported Thursday by Modern Healthcare and confirmed by an AHA spokesman.
Umbdenstock said AHA joined the process late and did so as a way to maintain involvement in the health care talks while also avoiding the appearance that it did not support reform.
A White House aide said there was always an understanding among these groups that they would trim the growth rate by 1.5 percent annually to save $2 trillion. Umbdenstock spoke with White House Health Director Nancy-Ann DeParle Thursday, said the aide, who added that all the groups remain "enthusiastic" about the project.
The comments from Umbdenstock cap a week in which some in the Washington health care world struggled to make sense of the surprise White House announcement Monday. The group of six organizations with a major stake in health care — the Service Employees International Union, the American Medical Association, America’s Health Insurance Plan, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association, the American Hospital Association and Advanced Medical Technology Association — had been working in secret for several weeks on a savings plan.
But they learned late last week that the White House wanted to go public with the coalition. One health care insider said: “It came together more quickly than it should have." A health care lobbyist said the participants weren’t prepared to go live with the news over the weekend, when the news of a deal, including the $2 trillion savings claim, was announced by White House officials to reporters. The fact sheet they distributed at the time offered general categories from which the savings would come but few specifics on how they would be achieved.
“This was all a general commitment to be part of bending the cost curve and nobody had specifics and all of sudden right before the weekend hit they said, ‘Get us a list of their specifics,’” the lobbyist said. “What really did come last minute at the end of the week was the White House looking for specific things that these people think would reduce costs.”
But when the day came to announce the offer, representatives from all six organizations were lined up next to the president as he announced the deal.
Obama's Faith-Based Adviser Urges Challenge to ‘Heteronormative' Fatherhood
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer
(CNSNews.com) - A controversial member of President Barack Obama’s faith-based council said that part of the administration’s role in promoting responsible fatherhood should include moving beyond America’s “heteronormative view of fatherhood.”
Harry Knox, appointed last month to the 25-member President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, has drawn fire for inflammatory comments about the Catholic Church and Pope Benedict XVI.
Knox talked about fatherhood and other issues the council would work on in a May 11 PBS interview, which aired two days before a May 13 letter – signed by nearly two dozen prominent Catholics, including House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) – was sent to the White House asking Obama to remove Knox from the council.
The letter was also signed by L. Brent Bozell III, president of the Media Research Center, the parent organization of CNSNews.com.
“Responsible fatherhood offers us an immense opportunity to speak to a real need in the country,” said Knox, director of the faith and religion program at the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual rights group, during the PBS interview broadcast on its Religion & Ethics Newsweekly show.
“It’ll be challenging to do that for instance in ways that are not dismissive of the tremendous gifts of single mothers; not to sort of hold a heteronormative view of fatherhood up as the only model,” said Knox.
The White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships is responsible for distributing federal money to religious non-profit and charitable organizations.
“For instance, 25 percent of gay male couples in the country are raising children – their own and other people’s,” Knox, a member of the United Church of Christ and the Interdenominational Conference of Liberation Congregations and Ministries, told PBS.
“So the challenge will be for all of us getting to know what fatherhood means for us, and how to talk about it in a way that is as inclusive as possible and empowering as possible,” he said.
He added that mentoring programs for homosexual fathers should be reviewed by the council.
“One of the things I am suggesting on the council is that they look at mentoring processes that gay dads have developed to help each other be good fathers around the country,” Knox said.
On March 17, two weeks before his appointment to the advisory council, Knox published a statement on the Human Rights Campaign Web site in reaction to the pope’s statement on condoms and AIDS in Africa, saying, “The Pope’s statement that condoms don’t help control the spread of HIV, but rather condoms increase infection rates, is hurting people in the name of Jesus.”
In response to a bishop’s instruction that a lesbian couple in Wyoming could not receive communion at the Catholic Mass, Knox, in an April 6, 2007 statement on the HRC’s Web site wrote: “In this holy Lenten season, it is immoral and insulting to Jesus to use the body and blood of Christ the reconciler as a weapon to silence free speech and demean the love of a committed, legally married couple.”
On April 6, 2009, in an interview with CNSNews.com, Knox stood by his comments from the previous month in the San Francisco-based Bay Area Reporter when he said the pope is a discredited leader.
“The Pope needs to start telling the truth about condom use,” Knox said. “We are eager to help him do that. Until he is willing to do that and able, he’s doing a great deal more harm than good – not just in Africa but around the world. It is endangering people’s lives.”
The day the letter from the 22 Catholics was released, Knox told Newsmax he was not anti-Catholic.
"I love the Catholic Church and love my Catholic sisters and brothers very much,” he said. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for the Roman Catholic Church and for all the good that it does. I do think that we have a real disagreement about the role of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, both in the role of the church and in the role of public service."
“If Harry Knox truly loved the Catholic Church, the first thing he’d do is formally and publicly apologize to the Holy Father for his anti-Catholic bigotry,” Bozell said.
An Open Letter To Senator Richard G. Lugar (R-IN)
By: Chuck Sproull
Senator Lugar,
PLEASE REVERSE YOUR DECISION TO NOMINATE PRO-ABORTIONIST DAWN JOHNSON TO OFFICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL, SHE WILL ONLY MAKE LEGAL MATTERS IN AMERICA WORSE.
"PRO-CHOICE" IS A MYTH. It is the result of a popular "non-sequitur" (Latin for "the conclusion does not follow the premise"). Women who believe they have a "right" to do what they want to with their own bodies, think they can have an unwanted baby aborted. This conclusion is wrong for the following reasons:
A woman may pass hundreds of seeds through her periods, until she gets married to a man. As soon as her husband fertilizes one of her seeds, this is the moment when a new life begins, that will within 9 months lead to the birth of a child. And that seed is no longer part of her own body which she can choose to kill, but this living seed is now the newest part of God's Creation, and He begins to form that child's physical and spiritual being (body, soul and conscience). God gave us freedom of choice, but He commanded us to "Choose life, that thou and thy children may live" (Deut 30:19).
The baby is not part of the woman's body, it is only within the body, protected during it's 9-month development until ready for birth. Therefore, neither she nor an abortionist has any legitimate "right" to harm the baby in any way. At the moment of conception, when the woman's seed is fertilized by a male sperm, the resulting embryo and the fetus, is very sacred, vulnerable, and needs protection. It is a baby boy or girl who belongs jointly to (a) the man who begot it, to (b) the woman who conceived it, and (c) it especially belongs to God who created the entire birth and life process for His divine purpose. In fact, during its in-womb residence, the baby owns the mother - in the sense that it's needs control the mother's physiology. Anything that kills the fruit of conception, regardless of the stage of birth (pre- or partial birth), is murder; it is a sin against our Creator's purpose. Loving parents can care for any child that is born, regardless of it's condition or life span.
The one and only "right" (God-given, responsible freedom) the pregnant woman has, is to care for the baby for about 9 months and give it a successful birth into the world. Then, along with help from the husband, they both have the "right" to raise it to be a responsible, normal boy or girl who will grow up, and marry, and bear and raise the next generation of responsible, normal children. What is the opposite of a "right"? A "wrong."
Wanted babies are the fruit of normal marriage. What would you think of a farmer or gardener, who sows good fruit, vegetable, flower and tree seeds into the soil just for the fun of it; but after the seeds began to germinate and sprout partially above the ground, would consider them unwanted, and mutilate them and kill them with a plough or herbicide, just so that he wouldn't have to be responsible for caring for the plants until they produce their intended fruits? A fool.
So, likewise, why are man and woman allowed to engage in sex just for their own temporary selfish pleasure? The only reason God created sexuality in men and women is to consummate normal marriage and bring forth wanted children. They do not have a "right" to commit the sins of fornication and adultery, nor any or the more perverse forms of sex (like incest, sodomy or homosexuality). Any category of sexual relationship that does not produce children, is a sin against the purpose of God. Also, population control, a good Global Community concern, can be accomplished by teaching responsible and self-disciplined sex in marriage.
Have a wonderful, free American day, be militant in a good-natured way.
Very Respectfully,
Chuck Sproull, Springville IN
THE WRONG FUNERAL
God doesn't make mistakes. He puts us where we are to be.
They say there are no mistakes, for everything there is a purpose. Makes you think. Enjoy! We'll never know where our paths will take us!
***AN ABSOLUTE MUST READ** TRUST ME
This is really beautiful... God is not sleeping.
Consumed by my loss, I didn't notice the hardness of the pew where I sat. I was at the funeral of my dearest friend - my mother. She finally had lost her long battle with cancer. The hurt was so intense; I found it hard to breathe at times. Always supportive, Mother clapped loudest at my school plays, held box of tissues while listening to my first heartbreak, comforted me at my father's death, encouraged me in college, and prayed for me my entire life.
When mother's illness was diagnosed, my sister had a new baby and my brother had
recently married his childhood sweetheart, so it fell on me, the 27-year-old middle child without entanglements, to take care of her. I counted it an honor. 'What now, Lord?' I asked sitting in church.
My life stretched out before me as an empty abyss. My brother sat stoically with his face toward the cross while clutching his wife's hand. My sister sat slumped against her husband's shoulder, his arms around her as she cradled their child. All so deeply grieving, no one noticed I sat alone.
My place had been with our mother, preparing her meals, helping her walk, taking her
to the doctor, seeing to her medication, reading the Bible together. Now she was with the Lord. My work was finished, and I was alone.
I heard a door open and slam shut at the back of the church.
Quick footsteps hurried along the carpeted floor...
An exasperated young man looked around briefly and then sat next to me. He folded
his hands and placed them on his lap. His eyes were brimming with tears. He began to sniffle. 'I'm late,' he explained, though no explanation was necessary.
After several eulogies, he leaned over and commented, 'Why do they keep calling Mary
by the name of ' Margaret?''
'Because, that was her name, Margaret. Never Mary, no one called her 'Mary,'' I whispered.
I wondered why this person couldn't have sat on the other side of the church. He interrupted my grieving with his tears and fidgeting. Who was this stranger anyway?
'No, that isn't correct,' he insisted, as several people glanced over at us whispering, 'Her name is Mary, Mary Peters.' 'That isn't who this is.'
'Isn't this the Lutheran church?' 'No, the Lutheran church is across the street.'
'Oh.' 'I believe you're at the wrong funeral, Sir.'
The solemnest of the occasion mixed with the realization of the man's mistake bubbled up inside me and came out as laughter. I cupped my hands over my face, hoping it would be interpreted as sobs. The creaking pew gave me away.. Sharp looks from other mourners only made the situation seem more hilarious.
I peeked at the bewildered, misguided man seated beside me. He was laughing, too, as he glanced around, deciding it was too late for an uneventful exit.. I imagined Mother laughing.
At the final 'Amen,' we darted out a door and into the parking lot. 'I do believe we'll be the talk of the town,' he smiled. He said his name was Rick and since he had missed his aunt's funeral, asked me out for a cup of coffee.
That afternoon began a lifelong journey for me with this man who attended the wrong
funeral, but was in the right place. A year after our meeting, we were married at a country church where he was the assistant pastor. This time we both arrived at the same church, right on time...
In my time of sorrow, God gave me laughter. In place of loneliness, God gave me love.
This past June, we celebrated our twenty-second wedding anniversary. Whenever anyone asks us how we met, Rick tells them, 'Her mother and my Aunt Mary introduced us, and it's truly a match made in heaven.'
Jesus said, If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you before my Father.
Not ashamed? Pass this on. Only if you mean it. Yes, I do Love God. He is my source of existence and Savior. He keeps me functioning each and everyday. Without Him, I would be nothing. Without him, I am nothing, but with Him I can do all things, through Christ that strengthens me. (Phil. 4:13)
If you Love God, and are not ashamed of all the marvelous things he has done for you, send this on to others.
REMEMBER, God doesn't make mistakes. He puts us where we are to be.
Mosquito Spray....Worth a try ...Listerine
Snopes say it is false. Others say it does work. We report! You decide! - oyh
http://perknews.blogspot.com/2009/05/mosquito-sprayworth-try-listerine_16.html
Wasaga Beach, ON
Has anyone heard of this ... it sounds interesting... if it works.. Just received this helpful information from a friend in the mosquito –saturated state of Georgia. . .
This is for all you happy campers and back yard BBQ people, have a great summer free of the little pests !!!
Mosquito Spray....Worth a try
I was at a deck party awhile back, and the bugs were having a ball biting everyone. A man at the party sprayed the lawn and deck floor with Listerine, and the little demons disappeared. The next year I filled a 4-ounce spray bottle and used it around my seat whenever I saw mosquitoes. And voila! That worked as well. It worked at a picnic where we sprayed the area around the food table, the children's swing area, and the standing water nearby. During the summer, I don't leave home without it......Pass it on.
OUR FRIEND'S COMMENTS: I tried this on my deck and around all of my doors. It works -in fact, it killed them instantly. I bought my bottle from the Superstore and it cost me $1.89. It really doesn't take much, and it is a big bottle, too; so it is not as expensive to use as the can of Bug-spray you buy that doesn't last 30 minutes. So, try this, please. It will last a couple of days. Don't spray directly on a wood door (like your front door), but spray around the frame. Spray around the window frames, and even inside the dog house.
"The e-mail Bag"
Conversations in bathroom stalls
Traveling down the interstate and needing to use the restroom, I stop at a rest area and head to the restroom.
I was barely sitting down when I heard a voice from the other stall saying: "Hi, how are you?"
I'm not the type to start a conversation in the restroom and I don't know what got into me, but I answered, somewhat embarrassed, "Doin' just fine!"
And the other person says: "So what are you up to?"
What kind of question is that? At that point, I'm thinking this is too bizarre so I say: "Uhhh, I'm like you, just traveling!"
At this point I am just trying to get out as fast as I can when I hear another question. "Can I come over?"
Ok, this question is just too weird for me but I figured I could just be polite and end the conversation. I tell them."No..I'm a little busy right now!!!"
Then I hear the person say nervously... "Listen, I'll have to call you back. There's an idiot in the other stall who keeps answering all my questions."
FROZEN CRABS
A man boarded an airplane in New Orleans with a box of frozen crabs and asked a blonde stewardess to take care of them for him. She took the box and promised to put it in the crew's refrigerator.
He advised her that he was holding her personally responsible for them staying frozen, mentioned in a very haughty manner that he was a lawyer, and proceeded to rant at her about what would happen if she let them thaw out.
Needless to say, she was annoyed by his behavior.
Shortly before landing in New York, she used the intercom to announce to the entire cabin, "Would the gentleman who gave me the crabs in New Orleans please raise his hand?"
Not one hand went up ... so she took them home and had a feast.
Two lessons here:
1. Lawyers aren't as smart as they think they are.
2. Blondes aren't as dumb as most folks think.
BREAKING NEWS!!
To save the economy in 2009, the Obama government will start deporting all of the weird old people in order to lower Social Security and Medicare costs.
I started crying when I thought of you.
Run, my friend, RUN !!!!
Well....what can I say....someone sent it to me, and I'm not going alone!!!!
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Replace UAW President Gettlefinger, Save GM, Chrysler
President Obama, members on Capitol Hill, and Obama’s administration government appointees are to bail out GM using American taxpayers’ money. If President Obama has the legal authority to remove GM CEO Rick Wagoner, surely President Obama has the authority to remove UAW President Ron Gettelfinger.
Obama’s decision to replace GM’s Wagoner was to solve all problems in saving GM. Not so! UAW leaders and members failed to genuinely negotiate with GM, and President Obama’s administration refuses to demand UAW’s required reasonable negotiations.
President Obama should replace UAW President Ron Gettelfinger to save GM and Chrysler. With that decision, President Obama’s legal counsel could go into US Bankruptcy Court, require the UAW employees total labor cost be reduced by 33% to 50%, from some $150,000 annually to some $75,000 to $100,000 annually. This still substantial proposed income would leave the UAW labor force with a somewhat comfortable living income with benefits. GM and Chrysler can than endure as an integral part of American manufacturing. To survive, GM and Chrysler must be competitive in the marketplace. UAW members must reduce annual labor cost and benefits for GM and Chrysler, as well as for American and worldwide consumers. This “change” will immediately mushroom an additional 1 million jobs for our future generations. Americans need jobs now.
American taxpayers must not own 70% of GM, Chrysler, or any other industry in a free American economy. Government ownership and management in any free economy, transforms a generous economy into pure Socialism. Any open, free economy appoints, elect, and/or chooses its’ management. There is no capacity for appointed government bureaucrats to operate GM, Chrysler, or any other industry in a free American economy. Our manufacturing economy must be restored, but not with taxpayers’ manufacturing labor cost of $150,000 annually, which exceeds the equivalent of University Professors.
Obama’s decision to replace GM’s Wagoner was to solve all problems in saving GM. Not so! UAW leaders and members failed to genuinely negotiate with GM, and President Obama’s administration refuses to demand UAW’s required reasonable negotiations.
President Obama should replace UAW President Ron Gettelfinger to save GM and Chrysler. With that decision, President Obama’s legal counsel could go into US Bankruptcy Court, require the UAW employees total labor cost be reduced by 33% to 50%, from some $150,000 annually to some $75,000 to $100,000 annually. This still substantial proposed income would leave the UAW labor force with a somewhat comfortable living income with benefits. GM and Chrysler can than endure as an integral part of American manufacturing. To survive, GM and Chrysler must be competitive in the marketplace. UAW members must reduce annual labor cost and benefits for GM and Chrysler, as well as for American and worldwide consumers. This “change” will immediately mushroom an additional 1 million jobs for our future generations. Americans need jobs now.
American taxpayers must not own 70% of GM, Chrysler, or any other industry in a free American economy. Government ownership and management in any free economy, transforms a generous economy into pure Socialism. Any open, free economy appoints, elect, and/or chooses its’ management. There is no capacity for appointed government bureaucrats to operate GM, Chrysler, or any other industry in a free American economy. Our manufacturing economy must be restored, but not with taxpayers’ manufacturing labor cost of $150,000 annually, which exceeds the equivalent of University Professors.
ConservativeChristianRepublican-Report - 20090528
Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable
"Daily Motivations"
"Marcia's right! You have to be able to identify what you really love and what you really want before you can get it". -- Oprah Winfrey
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
Present Pomp & Puffery! The children of Ammon made war against Israel (Judg. 11:4). When we think how we were treated in the past, it's easy to have a get even attitude in the present!
"He delights in every detail of their lives." (Psalm 37:23)
"The Patriot Post"
"The freedom and happiness of man...[are] the sole objects of all legitimate government." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1810
Make your problems disappear!
Men, if you think you have problems,
just remember....
... somewhere in the world there's a
Mr. Nancy Pelosi!
"Heritage Foundation"
A Troubling Decision, a Troubling Speech, and a Troubling Nomination
Posted May 27th, 2009 at 10.08am in Rule of Law.
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/05/27/a-troubling-decision-a-troubling-speech-and-a-troubling-nomination/
Imagine if you can a situation in which a white federal judge approved the clear and obvious discrimination engaged in by a small Southern town in denying black firefighters promotion by throwing out the results of a civil service examination. Only black firefighters did well enough on the racially-neutral exam to merit promotion, but the city decided to scrap the exam and not promote the successful test takers because none of them were white.
This same white federal judge also gave a speech at a prominent Southern university in which he said: “I would hope that a wise Caucasian man with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a black male who hasn’t lived that life.” In the same speech, the judge opines that white males engage in judging differently than black males “[w]hether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences.”
Does anyone doubt that if a president nominated that same federal judge to be on the U.S. Supreme Court, that his nomination would be still-born and that the president would be quickly (and rightly so) embarrassed into withdrawing the nomination?
Of course, that has not happened – or has it? Because if you simply change the races and ethnic groups being discussed, that is exactly what President Obama has done. In fact, Judge Sonia Sotomayor claimed in a speech at Berkley in 2001 that “wise” Latina women would make better decisions than white men and that those differences may be based on inherent genetic differences, something so outrageous that I still have a hard time believing that she could have said such a thing.
And in a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, Ricci v. New Haven, Judge Sotomayor approved the outright dismissal without trial of the discrimination claims of 19 white firefighters (one of whom suffers from dyslexia) and one Hispanic firefighter against the City of New Haven, Connecticut. There is no question that the city threw out the results of promotional exams because they were unsatisfied with the race of the successful exam takers – because no blacks (and seemingly not “enough” Hispanics) had scored well enough to be promoted. Judge Sotomayor also engaged in procedural trickery to try to bury the case and avoid Supreme Court review. The district court opinion was unpublished, so Sotomayor and her two fellow judges at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s opinion in a summary one paragraph order. Only after the 3-judge panel learned that the opinion would not be reviewed by the full Second Circuit did the panel withdraw that order and publish an opinion that incorporated the entire district court opinion as the operative law of the Second Circuit – using procedural shenanigans to make her views approving racial preferences the law of the entire Circuit.
Should discriminatory views of ethnicity be accepted if the individual with such a view is Hispanic? Should discriminatory treatment be accepted if it is aimed at whites (and Hispanics)? Not in our culture and our society, and certainly not in our legal system where we believe in the rule of law and the equal treatment of all individuals under the law. Judge Sotomayor’s views on race as expressed in her public speaking and her actions in the Ricci case are extremely troubling. They make it imperative that the Senate fulfill its full duty under the “Advice and Consent” clause of the Constitution to carefully and thoroughly examine Judge Sotomayor’s principles, character, and temperament before deciding whether she is qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.
"The Web"
Regarding Sotomayor's chances to avoid a filibuster of her nomination, Senator Orrin Hatch told Politico, “I'll tell you one thing, I'm not very happy about judges who will substitute their own policy preferences for what the law really is; who think that they can run the country from the bench when they actually have a limited role. And that role is to interpret the laws made by those who have to stand for reelection."
Despite Hatch's misgivings, Democratic Senators Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York sent a personal letter to President Barack Obama asking him to appoint a Latino to fill the next vacancy on the United States Supreme Court Back in April.
“It’s long overdue that a Latino sit on the United States Supreme Court. Sonia Sotomayor and Ken Salazar are two candidates who would make outstanding justices. They have top-notch legal minds, years of experience, moderate approaches to the law, and would make history by being the first Latino on the court,” Senator Schumer said.
"We are fortunate in New York State to have jurists of the caliber and intellect that Judge Sotomayor has exhibited during a lifelong career of service to the bench. As an accomplished jurists, as a woman, and as a Latina she would bring to the United States Supreme Court a much needed voice. We must be committed to diversity on our nation’s highest bench. These candidates will restore the balance that we so desperately need on the Court,” Senator Gillibrand said.
The Video CNN Doesnot Want You To See.
http://www.conservativenc.com/index.php/home/The-video-CNN-doesnt-want-you-to-see-.....html
What Thomas Jefferson learned from the Muslim book of jihad
By Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
http://www.usvetdsp.com/jan07/jeff_quran.htm
Democrat Keith Ellison is now officially the first Muslim United States congressman. True to his pledge, he placed his hand on the Quran, the Muslim book of jihad and pledged his allegiance to the United States during his ceremonial swearing-in.
Capitol Hill staff said Ellison's swearing-in photo opportunity drew more media than they had ever seen in the history of the U.S. House. Ellison represents the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota.
The Quran Ellison used was no ordinary book. It once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and one of America's founding fathers. Ellison borrowed it from the Rare Book Section of the Library of Congress. It was one of the 6,500 Jefferson books archived in the library.
Ellison, who was born in Detroit and converted to Islam while in college, said he chose to use Jefferson's Quran because it showed that "a visionary like Jefferson" believed that wisdom could be gleaned from many sources.
There is no doubt Ellison was right about Jefferson believing wisdom could be "gleaned" from the Muslim Quran. At the time Jefferson owned the book, he needed to know everything possible about Muslims because he was about to advocate war against the Islamic "Barbary" states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli.
Ellison's use of Jefferson's Quran as a prop illuminates a subject once well-known in the history of the United States, but, which today, is mostly forgotten - the Muslim pirate slavers who over many centuries enslaved millions of Africans and tens of thousands of Christian Europeans and Americans in the Islamic "Barbary" states.
Over the course of 10 centuries, Muslim pirates cruised the African and Mediterranean coastline, pillaging villages and seizing slaves.
The taking of slaves in pre-dawn raids on unsuspecting coastal villages had a high casualty rate. It was typical of Muslim raiders to kill off as many of the "non-Muslim" older men and women as possible so the preferred "booty" of only young women and children could be collected.
Young non-Muslim women were targeted because of their value as concubines in Islamic markets. Islamic law provides for the sexual interests of Muslim men by allowing them to take as many as four wives at one time and to have as many concubines as their fortunes allow.
Boys, as young as 9 or 10 years old, were often mutilated to create eunuchs who would bring higher prices in the slave markets of the Middle East. Muslim slave traders created "eunuch stations" along major African slave routes so the necessary surgery could be performed. It was estimated that only a small number of the boys subjected to the mutilation survived after the surgery.
When American colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American merchant ships lost Royal Navy protection. With no American Navy for protection, American ships were attacked and their Christian crews enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the "Dey of Algiers"--an Islamist warlord ruling Algeria.
Because American commerce in the Mediterranean was being destroyed by the pirates, the Continental Congress agreed in 1784 to negotiate treaties with the four Barbary States. Congress appointed a special commission consisting of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, to oversee the negotiations.
Lacking the ability to protect its merchant ships in the Mediterranean, the new America government tried to appease the Muslim slavers by agreeing to pay tribute and ransoms in order to retrieve seized American ships and buy the freedom of enslaved sailors.
Adams argued in favor of paying tribute as the cheapest way to get American commerce in the Mediterranean moving again. Jefferson was opposed. He believed there would be no end to the demands for tribute and wanted matters settled "through the medium of war." He proposed a league of trading nations to force an end to Muslim piracy.
In 1786, Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and Adams, then the American ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the "Dey of Algiers" ambassador to Britain.
The Americans wanted to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress' vote to appease.
During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey's ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.
In a later meeting with the American Congress, the two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."
For the following 15 years, the American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800.
Not long after Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, he dispatched a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress.
Declaring that America was going to spend "millions for defense but not one cent for tribute," Jefferson pressed the issue by deploying American Marines and many of America's best warships to the Muslim Barbary Coast.
The USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake, USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid all saw action.
In 1805, American Marines marched across the desert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves.
During the Jefferson administration, the Muslim Barbary States, crumbling as a result of intense American naval bombardment and on shore raids by Marines, finally officially agreed to abandon slavery and piracy.
Jefferson's victory over the Muslims lives on today in the Marine Hymn, with the line, "From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli, We fight our country's battles in the air, on land and sea."
It wasn't until 1815 that the problem was fully settled by the total defeat of all the Muslim slave trading pirates.
Jefferson had been right. The "medium of war" was the only way to put and end to the Muslim problem. Mr. Ellison was right about Jefferson. He was a "visionary" wise enough to read and learn about the enemy from their own Muslim book of jihad.
Obama's Partisan Pentagon
by Rowan Scarborough
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31826
Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ sweeping gag order prohibiting senior military officers from discussing the 2010 defense budget is raising fears of politicizing the Pentagon.
Six Republican House members wrote to Gates on May 5, saying his requirement that generals, admirals and senior civilians sign a non-disclosure agreement seems so broad the signers may withhold candid testimony on Capitol Hill.
The letter comes amid a disclosure of another apparent politicization of the Pentagon. Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, (D-Mi), sent a letter to Gates on February 2 asking that the Defense Department Inspector General re-do a January report that cleared the Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon of any wrongdoing in providing briefings some 70 retired military TV analysts. Gates relayed the letter to the acting inspector general, and subsequently the IG report was withdrawn.
The gag-order letter, spearheaded by Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), reveals a far-reaching agreement that could affect future testimony, not just 2010 budget deliberations inside the Pentagon. Gates announced his 2010 decisions on April 6, scaling back some of former president George W. Bush's key defense policies.
The gag-order covers information "predecisional or otherwise, concerning the administration's deliberation of the nature and amounts of the president's budget for fiscal 2010, and any supplemental budget request submitted during the current fiscal year." Military sources saying it is the first time -- at least in recent memory -- they recall a defense secretary requiring the Joint Chiefs, service secretaries and senior political appointees to sign a no-talk pledge. Usually, such requirements are done orally via the secretary office, and often ignored.
To Forbes, a House Armed Services member, and five other congressmen, the limits, in effect, censor future testimony.
"Can I expect a candid answer from a senior military official when I ask them about the process used to establish priorities, either now or after the president's detailed budget is released to the public?" the six Republicans asked Gates. "Members of Congress deserve candid answers from senior military officers that are not suppressed or censored -- either directly, or implicitly via culture of regulations that muzzle their independent professional judgment."
Noting Congress' constitutional duty to fund the military, the letter adds, "I am concerned that these restrictions on the deliberation of these tradeoffs are reflected in the president's budget this year and future years severely and unnecessarily limits the Congress in these constitutional duties."
The gag-order has sent a chill through the Pentagon. Some bureaucrats who normally talk to reporters on background, not attribution, responded to questions in recent weeks by saying they had been ordered not to talk.
Gates imposed the order to prevent leaks to the press and Congress, as he, his staff and military leaders negotiated major changes in defense policy, such as: cutting missile defense ground-based interceptors; freezing the F-22 fighter buy at 187; drastically scaling back the Army's battlefield Future Combat System; and retiring 250 Air Force fighters in one year alone.
The Pentagon denies the non-disclosure edict has chilled, or politicized, the building.
"Now that the budget is out, they can talk about anything that's other than security classification or predecisional information," said Robert Hale, the Pentagon's top budget officer.
The term "predecisional" is what rankles some in Congress. At hearings, military witnesses may give short, or incomplete answers, for fear of disclosing a pending decisions and risking Gates' anger.
"Secretary Gates' intention was to prevent leaks so that he could do this holistic rollout that you saw him do on April 6," Vice Adm. Steve Stanley, a budget director for the Joint Chiefs, told reporters. "He really wanted to make sure that he had the ability to put the whole story out before it started getting picked apart because of a specific piece of information leaking."
A chilling effect inside the building?
The service chiefs were part of all these discussions, and none of them are shrinking violets," he said. "They were not intimidated at all."
Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman, told HUMAN EVENTS that the Gates’ goal was not to silence debate but to enhance it by stopping piecemeal information from becoming public, thus influencing the internal debate.
"This budget was gong to be one greater than the sum of its parts," he said. "It was important he be able to solicit input from all senior leaders .... their opinions, their unvarnished thoughts on this."
"He was able to bring forward a coherent budget that presented a presented a coherent strategy and that was what we were trying to achieve," he said.
The non-disclosure agreement reads in part, "I recognize that a significant factor in the successful and proper preparation and completion of the President's budget is the strict confidentiality that must be observed by all government participants in the planning, programming, and budgeting process, and that a failure to comply with these confidentiality requirements may compromise the administration's ability to formulate and submit its budget."
New York Times-Driven Do-Over of IG Report?
Then there is the case of Senate Armed Services Chairman Levin, a committed foe of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Levin pushed the Pentagon inspector general to investigate the Rumsfeld Pentagon practice of briefing some 70 retired military analysts who offer opinion/assessments on TV, radio and in print.
His request followed a Pulitzer Prize-winning series in the New York Times that accused the analysts of winning contracts and other improprieties through the contacts made as a result of the Pentagon outreach program.
Rumsfeld’s people denied the charge. One referred to the Times' stories as fiction. In January, the IG come out with a report that exonerated Rumsfeld's men and apparently the military analysts as well. It said it found no evidence that any analysts got contracts for any companies they represented. It also found the program complied with existing laws and regulations.
Levin, who as chairman will have a big say in naming the next IG, was unhappy.
In February, he went directly to Gates. He wrote a letter, first disclosed in The Washington Times, expressing displeasure at the findings. He urged Gates to have the IG office, now run by an acting director, review the report and open up a whole new area of inquiry: the analysts' personal finances.
"While the report finds insufficient evidence to determine that any contractor received a competitive advantage as a result of its ties to retired military analysts, the report fails to assess whether the retired military analysts themselves obtained financial benefits from contractors as a result of their favorable access to DoD information and officials," Levin wrote. "I would appreciate if you would task the inspector general to conduct an additional review and analysis to address these issues."
Gates complied, telling Levin in a March 3 letter, "I have forwarded your concerns to the acting inspector general and asked that he conduct the additional review and analysis that you requested."
Earlier this month, the IG took the extraordinary step of withdrawing the entire report, raising the question of whether Levin and Gates were exercising improper control of the Inspector General, established by law to be entirely independent of political manipulation.
The IG's own written standards contain this admonition:
"The Inspector General and OIG staff must be free both in fact and appearance from personal, external, and organizational impairments to independence.. External impairments to independence occur when the OIG staff is deterred from acting objectively and exercising professional skepticism by pressures, actual or perceived, from management and employees of the reviewed entity or oversight organizations."
"Presumably that includes sitting U.S. senators," an aide to former Secretary Rumsfeld told HUMAN EVENTS.
Taken separately, the gag order and the IG report do-over are troubling at least. Together, they may signal an unprecedented politicization of the Pentagon including the professional military leadership and the independent-by-law inspector general.
"The e-mail Bag"
Does Your Campground Have a BC?
http://llerrahmusic.com/viewcard.php?code=236079
Boy’s Lesson
A young boy went up to his father and asked him, 'Dad, what is the difference between 'potentially' and 'realistically'?'
The father thought for a moment, then answered, 'Go ask your mother if she would sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars.
Then ask your sister if she would sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars, and then ask your brother if he'd sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars.
Come back and tell me what you learn from that.'
So the boy went to his mother and asked, 'Would you sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars?'
The mother replied, 'Of course I would! We could really use that money to fix up the house and send you kids to a great University!'
The boy then went to his sister and asked, 'Would you sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars?'
The girl replied, 'Oh my Gawd! I LOVE Brad Pitt I would sleep with him in a heartbeat, are you nuts?'
The boy then went to his brother and asked, 'Would you sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars?'
'Of course,' the brother replied. 'Do you know what a million bucks would buy?'
The boy pondered the answers for a few days and then went back to his dad.
His father asked him, 'Did you find out the difference between 'potentially' and 'realistically'?' The boy replied,
'Yes, 'Potentially', you and I are sitting on three million dollars ...
But 'realistically', we're living with two hookers and a queer.'
In Life, you don't stop laughing because you grow old, You grow old because you stop laughing!!!
"Daily Motivations"
"Marcia's right! You have to be able to identify what you really love and what you really want before you can get it". -- Oprah Winfrey
"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)
Present Pomp & Puffery! The children of Ammon made war against Israel (Judg. 11:4). When we think how we were treated in the past, it's easy to have a get even attitude in the present!
"He delights in every detail of their lives." (Psalm 37:23)
"The Patriot Post"
"The freedom and happiness of man...[are] the sole objects of all legitimate government." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1810
Make your problems disappear!
Men, if you think you have problems,
just remember....
... somewhere in the world there's a
Mr. Nancy Pelosi!
"Heritage Foundation"
A Troubling Decision, a Troubling Speech, and a Troubling Nomination
Posted May 27th, 2009 at 10.08am in Rule of Law.
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/05/27/a-troubling-decision-a-troubling-speech-and-a-troubling-nomination/
Imagine if you can a situation in which a white federal judge approved the clear and obvious discrimination engaged in by a small Southern town in denying black firefighters promotion by throwing out the results of a civil service examination. Only black firefighters did well enough on the racially-neutral exam to merit promotion, but the city decided to scrap the exam and not promote the successful test takers because none of them were white.
This same white federal judge also gave a speech at a prominent Southern university in which he said: “I would hope that a wise Caucasian man with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a black male who hasn’t lived that life.” In the same speech, the judge opines that white males engage in judging differently than black males “[w]hether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences.”
Does anyone doubt that if a president nominated that same federal judge to be on the U.S. Supreme Court, that his nomination would be still-born and that the president would be quickly (and rightly so) embarrassed into withdrawing the nomination?
Of course, that has not happened – or has it? Because if you simply change the races and ethnic groups being discussed, that is exactly what President Obama has done. In fact, Judge Sonia Sotomayor claimed in a speech at Berkley in 2001 that “wise” Latina women would make better decisions than white men and that those differences may be based on inherent genetic differences, something so outrageous that I still have a hard time believing that she could have said such a thing.
And in a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, Ricci v. New Haven, Judge Sotomayor approved the outright dismissal without trial of the discrimination claims of 19 white firefighters (one of whom suffers from dyslexia) and one Hispanic firefighter against the City of New Haven, Connecticut. There is no question that the city threw out the results of promotional exams because they were unsatisfied with the race of the successful exam takers – because no blacks (and seemingly not “enough” Hispanics) had scored well enough to be promoted. Judge Sotomayor also engaged in procedural trickery to try to bury the case and avoid Supreme Court review. The district court opinion was unpublished, so Sotomayor and her two fellow judges at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s opinion in a summary one paragraph order. Only after the 3-judge panel learned that the opinion would not be reviewed by the full Second Circuit did the panel withdraw that order and publish an opinion that incorporated the entire district court opinion as the operative law of the Second Circuit – using procedural shenanigans to make her views approving racial preferences the law of the entire Circuit.
Should discriminatory views of ethnicity be accepted if the individual with such a view is Hispanic? Should discriminatory treatment be accepted if it is aimed at whites (and Hispanics)? Not in our culture and our society, and certainly not in our legal system where we believe in the rule of law and the equal treatment of all individuals under the law. Judge Sotomayor’s views on race as expressed in her public speaking and her actions in the Ricci case are extremely troubling. They make it imperative that the Senate fulfill its full duty under the “Advice and Consent” clause of the Constitution to carefully and thoroughly examine Judge Sotomayor’s principles, character, and temperament before deciding whether she is qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.
"The Web"
Regarding Sotomayor's chances to avoid a filibuster of her nomination, Senator Orrin Hatch told Politico, “I'll tell you one thing, I'm not very happy about judges who will substitute their own policy preferences for what the law really is; who think that they can run the country from the bench when they actually have a limited role. And that role is to interpret the laws made by those who have to stand for reelection."
Despite Hatch's misgivings, Democratic Senators Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York sent a personal letter to President Barack Obama asking him to appoint a Latino to fill the next vacancy on the United States Supreme Court Back in April.
“It’s long overdue that a Latino sit on the United States Supreme Court. Sonia Sotomayor and Ken Salazar are two candidates who would make outstanding justices. They have top-notch legal minds, years of experience, moderate approaches to the law, and would make history by being the first Latino on the court,” Senator Schumer said.
"We are fortunate in New York State to have jurists of the caliber and intellect that Judge Sotomayor has exhibited during a lifelong career of service to the bench. As an accomplished jurists, as a woman, and as a Latina she would bring to the United States Supreme Court a much needed voice. We must be committed to diversity on our nation’s highest bench. These candidates will restore the balance that we so desperately need on the Court,” Senator Gillibrand said.
The Video CNN Doesnot Want You To See.
http://www.conservativenc.com/index.php/home/The-video-CNN-doesnt-want-you-to-see-.....html
What Thomas Jefferson learned from the Muslim book of jihad
By Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
http://www.usvetdsp.com/jan07/jeff_quran.htm
Democrat Keith Ellison is now officially the first Muslim United States congressman. True to his pledge, he placed his hand on the Quran, the Muslim book of jihad and pledged his allegiance to the United States during his ceremonial swearing-in.
Capitol Hill staff said Ellison's swearing-in photo opportunity drew more media than they had ever seen in the history of the U.S. House. Ellison represents the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota.
The Quran Ellison used was no ordinary book. It once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and one of America's founding fathers. Ellison borrowed it from the Rare Book Section of the Library of Congress. It was one of the 6,500 Jefferson books archived in the library.
Ellison, who was born in Detroit and converted to Islam while in college, said he chose to use Jefferson's Quran because it showed that "a visionary like Jefferson" believed that wisdom could be gleaned from many sources.
There is no doubt Ellison was right about Jefferson believing wisdom could be "gleaned" from the Muslim Quran. At the time Jefferson owned the book, he needed to know everything possible about Muslims because he was about to advocate war against the Islamic "Barbary" states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli.
Ellison's use of Jefferson's Quran as a prop illuminates a subject once well-known in the history of the United States, but, which today, is mostly forgotten - the Muslim pirate slavers who over many centuries enslaved millions of Africans and tens of thousands of Christian Europeans and Americans in the Islamic "Barbary" states.
Over the course of 10 centuries, Muslim pirates cruised the African and Mediterranean coastline, pillaging villages and seizing slaves.
The taking of slaves in pre-dawn raids on unsuspecting coastal villages had a high casualty rate. It was typical of Muslim raiders to kill off as many of the "non-Muslim" older men and women as possible so the preferred "booty" of only young women and children could be collected.
Young non-Muslim women were targeted because of their value as concubines in Islamic markets. Islamic law provides for the sexual interests of Muslim men by allowing them to take as many as four wives at one time and to have as many concubines as their fortunes allow.
Boys, as young as 9 or 10 years old, were often mutilated to create eunuchs who would bring higher prices in the slave markets of the Middle East. Muslim slave traders created "eunuch stations" along major African slave routes so the necessary surgery could be performed. It was estimated that only a small number of the boys subjected to the mutilation survived after the surgery.
When American colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American merchant ships lost Royal Navy protection. With no American Navy for protection, American ships were attacked and their Christian crews enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the "Dey of Algiers"--an Islamist warlord ruling Algeria.
Because American commerce in the Mediterranean was being destroyed by the pirates, the Continental Congress agreed in 1784 to negotiate treaties with the four Barbary States. Congress appointed a special commission consisting of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, to oversee the negotiations.
Lacking the ability to protect its merchant ships in the Mediterranean, the new America government tried to appease the Muslim slavers by agreeing to pay tribute and ransoms in order to retrieve seized American ships and buy the freedom of enslaved sailors.
Adams argued in favor of paying tribute as the cheapest way to get American commerce in the Mediterranean moving again. Jefferson was opposed. He believed there would be no end to the demands for tribute and wanted matters settled "through the medium of war." He proposed a league of trading nations to force an end to Muslim piracy.
In 1786, Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and Adams, then the American ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the "Dey of Algiers" ambassador to Britain.
The Americans wanted to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress' vote to appease.
During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey's ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.
In a later meeting with the American Congress, the two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."
For the following 15 years, the American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800.
Not long after Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, he dispatched a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress.
Declaring that America was going to spend "millions for defense but not one cent for tribute," Jefferson pressed the issue by deploying American Marines and many of America's best warships to the Muslim Barbary Coast.
The USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake, USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid all saw action.
In 1805, American Marines marched across the desert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves.
During the Jefferson administration, the Muslim Barbary States, crumbling as a result of intense American naval bombardment and on shore raids by Marines, finally officially agreed to abandon slavery and piracy.
Jefferson's victory over the Muslims lives on today in the Marine Hymn, with the line, "From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli, We fight our country's battles in the air, on land and sea."
It wasn't until 1815 that the problem was fully settled by the total defeat of all the Muslim slave trading pirates.
Jefferson had been right. The "medium of war" was the only way to put and end to the Muslim problem. Mr. Ellison was right about Jefferson. He was a "visionary" wise enough to read and learn about the enemy from their own Muslim book of jihad.
Obama's Partisan Pentagon
by Rowan Scarborough
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31826
Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ sweeping gag order prohibiting senior military officers from discussing the 2010 defense budget is raising fears of politicizing the Pentagon.
Six Republican House members wrote to Gates on May 5, saying his requirement that generals, admirals and senior civilians sign a non-disclosure agreement seems so broad the signers may withhold candid testimony on Capitol Hill.
The letter comes amid a disclosure of another apparent politicization of the Pentagon. Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, (D-Mi), sent a letter to Gates on February 2 asking that the Defense Department Inspector General re-do a January report that cleared the Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon of any wrongdoing in providing briefings some 70 retired military TV analysts. Gates relayed the letter to the acting inspector general, and subsequently the IG report was withdrawn.
The gag-order letter, spearheaded by Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), reveals a far-reaching agreement that could affect future testimony, not just 2010 budget deliberations inside the Pentagon. Gates announced his 2010 decisions on April 6, scaling back some of former president George W. Bush's key defense policies.
The gag-order covers information "predecisional or otherwise, concerning the administration's deliberation of the nature and amounts of the president's budget for fiscal 2010, and any supplemental budget request submitted during the current fiscal year." Military sources saying it is the first time -- at least in recent memory -- they recall a defense secretary requiring the Joint Chiefs, service secretaries and senior political appointees to sign a no-talk pledge. Usually, such requirements are done orally via the secretary office, and often ignored.
To Forbes, a House Armed Services member, and five other congressmen, the limits, in effect, censor future testimony.
"Can I expect a candid answer from a senior military official when I ask them about the process used to establish priorities, either now or after the president's detailed budget is released to the public?" the six Republicans asked Gates. "Members of Congress deserve candid answers from senior military officers that are not suppressed or censored -- either directly, or implicitly via culture of regulations that muzzle their independent professional judgment."
Noting Congress' constitutional duty to fund the military, the letter adds, "I am concerned that these restrictions on the deliberation of these tradeoffs are reflected in the president's budget this year and future years severely and unnecessarily limits the Congress in these constitutional duties."
The gag-order has sent a chill through the Pentagon. Some bureaucrats who normally talk to reporters on background, not attribution, responded to questions in recent weeks by saying they had been ordered not to talk.
Gates imposed the order to prevent leaks to the press and Congress, as he, his staff and military leaders negotiated major changes in defense policy, such as: cutting missile defense ground-based interceptors; freezing the F-22 fighter buy at 187; drastically scaling back the Army's battlefield Future Combat System; and retiring 250 Air Force fighters in one year alone.
The Pentagon denies the non-disclosure edict has chilled, or politicized, the building.
"Now that the budget is out, they can talk about anything that's other than security classification or predecisional information," said Robert Hale, the Pentagon's top budget officer.
The term "predecisional" is what rankles some in Congress. At hearings, military witnesses may give short, or incomplete answers, for fear of disclosing a pending decisions and risking Gates' anger.
"Secretary Gates' intention was to prevent leaks so that he could do this holistic rollout that you saw him do on April 6," Vice Adm. Steve Stanley, a budget director for the Joint Chiefs, told reporters. "He really wanted to make sure that he had the ability to put the whole story out before it started getting picked apart because of a specific piece of information leaking."
A chilling effect inside the building?
The service chiefs were part of all these discussions, and none of them are shrinking violets," he said. "They were not intimidated at all."
Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman, told HUMAN EVENTS that the Gates’ goal was not to silence debate but to enhance it by stopping piecemeal information from becoming public, thus influencing the internal debate.
"This budget was gong to be one greater than the sum of its parts," he said. "It was important he be able to solicit input from all senior leaders .... their opinions, their unvarnished thoughts on this."
"He was able to bring forward a coherent budget that presented a presented a coherent strategy and that was what we were trying to achieve," he said.
The non-disclosure agreement reads in part, "I recognize that a significant factor in the successful and proper preparation and completion of the President's budget is the strict confidentiality that must be observed by all government participants in the planning, programming, and budgeting process, and that a failure to comply with these confidentiality requirements may compromise the administration's ability to formulate and submit its budget."
New York Times-Driven Do-Over of IG Report?
Then there is the case of Senate Armed Services Chairman Levin, a committed foe of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Levin pushed the Pentagon inspector general to investigate the Rumsfeld Pentagon practice of briefing some 70 retired military analysts who offer opinion/assessments on TV, radio and in print.
His request followed a Pulitzer Prize-winning series in the New York Times that accused the analysts of winning contracts and other improprieties through the contacts made as a result of the Pentagon outreach program.
Rumsfeld’s people denied the charge. One referred to the Times' stories as fiction. In January, the IG come out with a report that exonerated Rumsfeld's men and apparently the military analysts as well. It said it found no evidence that any analysts got contracts for any companies they represented. It also found the program complied with existing laws and regulations.
Levin, who as chairman will have a big say in naming the next IG, was unhappy.
In February, he went directly to Gates. He wrote a letter, first disclosed in The Washington Times, expressing displeasure at the findings. He urged Gates to have the IG office, now run by an acting director, review the report and open up a whole new area of inquiry: the analysts' personal finances.
"While the report finds insufficient evidence to determine that any contractor received a competitive advantage as a result of its ties to retired military analysts, the report fails to assess whether the retired military analysts themselves obtained financial benefits from contractors as a result of their favorable access to DoD information and officials," Levin wrote. "I would appreciate if you would task the inspector general to conduct an additional review and analysis to address these issues."
Gates complied, telling Levin in a March 3 letter, "I have forwarded your concerns to the acting inspector general and asked that he conduct the additional review and analysis that you requested."
Earlier this month, the IG took the extraordinary step of withdrawing the entire report, raising the question of whether Levin and Gates were exercising improper control of the Inspector General, established by law to be entirely independent of political manipulation.
The IG's own written standards contain this admonition:
"The Inspector General and OIG staff must be free both in fact and appearance from personal, external, and organizational impairments to independence.. External impairments to independence occur when the OIG staff is deterred from acting objectively and exercising professional skepticism by pressures, actual or perceived, from management and employees of the reviewed entity or oversight organizations."
"Presumably that includes sitting U.S. senators," an aide to former Secretary Rumsfeld told HUMAN EVENTS.
Taken separately, the gag order and the IG report do-over are troubling at least. Together, they may signal an unprecedented politicization of the Pentagon including the professional military leadership and the independent-by-law inspector general.
"The e-mail Bag"
Does Your Campground Have a BC?
http://llerrahmusic.com/viewcard.php?code=236079
Boy’s Lesson
A young boy went up to his father and asked him, 'Dad, what is the difference between 'potentially' and 'realistically'?'
The father thought for a moment, then answered, 'Go ask your mother if she would sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars.
Then ask your sister if she would sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars, and then ask your brother if he'd sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars.
Come back and tell me what you learn from that.'
So the boy went to his mother and asked, 'Would you sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars?'
The mother replied, 'Of course I would! We could really use that money to fix up the house and send you kids to a great University!'
The boy then went to his sister and asked, 'Would you sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars?'
The girl replied, 'Oh my Gawd! I LOVE Brad Pitt I would sleep with him in a heartbeat, are you nuts?'
The boy then went to his brother and asked, 'Would you sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars?'
'Of course,' the brother replied. 'Do you know what a million bucks would buy?'
The boy pondered the answers for a few days and then went back to his dad.
His father asked him, 'Did you find out the difference between 'potentially' and 'realistically'?' The boy replied,
'Yes, 'Potentially', you and I are sitting on three million dollars ...
But 'realistically', we're living with two hookers and a queer.'
In Life, you don't stop laughing because you grow old, You grow old because you stop laughing!!!
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